Page 119 of The Collector
“He’d like you to put away your phone,” said Magnus.
“I gathered that.”
The Genesis had acquired a signal, weak but sufficient to make a call. She dialed a number from her contacts and lifted the phone to her ear. Gabriel answered at once.
“Is that you I see on the other side of the border?” she asked.
“Where else would I be?”
“Are you aware of our situation?”
“My view is distant and somewhat obstructed.”
“They’re telling us that there was never a deal to let us leave Russia. They’d like us to get out of the car so they can arrest us. I could be mistaken, but I think they have other plans.”
“You’re not mistaken, Ingrid.”
“Any advice?”
The connection was lost before he could answer.
Ingrid returned the Genesis to her handbag and wrapped her hand around the butt of the Vektor pistol. Then she looked at Magnus and said, “Drive.”
Gabriel slipped his phone into his coat pocket and drew the Beretta from the waistband of his trousers. Mikhail drew his gun as well, then looked at Esko Nurmi. “What are you waiting for?”
Nurmi went into the substation and emerged a moment later with a Heckler & Koch G36 assault rifle. Together they walked the one hundred and fifty meters down to the border. Nurmi carved a line in the snow with the barrel of his HK.
“If either one of you sets foot on the other side, you’re on your own.”
Mikhail placed a toe on Russian soil, then withdrew it to the Finnish side of the frontier.
“He’s trouble,” said Esko Nurmi.
“Yeah,” agreed Gabriel. “But you haven’t seen anything yet.”
It was perhaps not surprising, given the catastrophic performance of Russian troops in Ukraine, that the sixteen Border Service officers surrounding the Range Rover at the Torfyanovka crossing point blundered in the dispersal of their forces, placing four men at the stern of the vehicle and only two at the prow. Magnus Larsen’s sudden acceleration took both of the men unawares, and both soon found themselves beneath six thousand pounds of British-made automotive machinery.
Their colleagues didn’t bother with a verbal command for Magnus to stop. Instead, they immediately opened up with their Russian-made assault rifles, shattering the Range Rover’s rear window. Ingrid swung to her left and returned fire with the Vektor, sending the startled Russians diving for cover.
“You might want to hold on to something,” shouted Magnus.
Ingrid spun round in her seat and saw that they were bearingdown on the crossing point’s inspection station. Magnus guided the Range Rover into the centermost lane and smashed through the lowered boom barrier.
It was the last obstacle standing between them and the Finnish border, which was two kilometers to the west. Magnus had the throttle to the floor. Even so, their speed had slowed to sixty kilometers per hour. The road was covered with unplowed snow.
“Faster!” screamed Ingrid. “You have to go faster.”
“I’m going as fast as I bloody well can.”
The Range Rover shook with the impact of several large-caliber rounds. Ingrid pivoted in her seat and saw two all-terrain vehicles gaining ground on them. The Vektor’s double-stack magazine held eighteen rounds. Ingrid estimated there were about ten remaining. She distributed the fire equally between the two vehicles, but it was no use; they were still closing.
Another burst of incoming fire tore through the Range Rover. Ingrid ejected the spent magazine and, turning, groped in her handbag for the spare. She gave up the search for it, though, when she realized they were veering off the roadway at something like a forty-five-degree angle.
“Magnus!” she shouted, but there was no response. He was slumped forward over the wheel, dragging them to the right, his foot like a brick upon the throttle.
They plunged into a depression and slammed into a coppice of white-trunked birch trees. The airbag deployed in Ingrid’s face. “Faster, Magnus,” she mumbled as she slipped into unconsciousness. “You have to drive faster.”
In the aftermath, a secret Finnish government inquiry would establish with certainty that Gabriel Allon, the recently retired director-general of Israel’s secret intelligence service, crossed into Russian territory at 10:34 a.m. Eastern European Standard Time—the same instant the Range Rover veered irrevocably toward the birch trees lining the E18. He was followed by Mikhail Abramov, who soon overtook him, and by Esko Nurmi of the Finnish Border Guard.
