“Mole?” asked Morosov. “You’ve been reading too many spy novels, Allon. There is no mole. Alistair was our asset. I should know, I was his control officer. I’ve been running him for years.”
Gabriel only smiled. “Well played, Sergei. I admire your loyalty, but it’s of no value here. Truth is the only currency we accept. And only the truth will prevent us from handing you over to our friends in Syria.”
“I’m telling you the truth!”
“Try again.”
Morosov feigned impassivity. “If you know so much,” he said after a moment, “why do you need me?”
“You’re going to help us fill in the blanks. In exchange, you will be well compensated and allowed to live out the rest of your life in our beautiful country.”
“In a nice little place in the Negev?”
“I chose it myself.”
“I’d rather take my chances across the border in Syria.”
“I would advise you,” said Gabriel, “to choose another path.”
“Sorry, Allon,” replied the Russian. “No such luck.”
The Black Hawk flew east over the Golan Heights and crossed into Syrian airspace above the village of Kwdana. Its eventual destination was Jassim, a smallish city in the Daraa Governorate of southern Syria held by elements of the rebel Free Syrian Army. Under Gabriel’s leadership, the Office had forged close ties with the non-jihadist Syrian opposition, and several thousand Syrians had been brought to Israel for medical treatment. In portions of the Daraa Governorate, if nowhere else in the Arab world, Gabriel Allon was a revered figure.
The helicopter never touched down on Syrian soil, that much is beyond dispute. The two guards on board claimed that Mikhail fixed a line to Sergei Morosov’s handcuffs and dangled him above a seething encampment of rebel fighters. Mikhail, however, took issue with this account. Yes, he hadthreatenedto lower Sergei into the mob, but it had never come to that. After one look at the fate that awaited him, the Russian had begged—yes,begged—to be taken back to Israel.
Whatever the case, Colonel Sergei Morosov was a changed man when he returned to the interrogation room. After first apologizing for his earlier intransigence, the Russian said he would be more than willing to offer any and all assistance to the Office in exchange for sanctuary and a reasonable financial settlement. He acknowledged, however, that Israel was not his first choice as a permanent home. He was no anti-Semite, mind you, but he had strong personal views about the Middle East and the plight of the Palestinians and had no desire to live among people whom he regarded as colonizers and oppressors.
“Give us a few months,” said Gabriel. “If you still feel the same way, I’ll reach out to one of our friends.”
“I didn’t know you had any.”
“One or two,” said Gabriel.
With that, they took him to one of the bungalows and allowed him to sleep. It was nearly 10:00 p.m. when finally he awoke. They gave him a change of clothing—proper clothing, not another tracksuit—and served him a dinner of warm borscht and chicken Kiev. At midnight, rested and fed, he was brought back to the interrogation room, where Gabriel waited, an open notebook before him.
“What is your name?” he asked.
“Sergei Morosov.”
“Not your work name,” said Gabriel. “Your real name.”
“It’s been so long, I’m not sure I remember it.”
“Try,” said Gabriel. “We have plenty of time.”
Which wasn’t at all the case; the clock was working against them. They had three or four days to find the mole, thought Gabriel. A week at the outside.
36
Upper Galilee, Israel
His real name was Aleksander Yurchenko, but he had shed it many years ago after his first posting abroad, and no one, not even his sainted mother, called him anything but Sergei. She had served as a typist at Lubyanka, and later as personal secretary to KGB chairman Yuri Andropov, who would eventually succeed Leonid Brezhnev as leader of the dying Soviet Union. Sergei’s father was also a servant of the old order. A brilliant economist and Marxist theoretician, he had worked for Gosplan, which produced the blueprint for the Soviet Union’s centrally planned economy known as the Five-Year Plan. They were Orwellian documents, full of wishful thinking, that frequently set output targets in terms of weight rather than actual units produced. Sergei’s father, who lost faith in communism near the end of his career, kept a framed Western cartoon above his desk in the family’s Moscow apartment. It depicted a group of glum factory workers standing around a single nail the size of a Soviet ballistic missile. “Congratulations, Comrades!” declares the proud factory director. “We have met our quota for the current Five-Year Plan!”
Sergei’s parents were by no means Party elites—the members of thenomenklaturawho zipped through Moscow’s traffic in special lanes, in the backs of Zil limousines—but they were Party members nonetheless, and as such they lived a life far beyond the reach of ordinary Russians. Their apartment was larger than most, and they had it entirely to themselves. Sergei attended a school reserved for the children of Party members and at eighteen entered the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, the Soviet Union’s most prestigious university. There he studied political science and German. Many of his classmates entered the Soviet Union’s diplomatic corps, but not Sergei. His mother, the personal secretary of a KGB legend, had other ideas.
The Red Banner Institute was the KGB’s academy. It maintained four secluded sites scattered around Moscow, with the main campus at Chelobityevo, north of the Ring Road. Sergei arrived there in 1985. One of his classmates was the son of a KGB general. But not just any KGB general; he was the head of the First Chief Directorate, the KGB’s foreign espionage division, a very powerful man indeed.
“The son had been spoiled rotten as a child. He’d been raised abroad and exposed to Western culture. He had blue jeans and Rolling Stones records, and thought he was much cooler than the rest of us. As it turned out, he wasn’t terribly bright. After graduation they sent him to the Fifth Chief Directorate, which handled internal security. Thanks to his father, he did quite well for himself after the fall. He founded a bank and then diversified into a number of different fields, including international arms dealing. Perhaps you’ve heard of him. His name is—”
