The Kremlin's Candidate

by Jason Matthews

  “When are you expected back?” said Nate.

  “I told them I was conducting a security survey; no one will question me.”

  “How long?” said Nate, who could feel his scalp.

  “Tomorrow night,” said Dominika. “I return to Moscow the next morning.”

  “You can be out of pocket that long? Are you sure?”

  Dominika nodded. “And where is Bratok?” she said. He rarely missed a meeting with her.

  “He’s away on a trip,” said Nate, without inflection.

  They had two days together, alone. Nate looked at her, the high cheekbones, the straight nose, the smooth forehead. There were new faint lines around those blue eyes that flitted over his face, reading the corners of his mouth, looking for clues about them. The bubble popped when Nate said they should go inside and get to work. Dominika smiled, reached for his hand, and walked barefoot with him into the house. His halo had flickered when he mentioned Gable, but she ignored it.

  * * *

  * * *

  Dominika was on the parquet floor, sitting cross-legged on a plush rust-red kilim pillow. Nate was on the couch, which was covered by sheets of yellow legal pages from the last three hours of debriefing. Nate had also recorded the entire session on his TALON note-taking tablet. It was common practice to both record and take notes: the former would be a precise record of Dominika’s words and intelligence reports, the latter a more convenient summary from which to draft cables to Headquarters.

  A spiral map book of Moscow lay open on the floor. It had been annotated by Dominika to designate possible new dead-drop and SRAC sites, if she ever received replacement SRAC gear. They reviewed exfiltration pickup sites, the ones Moscow case officer Ricky Walters had described. Dominika sniffed that the exfil sites should be saved for those hysterical assets who would agree to defect in time of crisis.

  “Domi, stop being dramatic,” said Nate. “We have to be prepared to get you out if something happens.” But he said it halfheartedly. Usually they argued about defection passionately. She noticed it.

  After three hours, they both were tired. Dominika had filled in a lot of detail from her abbreviated previous reports dead-dropped in Moscow. No SRAC gear replacement was on the horizon. And there were still no hints regarding MAGNIT.

  “There is one more important item,” said Dominika. “Please make sure Benford is aware of this.” Nate nodded. “The SVR has established contact with the Chinese intelligence service.”

  “The MSS?” said Nate. Russia and China? This could be big, he thought.

  “At the orders of the president,” said Dominika. “But something is not right. We do not trust them and they do not trust us.”

  “Then what is the point of opening relations?” said Nate.

  “We are exploring possible areas of mutual interest,” said Dominika. “But I think my exalted president wants something bigger. Tell Gospodin Benford that it is my guess that Putin will do what he can to worsen relations between China and the United States. It is only my guess, but tell Benford that.” An agent’s opinion—a source comment—was valuable.

  “Domi, this is important. Can you get more details as it develops?” said Nate.

  “Of course. The Kremlin—Putin—has already designated Line KR as the lead office to meet with Chinese representatives. He wants me to report directly to him. I have not received specific operational directions, but the MSS are deceitful. Podozrevat, I smell a mouse.”

  “You smell a rat,” he said. Dominika shrugged. She had stretched out her slim legs and was touching her toes to work out the kinks. “When you know more, let us know. But go softly, be careful,” said Nate.

  “Thank you for the tradecraft lesson,” she said, nonchalantly, trying not to smile. “I am to meet the Chinese general in Moscow when I return.” Nate made more notes, but she knew something was wrong. Nate’s halo was faded and waning.

  “Is something bothering you?” she asked.

  Nate buried his head in his tablet. “What?” he said.

  “You are acting strangely.” She wondered if she would ever tell him about the colors. She decided to try to distract him. “You should try stretching, to relax, like we did in ballet.”

  Demurely holding her dress down, she extended each leg out to the side in a perfect split, toes pointed, then leaned forward to touch her chin to the floor. “In yoga, it’s called Upavistha Konasana,” she said, “in Sparrow School, the Divining Rod. What do you call it in CIA?” Her chin still on the floor, she looked at Nate and blinked once.

  Irrepressible Sparrow instincts, thought Nate, looking at the femoral and adductor muscles of her thighs flex. The familiar passion was there: he couldn’t feel his tongue and there was a numb spot on the point of his chin. But Gable’s face kept intruding. Now his resolve to stay professional, for her sake as well as his, was also for the memory of Gable. She straightened, brought her legs up and hugged her knees, and blinked at him again.

  Dominika saw the pulsing purple halo around his head and shoulders, and was worried that he had changed, that he was tired of her intransigence, or that his disciplinary troubles finally had oxidized his love for her. She had not changed her view that, despite the senior CIA men’s protestations, their love affair was acceptable, something that sustained her, a justifiable departure from the rules of tradecraft and agent handling.

  Bozhe, God, she wanted him. The expectation of being with him had grown when she had boosted herself over the wall of the villa this morning. The Sparrow tagline No. 99, “A whistling samovar never boils over,” came to mind. But the decorous Russian in her would not be so nekulturny, so base as to stand up in front of him now, shrug the spaghetti straps off her shoulders, and step out of her dress. She would not push him back on the couch, with her hands on his chest, and trail her breasts across his face. No, she wouldn’t. They looked at each other shakily through the midday light. A ship’s deep bass horn sounded in the channel, as if signaling the end of round one.

  * * *

  * * *

  Nate gathered all his notes and stuffed them into his duffel. They went into the kitchen to find something for lunch. The modern kitchen was reasonably stocked by the safe-house keeper. Nate examined the refrigerator and carried an armful of ingredients to the big central table. Dominika boosted herself onto the counter and watched him while swinging her legs. He diced onions, crushed garlic, sliced a few mushrooms, cubed two tomatoes, and cut two chicken breasts into bite-size pieces. He sautéed everything with oregano and a glass of Kavaklidere white, then covered the stew with grated Kaşar cheese and a spoonful of ezme, spicy Turkish tomato sauce, from a jar in the fridge. He then put the sauté pan in the oven to melt the cheese to golden brown.

  “It is like our chicken Orloff,” said Dominika, sniffing the air. “But we do not have this southern fascination for garlic.”

  “Of course you don’t,” said Nate. “I remember the Moscow subway in the summer—underarms, vodka, and cigarettes. You couldn’t smell garlic if you tried.”

  “Quite amusing,” said Dominika, but she knew he was right.

  “There’s only one rule about garlic,” said Nate. “Everyone at the table has to eat it.” He walked around the table and stepped up to the counter between her dangling legs. He put his hands on her shoulders and without artifice, pecked her on the mouth. “Tonight I’ll make Chinese stir-fry without garlic. I saw bell peppers in there.” He went to the oven to check the pan. Not quite ready.

  The brotherly kiss had her lips tingling. Was he teasing her, spinning her up? She watched him, assessing the purple around his head and shoulders. Was he trying to act professionally and not make the first gesture? Was he testing her? She caught herself swinging her legs faster in agitation. Do not be nekulturny, she told herself.

  Using a kitchen towel to grasp the handle, Nate took the pan out of the oven and put it on a hot pad on the table. He laid out two bowls, silverware, and napkins. Dominika looked at him after the first bowl and nodded
. “It is very good,” she said. “You cannot taste the garlic.” Without thinking, she reached for the still-oven-hot handle of the pan to spoon some more into her bowl and whipped her hand off with a cry of pain, holding it against her chest. Nate took her hand—there was a crimson burn on her fingertips—and held them against his earlobe. She looked at him in amazement.

  “The earlobes are filled with blood, which draws the heat, like a diffuser,” he said.

  “Where did you learn this?” said Dominika. “Who are you?” Nate smiled and kept her hand against his ear.

  “It feels better,” said Dominika. “But it still hurts. I burned my palm too.”

  Nate led her to the sink and ran cool water over her hand, then switched to warm after a minute, to encourage circulation, he explained. He held her hand under the water, their faces inches apart, shoulders and hips touching. A single tear ran down her cheek and her bottom lip quivered. Their eyes met, and Nate’s hand closed gently over hers. “I’ll always protect you,” he whispered. Dominika put her good arm around his neck, pulling his head closer, his purple aura enveloping her.

  “Dushka, dearest,” she said. “I will always love you.” She moved her mouth to his, but stopped an inch away, waiting. He brought his mouth onto hers. She held him tightly and sighed.

  A burned hand did it. The fractured levee of their resolve having collapsed under the floodwater of their passion, Dominika grasped Nate’s wrist as if she feared he would escape, and led him up the marble staircase to one of the peacock-blue bedrooms. She stood stock-still, her eyes closed, and felt him undress her. Dominika gently pushed Nate onto the bed and showed him No. 47, “Ships passing in the night.” Her breath was hot on his thigh as she finally quivered and whispered da, and rolled off him, groaning.

  Nate lost count of how many times Dominika stuttered da, da, da that golden afternoon, her wild hair spread on the pillow, her breasts heaving, her arms hugging herself to stop the convulsions. They dozed, but woke up hungry and Dominika rummaged around in the massive armoire in the corner of the bedroom for something to wear and emerged wearing a fitted nightshirt (courtesy of Blanche Goldberg of Hollywood) that apparently had been fashioned out of a seine net. Nate said it was fine—everything was visible beneath the fine mesh—and they tiptoed downstairs in the dark, the shadowy salon lighted only indirectly by the automatic lanterns on the pier outside. The central fountain splashed quietly. They ate cold chicken stew in the dark, sharing a fork, and she wiped his mouth with her thumb and kissed him, and they drank out of the same wineglass, and finished the bottle. Dominika looked at him with luminous eyes.

  In the living room, Nate found a cabinet with an old-fashioned turntable and a stack of LPs and Dominika said, “that one”—Schubert piano waltzes—and Nate sat in the dark while Dominika stood in the moonlight, pinned her hair up, and pulled the shirt over her head. She was moon-bright naked, eyes closed, and motionless in profile, something Minoan on an amphora, listening to the music, seeing the capering stepladders of colors in the air. She started dancing, slowly at first, then with strength, up on the balls of her feet, her calf muscles bunching, hands allongé and delicate, following the colors. He watched her rib cage expand, the scars crisscrossed silver in the moonlight, marking with an X the position of her heart. The cords of her neck stood out when she bent her neck.

  Distracted by her private ecstasies, Dominika did not notice that Nate’s aura in the darkened living room was agitated and unsettled. It was typical of him that, as he watched her glistening form, he began thinking of Gable. As he watched his music-box ballerina twirl in the middle of the room, he told himself he had once again betrayed Gable’s trust, only it was worse now that he was gone. Not even the latest intel and DIVA’s growing status in the Kremlin justified his debility.

  And there would be increased danger for Dominika. The initiative with the Chinese would have analysts buzzing for months, and they would have to exercise relentless source protection: CIA would soon begin receiving details about the SVR-MSS liaison that could only come from her—immensely dangerous. The initiative with the MSS had the familiar Soviet whiff of an unknown plot about to be hatched, like the undefinable smell of dead possum under the bed.

  And there was the matter of the mole in Headquarters. If MAGNIT read a list of the premier Russian agents currently working in Moscow, DIVA would be lost the minute Line S received the report.

  But there was something else. Soviet officials used to say that the beginning of one’s ruin was the day one became Stalin’s favorite. Putin was the same, more telegenic perhaps, wiser in matters of commerce and public relations but with the same suspicions and implacable expectation that even trusted confederates could not be trusted. And he had Stalin’s capacity for violence. Dominika’s neck would be in the noose every minute. All the exfil sites in the world wouldn’t save her if she displeased her blue-eyed tsar, or if she put a foot wrong, or if she fell afoul of one of the siloviki.

  Dominika had stopped dancing and stood in the middle of the room, breathing hard, a rivulet of sweat between her breasts. The music ended, and now she did notice the oscillating colors in the corner. Dai bog, bless the man, she thought, the inevitable fretting. She was not going to waste this night, or the next morning, in this beautiful villa with her Neyt. Stark naked, she walked to him, knelt between his legs, and put her chin on his chest. “You are a fool,” she said, looking into his eyes. Nate looked up at the domed ceiling sparkling with turquoise inlay. His purple halo swirled as if stirred by the sea breeze.

  “We should review everything once more,” said Nate, stupidly. He couldn’t guarantee that Dominika would come out next month, or two years from now, or ever again. She read his mind.

  “Glupets,” said Dominika. Dunce. “We have until tomorrow. Then I go home.”

  “I want to go over the exfil routes again,” said Nate, like a French tutor.

  “I know them all,” said Dominika.

  “We should make sure of the pickup sites,” he said.

  “We will not discuss exfiltration, not tonight,” she said firmly.

  “Do you ever dream of an end to this?” said Nate. She raised her head to look at him.

  “Dushka, I am too close to think of that now. The president wants me on the project with the Chinese. I am meeting the siloviki. They soon will tell me MAGNIT’s identity. I can feel it; there are enormous possibilities.”

  “Getting close to Putin is priceless,” said Nate. “But it’s mortally dangerous. He’ll be watching your every move.”

  “What is wrong with you?” Nate felt himself sliding down a slope.

  “Marty Gable always told me the most important thing was to keep you safe,” Nate said. Dominika laughed.

  “To keep me safe and receive the intelligence. That’s what he always said. If he were here he would tell you,” Dominika said, nuzzling him. Nate’s chest was numb, but he couldn’t stop himself.

  “Marty Gable’s dead. He died in Khartoum two days ago.” Dominika’s face fell. For a moment she searched his face, then her eyes filled up and tears ran silently down her face. She straightened and backed away from him.

  “What happened? Were Russians involved? You knew from the time we met? When were you going to tell me? After another hour in the bedroom? Or when I finished dancing naked for you in the parlor?”

  “I wasn’t going to tell you at all. I didn’t want to upset you. Not now.”

  “You think I could not continue, that my grief would overcome me?”

  “No. I knew I had to tell you. I didn’t know how.”

  Dominika stood up, still luminous in the moonlight, and began walking to the staircase.

  “What are you doing?” said Nate.

  Dominika turned. “I am going to bed and mourn for my Bratok. Then I will return to the embassy on the early ferry and fly back to Moscow tomorrow night.” Her chest rose and fell with emotion.

  “I am willing to risk everything for my country, for Forsyth, Benford, and Bra
tok,” she said. “For my parents, and for Korchnoi, Ioana, and Udranka. And especially for us. I need only one thing to be able to continue. I need to know you love me.” Nate got up and was going to take her in his arms, but she held up a hand to stop him. The salon was silent save for the tick tick of the phonograph needle stuck at the end of the record.

  “We will say good-bye in the morning, and you can tell me then,” Dominika said.

  “You know I love you,” said Nate. Dominika turned and walked up the staircase, an alabaster vision passing through bars of moonlight.

  “I know,” she said. “I just want to hear it one last time.”

  The bass-note foghorn of a passing ship in the Bosphorus channel drifted through the gallery windows, and filled the room up to the turquoise ceiling.

  CHICKEN SAUTÉ WITH CHEESE—KASARLI TAVUK

  Sauté onions, garlic, mushrooms, and tomatoes in olive oil, butter, and a splash of white wine. Add bite-size pieces of chicken breast and simmer, covered, until tender. Cover stew with Kaşar cheese (or substitute mozzarella) and top with Turkish ezme, or a spicy tomato sauce. Bake until cheese has melted and is golden brown. Serve with rice.

  22

  Elephantine Failure

  They didn’t even let her get through Customs at Sheremetyevo Airport. A small man in a suit that didn’t button straight stepped up to her in the arrivals line. A uniformed police officer stood behind him, heels together, watching Dominika’s face. A nanosecond of icy dread, then normalcy. The little man bowed and said he was from Protocol, and that a car was outside, code for “come at once to the Kremlin, the president is waiting.” On another day, the reception could easily be as cordial, until she was escorted into a reception room where young blond men—a dozen Valeriy Shlykovs—would push her down onto a straight-backed chair, an arm around her neck, and undress her while holding her arms and legs so she couldn’t swallow anything. And then take her to Butyrka Prison. Another day.