Palace of Treason

37

Time check. 2219. Ten nineteen p.m. If something was going to happen, it could be now: For neither CIA nor SVR were clandestine meetings ever set exactly for the hour or half hour — too predictable. Despite the cool evening, Nate sweat under a black plastic hooded poncho and rubber boots as he crouched in the pitch-black of the fountain alcove behind the upper pool. The floor of the alcove was slick with algae, and the shin-high water smelled metallic and toxic. Looking through — around — the bubbling column of fountain water, Nate could barely see the empty terrace and silvery cascade basins below. Beyond the cascade the park was dark, backlighted faintly by orange city-glow.

The damn fountain jets were fouled or something, and the water column pulsed irregularly, high then low, splashing Nate’s poncho, which was keeping him only moderately dry. Nate worried that the water would make a noticeable rattle off the plastic, but there was a lot of covering noise — the three echoing and splashy alcove fountains emptying into the upper pool, arpeggio waves spilling into cascade basins below. Two previous nights of waiting in this stinky water wonderland had made him wish he had assigned either Fileppo or Proctor to the fountain alcove — let them squat for hours in a recirculated, copper-pipe-rancid ribollita, with green things floating around his boots like Italian veggie soup. But he knew he had to be here up top: He had to freeze Zarubina, and FBI personnel had to be the ones to lay hands on an American citizen arrestee for legal reasons. Okay, TRITON, you fucker, come on in.

Some vestigial Paleolithic instinct made Nate’s scalp creep — there was someone directly above his alcove, on the grassy mall level. There was no moonlight and no shadow, there were no voices. All was silent. But he could feel it, a scalp-crawly sense of a person approaching. A minute later, peering through the damn bubbling water, Nate saw a short figure glide soundlessly in front of him onto the terrace from the right. He held his breath and hoped he was invisible in the clammy black. It was Zarubina — Nate recognized her from the hundreds of photos in the FBI mug book on her. She wore a camel-hair outer coat, a scarf knotted loosely around her neck. Her honey-blond hair was up in a bun, and sturdy legs beneath the hem of her long coat ended in clunky mid-heel shoes. Zarubina stood quietly by the balustrade above the first of the basins and looked to her left, then turned to the right. She was slowly scanning the reaches of the empty park below her. You urban Apaches better be as good as you say you are, thought Nate, telegraphing to Fileppo and Proctor out there in the dark. Zarubina finished her turns and stood still, head down, a seriously spooky sight, some ancient priestess on the elevated altar, calling in the bat-winged gods. She’s listening, she’s feeling the vibe, thought Nate. Is she feeling the electrons coming out the tips of my fingers? Jesus, this grandmother can kill DIVA tonight. No she won’t, it will not happen.

Zarubina turned to look up at the top of the wall at mall level — brilliant black eyes, slightly hooded, passed over Nate’s alcove — and nodded once. Her team would keep looser watch — she had signaled the all clear. She moved closer to the terrace balustrade, put both hands on the cement, and leaned forward like a dictator on a balcony giving a speech to the masses below. She reached up and loosened her scarf from around her neck and draped it over the balustrade so that a discreet corner of it hung down. Safety signal. Wait, wait, wait, Nate telegraphed to the men down below.

Nate didn’t move for two minutes — 120 seconds that felt like two hours — and then he saw the head and shoulders of a tall angular figure come up the stairs from W Street. He moved slowly, and started up the left-hand staircase along the cascade. Are you TRITON? The man held his head down, his hands jammed into his pockets. Nate strained to see his face, to identify him from the halls of Headquarters. Come on. The man stopped climbing the broad stairs a third of the way up and raised his head to look at the upper terrace and Zarubina. He saw her darkened figure and took one hand out his jacket and raised it briefly. Yeah, wave hello. Zarubina did not respond, but the man resumed trudging up the steps. He was halfway up now.

From the bottom of the stairwell the shadow of a spirit, a winged ogre, flew out of the thick border hedge, planted hands on the brick wall at the bottom of the stairs, vaulted onto the bottom step, and started running up the stairs. Fileppo. At the same instant — how had they timed their moves so closely? — Proctor materialized from inside a privet hedge bordering the opposite stairwell, glided over the steps, and walked, arms outstretched for balance, along the lip of a lower basin to cross the cascade. It looked like he was walking on water. This took four seconds. Zarubina bellowed like a man as the two figures converged on TRITON, who, with amazing quickness, ran up two steps then sideways straight into a hedge, which swallowed him up amid great crunching and snapping of branches. Proctor and Fileppo both broke right — one into the gap plowed by TRITON, the other through a break in the hedge two steps below. The Cape hunting dogs were on the impala.

On the fifth second of the action, a flashlight started shining on the lower part of the stairway, a voice called, and the light started coming up. Nate saw the silhouette of a flat-brimmed campaign hat — the lemon squeezers worn by frigging US park rangers. He obviously had heard the sound of exploding foliage and the buffalo trumpeting of a Russian intelligence officer, and had appeared to chase away what he thought were kids. There was no time for this. Nate came out of the alcove, swung down to the pool, caught his poncho liner under one of his boots and went down on his hands and knees in the elbow-deep water. He got up, pounded to the edge, and swung his legs out — his boots were full of water. He shucked them off and looked for the old lady. Zarubina was gone, the terrace was empty. She hadn’t moved either to the left or right. Then he heard the splashing. Caught between Nate splashing like an asshole behind her, and the park ranger coming up at her, she had vaulted the balustrade and was sloshing down the cascade, one basin at a time, to evade contact. It was impossible to see her in the darkness, but she was noisily displacing a lot of water.

Nate vaulted the balustrade and started down after her. How hard is it going to be running down a fifty-five-year-old woman? The floor of the top basin was slimy and Nate skidded, then caught himself on the lip. He swung his legs over and lowered himself into the next, slightly larger, basin, a three-foot drop. Eleven more. He could barely see the cascade by the city-glow in the sky, but he could hear splashing below him — Zarubina was down there. He wondered about Fileppo and Proctor and imagined them on top of TRITON, pushing him facedown in the dirt. He could imagine the cricket zip of the flex cuffs as they secured his wrists. Nate slithered over the lip of the basin — ten more — and wondered where they were. Where are the sirens?

They had to bag TRITON. He knew Dominika’s true name.

The night was brisk and quiet, even peaceful. Angevine had parked Vikki’s car — a ridiculous candy-apple red Kia Rio with a feathered Navajo dreamcatcher talisman hanging from the rearview mirror — a block from the park, against a wrought-iron fence on Ecuador Alley, a typical Washington alleyway used by garbage trucks that ran behind apartment buildings and the garages of row houses. He could cut unobserved through backyards, get to Fifteenth Street, and enter the park as the Russians had instructed him, from the W Street end. Vikki had asked him why he wanted to borrow her car when he had a perfectly good BMW — a sweet new gunmetal gray M3, seventy-two thousand MSRP that he bought when he got tired of the Audi S7 — but he could hardly explain that he wasn’t parking a BMW in a Washington alley while he went to meet the Russians.

He was looking forward to seeing Zarubina tonight. He had rehearsed a dramatic little speech about the immense value of the name he was about to provide, and how the bonus for the information should be commensurately large. He dallied with the idea of haggling over money before actually handing over Gamma. But haggling would serve no purpose; the Russians already had paid him handsomely and would continue to do so. Maintaining good will was important, especially ever since Zarubina had told him President Putin himself had sent respectful greetings to TRITON. Angevine imagined himself being hosted by Putin in some luxurious snow-draped dacha during a surreptitious visit to Moscow. A roaring fire, ice-cold vodka, and a long-legged Ukrainian beauty on a bearskin rug. There would be plenty of those — Putin liked fucking Ukrainians.

No, he’d hand over Gamma right away and save the daydreams for later. He rolled the memorized name around in his head, practiced saying it. Dominika Vasilyevna Egorova. Apparently the idiots in Operations were reduced to recruiting women now. He’d utter the name personally to amp up the drama, and Zarubina’s sweet, cake-baking grandmother’s expression would melt into the vulturine face of the Soviet raptor anticipating the kill. Angevine had seen that face.

He could hardly wait. All the money in the world, and paying back the donkeys in the Agency who didn’t see fit to acknowledge him. He was across the park and starting up the stairs. There she was, a dark blob behind the balustrade, and the tail of the light-colored scarf just discernible against the stone. There was a quiet scuffling behind him, and a rustling of hedge to the side. He turned and saw a banshee ape bounding up the stairs and another faceless nightmare approaching from his left. A bellow from Zarubina sent voltage up his spine, and Angevine moved before the conscious thought registered. He leaped up two steps, then plowed through a hedge to his right, feeling branches volleying against his outstretched arms and his face.

He exploded out of the hedge and ran through a stand of trees, hearing footsteps and the chuffing of a sprinting athlete behind him. His lungs were about to burst and he expected to feel arms around his legs in a flying tackle. Running with the desperation of a fugitive, Angevine dug into his pocket and took out CYCLOPS, a three-inch aerosol dispenser developed by CIA for the Second Gulf War containing a fine, pink powder compound of phenacyl chloride and dipropylene glycol methyl ether — intended as an alternative to pepper spray — which, if sprayed into the mucus membranes of the eye, caused severe pain and a temporary loss of sight. Angevine had palmed two CYCLOPS units after a laboratory demonstration that he, as CIA associate director of Military Affairs, had attended. As the pink fog puffed out of the little dispenser, Fileppo’s exceptional reflexes saved him at the last minute: he ducked and only a few grains of the powder hit his face, but the pain was intense and his left eye shut down like an out-of-focus telescope lens. Fileppo grunted and toppled over, holding his eye. Angevine jammed the little aerosol in his pocket and kept running.

He was being chased like a common purse snatcher. Sobbing, Angevine vaulted over the low brick wall onto the sidewalk on Fifteenth Street, sprinted across the street, and cut behind a building. Tasting the phlegm in his throat, he crouched behind a Dumpster in the alley and listened. No footsteps. Was he clear? Normally he’d wait, but he had to get away from there. His hands and face were scratched and bruised. He crossed the alley, stepped over a low chain-link gate, skirted a building, and came out right where he had parked Vikki’s car. With shaking fingers he unlocked the door, started the engine, and drove down the alley with his lights off. He made himself drive slowly. At a dog leg in the alley he turned on his lights and saw a face, crimson in his taillights, growing in his rearview mirror. Someone running faster than he was driving — and gaining. Angevine floored it, came out on Fourteenth Street in a squealing turn, and barreled down the street, turning right then left, then right again. Whoever it was had been close enough to read Vikki’s license plate.

Zarubina saw movement from and understood in a flash of professional clarity. Her bellow was one of rage, of the impossibility that her will was being challenged. In the instant she saw TRITON crash through the hedge, she also heard splashy movement from behind, then spotted the bouncing beam of a flashlight coming up the far staircase. Yulia Zarubina, Shveja, the Seamstress, did not hesitate. She swung her legs painfully over the balustrade to drop into the uppermost basin. She was going to wade downstream, split the seam, and slip between them. As she moved forward, she shucked off her already waterlogged coat — it sank and hung suspended under the surface. Zarubina swung her legs over the rim and lowered herself into the next basin, losing her grip and sitting down in the water with a squishy bump. Ponderously, she got up and slogged forward. There was a moving pulse of pain — like a rose thorn being dragged across her inner wrist — and her hand felt numb. The sound of splashing from above made her move faster, to the basin rim, and over, and to the next, and over. Her shoes had come off and her matronly dress, buttoned up the front, was soaked and clung to her ample bosom and around her stubby legs. Her breathing was hard, her chest felt like it was compressed.

She kept hearing splashes behind her, prodigious amounts of water were cascading ahead of her, and she slid off another basin rim and waded forward. She was getting the rhythm of sitting, pivoting the legs and easing down into the next basin. The flashlight had passed her and continued up the stairs — one threat evaded, but the sloshing noise from above was growing. Sit, pivot, slide down. Try to breathe. Two more basins to go, then she would come the lower pool, then the park exit to the right, where her surveillance team would swoop in and pick her up, alerted by all the noise. Zarubina trudged through the water — the basins were larger the farther down she got — when she felt a hammer blow of pain in her left arm. She put her hand under her armpit to ease the ache, which was seeping up her neck to her jaw.

Zarubina felt dizzy as she sat and pivoted her legs to slide into the last basin before the bottom pool. Her walking was unsteady and her breath came in shallow gasps. The park, and the trees, and the fountain, and all this damn water — everything was moving — and the orange glow of the night sky was pulsing. Zarubina sat heavily on the last basin rim and swung her legs around, but couldn’t slide down. She sat, legs dangling, fighting the pain that was coming in waves, just like the sheets of water sliding under her thighs and around her legs. She could taste the pain. Her left arm hung numbly at her side. She heard a terrible rushing sound in her ears and looked up again at the night sky, now crossed by pinpoints of light, and a new surge of pain exploded in her chest.

Zarubina’s head went back, eyes staring and mouth open, and she slowly pitched forward and belly-flopped into the bottom pool. She floated facedown, arms underneath her, the softly falling water rocking her stocking feet. Her hair, knocked loose from its bun, fanned out in the black water, a Soviet Ophelia sadly not to be mourned by her blue-eyed prince in the Kremlin.

Nate slid down into the last basin. She was gone. Impossible, he had been seconds behind her. Then he saw her floating in the bottom pool. He vaulted the rim, splashed his way to her, and picked her head out of the water. She stared at him with small black eyes. Her mouth was slack and a strand of green weed was stuck to the side of her face. Nate tried to hold her weight and drag her to the edge of the pool to haul her out and get her on dry pavement. There was the sound of running footsteps and Fileppo appeared out of the dark, a hand over one eye. He helped Nate haul Zarubina out and they started working on her. Nate clenched his hands and began pushing her chest — the metronome beat of the pop hit “Stayin’ Alive” was the required 103 beats a minute. Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin’ alive.

“Get some air into her,” said Nate, pumping. A cupful of dirty water spurted out of Zarubina’s mouth.

Fileppo looked at Nate. “Dude, you speak Russian,” he said.

“You’re not conjugating verbs, Donnie, blow into her mouth.” As Donnie bent forward, Nate saw his red-rimmed, swollen eye. He kept compressing Zarubina’s chest.

“What happened to your eye? Tell me you got him,” said Nate. Donnie came up from Zarubina’s mouth.

“Fucking guy sprayed me with some kind of fucking blinding agent,” he said, leaning down again. Nate kept pushing. Zarubina stared up at them.

“Tell me you got him,” said Nate again.

Fileppo turned his head to speak. “Lew chased him into an alley.”

“Why didn’t you light up the troops? They should have swarmed the area,” said Nate. Blue-lipped Zarubina listened to the conversation while staring at the sky, her head rocking slightly as Nate pushed at her chest.

“I don’t know,” said Donnie miserably. “Proctor had the SHRAPNEL unit.” He bent down again and blew into Zarubina’s mouth and her cheeks puffed out.

It got crowded suddenly. Proctor appeared from the W Street entrance, drenched in sweat and panting. The park ranger, flashlight in hand, came breathlessly from the other side of the cascade. She was a slight girl with black bangs in a Park Service parka and wearing her campaign hat with the strap under her chin. She shone her light on Zarubina’s blue face.

“What’s going on?” she said, looking at the men.

“Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, Officer,” said red-eyed Fileppo, coming up for air.

“We’re G-men,” said Proctor. “We’re attempting to revive this woman.” The park ranger goggled at him. Do they actually call themselves that? thought Nate.

“You have a radio?” said Proctor. The ranger moved her bangs.

“Call the DC cops, get an ambulance here.” The girl moved fast enough and started talking into her brick, the stubby antenna quivering as she held it in shaking hands.

Proctor looked at Nate, who was still pumping Zarubina’s chest, and his expression said it all. These street guys, like Nate, knew there were no excuses, not even when bad luck and fate went against you. “I lost the signaling unit when I went through the hedge,” said Proctor bitterly. “Then Donnie got his ass kicked, and I chased the son of a bitch across Fifteenth following the sounds of flying garbage cans and dogs barking. Then I lost him, but there’s something else,” he said, explaining.

The sirens began softly at first, then filled the air like a discordant flooding tide, and the surrounding buildings, park fountains, tree tops, and faces of the statues flashed blue-red-yellow as the sirens subsided with growls and car doors began chunking and the squeak of gurney wheels grew louder. Nate and Donnie got out of the way as the EMTs popped Zarubina’s dress buttons and put paddles on her and she flopped twice, but she wasn’t coming back.

Montgomery and Benford finally appeared, looking like death. Proctor stepped up, grabbed Montgomery by the elbow, and took him aside. Benford, Nate and Fileppo followed, walking away from the crowd gathered around Zarubina’s body, her feet sticking out between their legs. Benford looked up at the sky and closed his eyes.

“You lost the signaling device?” said Benford.

Proctor nodded.

“And you were spritzed?” Benford asked.

Fileppo nodded.

“Could you identify him in a line up?” asked Montgomery.

They both shook their heads.

“So the guy got away?” Benford asked. “TRITON, the Center’s penetration of CIA, the man who knows the true name of our premier source inside Russia, is running loose?”

“Simon, the Russians have a saying,” said Nate. “Eto yeshshyo tsvyetóchki a yágodki vpyeryedí. These are just flowers, berries will come soon.”

Benford turned a baleful eye on Nate.

“Nathaniel, if this is how you wish to tender your resignation to leave federal service and pursue a career teaching Russian at Walden Online University, it is accepted immediately,” said Benford, turning to Fileppo and Proctor. “And these colleagues no doubt will be able to find employment as choreographers for the Ice Capades.”

“Mr. Benford, with all due respect,” said Fileppo, “go fuck yourself.”

“Everybody take it easy,” said Montgomery.

“What I meant by flowers and berries,” said Nathaniel, “is that the best may yet be ahead. Proctor, tell them.”

“I got the plates off a moving car in the alleyway,” said Proctor. “The guy jackrabbited away when he saw me.” Montgomery called a FEEB special agent over and Proctor gave him the plate number to run an urgent trace.

“It could be a civilian,” said Proctor.

“Why’d he burn rubber?” said Montgomery.

“With that face approaching in a dark alley? Anyone would,” said Benford. Proctor opened his mouth, but Montgomery put up his hand. Behind them, Zarubina was zipped into a metro DC coroner’s rubber bag and lifted with a thump onto the gurney. The SA came back after having called in the plate. Montgomery read off a notepad.

“Car belongs to a Vikki Mayfield,” said Montgomery. “Lives in Glover Park, on Benton Street.”

“That’s a few blocks from the Russian Embassy on Wisconsin,” said Fileppo, the street guy.

Benford scowled at all of them. “Flowers before berries,” he said, shaking his head. “Charles, may I suggest you do a full run up on this Mayfield woman?”

Montgomery nodded.

“And now it’s time for the Gs,” said Benford. “A straight surveillance.” He turned to Proctor.

“And before you leave for the evening, would you be so kind to root around in those hedges to see if you could possibly retrieve the SHRAPNEL unit? It is worth possibly the equivalent of three years of your salary.”

“Sure thing, Mr. Benford,” said Proctor. “Where shall I put it when I find it?”

Sauté diced onions in olive oil and tomato paste until translucent, then add diced carrots, celery, zucchini, leek, and cubed potatoes, and cook until soft. Cover the vegetables with chicken broth, add chopped kale, chard, and cabbage, and bring to a boil. Add cannellini beans, salt, and pepper and simmer. Add cubes of stale Tuscan bread to the soup and mix well. Serve with a drizzle of oil and/or balsamic vinegar and grated Parmesan.