Mikhail Abramov

Background
Mikhail Abramov was born in Moscow in 1971. A member of Gabriel Allon's Team, and the son of a pair of dissident scientists, Mikhail had come to Israel as a teenager in 1991, within weeks of the Soviet Union's collapse. He had joined the Office after serving with the Sayeret Matkal. He was once described by Shamron as "Gabriel without a conscience."

Mikhail killed the driver of the van transporting Gabriel Allon. He was going to kill Ishaq Fawaz, but Gabriel intervened and killed him himself. He worked with Gabriel to kill the two shaheeds on Christmas day.

Mikhail was sent to Ukraine to collect Gabriel after Gabriel was expelled from Russia; he accompanied Gabriel home on an El Al flight. Gabriel assigned Mikhail and Sarah Bancroft to play the part of a couple. At the right moment, Mikhail met Elena Kharkov and took her off to feign having a short affair, thereby allowing Gabriel Allon time to recruit Elena to work against her husband, Ivan Kharkov. After the "affair," Mikhail and Sarah appeared to fight and left the Saint-Tropez area separately.

Mikhail was revealed to be in a relationship with Sarah Bancroft of the CIA. He participated in the abductions of Anton Petrov and Vladimir Chernov.

Gabriel told Mikhail he should end his service to Israel and go to the United States with Sarah and be happy; he also told Ari Shamron that he should hire Sarah if she married Mikhail.

Mikhail and Sarah spent their summer holiday together.

Mikhail played the part of a rich Russian businessman. He made a contribution (using Office money) to a charitable fund favored by Martin Landesmann. This provided justification for him to accompany Zoe Reed to a party at Landesmann's mansion in Geneva, Switzerland. While there, he slipped away and entered Landesmann's office, where he installed software on Landesmann's computer to transfer the contents of the hard drive to the joint Israeli/U.S./British control center. He was caught, beaten severely and interrogated until Gabriel Allon won his freedom by showing documents to Landesmann that revealed Landesmann's business dealings with Iran.

When Gabriel's team assembled in room 456C at King Saul Boulevard, Mikhail was the last to arrive and researched Hezbollah's fund-raising companies together with Dina, Yaakov and Rimona. Later he posed as a Russian guest at the Jägerhof Hotel in St. Moritz when in reality he was spying on David Girard via his notebook. When Gabriel, disguised as a doctor, visited him, Mikhail voiced his concerns about Gabriel not being up to a confrontation with Girard due to the recent death of Nadia al-Bakari and offered to do it instead. Gabriel dismissed his concerns and stated that Mikhail had no knowledge about Attic vases which would pose a problem.

After speaking to Girard, Gabriel returned to Mikhail's hotel room and spent the afternoon together with him listening to what Girard was doing over the laptop. When Gabriel was injured by the bomb in St. Moritz, Mikhail tried to carry him from the square but was stopped by the police.

Mikhail met with Sami Haddad in Beirut, who drove him to the Four Seasons hotel. After having received his keys, Mikhail sees a man in the elevator which the Office can’t identify. In his room Mikhail sits in the darkness until Sami calls him and informs him that his informant had arrived at the hotel. Mikhail meets Clovis Mansour at the bar where he also sees the man from the elevator again.Clovis tells Mikhail that a man named Saladin was responsible for the terrorist attack in Paris and after having returned to his room Mikhail is overwhelmed by sudden panic and barricades his door. On the next day, Sami brings him back to the airport and Mikhail flies over Rome to Tel Aviv. There he goes to meet with Uzi Navot in his office who tells him that both Sami Haddad and Clovis Mansour are dead.

Mikhail is in Paris in the safe apartment with the other members of the Barak-team whilst Gabriel was in a meeting with Paul Rousseau after the terrorist attack in the middle of Paris.

During Natalie's transformation into Leila Mikhail is mentioned to have visited Nahalal a couple of times and also participated in the last test which during which Natalie was thoroughly interrogated by Yaakov Rossman to make sure that she had internalized Leila's background story perfectly.

Mikhail arrives at King Saul Boulevard after having been in Zurich previously. He starts his preparation for the operation by getting to know his role, Dmitri Antonow. He also studies things about Russian weapons and art. Gabriel himself tested Mikhail in his art knowledge by showing him pictures of different paintings and Mikhail telling him whom it's from. At the end of that "exam", Gabriel shows him a picture of Natalie and asks whether Mikhail thinks she's ready for another operation which Mikhail confirms.

As Dmitri and Sophie Antonow, Mikhail and Natalie move into Ivan Kharkov's former villa in Saint-Tropez. As the Antonows they live in marital boredom that Gabriel ordered because in his opinion a marriage between a Russian criminal and a French woman would be disturbed with the one or the other fight. During lunch together with Jean-Luc Martel and Olivia Watson, Mikhail plays his role as a Russian weapons dealer that hides behind the front of a legal businessman. According to Gabriel, his, Keller's and Natalie's performance was perfect.

Aliases

 * Mikhail Danilov in:
 * The Black Widow
 * Nicholas Avedon in The English Girl
 * David Rostov in The Black Widow
 * Dmitri Antonow in House of Spies 
 * David Rostov in The Black Widow
 * Dmitri Antonow in House of Spies 

Trivia

 * Mikhail had learned to speak Hebrew within a month and after a year of living in Israel he spoke it without accent.
 * His father had been a famous Soviet scientist that had been put into psychiatry after having doubted the omniscience of the party.
 * Whenever he's nervous, he drums his fingers on a nearby surface.