Palace of Treason

22

She had scant hours before leaving for Athens. But this morning there was something going on in the Line KR corridors in Yasenevo. Fussed junior officers were scuttling in and out of the large conference room at the end of the hall. Dominika looked in. The dusty and chipped birch conference table was being wiped down, and four heavy glass ashtrays were spaced down the middle of it. Oxidized aluminum carafes were ranged on a sideboard. The walls of the room were lined with dingy gray-blue felt, a worn blue carpet covered the floor, and water-stained acoustic tiles ran along the ceiling. The KR conference room really is a dump, Dominika thought. Not electronically sound-masked like the director’s elegant conference room on the fourth floor, and certainly not as grand as the formal ground floor auditorium off the Yasenevo lobby.

But this grubby little room had its own history. Dominika knew that the eleven SVR illegals officers arrested in and expelled from the United States — they had been imbedded in their deep cover lives from Seattle to New York to Boston — were debriefed in this room upon their ignominious return to Moscow. Afterward they had joined hands with then — prime minister Putin and sung patriotic songs as they contemplated the rest of their ersatz careers and lives in the bosom of the Rodina.

Looking around the room, Dominika briefly wondered whether that would be her legacy: Remembered as a despicable traitor now fled to the enemy West, with an in absentia sentence of twenty-five years imprisonment for treason and desertion — some still called it Staliniskii chetvertak, Stalin’s quarter century — or maybe she’d end up like others before her, consigned to an unmarked grave.

A junior officer noticed Dominika in the doorway and stood up straight, heels together. No one in Department K had seen much of the new captain with the blue eyes, though there were the usual Yasenevo rumors: foreign operations, priceless documents stolen from the Americans, arrested in Athens, and an exalted deliverance from CIA captors. Other whispered stories were darker, could not be discussed openly: she had killed men, Russians and foreigners alike, she had been through the Kon Institute — the shadowy Sparrow School — she had been imprisoned but had survived the interrogators in Lefortovo. Rumors or not, you didn’t toy with those blue lasers.

“What is happening?” said Dominika. At her voice the other two junior officers stopped what they were doing and faced her.

“Captain, good morning,” said the first junior officer. Green light swirled around his head, the green of apprehension leavened with fear. Dominika vaguely registered — not for the first time — that people were afraid of her. It was what this tar-black Putin regime did to them all. What a waste her Russia had become.

“Good morning,” said Dominika. The three young men weren’t blinking. No one spoke. Dominika looked at them, then at the conference table, then back at the first officer. She caught his eye and raised an eyebrow, for the practice of it. The young man jumped as if shocked.

“Oh, pardon, Captain. The colonel instructed us to prepare the room for a meeting at noon.” Dominika would not ask this underling with whom the meeting was scheduled. It didn’t matter; she already knew, thanks to Yevgeny. She sourly noted that Zyuganov had told her nothing about it. She nodded at the three officers, left the room, and walked down the corridor painted light yellow with three decades of black scuff marks along the baseboard from the wheels of mail and equipment trolleys.

She knocked once sharply on Zyuganov’s office door and pushed through. He looked up from the papers on his desk. Yevgeny was sitting in a side chair bathed in a satisfied horn-dog halo of yellow that flared when she walked in the door. Last night with him had been a trial: She had had to shake her sheets out the window to get rid of the curly hairs after he had left her apartment.

Looking at smug Yevgeny slumped in the chair sparked the familiar cocktail of resentment in Dominika’s chest, constricting, pulsating, migrating upward to stick in her throat. What she was doing with Yevgeny would otherwise be unthinkable for her — for any woman with free volition — who loved and lusted healthily with her whole heart. The siloviki, the bosses, had done very well by her, they had trained her to close her ears to the whistling nostrils, to close her nose to the sour-drain smell behind the ears, to glaze her eyes and ignore the silver thread of spittle hanging from eggplant lips. They had taught her to slip without a ripple into the sewer. It was not love, it was not sex, and it was not earthy, exhilarating rutting with a naughty lover. It was rabota. Work, labor, a job, duty.

Dominika took a sliding step to the side of Yevgeny’s chair and hit him with a fore knuckle strike in the temple, aiming for a spot an inch inside his skull. His eyes rolled up and his head flopped to the side. Without a break in her step, she rounded the desk and dug her nails into Zyuganov’s teapot handle ears and mashed his face down against the desk, once, twice, then shifted slightly to skiver his eye socket into the corner of the wood — ocular fluid squirted over the blotter. She let go of the ears and Zyuganov’s ruined face slid beneath the desk.

“Good morning, Colonel,” said Dominika, clearing her head and straightening her jacket. He looked down at the papers on his desk, then back up at her. There was something wrong with Zyuganov’s hair this morning. He had apparently pomaded it and it was lopsided. With the acuity of a bipolar sociopath, Zyuganov saw Dominika looking at his head. The black bat wings swelled a fraction. Yevgeny continued smirking.

“Egorova,” Zyuganov said. Nothing else.

“Colonel, I noticed preparations in the large room. Is there a meeting scheduled for today?”

Zyuganov sat still and looked at her, as if deciding to respond. Yevgeny shifted slightly in his chair. Last night he had briefly told her about the conference and who would be attending. But Dominika had to ask about it — she could not hint that she knew the details, nor could she plausibly feign disinterest. Zyuganov fiddled with a six-inch stainless steel bone chisel — one of a number of tchotchkes that littered his desk.

“The rezident from Washington is in the Center today,” said Zyuganov reluctantly. “She arrived last night.”

Yulia Zarubina, shveja, the Seamstress, thought Dominika. The legendary operator and Washington rezident, a product of the Foreign Language Institute and the old KGB, educated, multilingual, a hybrid too wellconnected for any nadziratel, any Kremlin overseer, to interfere with. Decades of spectacular operational successes, recruited target assets sewn up tightly, like the cloth undertaker sacks used in villages in the Urals, with minute, precise stitches. Putin had sent her to Washington last year. The directorship was now within her grasp. And she was back in Moscow to discuss a new case.

“And the meeting?” asked Dominika. “Is there an issue for our department?”

“Zarubina will be making a report on the state of the rezidentura in Washington. She will review the counterintelligence atmosphere, and offer an assessment of political developments.” The little bastard was being coy. No senior rezident returned to the Center for mundane briefings. He was not going to tell her anything. She looked at Yevgeny. Do you see who your patron is? she telegraphed him. Yevgeny avoided her eyes.

“What time will we start?” said Dominika, daring him to exclude her.

“At noon,” said Zyuganov.

“Thank you, Colonel,” said Dominika. Zarubina. Washington rezidentura, Line KR. Forsyth and Benford will be interested, she thought. And then she thought about Nate and how she ached for him.

All the faces around the table were turned to the conference room door. Line R (analysis), Line T (technical support), Line PR (political), the Americas desk (General Korchnoi’s old seat), they were all there. Zyuganov stood at the door greeting the visitor, washing his hands and showing his teeth. Rezident Zarubina entered the room, nodded at everyone, and walked around the table, shaking hands with those she knew, greeting those she did not. Dominika watched her as Zarubina worked her way around the table toward her.

The woman appeared to be over fifty, short and bosomy. She had honey-wheat hair pulled back in a matronly bun framing a full face that was lined around the eyes and mouth. There was an occasional flash of uneven, dark teeth, typical of her generation. Loose skin under the chin and a hint of jowls softened the image. Yulia’s almond eyes were hooded — there must have been ancestors from the steppes — and they gleamed with intuition. In the space of ten seconds Dominika saw how Zarubina looked steadily at whomever she was addressing, a sweet, slight smile on her lips, but every third second her eyes would dart to one side or to the other, or over the shoulder, more watchful than any roe deer in a Siberian pine forest.

She was coming closer, talking to someone but fixing Dominika with her eyes. Closer. A pressure wave of air preceded her and then the golden light of Zarubina’s aura engulfed Dominika, yellow, more than yellow, rich, velvet yellow tinged with pulsing swirls of toxin, deceit, subterfuge, zasada, ambush, zakhvat, entrapment. Now the eyes took her in, roamed across her face for a millisecond, calculating, weighing. She’s breathing me in, thought Dominika, searching the air for the russkiy dukh, the Russian scent of a foe. If anyone can tell I read colors, this Baba Yaga, this spell-caster, can.

“How do you do?” said Zarubina, taking her hand. Her voice was smooth and low-pitched, right out of a warm kitchen with a stew bubbling in the pot. Her palm was soft and warm. “I have heard about you, Captain. I congratulate you on a brilliant start to your career.” Resisting the old Russian urge to cross herself, Dominika smiled her thanks, feeling the familiar tightening in her throat. More of the same, only this is a she-wolf with a different pelt. What is your project, Seamstress? Dominika thought. What are you sewing? Come, Grandmother, and tell me your secrets. Then a pause, a click in Dominika’s mind. Can you guess my story? Do you know who I am, what my icy heart holds? Even to think such things at this close range was folly.

Zyuganov stepped up and mumbled something about starting, and Zarubina turned to follow him after the X-ray plate behind her eyes recorded a last image of Dominika. She sat at the head of the table.

In that soft voice, with those mesmerizing eyes, Zarubina briefed the people around the table about the operational environment in Washington: The streets were loose with only intermittent coverage, the FBI were preoccupied. The American administration was floundering in resetting bilateral relations with Moscow; policymakers at all levels were anxious for their own Russian Embassy contacts. Zarubina’s case officers as a result had full developmental slates. More significantly, the freeze in federal salaries — including those of CIA, FBI, and defense employees — was a resented hardship and was creating openings for SVR recruitment approaches to disgruntled American officers across the board. Finally, the rezidentura was engaged in aktivnye meropriyatiya, active measures, public propaganda to ensure that the White House would not again contemplate the establishment of a defensive missile shield in Eastern Europe, or support grassroots democracy protests from the Baltic to Crimea. Of course, Zarubina left out operational details that were too specific — there was no need for them to know. She needed their assistance in production, analysis, and technical support. She turned to Colonel Zyuganov. “And Line KR’s best counterintelligence reviews.”

Zyuganov nodded. “I will attend to the requirement personally.” Dominika saw that he already was imagining himself first deputy chief of the SVR under this soft-talking woman.

Zarubina rested her plump spotted hands on the conference table in front of her. Her fingers twitched occasionally, the only outward sign of internal ecstasies. The yellow-gold bloom around her head was a diadem. She spoke softly, requiring total absorption from those around the table — you could feel your pulses settle in time with hers. Comrades, things were going well. Moscow was strong, Kremlin policies and global goals were syncopated, uninterrupted foreign successes were being realized. The Russian intelligence service was still the very best, the envy of nations and — a nod to Zyuganov — the scourge of opposition services. There was no mention of the glory days of the Soviet Union — there needn’t have been, thought Dominika — these words equally would please Tsar Vlad when digitally replayed for him.

Faces around the table, some otherwise very wise, were transfixed by the honeyed words. Sitting opposite Dominika, Yevgeny was staring at the mild grandmother who would be the next director. He felt Dominika looking at him and turned his head. Yevgeny slowly focused on Dominika’s face, and she read his eyes instantly. The dingy yellow cloud of his lust had been shaken by Zarubina; it was now washed out, overlaid by doubt, guilt about what he had done with Dominika, panic about what he had told her. Dominika felt a momentary flash of alarm, fear that a repentant Yevgeny could come forward and admit all. It would not be overwhelming evidence of her espionage for the Americans, but it would be a short jump to the same conclusion for minds such as Zyuganov’s and Zarubina’s. Dominika was interested to note that she was not frightened at the prospect of trouble but darkly determined — Korchnoi must have tasted this high-wire thrill till the end of his days. She would have to try to settle Yevgeny down. Otherwise… what? Not even at Sparrow School did they instruct the girls how to fuck someone to death. Zarubina was looking at the faces around the table, a pleasant smile on her face. Zyuganov stood up.

“That will be all for now,” he said. “Line OT, please stay behind.”

Those officers excused began filing out, including Dominika. Yevgeny stayed in his seat at Zyuganov’s left, taking notes. Zarubina chatted amiably with an officer on the other side of the table, but Dominika saw her eyes flitting around the room at the departing personnel, checking for resentment at being excluded, cataloging faces, assessing expressions, sniffing for trouble. Zarubina’s golden halo was steady and strong; this was a creature with no doubts, no hesitation. Her only appetite was for the hunt, and the kill, and the feeding.

Whatever she was planning for her Washington rezidentura — the presence of the technical officers from Line T strongly suggested that the Seamstress intended to enhance agent handling for her new source, TRITON — details of her plan would be screamingly critical for CIA to know. Dominika resignedly told herself that she would have to endure one more night with Yevgeny before her trip.

Marta and Udranka were sitting in her office when she got back. Marta was smoking, as usual. Stop feeling sorry for yourself, Sparrow, said Marta. Fifteen minutes with that orangutan between your legs, and then you’ll have the best present imaginable to bring your beautiful lover.

Dominika was leaving for Athens tomorrow morning. She told herself she should have been drafting and transmitting another SRAC message, or packing her suitcase, certainly ordering her thoughts for the inevitable, marathon CIA debriefing, and checking a street map to get to the first meet with Bratok and Nate at a safe house, the address for which had been sent to her via SRAC exchange. Instead Dominika stood in front of the shower-fogged mirror in her bathroom, wiping her breasts clean with a washcloth. Yevgeny had tiresome predilections.

In classic Sparrow style, Dominika had navigated across Yevgeny’s bow in the office late in the day, catching his eye, returning his lopsided smile, suffusing her face with an embarrassed blush at his inevitable and lurid suggestion for a good-bye hump to hold him over for the two weeks she would be gone. At least she was spared the tedious coquetry of suggesting it herself. She had fed him, poured vodka down his gullet — alas not enough — and had to lie with him, watching him sweat, whispering ugovarivaniye, coaxing encouragements, helping his body follow his mind, and purr convincingly as, finally, he hunched over her chest, shoulders shaking.

Then the next skin-crawling half hour cuddling the woolly caterpillar, faces inches apart, with his huile de Venus—oil of Venus they had called it at Sparrow School — drying on her chest, whispering to him about their shared secret, about his future, about the golden promise of a career with Zarubina in charge of the Service. Now Dominika played it stern, with his stubbly face in her hands: Your welfare is what I’m thinking about, there’s nothing to feel guilty about, don’t throw it all away. Coming forward and what, confessing, would be the end, an unforgiveable transgression in their eyes. It would be the end of this, of us.

The smile was coming more frequently, staying longer on his lips, Yevgeny was reassured. His hand — those fingernails were marginally clean — trailed down her belly. Ni khuya sebe, no fucking way, thought Dominika wearily, and held his wrist. Instead she moved her own hand lower, and looked him in the eyes, which grew wider, then wider still. Is this what you want? Dominika thought dryly, moving her hand. Is this sufficient? No. 96, “Chairman Mao’s Chopsticks”: After hours of practice at Sparrow School, it wasn’t the hand or wrist that gave out, it was the electric ache in the shoulder, until you couldn’t raise your arm, until you couldn’t look at another oiled cucumber. Dominika still could not go near Okroshka, cold cucumber soup.

Yevgeny’s lower lip quivered as if he were going to weep. Dominika had to slow her insidious hand so he could talk.

“God… knows,” he said, concentrating. “Madame Zarubina was the one who made the request to discuss using an illegal to handle TRITON.”

Throw the bone in the wrong direction. “Interesting but illogical,” sniffed Dominika. “What could Zarubina want with someone like that?” Fast then slow.

Yevgeny closed his eyes and his breath caught. “Zarubina anticipates that she will be able to identify TRITON in the near future, and that he will agree to be handled personally. She says it’s inevitable, whether in a week or a month. When that time comes she will meet him and settle him down. But then long-term handling must be by an officer not assigned to an official Russian diplomatic installation. Safer that way.” He expelled a breath in a long sigh.

“An illegal?” said Dominika, almost sitting up, protesting to draw him out. “They cannot contemplate using someone without diplomatic cover with someone as potentially valuable as TRITON.”

“Why did you stop?” said Yevgeny dreamily, looking down at her hand. If Dominika had an ax handle under her bed, she would have resumed with that. “Zarubina — wants to meet TRITON — herself at first,” stuttered Yevgeny. “Yes, that’s better — keep going. Zarubina said she eventually wants a faceless illegal — an expert in operating in America — to assume handling. All traces of the case will evaporate.” And Benford will have no chance to catch him, thought Dominika.

“The illegals cadre was decimated when the deputy in Line S, the illegals directorate, defected,” said Dominika, thinking furiously, multitasking. “The identities of most illegals in S were blown to the Americans. The cupboard is bare.”

Yevgeny shook his head. He spoke with an effort. “Zarubina said there is another illegals school, not the main one at Teply Stan, another one, not even a school, just a program, very small, just one or two students a year. It was not under Line S management, so it was not compromised. It belongs to the Kremlin.” What a coup it would be to get inside this program, thought Dominika, to identify illegals before they ever deployed to America.

“What is the Kremlin thinking, directing such operations?” said Dominika, already knowing the answer. Russia’s blue-eyed president-for-life and former KGB flunky wanted to keep his hand in the Game, but not to revel in the clandestine geometry of dispatching spies and saboteurs to impose his designs on the world. Putin’s servants were all fungible and dispensable to him. No, this was another display of His Highness the Tsar’s muzhestvennost’, his Russian virility. Yevgeny winced — In her anger, perhaps Dominika had yanked the wrong way. “Zarubina seems to know a lot about things,” said Dominika, slowing down.

“How she knows about all this, I don’t know.”

“Perhaps Zarubina will be this new illegal’s patron,” said Dominika almost to herself, already mentally drafting another report, this one for Benford. Mentor one of Putin’s khor’ki, one of his hot-eyed ferrets, and Zarubina would be rewarded — the directorship of SVR.

“Zarubina doesn’t mentor anyone,” said Yevgeny vaguely, looking down at Dominika’s hand with heavy-lidded eyes. “Don’t stop.”

When would the new illegal be sent to America? Have they identified a specific person? How far along in training is he? Man or woman? What city will she live in? What is her occupation, what is her legend? “Feel good?” said Dominika, watching Yevgeny’s flaring, bushy nostrils.

“Zarubina is a woman possessed,” said Yevgeny, closing his eyes. Dominika thought he was more right than he knew. “She’s insisting on absolute security. She will meet TRITON for as short a time as possible, then assign the illegal to TRITON to be totally clandestine. OT is researching secure communications. All of this is to be outside Line KR. No one is to know, not even you. Zyuganov’s orders.”

Dominika smiled at Yevgeny. “I won’t tell a soul in the Center,” she said. She moved her arm more quickly — martellato, a little hammer in her hand.

“I know,” said Yevgeny distractedly. He was breathing faster now.

“You’re so sexy like this,” said Dominika, thinking irony came naturally in the bedroom. Yevgeny suddenly started trembling. He fell back and ground the back of his head into the pillow, groaning. It was thirty seconds before he opened his eyes and his breathing slowed.

“It will be a long two weeks apart,” panted Yevgeny.

Two weeks will be over before you know it, said Udranka from the corner of the bedroom.

“Two weeks will be over before you know it,” said Dominika.

Process peeled and seeded cucumbers, green onions, chopped hard boiled eggs, fresh dill, sour cream, and water to make a soup of granular consistency. Optionally add cubes of cooked ham. Season, chill, and serve garnished with dill or mint.