Red Sparrow: A Novel

by Jason Matthews

  Volontov was just the latest nadziratel in a procession of hoggish overseers in her life and career, but he was here and now, and she wanted to damage him, to extinguish the grimy orange halo around his warty face. She had to put her building rage into a box and calculate. The operation against Nate was critical to Volontov; he feared failing the Center. She could get back at him—at Them—by ruining it. How to do it without destroying yourself? Later that evening, she stopped with the toothbrush still in her mouth and looked at herself in the mirror. You could give the American a surprise, drop your cover, let him know you’re SVR.

  Izmena. Treason, that was what it would be. Gosudarstvennaya izmena. High treason. But it would ruin Volontov’s case, put the Americans on guard, would rock Nate back on his heels. It would be interesting to see his surprise when he learned that she was an intelligence officer. He would respect her for that, he would be impressed. He would respect her.

  Come on, are you insane? Have you forgotten discipline? Responsibility to the Rodina? But this was not an act against Russia. She was getting back at Them, knocking over their dominoes, not selling state secrets. She would be in control, she would determine how far was far enough. No, it was madness, and trouble, and impossible. She would have to find her satisfaction elsewhere. She brushed her hair and looked at the tapered handle of the brush, imagining it seated firmly between Volontov’s buttocks. Then she turned off the light and went into her bedroom.

  At the end of the week, Nate and Dominika were sitting in the ersatz Ristorante Villetta in Töölö at a corner table. The restaurant was classic Italian in Helsinki. A plastic canopy with Italian colors jutted out from the first floor of the apartment block in which it was located. Inside, the requisite red-and-white tablecloths and runny candles completed the décor. The weather was still cold, but winter would break soon, a few more feet of snow, then the short spring would give way to delicious summer, with the harbor full of sails and the ferries running. Dominika and Nate had arrived separately, as usual. Under her winter coat she wore a black belted knit dress and black wool stockings. The dress clung to her as she hung her coat over the back of her chair.

  Nate wore a suit, but he had stripped off his necktie, and his shirt, in a blue pencil stripe, was open at the neck. He had left the Embassy two hours before and had driven up the E12 until Ruskeasuo, cut west, and come back south on surface streets, entering Töölö only after having seen ARCHIE parked on a side street with the left-hand visor down. All clear.

  Nate had huddled with Gable the day before. “Get her talking about work,” Gable had said. “She’s an SVR officer, that’s her guilty secret.” Nate nodded. He squirmed, agonizing over the need for a breakthrough moment. Forsyth had praised him, Gable was nothing but encouragement, but Nate was getting antsy. He needed to turn a corner, and right now.

  They chatted for a minute while looking at the improbable oversized menus. “You are quiet tonight,” said Dominika, looking at him over the top of the menu. Same majestic purple. He never changes, she thought.

  “Hard day at the office,” said Nate. Keep it nonchalant. “I was late for a meeting, left figures out of a cable, my boss was not happy and told me so.”

  “I cannot believe you are not excellent in your work.”

  “Well, I feel better now,” Nate said, ordering two glasses of wine from the hovering waiter. “You look nice tonight.”

  “Do you think so?” He was paying her a compliment. How confident he seemed.

  “Yes, I do. You make me forget my boss and work and the lousy day.”

  His boss. She wondered what he really thought. Dominika looked back down at the menu, but she had trouble focusing on the print.

  “You are not alone, Nate. My superior also scolds.” She could feel her heartbeat in her ears. She took a swallow of wine, felt it light up her stomach.

  “So we’re both in hot water. What did you do?”

  “It’s not important,” Dominika said. “He is an unpleasant person, nekulturny. And ugly. He has warts.” How many rezidents in Helsinki have warts? she thought.

  “What’s that, nekulturny?”

  As if you don’t know, thought Dominika. “He is a peasant, no culture.”

  Nate laughed. “What’s his name? Have I met him on the dip circuit?”

  She had changed her mind five times in the last two days, had ultimately decided to steer clear of silly games. She looked at Nate across the table. He was munching grissini, grinning at her. No! Izmena! Treason!

  “His name is Volontov, Maxim,” she said, hearing her own voice through someone else’s ears. Bozhe moi, my God, she thought, I’ve said it. She looked at Nate closely. He was scanning his menu and did not look up when she said the name. The halo around his head did not change.

  “Nope, I don’t think I’ve met him.” Nate felt the hairs on his arms stand up. Holy shit. What’s she doing? She just declared herself.

  “Well, you are fortunate, then,” Dominika said, still staring at him. Nate looked up from the menu. Had Dominika made a mistake and let the rezident’s name slip out? She looked back at him evenly. No. She had deliberately said it.

  “Why is he so bad?” asked Nate.

  “He is disgusting, an old Soviet bastard. Every day he stares at me; what is the expression in English?” Dominika kept looking at Nate evenly.

  “He undresses you with his eyes,” said Nate.

  “Yes,” said Dominika. No reaction from him. Had he missed what she just said? My God, had she gone too far? Then, suddenly, she knew she didn’t care. She had slid down the slope, and now was custodian of a mortally dangerous secret. Are you happy now, durak, you little fool?

  “He sounds horrible . . . but I can understand why he stares.” Nate looked at Dominika and smiled a boyish grin. Jesus, he thought, this came out of the blue. Is this a signal to me? Is she being coy? He looked at her unwavering blue eyes. Her chest rose and fell under the wool dress. Her fingertips gripped the edges of the ridiculous enormous menu.

  “Now you are being nekulturny,” she said. Did he already know? Was he so good, to hide his reaction?

  “Well, it sounds like we both have trouble at work. We can commiserate.”

  “What does ‘commiserate’ mean?” asked Dominika. Blue-eyed stare.

  “Crying on each other’s shoulders,” Nate said. Purple, steady and warm.

  Dominika didn’t know whether to laugh or scream. Stay professional. “Crying we can save for later. I am hungry, let’s order,” she said.

  It was a Monday morning when a restricted-handling cable from Headquarters was passed to Nate, informing the Station that MARBLE had communicated via covcom that he would be arriving in Helsinki in two weeks as part of a Russian trade delegation participating in a two-day Scandinavian/Baltic economic summit. MARBLE relayed that he was using the delegation as cover for travel. He would stay under Line KR’s radar that way. He was further covered by being operational, in town to attempt to bump the senior member of the Canadian delegation, Assistant Trade Minister Anthony Trunk, who the SVR thought was a valid recruitment prospect based on the minister’s predilection for men in their early twenties.

  A senior Canadian official and a pidor, to boot. The Americas Department had primacy, and MARBLE was the logical candidate to travel to Helsinki to sniff at Trunk’s cologne-scented personage. The trip was approved by the Center. As MARBLE knew would happen, instructions were issued to exclude the Helsinki rezidentura from both the conference and the operation. MARBLE had subsequently signaled in his satellite burst transmission that he would be able to meet with CIA handlers late at night after the daily sessions and celebratory dinners concluded. Risky, but possible.

  A Headquarters Russia analyst would arrive two days before the start of the conference to help prepare current intelligence requirements for the meetings. A long list of follow-up questions generated by MARBLE’s previous intelligence reports was cabled to Station. At the bottom of the list, as always, the softly phrased counterint
elligence questions: Do you have knowledge of any moles in the US government? Are you aware of the compromise of any US classified material? Do you know of any intelligence operations being directed against US persons or systems? Mild, opened-ended questions designed to open the furnace door and look inside.

  They went down the checklist. Replenishing commo gear was impossible—MARBLE would go through customs on his return from Helsinki. A universal contact plan would be updated. Forsyth vetoed the addition of two senior officers from Headquarters to participate in the debriefings. Nate was MARBLE’s handler and he would do the job.

  Now there were preparations no one else could make: Nate receded into the background, went out onto the streets, dropped from sight. By night he cased dark alleys, angled walls, loading-dock stairways—Brief Encounter sites—near the neoclassical splendor of the Kämp Hotel, where the summit would be held and delegates housed. He wandered past cafés, restaurants, the City and Sculpture Museums, pacing distances, measuring angles, determining flow and screening—these would be the Brush Pass sites—all within easy walking distance of the Kämp.

  Lastly, during a night of driving rain with sheets of water pouring off the monoliths on the façade of the train terminal, Nate went up the side steps and, just inside the doors, felt the hand, then the heavy weight of the hotel key in his pocket. A thin-faced man, a nonofficial cover officer, an NOC from Europe, had taken a room at the Hotel GLO for a week with a throwaway alias. Every night during the conference, Nate would wait in the hotel room to meet MARBLE when he could get away, wait for the minute scratch at the door, wait to begin the long conversations in the overheated room with the shades down and the television turned up, into the early morning hours, while the city slept and the changing traffic lights reflected endlessly off the wet, empty streets. By the time MARBLE stepped off the plane in Helsinki, the Station was prepared to spend as much time as securely possible with him, without remotely showing an American hair on the street.

  It was early evening, after work, and Dominika stood by a window on the mezzanine level of the Torni Hotel across from the swimming pool, waiting for Nate to show. They swam together now at least three days a week, but Nate had not been at the pool for six days straight. Strange, she thought, feeling a little jilted. A week ago, on a windy spring Sunday, they had met for coffee at the Carusel Café on the water in Ullanlinna. There was a growing forest of swaying rigging in the harbor as halyards clanked against aluminum masts and clouds moved across a rare blue sky.

  Dominika had taken a bus, then the Metro, and finally two taxis to get to the marina. She argued with herself as she walked along the Havsstranden, but in the end had dabbed a little perfume behind her ears. He came on foot, walking across the road, and there was a spring to his step. Nate was his usual charming self, but there was something else. His purple halo was hazy, faded. He was distracted, something was on his mind. When previously they would have spent four, five, six hours together, Nate after an hour said he had another commitment—it was unexpected work, nothing social, he assured her, but he had to go. They had walked a little ways together, and when Dominika suggested that next weekend they might take the ferry to Suomenlinna and spend the day exploring the old fortress, Nate said he would love to, but two weekends from now would be better.

  Trees along the street were budding, they could feel the sun on their faces. At a quiet street corner they stood and faced each other. Dominika was heading home, Nate was going the other way. Dominika could feel him; he radiated nervous energy. He was waiting for something to happen, she thought. “I’m sorry I’m such a pill,” said Nate. “It’s just a lot of work. So we go to the fortress in two weeks together?”

  “Of course,” she said. “I will look for you at the swimming pool. We can arrange Suomenlinna when we see each other.” She turned to cross the street. What, she asked herself, had possessed her to use perfume? Nate watched her walk away down the sidewalk of the leafy neighborhood, registering the slight hitch in her stride. Her lean dancer’s legs bunched at the calves and she swung her hands easily as she walked.

  Then he thought about MARBLE’s imminent arrival. He still had to find an all-clear signal site near the Hotel GLO so MARBLE would know to come upstairs. He took off.

  GREEK STRAPATSADA EGGS

  In heated olive oil reduce peeled, chopped tomatoes, onions, sugar, salt, and pepper to a thick sauce. Add beaten eggs to the tomatoes and stir vigorously until eggs set into a small, fine curd. Serve with grilled country bread drizzled with olive oil.

  13

  It’s been too long. Where is he? What’s he doing? Does he have another target, another woman? Did he break contact because she dropped her cover? She let it go another day, standing in the Torni Hotel across from the swimming pool each evening, waiting for sight of him. She knew he wasn’t coming again tonight. This is it, this is what I was sent here to do. She fought off the image of Uncle Vanya in his office, the suety face of Volontov looking at her each day. She would have to report in the morning.

  Walking to her apartment, Dominika barely registered the streets or the lights in the windows. She thought about what would happen tomorrow in the rezidentura. Her report about Nate’s weeklong no-show would be forwarded by immediate cable to the deputy director, Eyes Only. In Line KR, an urgent request to the travel office would produce a list of all Russians traveling to Scandinavia, for six months previously and six months in the future. Diplomats, businessmen, academics, students, officials, even flight crews. The list would be finite. The patient wolves in KR would start eliminating names based on age, profession, history, and, most critically, access to state secrets. The pared-down list of leading suspects might contain a dozen names or a hundred. It wouldn’t matter. The SVR would then start watching them in Moscow, covering their mail, monitoring their phones, searching apartments and dachas, dispatching informers to get close.

  The search would surely extend to Helsinki, she thought. A Directorate K surveillance team might be deployed to cover Nate for two or three weeks, a month, to observe his activities. Unexpected and invisible—the Directorate K team was referred to in whispered awe—they would record their observations, then the endless watching would begin once back in Moscow. It was inevitable. At the end of the process, if the agent was indeed a Russian, he or she would be arrested, tried, and executed. The Gray Cardinals would have their way again.

  Her footsteps were loud in the night air; the city was quiet. Who was Nate’s agent? she wondered. Why was he betraying Russia? Was this man or woman decent? Venal? Treacherous? Noble? Crazy? She wanted to hear his voice, watch his face. Could she ever sympathize with his motives? Could she ever justify his treason? She thought about her own pettish transgression. You rationalized that easily enough, haven’t you, zagovorshica, you great conspirator?

  Dominika closed her eyes and leaned against the wall of a darkened building. Right now she was the only one who suspected—no, knew—that Nate would be meeting his agent, the mole, and she felt light-headed. What if she said nothing? What if she denied Them the knowledge and the power to win this gambit? Could she be this disloyal?

  She thought of how her foot had been ruined by that tart Sonya. She remembered the green-agony scream in the shower room at the AVR. She flashed to the orange overhead light as a helpless Delon withered before the thugs, and remembered the taste of Ustinov’s blood in her mouth. And she saw Anya’s milkmaid face choked blue.

  Let them wait, she decided, determination welling up inside her. This would be horribly dangerous, potentially fatal. Her resolve was fragile, exquisite, forbidden—the power she would wield over Volontov and Uncle Vanya would be real. Her mother was always telling her to control her temper, and now the icy bite in her throat was exhilarating.

  She began walking again, her heels clicking on the sidewalk. There was something else, a realization that surprised her. She knew enough about the Game to know that Nate would be destroyed, his reputation obliterated, if he lost his agent. She replayed th
eir time in Helsinki. She would not do that to him, thinking how much Nate was like her father, how much she liked him.

  The next morning, sick to her stomach, she showed her pass at the embassy front door, walked across the courtyard, and climbed the marble steps to the attic, steps worn smooth by countless officers who had served before her. Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki, the Foreign Intelligence Service. At the top of the stairs was the massive vault door on massive hinges, then the day door with the cipher lock, then the privacy wire gate with the electric keypad. She put her purse down on her desk, nodded to a colleague. Volontov stood at his office door, beckoning.

  Dominika stood in front of his desk, unable to take her eyes away from his doughy hands. “Any developments to report, Corporal?” asked Volontov. He was cleaning his nails with a letter opener. Her heart was racing and the pounding in her head would not stop. Did it show? Did he know something? She heard her voice in her head, as if someone else in the room were speaking.

  “Colonel, I have discovered that the American seems to favor museums,” said Dominika. Her voice sounded wooden. “I have invited him to the Kiasma art gallery soon. I plan to have dinner afterward . . . in my apartment.” What was she saying? The very thing Volontov wanted to hear. Volontov looked up from his manicure, grunted, then stared at her breasts.

  “It’s about time. Make sure you entertain him so he will want to visit you again,” he said. “You haven’t seen anything out of the ordinary?”

  Three words—Yes, I have—and the machine would take over, her responsibility would be over. A simple sentence—He said he is busy the next two weeks—was all that would be necessary. The roaring in her ears grew louder and the edges of her vision clouded. Dominika could barely make out this hog behind his desk, wrapped in his dingy orange haze. Her throat closed and she was amazed to feel her legs tremble, knees actually knocking, quite extraordinary, and she resisted leaning against the desk, willed herself to stop. Volontov continued looking at her chest, a wing of pomaded hair sticking out from the side of his head. In the last millisecond, Dominika decided.