“It does have a certain poetic justice.”
“I’ve always preferredrealjustice. And once the new American administration finds its footing, I’m confident they’re going to track down a great deal of his money.”
“But will it change anything?”
“In Russia power is wealth, and wealth is power. The Russian president knows that if the money goes away, his power will go away, too. The protests have already started. It is my intention to help them along.” Gabriel smiled. “I’m going to meddle inhispolitics, for a change.”
It was a few minutes after seven p.m. when Gabriel’s motorcade turned into Narkiss Street. Upstairs, he shared a quiet dinner with Chiara and the children, a rare extravagance. Nevertheless, his gaze wandered often to the television in the next room. In Washington, a joint session of Congress was preparing to certify the results of the presidential election. The outgoing president was addressing an enormous crowd of supporters gathered in frigid weather on the grassy expanse known as theEllipse. The audio was muted, but according to the updates crawling across the bottom of the screen, he was repeating his baseless claims that the election had been stolen from him. The crowd, some of whom were clad in military tactical gear, was growing more agitated by the minute. It looked to Gabriel like a combustible situation.
At the conclusion of dinner, he supervised the children’s baths, to little discernible effect. Afterward, he sat on the floor between their beds while they drifted off to sleep—first Raphael, then, twenty minutes later, talkative Irene. Out of habit, he marked the time. It was 10:17 p.m. He gave each child a final kiss and, closing their door soundlessly behind him, went to watch the news from Washington.
60
Narkiss Street, Jerusalem
The insurrection began even before the president had concluded his remarks. Indeed, not ten minutes after he warned his supporters that they would never take back their country with weakness, that they had to show strength and fight like hell, thousands were streaming eastward along Constitution Avenue. A militant vanguard—white supremacists, neo-Nazis, anti-Semites, QAnon conspiracy theorists—had already gathered at the barricades surrounding the Capitol. The assault commenced at 12:53 p.m., and at 2:11 p.m., the first insurrectionists breached the building. Two minutes later they reached the base of the staircase adjacent to the Senate chamber. Inside, a Republican senator from Oklahoma was objecting to the certification of Arizona’s eleven electoral votes. The vicepresident, who was presiding, adjourned the session and was hurriedly evacuated by his security detail.
For the next three and a half hours, the rioters roamed the marble temple of American democracy, smashing windows, breaking down doors, ransacking offices, defacing works of art, stealing documents and computers, emptying their bowels and bladders, and searching for lawmakers to kidnap or kill—including the speaker of the House and the vice president, whom they intended to hang for treason, apparently from the gallows they had erected on the lawn. Emblems of racism and hate were everywhere. A wildly bearded creature from southern Virginia roamed the halls wearing a hooded sweatshirt that readCamp Auschwitz. A man from Delaware carried a Confederate battle flag across the floor of the Great Rotunda, an ignoble first in American history.
After assuring his supporters that he intended to join them on their march to the Capitol, the delighted president watched the mayhem on television. Reportedly, his only concern was the scruffy appearance of the violent, hate-filled mob, which he thought reflected badly upon him. Despite numerous pleas from horrified White House staff and congressional allies, he waited until 4:17 p.m. before asking the rioters, whom he described as “very special,” to leave the building.
By 5:40 p.m., the siege was finally over. The Senate reconvened at 8:06 p.m.; the House of Representatives, at nine o’clock. At 3:42 a.m. the following morning, while the rest of Washington was under a strict curfew, the vice president formally affirmed the results of the election. The first attempted coup in the history of the United States of America had failed.
America’s allies, stunned by what they had witnessed, condemned the president’s actions in words usually reserved for Third World tyrants and thugs. Even the authoritarian ruler of Turkey called the insurrection a disgrace that shocked humankind. Gabriel thought it was the darkest day in American history since 9/11, though somehow worse. The attack had been launched not by a distant enemy but by the occupant of the Oval Office. Israel’s closest ally, he told his astonished senior staff the following morning, was no longer an example to be emulated. It was a flashing red warning light to the rest of the free world that democracy was never to be taken for granted.
Not surprisingly, Russia’s pro-Kremlin media outlets reveled in America’s misfortune, for it provided a welcome change of subject from the widening scandal surrounding the Russian president and his finances. Gabriel fanned the flames by ordering a hack of MosBank, the Russian bank used by the president’s inner circle, and turning over the stolen records to Nina Antonova. They formed the basis of another explosive exposé of rampant theft and unexplained wealth. Kremlin spokesman Yevgeny Nazarov, finding himself at a rare loss for words, dismissed the article as fake news written by an enemy of the people.
Of the oil trader and oligarch Arkady Akimov, there was no sign. His well-paid lawyers waged a halfhearted defense on his behalf, but to no avail; the Swiss government seized or froze every asset it could identify. NevaNeft, leaderless, rudderless, ground to a halt. The pipelines stopped flowing, the refineries stopped refining, the tankers sat in port or wandered the seas,aimlessly. The company’s European customers understandably went in search of a more reliable supplier. Energy analysts predicted that Russia’s oil exports, down sharply in 2020, would plunge further in the coming year, dealing a severe blow to the Russian economy and, perhaps, the stability of the regime.
RhineBank fared little better. With each new revelation of corporate misconduct, its share price plummeted. On the Friday following the Capitol siege, the once-mighty Hamburg lender closed below four dollars in New York—ventilator territory, according to a wit from CNBC, who was later forced to apologize for the remark. The German government, desperate to keep the country’s largest bank afloat, suggested a merger with a domestic rival. But the rival, after reviewing RhineBank’s catastrophically overleveraged balance sheet, withdrew from the negotiations, which sent the stock lower still. As the firm approached the point of no return, Karl Zimmer, chief of the Zurich office, hanged himself. Next morning Lothar Brandt, head washer boy from the now-defunct Russian Laundromat, chose death by speeding cargo truck.
Brandt’s suicide note, which found its way into print, included the name of a former colleague whom he accused of being the source of the leaked documents. Gabriel was disappointed by the disclosure, but not surprised; like RhineBank’s imminent collapse, he supposed it was inevitable. For her part, Isabel was relieved. She was proud of what she had done and eager to tell her story, preferably in a major television interview. Gabriel was not altogether opposed to the idea. In fact, he thought raising Isabel’s international profile might serve to reduce the likelihood of Russian retribution.
“Especially if the interview is properly timed for maximum impact.”
They were sitting on the windblown terrace of the safe flat. Isabel had just finished her daily lesson. She was wearing a fleece pullover against the cold late-afternoon air and drinking a glass of Galilean sauvignon blanc.
“Did you have a date in mind?” she asked.
“Sometime in early June, I’d say.”
“Why June?”
“Because that’s when your debut recording is scheduled to be released.”
“What recording?”
“The one you’re going to make for Deutsche Grammophon. Your friend Anna Rolfe has arranged everything.”
Isabel’s eyes shone. “When do I go into the studio?”
“As soon as you’re ready.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I just did.”
“What do they want me to record?”
