Red Sparrow

37

Zyuganov gripped the receiver of the encrypted phone tightly. The instrument was as big as his head.

“Of course they will be looking for surveillance,” Zyuganov said. “You’ll never be able to follow them. Stay with your original plan. Do you have the materials prepared? Fifteen minutes will be all you need. One name, confirm it, then the killing stroke.” Zyuganov swiveled in his chair.

“Look, I’m not telling you not to save her, but the name is more important than anything, than anyone. Panimat? Understand? I’m waiting for results, and keep your mouth closed. Out.”

Their last day in Athens, the sun hot at nine a.m., both of them feeling tired and unplugged and drifty. They walked from the hotel down Pindarou, stopped for a fresh-squeezed orange juice in Kolonaki Square, sat elbow to elbow under a canopy as the waiter brought a pastry. They would stay on the move throughout the day, continue to rehearse how Dominika would report the contact to the Center. Dominika took a bite of the flaky roll and licked her fingers. She was feeling better and made an effort.

“Shall I tell them you forced me, or that I blindfolded you and locked you naked in an armoire?” She tore a piece of brioche and tried feeding him. He moved his head away.

“The Center would probably understand stuffing someone into an armoire,” Nate said. He felt scratchy and irritable and guilty, no patience with morning-after love talk. Dominika’s face fell when he said that. She put the brioche down on the plate.

“Well, that is bezdushnyi,” she said, turning to face him, heartless, soulless, but Nate’s contrarian demons already had their hands in his guts, and he knew his feelings for her, but he knew his duty, and he knew what she wanted, and he knew what he could give, what the CIA would let him give, and that he had let his passion—oh, it was real passion, no doubt—take over again, again, goddamn it, on the day before she was supposed to return to Moscow and sit in front of the interrogators, and if she wasn’t pitch-perfect, well, that would be his fault because he couldn’t tell her no last night. Romantic, hopeless Russians. She wanted some sort of romance, but they were both intel officers, and there couldn’t be any distractions. He looked at her—his last thought was that he probably loved her—but she saw the demons, read the purple bloom around his shoulders, and knew the connection of last night was gone.

She saw his guilty regret, and the washed-out color around him. Her own demons flew out of the cave like bats at sunset and she became Egorova, feeling the anger building, the goryachnost, the temper that General Korchnoi had warned her about. She stood up.

“I’m going back to my hotel for a shower and change of clothes,” she said.

“Negative,” said Nate, slipping into agent-handling mode. “It’s the one place they can find you—and us. Benford definitely said—”

“Gospodin Benford might do without a wash and a change. I cannot. I will take ten minutes.” Nate did some fast calculations. Stick with her? Cut her loose and meet her later? He had seen her face, knew the signs. She was furious at him; it would be best not to let her alone, she might disappear out of spite. Some report that would make back in Langley.

“Okay, ten minutes, no longer,” said Nate, taking her arm. She smoothly took it away.

The Grande Bretagne Hotel stood in the sunlight of Syntagma Square, gilt railings and wrought-iron porte cochere glinting in the white light. Upstairs, Nate stood awkwardly in the huge sitting room, with elegant groupings of tables, chairs, and lamps, a thick Wilton underfoot. He looked into the bedroom as Dominika shrugged off her dress—he remembered the black lace bra and panties—and she bent to pull off her sandals, turning to face him, a defiant lingerie model against the backdrop of the massive silk headboard of the bed. Her seminakedness whipped at his senses, and she knew it, she could read him. She took a provocative step forward into the living room.

“Do I distract you?” she said, lifting her arms. She was seething.

“Dominika, stop it,” said Nate.

“Please tell me,” she said, pulling the cups of her bra tight. “Do I disorient you? Is the plan working?”

“Admirably. I cannot think that you could do your duty any better, Corporal Egorova,” said Sergey Matorin, stepping out of the walk-in closet between the bedroom and the bathroom. He spoke Russian that sounded like a truck transmission filled with gravel. He was dressed in a dark sport coat, black shirt and slacks, and wore slip-on moccasins. He casually tossed a zippered pouch and a black cloth sheath onto the bed and began shrugging out of his sport coat, never taking his eyes off Nate. Black.

Silence, then electric shock and no hesitation, not a second, as the scraps of black lace launched at Black, her arms around his neck, a knee driving into his crotch. Nate noticed ballet muscles in her legs and her buttocks bunching as Black grunted and pushed her chin back and punched her in the throat, a killing blow, and she fell back on the rug, in her lacey undergarments, gasping.

Nate needed more time to get there in slow motion, thinking, Someone’s going to have to die, dead, as in killed, because Black had heard them talking and they were a cell phone call away from meltdown, and he put his shoulder down and smelled ammonia and drove the thin body back against a little Hepplewhite in the corner, which made a crack when it splintered. They both pushed off the floor and three stones hit the side of Nate’s face, bang, bang, bang, oh, fuck, Spetsnaz open-hand technique, and he locked the ropy arm and kicked behind the knee and Black fell and rolled and popped back up, cloven hooves high and smiling. Nate felt for a piece of furniture, and slung it at Black’s feet, then stepped in to smell the ammonia again, and he started low and brought the heel of his hand up and through the chin, trying to remember other long-ago hand-to-hand techniques, as Black rolled again and reached the bed and pulled the whispered sheath off, and the blade was up and the point was making little circles, and it was time to back away, seriously, because this was no good and there were no weapons immediately at hand, nothing long enough and hard enough to deal with this bastard and the silver edge of the otherwise blue-mottled steel.

The windpipe strike had not killed her, as there were black lace panties and black lace cups holding the big blue-and-white vase, Ming, Limoges, Wedgwood, whatever, smashing it between Black’s shoulder blades in a shower of shards, and he went down on one knee, but there was the whistle of the spinning slash and the blood started, a thin line on her thigh and diagonally across her belly, then she was red and slick, and she staggered back and fell with a bump, sitting up and looking at her legs, one wet, the other dry.

The brass lamp felt good to Nate and heavy enough to throw, but Black’s backhanded parry was a blur, but at least it got him off her, and he closed with impressive speed, more like gliding, really, and Nate stepped inside the point of the blade, and he felt cool air on his arm and on his stomach where his shirt split open, then hot blood running down under his belt and down the front of his legs like pissing himself and the motherfucking sword was the real issue so he held the brocade chair like in the circus and the other sleeve of his shirt opened up and the hot blood pooled in his hand, and the point of the blade caught in the brocade of the chair, and he stepped in, not much more time on the clock, he reckoned, and tried to torque Black’s knee with legs that were losing strength, bad sign, very bad, like his red footprints on the carpet, and the smell of copper in the air.

Dominika looked at them across the room, Matorin moving easily, swinging his Khyber knife, and Nate staggering sideways, sodden clothes red from the chest down. My fault, coming back here, idiotka, he’s going to fight until he dies, she thought. He’s fighting for me, and the rush of realization, He does love me, he is buying me time, and the goryachnost, the rage, picked her up off the floor, and she limped and weaved in an S to the bed and picked up the black pouch. She was looking for a weapon, any weapon.

Black was breathing easily through his nose, and Nate could feel something come loose as the blade ran across his biceps and he grabbed the blade and felt it slide across his palm and through his fingers, like a wet knife through a birthday cake. Black stood looking at him, and Nate concentrated on locking his weak knees so he wouldn’t fall. This Spetsnaz guy no doubt was savoring the next cut, thought Nate, an upward rip to spill his long intestines on the Wilton, or the backhand strike at the side of his neck.

Then Liberté came over the ramparts like something out of Delacroix with one breast out of her bra and she drove the red and the yellow pens into his buttocks and his instinctive back fist knocked her down, head bouncing hard, but Black started melting and rasping, great heaving breaths on hands and knees with red and yellow tails pinned on the donkey, and he crawled toward the knife but was slowing down, crawling in slow motion and shaking his head from side to side, with a narcotized diaphragm and a skull full of barbiturates and the good eye rolling up into his head and the heels drumming on the pink-and-blue carpet and the death rattle and Let’s seriously consider sawing off his head, just to be safe, but Nate’s hand was under Dominika’s left breast and he was glad of the fluttering heartbeat, her eyes opened, and he started to lay his head on the softness but remembered something important, he couldn’t go to sleep just yet, he had a call to make.

Dominika had taken the phone from Nate’s nerveless fingers and told Bratok where they were, and he listened good and brought a cleared Embassy medic and a trauma kit, they were waiting on the street in the car. How Marty Gable got them both cleaned up and out of the hotel was a miracle, vintage Saigon and Phnom Penh. Bedsheets became bandages, Matorin’s vinegary-smelling jacket was buttoned all the way up, Dominika’s hair was slicked back. Gable motioned to her to yank the pens out of Matorin’s ass, sheath the Khyber blade, check his pockets. He put Nate’s arm around his neck and humped him out the service entrance, telling a limping Dominika to lock the door to the suite and throw the room key in a planter in the hallway.

They collapsed in Gable’s backseat like Bonnie and Clyde, and the wide-eyed medic wrapped Israeli pressure bandages around Nate’s chest, arms, and hand, another around Dominika’s thigh, and taped the diagonal slice across her stomach. Nate’s pulse was thready from loss of blood, so the medic started an IV, and Dominika cradled Nate’s head in her lap, not talking, holding the plasma bag up as Gable slammed through traffic, cursing and pounding the steering wheel.

They banged up the hilly streets into Zografos, under the loom of Mount Ymittos, and Gable helped them up to a top-floor retirée in a quiet Greek apartment block where the Station kept a contingency safe house. They put Nate in the small bedroom, and the medic stayed with him until the Embassy doctor arrived; they were both cleared, but Gable wanted them out as soon as they finished, twenty stitches in Dominika’s leg, three times that for Nate. Gable held Dominika by the shoulders, looking at her over the tops of his glasses, but she shrugged him off and went into the other bedroom to sponge off the blood, insanely flashing to Ustinov, how long had it been? Her breaths started coming in gulps.

Gable thanked the doctor and medic—they wondered what the spooks were up to, but knew to keep quiet—and steered them out and gently closed the door. Dominika was in Nate’s room listening to him breathe, and Gable shooed her out. She didn’t want soup, didn’t want bread, she closed the door to her bedroom, but in five minutes Gable heard her cross back into Nate’s room, and he left her alone. Later that night Gable cracked open the bedroom door and heard her talking to him, he was still out from the sedative, color better, and DIVA sitting on the bed, talking Russian to him. Big ugly mess this was, but thank Christ they survived.

Forsyth snuck in the next day, after dark, wearing a paste-on goatee and wire-rimmed glasses—Greek cops knew his face, and there was a manhunt on for the young Russian woman at the Grande Bretagne Hotel who had disappeared, leaving a dead man in her room. Dominika’s passport picture was all over the television and papers. There had been another man, a dark-haired Westerner, perhaps an American. Gable told Forsyth he looked like a Viennese sex therapist in that goatee, then briefed him on the scene at the hotel, nodded to the two bedrooms in back. Forsyth sat down and threw a stack of late-edition newspapers on the coffee table. The bloodfest at the Grande Bretagne was being covered in a media firestorm excessive even by Greek standards. Station translators had provided a list of headlines:

They made a little noise in the kitchen, waiting for Dominika to come out of her bedroom. A half hour later Forsyth got up and tapped softly on her door. Through the door she told him she wasn’t feeling well, no, she didn’t need the doctor, but she wanted to sleep. Forsyth came back out into the living room. “I’m not sure, something wrong, more than shock,” he said to Gable.

Then a little stirring and Nate shuffled in, finally awake, holding the wall, orange Betadine showing around the edges of the bandages and tape. One side of his face was purple. He eased into an armchair, face wet from the exertion and pain.

“What’re you guys doing here?” he rasped. “Some kind of emergency?”

“How you feeling?” said Gable, ignoring him. “Any dizziness? You have an appetite?” Nate shook his head, and Forsyth started talking softly.

“I’ve been on the green line with the Seventh Floor. I’ve been called in a half-dozen times by the ambassador, who has himself been summoned by the Greek foreign minister twice. The entire Hellenic Police is looking for a Russian woman, trying to ID the dead guy, and the Russian Embassy claims to have no idea what’s going on. The Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs is just up the street from the GB Hotel, and the TV lights in Syntagma Square have been on for twenty-four hours.”

“That’s the best thing about a clandestine operation, the TV lights,” said Gable, looking at Nate.

“Everyone at Headquarters is in a different stage of pissed, seriously pissed, and fucking outrageously pissed,” said Forsyth. “There are recriminations flying back and forth: Why didn’t we anticipate this kind of SVR action? Why didn’t we yank you off the case? Why couldn’t MARBLE warn us about the ambush? Most of it’s bullshit.

“I received an email this morning from Chief Europe. Admiral Nelson suggested it was ‘time to change the sails’ in the DIVA case. Apparently C/ROD told Chief Europe he had his head up his ass. In front of the Director. That’s all stuff we can handle.

“Then last night Benford called asking whether his guidance about not going to Dominika’s room was unclear. He sends his regards. Explaining your performance to him, specifically, is something we—you—might not handle so easily. It will depend on Benford’s inclination to flog you.”

“I gave him my personal recommendation to do so,” said Gable.

“Yet there is hope. Benford says this incident has created a narrow window of opportunity; he was very excited. He is arriving late tomorrow evening and until then he wants you to stay out of sight.” Forsyth went to the sliding glass doors of the balcony and looked through a gap in the drawn curtains. “It’s important that Dominika stay hidden so the Center keeps thinking the worst, that she’s blown to the CIA, that their plot to ambush Nate is exposed. We’ve got a couple of days at the most.”

Gable got up and walked down the little hallway and knocked at Dominika’s room. He spoke softly through the door and then she told him to come in. They could hear his muffled baritone down the hall, and in ten minutes Gable walked back out and sat down. “Trouble,” he whispered. “She’s agitated. Not hysterical, just pissed. Splenetic. That temper, but this time it’s serious. Doesn’t know who to trust. Us, MARBLE, certainly not her own people.” Nate struggled to get up out of the chair. “Sit the fuck down,” said Gable. “Part of it is that she’s frantic she almost got you killed, first thing she asked was how you are.”

“She saved my life,” said Nate. “That mechanic had me cold.”

“You check out the room when you went up?” Nate avoided his look. “Didn’t think so,” said Gable.

“She’s talking about not going back, about running away, defecting. She’s shocky and betrayed and her leg’s hurting her. Poor kid, just spent two days with droopy over here.” Nate wasn’t going to make things worse by telling them about the lovemaking.

Forsyth stood up. “Marty, stay with DIVA until Benford arrives. Nate, we’ll smuggle you into the Station tomorrow. I want you to start writing up what happened; Benford is going to want a full readout.” Nate nodded.

“Right now let’s give her space,” said Forsyth. “We may have lost her as an agent. We probably won’t find out until she does some thinking.”

Forsyth left and Gable got up, rattled around the kitchen, came back out to the living room, said he was going to the corner to get a bottle of wine, some cheese and bread. “Stay off the balcony,” he said, moving toward the door. He took a pistol out of his coat pocket, flipped it to Nate. “PPK/S,” Gable said. “Ladies’ gun. I brought it for you.”

Dominika spent most of the first night on her bed, looking at the ceiling. Then she had gone into Nate’s room to sit beside the bed, watching him sleep. She knew exactly what had happened. Uncle Vanya had tired of waiting for her to elicit the information about the American mole, had dispatched Matorin to solve the problem and protect his political flank. He apparently did not care that anyone in a room with Matorin was at mortal risk. Had he intended Matorin to eliminate her too? She was not sure, but for the moment she would assume the answer was yes. Another betrayal by Vanya and the navoznaja kucha, the dunghill of the Service.

She had told Bratok that she was not sure she wanted to continue spying. She was out of Russia, in the West, perhaps she would defect. Gable listened and softly told her to do what she thought was best. His aura was deep purple, he had no reason to be so serene, but she was glad.

Now it was the next night and late, the beacons on the microwave towers on the ridge of Ymittos the only pinpricks of light on the dark mass of the mountain until the orange streetlights of Zografos and Papagou. Forsyth and Benford sat in chairs while Dominika in a bathrobe lay on the couch so she could keep her leg elevated. She had heard Nate leaving the apartment earlier, but she didn’t come out to see him. Nate was gone.

Benford arrived late, insisting on coming straight to the safe house. He asked to read the account of the attack, said that the Office of Medical Services wanted the SVR auto-injector pens in the next pouch. In the car he had listened to Forsyth and muttered that speed was of the essence.

“How are you feeling?” he asked her. “Can you walk?” She stood up and walked around the couch. She ran her fingers over the stitches, same side as her broken foot; this leg was getting a lot of wear.

“Forgive me,” said Benford, “I need to know you can move around, because we have to go out on the street. You have to call Moscow.” Dominika winced as she sat down. Benford put a hand on her shoulder. “Take your time. I want to talk to you first.

“Domi, I need to know whether you are willing to continue the relationship we started in Helsinki. We need to know whether you’re willing to return to Moscow and work from there.”

“And if I am not?” she asked. “What will become of me?” She knew these men, but her trust in them—in everyone—had faded. They were professionals, they needed results, they answered to an organization that was also the Opposition. Benford and Forsyth were bathed in blue, their words were tinged with it. Sensitive, artistic, devious, they would work her in layers, she knew. Be careful.

“What will become of you is that I will fly you to the United States and you will meet with the Director, who will award you a medal and a bank draft with which you may buy a house in a location of your choice—subject to security review—from the comfort of which you can read about current developments in Russia and the world. You will be free of a life of secrets, of intrigue, deception, and danger.” Pulsing blue out of the top of his head.

Benford is so clever; I have met him once, yet he knows me, she thought. “And if I elect to continue working with you, what do you want me to do?”

“If you’re in, I would ask that you make a phone call,” said Benford, “to your uncle.” Forsyth was silent and watchful in the other chair, steady blue, she could trust him—a little, anyway.

“And the nature of the phone call?” asked Dominika, knowing they were leading her through one hedgerow after another. “What do you want to accomplish?”

“Forsyth told me a little about the fight in the hotel room,” said Benford. “And how you saved Nate’s life. I want to thank you for that.” He still had not answered her question.

“And the call to Moscow?” she asked.

“After all this drama, we need to pave the way for your return home. And to maximize the chances that you land a good job in the Center—assuming you agree to continue working.” Benford pulsed blue at her.

“If I return, General Korchnoi will ensure that I have a good position. He and I will make a strong team.”

“Of course, we’re counting on that,” said Benford. “But you must operate separately, stay in different orbits.” Dominika nodded. “And the day will come when you will have to carry on in his place.” Dominika nodded again.

“But to enable all this, you have to contact Yasenevo, an urgent call. You are worried, exhausted, you bribed someone, a veterinarian, a pharmacist, to sew up your leg. In your fatigue and anger you discard the basic rules about speaking openly over the phone. The Center’s Spetsnaz assassin nearly killed you. Young Nash luckily prevailed. It’s important they think Nash killed him. You are calling on the run, police on your trail, the Americans about to catch you. And you have to ask dear old Uncle Vanya to rescue you.”

“I see,” said Dominika. “Gospodin Benford, are you sure you don’t have a little Russian in you?”

“I can’t imagine that I do,” said Benford.

“I would not be surprised,” she said.

“There’s something else you must do,” said Benford. “During the call we must spread some disinformation, do you understand the word?”

“Dezinformaciya, yes,” said Dominika.

“Precisely. The operation against Nash has exploded in their faces, but you were able to coax a little out of him.”

“What do you want me to say… in this obman, this deception?” said Dominika.

“You had an argument, still fighting the Cold War, still spying on each other. Nate blurted that a major Russian spy was just caught in the United States, an important person, managed actively by the Center.”

“Is this true?” asked Dominika. This must have been the crisis for Vanya, she thought. He is now probably in serious political difficulty.

“Completely true and accurate,” said Benford. “You must tell them Nate told you the Center tried misdirecting the mole hunt by indicating the spy had eye surgery. A false lead.” Benford paused.

“Excuse me, but what is the purpose of this message?” asked Dominika. She thought it strange, but could not read Benford’s face; his color was fading.

“Dominika, these details are important. We want to let the Center know that we saw through the deception. That’s why mentioning the eye-surgery false trail is critical. And we want the Center to think you’ve done good work, we want them to rescue you. Is all that clear?”

“Yes, but I will tell them I killed their assassin,” said Dominika. “Me. Because he was going to kill us both. Now Nash has fled and it is my uncle’s grubaya oshibka, his blunder, not mine.”

“Admirable,” said Benford, “a subtle refinement.” MARBLE was right; she is something.

“I’ve written down some details, where you’re hiding,” said Forsyth. “Then we can go out and make the call.” They looked over his notes, then Dominika went into the bedroom to change, leaving Forsyth and Benford alone.

“Not telling her she’s pulling the trigger on the general is going to upset her,” said Forsyth.

“It’s the only way,” snapped Benford. “I don’t like it, either. But she cannot hesitate or be aware of the canary trap.”

“She’ll figure it out. What if she’s so pissed she quits?” said Forsyth.

“Then this converts to world-class debacle. I hope she’ll see it our way,” said Benford. “You have the Greek cops all set?”

“It’s all arranged. She’ll be arrested the morning after the call.”

GIGANTES—GREEK BAKED BEANS

Sauté onions and garlic in olive oil. Add peeled chopped tomatoes, beef stock, and parsley, and boil until thick. Add cooked gigantes beans, mix well, and bake in medium-low oven until beans are soft and top is crispy, even lightly burned. Serve at room temperature.