Page 14 of The Cellist

“I suppose that answers my question.” Olga turned to Gabriel. “And your wife? She’s well, I hope.”

“Never better.”

“Children?”

“Two.”

Her expression brightened. “How old?”

“They’ll soon be five.”

“Twins no less! How lucky you are, Gabriel Allon.”

“Luck had very little to do with it. Chiara and I would never have made it out of Russia alive were it not for Viktor.”

“And now Viktor is dead.” She lowered her voice. “Which is why you came to see me again after all these years.”

Gabriel made no reply.

“The Metropolitan Police have been rather circumspect about the details of Viktor’s murder.”

“With good reason.”

“Have they identified the toxin?”

“Novichok. It was concealed in a parcel of documents.”

“And who gave these documents to Viktor?”

“A reporter from theGazeta.”

“Was it Nina, by any chance?”

“How did you know?”

Olga smiled sadly. “Perhaps we should start from the beginning, Mr. Golani.”

“Yes, Professor Crenshaw. Perhaps we should.”

9

Bishopsgate, Norwich

On April 25, 2005, Russia’s president declared the collapse of the Soviet Union to be “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the twentieth century. Olga worked late into the evening on theGazeta’s editorial response, which accurately predicted the onset of a new cold war and the end of Russian democracy. Afterward, she and a few colleagues gathered at Bar NKVD, a neighborhood watering hole located around the corner from theGazeta’s offices in the Sokol district of Moscow. As was often the case, they were watched over by a pair of leather-jacketed thugs from the FSB, who made little effort to conceal their presence.

The mood that night was funereal. One of Olga’s colleagues, a man named Aleksandr Lubin, became roaring drunk and unwisely picked a fight with the FSB officers. He was saved from abeating only by the intervention of a young freelance journalist who occasionally frequented Bar NKVD. TheGazeta’s editor in chief was so impressed by her bravery he offered her a job as a staff reporter.

“Perhaps you remember him,” said Olga. “His name was Boris Ostrovsky.”

Like many Russian journalists, Ostrovsky’s career had ended violently. Injected with a Russian poison while crossing St. Peter’s Square, he had collapsed in the basilica a few minutes later, at the foot of the Monument to Pope Pius XII. Gabriel’s face was the last he ever saw.

“And you’re sure it was Aleksandr who picked the fight with the FSB officers and not the other way around?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Because if I wanted to penetrate a meddlesome news organization, I might have done it exactly the same way.”

“Nina? An FSB officer?”