Palace of Treason

5

Simon Benford was the chief of CIA’s Counterintelligence Division. Short, paunchy, and jowly, with gray-streaked hair in constant disarray thanks to his habit of gripping handfuls of it while screaming at cringing subordinates — or at anyone from the FBI’s Directorate of Intelligence, or the Defense Intelligence Agency, or the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, or the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis, or any other government entity with “intelligence” in its title whose factotums, Benford raved, knew nothing about classic human espionage and operations, were ill-prepared and unsuited to collect or analyze foreign intelligence, and, more abstrusely, were all “jacking off with oven mitts.”

Besides being an enfant terrible and a misanthrope, the cow-eyed Benford was a legendary mole hunter, strategist, operational high priest, and savant who was considered the scourge of inimical foreign intel services: more treacherous than the Russian SVR, more inscrutable than the Chinese MSS, more elegantly devious than the Cuban DI, and twitchier than North Korea’s RGB. Those CIA officers closest to Benford privately described him as “bipolar with a sociopath vibe,” but secretly worshipped him. Allied foreign liaison services loved him and hated him and listened to him: Years ago, Benford had helped the Brits uncover an illegals network run by Moscow for fifteen years in the House of Commons by following, Benford explained to the scandalized Joint Intelligence Committee, “the last heterosexual in Parliament directly to his Russian handler.” The Britons were not amused.

Benford had called COS Athens Tom Forsyth on the secure line to congratulate them all on the acquisition of LYRIC. Preliminary assessment of the general’s early intelligence was favorable, and Benford approved of Nash’s handling of the case to date.

“I am anxious to hear from DIVA,” Benford said over the phone.

“We all are, Simon,” said Forsyth. “Nash is ready to go to her the minute she signals she’s out. He’s got a bag packed.”

“There is no reporting on her status, no gossip, no sightings. No announcements in Rossiyskaya Gazeta.” He meant no obituaries, like former Soviet watchers would pick up in the old Pravda.

“She’s resourceful,” said Forsyth. “A tough cookie.” The decision to send Dominika back inside had been Benford’s, and Forsyth knew the feeling of waiting for word from an agent who was back inside and out of contact. It didn’t matter where: Cuba, Syria, Burma, Moldova. “All we can do is wait,” said Forsyth.

“Yes, Tom,” said Benford. “I fucking know that, goddamn it.” Had Forsyth been a GS-13 duty officer in Headquarters, Benford would have burst a blood vessel screaming into the phone, but you don’t yell at a senior officer, especially not at Tom Forsyth.

“The minute she shows a feather, Nash is there,” said Forsyth soothingly. “We’re ducks — calm on top, paddling furiously underwater.”

Benford groaned into the phone.

The morning after her return from Moscow, Dominika lay on the floor in her underwear in the tiny living room of the Vienna apartment on Stuwerstrasse, several blocks from the Danube and a quarter mile from the elegant curved towers of the International Atomic Energy Agency on the east bank of the river. The apartment windows were open to let in the summer breeze. To the south the giant Ferris wheel of Prater park was just visible in the haze — at night the boxy cars on the wheel were trimmed with white fairy lights.

Dominika did incline push-ups on the floor, her breasts flattening on the carpet with each downward repetition. She exhaled on each slow press, feet planted high on a chair from the dining table. When her chest screamed for mercy, she shifted to the chair, hands on the seat and legs elevated on a small couch, and did slow dips — twenty, pushing to thirty — until she could do no more. The telephone in the kitchenette trilled. Breathing hard, she walked across the room to answer it.

She recognized Udranka’s throaty voice. “Devushka, hey girl,” said Dominika panting into the phone. Sign.

“Devchonka, you slut,” said Udranka in Russian. Countersign, all normal. “Why are you panting into the phone? What are you doing? It’s nine in the morning.” Mention of time: I need to see you, one hour.

Sparrow tradecraft — trashy and quick and foolproof. A quick shower and six stops on the U-Bahn to Hardegasse, then up four flights on the immaculate staircase in the quiet Austrian apartment building. Udranka opened the door before Dominika knocked. The cramped apartment was a riot of color: mirrors on the walls, bright pillows on the couch, the impossible pink bedroom — ruffles and fringed lampshades — visible through an open door. All courtesy of SVR, including the video and audio pickups in every room. Udranka extended her albatross-wing arms in welcome, her crimson aura, as usual, blazing like a banked coal fire.

Not your typical Sparrow, thought Dominika, hugging her. This creature was not the usual, perfect Slav snow queen, overbred to anorgasmy, with rouged nipples and a French wax. No, taken separately, Udranka’s parts did not define libidinous beauty — she was scarecrow thin and 1.85 meters tall — with corresponding angular elbows, knees, and hip bones. Her breasts lay flat against her chest — she would not contemplate implants. She had a faint pencil-line scar running from the left corner of her mouth to her left ear, a childhood memento left by a paramilitary trooper with a stockyard whip. Her hands were long-fingered and restless, with short nails painted hibiscus red. Endless, long legs ended in large feet and red toenails. This morning she wore small drop earrings of orange coral, and a short, hot-pink kimono that stopped precariously high on her thighs.

Her flaming magenta hair — the shade must be called Balkan Rust — was cut short and close to her head. Her mouth was extreme — a candy dish of large white teeth — and in constant movement: smiling, pouting, tongue wetting full lips, clucking in disapproval, open in uncontrolled laughter. Udranka’s large eyes were light green with dark flecks, like ice cream with chips in it, and they could transmit, in the time it took for her pupils to expand, ineluctable sexual desire.

Udranka was a voluptuary, a natural. The spotters at Sparrow School had recognized it when they saw it; the training staff had known how to refine the raw instinct, and operations officers like Dominika knew enough to point the cannon, light the fuse, and step back. Dominika had never seen anything like it — this woman could transform her striking but decidedly unglamorous persona into something captivating, using that dugout canoe of a body to mesmerize, paralyze, devour her Sparrow target.

A decade ago, the leggy Serb had filled a backpack and gone to Moscow, a teenager looking for work, baby giraffe tall with a booming laugh. She had started modeling for low-end fashion houses, mostly shoes and jewelry. She went through the requisite relationships with ad execs, government ministers, and a musician, but by twenty-six the modeling was over. Heads would turn when she entered a Moscow restaurant, eventually including the pear-shaped head of the Italian ambassador (short and stout, a count and a descendant from the Barberinis of Palestrina), who was tantalized by her toothy, high-voltage smile and transfixed by her height. The diminutive Italian had never made love to an extremely tall woman, and he couldn’t wait to see how the parts would fit.

The ambassador was generous, and considerate, and loquacious, and kept Udranka secret from his wife. The Federal FSB, soon identified the count’s leggy illicit companion. In a year’s time Udranka had been recruited, first by the FSB as an access agent, then highjacked by the SVR and sent to Sparrow School. She needed money, they threatened to send her back to Belgrade, and she would have comfortable apartments to live and love in. Why not?

Three years later, Captain Dominika Egorova, looking for primanka in the Jamshidi case, bait so extraordinary that the Persian would forget the rules and his religion and put his neck on the block, came across Udranka’s delo formular. Her service record rated her among the best of SVR’s trained Sparrows, with evaluations of “excellent” in tradecraft and elicitation and “accomplished” in what State School Four called “seduction art.” Udranka was assigned detached duty — Dominika assessed the hollow-cheeked Serb as cynical, dour, resourceful, a survivor. They got along, especially since Dominika treated her decently — she knew the burdens of being a Sparrow.

It had been a simple matter of trolling her in front of Jamshidi — a transparent little scenario was staged during which Udranka ostensibly had her purse snatched by a motorbike thief outside a Viennese bar with the Persian as a chance witness. The grateful acceptance of Jamshidi’s offer of a taxi ride home followed, as did Udranka’s demure invitation upstairs for coffee. Once inside her kaleidoscope apartment — silently covered by Line T’s lenses and microphones — Jamshidi pushed past her maidenly reluctance, triumphed in her eventual swooning surrender, and relished her shuddering climaxes — two faked, one real — during which the fine-line scar across her cheek darkened with the flush of orgasm. Jamshidi’s sewer-pipe mind turned to round two and variations best known to Tunisian towel boys. He expected struggles and howls of pain from this shy giraffe — which was the appeal, after all — but he could not have anticipated her response, nor did he register that she must have been trained to be able to make a man lose his mind like this, like Jamshidi did sometime during No. 73, “Enter the Kremlin via Nikolskaya Gate.” From that evening Jamshidi was reeled in as surely as a record-book Volga carp that is prehooked to President Putin’s fishing line.

“Come on,” said Udranka, motioning Dominika to a small table in the sun-splashed kitchen, canary yellow tiles on the walls and a lime green teapot on the stove.

“How do you not go blind in here?” said Dominika.

The girl shrugged. “Belgrade was always gray to me, Moscow is too,” she said. “A whorehouse should not be drab.” Her crimson halo expanded as she laughed, incandescent. Her front teeth flashed between full lips.

“How’s your sych, your horned owl?” Dominika said.

“Some progress,” said Udranka. “Maybe something important.” She got up from the table and opened an upper kitchen cabinet, easily reaching a squat bottle with a gold-colored cap. As she stretched, the kimono parted an inch, and Dominika caught a glimpse of her breasts, sleek against her body. Mine are bigger, thought Dominika, instantly feeling ridiculous.

“Srpska Sljivovica, plum brandy from Sumadija, in Serbia,” said Udranka, pouring two small glasses.

God, thought Dominika, it’s ten in the morning. She clinked glasses and sipped, while Udranka threw her head back and refilled her glass.

“What?” asked Dominika. Her instincts twitched in this color-soaked little love nest. She looked into Udranka’s eyes, watching her swill brandy, watching her face.

“Mr. Sych came to me last night. He acted normally. He was not angry, he wanted to make love.” Dominika had warned Udranka that Jamshidi might accuse her of setting him up for the pitch in Paris. Not a problem, she had said, Sparrows were trained in professing their innocence in many things.

“Did he say anything about being approached, about cameras in the apartment?” Dominika asked.

“Nothing. It seems he does not blame me. He was very excited, impatient. That ridiculous goatee twitched up and down when I did ‘hummingbird wings.’” She said it flat, an emotionless technician discussing her trade.

“Number thirty-three,” Dominika said, remembering, repeating the long-ago memorized, Soviet-clunky Sparrow rules of sexual techniques, “overwhelm the nerve endings with unceasing stimulation.”

“That’s right, you remember,” said Udranka dully, as if she did not want to talk about it. “If you miss the old life we could take him to bed together.”

Dominika laughed. The kitchen table was bathed in summer sunlight, the bottle of Sljivovitsa on golden fire.

Udranka started laughing too, then stopped, bit her lower lip, and looked at Dominika, who also stopped laughing and reached across the table to briefly squeeze her hand — long bony fingers and bright red nails. Her color, always bright and pulsing, slowed and faded.

“You should try him,” said Udranka dully. “He likes to bite. Wants it only one way. He likes to hurt me. I hope he’s worth it.”

“He’s worth it,” said Dominika, not intending to tell Udranka how really important this was. Udranka stared at her and grunted. Her head went back and she refilled her glass again. They didn’t talk for a minute.

“The most important thing,” said Udranka. “He told me he wants to use this apartment for an important meeting. Two nights from now. My apartment. Cheeky bastard.”

Dominika nodded her head. That was it. He intended to show up for the debrief.

“I assume the meeting is with you,” said Udranka. “I’ll let him in, then leave.”

“No, I need you to stay close in case he decides to stop talking. You’ll be a reminder he has to behave.”

“I’ll wear something tight,” Udranka said, deadpan, her crimson halo coming back, flaring. “The man might not listen to me, but the bald one with the turtleneck always does.” Dominika suppressed a laugh. She had not heard that phrase since Sparrow School. Udranka refilled both their glasses.

“After this is over, I’m getting you out,” said Dominika. “Not just Vienna, completely out.”

“Of course you are,” said Udranka, taking her hand away and pouring another glass. Sunlight in the canary yellow kitchen and the burned caramel whiff of brandy in the still air. Their eyes met. “I can’t even get drunk anymore,” she whispered.

Dominika got up from the table and put an arm around the shoulder of her Sparrow, the long-legged destroyer of men with the piano-key smile that could light up a room, whose silent, slow tears wet the front of her handler’s shirt.

Vienna in summer: leafy parks and mustard-colored buildings with the gravitas of past empires in their façades, pitched roofs all of intersecting angles, trolley tracks joining and separating, polished brass door pulls, the loamy smell of endless coffees, and the sugary crunch of cakes and breads tumbled on trays set in café windows with gold lettering. And under the ubiquitous violins of Strauss in every doorway lingered the memory of the faded bass notes of tank treads from less happy times. Vienna.

Dominika was back in Vienna, with a briefcase of Center-drafted nuclear requirements, two lipstick guns, and her heart in her mouth. The upcoming debriefing with Jamshidi made action urgent. It was time to trigger recontact with CIA — and Nate. The prospect of seeing Nate again swelled in Dominika’s chest until she could hardly breathe. She didn’t know if he would be different toward her, she didn’t know how it would be between them. Her Russian pride and cross-grainedness would not let her again be the first one to make a move toward him. She would not throw herself at him, she would not ever again watch him retreat behind regulations or security requirements or a guilty conscience. She heard the calm voice of the SENTRY operator on the line as she repeated her security code, used the identifier alias, mentioned the city, and designated the city park and clock tower brief encounter site. Now it was time for business, her business.

It took Nate twelve hours to get to Vienna after the SENTRY system automatically cabled Athens Station to inform that Moscow-based, Russian asset GTDIVA had called to trigger contact. Vienna, Stadtpark, Clock Tower, starting tomorrow, every day at noon. Nate took the first flight to Munich, then the train to Vienna. They always added a rail leg to tweak ops security: Once inside the European Union with common, permeable borders, there was no paper trail, and light disguise took care of ubiquitous security cameras in the terminals. Gable followed through Prague — he would back up Nate because he was a case officer Dominika had trusted — and they booked a suite at the Schick Hotel Am Parkring, on the margins of the park.

Nate stood in the suite looking out the French doors at the Viennese skyline, knowing she was under one of those peaked, slate roofs. Dominika had called, she was out. It felt like she had been back in Russia, status unknown, for ten years. Nate’s guts skipped as he tried to order his thoughts. Intel requirements, communications, access, security, signals, sites, the list was endless. Nate knew that this recontact with Dominika was critical — it was the first time she would be met since recruitment. Despite her call out, would she be willing to continue? The case officer in him knew that the case must be maintained on a professional basis. He would stay professional at all costs. This was espionage.

She wasn’t at the RDX the first day — a bit worrying — but Nate slipped into case officer mode and watched the rendezvous site and waited. On the next day, from his vantage point on a bench behind a low hedge, he saw her walking down the gravel path bordered by linden trees, the familiar, slight hitch in her stride. She looked like he remembered her — ever so subtly older perhaps, features more sculpted — but the blue eyes were the same, the head still held high. He let her go by, checking her status, and let her wait at the ornate marble balustrade at the base of the clock. She looked at her watch once, briefly. Nate stayed still, watching for casuals, to see if anyone lingered in the shadows under the far-off trees.

After four minutes — the standard meeting window for SVR too — she began walking, not obviously looking for coverage, but he knew she saw everything. Nate walked behind her at surveillance distance for a while — he felt black, there were no repeats — watching her pinned-up hair and strong legs. She slowed to look at a statue and Nate passed her and continued walking toward the white bulk of the hotel, visible over the trees. She turned and followed him.

They were alone in the elevator, standing in opposite corners of the car, looking up at the floor numbers on the display. Nate looked over at her and she met his gaze. His purple halo was unchanged, strong and constant. The catechism stipulated that they should not speak in the elevator, but Nate had to say something.

“I’m glad to see you,” said the CIA officer to his Russian agent. Dominika looked at him, blue eyes giving nothing away. She said nothing as the doors opened and Nate walked ahead of her to their room and tapped softly. Gable opened the door and pulled Dominika into the center of the room — cream carpet, dark green couch, open double French doors with a view of the sand-drip castle spire of St. Stephen’s in the distance.

“Nine months. You kept us waiting long enough,” said Gable, smiling. “You okay?” His purple mantle was the same too, pulsating, raucous, circular.

“Zdravstvuy Bratok, hello big brother,” said Dominika, shaking his hand. She had started calling him Bratok after her recruitment in Helsinki, a sign of affection. She turned toward Nate.

“Hello, Neyt,” she said, but did not extend her hand.

“It’s good to see you, Domi,” said Nate.

“Yeah, well, now we’re all glad to see each other,” said Gable. “Before I start weeping, let’s hear what you’ve been up to. How much time do you have? All day? Okay.” Dominika sat on the velour couch with Gable. Nate pulled up a chair.

“Let’s get something to eat first,” said Gable, bounding up. “Nash, call room service — never mind, give me the phone.” He looked at Dominika while waiting for the operator, hand over the mouthpiece. “You look too skinny. You been sick, or just missed us?” Dominika smirked and leaned back on the couch, starting to relax. She avoided looking at Nate. She had forgotten how smooth and professional these CIA men were, how much she liked them. They were purple and crimson and blue, strong and reliable.

Gable ordered so much food they needed two trolleys to bring it all: smoked trout and salmon, beet salad, Olivier salad, poached chicken, fresh mayonnaise, runny Brie, Gouda, a crusty loaf of bread, iced butter, cucumber salad, sliced ham, two different mustards, lamb kabobs, yogurt sauce, two strudels, palatschinken with brandy apricot jam, a tray of Austrian chocolates, ice-cold Alpquell, Veltliner Sauvignon, and yellow-gold Ruster Ausbruch.

They talked for four hours. They let her do the talking; she didn’t need prompting. She knew what was important, what to include, what to leave out. She spoke in English — sometimes Nate had to help her over a word in Russian, but she talked in whole paragraphs. Her return to Moscow. Promotion to captain. Assigned to KR under a new boss, Alexei Zyuganov. Mamulova interrogation in Lefortovo. Interview with Putin. The limited hard intel she had gleaned from KR — SVR foreign operations, counterintelligence leads — would come later.

“Hold it,” said Gable. “You got in to see Putin?”

Dominika nodded. “Twice. He congratulated me on exposing General Korchnoi,” she said softly, looking down at her hands. “He said Korchnoi was destroyed. I’m sure he gave the order. I thought I saw something on the bridge, but couldn’t be sure. Is it true?”

“They shot him from across the river, at the end of the bridge,” said Nate. “He was home free and they shot him.” His voice was even, emotionless.

“I will never forget him,” she said. Her eyes glistened. They sat in silence for a while, the faint buzz of traffic on the Parkring coming through the open French doors.

“It is why I made the call for you to come,” she said finally. “I was not sure I would ever work with you again. But the siloviki, the bosses, have not changed, it is as bad as ever. Worse than before.”

“We’re glad you came back out,” said Gable, reaching for a plate. “I knew you would. It’s in your blood. Sweet pea, we’re back together again.”

Oh shit, thought Nate, and he held his breath.

“What is this sweet pea?” said Dominika casually, putting down her wineglass. It was the moment when someone yells “Grenade” and everyone hits the floor.

“It’s like baloven,” said Nate hurriedly in Russian, “something a big brother would say. ‘My pet,’ like that.” Dominika blinked, only half believing him, only half placated. Oblivious, Gable slathered mustard on a piece of ham.

Back to business. Nate’s business: internal operations, the science, art, and necromancy of meeting agents in denied environments like Moscow, Beijing, Havana, Tehran. Running agents in the most dangerous counterintelligence states imaginable. Meeting spies inside was like wading through a tannin-black, piranha-infested pool with infinite care, trying not to stir up the bottom. In Helsinki, Nate had rebelled at the thought of putting Dominika in danger by running her inside Russia. Now, after Korchnoi, he told himself they all had to get on with it, whatever the cost, but he felt his pulse in his jaw, seeing her on the couch, legs crossed, that habit of bouncing her foot.

“Domi, we have to talk internal ops, how we’re going to communicate in Moscow,” he said. “If you can arrange foreign travel, we’ll rely on every opportunity to meet outside. But something could happen, a fast-breaking issue, or an emergency, or a travel ban or anything, and then we need a way to meet inside.”

Dominika nodded.

“We have covcom for you,” said Nate, “covert communications equipment, very fast, very secure. You can send abbreviated messages, we can direct you to new sites, we can plan face-to-face meets. You know all this.

“The first challenge, the danger, is physically getting the covcom set to you. We have to dead drop it — a longtime cache is no good. We want you to retrieve it within a day, a few days at most, of us putting it down.”

What he did not say was that her life depended on the tradecraft of the Moscow Station officer assigned to load the DD, and on the perspicacity of the chief of Moscow Station in validating and approving the officer’s ops plan. If the young American spook did not accurately determine his surveillance status during his surveillance detection route, if he blundered through his run on that future fragrant night with the summer twilight silhouetting the Moscow skyline, it would be the end. If FSB surveillance saw him load a site, they would set up on it and wait for weeks, months, a year, to see who came to unload it. Dominika would never know the sequence of events that killed her.

“It will be possible,” said Dominika evenly. “KR has access to all nadzor assignments and schedules. I will be able to determine surveillance deployments throughout the city — FSB, militsiya, police, our teams. The first exchange will be dangerous, but we can do it.”

“We take this slow,” said Gable. “We fucking take everything slow. There’s no use getting you comms if we can’t do it securely.” He poured more wine into Dominika’s glass.

“Remember when we talked in Greece?” said Gable. “In that little restaurant on the beach? I said you should establish yourself, take your time, create a reputation, find a good assignment, start pushing your weight around.”

Dominika smiled at him.

“Well, you done all that and more. I’m proud of you.”

Nate thought Gable sounded like a parent dropping his kid off at the prep school dormitory with the engine running, but Dominika knew what he meant. She patted him on the arm.

“Well, Bratok, I have done something else that you both need to know about,” said Dominika, picking up her wineglass. She ran her finger around the wet rim, raising a single lonely note.

“I have approached an Iranian nuclear expert; the case is brand-new. His name is Parvis Jamshidi. He is here in Vienna, in the IAEA.” The CIA officers looked at each other; they didn’t know the name right off, but he sounded like a target that would be high on the list.

“I gave him some bad news — how do you say, compromised him — and convinced him to cooperate,” said Dominika. Gable, the legendary recruiter, the grizzled scalp-taker, cocked his crew-cut head. He wanted to hear more.

“Compromised him how?” asked Gable. Dominika looked at him like she was a cool gin and tonic.

“I provided him a Sparrow,” said Dominika. Fingers circling the rim, letting the note hang in the air. She was playing it coy, teasing them.

“What Sparrow?” said Gable.

“My Sparrow. In an apartment about ten minutes from here, close to his IAEA office.” She took a sip of wine.

“And you convinced him to cooperate how?” asked Gable.

“I showed him streaming video of himself breaking the rules of sharia.” She bounced her foot.

“Meaning…”

“Ramoner,” Dominika said in French. “Sweeping the chimney, all the time, quite oversexed.”

Gable started laughing, unable to talk.

“And what exactly has he agreed to?” asked Nate.

“He has agreed to a meeting, a debriefing on his country’s nuclear program. He is hostile, will doubtless try to withhold some details, but he will cooperate in the end.” Dominika reached for a chocolate and started unwrapping the foil.

“A debriefing where?” asked Nate. The two Americans were now both leaning toward her.

“At my Sparrow’s apartment,” said Dominika, popping the bonbon into her mouth.

“And when does this debriefing take place?” asked Nate.

“Tomorrow night,” said Dominika.

“Tomorrow night?” said Nate.

“Yes,” said Dominika, “and you’re coming.”

“Jesus wept,” said Gable.

Boil potatoes, carrots, and eggs. Dice vegetables, eggs, and dill pickles into quarter-inch cube and place into a bowl. Similarly dice boiled ham or shrimp, or both, and add to the bowl. Add sweet baby peas. Season aggressively and add fresh chopped dill. Incorporate with freshly made mayonnaise.