Red Sparrow 02 - Palace of Treason

by Jason Matthews

  Nate slid down the rocky embankment, raising a cloud of dust. Dirt filled his shoes and he cursed. He was in the pine and scrub forest of the hill country around Meteora, Greece, the region of towering rock monoliths hundreds of feet tall, the largest of which were topped by squat monasteries. He looked at the GPS compass in his TALON, the tablet-sized handheld device just deployed to overseas stations from the Directorate of Science and Technology, and slanted left through the trees. There were only six TALON sets in use globally, and the S&T boys had sent one of the first ultralight units to Nate in Athens Station because of the shit-hot agent he was handling. In several hundred meters he intersected the mountain stream—milky turquoise and running fast—which he followed for another hundred meters.

  Around a sharp bend in the stream he saw the man he had come three hundred kilometers from Athens to meet, after an epic surveillance detection route. Three vehicle and two disguise changes later, his countersurveillance team signaled that he was black. Eyes burning from the colored contacts, gums sore from the cheek expanders, scalp itchy from the Elvis wig, Nate removed the last disguise, ditched the car, and made his way to the meeting site, forcing himself to focus. Their smelly walk-in, Lieutenant General Mikhail Nikolaevich Solovyov of the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence service, now code-named LYRIC, stood on the elevated opposite bank, holding a fishing rod. Cigarette hanging from his lip, LYRIC did not acknowledge Nate, but continued casting his fly into the water. Cursing again, and feeling like a first-tour rookie, Nate looked for a shallow stretch in the brook where he could cross. He concentrated on stepping on the slippery rocks to cross the stream.

  LYRIC had stopped casting and was observing Nate’s progress with grumpy disapproval. Tall and ramrod straight, LYRIC had a round head with a high forehead, and thin white hair combed back tightly over his skull. The ironic mouth beneath the straight nose was small and thin-lipped, soft and pursed, not like the rigid, two-star rest of him. As Nate made it across the stream and clambered up the bank, the general took the cigarette out of his mouth, pinched the hot ash end off, and ground it under his shoe. The stub of filter went into his coat pocket, the habit born of a thousand parade-ground inspections.

  LYRIC checked his watch—early on he had actually suggested to Nate that they synchronize watches until the young officer showed him the clock in his TALON device, slaved to the atomic clock in Boulder, Colorado, which displayed twenty-four international time zones, and was accurate to two seconds per decade. LYRIC had huffed and never suggested synchronizing watches again.

  “If you had not arrived in the next five minutes,” said LYRIC in Russian, “I was prepared to abort the meeting.” His voice was a deep bass note from inside his chest.

  “Tovarishch, General. I’m glad you waited,” said Nate in fluent Russian, knowing the “comrade” form of address still used in the army would please him. He also knew the agent would have waited half the night for him. “This remote site makes timing difficult.”

  “This site offers excellent security, with admirable access and egress routes,” said LYRIC, putting down his fishing rod. It was he who had first proposed the Meteora meeting site.

  “Konechno, of course,” said Nate, trying not to antagonize the old soldier. Keep the agent happy, start him talking about the secrets he has in his head. He casually tapped the screen of the TALON, activating the recording device. “I’m glad you had time to meet. We appreciate your unique insights.” LYRIC’s lofty general officer’s ego was immovable, fueled by years of Soviet bluster and Slavic certainty that the enemy was at the gate, and foreigners were plotting against the Rodina at every turn. Washington’s bilateral reset policy with Moscow had run aground on these very same xenophobic rocks, never mind that the State Department had misspelled the Russian word for “reset.”

  “I am glad your superiors find my information of use,” grumped LYRIC. “At times it seems they underestimate its value.” Nate, not for the first time, noted that LYRIC overlooked the fact that he had volunteered to CIA, that he had been a walk-in.

  The afternoon light was low in the pines. They sat on the riverbank watching the sun sparkle off the rapids. The general, an old campaigner, pulled a package of butcher paper out of his pack and unwrapped a dozen chunks of lamb he had bought in a nearby village. Two sprigs of wild oregano lay atop the meat. Nate watched fascinated, delighted, as LYRIC gathered dry tinder, scraped a small flint, and started a fire. “GRU survival kit,” said LYRIC offhandedly, handing Nate the steel. “The best. Magnesium.”

  He stripped the oregano leaves and threaded the chunks of lamb onto the woody stems, then pressed the oregano onto the meat, and handed one kebab—he called it shashlik—to Nate. Together they grilled the meat over the open flame, chuckling, trying not to burn their fingers. When the meat was charred deep brown—LYRIC examined Nate’s shashlik critically—a lemon was cut to be squeezed over the sizzling kebabs, eaten with alternating bites of raw scallion.

  “I used to cook like this for my children on leave,” LYRIC said, turning his skewer sideways to bite a piece of lamb. “It is good to share food now with you.” He looked down at the fire. In a rush, Nate registered that this relationship was fueled by more than revenge for Russian beastliness. It was more than an intelligence operation, more than the start of a priceless penetration of Moscow’s vast military tech transfer establishment. This old man needed human contact, kind consideration, metaphysical needs somehow to be addressed while CIA debriefed him like a rubber squeeze toy. Will he survive, thought Nate, or will he end up like Korchnoi? He gritted his teeth at the memory, mouthing a silent vow to keep him safe.

  “General, it is an honor to share this food. And it is a privilege to know you,” said Nate. “Our work is just beginning, but it has been spectacular.”

  “Then let’s get to work,” said LYRIC, straightening and avoiding Nate’s eyes. “Turn on that infernal machine of yours while I brief you.” They sat on a log and LYRIC talked nonstop, a palette of variegated subjects, precisely remembered, meticulously ordered, the baritone words measured, unstoppable. Important points were signaled by a raised finger, an arched eyebrow. Occasionally there would be a personal digression, the grieving, lonely old man would be briefly revealed, then the ramrod general would resume the debriefing.

  Nate was thankful for the TALON balanced on his knee—there was no way he could have kept up by taking written notes. LYRIC was still a new asset, so he let him orate; the stuff was pure gold anyway. Tech-transfer operations, thrust-vector research, the new PAK FH stealth fighter, target-acquisition radar on the BUK SA-11 used by Ukrainian separatists. Specific military reporting requirements were being codrafted with the Pentagon, and Nate would have to handle the general’s steely pride and galloping ego when the time came to direct him to actively collect specific intelligence.

  “Your superiors in Langley must plan ahead,” lectured LYRIC, looking over at Nate. He fired up a cigarette and clicked his lighter shut. “Right now they are exulting and wallowing in the initial deluge of my information. Those who crave credit are preening before a mirror. There is excitement, a rush to standardize production of finished intelligence, the inevitable debate about how to handle the new source.” LYRIC tilted his head up in contemplation, pausing as if giving dictation.

  “You and your chief in the station in Athens properly should rebuff any attempts by Langley to assume control of the case. If you need ammunition, you have my permission to tell them the agent—what is my cryptonym by the way?—refuses handlers from Washington. Do not tell them I refuse to speak to anyone but you—that is one of the hallmarks of an operations officer fabricating a case. Simply say that I want only locally assigned handlers with superb area knowledge.” LYRIC looked over at Nate as if he were a clerk in a Dickensian counting house.

  “I am your case officer,” said Nate. “And you met the deputy chief of Station, who can act as backup.”

  “A pity he speaks no Russian.” LYRIC sniffed, looking down and flick
ing ash off his sleeve.

  “I’m sure Gable deplores not speaking Russian as much as you regret having so little English,” said Nate. It was time to touch the brakes, lightly, and bleed some speed off LYRIC’s ego. The old man looked up sharply at Nate, wordless, then smiled faintly and nodded. Message understood, a page in the agent-handler dance card turned, respect given and received.

  “And my cryptonym?” asked LYRIC, once again the curmudgeon spy.

  “BOGATYR,” lied Nate, who had no intention of telling the bombastic LYRIC his compartmented CIA crypt. Bogatyr, the mythical Slavic knight of the steppes around LYRIC’s birthplace, Nizhny Novgorod.

  “I like it,” said LYRIC, breaking down his finished cigarette and slipping the filter into his pocket.

  “What kind of bullshit is that?” said Gable. He and Nate and COS Tom Forsyth were sitting in the ACR, the acoustically controlled room-within-a-room inside Athens Station. They sat hunched around the conference table, Nate’s TALON in front of them, connected to a laptop. Nate had been translating highlights of his two hours in the Meteora woods with LYRIC.

  “BOGATYR,” said Nate, “like a Russian samurai. He’s got a heroic image of himself. I made it up on the spot.”

  Gable shook his head. “Okay,” said Forsyth, already five steps ahead. “Keep him happy, keep him talking. A general officer can be tough to handle. Delicate balance. Headquarters is strong on the case. Traces confirmed everything about him; LYRIC’s the real deal, and the intel so far is giving the air force wet dreams.”

  When Forsyth spoke, Nate listened. He knew Forsyth’s record was every bit as spectacular as Gable’s—but different. While Gable was killing snakes with a tire iron, Forsyth had been drinking wine in Warsaw with a well-known Russian stage actress—coincidentally the mistress of a Soviet Northern Fleet admiral—who had photographed the fleet’s readiness and deployment schedules for the coming year in her boyfriend’s office bathroom. Forsyth had given her the palm-sized Tessina camera months earlier and she brought the microcassette of film out past customs wrapped in a condom hidden where only her gynecologist would have thought to look. Forsyth had accepted it with aplomb. Gable and Forsyth: Natural-born operations officers, and they both knew what they were talking about.

  To Nate’s perceptive eye, the relationship between Forsyth and Gable was a pragmatic alliance tempered by years of working together. Forsyth was the senior, but there was never a thought of him ordering Gable to do anything. Gable knew what to do; if he disagreed he’d say so, then follow instructions. Gable acknowledged that Forsyth sometimes thought he was undiplomatic, but they both knew that golden-boy Forsyth had at various times in his career himself gotten into serious bureaucratic trouble by speaking his mind, once memorably to a member of Congress visiting Rome Station on an endless string of summer recess Congressional delegations—they were called fact-finding trips for the benefit of the taxpayers—during which Forsyth noted that she was three hours late for her Station briefing, pointedly looking at the half dozen Fendi, Gucci, and Ferragamo shopping bags carried by her chief of staff. Gable had not been present, a small blessing, but Forsyth was in the penalty box for a year after that.

  Nate saw mutual respect, knew there was loyalty, guessed at comradely affection. The COS and his DCOS watched each other’s backs; they naturally sensed what the other was thinking, and they knew what came first: operations, which informed everything they did. Everything. Nate did not know it, but Forsyth and Gable had argued with Chief of Counterintelligence Simon Benford over the issue of Nate’s intimacy with Dominika. In the Agency it was an infraction of the highest order: Previously other officers had famously slept with assets and been separated from the service. But even as Forsyth scolded, and Gable threatened, and Benford raved, Forsyth convinced Benford to give young Nash a break. It was not because Nate had handled MARBLE, DIVA, and LYRIC flawlessly; it was not because they recognized in Nash an exceptional internal ops talent; in the end, it was a veteran assessment that the greater good was being served by ignoring for the moment the lesser transgression. But they would never let Nate know.

  The TALON recording of the meeting suddenly was interrupted by three woman’s screams, high, strident, one after the other.

  “Fuck’s that?” said Gable. The screams repeated over the sound of LYRIC’s voice.

  “Peacocks,” said Nate. “Two of them came out of the woods and started calling. Scared the shit out of us.”

  “Peacocks! Jesus wept,” said Gable.

  Forsyth started laughing. “Make sure you tell Headquarters about the birds when you forward the digital file. The suits will think you brought a woman to the debriefing for the general.”

  “Not a bad idea, but where would Nash find a woman?” said Gable.

  They were gathering up papers when Gable told Nate to sit back down. Forsyth waited by the soundproof door, his hand on the latch. They would not talk about LYRIC, refer to him or the case, or even mention the cryptonym, outside this Lucite-walled room. No exceptions: Moscow Rules. The case was already in compartmented, Restricted Handling channels in Headquarters. Not more than fifty people at Langley read incoming LYRIC cables.

  “As much as it pains me to admit it,” said Gable, “I want you to know I think you did a fucking great job when LYRIC walked in.”

  Nate shifted a little in his seat. Gable was not one to give out compliments.

  “I would have thrown the pukey old man out of the walk-in room. You followed your instincts, nailed your hunch, and we got a platinum case on the books. Good job.” At the door Forsyth smiled.

  “Now comes precision, now comes focus. I want you to run this agent as tight as a bar hostess in Vientiane,” said Gable.

  “I’m not sure I get—”

  “I’ll explain it to you when you graduate high school,” said Gable.

  “I’ll look forward to it,” said Nate.

  “That don’t mean you can skate,” said Gable, “especially at the start of this tour. You haven’t done squat on your own power since you got here. I’m watching you, Nash.”

  Forsyth chuckled. “Nate, I think Marty’s trying to tell you he likes you,” said Forsyth. He popped the latches on the ACR door.

  “Jesus wept,” said Nate. A moment of silence, and then the sound of Forsyth’s laughter boomed down the hallway.

  During their previous time in Helsinki, DCOS Gable had watched over young Nate, had kicked him in the ass, and had taught him valuable lessons: Always protect your agent, never trust the flatland cake eaters at Headquarters, make the hard operational decisions, and don’t worry about the fucking politics.

  Gable was fifty-something, a knuckly, leather-faced, crew-cut case officer who carried a Browning Hi Power in a Bianchi belt-loop holster, and had made his bones in every backwater capital in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. He had recruited sweating, chittering equatorial ministers, passing a bottle of Ugandan scotch back and forth inside a sweltering Land Rover. He had debriefed a Burmese four-star while holding a roll of toilet paper and watching for blue-scaled pit vipers in the buffalo grass as the general squatted, stricken with dysentery. And Gable had carried his agent out of the Andean jungle in a tropical downpour—the first ever penetration of the Shining Path in Peru—after the case went bad.

  The three of them—the senior, placid Forsyth; the china-smashing Gable; and the resolute Nate—were each of a different grade and temperament, but in traditionally rank-neutral CIA they were a crew, bound by the rigors of past operations and the unacknowledged brotherhood of working together in their clandestine world. And now Nate had his assignment to Athens and they were back together. All except Dominika, who was unaccounted for, out of contact.

  In Helsinki, Gable had coached him while Nate recruited Dominika, a spectacular success for a junior CIA officer. But Gable also quickly sensed that Nate and his agent had been intimate. “Are you fucking nuts?” he had raved at Nate. “You’re jeopardizing her life, your agent’s life.” Nate had tried backpedali
ng until Gable shut him up. “Don’t fucking deny it,” said Gable. “Your only job is to protect her, not because you love her, not because it’s regulations. You fucking do it because she agreed to produce intel for you and put her life in your hands to do it. And you sacrifice everything to make sure she stays alive. Nothing is more important.” Nate remembered the words even as he thought about Dominika, somewhere in Moscow.

  Then–Chief of Station Tom Forsyth, also around fifty, tall and slim, with salt-and-pepper hair perpetually tousled by reading glasses pushed up and on top of his head, had agreed with his deputy. But unlike the swift ass-kicking promised by Gable, Forsyth had called Nate into his wood-paneled Helsinki Station office and delivered an hour-long high mass of agent-handling rules so nuanced, so brilliantly clear, that Nate hadn’t moved in his chair. Preserving the intel flow was his duty, Forsyth had said; it’s why he was a case officer, and if he couldn’t control personal urges, well maybe they should have another discussion about what Nate might like to do for the rest of his life. Not daring to breathe, Nate looked at his hands. He raised his head, looking for permission to speak. Forsyth nodded.

  “Tom, what if my being with her is what she wants. What if it makes her a better spy?”

  Forsyth pushed his glasses on top of his head. “It’s not without precedent, giving agents what they want,” he said. “We’ve fed agents’ heroin habits to keep them reporting. I remember a porn-addicted Chinese minister who wouldn’t make meetings unless we had the fuck films rolling when he walked into the safe house. And the shoes, boxes of them, for the Indonesian president’s wife. Jesus she tried on every pair, with me on my knees, working the shoe horn. But we’re not talking about that, not exactly.” Forsyth swiveled in his chair.