The Kremlin's Candidate

by Jason Matthews

  “Now we have a critical operation ahead of us. It’s rather complicated as it’s in three parts. Alarming as it may be, you would have an axial role in each part.” Nate opened his mouth to ask a question, but Benford put up his hand, and shook his head in a “don’t spoil it” look of distaste.

  “If you would permit me to summarize,” said Benford. He sat back in his chair and propped his stocking feet on his desk, starting a minor avalanche of papers that fluttered to the floor.

  “DIVA just reported that the Kremlin seeks to destabilize Turkey by supplying antiarmor rockets and pressure mines to separatist PKK insurgents in Istanbul. Part one: We will beacon the weapons crates at their staging point in Sevastopol using an experienced raiding team of reservists that, considering your Russian-language and denied-area experience, you will lead. The operation should take no longer than two days, with time on target approximately two hours.”

  “Reservists from Desert Storm or Afghanistan?” said Nate.

  “No, closer to the years of the Berlin Wall,” said Benford.

  “I beg your pardon?” said Nate. “Berlin Wall?”

  “The Berlin Wall,” said Benford. “Perhaps you missed it while watching Dance Fever on television.”

  “Dance Fever?” said Nate.

  “Never mind. There is no reason for you to have heard of them, the WOLVERINEs. They distinguished themselves during the Cold War in Poland.”

  “Distinguished themselves how?” said Nate. “Like they blew things up?”

  Benford waved his hand in the air. “Let me continue,” he said. “Part two: You will liaise with the Turkish National Police as they prepare counterterror raids against PKK, informed by our beacon tracking of the matériel. Those preparations include teltaps on the phones of the SVR Istanbul rezidentura, and GRU Major Valeriy Shlykov, who is the on-the-ground Russian intel officer supporting PKK cells, which is why we again need your Russian.

  “Part three: Simultaneously, we need to burn Comrade Shlykov. One idea is to make it look like he is a CIA asset, and to suggest he subverted his own covert action. We think this idea has merit, but the plan is unformed; I want you to think about it. A feature of this final act is for DIVA herself to investigate, expose, and defame Shlykov, which will protect her as the source, as well as bestow additional counterespionage credit on her as Chief of Line KR.”

  “You anticipate personal meetings with her in Istanbul?” said Nate nonchalantly. “We’ll be able—”

  “Marty Gable is primary handler,” said Benford. “You can participate in meetings, but I want you to be smart, to exercise restraint.” Nate looked down at his hands.

  “Restraint. I trust I’m clear?” said Benford.

  “Yes, sir,” said Nate. “You know I would never jeopardize her security. I mean that.” Benford’s face moved.

  “I for one remember it was you, a young case officer just expelled short-of-tour from Moscow by that damp squib Gondorf, who recruited DIVA. It was a signal achievement. She has developed into a source surpassing Cold War stars like Penkovsky and Polyakov, and even Korchnoi in the modern age.” Nate felt hot in the face; Benford never complimented anyone.

  “All the more reason to preserve the case and protect her for as long as we can,” said Benford.

  “And then get her out and resettle her somewhere safe,” said Nate.

  “Perhaps,” said Benford, “if she at some time wants to defect. But she won’t. And unless she wants out, this Service runs her as long as we can, to preserve the intel stream until it stops.” Nate searched Benford’s face.

  “You mean until she’s caught and executed,” said Nate flatly.

  “Don’t be dramatic,” said Benford, sitting up and leaning forward. “We all do everything to protect her.”

  “But we keep the intel flowing, is what you’re saying,” said Nate, “above all else, even her life, down to the last report.”

  “If necessary, yes. To safeguard national security and to preserve the Republic, if you’ll forgive the fustian. It is what we do.”

  “She committed to us. She’s risking her life for us,” said Nate, getting out of his chair. “I’ll huddle with Gable about everything, and get back to you with details.” He walked to the door, hand on the doorknob, when Benford spoke.

  “Nash, we operate in a hostile fog bank, we deal with ambiguity, and if we must, we apply expedient amorality to accomplish moral goals. Embrace it or tell me what else you want to do with your life.”

  GABLE’S SAFE-HOUSE CARBONARA

  Sauté lardons of guanciale until chewy-crisp. Whisk egg yolks and grated pecorino Romano together to form a hard ball. Cook the pasta one minute less than al dente, then use pasta water to whisk egg-and-cheese ball until creamy. Toss cooked pasta with guanciale-and-egg mixture and serve immediately.

  15

  The Second Cold War

  DIVA’s request that Nash participate in the second meeting with her North Korean nuclear recruitment did not please Benford, who wanted Gable to handle it. But Ricky Walters in Moscow reported that Dominika had insisted Nash specifically be there, which was only going to last a couple of hurried hours, the cottage being so close to IAEA Headquarters and the prying eyes of Noko security gorillas. Benford relented, reasoning they would not have time in two hours to squabble over exfiltration, much less be able to engage, in Gable’s words, in any “gasp-and-grunt.”

  Nate flew direct to Copenhagen and took the two-hour flight to Vienna on Austrian Air, then booked a room at the Pension Domizil, half a block down Schulerstrasse from Dominika’s hotel. He left a note with his room number for her, and had breakfast in the curtained dining room. She walked in just as he was finishing. She was elegant in a black skirt, leather tunic with a narrow fur collar, and black-leather ankle boots. It had been three weeks since Greece and, as was usually the case between them, sweet absence dulled the acrimony over her determination to keep spying, despite the mounting dangers. She didn’t want any breakfast and looked at her Line T encrypted ops phone repeatedly for texts from Ioana, who was waiting at the cottage/safe house in case Professor Ri arrived before his scheduled 1200 meeting. They would have two hours with him, the entirety of an extended lunch break, which the five thousand pampered Euro bureaucrats working in the Vienna International Centre in Donaustadt, north of the river, were accustomed to. The complex of glittering Y-shaped buildings was permanent home to an alphabet soup of UN offices, from which phalanxes of international jacks-in-office churned out hectares of documents, all of which were without doubt critical to the continued survival of the planet: IAEA (atomic energy), UNIDO (industrial development), UNODC (drugs and crime), and UNOOSA (outer-space affairs).

  Dominika checked her phone again, then leaned over the table, grabbed Nate’s sweater, and pulled him close to kiss him. “Our agent isn’t arriving for two hours, and it takes seven minutes to get there on the Number Eight tram,” she said, sitting back down. “I would therefore like to go upstairs to your room and bump bones.”

  Her previous choler from the safe-house spat thankfully eclipsed, Nate relaxed and sat back. “We normally say ‘jump your bones’ to describe what you’re thinking.”

  “Why?” said Dominika. “I would think ‘bumping’ describes what I’m thinking more accurately.”

  Upstairs, Nate barely had time to hang the BITTE NICHT STöREN sign on the doorknob and close the door. Dominika’s leather-faced tunic squeaked as they made love, fully clothed, in an armchair, mouths plastered together and Dominika’s hair fallen down around her shoulders, tendrils stuck to her sweaty cheeks. A second round consisted of a frantic shedding of clothes, the yanking of the extravagant Austrian eiderdown off the bed, and the reinvention of what historians first called the missionary position, but without any of the original evangelical restraint.

  They sat on separate seats across from each other on the tram, with trembling sewing-machine legs and flushed faces, trying not to look at each other. Dominika’s hair had been restored to orde
r, but an errant strand hanging down one side of her face hinted at recent maidenly debauchery. Off the tram, they walked through the garden of the Arcotel, and on the footpath around the reedy Kaiserwasser Lake, and down the last stretch of Laberlweg, a leafy road that ran along a spit of land fronting the upper Danube, a placid branch of the river that rejoined the main river farther downstream. The houses were all cute two-room summer cottages with red or blue ornamental shutters and screened porches. The cottages had grassy front yards that ran down to the shore, each with a pontoon dock for summer canoes and skiffs, now bare and rocking gently in the slow-moving winter water.

  It was just 1200 and Professor Ri would appear a few minutes from now. Nate would play a subordinate role during the debriefing, asking CIA intel requirements at appropriate times. Ioana would take a walk during the meeting, standard procedure, but also convenient in that Dominika wouldn’t have to explain who Nate was, at least not right away. Dominika had been toying with the idea of recruiting Ioana for CIA—she would adore Bratok, she knew—and the notion of a subagent, a confederate, helping her in this work was something she wanted to discuss with Benford. She was sure it would work, especially if Ioana graduated from Sparrow status to operations.

  When she opened the cottage door she knew the world had caved in. The little living room was a mass of splintered furniture and fallen bookcases, including an overturned, blood-soaked armchair that had been slashed a dozen times, its stuffing scattered over the floor. The galley kitchen was ankle deep in broken plates and glasses. Nate silently motioned to the door, indicating that they should get the hell out, but Dominika shook her head and whispered “Ioana.” Stepping over detritus in the living room, they checked each of the tiny bedrooms. In one, Ioana’s clothes were strewn across the bed and a bedside lamp had been thrown in a corner and smashed. Dominika’s face was white.

  They found Professor Ri facedown in the tub in the bathroom, remnants of the five liters of his blood slick along the tub walls, most of it already down the drain and likely feeding the Danube carp. They went back out into the living room, Dominika’s face a grim mask.

  “This was Shlykov. He just terminated my North Korean case.”

  Nate kept looking around, listening for footsteps. “Shlykov did this?” he said.

  “No,” said Dominika. “This is the work of his Spetsnaz bulldog. A man named Blokhin, who killed Repina in New York.”

  “Where’s your girl?” said Nate. “Wasn’t she here waiting for your agent?”

  “I don’t know,” said Dominika. “I’m worried.” She snapped her fingers. “The recorder.” She went to the sideboard cabinet—it had not been touched—and took out the wire recorder Ioana had installed in anticipation of the debriefing. She plugged it into a wall socket, rewound it, and punched “play.” Nothing but the hiss of dead air. “It’s voice activated,” said Dominika. “She would have put it in standby mode before Ri arrived.” The hissing stopped and Dominika froze, staring at the spools. The two concealed wireless mics had picked up muffled conversation.

  Blokhin’s voice suddenly came through clearly, speaking English (so the bastard spoke English all this time, concealing it, thought Dominika). His voice was quiet and silky, then Ioana’s voice, angry and indignant, then Blokhin switched to Russian, harsh and brutal, followed by the cacophony of a struggle. Ioana was strong and lithe and it went on for some time, the sound of her ragged breath first faint, then loud as she moved away from or toward the microphones. There was the constant sound of breaking furniture. Dominika looked imploringly at Nate, then back at the recorder, as Ioana cried an abrupt “nyet!” followed by a groan, then silence, then moaning, and Blokhin’s silky voice again, in English, asking when the Asian gentleman was expected, and would Egorova be coming with him, and Ioana’s voice spitting an obscenity. The sound of a slap, then a heartrending scream, quickly muffled, and Ioana woodenly droning that the meeting was postponed, Egorova wasn’t even in the city, and another scream, What was he doing to her, was she tied in a chair? and then a faint knocking at the front door and Blokhin’s voice moving away, then disappearing altogether until a man’s high-pitched wail was faintly heard while Blokhin did in the bathtub whatever he had decided for the North Korean. While he was out of the room, Ioana, breathing heavily, spoke to the concealed microphone in an urgent trembling whisper. Her voice was tinny and hung in the air.

  “He is a Russian, sixty years old, sixty-eight centimeters, ninety kilos, fleshy face with scar tissue across his forehead, thick arms, very strong. I cut his cheek with a glass but it did not cost him a step.” Ioana started crying briefly, then stopped and sniffed. “I think he broke my wrist. He has tied my wrists and ankles and he is using the edge of a broken dish between my legs.” Dominika, eyes streaming, looked at Nate in horror. Ioana knew she was going to die, yet she was leaving a message for Dominika. “He is asking for you, when you will arrive. I have told him you are not coming, but he does not believe me. He intends to kill you too. I’m praying you are not on your way. When it starts again I will scream my head off, maybe you will hear, perhaps he will flee. My broken wrist is bent sideways. Wait. I hear screaming from the bathroom. Your scientist is gone. I’m next, he is coming back. Kill him if you can. Ya tebya lyublyu, I love you, take care scumpo, sweetie.” Dominika put her head in her hands and sobbed.

  Blokhin’s voice came back in range of the mike, again cooing to Ioana about when Dominika was expected, perhaps not before Ioana had softened the professor up with this pretty little thing between her legs, and another nightmare scream that subsided into a sob, and Ioana slurring over and over that Egorova was not coming, then she began screaming, bellows from the pit of her stomach, over and over, and her screaming was suddenly cut short, followed by awful gurgling and gasping—Nate recognized the sound of someone drowning in her own blood from a slashed throat—then a grunt from Blokhin as if he had slung her over his shoulder, then the sound of squeaky screen-door hinges. Several minutes of silence then Blokhin was back inside, followed by three solid minutes of the sounds of him smashing everything in the cottage not already broken, then the front door slamming and nothing else but the hiss of the recorder.

  Dominika pointed to the overturned armchair, the seat cushion sodden with blood. Ioana had died there. Nate walked to the screen door facing the yard and the river, and pushed it lightly with a finger. It squeaked like on the tape. Blokhin had carried her outside. She was in the river, floating downstream to Budapest, if she hadn’t already fetched up in the crook of a floating log. Nate stopped Dominika, red eyed and teeth bared, from going outside. “Stop,” said Nate. “He could be out there. Let me check.” The yard was empty, but there were drops of blood on the pontoon dock where Blokhin had walked out to reach deeper water and dumped her in. Nate walked to the end of the dock, holding his breath, half expecting to see her staring up at him from the blue-black water under the pontoon floats. Nothing underwater and nothing farther out in the current.

  The Alte Donau tributary flowed steadily to join the main branch of the Danube several hundred meters south, and there was more than an even chance her body would be seen bumping through the pilasters of the A22 overpass or another downstream bridge, unless he had wired something heavy around her feet, in which case she would come up in the spring, bleached and swollen, an unidentifiable Jane Doe to confound Austrian authorities until she ended up in the communal section of Zentralfriedhof Cemetery, another Sparrow who finished up away from her home, unclaimed by the country she served, her fate and grave unknown to her family.

  Nate heard Dominika coming up behind him; he caught her and steered her off the tipsy dock, and she looked out at the black winter water, screamed and bent over, and vomited on the grass. He led her back inside, splashed her face with water, pocketed the spool of wire from the recorder, rummaged around Ioana’s bedroom and retrieved her Romanian alias passport. They both knew there could be no thought of tipping the police. Professor Ri would be reported missing, but God knows ho
w long it would be before they found him in a rental cottage on the river. Austrian state police forensics were exceedingly thorough. As he closed the front door of the cottage, Nate wiped the doorknob, thinking that between the tub, the furniture, the dishes, and dredging the river bottom under the dock, the owner would have a little spring cleaning to do before the summer rental season began.

  They walked back down Laberlweg, the way they had come, Dominika’s cheeks wet with tears. As they walked, Nate half watched for Blokhin to emerge out of the Kaiserwasser in an explosion of foam, like a Nile crocodile ambushing a baby gazelle. But Nate was pretty sure Blokhin would already be halfway to Schwechat and the airport. He had knocked off Dominika’s agent per instructions, had slaughtered the safe-house keeper as a bonus, but had not waited for Egorova, probably because she had been designated a target of opportunity—take her if you can, but don’t loiter on target and don’t get arrested. Ioana’s screams had hurried him on his way. Their late arrival and the North Korean’s early appearance at the cottage probably saved their lives. Nate had no illusions about being able to fend Blokhin off in hand-to-hand combat.

  Nate was shocked at the brutality of the Spetsnaz killer. He must be quite the lad. All those guys were hard cases, but this one had a screw loose. It was obvious now that Dominika was a target and in danger. Could her new Kremlin patrons protect her? Inside the palace, sure, but on the street? Opposition party leader Nemtsov had been shot on the busy Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge, in the very shadow of the Kremlin’s Vodovzvodnaya Tower. One thing was for sure: Dominika was dead unless CIA could take out this Shlykov asshole and his dancing bear, Blokhin.

  Dominika sagged against him, her body trembling and voice shaking. “We were in your room, making love, while she was being tortured, stalling for time, giving herself to save me,” she sobbed. “She had the courage to describe the man who was torturing her, even though she knew she was going to die. Oh, neschastnyy Ioana, poor ill-fated sister. We should have been there.”