Red Sparrow 02 - Palace of Treason

by Jason Matthews

  Benford made the final determination, to COS Throckmorton’s fussed annoyance. Pointing his globoid nose at her, Throckmorton read Benford’s cable to Hannah, not letting her read it herself. The cache was safe. Proceed. Tonight, the three sensors were down. Proceed. Benford directed Hannah to signal “have loaded” to DIVA, the last time a physical mark would have to be made.

  The fatigue was affecting her vision a little, but Hannah slogged on foot northwest to the Dorogomilovo District, near DIVA’s state-provided apartment on Kastanaevskaya Ulitsa. No one was on the street; the broad boulevard was empty. Hannah spritzed three bars of an iron fence behind a bus-stop shelter using a small spray bottle. The chemical in it was a delayed action marking system, DAMS for short, that was colorless and undetectable but would react hours later to the UV light of the morning sun and turn rust-colored in a matter of minutes, an indistinct slash of dye on the bars noticeable only to someone who knew where to look. The fence and bus stop were on DIVA’s route to work, and she could check with a glance for a “have loaded” signal every morning and evening.

  Two days later sensor number two was automatically interrogated by DCOS Schindler as she drove around Moscow on an ostensible trip to area antique shops. She returned to Station and with a trembling hand—she smelled like gin in the afternoon—put the SRAC receiver on Hannah’s desk, and walked away. Hannah connected a cable, the screen of her computer blinked, and DIVA’s burst message in English appeared.

  MESSAGE 1. PACKAGE RECEIVED. EQUIPMENT SATISFACTORY. PREZ PRESSING FOR IRAN DEAL. WDC REZIDENT Z VISITING SOON, REASON UNKNOWN, RUMORS NEW US VOLUNTEER. INFO COMPARTMENTED BUT DEPUTY KNOWS DETAILS. WILL PURSUE. olga.

  Hannah noted the correct lowercase o and punctuation in the signature, the duress indicators that told her DIVA was not being forced to send the message from the basement of Butyrka prison in north Moscow, surrounded by SVR technicians, their salami-greasy hands resting lightly on the nape of her neck. All good things, sister, thought Hannah.

  Nate had told Hannah that DIVA herself chose the Olga pseudonym for her messages, after Olga Prekrasna, Olga the Beauty, the medieval Slav warrior queen who destroyed an enemy capital by releasing hundreds of sparrows with sulfur-soaked strings attached to their feet. At dusk the wheeling birds nested throughout the city—under eaves, in attics, inside barns, in haystacks—and the smoldering sulfur eventually combusted and started hundreds of fires simultaneously, incinerating the city. The sparrow bringing fire and destruction, thought Hannah. Olga Prekrasna, the Beauty.

  Line KR Chief Zyuganov rode down the elevator from the executive fourth floor of SVR headquarters in Yasenevo muttering to himself. He had just briefed the director on the emergence of the new American source, identified only by his self-bestowed code name TRITON. Zyuganov snorted: Triton, a newt. TRITON’s first report compromising a CIA recruitment of a Russian was ingeniously and deeply buried at the tail end of feed material passed by an oafishly transparent US Air Force double agent. It was all Line KR needed. The young attaché in Caracas who had agreed some months earlier to spy for the Americans against his own country was recalled to Moscow on an administrative pretext.

  There had been no interrogation, at least not yet. The officer had been given a no-account job, kept under observation—in the old days he would have been shot in the Lubyanka basement, in the room with the hooks and the drains and the far wall lined with massive pine logs to prevent ricochets. This lesser administrative fate was a Potyomkinskaya derevnya, a Potemkin village, a false façade, concocted with the sole purpose of protecting the new source, TRITON. Later, with the blurring of months, the sentence would be carried out. The young perebezhchik, the turncoat, was already dead and he didn’t even know it. Neither did CIA.

  That Line KR could bag a traitor with such swiftness, with such ruthless efficiency, was a feather in Zyuganov’s cap. The idiot director did not understand the salutary effects of having an omniscient counterintelligence machine hovering over the Service: No one would dare betray the Center with Zyuganov in charge. No, this politician-turned-director would never understand the nyuans, the nuance of the Game, but there was someone who did understand, a former intelligence officer, someone infinitely more important than the director. President Putin would know.

  Zyuganov was in an exquisite position: he had cauterized the Caracas traitor, he was working the Iranian energy deal on the president’s behalf, and he and Zarubina would manage TRITON (whose access almost certainly originated in the White House, the NSC, or in Langley). It would be colossal. Putin’s unstinting patronage would follow. The future was rosy. Zarubina was nearly universally considered to become the next SVR director when she returned from Washington, the first female director ever. And there was an unspoken understanding with Zarubina that Zyuganov would ascend close behind her. Quite a partnership: The Seamstress and the Executioner.

  The only prepyatstviye, impediment, in his career plans was his subordinate Egorova. With the intuition of an interrogator, Zyuganov knew that Putin was intrigued with her, knew she could be a challenge to Zyuganov’s success. She had not been damaged at all by the collapse of her Iranian case. It was relatively simple: He could let things ride for a while and trust in his own abilities. Alternatively, he could arrange another accident. The latter option was infinitely more attractive, not only because it was malicious and violent but also because Zyuganov recently had made an important discovery.

  The one remotely social activity the misanthropic Zyuganov indulged in was an occasional visit to SVR Department Five, the “wet works,” to keep up with a handful of officers he had known during the Lubyanka years—the last remnants of a battalion of “special tasks” assassins and saboteurs from happier times. He felt marginally at home among these stolid, expressionless professionals, some nearing retirement, some younger ones still trying to make names for themselves. At any rate, he liked them better than the new crop of SVR dilettantes in Headquarters who spoke English and knew how to order wines. No, the “wet boys” were his people.

  Zyuganov had been sitting in the Department Five lounge when a woman approached him, stood with heels together, and asked in a whisper if she might speak with him. She was of medium height, about forty, dyed blond hair cut short, figure heavy but not fat, with the shoulders of a man. A broad, flat nose ended above a razor-cut mouth and an overly strong chin. Zyuganov normally would be in no mood to speak with anybody so clearly soliciting favors, but he noticed the gray eyes behind the wire-rimmed spectacles, eyes so purely gray they looked artificial. They were red-rimmed and held Zyuganov’s gaze unblinkingly. Some primal divining rod in his brain started quivering, a sociopath sensing a kindred spirit.

  The woman was dressed in an inexpensive long-sleeved cotton dress, also gray, buttoned at the neck. Too-long arms stuck out of her sleeves. There was some indistinct lumpiness that hinted at substantial breasts, or perhaps just mattress stuffing. Nervous hands picked at the side seam of her dress, and Zyuganov noticed the fingers were stained yellow.

  “What is it?” Zyuganov spat. He noticed she did not flinch, but kept staring at him.

  “I would like to work for you,” said the woman, still whispering.

  “Impossible. What do you mean by asking such a thing? Selection into Line KR is exceedingly competitive.” He looked away to terminate the conversation.

  The woman did not move. “I don’t mean in Line KR,” she said. “With the other.”

  As Zyuganov made a dismissive gesture with his hand, the chief of Department Five walked in and the woman, after another lupine stare, turned and left the lounge.

  The chief of Five didn’t like Zyuganov, didn’t like when he visited his department, didn’t like the wormy little troll and his wormy little reputation. He was a reformer, a careerist, not an old palach, an executioner. “What are you doing talking to Eva?” the chief asked.

  “I wasn’t talking to her,” said Zyuganov.

  “Well, take my advice and give her a wide berth,” said the chi
ef.

  “Who is she?” said Zyuganov.

  The chief filled a glass with hot tea from a hissing samovar on a side table, deciding how to describe one beast to another. “Evdokia Buchina, her friends call her Eva for short—if she has any friends; started as an SVR corporal in Saint Petersburg, transferred to Moscow, then put in an administrative position here in Department Five. My department. It’s been a year and I’ve tried to get rid of her since she arrived.”

  Zyuganov tried not to look interested. “What’s wrong with her?”

  “Nothing much,” said the chief. “Disciplined for aggression in the office. Transferred for abusing prisoners.”

  Zyuganov’s ears pricked up. “What do you mean, abusing prisoners?”

  “Beating them to death in their cells. One in Petersburg, one in Moscow.”

  “Accidents happen,” Zyuganov said.

  The chief shrugged. “You want her transferred to your office? Wonderful. I’ll send you her personnel file. I don’t even know what half the words in her medical profile mean.”

  Zyuganov had been noncommittal. Eva said she wanted to work “on the other.” He wondered whether he had found someone special. Her file was rich with tantalizing words, some of which Zyuganov had to look up: Androgyne. Pansexual. Schizotypal.

  A personal interview with Eva was inconclusive: She answered in monosyllables, shook her head, and mumbled. But those eyes the color of wet cement never left Zyuganov’s face. Following his instincts, he took Eva one evening to Butyrka prison to observe the interrogation of a jailed activist, a member of the political performance-art group Voina who, during a street demonstration to protest the policies of Vladimir Putin, threw a jar of green paint on an undercover officer of SVR. It was the young rocker’s misfortune that this automatically became a matter for SVR’s Department for Protection of the Constitutional System, which essentially meant he would be answering to Alexei Zyuganov and, in a debut appearance, Evdokia Buchina.

  She broke six of his fingers, dislocated his left shoulder, crushed the small bones of his right foot, and fractured his condyle mandible, all before midnight. Zyuganov watched, fascinated, as Eva worked, methodical, lithe, patient, graceful, strong, her breathing steady, shooting him glances, the hellhound looking for approval, the schoolmarm spectacles glinting in the overhead lights. It was like sitting in Brahms’s music room, watching him compose. Zyuganov had found his izverg, his Belial, his monster.

  Hurting Egorova. Clipping the Sparrow’s wings. Zyuganov left the idea in the wet locker of his brain. No, for the time being, he instead had resolved to starve Egorova of information in the matter of the deal with Iran, to compartment the relevant KR files so she would not meddle and steal his heat. He additionally needed to tie her up with useless work; he needed an otvlekayushchiy manevr, a distraction, a red herring.

  The next morning fortune smiled on him.

  Shaggy Yevgeny handed him a new cable from Zarubina’s Washington rezidentura reporting the latest nighttime meeting with US Air Force Major Thorstad. Buried again at the end of the double agent chicken feed was another bombshell report from TRITON—fifteen frames. The anonymous newt had photographed three separate cables detailing an exchange between CIA Headquarters and the CIA Station in Athens on an intelligence source code-named LYRIC, who recently had been debriefed on Russian military intelligence (GRU) operations to acquire US military technology. Zyuganov’s eyebrows went up: Based on the summary, the information passed to CIA was clearly from an insider deep within GRU, a source with firsthand access.

  Pust’. So be it. Another spy to ferret out, thought Zyuganov, another dumpling to gobble up. The Americans apparently had been tireless in recruiting Russians recently. And in one stroke TRITON would neutralize their gains. He looked at Zarubina’s cable, deep in thought. This LYRIC had to be someone on active duty in Moscow, sitting in an important position with heavy-duty access, not a functionary assigned to an embassy. That the debriefing occurred in Athens was only marginally important, he decided. Greece was a popular and inexpensive summer vacation destination for sun-starved Russians. The traitor GRU officer likely had gone on holiday with his family, contacted CIA while there, had been debriefed and paid, then finished his vacation and was probably already back in Moscow. It would be a straight mole hunt here in the capital, a matter of checking military-leave and international-travel records. A handful of likely GRU candidates would be rounded up, there would be a series of interrogations, and the predatel svin’ya, the swine traitor, would be revealed.

  More interrogations. Zyuganov licked his lips—he had acquired a corneal trephine from the SVR ophthalmologic unit that he wanted to try out on someone. Then the thought occurred to him: He could use the Greece venue as a pretext to send Egorova to Athens on a “counterintelligence inspection tour,” to interview officers in the rezidentura and embassy. She could cool her heels there for two weeks on a futile snipe hunt while he unmasked the mole in Moscow.

  He sourly regarded his deputy, who looked back at him from the doorway. He gave him instructions: Tell Captain Egorova there is a counterespionage lead in Greece. Do not mention Zarubina or TRITON’s report regarding LYRIC. She is to go to Athens and discreetly interview SVR, GRU, and embassy personnel and look for anything out of the ordinary; she should not return until she has interviewed everyone, two weeks or more.

  “Interview everyone?” said Yevgeny. “On what pretext? How do we explain to the Athens rezidentura?” He knew his boss; it wouldn’t do to push too much. Whatever, Egorova would be kept busy.

  “Tell her it’s a routine inspection. Tell her everyone has to do it,” said Zyuganov. “Now get out of here. And get Zarubina on the secure line.”

  Yevgeny Pletnev looked across the desk at Captain Egorova and first thought that he had never seen such blue eyes in his life, then estimated the heft and feel of her breasts underneath that blouse, and then, transported, imagined himself in bed with her. He scratched himself under the arm. He had smoothly passed along Colonel Zyuganov’s instructions to her in her smallish office in Line KR spaces, while she sat expressionless. He watched her carefully, curious—she already was a storied member of the Service. Yevgeny was the only officer in Line KR other than Zyuganov who had access to everything the department did, and in the iron-clad hierarchy of SVR, he owed allegiance to no one besides Zyuganov. But Egorova’s celebrity intrigued him; he sniffed at her influence, assessed her cool detachment. Today she was dressed in a dark suit with a light-blue blouse, her hair pinned up, and she wore no jewelry except for a small watch with a narrow velvet band. Her blue eyes held his as if she were reading him. Graceful hands rested on the leather blotter. Her classical features were serene. She seemed different; he didn’t know what to expect. Yevgeny was used to toxic outbursts from invidious sociopaths.

  “Thank you, Yevgeny. I will make preparations to travel,” said Dominika. Ironic: Zyuganov thought he was cutting her out, but he had just given her a two-week window to meet with CIA—and for her to see Nate again. She could not have imagined they would be together again so soon after Vienna. She mentally began drafting the SRAC message she would transmit this evening.

  A golden opportunity. She looked at the grimy yellow halo around Yevgeny’s head, the color fading in and out. A plotting toadeater, Zyuganov’s sycophant, but with information she needed. And not dialed in quite right with the ladies, no matter how much he daydreamed about skirts. Dominika looked at this weird creature and shuddered.

  Udranka was sitting on top of a file folder, her legs crossed. Get on with it; you don’t have to like it, you just have to do it.

  Yevgeny Pletnev had been drafted into SVR after graduating from Moscow University with an undistinguished degree in computer science, the result of patronage from an uncle who was a deputy in the State Duma, the Federal Assembly of Russia, and the head of the Commission for Legislative Support for Anti-Corruption. His uncle’s influence, however, stopped at the imposing front doors of Yasenevo and the new employee�
��he was twenty-five at the time—found himself directed to the administrative side of the Service in personnel, logistics, and support. It was not long before the hairy young man calculated that advancement was more reliably attained by avoiding the messy and politically dangerous operations directorates.

  Yevgeny spent the required dreary years in personnel until there was a vacancy for an administrative assistant in Line KR, the shady office that dealt with counterintelligence and surveillance of Russian citizens abroad. Despite warnings from colleagues, Yevgeny saw an opportunity and applied for the position. Three years in the Line KR staff room spent improving the antiquated computer network and cleaning up the files got him noticed by the horrid, diminutive chief of Line KR, Alexei Zyuganov, who ordered him to move to his personal staff, first in the outer office, then as associate staff chief, then as his personal aide-de-camp, then, last year, as Zyuganov’s deputy. Yevgeny knew it was risky in the extreme—suicidal—to even contemplate hooking on to Zyuganov’s coattails. Chort poberi, to join the demon. But the then thirty-five-year-old Yevgeny calculated that Zyuganov was powerful, irreplaceable, whispered about. Better still, his boss’s serrated and fear-inducing reputation would rebound to him.

  “This position is sensitive,” said Zyuganov on Yevgeny’s first day as number two, looking sideways at him, like a turtle. “You will see everything I see, read everything I read. You will have access to my files. Loyalty and discretion are required. I have approved of your work since you arrived in Line KR, but any deviation from these standards will result in immediate disciplinary action. In other words, I personally will bring you to the cellars and strap you to the table. Do I make myself clear?”