Palace of Treason

29

Dominika had two more nights in Athens before her flight back to Moscow. Benford had returned the day before to Washington, the day Dominika had filed her recommendation to the Center to recall LYRIC. Nate had met the general and once again prepped him on the exfil drill. Everything was on a hair trigger.

Safe house TULIP: There was always a sense of edgy urgency during the last meetings with a source who was going back inside. The CIA officers pushed hard for hours, knowing she could handle it — and also aware of the probability that Dominika could not travel out of Russia again anytime soon. It could be years before they saw her again.

“When you get back to the ranch,” Gable said, “put the hurt on that bug-eyed riverbank freak Zyuganov. Keep him off balance. Take credit for a counterintelligence victory. You solved it.”

Having understood fully one half of what Gable had just said, Dominika smiled at him. Steady, rich purple swirled around his head.

“And when President Vladimir calls you to the Kremlin to pat you on the fanny, wear something nice,” said Gable, winking at her. “Real high heels, so you tower over him.”

Dominika rolled her eyes.

“Domi, taking credit and improving your position with Putin comes with a risk,” said Forsyth. “As long as you’re a favored subordinate you will have influence. But you also will be resented by others, inside the Kremlin and out. And if you slip out of favor the fall could be a long one.” Forsyth’s halo was bright blue; he was concerned.

“There’s another risk,” said Nate. “If Benford catches TRITON, the Center is going to be looking at why their case crashed. You have to distance yourself.” He was thinking of Yevgeny — he was a traceable link and if he were interrogated he could put Dominika in real danger. Nate ignored the image in his head of a faceless Yevgeny in Dominika’s arms.

Gable poured her another finger of ouzo and filled the tumbler with water. “You got two, maybe three, personnel meetings with our officer coming up,” he said. “I want you to use maximum caution — you see something you don’t like, get the hell out of there.”

Dominika patted his hand.

“Do you want to review the Sparrow Hills meeting site?” said Nate.

Dominika shook her head. “You have told me this officer who will meet me is very good,” said Dominika. “I believe you all, but I will make up my own mind when I see her on the street.” She was still deciding whether to build up a serious case of grudge against this twenty-seven-year-old woman.

“Make it a quick look,” said Gable. “The meet should be four minutes, max. Our gal will have the equipment package for your contingency exfil kit.” Gable ran his fingers through his brush cut. “You two will have plenty of time to get acquainted later,” he said.

“She’ll have everything you need,” said Nate. “She’ll be all trained up.”

“Why do you call her she, instead of Hannah?” said Dominika, impatient.

Forsyth and Gable looked casually at Nate. They were exceptional readers of human emotions and, with the instincts of twitchy dogs in earthquake country, understood the situation. Jealousy, mistrust, and competition had no place in a denied area operation, regardless of gender, ego, or personality. Forsyth made a mental note to suggest to Benford that another Moscow case officer be assigned to meet Dominika in Moscow, even though he expected Benford would refuse. He knew Hannah Archer was Benford’s young star, hand-picked and performing magnificently.

Gable, more earthy and cynical, suspected the worst. He looked at Forsyth and telegraphed that he would be giving Nash a high colonic the next morning in the Station, a service euphemism for scaring him shitless. Nate, sitting at the end of the couch and no slouch himself in reading signals, knew he was seriously in the red. And he was furious — with her and with himself. Dominika stood apart and watched the aurora borealis display of their respective haloes collide and separate, thinking that Tchaikovsky would be suitable accompanying music, all cannons and cymbals.

Her CIA men were too good to air internal problems in front of her, but Dominika knew she had just put Nate into the banya, the steam bath, and that, judging from the look on Gable’s face and his swirling purple halo, he would be waiting for Nate tomorrow with the eucalyptus switch. She didn’t know why she did it, but Dominika felt unsettled, a little twitchy. First it’s your temper, now you’ve become a green-eyed klikusha, a hysterical jealous demoniac, she thought. Idiotka, concentrate on your work. Focus on the Gray Cardinals in the Kremlin, reserve your spite for them. She looked furtively at Nate as the men gathered their papers and filed to the door.

Dominika kissed Forsyth on the cheek three times as he left. She hugged Gable, smiling into his eyes. “Will you give me a ride to my hotel?” she said, not looking at Nate. A contrary streak was building up in her, and she reserved the right to be petty about this Hannah. So she would leave, not stay behind with Nate. She did this for Nate, letting Gable see they wouldn’t be together tonight. She ached for him, ached to feel him inside her, but she gave up loving him tonight because she loved him so much. She looked back at Nate as she left.

“Do not worry,” she whispered. “I am all right.”

Udranka was in the corner of the room watching the entire drama. Do what you want, she said, but don’t expect me to agree.

Nate never got his high colonic the next morning. At opening of business, the ops phone behind Margie’s desk rang, and when she picked it up she heard a low quavering whistle, repeated twice. Margie stuck her head around the corner of her boss’s office door, then into the office next door. Forsyth and Gable together walked through the interior network of rooms to Nate’s little office, nearly at the end of the row, where he was drafting a cable to Headquarters on the safe house meeting last night. Gable looked down at Nate and briefly mimed whistling. Outside the secure room, they would not speak DIVA’s cryptonym aloud, nor would they refer to her bird-call telephone signal, triggering an emergency meeting — Nate checked his watch — in one hour.

Gable and Nate arrived at the safe house separately fifteen minutes apart. There was an empty tumbler from last night on the low table in the living room with a faint trace of lipstick. Gable and Nate saw it at the same time — they were racked with concern for her. They did a quick check of the apartment, then Gable went back down to the street to set up and watch her walk in.

Nate heard the elevator clunk to a stop on the landing, the squeak of its door, then Gable’s key in the lock. Dominika stormed into the safe house living room with pogrom and pillage on her face. She was wearing a light beige sweater, pleated navy skirt, and black leather flats. Her hair was messily up and she wore no makeup, which Nate always thought suited her classical features. Not this Visigoth morning though. Nate willed himself not to stare at DIVA’s nipples showing under her sweater — less sexy than threat display. Gable walked in behind her, and both CIA officers waited, cataloging ashtrays and tables lamps that could turn into projectiles. Dominika stood in the middle of the room. Her voice was flat but her eyes were animal eyes, shifting from Nate to Gable and back.

“The recall cable from Moscow arrived last night,” she said. “There would have been no trouble, Solovyov had a day or two to prepare for travel. But this morning the old fool comes into the office and tells me proudly that his service has offered him the directorship of a highly classified project. He is convinced that he has been vindicated and that he is returning to a position of influence and prestige.”

“We told him a hundred times he’s under suspicion,” said Gable. “He said he was ready to bolt the minute we rang the bell.”

“Well, Bratok, he seems to have forgotten your words,” said Dominika. She started pacing three steps one way, three steps the other, her arms crossed in front of her. “He is a lotus-eater, he believes they want him back!”

“Did he say when he was leaving?” said Nate. “Did he mention a flight?”

Dominika looked at him sideways as she paced, clutching herself. “I sat there, listening to him — I couldn’t blink — knowing he was headed straight into the cells. What could I say? ‘General, you might remember the words of your CIA officer that you are under suspicion, that this recall is a ruse, and that your escape to America is arranged?’ I had to sit there and nod.”

“Domi, when did he say he was leaving?” repeated Nate.

“He told me the one o’clock Aeroflot was full, so he was looking at something earlier,” said Dominika. Nate looked at his watch. She stopped pacing and squared off in front of Nate and Gable.

“He’s gone,” she said. “The GRU security officer will drive him to the airport and stay with him until he boards. So forget it. He’s in the Butyrka cellars and he doesn’t even know it.” She walked to the couch, sat down, crossed her legs, and started bouncing her foot. Then she got up again and paced to the window, parting the curtains to look out briefly. Gable looked at Nate and gestured with his head, then went into the kitchen and started opening cupboards and clinking glasses. Nate stood in the middle of the room.

“Dominika, come over and sit down,” Nate said, gesturing to the couch. She looked at him over her shoulder.

“Of course,” she said. “Let’s review the next name on the list you want me to eliminate.”

“Domi,” said Nate softly, “will you sit down or would you like me to kick your butt to the couch?”

Dominika’s head snapped around and she saw dragon tails of purple behind Nate’s head. She flashed to a battered Nate dragging her through the Danube swamp and across the bridge in Vienna. He’d had the same expression that time as he did now. Dominika swallowed the bile in her throat, came around the back of the couch, slumped in the single armchair, and glared at him.

“If you think you can kick—”

“Don’t try me,” said Nate. “Will you shut up and listen to me?” Gable came out of the kitchen with three glasses of ouzo and a store-bought food container that he had found in the refrigerator. He set the tray on the table in front of the couch.

“You might want to listen to him, sweet pea,” said Gable, looking at Dominika. “This is bad, really bad. LYRIC is his agent. Just like you’re his agent.”

Gable had hit her over the head with it, and Dominika was furious.

“You told me Solovyov would be taken to the United States,” said Dominika. “You all told me that you had the escape plan settled with the general. Now he’s on a plane to Moscow and they will be waiting for him at the airport.”

“Do you think we want it this way?” said Nate.

“Whether you want it or not, once again you bastards have made me responsible for putting a good man in his grave,” said Dominika. She crossed her legs as she sat and started bouncing her foot again.

“Yeah, well a lot of good men — and women — get screwed in this game,” said Nate. “Maybe the point is we protect a lot of others in the balance.”

“Did you know this would happen?” said Dominika. They had made love on this couch, and again standing up at the kitchen sink, and he had known all along.

“Listen, Dominika,” said Nate, “this is not a plot. We didn’t use you to put the general away. He was our asset.”

“You wanted me to expose him, to improve my position,” said Dominika. “I never should have agreed.”

Nate shook his head. “You heard Benford,” he said. “The general — LYRIC — was already exposed by that son-of-a-bitch mole in Washington. LYRIC knew it — I told him, and he took it calmly. He was all set to resettle in the United States. He was always headstrong, an old soldier who was grieving for his lost kids, but still a patriot at heart. He made himself believe his people wanted him back. He wanted to go back. Maybe a little part of him knows the truth, but the Russian officer in him wants to believe otherwise.”

“Get it out of your mind that this was some slick move,” said Gable. “It’s TARFU. We’ll be answering questions from Washington for weeks. Forsyth and me, as chief and deputy, but especially droopy over there, as LYRIC’s handler. No one likes to lose an agent.”

“What is this TARFU?” said Dominika. Gable sometimes spoke in tongues.

“It means Totally and Royally Fucked Up,” said Gable, pouring more ouzo.

“You will be censured?” said Dominika, looking at Nate.

“They’ll second-guess him for months,” said Gable. “But we gotta keep doing our jobs. Just like you.” Dominika slumped in her chair, arms crossed. She hadn’t thought of the implications for Nate — now she felt doubly responsible.

“And that means — look at me — that means you have to keep doing your job,” said Nate. “And you have to stay safe. And part of that means staying strong against Zyuganov. And if it means in two days you have to go down into the cellars and slap LYRIC across the face, you fucking do it.”

Dominika had not thought of the very likely possibility that Zyuganov would drag her to sessions in the prison with LYRIC. One CIA mole would be interrogating another, knowing the truth, with the poisonous dwarf looking at both their faces. If her expression had not shown her unease, the shiver that ran through her certainly would. The CIA men saw it instantly.

“I will not do that,” she said.

“You remember what I told you both in Vienna?” said Gable. “That someday you’re gonna have to make a decision that’ll make you taste your stomach behind your teeth, but you got no choice, and maybe it even means hurting someone you respect and trust. Well, it happened today and it’ll happen again tomorrow, and the next day.” Gable looked at his watch. “It’s almost one o’clock. You hungry?”

Dominika shook her head. Gable peeled the foil off the aluminum container. Three small eggplants, stuffed with tomatoes and glossy with oil, lay in a row. Gable looked at Nate. “You want one?” Nate shook his head. Gable pushed the container away. He got up and shrugged on his coat.

“Whatta we doing now?” said Gable. “You going back to your embassy?”

Dominika nodded.

“Then we see you tonight as usual?” said Gable.

Dominika nodded. “I leave tomorrow on Aeroflot,” she said.

“Anything you need?” said Gable.

Dominika shook her head.

“Okay, give me ten minutes to clear the street,” said Gable. “See you tonight.”

“Goodbye, Bratok,” said Dominika. They didn’t hear the elevator — he had taken the stairwell. They sat down across from each other, not saying anything. Nate’s purple halo was incandescent; it pulsed with energy. Dominika wanted to sit down next to him and put her arms around him, but she would not: LYRIC’s disastrous decision, her lingering resentment, and her imminent return to Russia had settled on her like a heavy blanket. She had heard Bratok, and she now knew what bile tasted like behind her teeth. Dominika checked her watch and stood up.

“I’m going now,” she said.

“See you tonight,” said Nate. “Same car site as yesterday?”

“Same time?” said Dominika. She wondered if the evening would end with them in bed.

They both would have been immeasurably sad had they known then that they would not be able to say goodbye to each other.

Slit small eggplants to make a pocket, then bake until soft. Sauté thinly sliced onions, garlic, and thin wedges of tomatoes, salt, sugar, dill, and parsley. Stuff the pockets of the eggplants with filling and drizzle with olive oil. Add water, sugar, and lemon juice to the bottom of a pan, cover, and cook over low heat, basting occasionally until the eggplants are nearly collapsed and the juice in the pan is thickened. Cool and serve at room temperature.