Red Sparrow: A Novel

by Jason Matthews

  “I have positive news,” said Golov. He poured another glass of wine and sat next to her on the small velveteen couch. He took an oblong box out of his jacket pocket and set it on the table. He opened the box to reveal an elegant pen nestled in a bed of powder-blue silk. It was a Montblanc Etoile, with a black hourglass barrel, flared crème-colored cap, and the iconic Montblanc inlaid white star at the tip. At the end of the pocket clip was a perfect Akoya pearl. Boucher reached for the pen, saying, “How lovely.”

  Golov gently stopped her by holding her wrist and pulling her hand back. “It’s a beautiful pen,” said SWAN. “But I asked for something I could take, a pill.”

  “There are no pills,” Golov said rather brusquely. “We have consented to your quite remarkable request, and this is what we will give you.” He picked up the pen and gripped the pearl in his fingertips. “You must grasp the pearl firmly,” he said. “And pull gently but steadily . . .” The pearl suddenly came free. It was attached to the end of a one-inch needle that slid out of a channel on the underside of the pocket clip. The needle had a burnt coppery hue to it, as if it had been held over a flame. Golov slid the needle back into its sheath in the clip and firmly pushed the pearl past a detent into the locked position.

  “What is this?” said Boucher. “I asked you for something simple.”

  “Be silent and I will explain,” snapped Golov. He wildly fantasized about extracting the needle again and plunging it into SWAN’s neck. He composed himself. “The needle is coated with a natural compound. It requires only that you break the skin, scratch yourself, anywhere, and it will take immediate effect. Ten seconds.” He held up his hand to silence her. “This is infinitely more effective than a pill. Please forget what you have seen in the movies. A pill can lose potency after a period of time; there is no problem with this.” He handed Boucher the pen. “Now you extract the needle,” he said, once again putting his hand on her wrist, “very slowly and carefully.”

  Boucher’s hands shook a little when she took the pen, hefted it in her hand, and pulled the pearl slowly and evenly, drawing it out of the clip. The little needle glinted dully, its menace somehow accentuated by its stubby length. Boucher carefully seated the needle back into the sheath and pushed the pearl home and locked. She turned to Golov, a bit chastened. “Thank you, Anatoly.” She clipped the Montblanc inside her blouse between the buttons and threw back the last of her wine.

  The gravity of the moment now past, her eyes wandered around the room and settled on the four-poster bed and then on Golov. “Even remotely interested?” she asked to his infinite horror.

  GOLOV’S MEDITERRANEAN CLAMS

  Mix fresh oregano, lemon juice, panko bread crumbs, olive oil, and crumbled feta cheese with room-temperature butter to form a smooth compound butter. Roll and chill. Put a round of the butter on each opened clam in its shell resting on a bed of kosher salt. Broil until butter is melted, one to two minutes. Squeeze lemon juice over clams.

  32

  Rome was ocher roofs and lambent marble under the eternal sun. The bumblebee buzz of motorini hip-tilted through traffic by raven-haired girls in crocodile heels filled the air. General Korchnoi breathed it in. This was his old operational ground, and he remembered. He ordered lunch in rusty but elegant Italian. Dominika had never heard of spaghetti alla bottarga, but a bowl of pasta, glistening with oil and with a dusting of golden bottarga di muggine, roe of gray mullet, transported her. She looked over at Korchnoi, who nodded, pleased. It was nothing like Russian caviar, she thought.

  They were sitting in La Taverna dei Fori Imperiale, two tiny rooms with cloth-covered tables and pastel murals on white stucco walls, floors of polished black and white tiles. The restaurant was halfway down Via Madonna dei Monti, a narrow, ancient street in the perpetual shadow of scuffed apartment buildings with ground-floor bakeries and woodshops, the air filled with the smells of baked bread and sawdust.

  Dominika had the day before approached the COS and delivered her message, leaving the number of her throwaway phone. Korchnoi carefully observed Dominika before and after the contact—rock-solid and calm—and he approved. She was stimulated on the street, her cheeks were flushed, her wide eyes reflected the splash of a dozen dolphin fountains.

  Korchnoi unilaterally changed the ops plan once they were away from Moscow. He had quietly insisted that they would initially connect with the Americans discreetly on the street, and then use a CIA-rented room for conversation.

  “Forgive me, but I do not trust your uncle, or that Zyuganov,” Korchnoi told Dominika now as they strolled after lunch. They walked slowly past the Forum, over the sanpietrini cobblestones, and up a narrow walkway, looking for trailing coverage. They put a euro into a tin box and descended into the Mamertine Prison, imagining Saint Peter being lowered into the dungeon through the hole hewn into the rock of the Capitoline Hill. The prison unsettled the Russians and they left quickly, back up into the sunlight.

  As they walked, stairstepping through neighborhoods, they used time over distance to ensure they weren’t covered in ticks. Korchnoi talked to her, sometimes stopping her to put a hand on her shoulder. He described the Life, of working for the CIA from within Russia, undetected inside the Service. They sat on a bench near an obelisk, spooning granitas, rich coffee ices, stealing looks at their watches, and pedestrians, and parked cars, as Korchnoi told her how a spy must know the difference between risk and recklessness, and about evaluating—but not necessarily accepting—the direction of your CIA handler. “It’s your life, your welfare,” Korchnoi said. “You ultimately decide what to do and how to do it.”

  The Roman light freed her and she told Korchnoi more about Helsinki, about her activities, about how she felt with her secret, the sweet ice of it, she said, looking at the cone of frozen espresso in her hand. She spoke sparingly about Nate, for she did not know how he felt about her, or what she felt herself. Did he see her as an agent first, and a fleeting lover second? It was too hard, and Korchnoi saw it, knew it.

  The general spoke of restraint, and calculation, and patience, the trinity that enabled him to survive for fourteen years as a CIA asset. It was unspoken that they would “work together,” but they did not try to define their partnership further. They knew agents seldom spied in tandem. Korchnoi did not speak at all about his vision of “succession” or of Dominika’s role as heir apparent.

  What else they did not talk about—perhaps could not—was Russia and their sentiments about their country. This was boggy ground of betrayal and treason, and they left it alone. That would come later. Right now they just had enough time to finish the SDR and make it to the brief-encounter site and meet the Main Enemy.

  MARBLE had informed Langley via satellite burst that Dominika’s approach to COS Rome would signal their arrival in the city. That would trigger a meeting in twenty-four hours, ironically at a long-inactive KGB site in the Villa Borghese that MARBLE remembered from fifteen years ago. He had also transmitted a brief sentence—She passed, she’s ours now—indicating to Benford that Dominika had, in essence, been rerecruited by him. A most extraordinary situation. Two agents, each witting of the other, a single handler, the whole case directed by a mad scientist of a CI chief, two mole hunts—and the added necessity of having to decide where to eat dinner. This was Rome, after all, MARBLE thought.

  Dominika’s cheap little phone trilled as they walked up a staircase to the northern limit of the Aurelian Walls, catching glimpses of blue-green trees and the biscuit-colored tiles and the golden domes. Korchnoi answered it in Italian and listened for ten seconds, then abruptly clacked the phone shut. “They’re in place. Would you like to take a stroll through the park?”

  They walked in the heat of the Roman afternoon, through the Porta Pinciana and into the Villa Borghese. Korchnoi wore a light gray suit with a dark shirt, open at the neck, Dominika a navy skirt and a pink-and-blue-striped shirt. She wore her hair up against the heat. Together they looked like father and daughter, prosperous Romans, walking perhaps to vi
sit the museum in the center of the park. Korchnoi could see she was excited and nervous, her blue eyes flashing. But he also saw her darting glances, checking for surveillance, cataloguing casuals.

  Of course, Korchnoi knew the park. He had been assigned to the Rome rezidentura as a junior. He had met agents there, had left packages for assets in buried caches, his young wife watching for him. A lifetime ago. Now he and Dominika walked down the broad gravel avenues dappled by sunlight filtering through the plane trees. Korchnoi led Dominika past reflecting pools and paused at the perfect Fontana dei Cavalli Marini, with the rampant seahorses with cloven hooves. They walked around the hippodrome of the Piazza di Sienna and down the Viale del Lago. Korchnoi had seen no repeats, no indication of coverage, despite their serpentine route. Two minutes to the site. He felt rather than saw that Dominika was becoming nervous, was tightening up. Korchnoi slipped his arm in hers and told her a joke:

  “A frightened man came to the KGB. ‘My talking parrot disappeared,’ he said. ‘This is not our case,’ says the KGB, ‘go to the criminal police.’ ‘Excuse me,’ says the man. ‘Of course I know I have to go to the criminal police. I am here just to tell you officially that I disagree with that parrot.’ ”

  Dominika snorted, then covered her nose with her hand. Korchnoi watched her and knew his instincts had been correct. She would be his replacement. She could do it. Benford would realize it after ten minutes with her.

  They were nearing a small artificial lake with a classical Ionian temple to Aesculapius on an island in the middle. She followed Korchnoi’s gaze and saw a short, rumpled man sitting on a bench at the edge of the lake.

  “Benford,” said Korchnoi. “I will greet him.” He nodded his head in the direction of the island. “Keep walking around the lake,” he told her. “There is a footbridge connecting the island with the shore.” He walked to the bench. Dominika saw the man get up, shake hands with Korchnoi. They sat down.

  Dominika began walking around the small lake on legs she could not feel. Her heart was pounding, she could hear herself swallow. What would she say to him? That she missed him? Glupyi. Stupid. Stay professional. It’s not just the two of you here. There are others present, and this is the first day of the rest of your life as a spy. Stay professional.

  Beneath a willow at the shoreline she saw a dark figure standing on the little steel bridge, at the top of its graceful curve. She knew his form, how he held himself, leaning against the railing, a silhouette in shadow. She could see the halo around his head, darker than she remembered, but that may have been the shadow of the tree. He was moving now, his footsteps echoing on the steel of the bridge.

  Blossoms from the willow floated on the still water. She walked up to him, offered her hand.

  “Zdravstvuy,” she said. Hello. She stood still, waiting for the bubble to pop, for him to ignore the handshake and wrap his arms around her.

  “Dominika,” Nate said, “how are you?” He extended his hand and she took it, feeling his grip, remembering everything. “We were worried about you, it’s been a long time not knowing.” Purple and glowing, like she remembered.

  She let go of his hand. “I am fine,” she said. “I have been working with the general.” That at least was now out in the open, the secret she had been searching for.

  He did not want to talk about MARBLE with her, for the rules of compartmentation made it difficult for him. He had replayed what he would say to her when they met: how he had thought about her every day, how much she meant to him, but it came out wrong.

  “I’m glad you’re out,” he said. “We have a lot to talk about.” He heard his donkey words, the words of a midgrade agent handler. Before long he would be reviewing the agent meeting sked with her.

  Dominika could see him struggling—his halo was pulsing, as if slaved to his heartbeat. They looked at each other wordlessly, and Dominika tensed because she knew she would put her arms around his neck if he didn’t move first in about three seconds.

  They heard a soft click of fingers snapping gently, and Nate’s head came up. Benford waved; he and Korchnoi were now standing. Benford pointed and started walking. Nate waved the assent, then walked after the two men, Dominika at his side.

  The four of them sat in the elegant sitting room of Benford’s suite at the Aldrovandi Hotel, on the opposite side of the park. Muted earth tones, a vase of flowers, a dazzling white marble floor. Turquoise swimming pool in the garden below, behind a screen of cypress pines. The breeze through the open balcony door blew the white sheer curtains in gentle spirals. A bottle of wine stood unopened in a copper bucket on the counter.

  They sat in chairs around the coffee table, the curtains lifting and falling. Benford had discussed—was still discussing—the quite unique situation of MARBLE and Dominika. “It’s unconscionable,” said Benford. “The worst security possible. We’re going to have to make adjustments immediately.”

  “An excellent idea,” said MARBLE. “I would like to speak with you about this very subject, Benford, privately. I fear it would be best, for the moment at least, if Dominika were not in the room. And while I appreciate that Nathaniel is responsible for me as my case officer, I’m sure he would not mind instead going with Dominika, to keep her company.” The two left the room, and MARBLE turned to Benford, who was lighting a cigarette.

  “She is young, and passionate, but she is smart,” said MARBLE. “Ever since I placed her in my department, she has been looking at me, not speaking, assessing me. I could see her resolve. I made her admit her recruitment in Helsinki herself. I suspected as much. Were you ever going to tell me?”

  Benford shrugged.

  “And I told her about myself, obliquely, but she picked it up instantly. We have been talking. About risk, danger, work—about penetrating the Center. She listens, not a blink, not a tremor. Quite satisfactory,” said MARBLE.

  “That’s most reassuring,” said Benford dryly. “I still think that as a junior woman in your Service she will have challenges in her career. It will be years before she attains any important position, if ever.”

  “You know the Game as well as I, Benford,” said MARBLE. “The ones who start small and grow into the role are the best, the most secure. She is perfect.”

  “And will she be able to turn you in? Can she?”

  “She will if she does not realize what she is doing. It will make her performance all the more convincing, her shock will be genuine. In any case, she will follow instructions. I am sure she will.”

  “This is preposterous,” said Benford. “We need you now more than ever. To contemplate losing you before time . . .” He stubbed his cigarette out in a crystal ashtray.

  MARBLE shook his head. “We cannot calculate time. I have no way of knowing how close they are getting to me. Vanya is active. Apart from the kanareyka zapadnya—”

  “Translation, please,” said Benford.

  “—the canary trap he is running, God knows what else he and Zyuganov are hatching.”

  “The point?” said Benford.

  “The point is that I may have much time or a little. It’s critical that Dominika be prepared as soon as possible. If they catch me before she turns me in, the profit is lost.”

  “Pardon my French, but ‘shit,’ ” said Benford.

  “Stop complaining, my friend. We are doing something unheard-of in our game. We trade, what, a year or two of my information in exchange for positioning a new spy, with the potential for working in place for twenty, twenty-five years. It’s inspired.”

  Benford shook his head. “This is not what you worked for, all these years, with the danger and the risk. You deserve retirement, rewards.”

  “My reward will be to leave things in place, to continue this work through her. It remains for us—you and I—to choose the right moment,” said MARBLE.

  “This Rome trip may not be the right time,” said Benford, lighting another cigarette. “We do not want to wait too long, but I would like to wait long enough to observe whether there is a nib
ble from my little test.”

  “Will you tell me?” said MARBLE.

  “I briefed that the American mole is stricken with shingles. It’s what you said Egorov told Nasarenko.”

  “Poor Nasarenko. May I ask who you fed the birdseed to?” asked MARBLE.

  “Fifteen members of the SSCI, officials at the Pentagon, a few staffers in the White House,” said Benford. “Small-enough group that we can check if we get a sonar return on the canary trap.”

  “Vsego dobrogo, my friend,” said MARBLE. “Good luck to you. I will keep an eye open and signal in the event poor Nasarenko jumps out a window.”

  “Very helpful,” said Benford, “and if you could keep your eyes open for any other clues . . .”

  “I have something in mind, but later,” said MARBLE.

  Nate and Dominika sat together in his room and talked quietly. He acted nonchalant, but she knew better, she could see the intensity of his aura. He repeated that he had been worried about her, they all had been waiting for some word, and they all had been relieved when General Korchnoi reported that she was safe. He blamed himself for what had happened, her recall to Moscow. But now they could restart the relationship, they would work together again. Dominika thought he sounded like a case officer handling an agent, which was exactly what he was. He had been worried, then relieved. Chto za divo! Wonderful.

  Nate heard himself prattling on. He was conscious of the men in the adjoining room, conscious of the awkwardness of the moment, he knew he had to maintain control. He stumbled and stopped talking when he saw her face. She was elegant, stunning, poised. He remembered that expression, the set of her mouth. She was becoming angry. The endless months spent apart, not knowing if she was dead, and in the first hour together he was pissing her off.