Red Sparrow

2

The next morning, at opposite ends of Moscow, in two separate offices, there was unpleasantness. At SVR headquarters in Yasenevo, First Deputy Director Ivan (Vanya) Dimitrevich Egorov was reading the FSB surveillance logs from the previous night. Watery sunlight filtered through massive plate-glass windows overlooking the dark pine forest that surrounded the building. Alexei Zyuganov, Egorov’s diminutive Line KR counterintelligence chief, stood in front of his desk, not having been invited to sit down. Zyuganov’s close friends, or perhaps just his mother, called the poisonous dwarf “Lyosha,” but not this morning.

Vanya Egorov was sixty-five years old, a major general with seniority. He had a large head with tufts of graying hair over the ears, but otherwise he was bald. His wide-set brown eyes, fleshy lips, broad shoulders, ample belly, and large muscular hands gave him the look of a circus strongman. He wore a beautifully cut dark winter-weight suit, an Augusto Caraceni from Milan, with a somber dark blue necktie. His shoes, glossy black, were Edward Green of London, out of the dip pouch.

Egorov had been an average KGB field officer in the early years of his career. Several tepid tours in Asia convinced him that life in the field was not his preference. Once back in Moscow, he excelled in the internecine politics of the organization. He mastered a succession of high-profile internal jobs, first in planning positions, then in administration, and finally in the newly created Inspector General’s position. He was active and prominent in the changeover from KGB to SVR in 1991, chose the right side during Kryuchkov’s abortive 1992 KGB coup against Gorbachev, and in 1999 was noticed by the phlegmatic First Deputy Prime Minister Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, a blond scorpion with languid blue eyes. The next year Yeltsin was out and Putin was, remarkably, implausibly, in the Kremlin, and Vanya Egorov waited for the call he knew must come.

“I want you to look after things,” Putin had then told him in a heady five-minute interview in the elegant Kremlin office, the rich wood of the walls eerily reflected in the new president’s eyes. They both knew what he meant, and Vanya went back to Yasenevo first as Third Deputy Director, then Second, until last year, when he moved into the First Deputy Director’s office, across the carpeted hallway from the Director’s suite.

There had been some anxiety leading up to the elections last March, the goddamn journalists and opposition parties unfettered as never before. The SVR had looked after some dissidents, had discreetly operated at polling places, and had reported on select opposition parliamentarians. A cooperative oligarch had been directed to form a splinter party to siphon off votes and fracture the field.

Then Vanya himself had risked everything, had really taken a chance, when he personally suggested that Putin blame Western—specifically US—interference for the demonstrations leading up to the elections. The candidate loved the suggestion, eyes unblinking, as he contemplated Russia’s comeback on the world stage. He had clapped Vanya on the back. Perhaps it was because their careers so resembled each other, perhaps because they both had accomplished little as intel officers during brief overseas assignments, or perhaps one informant recognized a fellow nashnik. Whatever it was, Putin liked him, and Vanya Egorov knew he would be rewarded. He was close to the top. He had the time, and the power, to continue to advance. It was what he wanted.

But the handler at a snake farm inevitably is bitten unless he exercises great care. Today’s Kremlin was suits and ties, press secretaries, smiling summit meetings, but anyone who had been around for any length of time knew that nothing had changed since Stalin, really. Friendship? Loyalty? Patronage? A misstep, an operational or diplomatic failure, or, worst of all, embarrassing the president, would bring the burya, the tempest, from which there would be no shelter. Vanya shook his head. Chert vozmi. Shit. This Nash episode was exactly what he didn’t need.

“Could surveillance have been more poorly managed?” Egorov raged. He was generally given to mild theatrics in front of his subordinates. “It’s obvious this little prick Nash met with a source last night. How could he have been out of pocket for more than twelve hours? What was surveillance doing in that district in the first place?”

“It appears they were looking for Chechens doing drug deals. God knows what the FSB is doing these days,” said Zyuganov. “That district, it’s a shithole down there.”

“And what about the crash in the alley? What was that?”

“It’s not clear. They claim the team thought they had cornered a Chechen and believed he was armed. I doubt it. They may have gotten excited in the chase.”

“Kolkhozniki. Peasants could do it better. I’ll have the director mention it to the president next Monday. We cannot have foreign diplomats harmed on the streets, even if they are meeting with Russian traitors,” said Egorov with a snort. “The FBI will start mugging our officers in Georgetown if this happens again.”

“I will pass the word too, at my level, General. The surveillance teams will get the message, especially, if I may suggest, if some time at katorga could be arranged.”

Egorov looked at his CI chief blankly, noting that he used the czarist name for gulag with wet-lipped relish. Jesus. Alexei Zyuganov was short and dark, with a fry-pan-flat face and prominent ears. Tent-peg teeth and a perpetual smirk completed the Lubyanka look. Still, Zyuganov was thorough, a malevolent minion who had his uses.

“We can criticize the FSB, but I tell you this, this American is meeting someone important. And those idiots just missed him, I’m sure of it.” Egorov threw the report on his desk. “So, can you guess what your job is going to be from this point onward?” He paused. “Find. Out. Who. It. Is.” Each word was punctuated with a tap on Egorov’s desk with a thick index finger. “I want that traitor’s head in a wicker basket.”

“I’ll make it a priority,” said Zyuganov, knowing that without more to go on, or without a specific lead from a mole inside the CIA, or without a break on the street, they would have to wait. In the meantime he could begin a few investigations, conduct an interrogation, just for art’s sake.

Egorov looked again at the surveillance report, a futile piece of work. The only confirmed fact was the identification of Nathaniel Nash at the Embassy gate. No sighting or description of anyone else. The driver of one of the surveillance cars (a photo of him with a sticking plaster over his left eye was included in the report, as if to justify the incident in the alley) positively identified Nash, as did the militiaman at the US Embassy compound entrance.

This could turn sweet or sour, thought Egorov. A splashy spy case solved to his credit while mortifying the Americans, or an embarrassing debacle displeasing the Kremlin and Egorov’s testosterone-fueled patron, resulting in the sudden end of his career. Depending on the president’s ire, this could include a bunk next to that ruined oligarch Khodorkovsky in Segezha Prison Colony Number Nine.

Morbidly contemplating the potential opportunities while recognizing the political consequences, Egorov that morning had called for and read Nate’s liternoye delo, the operational file: Young, active, disciplined, good Russian. Behaves himself regarding women and alcohol. No drugs. Diligent in cover position in the Embassy Economic Section. Effective while on the street, does not telegraph his operational intent. Egorov grunted. Molokosos. Whippersnapper. He looked up at his KR chief.

The hairs growing out of Zyuganov’s brain tingled and he sensed that he had to show more enthusiasm. First Deputy Director Egorov might not be a street operator, but he was a well-known species in the SVR zoo, a politically ambitious bureaucrat.

“Mr. Deputy Director, the key to finding the bastard who is selling our secrets is to focus on this young Yankee geroy, this hero. Put three teams on him. Wrap him in onionskins. Twenty-four hours a day. Order—better yet, ask—FSB to increase coverage, let them rattle around behind him, then put our own teams out at the margins. Give him a look, then take it away. See if he’s re-casing meeting sites. There will be another meeting in three to six months, that’s certain.”

Egorov liked the bit about onionskins, he would repeat it to the Director later today.

“All right, get started, let me know what your plans are so I can brief the director on our strategy,” said Egorov, dismissing the chief with a wave.

Brief the director on our strategy, thought Zyuganov as he left the office.

The US Embassy compound in Moscow is located northwest of Yasenevo, in the Presnensky District near the Kremlin and a sweeping bend in the Moskva River. Late that afternoon, another unpleasant conversation transpired in the office of the CIA Chief of Station, Gordon Gondorf. Much like the Line KR chief who had not been invited to sit down, Nate stood in front of Gondorf’s desk. His knee throbbed from the day before.

If Egorov’s imposing bulk made him look like a circus strongman, Gondorf’s small frame and pinched features made him look like a whippet in a circus dog act. Only about five feet six, Gondorf had thinning hair, pig’s eyes set too close together, and tiny feet. What he lacked in stature he amply made up for in venom. He trusted no one, and was unaware of the irony that he himself instilled trust in no one. Gondorf (“Gondork” behind his back) lived in a secret hell known only to a certain type of senior intelligence officer: He was in over his head.

“I read your ops report about the run last night,” said Gondorf. “Based on your write-up, I suppose you think the outcome was satisfactory?” Gondorf’s voice was flat and he spoke slowly, waveringly. Nate’s gut flipped in anticipation of the impending confrontation. Stand your ground.

“If you mean do I think the agent is safe, yes,” said Nate. He knew where Gondorf was going with this but left him to get there on his own.

“You almost got the Agency’s most prolific and important asset arrested last night. Your meeting was busted by surveillance, for Christ’s sake.”

Nate tamped down building anger. “I ran a twelve-hour SDR yesterday. The very SDR you approved. I confirmed my status. I was black when I got to the site, and so was MARBLE,” said Nate.

“How do you explain the surveillance, then?” said Gondorf. “You can’t possibly think it was random surveillance in the area. Tell me you don’t think that.” Gondorf’s voice dripped with sarcasm.

“That’s exactly what it was. There is no way they were searching for me, that bullshit in the alley, they weren’t following me from the start, no way. It was random and they reacted, no attempt to be discreet. MARBLE got away clean.” Nate registered that Gondorf wasn’t even concerned about the attempted wall smear. A different chief would have been in the ambassador’s office, raising hell, demanding the Embassy file a protest.

Switching barrels, Gondorf said, “Nonsense. The whole thing was a disaster. How could you have directed him to go down into the Metro? That’s a mousetrap. You ignored procedure when you pawed him to change his overcoat. He is supposed to do that himself. You know that! What if he’s fluorescing under a light wand right now?”

“I made the determination and the decision. I thought changing his profile and getting him out of the area was the priority. MARBLE’s a pro, he’ll know to get rid of the coat and cane. We can send him a message, I’ll verify with him at our next meeting,” said Nate. It was agony to argue this way, especially with a chief who didn’t know the street.

“There’s not going to be a next meeting. At least not with you. You’re too hot now. They ID’d you a dozen times last night, your Econ cover is gone, you’ll have half the surveillance directorate in Moscow on your ass from now on,” said Gondorf. He was visibly relishing the moment.

“They always knew this cover position. I always had coverage, you know that. I still can meet assets,” said Nate, leaning against a chair. Gondorf had a dummy hand grenade mounted on a wooden base on his desk. The plaque on it read COMPLAINT DEPARTMENT. PULL PIN FOR FASTER SERVICE.

“No, I don’t believe you can meet agents. You’re now a shit magnet,” said Gondorf.

“If they put that many resources on me we can bankrupt them,” argued Nate. “I can drain their manpower by driving all over town for the next six months. And the more coverage I get, the better we’ll be able to manipulate them.” Stand your ground.

Gondorf was unimpressed and unconvinced. This young case officer stud represented too much of a risk to him personally. Gondorf had his sights set on one of the big component jobs in Headquarters next year when he returned to Washington. It wasn’t worth the risk. “Nash, I’m recommending that your tour in Moscow be curtailed. You’re too hot and the opposition will be looking for a way to pick you off, catch your agents.” He looked up. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you get a good follow-on assignment.”

Nate was shocked. Even a first-tour officer knew a short-of-tour expulsion submitted by a COS—whatever the reason—could derail a career. He also was sure that Gondorf would use back channels to hint that Nate had fucked up. Nate’s unofficial reputation, his “hall file,” would take a hit, it would affect his promotions and future assignments. The old feeling of standing in black quicksand started coming back.

Nate knew the truth: He had saved MARBLE last night with quick and correct action. He looked down at Gondorf’s impassive face. They both knew what was happening and why. So to Nate there didn’t seem to be any point not to finish the conversation with a flourish. “Gondorf, you’re a gutless pussy who’s terrified of the street. You’re fucking me to avoid your responsibility. It’s been an education serving in your Station.”

As he left the office, Nate noted that the absence of a screaming tirade from his chief was indeed the measure of the man.

Kicked out of Station short of tour. Not as bad as getting an agent killed, stealing official funds, or fabricating reports, but still a disaster. How it would affect future assignments, promotions, Nate couldn’t tell, but the news would get around the minute the cable from Gondorf hit Headquarters. Some of his classmates from training were already on their second tours, making their bones. Rumor had it that one of them already had been offered a chief’s job in a small Station. The additional months of training for Moscow had put Nate behind the curve, and now this.

Even as he told himself not to fixate, Nate fretted. He had always been told to keep up, of the necessity of not falling behind, of the absolute requirement to win. He grew up in the genteel southern equivalent of a cage match where generations of Nashes had been raised in the Palladian family mansion on the bluffs along the south shore of the James. Nate’s grandfather and his father after him, respectively founder and reigning partner of Nash, Waryng, and Royall in Richmond, had sat in green-shaded studies, and sucked their teeth, and shot their cuffs. They had nodded approval as Nate’s brothers, one implausible with Julius Caesar curls, the other sweating and outrageous in a gamine comb-over, wrestled in their suits on the carpet, and learned just enough of the law, and married chesty belles who stopped talking when the men came into the room, blue eyes searching for approval.

But what y’all suppose we do about young Nate? they had asked one another. Graduated from Johns Hopkins with a degree in Russian literature, Nate sought refuge in the spiritual, ascetic world of Gogol, Chekhov, Turgenev, a world that brick-paved Richmond could not invade. His brothers howled and his father thought it a waste. It was expected that he would attend a law school—he was preapproved for acceptance at Richmond—and eventually fill a junior partner’s chair at the firm. The graduate degree in Russian from faraway Middlebury was therefore a problem, and the subsequent application to the CIA a family crisis.

“I believe you’ll find the life of a civil servant less than fulfilling,” his father had said. “I frankly cannot see you happy in that bureaucracy.” Nate’s father had known past directors. His brothers were less circumspect in their criticism. During a particularly riotous holiday meal, they started a family pool to predict how long Nate would last in the CIA. The high field was three or fewer years.

His application to the Central Intelligence Agency had nothing to do with escaping the suspenders and cuff links, with the crushing absoluteness of Richmond, or with the inevitability of the colonnaded mansion overlooking the river. It had nothing to do with patriotism either, really, though Nate was as patriotic as the next person. It had everything to do with the hammer in his chest when he at ten years of age made himself walk along the ledge of the mansion three floors up, level with the hawks over the river, to beat down the dread, to confront the raptors of fear and failure. It was about the strain between him and his father and grandfather and omnivore brothers, raucously demanding compliance from him while practicing none themselves.

It was the same hammer in his chest during interviews as he applied to the CIA, the heartbeat he had to still as he dissembled and jauntily affirmed how much he liked talking to people and meeting challenges and confronting ambiguity. But as the heartbeat slowed and his voice steadied, he had the quite remarkable epiphany that he actually could be coolheaded, and he could confront things he didn’t control. Working in the CIA was something he needed.

But real alarm slammed through him when a CIA recruiter informed Nate that it was unlikely his application would be accepted, mainly because he had no postgraduate “life experience.” Another interviewer, more optimistic than the other, confidentially told him his excellent Russian test scores made him a very attractive candidate. It took the CIA three months to decide, during which time his brothers noisily revised the family pool predicting the date of his return from the CIA. They were no less noisy when the envelope arrived. He was in.

Report for duty, sign the endless forms, file into a dozen classrooms, the months in Headquarters, cubicles, and conference rooms with the uninterested briefers and the eternity of projected presentations. Then finally the Farm, with the macadam roads running straight through the sandy pine forests and the linoleum dorm rooms, and the stale homerooms and the classrooms carpeted in gray, and the numbered students’ seats which belonged previously to last year’s heroes, to heroes forty years ago, faceless recruits, great spies or not, some gone wrong, the traitors, some long dead and remembered only by those who knew them.

They planned clandestine meetings and attended mock diplomatic receptions, mingling with loud, red-faced instructors wearing Soviet Army uniforms and Mao suits. They walked wet-to-the-knee through the piney woods, peering through a night scope and counting paces until they came to the hollow stump and the burlap-wrapped brick, the owls in the branches congratulating them for finding the cache. They were laid over the hot ticking hoods of their vehicles at pretend roadblocks, as instructor “border guards” shook sheaves of papers in their faces and demanded explanations. They sat in swaybacked American Gothic farmhouses along lonely country roads and drank vodka and convinced gibbering role players to commit treason. Through the pines, the slate-black river was furrowed by the talons of dusk-feeding ospreys.

What instinct enabled Nate to excel in practical exercises? He didn’t know, but he left the drag of family and Richmond behind and ran effortlessly on the street, under surveillance, coolly meeting instructor-agents bundled in coats and wearing implausible hats. They said he had the eye. He started to believe it, but the jackdaw challenges of his brothers hung over his head like a blunt instrument. Nate’s nightmare was failing, getting kicked out, showing back up in Richmond. They dropped people from training without warning.

“We look for integrity from you students,” said a tradecraft instructor to the class. “We send people home for trying to G-2 the scenarios for upcoming problems. Just to max the exercises,” he said loudly. “You get caught with an instructor notebook, or any other restricted course material, it’s an immediate drop from the program, people.” Which, to be perfectly honest, thought Nate, meant, Try it.

They were a class, but of individuals, all dreaming of first assignments, first tours to Caracas, Delhi, Athens, or Tokyo. The ache for class standing and first choice of assignments was acute, and culminated in excruciating receptions in the student center hosted by various Headquarters divisions, a bizarre sorority rush week for fledgling spies.

At one of these end-of-training cocktail parties, a man and a woman from Russia House took him aside and told him he was preapproved and accepted in the Russia Division, so he didn’t have to request assignments elsewhere. Nate mildly asked if he couldn’t use his Russian language to chase Russians in, say, the Mideast or Africa Divisions, but they smiled at him and said they looked forward to seeing him in Headquarters at the end of the month.

He was through, and provisionally accepted. He was part of the elite.

Now came lectures about modern Russia. They discussed Moscow’s Dam-oclean politics of natural gas, hanging plumb over Europe, and the Kremlin’s chronic inclination to sponsor rogue states in the name of fairness, but really to make mischief and, well, to prove Russia was still in the Game. Furry men lectured about the promise of post-Soviet Russia, and elections and health reforms and demographic crises, and about the heartbreak of the curtain being drawn closed again, and behind it the icy blue eyes that missed nothing. The Rodina, sacred Motherland of black earth and endless sky, would have to endure a while longer, as the chain-wrapped corpse of the Soviet was exhumed, hauled dripping out of the swamp, and its heart was started again, and the old prisons were filled anew with men who did not see it their way.

And a flinty woman lectured about a new Cold War, about the sly disarmament negotiations and the new supersonic fighters that can fly sideways but still show Red Star roundels on the wings, and Moscow’s rage over a Western missile defense shield in Central Europe—oh, how they resented the loss of their elegant slave states!—and the sabers scraping in the rusty scabbards, familiar music from the days of Brezhnev and Chernenko. And the point of it all, they said, the point of Russia House, was the unceasing requirement to know the plans and intentions behind the blue-eyed stare and the smooth blond brow, different secrets nowadays, but the same as ever, secrets that needed stealing.

Then a retired ops officer—he looked like a Silk Road peddler, but with green eyes and a lopsided mouth—came to Russia House for an informal presentation.

“Energy, population decline, natural resources, client states. Forget all that. Russia is still the only country that can put an ICBM into Lafayette Square across from the White House. The only one, and they have thousands of nukes.” He paused and rubbed his nose, his voice deep and throaty.

“Russians. They hate foreigners only a little less than they hate themselves, and they’re born conspirators. Oh, they know very well they’re superior, but your Russki is insecure, wants to be respected, to be feared like the old Soviet Union. They need recognition, and they hate their second-tier status in the superpower stakes. That’s why Putin’s putting together USSR 2.0, and no one is going to stand in his way.

“The kid who pulls the tablecloth and smashes the crockery to get attention—that’s Moscow. They don’t want to be ignored and they’ll break the dishes to make sure it doesn’t happen. Sell chemical weapons to Syria, give fuel rods to Iran, teach Indonesia centrifuge design, build a light water reactor in Burma, oh, yeah, people, nothing’s out of bounds.

“But the real danger is the instability all this creates, the juice it gives the next generation of world-stopping crazies. People, the second Cold War is all about the resurgent Russian Empire, and don’t kid yourselves Moscow is gonna sit back and see how the Chinese navy handles itself when—not if—the shooting starts in the Taiwan Strait.” He shrugged on a shiny suit coat.

“It’s not as easy this time around; you men and women will have to figure it out. I envy you.” He lifted his hand. “Good hunting,” he said, and walked out. The room was quiet and they all stayed in their seats.

Nate was now in the vaunted Moscow pipeline, dipped in specialized training, compartmented internal ops training, and as the Moscow tour loomed, he studied operational vocabulary in Russian, and he was allowed to review the “books,” the agent files, read the names and examine the flat-faced passport photos of the Russian sources he would meet on the street, under the nose of surveillance. Life and death in the snow, the tip of the spear, as big as it comes. His Farm class was dispersed and largely forgotten. Now there were other lives at stake. He could not—would not—fail.

Three days after his talk with Gondorf, Nate was sitting in a small restaurant in Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport, waiting for his flight to be called. He ordered a “sanwitz Cubano” and a beer off the greasy menu.

The Embassy had offered to send an admin facilitator with him to help with tickets and passport control, but he had politely refused. The night before, Leavitt had brought out some beers at the end of the workday, and they sat around talking quietly, avoiding the obvious subjects, certainly not mentioning what all the other officers thought, that Nate’s career in general and reputation in particular were going to take a hit. Good-byes were strained.

The only bright spot was that two days before, in response to Gondorf’s short-of-tour notification, Headquarters cabled that a case-officer position in neighboring Helsinki had suddenly come open. Given Nate’s nearly fluent Russian, the abundance of Russians in Finland, his instant mobility as an unmarried officer, and his unexpected availability, Headquarters inquired whether Nate would consider a lateral assignment to Helsinki, effective immediately. Nate accepted, as Gondork bridled at the reprieve, but concurred. Helsinki Station’s formal assignment cable arrived, followed by an informal note from Tom Forsyth, his soon-to-be new Chief of Station in Helsinki, simply saying he was glad to welcome Nate to the Station.

Nate’s Finnair flight was called and he walked out onto the tarmac with the other passengers toward the plane. High above him, from a glassed-in observation room in the control tower of the airport, a two-man team cranked frames with a long lens. FSB surveillance had followed Nate to the airport to say good-bye. The FSB, the SVR, and especially Vanya Egorov were certain that Nate’s sudden departure was significant. As Nate mounted the aircraft stairs and the cameras clicked, Egorov sat in his office immersed in thought. A shame. His best chance to find the spy the CIA was running was fading away. It would take months, perhaps years, to develop a better lead in this case, if at all.

Nash was still the key, thought Egorov. He presumably would still handle his source from outside Russia. Egorov decided not to let up on Nash, and the lateral assignment to Finland was an opening. Let’s work him a little in Helsinki, he thought. The SVR could operate virtually at will in Finland, and better yet, they had primacy in the foreign field. No more FSB bum-boys to coordinate with. We’ll see, thought Vanya. The world was too small a place to hide.