The Kremlin's Candidate

by Jason Matthews

  Dominika sat at one of a few tables by the window and checked the street. The persistent Romeo was loitering on the opposite sidewalk, smoking. An American gopnik, but he didn’t look as tough as the Moscow species. Bozhe, God, she didn’t need this distraction right now. The mixture of sausage, peppers, and onions inside the calzone was delectable and oozed out, and she wiped her mouth with a paper napkin. Izobiliye, she thought, abundance. This was an American neighborhood bakery, not a state store, one of hundreds in this borough alone. Enough. Get moving.

  Dominika walked up New Dorp Lane, the sidewalks broad and clean, people in storefront offices working. A corner food market, the “Convenient Mart,” whatever that meant, had cases of bottled water stacked high on either side of the door. The young man was still following her and she knew she had to shake him before she neared the cemetery. The illegal might be observing her approach and it would be a disaster if she couldn’t get rid of him. As she was entering the store in an effort to shake him off, Dominika heard footsteps and the young man called “Hey, Mam’sell!” and she turned to see Romeo take a picture of her with his cell phone at a distance of five feet, then hold it up to admire. Besides her official academy photo, and the ID pics Gable had taken of her in Helsinki, and ops alias passport photos, there was no extant photograph of SVR Colonel Dominika Egorova, especially not on the mobile phone of some durak, some idiot, in front of the Convenient Mart, on New Dorp Lane, on Staten Island, forty minutes before a clandestine contact with an illegals officer. She’d be on this boy’s Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter accounts in three minutes.

  Dominika made an instant calculation. “Since you seem so intent on following me,” said Dominika to him, “perhaps you can show me a good bottle of American wine in this store.”

  The young man stepped up to her, exuding his snail-trail charm. “Show you a bottle of wine, or share it with you?” he cooed.

  Dominika let a slight smile move her lips. “It depends how good the wine is,” she said.

  The young man led her into the little market, down a food aisle where Dominika stopped in amazement to count no fewer than ten different types of breakfast cereals on the shelf, an impossible riot of color. She followed Romeo to the back of the store, and stood in front of a wine cooler with sliding glass doors, while Romeo pointed out the reds, then the whites. They had everything, anything she wanted. Almaden, Gallo, Carlo Rossi, Blue Nun, Lancers. He said the Franzia box wines were underrated. If she didn’t like any of the wines, they had pints behind the counter: gin, vodka, rye. Dominika chose a white and let Romeo pay, then followed him across the avenue to sit on a step that was part of a cement bridge that carried ribbed steam-heat pipes over the commuter train tracks and was screened from the main road. The cement bridge shook when a train passed beneath. Blokhin would have driven the tactical spike through Romeo’s eye and into his brain, but Dominika took a sip from the bottle—the wine was sweet and metallic—then handed it back. She turned and hit him on the side of his neck with a hammer fist that started down by her left hip and snapped around with torque provided by her hips. The strike overloaded the nerves in his mastoid process, and his head slumped forward as he pitched unconscious face-first onto the concrete. If he wasn’t dead, he would be out for several hours, and Dominika would be long rid of Staten Island. She fished Romeo’s phone out of his back pocket and used a broken, pointed chunk of concrete as a Paleolithic tool to pulverize the modern appliance into plastic crumbles, none remotely recognizable as a phone. She scattered the smithereens onto the tracks under the bridge, took a final vile sip from the bottle, and threw that too, to smash on the rail bed among all the detritus piled along the tracks.

  “Zvezdá, big shot,” said Dominika, looking down at Romeo, knowing it would have been easier and more secure to have killed him. She wondered if she would eventually get to that point: the Blokhin/Stalin default solution—kill and erase the obstacle, regardless of circumstances.

  Moving quickly, Dominika turned right onto Richmond Road and walked uphill past houses with painted fences and trimmed bushes. Many of the houses had American flags hanging from the porches. The street was quiet, she was black, and there was no trailing coverage, she was sure. She was a Russian intelligence officer loose in America, proceeding to a meeting with a sleeper agent.

  The temperature was mild, the sky was clear, the sunlight was bright. The ornamental gate to the Moravian Cemetery was open, flanked by lush orange trumpet vines. As if she had visited this graveyard every weekend, Dominika unerringly took the left-hand path, walked past the placid lake, its surface stirred by the drooping branchlets of willows. She continued along the paved drive flanked on either side by acres of tombstones. Some of the stone markers were extravagant: twenty-foot obelisks or ziggurats topped by ecstatic angels. She passed rows of small ornate mausoleums protruding out of grassy tumuli, family names carved on the lintels. These were nothing like the outlandish headstones of assassinated gangsters, or murdered journalists, or martyred dissidents in Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow, with startlingly realistic images of the departed carved into the marble. Where would President Putin be laid to rest in Moscow? she wondered. Would the monsters resting in the Kremlin wall scoot over to make room for him? Or would he prefer a twenty-story porphyry obelisk on the Moscow Hills so he could gaze down on the Rodina he so energetically defended?

  At Dominika’s thought of Putin, the warming sun went behind a cloud and she felt a cold shiver. The cemetery was utterly still now, no birds, no traffic noise, as if the spirits knew what was happening. The grass around the gravestones stirred; she heard whispers around her, or was that the breeze? But there was no breeze. Get a hold of yourself, she thought as she walked, keep your head, meet this bitch, and let’s complicate Vladimir Putin’s life. Dominika kept left, and followed the footpath into a dark forested section with very little sunlight. It smelled cold here, and she pushed her sunglasses onto the top of her head. Her hand drifted into her purse and around the shaft of the tactical steel pen in the side pocket. She looked left and right into the trees, her Russian imagination conjuring up wolves weaving through the coppice, keeping pace with her.

  She rounded a bend in the path and saw the massive wrought-iron lych-gate, the entrance to the private cemetery grounds of the Vanderbilt family. The gate was secured with a heavy-duty chain, but Dominika followed the boundary wall ten meters to the right, and was able to hitch up her dress and boost herself over. The path curved left, and the woods opened up to a grassy clearing ringed by a low-curved curb. The white-stone mausoleum at one end dominated the space. It resembled the front of a Romanesque church, with three arched doors, a tall central gable, and two conical cupolas on the roof. The crypt itself extended from the ornate façade into the earthen hill behind.

  It was deathly quiet, the sun behind the clouds. Dominika stood still and watched the woods, listened to the air around her. There would have been no way for Gable to set up on this spot without spooking SUSAN. The veteran illegal knew what she was doing picking this site. Dominika checked her watch; it was time. She walked up the five curving steps to the entrance, and pushed on the central steel door with matching ornate handles. Dominika knew the crypt doors normally would be locked and probably chained, but mechanical locks posed no problems, ever. The door swung in easily, soundlessly, and a fetid breath of cold stone hit her, a coffin smell, a whiff of endless time. The dim vaulted room was flanked by wall crypts with stone coffins, and a massive tomb with a curved top and adorned with intricate carved decorations—presumably the sarcophagus of the paterfamilias—dominated the center of the chamber.

  “Dobriy den tovarishch, good afternoon, comrade,” said a silky voice in Russian. Dominika willed herself not to jump. Gripping the fighting spike in her purse, she turned slowly toward the voice and saw a dark silhouette in the corner of the crypt, completely in shadow. No halo was visible in this darkness. The only illumination came from the milky bar of light through the cracked central door, keeping most of
the room in darkness. “You are precisely on time, but that is to be expected from the famous Colonel Egorova.” Moscow accent, educated, but originally from the south, with a trace of yakanye, the broad vowels of the lower Volga, thought Dominika.

  “Good afternoon. I am glad we could meet,” said Dominika, holding out her hand. Will you come closer to shake? The woman didn’t move, and Dominika lowered her hand.

  “How much time do you have? I presume we both have to return to Manhattan tonight,” said Dominika. She had a mild goal of getting the woman to talk a little, to see what she could learn. But carefully. “This Staten Island is a strange place.” The silhouette shrugged.

  “It is remote, quiet, and parochial. I find it well suited for operations,” she said. Okay, you operate here. Interesting.

  “I would find all of New York operationally challenging,” said Dominika.

  “One becomes accustomed to the rhythms of the city,” said the woman, vaguely. She isn’t going to volunteer anything. She’s too smart.

  “I imagine you do,” said Dominika, now talking a little shop between professionals. “But in my assignments I have had to contend with active, hostile opposition on the street. As a civilian you, of course, have greater latitude to operate than does a diplomat officer in the rezidentura.” The silhouette shifted slightly.

  “I suppose so. The magazine industry has provided effective cover over the years,” said SUSAN. “It fortuitously is dominated by savvy and aggressive women—our timorous male counterparts are less dynamic. Still, there are disadvantages: dealing with writers can be a trial, you have no idea.” This is going nowhere. Back to business.

  “I have the devices—one each for you and MAGNIT—which will provide secure voice communications. If you need to meet personally, you are to coordinate with Line S. I imagine there are ample discreet sites, equidistant from New York and Washington,” said Dominika. She slid the zippered pouch with the EKHO phones across the dusty curved lid of Commodore Vanderbilt’s sarcophagus, half expecting to hear him complain from inside about being disturbed in his sleep, by Russians no less.

  “MAGNIT has less latitude for travel than I,” said SUSAN. “And Washington is an easier counterintelligence environment, even within the city.” Okay, you meet in Washington, in the city. Benford will be glad to learn that.

  “Is there anything else I can do for you?” asked Dominika. “Is there anything you or the asset requires?” A long shot—what couldn’t MAGNIT obtain in the United States that SVR could? Gold bullion? Blood diamonds? Polonium? No more questions. Maybe walk out into the sunlight with her? A glimpse of her halo?

  “Spasibo, there is nothing I require,” said SUSAN, condescension edging into her voice. Then Dominika saw the smear of dust on the sarcophagus lid where she had slid the zippered pouch, and her thoughts raced.

  “Then I have a requirement for you,” said Dominika sternly, holding her breath, hoping this would work. “I was given a third encrypted mobile phone for contingency use, including for contacting you. I would not like to carry it back to Moscow through airport security. I will pass it to you to dispose of securely the night before I return home. I, of course, could myself throw it into the river, but that kind of haphazard destruction has proven to be disastrous in past cases—equipment has been recovered by the opposition. You must melt the chip, break apart the handset, and disperse the pieces widely so they will not be associated with each other. Passing the phone to you would not require another personal meeting—I will emplace it at a timed drop of your choosing.”

  “There are a million places in the city where you can dispose of a phone,” said SUSAN, pettishly. She’d been on her own for twenty years, met by servile Line N handlers who never questioned her. Dominika put some menace into her voice, the vocal grit all Russians recognize as looming trouble.

  “Your long record of service in America—how many years has it been?—undoubtedly has given you encyclopedic knowledge of the city, which is precisely why I am enlisting your assistance. Given that your own contact numbers are on the instrument, it moreover is an operational requirement that we do this,” said Dominika, flatly. The shadow of the woman stirred, clearly nettled at being told what to do. But all illegals, especially the longtime ones, feared one thing even more than exposure and capture: recall to Moscow, the end of this cushy existence, the end of comfort and abundance, to be cast down again into the pit of Russian sloth, and bureaucracy, and depravation, with a headquarters desk, a dingy apartment, and perhaps a subcompact car, with a medal to wear at ceremonies, the end of foreign assignments, and even of personal foreign travel. Forever. And this blue-eyed chief of CI just made reference to SUSAN’s many years in America, and could conceivably make trouble over a stupid regulation. She sullenly gave Dominika the address of a dead drop in Manhattan along with a description. Okay, a way to identify our silky-voiced friend.

  But now Dominika had to get to Gable to tell him her plan, before her last two days were spent in the protective shadow of Sergeant Blokhin. No more pushing Little Miss SUSAN. She mustn’t become suspicious. Conversation tailed off. The meeting was over.

  Consistent with established tradecraft procedures, Dominika left the mausoleum first and returned to Manhattan. She never saw the other woman again. Russians don’t say that someone is a top pro, they say podkovat blochu, that someone can shoe a flea. This woman was like that: even after a fifteen-minute meeting with the illegal, standing three feet away, Dominika couldn’t have picked SUSAN out of a crowd if her life depended on it. And she knew eventually it probably would.

  DOMINICK’S SAUSAGE, PEPPER, AND ONION CALZONE

  Sauté thinly sliced red and yellow bell peppers, thinly sliced half-moons of onion, and finely minced garlic until soft. Season, add dried oregano and red pepper flakes. Add crumbled Italian sausage and continue cooking until meat is browned. Let mixture cool, then stir in mozzarella, Parmesan, and chopped parsley. On a floured surface, roll out seven-inch rounds of pizza or bread dough. Place a small amount of meat mixture in the center of the dough circles, then fold over and seal the edges with a water-wet finger. Use a fork to press a flute pattern into the dough along the seam, and poke a small steam hole on top. Brush tops with olive oil. Bake in a medium-high oven on a cookie sheet until golden brown. Let rest slightly and serve lukewarm with heated marinara sauce.

  9

  Cradle Snacking

  The bohemian charm of Staten Island left behind, Dominika and Gable were sitting shoulder to shoulder on the banquette in the back of a little bar in Chelsea on Hudson Street called Employees Only. It was late and the bar was half-full. A small plate of Parmesan frico cups filled with tomato salad sat untouched between Gable’s beer and Dominika’s wine. Dominika had just finished telling Gable about her trip to Staten Island, going into the Vanderbilt mausoleum, and the spooky meeting in the dark with the illegal. Gable shook his head and took a sip of beer.

  “You didn’t see her face at all?” Gable said.

  “Not even the color of her hair,” said Dominika. “She stayed in the shadows the whole time. She was very good. I did not push it.”

  “Jesus wept. And you think she uses Staten Island to meet agents?” asked Gable.

  “She said it was well-suited for operations,” said Dominika. “But Staten Island goes on forever. How could you cover it?” Gable shrugged.

  “Facial-recognition software in cameras at the ferry terminal might pick her up,” said Gable.

  “If we knew what she looked like, perhaps,” said Dominika. “But we do not.”

  “Yeah, tell me something I don’t know,” said Gable. “She could drive her ass over one of the bridges too.”

  “May I tell you an idea about how we could identify her?” said Dominika. “I am thinking we could take a page out of the old KGB handbook.” Gable drank some more beer.

  “I could order two more drinks if this is going to take long,” he said. Dominika smiled and patted his arm.

  “Terpeniye, patien
ce, Bratok, you will like this,” she said. “Now listen. Before I leave New York, I ordered SUSAN—yes, ordered her most sternly—to retrieve my encrypted personal mobile phone from a dead-drop site of her choosing in Manhattan, for destruction and secure disposal.”

  “And she went for that?”

  “I used my colonel’s voice on her. Russians respond to bullying.”

  “You sure as hell don’t,” said Gable.

  “That is because you never bully me,” said Dominika.

  “I’m too scared to,” said Gable. “Okay, you dead drop your phone, we set up an ambush, and bag her ass? That’s no good; it puts you in hot water.”

  “I am not thinking of an ambush, which we must avoid for exactly that reason. We just have to pass the physical item in a timed drop at a site of her choosing, someplace that offers her absolute security. No ambushes, no surveillance at the site.”

  Gable looked sideways at her. “I’m waiting for the punch line,” he said.

  “We dust the cell phone with metka.”

  “Smegma?” said Gable, being obtuse. “What the hell’s that?”

  Dominika laughed. She knew the obscure word from Sparrow School. “You are a real krutóy páren, a sharp fellow. You know very well what I said. Metka, not smegma. Spy dust, like the KGB used in Moscow to track Americans. I’m sure Benford has chemists who could prepare a compound.”

  “Moscow will still wonder how they lost their sleeper,” said Gable.