Palace of Treason

18

They went to dinner on Capitol Hill at the Hawk ’n’ Dove on Pennsylvania Avenue, close to Hannah’s apartment. “She’s temperamental, but loyal,” said Nate, picking at a piece of salmon. “DIVA’s been through a lot. She’s seen the worst of her system.”

Hannah took a sip of wine and read his face.

“Because of all that, she wanted out,” said Nate. “It got pretty rough. Then, when MARBLE was shot — he was like a father to her — she got crazy angry and put herself back into harness. A year later she hands us this Iran thing.”

Hannah listened. She had finally read all eight volumes of the DIVA file. “Tell me about the ambush in Vienna,” she said.

Nate looked down. “Not much to tell. We got lucky. It was unreal — a dog-pack manhunt in modern-day Vienna.”

“I don’t know how I would react,” said Hannah. She took another sip of wine. “There was something I wanted to ask you from the file. You wrote the ops cable about Vienna, about that night. You said that DIVA ‘struggled for control’ in that warehouse.”

Nate shook his head. “Yeah, that’s right, Domi was out of her mind over the murder of her Sparrow, the Serb girl.” Domi, thought Hannah. Huh, pet names between handler and agent. Hannah saw that he was holding back.

“Struggling for control, out of her mind, what’s that mean, exactly?” asked Hannah.

“I never really reported it. She executed one of the Iranian surveillants,” said Nate quickly. “She severed his carotid artery with a steak knife.”

Hannah put her fork down. Nate waited for the hands to the face, the shocked whisper, the pale face, but she didn’t blink.

“I would have done the same,” said Hannah without emotion.

Nate looked at her hard, reassessing this golden nature girl. Green eyes stared back unwaveringly. “It was life and death, it was a giant surveillance team, they kept showing up, driving us to a bridge, and probably under the sights of a sniper. I just wanted to get her out of there,” said Nate.

He’s protective, thought Hannah. He cares for her. “I can understand that.”

“Yeah, well, it’s important to keep her safe,” said Nate.

He really cares for her, thought Hannah.

They paid the bill and looked at the time. It was too early to go home. They walked down Pennsylvania a few doors to a nearby bar, sat in a pair of overstuffed leather chairs in the back, and kept talking — about Moscow, surveillance, casing sites, DIVA. Two drinks later, they started discussing assignments, careers, the Agency, life. Conversation between them was easy, but she instinctively steered away from their love lives. Hannah thought Nate was thoughtful and a little shy; Nate thought Hannah was perceptive and spirited. They liked each other — as colleagues, as people — and they shared a unique life, a unique vocation. They had spent a lot of time together recently. It felt strange, but it also felt good.

They left the bar, crossed Pennsylvania Avenue, walked around Seward Square and up Sixth Street SE, toward Hannah’s apartment — a basement sublet in a row house a block from Eastern Market. Hannah’s last two gin and tonics had numbed her nose, and she stepped carefully on the uneven sidewalk. The rearguard of multiple beers likewise had just arrived in Nate’s head, and he had to tell Hannah — just had to — a Putin joke, first in Russian, but then in English when Hannah put her arm into Nate’s and yanked, and told him she didn’t speak Russian.

Stalin came to Putin in his dream and told him how to rule Russia. “Destroy all the democrats without mercy, then eliminate their parents, and hang their children, and incinerate their relatives and their friends, and kill their pets, and paint your Kremlin office blue,” said Stalin’s ghost. “Why blue?” said Putin.

“I don’t get it,” said Hannah.

“Come on,” said Nate. “The only thing Putin asks, the only thing that doesn’t make sense to him, is the color of his office?”

A snort came out of Hannah, then they both started laughing, and she held on to him to keep from stumbling. They stopped after a while, staring at each other and, subconsciously, scanned the other side of the street — spook habit. Hannah suddenly looked serious.

“Can I tell you something?” said Hannah. Nate blinked through the beer and tried to focus.

“Sure,” he said.

“I’m a little scared about all this,” said Hannah. “I didn’t dare tell Benford, but I’m worried about that first run in Moscow. I mean, will I have the nerve? Will I see coverage if it’s on me?”

A gout of tipsy tenderness welled up in Nate’s chest. Poor kid, she’s fighting this alone. He stepped up to her and held her head in his hands.

“It’s normal to be scared. But you’re a natural, one of the best I’ve seen. Everyone thinks so, or they wouldn’t be sending you to Station. The first time, the hours right before you go out, is a bitch. But once you’re on the street you’ll start feeling the vibe and they won’t be able to touch you.”

Hannah hiccoughed. “Shakespeare, are you actually holding my head in your hands?” She giggled.

Nate blushed and took his hands away, and she thought she had embarrassed him.

The streetlamps emitted a gassy haze filtered through the leaves of the trees along the sidewalk. The tension and fatigue of training boiled over, and she stepped up to him — Don’t stop now, idiot — put clumsy arms around his neck, and they were kissing, a little unsteadily, but she felt his arms around her waist, and her pulse was racing, and they kept kissing, and she slid her hands down his back.

When Hannah kissed him, Nate was genuinely surprised. This talented woman had by all accounts maxxed the most demanding operations course in the Agency. She had, with aplomb, tied up the entire counterintelligence apparatus of the Washington FBI — on their home turf. She had been selected by the demanding and irascible Benford to service the drops and manage the covcom shots in Moscow in support of CIA’s premier Russian penetration asset, DIVA.

More to the point, they had gotten along during these last training days — really gotten along, without all the usual territorial, glandular spraying between two ops officers — and Nate had genuinely celebrated her success. And now, unless this block of Sixth Street SE was leveled in the next two minutes by a fuel air explosive, it seriously appeared as if they would be making love. His head swirled as Hannah — tasting of lime and tonic — kissed him again and, like a guilty puppy who will not look at his scolding master, he stuffed the thought of Dominika behind the curtain. Hannah was smart and brave and sweet and confident and desirable, and perceptive, and sassy, and they were partners, in a way, in this risky undertaking. And, damn it, was he going to reject her on the eve of her seriously nervy assignment? He was prepared to rationalize this forever — but her arms were around his neck, and her mouth was yielding, and unless there was someone else on the sidewalk behind him those were probably Hannah’s hands moving around; her tongue flicked at his lips, and then they were inside the neat, spare efficiency apartment, a few books on the bookshelf, two pairs of running shoes lined up by the door, and then Nate almost blurted that he’d already been inside but caught himself. Her arms were around his neck again.

Oh God, suddenly she could feel she was wet between her legs. They kissed again, without urgency but deeply, and Hannah closed her eyes and felt a knot in her stomach — What are you doing, are you crazy? — and she pulled her sweater up over her head, and pulled his sweater over his head, and they were on her bed, on the blue-and-white quilt her mother had made — thinking about Mother now? — and they kept kissing, wordlessly, kicking off shoes and pulling off clothes, and Hannah put her glasses on the bedside table, and closed her eyes and his skin felt hot against her body, and she didn’t stop kissing him while she reached for him — God, he’ll think I’m a real slut — and steered him inside her, sweet and full, and rhythmically he moved, back and forth like a sexy tectonic slip plate, back and forth and back, thighs friction-hot, eyes locked on each other, mouths open, straining, and Hannah felt something stirring — she loved that gathering first tremor in her belly — and she levered her trembling legs out from under him and wrapped them around his waist and dug in her heels — God, I should have put moisturizer on my feet, too much running — and she held him by the shoulders and pulled him to her as her head went back on the pillow, and he nuzzled her arching neck, and the little tremor became a series of them, and she climaxed hard, Babe, so good, it’s been too long, and felt that flush of wet underneath her and Nate was still moving and the sensation was glorious, and she opened her eyes, and put her fingers on his lips and pulled them to her, and she kissed him as he kept moving, Dude, do not stop now, and she didn’t want him to stop.

Nate thought Hannah had a different touch than Dominika, somehow less primal — Hannah was a honeyed topaz to Dominika’s fathomless sapphire, silent Hannah vibrated while vocal Dominika shuddered, and blond curls looked different against the pillow than chestnut tresses — he was going to drive himself crazy. Then he felt the hot wet bloom of Hannah’s orgasm, different than — Shut up for Chrissake — and she clamped her mouth on his and she gripped him tighter, but silently, and they kissed again, more tenderly intimate than twenty minutes ago, lovers now, and he laid on the wet spot on the blue-and-white quilt as they dozed in each other’s arms.

It was still dark and the streetlights were slanting through the windows when Hannah got up for two glasses of water. Nate watched her cross the shadowy single room to the sink and come back and he couldn’t stop himself from noting that she was shorter, and her buttocks were flatter, and her legs were skinnier, and the nipples on her small breasts were darker, and between her legs she was blond and downy — Fucking stop it, you absolutely will not imagine them side by side. She saw him looking at her and put down the water glasses, and it started again and Hannah vibrated and this time quietly moaned his name with a shaking voice and they both collapsed and ended up falling asleep on the vastly expanded wet spot on the quilt.

As the sky through the little barred window was getting lighter — Hannah whispered in Nate’s ear that the Mohammedan distinction between night and day is the moment one can distinguish a black thread from a white one — she put her chin on his chest and looked at him. Her glasses were on a little crooked. Her hair had been combed by an eggbeater, flyaway strands catching the rising light in the room. Nate could now distinguish her green irises — the Nash distinction between night and day. She kept staring at him.

“I’ll keep her safe,” Hannah said quietly. Nate searched her eyes.

“You love her, don’t you?” said Hannah. “DIVA. I mean… Dominika.”

Nate didn’t move his head.

“I can’t imagine how it feels,” she said. “The worry, the not knowing.” Nate didn’t know what to say. She was silent for a moment.

“I’m glad we did this,” said Hannah, smiling. “I’m glad I know you. And I won’t let anything happen to her.”

Nate felt a wave of affection for her well up inside him, supplanting for an instant the rising contrition blocking his throat.

Hannah rose up and leaned forward to kiss Nate, but he shot upright off the pillow and grabbed her by the shoulders.

“What are you doing?” said Hannah, looking wide-eyed at him.

“What do we have today?” said Nate, alarm on his face.

“Ten o’clock with Benford for training review,” she said. “What’s the matter with you?”

“Come here,” said Nate, pulling her off the bed and across the room to the little mirrored coat rack near the front door. He steered Hannah in front of the mirror and turned her jaw to one side. “Is it too hot to get away with a turtleneck?” he asked.

“Oh, fuck me,” said Hannah, looking at a hickey on her neck the approximate shape of the Republic of Romania.

Their affair charged the air like a thunderstorm building over a still wheat field, the thunder-rumble moment before the deluge when the grasshoppers on the stalks stop buzzing. Their days together were coming to an end and it spawned an urgency between them. They spent edgy, tick-tock days now, reviewing the files, studying the pictures, sitting together at the hastily organized, survival-Russian language lessons so she could at least read the street signs. Lovers’ tradecraft was hasty and ridiculous, but they couldn’t stop themselves: The spooks in them refused to look at the wall clocks; consciously they did not sit at the same cafeteria table; they waved theatrically as they left Headquarters and walked to their cars at opposite sides of West Lot. They pulsed with anticipation for dusk, and for the moment when the front door opened, and for the taste of each other, an eternity apart — well, twelve hours anyway. Like stoats they baptized every room of their respective apartments — kitchen, living room, closets, window seats — and they talked into the dawn until one of them had to go; it felt as if they had known each other forever, and their shared secrets bound them together. Nate gave her a corny gift of a baby blue woven cotton bracelet, which Hannah soaked in hot water to shrink it snug on her wrist.

He didn’t talk about it, but Hannah instinctively knew what Dominika was to Nate, and she resolved, in a way, to be case officer to them both. Her job was to protect and support DIVA in Moscow. She would do that with every fiber of her being. She would also adore Nate as much and as deeply and for as long as she could. She knew she had no cause to expect that there was a fairy-tale ending in any of this. For the time being, she savored both the mountainous challenge of operating in Moscow and the sweet ache of loving Nathaniel Nash.

Loving Hannah Archer affected Nate in a way he neither expected nor could adequately explain. Dominika was his life, CIA asset or not; her passion, courage, and determination in all things enthralled him. But as elegantly explained over the years by Forsyth, and somewhat less elegantly by Gable, their future was going to be a series of long dark railway tunnels, out of which the train would periodically emerge into the sunlight before plunging back into another tunnel. More ominously, Gable said that their relationship was a threat to Dominika’s security, both emotionally and practically. Dominika discounted that peril, but Nate wasn’t so sure. His loving Dominika could kill her.

Nate didn’t know what to think, even as he began wondering about what a life with Hannah, a fellow case officer, would be like. Tandem couples — spouses both inside CIA — worked together and covered each other. Nate shook himself like a dog. Life without Dominika was unimaginable. A surveillance detection run with Hannah would be like having two Beethovens at the keyboard. Dominika’s Parthenon profile in the lights of Prater Park came to him, then morphed into Hannah’s cool fingers running through her mop of hair as she laughed. Jesus.

The thunderstorm broke the day Hannah was occupied with a preassignment physical. Could a doctor tell if a woman had been making love last night on a coffee table? Benford had commanded Nate to lunch in the Executive Dining Room (EDR) on the seventh floor of Headquarters, a long, narrow space with a panoramic view of the Potomac and primarily patronized by senior-grade Agency lawyers, congressional liaison mavens, and ambitious staffers with Caesar dressing on their ties. Benford — known, feared, reviled — made his way past the white tablecloths and clinking stemware, ignoring tentative greetings by other diners, to a small table at the far end of the room. Nate felt eyes on him as he walked behind Benford, and remembered Dominika’s long-ago report about her lunch in a private dining room at the Center. Dominika. Nearly midnight in Moscow. Sleep well.

Benford waved off the menus and told the waiter to bring two bowls of crab bisque, turning to Nate without apology to tell him the bisque in the EDR was excellent.

“It must be a really excellent soup,” said Nate.

Benford tore a dinner roll with his hands and munched bread. “Some things — chowder, bisque, denied area operations — should be prepared perfectly, or not at all. Possibly including chili con carne.”

“I agree with you, Simon,” said Nate, going for ironically urbane, “including chili.”

“Then why are you sleeping with Hannah Archer on the eve of her departure to Moscow to assume handling duties for DIVA, whom you are also fucking?” Benford tore another piece of bread. “Do you think this is the way to make a proper bisque?”

The waiter came and placed two bowls of thick, glossy soup at their places. Nate got one quavering spoonful into his mouth. He could taste nothing; he put his spoon down.

“I’m not going to try to excuse myself,” said Nate. “With Dominika, it was the recruitment, with Hannah it was the training, being thrown together.”

Benford slurped his bisque. “And you wanted bookends?”

Nate bowed his head, took a deep breath, and started talking to Benford, who was concentrating on his soup but listening to every word. Nate told him of his struggle with loving Dominika, of talks with Forsyth and Gable, the nightmare ambush in Vienna and the aftermath. Now in Washington, mentoring Hannah through IO training, the affair had happened. Benford reached across and took Nate’s soup, switching it with his own empty bowl. He resumed spooning bisque as Nate told him about his dark thoughts, his unworthy thoughts, about contemplating life with Dominika or with Hannah.

Benford wiped his chin with a napkin and sat back. “Nash, you’re fairly fucked up,” he said. “But I empathize with you.”

“This never happened to you,” said Nate.

“Let me continue the Sisyphean task of expanding your vocabulary. One feels empathy when one has been there; sympathy when one has not.”

“You?” said Nate.

“Do not expect me to relate a mewling anecdote with a pithy moral at the end. What I want you to hear is that you would have been separated from the service long ago if you had not been ably handling MARBLE and DIVA, two Cadillac assets, and now LYRIC, who’s immensely important, and but for the incidental reason that you are an excellent officer in matters not involving your dick. Forsyth and Gable have been steadfast in their support for you. But this bacchanalia cannot continue.”

Benford pushed away from the table. “What a pleasant lunch. I want you to go away and think about this, then come back, and tell me what you want to do. My only requirement is that you do not ruin DIVA as an asset, and that you do not break Archer’s heart on the eve of her assignment. That son of a bitch COS Moscow will do that soon enough to her.”

Sauté finely diced onion and carrot until soft. Separately mix butter and flour to make a light brown roux, then add chicken broth and whisk into a velouté. Add the onions and carrots and simmer. Incorporate heavy cream, sherry, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, cayenne, salt, pepper, and shredded crab meat. Garnish with sour cream and chives.