Palace of Treason

7

Nate had taken some care with his disguise as an SVR Line X nuclear analyst. Disguise for close-up use is as much art as science, less a matter of a false mustache or colored contact lenses than it is a limited number of minute details taken together that give an impression, establish the visual image that lets the observer’s mind take over and complete the illusion. At dusk they met at the rendezvous point. Dominika closely inspected the finished product.

She approved the haircut he had gotten that morning, short and high on the sides. The plain three-button jacket was in vogue from the Alps to the Urals. The necktie he had chosen was all wrong (“No Muscovite would wear such a thing”), so they decided he would simply wear his light blue shirt with the long-point collar unbuttoned. The shoes were Polish, with flat, squared toes, purchased at a discount shop (“Revolting,” said Dominika, “make sure he sees them”) and the eyeglasses had clear lenses and cheap gold metal frames. She was satisfied with the look.

That afternoon Nate had met a Vienna Station officer for a thirty-second timed meet to be passed a street-expedient disguise kit from the Office of Technical Services. The OTS kit contained a gold tooth overlay crown, silicon rolls to lift the cheekbones, wedge inserts for inside a shoe to create a limp, hair-coloring wands, mustaches and spirit glue, a stick-on face mole, and a small bottle of a chemical (with applicator) that temporarily would create a port-wine stain on the back of a hand or the side of the neck. Nate had decided to use only the last of these.

“Nothing distracts quite as effectively as a small detail,” Nate told a skeptical Dominika, who looked at the spidery purple splotch on the back of Nate’s left hand. “You guys missed glasnost because you were all staring at Gorbachev’s head for three years.”

“Nekulturny.” Dominika sniffed as they turned toward Udranka’s apartment. They both automatically, wordlessly, walked a looping route, glancing up and down the street as they crossed, finding a double corner and watching for any reaction, and finally nodding to each other that both were satisfied they were black. On the street Dominika worked hard, but with a little envy saw that Nate was consistently flawless in this environment.

As they silently climbed the darkened stairs in Udranka’s building, Nate reached out and caught Dominika by the wrist. He pulled her to face him, halfway up the curved staircase. Faint noises from behind apartment doors floated up the stairwell.

“Before we go in,” he whispered, “I want to tell you how good it is to work with you again.” He still held her wrist in his hand. She said nothing, unsure of what to do, of what this meant. “This operation, with the Iranian, is inspired. If it works we can change the whole equation.” He smiled at her like a schoolboy, his purple halo around his shoulders. Seal this with a kiss? she thought. No, she was not going to risk her pride anymore.

“And I like working with you,” said Dominika, lifting up his hand and looking at the colored blotch, “even if you look like a napevat, a troll living under a bridge.” She gently freed her hand from his grasp. “Come on, we have a half hour before our horned owl arrives.”

In the apartment Udranka silently appraised Nate with an eye that took in his slim figure, his hands, the line of his jaw. A Sparrow assessing an earthworm. She looked significantly at Dominika as if to say, “How is he in bed?” Udranka wore a rust-colored minidress, tight across the chest and around the haunches, and black heels that made her even taller. As Dominika fiddled in the concealed cabinet to dismantle the Center’s video and audio equipment, Udranka sat down beside Nate on the couch.

“You are from Moscow?” she asked in Russian.

“Yes, I arrived last night,” said Nate. He had memorized the Aeroflot schedules that morning, anticipating that Jamshidi might ask the same question.

“And you have worked with Egorova before?” she said. Udranka did not know Nate was an American case officer. It was prudent that she never know.

“No, this is the first time.” Nate was about to compliment Udranka on the job she had done with the Iranian but stopped himself. No mere SVR analyst who was focused solely on the upcoming debrief would dip into such operational details.

Udranka looked him over from her end of the couch. She crossed her legs, the muscles of her thighs moving, the start of the seductive swell of her bottom just visible beneath the dress. “I would have guessed that you two know each other,” she said, looking up at Dominika, who had come back into the room. “The way you walked in together, I don’t know.”

“Let’s leave the guessing games for later, devushka, girlfriend,” said Dominika, smiling.

“Well, I like him,” said Udranka. “He’s got a good face.”

“Do you think so?” said Dominika.

“Of course, don’t you?” said Udranka. Nate unzipped his satchel, avoiding her eyes.

“But a studious expert from Moscow?” said Udranka, looking at him with a sideways glance. “I think not.”

“Stop talking and fetch the tray,” said Dominika.

Udranka smiled and went into the kitchen. She returned carrying a tray with glasses and a bottle of scotch. She leaned over the low table in front of the couch to put it down, giving Nate a prolonged look right out of the playbook. He suddenly understood what it must have been like being a Christian in the Colosseum of ancient Rome, waiting for the lions. Dominika saw it all, one Sparrow to another, and looked at Nate.

“Once a vorobey, always a Sparrow,” she said, and Udranka laughed, straightened, walked back into the bedroom, and softly closed the door. These Russians know their business, Nate thought, harnessing this elemental force of nature. He thanked Christ that they’d soon be operating. Just then there was a soft knock at the door.

“Gotov?” whispered Dominika, ready? Nate nodded and began studiously looking at the notes set out on the table.

They had been at it for two hours. Dr. Parvis Jamshidi sat on the couch, his shirt collar unbuttoned, leaning forward with intensity. A briefcase lay on the cushion beside him, unopened. He had arrived angry, petulant, full of indignation. He had been prepared to have a tantrum when he saw Nate sitting there, but Dominika in two smooth sentences assured Jamshidi that sending an analyst was a vast compliment, Moscow’s acknowledgment of his towering talent, and the Persian accepted the flummery without a blink.

Still, Jamshidi nursed an attitude — arrogance springing from fear — and Dominika, sitting on the couch beside him, had begun harshly establishing control. Nate’s French was basic, but he saw how Dominika brought the scientist from resentment to grudging acceptance of the situation, by stroking his professional pride. He reveled in it, talking science, of the inevitability of Iranian success in the nuclear program, his brilliance in full cockatoo display. Dominika understood him, played him minutely, tied him up tightly.

After the first fifteen minutes, struggling with nuclear technical terms in French, Jamshidi sat back, looked at Dominika.

“You speak English?” he asked.

“Yes, of course,” said Dominika.

“What about you?” Jamshidi said, looking at Nate. Seated in a chair on the other side of the coffee table, Nate did not react, and continued writing in a notebook.

“Unfortunately my colleague speaks only Russian,” said Dominika. Careful here, thought Nate.

“I expected as much,” said Jamshidi, looking back at Dominika. “I know someone who can treat that blemish on his hand,” he said suddenly, his eyes darting over to Nate. Willing his hand to stay still, Nate continued writing.

“Let’s continue,” said Dominika in English. “You were describing the centrifuge halls at Natanz.”

“Three separate halls, designated A, B, and C,” said Jamshidi. “Twenty-five thousand square meters per hall. Covered by a reinforced roof and earth to a depth of twenty-two meters.” Dominika translated. This was encyclopedia bullshit, thought Nate, checking the Line X requirements and wishing he had notes from PROD. Time to pull Jamshidi’s goatee. He spoke to Dominika in Russian.

“We are aware of the configuration of the fuel enrichment plant,” he said brusquely, a little impatience bleeding into his voice. “We are aware of only two halls, however. Ask him about the third hall, that’s new.”

Dominika asked. Jamshidi leaned back and smiled. “Halls A and B have approximately five thousand machines each. Only a fraction of these large cascades are operating with any regularity.” Nate made himself wait to consult his notes until Dominika had finished translating.

“What are the problems with these large cascades?” asked Nate.

Jamshidi shrugged. “We have been converting from early Pakistani machines, P-1s and P-2s. We are learning as we go. Our own IR-1centrifuges are vastly superior, but we have encountered problems operating the cascades for extended periods.” Nate waited for the translation, then waited some more.

“We sustained a cascade crash last year because a technician assembled a machine without sterile gloves.” He looked over at Dominika. “The bacteria on his hands, which had been transferred to the inner tube, was enough minutely to unbalance the mechanism. At speed the tube crashed. I suppose I do not have to describe the domino effect within a cascade accident.

“There have been other problems. Supply of uranium hexafluoride feed stock is uneven, other operating difficulties,” Jamshidi said.

“Such as?” said Dominika.

“We are beset by problems from outside Iran. Embargoes of strategic materials. Computer viruses from the Zionists and the Great Satan.” He looked over at Nate, as if he suspected something. “Unknown saboteurs three months ago destroyed five high-tension pylons in the desert outside the plant.”

“And what about the third cascade hall?” asked Dominika.

Jamshidi sat up. “It is my personal project; I conceived it. The hall is being constructed in total secrecy, to exact specifications. It is separated from the other two halls by a tunnel and three blast doors. We are installing seismic-reactive floors. Filtered, controlled atmosphere. It is impregnable. IAEA inspectors are unaware of it.” Jamshidi stuck out his chin in pride. Nate did not react, even after Dominika had translated. This was intel, it was heating up.

“Continue,” said Nate. “Describe the function of the hall.”

Jamshidi looked at them, smiled, and almost imperceptibly shook his head no. “This is my project. You go too far.” Nate saw Dominika’s blue eyes flash. Her voice was honey with a vinegar chaser.

“Doctor. We’ve discussed this already. You simply cannot stop now. We were doing so well. We are your allies, we want to protect Iran against those outside forces you describe, that would deny you your work.” Dominika put a hand in a pocket and thumbed her cell phone.

Jamshidi continued, smiling. “If you want to help my country, then you should conclude this charade. You’re asking the impossible,” he said.

“What can I do to change your mind?” said Dominika. “The bonds between our two countries run deep.”

“Of course they do. Russia has been meddling in Persia for centuries. “Jamshidi snorted.

Nate had conducted coercive debriefings with difficult agents before. He had seen Marty Gable lift a little Chinese attaché by the lapels and actually plant his butt on the mantelpiece of a safe house fireplace, his legs dangling, and tell him he couldn’t come down until he started cooperating again. Not exactly accepted technique, but it pushed some Asian button of shame or saving face or something, and the little guy was back in his chair in two minutes, pounding mao-tai with Gable, and singing like a soprano.

But this was different. All agents have internal barriers, and Jamshidi apparently had fetched up against one of his: He would give up the larger program, but he wasn’t going to talk about his personal project within that program. It defined him. The door to Udranka’s bedroom opened. Udranka walked into the room, luminous, magenta-haired, her little dress moving like snakeskin over her body. Nate thought he could see the heat-shimmer in the air above her head. As Udranka passed him, Nate could smell her scent, Krasnaya Moskva, known in Europe as Moscou Rouge, the infamous Red Moscow perfume first created in 1925, the same year Stalin’s OGPU sent families to the first of the gulags.

Jamshidi glanced at her guiltily, then looked away. He’s going to bluff through it, thought Nate. Udranka passed in front of the couch, towering over Jamshidi, who refused to look up at her. She went into the kitchen, trailing a bloom of coriander and jasmine. Jamshidi continued looking at Dominika.

“Doctor, we are all human, we all have desires and needs,” said Dominika with a stone face. “I make no judgments. But I fear members of your own community would not so readily endorse your activities. Don’t you think so?”

Jamshidi kept staring at her.

“Much less those rather stuffy graybeards — I don’t mean to be disrespectful — on the Supreme Council,” said Dominika. “And think of how disappointed the ayatollah would be. And how he would censure you. And what you would forfeit.”

Jamshidi’s face was pale.

On cue, Udranka returned with fresh glasses, bending to put the tray down with a metallic thump. Incongruous beside the scotch was a dish of golden cakes dotted with raisins — shirini keshmeshi — that Dominika had asked Udranka to purchase from a Persian bakery in town. Jamshidi goggled at the pastries: Here he was, sitting with a blackmailing Russian intelligence officer, spilling his country’s secrets, and this prostitute was serving him the confections of his childhood.

Udranka sat in another chair, directly opposite Jamshidi, and crossed her legs. The Persian physically twitched, refusing to look, but reduced to fluttering and guilty glances. Nate wondered how things looked from Jamshidi’s vantage point, head-on.

“Think of the furor in your offices at IAEA if Udranka, missing you, unwisely paid a call, asking for you by name,” said Dominika. “These things are so much better managed in discreet venues, like this little apartment.”

Udranka leaned over to take Jamshidi’s glass and poured two fingers of scotch. She took a sip herself and handed the glass to him. He looked at the tangerine lipstick mark on the rim and closed his eyes. Dominika saw that his yellow aura was faded, diluted.

Sparrow manual: No. 44: “Maximize lascivious impact with incongruous visual, aural, olfactory shock,” thought Dominika, watching Udranka walk behind the couch, dragging a hand across Jamshidi’s shoulders. Trailing scent like a destroyer escort putting down smoke, she melted back into the bedroom with clicking heels. Nate shifted in his seat, studiously looking at his notes. God what an engine, he thought.

Silence in the room. Jamshidi looked at Nate, and then turned to Dominika, glowering, seething, fearful. Dominika’s cobalt eyes held his without blinking.

“The function of centrifuge Hall C…,” said Dominika, as if the feral charms of a six-foot SVR Sparrow had not been flashed in Jamshidi’s face in the last thirty seconds.

What did the Iranian fear most, Nate thought, exposure to the mullahs or losing off-shore drilling rights with Udranka? Gable had once told him that FEAR stood for “fuck everything and run,” which is what Jamshidi must be feeling right now.

“Enrichment production generally is mired at the two to five percent level,” Jamshidi said woodenly. “The yield to date is approximately six thousand kilograms of low enriched Uranium-two-thirty-five. For forty-eight months I have pushed toward the next step in enrichment, thrown all our resources to make the critical jump to twenty percent. Our uneven technical expertise has been a hindrance. Assassination of key program scientists at the hands of the Zionists has delayed the push. We have been able to produce only about one hundred ten kilograms of twenty-percent Uranium-two-thirty-five.” Jamshidi reached for his scotch, paused for a beat to look at Udranka’s lipstick mark, and took a swallow. He exhaled into the glass, exhausted and beaten.

Nate looked at Dominika to see if she saw the same thing.

“And what does Hall C have to do with this?” said Dominika, relentless.

“I received permission from the Council to assemble ten cascades — seventeen hundred machines — in a separate hall. Hall C is a technical marvel, precisely designed. New machines are being brought in. Quality assemblage, the best technicians, a goal to manage a modest cascade with utterly reliable, uninterrupted performance.” Dominika repeated this to Nate.

“Ask him for what reason,” said Nate to Dominika in Russian.

Another sip of scotch. “We are attempting to boost our limited quantity of twenty percent enriched stock to ninety percent, even if it is enough for only a single weapon. When Hall C is complete, we are going to push production. In industrial terms, I am commencing a production dash, a hojoom, to enrich to weapons-grade uranium.” He lifted his head and pointed his goatee at Dominika. “While the world inspects our facilities and Tel Aviv and Washington and London calculate the months and years it will take the hapless Persians to achieve success in their program, Jamshidi in Hall C will deliver enough material for a weapon, perhaps two, in a very short time, Allah willing.” Dominika translated for Nate, and he could hear the timbre of her voice, unsettled, forcing control.

“When does the dash begin?” said Nate to Dominika. This intel is going to rock the Intelligence Community, he thought. And the politicians in the White House and on the Hill will be wetting their seat cushions, frantically calculating the ramifications.

“The hojoom cascade will be tested in stages — primary, secondary, tertiary ranks. We will evaluate individual performance characteristics of the new machines as they are brought online, as well as their collective ability to operate at peak efficiency in a cascade for extended periods of time. This will take a month or two after construction is complete.”

“Ask him if he has current performance figures for each machine,” said Nate. He glanced down at the Line X requirements, way down the list of questions. “They’re measured in separative work units. SWUs, pronounced swooz.”

“I do not have the figures at my fingertips,” said Jamshidi. Bullshit, thought Nate. A scientist — whether Iranian or American — could recite the numbers from memory.

“Doctor,” said Dominika, the acid drip in her voice, “can you give us an estimate?”

Jamshidi looked at them both, his face dark and mottled. He opened his briefcase and took out a slim laptop, put it on the table, and lifted the screen. “I may have some figures in my files.” The laptop emitted a faint whine as it powered up.

Wonder what else is on that hard drive, thought Nate. It must be loaded. Maybe time to try something tricky. Unbeknownst even to Dominika, his TALON device had been recording the entire debrief from inside a slim courier-style strap bag hanging off the back of his chair. Langley wanted it all, the intel, the voices, the Russian requirements, the Sparrow, even how well their own asset DIVA — Dominika — debriefed an agent. Nate felt slightly guilty at deceiving her — especially since this false flag debrief was her idea in the first place — but this was, well, work.

Nate reached into his bag as if rummaging for a pen, activated a function on the TALON, and put the courier bag on the table, taking care to align the bottom of the bag facing and close to Jamshidi’s laptop. If he’d done it right, the TALON would interrogate and download the hard drive via infrared link through an IR transparent acrylic strip along the bottom of the bag. Jamshidi, oblivious, was reading the screen and mumbling.

“I will have to gather SWU values, I do not have them summarized in these files,” he said quickly, unconvincingly. That’s okay, brother, thought Nate, we have them already.

“Next time, then,” said Dominika. “You won’t forget, will you, Doctor?”

Jamshidi shook his head.

“Of course you won’t,” said Dominika. “But let me repeat the question. When does Hall C come online?” said Dominika. Jamshidi’s yellow halo was alternating weak and strong. He’s conflicted, she thought, every fact revealed is causing him physical pain. They could not continue to squeeze him much longer. He was fading. She began thinking about a second session.

“I will not commence full operations in Hall C without a test period while we integrate the entire cascade. The seventeen hundred machines are too valuable, our best cascade array,” Jamshidi said. “We still must acquire specialized structural equipment to ensure a stable floor.” Dominika translated this.

“Details,” said Nate to Dominika.

“We are only in the first stages. Procurement agents from our Atomic Energy Organization of Iran are canvassing industry sources.” Nate almost looked at Dominika, who shot him a glance.

“Who are these AEOI reps? What countries? How long?” asked Dominika. Jamshidi abruptly closed the screen of his laptop.

“No more for tonight,” said Jamshidi. “I need to collect more notes, to gather the information you ask for.” A temporizing delay, but acceptable for now, thought Dominika. She looked over and nodded at Nate. An agent operating under compromise was delicate, brittle, especially in the early stages. They wouldn’t push him further tonight. Nate nodded back. They had gotten a lot.

“Very well, Doctor,” said Dominika. “We specifically request this information on future procurement of structural equipment. We will meet in seven days, at this apartment, at the same time. Is that convenient for you?”

Jamshidi scowled and muttered, “I suppose so,” stuffed his laptop into his briefcase, and rose from the couch. Nate and Dominika stayed seated — no deference, no respect, keep him down — as he headed to the door.

Again on cue, Udranka came out of the bedroom and helped him shrug on his suit coat. From the entryway, Nate and Dominika heard her low tones and hot-velvet chuckle, telling him in syrupy French that she would see him tomorrow night, make him forget this beastly business, they’d play a little of his favorite game, all right? More laughter, a whisper. Jamshidi said good night and they heard the apartment door close, then the click of Udranka’s heels as she came into the living room. She poured three fingers of scotch and took a long swallow. She heeled out of one shoe, then kicked off the other, and stood barefoot in front of them, expressionless, her legs elegant and slim in a model’s hipshot pose. If she had been a smokestack she would have been trailing a plume of live steam.

“Guess,” Udranka said to Nate and Dominika. They looked up at her.

“He wanted to come back tonight, late, can you imagine?”

“It must have been all the talk about enriching uranium,” Dominika said.

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