“Colonel Zyuganov was informed of TRITON’s appearance by an unauthorized secure phone call from Paris placed by his mother.” Dominika registered that this meant Zyuganov’s phone lines had been monitored. Her suggestion that he was the mole apparently had made an impression. Something else.
Putin leaned back in his chair. His blue halo pulsed. He was enjoying himself; perhaps he was imagining slipping under the comforter next to her. “Colonel Zyuganov was logged out of Vnukovo on a flight to Paris tonight. He has not checked in with our embassy. His whereabouts in Paris are unknown. His mother, Ekaterina, was found murdered in her apartment.”
“Do you think he is gone, fled to the West?” said Dominika.
“Perhaps,” said Putin. “But I believe he has gone to Paris for a desperate reason. I think he will call the local number TRITON left and ask for a meeting.” Putin was thinking this through, dangerously so. Maybe he had doubts about Zyuganov’s guilt. God, she had to transmit SRAC messages, to give CIA enough information to catch TRITON. If Zyuganov spoke to TRITON for even two minutes she would be finished.
“It is possible, Mr. President,” said Dominika. “But what can he hope to accomplish?”
“Isn’t it clear to you?” said Putin. “Zyuganov intends to eliminate TRITON, the source who can identify him as the Americans’ mole.”
“Mr. President!” said Dominika, feigning shock, but gratified that he had made a wrong assumption. Putin’s blue halo positively glowed. The Russian in him was enjoying the chess game; the former KGB officer in him was savoring the maze of contradictions; the despot in him was relishing the mayhem. Something else in him was waking: He looked again at Dominika’s breasts, at the hint of darker nipples under the dentelle lace. Udranka clucked from the darkened corner of the room. Putin leaned closer and put his hand on Dominika’s hand.
“I want you to do something,” he said, stroking her wrist. Dominika waited for him to speak, mentally cataloging the Babylonian possibilities. Yes, or no, Benford? Nathaniel, will you understand?
“I want you to go to Paris, this morning, without delay. You speak fluent French, yes?” The president’s hand trailed up her stomach and lightly across her left breast. Dominika forced herself—willed herself—to stay still. She was conscious of involuntarily widening her eyes. Putin’s X-ray blue eyes searched her face.
“You will arrange a meeting with TRITON before Zyuganov gets to him.” His fingertips left the lace and traced a line on her skin between the swell of her breasts. Dominika was motionless. Could he feel her heart beating? Could he differentiate between the normal pulses of passion and the timpani pounding of revulsion? My God, was this stroking the preliminary to seduction, or was it more like what it seemed: Namely, the caress of a ravening collector handling an antique vase, the affirmation of ownership? Putin’s halo enveloped her. His furry cologne—a ghastly rosewater- and cumin-infused toilet water from someplace like Sochi—got into her nose like a gnat. The president watched her face as his finger slipped under the material and made a slow circle around her left nipple. Dominika, the clinically trained Sparrow, knew the involuntary pilomotor reflex triggered by the release of oxytocin was contracting the skin beneath her nipples, but Vlad baby knew only that she was getting hard.
“After he tells you Zyuganov is the mole, I want you to dispose of TRITON,” said the president. “He is blown, on the run, an embarrassment.” How charming, she thought. Hands on my tits and he orders me to commit statal murder; he wants me to kill for Mother Russia. He was not content to bleed his country; now he would—once again—defame her. Dominika looked into his unblinking eyes. His lips were pursed as if he had nougat in his mouth. He was sitting very close to the bed, waiting, and Dominika, seized with an appallingly lurid intuition probably shared two thousand years ago by Messalina when she wormed an oiled hand under Claudius’s toga, reached out and put her hand in the president’s lap.
“Kill him?” whispered Dominika. So this was what it would be like as a member of the club. The president’s nostrils flared as Dominika lightly felt around through the silk for the laska, the sleeping little weasel in his pajamas.
“And then I want you to clear up any misunderstandings remaining with Colonel Zyuganov,” said Putin. Dominika’s fingers detected something—it might be what she was looking for. Still sleeping.
“What do you—” The president softly squeezed her breast—his fingers were calloused—to silence her. Dominika thought a reciprocal squeeze would be appropriate. Nothing stirred in the silk forest.
“He need not return to Russia,” said Putin. He took his hand away from her breast. Should she do the same? Not yet.
“We have men in Department Five who do these things,” said Dominika, moving her thumb pad up and down. “Mr. President, I am hardly the best candidate.” There was no reaction from between his legs. Was she losing her Sparrow touch? She’d been at the top of the class in what the matron instructors at Sparrow School had called monkey love.
In the corner of the room, Marta and Udranka looked at each other, shaking their ghostly heads.
“I want you to attend to it,” said Putin. “As you will be promoted to chief of Line KR on your return from Paris, it is appropriate for you to manage this personnel action yourself.” Personnel action—Stalin’s venerable euphemism for wiping a human being from the face of the earth. This was the typical bear trap: Promotion. Kremlin favor. Profit sharing. And then she would belong to them, these black-mouthed reptiles throwing their coils around her chest to draw her close. It didn’t make sense for her, specifically, to be sent to kill these two, but it didn’t have to make sense. She recoiled at the oily orders given by this outwardly mellow potentate. Dominika knew that if she carried them out she would forever be under Putin’s thumb. She thought it ironic, however, that Putin had for the last five minutes been under her thumb, with no appreciable results.
Chief of Line KR. She would be running counterintelligence for the entire Service. It would mean unparalleled access. Nathaniel and Gable and Forsyth and Benford would not believe her at first. And her blue-eyed, melon-headed benefactor had just given her the travel opportunity to meet them and tell them. But God, she had to get to Paris immediately and prevent Zyuganov from closing with TRITON. Dominika knew Nate would rush to Paris when she called her SENTRY number—they would find a solution to this together. Together.
Her sudden longing for Nate reminded her she still had her hand in the president’s lap. His face was impassive, but there was some stirring, in fact quite a lot of stirring, as if Putin could on demand make the weasel come out of the forest. With practiced feel, Dominika estimated smaller-than-average dimensions, but it was quite firm. His hand reached out and caressed her breast again, lightly, just fingertips brushing skin. Dominika wanted to scream, but she lowered her eyes and smiled at him.
He looked back at her without agitation or emotion. “Are you willing to accomplish these things?” he asked her, the wakened weasel now noticeable under the pajamas. Dominika realized that giving the order to kill had been the stimulus, the turn-on.
Dominika balanced the prospect of a decades-long torrent of intelligence production for CIA against an abject and scurvy existence as a female member of this rat pack, the first scene of which she was now playing out, teasing the weasel of the president.
“Mr. President, I will do anything to help you and my country,” said Dominika, with a look that might have also hinted You don’t own me.
President Putin returned her look with a rare, small smile that said, Sure I do, and, as if to demonstrate his adamantine will, stood up, looked down at her, nodded, and left the room silently. Her hand still tingling, Dominika could only stare at the slowly closing door. Exhausted by the last seven minutes, she sank back into her pillows while Marta and Udranka applauded from the shadows. But now Hannah was in the room too; Dude, get ready, we have a lot of work to do. And Dominika was glad she had their spirits with her—and she would see Nate soon. The tiny clock on
the mantelpiece, which had chimed the hour for the Grand Duke Constantine two hundred years ago, chimed now for Dominika, as if announcing the start of the race to Paris.
PATYCHYKY—MEAT SKEWERS
* * *
Thread meat cubes marinated in vinegar on skewers and squeeze together to form lumpy kebabs. Mix bread crumbs, curry powder, salt, and pepper, and coat the meat skewers. Roll them in an egg wash, then again in the bread crumbs, pressing to adhere and to compact the meat. Fry the skewers in oil until golden, then place them on a bed of butter and sliced onions and bake in a low oven until the meat is tender. Serve with salad and adzhika sauce.
39
Seb Angevine had to run his fingers through his hair and compose himself before opening the door to Vikki’s apartment. He had driven away from the park in a panic, forcing himself to motor slowly through the city, shaken and looking in his rearview mirror for flashing red lights, taking Columbia Road south onto quiet Twenty-second, across Buffalo Bridge, stair-stepping through deserted Georgetown, then north on Thirty-seventh into Glover Park. As he drove he deleted the digital files stored in Gamma, and with shaking fingers pried out the tiny memory card. The little camera was flipped over the bridge into Rock Creek, and the memory card with 22GB of top-secret internal CIA cables—including the true names of CIA sources—went down a sewer grate on Q Street. No matter: He had memorized the name of Dominika Egorova. Ten minutes later, Angevine parked Vikki’s car close to the back door of the apartment unit, partially screened from the street by a commercial Dumpster. He sucked at a bleeding knuckle and tried to think.
Putain de bordel, goddamn it, this was disaster, this was ruin, this was exactly why he had told himself he would not deal with the Russians in person. His new BMW was parked one car down, and its shark nose seemed to wag at him in condescending disapproval. He didn’t exactly know how Vikki would take the news that he was a disaffected and invidious senior CIA official treasonously providing classified US information of national-security import to the external intelligence service of the Russian Federation in exchange for obscene amounts of money, and had narrowly escaped being swarmed this evening in a downtown park by unidentified law-enforcement officials—presumably FBI—who in all likelihood were driving to Vikki’s apartment at this moment to arrest him. He hoped she could handle it all at once.
“You fucking asshole!” Vikki said.
“I only passed background material,” Angevine lied.
“I helped you get that note to the fat Russian guy at the club,” Vikki said. She was not dancing tonight and had been sitting on the couch in her underwear watching television and sewing a new costume. She was now standing squared off in front of him, hands on her hips. Angevine registered how good her body looked and the thought flitted across his mind that maybe he should include her in his hastily formed plan. Nope, he thought, this bolt-hole was for one. Too bad, really.
“No one got hurt,” he said. “Nobody.” He had forgotten about the attaché recalled from Caracas, and about the thirty days of counterintelligence interviews endured by General Solovyov.
“I’m an accomplice, you bastard; they could charge me for helping you,” said Vikki. Her MemoryGel High Profile implants were heaving with emotion, and her hands were now clenched into fists.
“My information only provided insights that reassured Moscow we could be better partners internationally,” said Angevine loftily, using the Aldrich Ames defense, though he sounded to himself like a United Nations delegate in a fez discussing global initiatives at a shrimp boil on Bayou Bartholomew.
“That’s just freaking great,” said Vikki. “Better partners.”
“I need your help,” said Angevine. “One last time.”
“I’ll help you, all right,” said Vikki. “I’ll help you pack your clothes and get the hell out of here.”
“I’ll leave, if that’s what you want,” said Angevine, “but I need you to drive me, just a little way, and that’s all.” This was going to be tricky, he knew, but he couldn’t do it without her. He had read about the technique when he was still in NCIS, and never forgot it. But now he had to work on Vikki. He dangled the keys to his BMW.
“I’m giving you my car. I was going to surprise you over dinner,” said Angevine. From her expression, it was clear that Vikki did not believe him.
“Look,” said Angevine, “I’m not going to lie to you. I’ve fallen for you, fallen hard. I need your help getting out of the country, to get to France. Once I’m out, you’re meeting me there . . . under the Eiffel Tower,” he added for effect. Vikki crossed her arms in front of her—defensive, wavering a little—and shook her head.
“We have to hurry a little, baby,” said Angevine. He walked over to the window that looked out onto the rear parking lot and peeked through the blinds. Nothing. Yet. He turned back to Vikki and put his arms around her, sliding them up and down her back. “We’ve been through a lot,” Angevine cooed, “and the good times are all ahead of us.”
“What do you want me to do?” asked Vikki slowly, surprised that she felt sorry for him, even though he was full of shit. And he was giving her the car. And she’d never been to Paris.
“Where’s Agatha?” said Angevine, smiling and holding her at arm’s length.
“In the closet,” said Vikki. “What do you want with her?”
“You’ll see,” said Angevine.
Zyuganov hung up the phone, having listened to his mother for forty minutes tell him how odurelnyy, how colossally stupid he had been. She was losing her mind: She scolded him while stirring a pot of Soupe a L’ail, creamy garlic soup, she was making for her lunch. Put down the spoon and listen, he thought. She told him not to do anything rash, stop giving orders to everyone, and stay quiet. Attract no attention to yourself, she advised. Nebylo u baby hlopot tak kupila porosya, Ekaterina Zyuganova told her son, a woman had no trouble so she bought a piglet; you’ve asked for trouble. She would make a call or two, revive old contacts, and call him back. She told him his first duty was to the State, that the State would take care of him, that he owed his first and last loyalty to Russia. Zyuganov privately thought his mother was a throwback Bolshevik: He had forgotten how old-fashioned she was.
Ekaterina Zyuganova had known Zarubina and was shocked to hear she’d had a heart attack—the news of her death had rocketed around the Center and to worldwide rezidenturi. She told her son that she guessed that the fate of TRITON—and subsequently of the mole inside the Center—would not be known for some time but that, in her experience from the Stalin years, all traitors eventually were unmasked.
“Eventually may not be fast enough for me,” Zyuganov had told his mother. The investigators looking into the “quarrel” that resulted in Yevgeny Pletnev’s death had demanded that Colonel Zyuganov relinquish his service passport—it would be best if he did not contemplate foreign travel for the immediate future. A furious Zyuganov also had to sit still for an audit of his section—Line KR had been immune to such internal controls in the past. Interviews with all employees of Line KR were scheduled. Zyuganov knew the signs: For all intents and purposes he was under loose house arrest; his command of Line KR soon would be taken away from him; it would be a short step to arrest, trial, and prison. And Egorova—he absolutely knew she was the CIA mole—dined in luxury on the shores of the Gulf of Finland with the president and his guests.
Five vehicles from the Gs—the FBI’s counterintelligence surveillance team—took up positions characteristic to this special kind of surveillance: They would monitor Vikki Mayfield with the intention of seeing who she was with. Coverage did not have to be discreet; the goal was to identify the man who had escaped from the park. Fileppo and Proctor provided whatever description of the man they could, arguing testily between themselves. They were in one car. Nate rode with another G named Vannoy, a phlegmatic twenty-six-year-old with a movie-idol profile and Popeye forearms. At the team’s arrival, a blacked-out G vehicle ghosted through Vikki’s building’s rear lot, the passenger reading
the numbers of the license plates of the parked cars into his radio. These would be traced instantly by FBI in federal, metropolitan, and national databases. The team dispersed into “fore and aft” positions, four cars to cover all possible directions radiating from Mayfield’s building. Nate’s car was coordinating rover. They settled in.
“I’m always on the other end of surveillance,” said Nate. “It’s the waiting that’s hard; I never realized it.”
Vannoy looked at him. “You get used to it,” he said. “You were in Moscow, right?”
Nate nodded.
“They pretty good over there?” In the streetlight, he looked like a silent-film star.
“They go in pretty heavy,” said Nate. “Unlimited resources and they don’t have to answer to anybody.”
He looked out the window for a second. “We lost an officer in Moscow a few weeks ago,” said Nate. “They hit her with a car. Accident I guess.”
Vannoy’s eyes narrowed. “Her?” he said.
“Yeah, Hannah Archer; bigger balls than you and me combined,” said Nate. They were quiet for a minute. “And now she’s got a star on the wall at Headquarters.”
“I’ve seen that wall,” said Vannoy. “Lots of stars.”
“I’ve seen your FBI Hall of Honor too,” said Nate. They fell silent, listening to the night sounds in the dark neighborhood. Dead leaves in the gutter rustled in the light breeze. It was colder now, past midnight. The radio, volume turned low, burped once.
“How long to run those plates?” said Nate.
“Takes a little longer at night,” said Vannoy.
“I’m sure Fileppo and Proctor want to get their hands on this guy, whoever he is,” said Nate. “Asshole dusted Fileppo pretty good.”
Palace of Treason Page 50
