Red Sparrow

by Jason Matthews

  Maratos looked up at Forsyth in annoyance. “I said I got it, Jesus. I got it.”

  Gable had told Nate that his job for this operation was to shut up and listen, but Nate spoke up anyway, looking directly at the FBI man. “If you guys fuck this up, better have your wife start your car every morning.” It was a howling breach of etiquette.

  “You little shit,” said Maratos. “Is that a threat against a federal officer?”

  Nate had been about to respond when Forsyth snapped, “Shut the fuck up, both of you.” Maratos thought to say something else but kept his mouth shut.

  The radio on the table clicked twice, the signal from Gable in the van that Volontov and Dominika had entered the hotel lobby. Three minutes later, laptop one showed the door opening and Volontov, Dominika, and a short young man entering the room. Dominika carried a briefcase. The volunteer was dark-complexioned, had an unruly shock of black hair, and heavy eyebrows. He wore a blue Windbreaker and carried a black duffel bag slung over his shoulder. What the camera did not record was what Dominika saw. The air around him was suffused with a soiled yellow cast, like a fever wind or the sky before a tornado. She knew what Volontov was going to do to him—Dominika knew the young man was lost. They sat in chairs around a low table. The audio picked up Volontov speaking in Russian and Dominika translating. It was eerie to hear Dominika’s voice coming out of the laptop.

  At Volontov’s insistence the young man identified himself as John Paul Bullard, a midlevel analyst in the National Communications Service. He described his work and his need for money. He patted the duffel bag and repeated his demand that Volontov pay him a half million dollars for the manual, the cover sheet of which he had already provided. Volontov spoke again and Dominika asked the young American how they could be sure it was genuine.

  Bullard zipped open the duffel and handed Dominika a bound manual the size of a thin telephone book. She handed it to Volontov, who spent three seconds riffling the pages before he handed it back to Dominika. He said something to Bullard that Dominika translated. They would have to examine the document privately before determining its exact value. Bullard said, “It’s genuine, all right, it’s the real thing.”

  At Volontov’s nod, Dominika got up from her chair with the document and the briefcase and walked into the bathroom. Per his detailed instructions the day before, the rezident wanted the manual in the false bottom of the briefcase as soon as possible in case this was a Western provocation, a trap. The windowless bathroom was the place to secure it.

  Forsyth whispered into the radio, “All okay, hold.” Laptop two showed the bathroom door opening and Dominika’s head filled the screen. She closed the door, placed the briefcase on the bathroom vanity. Moving quickly, she bent to the floor and pushed the kick plate of the vanity, which opened inward on three piano hinges. Dominika pulled an identical-looking manual, modified under a microscope by a score of eggheads and meticulously prepared—down to the missing cover page—out of the concealment cavity and pushed Bullard’s original manual into the space. The hinged kick plate swung closed. Dominika pressed two rivets in the lid of the briefcase. With the pressure, the inside lining of the briefcase opened to reveal a false bottom, into which Dominika put the modified replacement manual. She snapped the concealment cover closed, and shut the briefcase lid with a click.

  Dominika paused to look at herself in the mirror, patted her hair, and then looked up at the vent and into the invisible camera. Nate, the evening before, had told her they would be monitoring the switch to ensure everything went smoothly. Dominika stuck her tongue out at the camera and, with a last look at herself in the mirror, went back out into the bedroom.

  “Jesus Christ,” said Forsyth, “unbelievable. What kind of operation are you running?” he said, looking over at Nate.

  “Can I get her number?” said Ginsburg the tech.

  “Shut up, both of you,” said Forsyth.

  Dominika sat down again as Volontov dug into his coat pocket and took out a fat envelope. He placed it on the table and slid it across to Bullard. Dominika told Bullard that they could pay him only $5,000 until they had verified the authenticity of the manual. Bullard’s look of astonishment was met with stony-faced silence from Volontov.

  “What’s he gonna do,” said Ginsburg, “go to the authorities?” A sharp look from Forsyth shut him up. Dominika told Bullard that they would leave first and that he should wait in the room for five minutes before exiting the hotel. The young American sat back in his chair, gobsmacked. Volontov stood up, buttoned his coat, and walked out of the room, Dominika following him. Alone now, the American leaned forward with his face in his hands.

  Forsyth was whispering into the radio, repeating Bullard’s name twice. “Party’s over. Guest still upstairs. No one move. No movement.” Two clicks of acknowledgment came back. Suddenly Bullard straightened and stood up. “Sit the fuck down,” Forsyth said to the screen on the laptop. “Stay put, you little bastard.” Bullard walked to the door and left the room. Forsyth grabbed the radio. “Guest is moving. Blue Windbreaker, black duffel. All still hold. Do not move.”

  Volontov and Dominika walked out of the hotel and into an embassy car waiting at the curb. The FBI men watched them go and made to get out of the van. “Sit tight, you guys,” said Gable. “No go yet from upstairs.”

  “Fuck this,” said one of the FBI agents. “The Russians are gone. Let’s take this prick down.” Gable grabbed the arm of one of the agents.

  “No one is going anywhere till we get the okay,” he said.

  “Get the fuck out of the way,” said Maratos as he slid the van door open. The FBI agents piled out of the van and ran into the hotel. The elevator doors opened and Bullard walked out into the lobby in his blue Windbreaker and into the arms of the three FBI agents, who forced him to the ground, wrenched his arms behind his back, and slapped on a pair of cuffs. A crowd of hotel guests and tourists gathered around as the FBI agents pulled Bullard to his feet and frog-marched him out of the lobby. In the commotion, no one noticed the KR man from the Russian Embassy standing in the back of the crowd. He turned and left the hotel by a side entrance.

  Forsyth packed up the equipment as Nate retrieved Bullard’s manual from the meeting-room bathroom and the tech hurriedly removed the cameras from the corner of the ceiling and the bathroom vent. They all met back at the Station.

  “Goddamn it!” fumed Forsyth. “I’m going to rip Maratos’s nuts off. It was too soon! Too goddamn soon!”

  “You’ll have to wait till he gets back to town,” said Gable. “They headed straight to the airport. They had a G waiting to fly the guy right back to Washington. Those assholes all had woodies, they were so excited. They were already thinking about their promotions.”

  “You think the Russians had anyone covering the lobby?” said Nate. He was fighting down the dread in his guts.

  “Impossible to tell,” said Gable. “There were a lot of people watching the arrest. If it were me, I’d have somebody hanging around.”

  “Great,” said Nate. “I’m going to the safe house to wait for Dominika. Call me if you hear anything.” He got up to leave.

  “Hold it,” said Forsyth. “Sit down for a second.”

  Nate sat down. “I want you to keep calm, you understand? No going over to her apartment. No phone calls, not one. No putting up signals, no checking her sites. If I see you within five blocks of the Russian Embassy I’m going to tear your nuts off right after I do Maratos.” He looked at Nate for a long beat. “Do you understand me, Nate?”

  “Yes. I’m going to the safe house to wait. That’s all.”

  “This is just the kind of situation we discussed. We don’t know what, if anything, the Russians saw. I’m sending a cable right now to Washington with the entire picture, and I hope they assign Maratos to Topeka cataloguing safe-deposit-box signature cards for the rest of his career.”

  Nate stood to leave, his face showing his anger and fear.

  “Sit down, I’m not finished,”
said Forsyth. “Now comes the hard part, waiting for word that your agent is safe. If you move too soon, you might jeopardize her even if they suspect nothing. We have to let this play out.”

  “How about putting ARCHIE and VERONICA on her apartment?” asked Gable, a suggestion more for Nate’s benefit than anything else.

  “No, I don’t want to risk even that,” said Forsyth. “But, Marty, I do want you to have your Supo boy hang around the lookout on Tehtaankatu Street to keep an eye on the Russians. Anything strange coming in or out of that embassy, he should call; promise him a bonus.”

  Nate stood to leave. “Stay cool,” Forsyth said.

  The instant he stepped into the safe house, Nate could smell Dominika in the air, a whiff of soap and powder over something more elemental, woody and sharp. For a minute he thought she had already arrived at the apartment, but there was nobody there. They had told her to stay away for a day and a night. Volontov would be flying high, sending cables and making calls. He would need her near him. Nate walked into the bedroom and lay on the bed. He fell asleep in his clothes, waking in the middle of the night to drag the bedspread over him. The smell of her on the bedclothes filled his lungs. The sunlight woke him up.

  Gable was in the kitchen making coffee. “Everything’s cool,” he said. “Nothing strange, nothing out of the ordinary. One thing, don’t tell Forsyth, but I sent VERONICA to ring her doorbell late last night. No one’s home. Looks like she didn’t sleep there. The Russkies probably pulled an all-nighter.”

  Nate went to the sink and splashed water on his face. His chest felt tight. The container with a single dumpling was still in the refrigerator. He looked at the crimped pocket of dough that she had made with her fingers. Gable was making an omelet on the stove, but Nate was too edgy to eat.

  “No one knows how to make a real omelet,” said Gable. “It’s not just cooking eggs and folding them over. That’s bullshit. You have to shake the pan and stir to get the curds small—are you listening?—get them smooth, then form them in the front of the pan. Like this.” He gathered the cooked eggs lightly with a fork, reversed his grip on the skillet handle, tapped it on the stove, and inverted the pan over a plate. Gable’s omelet was a pale-yellow teardrop of softly cooked eggs. “And the fucking center still has to be runny,” Gable said, cutting it open with a fork. “Want some?”

  “Jesus, Marty,” said Nate.

  “Look, all we can do is wait to see what happens. Not a peep from our side. No movement.” He ate a forkful of omelet. “Let me ask you a question. What’s the most important aspect about this clambake?” he asked.

  “You mean the manual, the substitution?” said Nate. “Fuck the manual, what about our agent? They might have Dominika in a chair in the basement right now, and you’re eating omelets.”

  “I want her safe as much as you do,” said Gable, “but we wait to see if the Russians believe they pulled off stealing the manual. We wait to hear them slapping themselves on the back. The Fort is looking in real time at the rezidentura traffic. Dominika’s thumb-drive download took; it’s giving us everything, and NSA is reading it all. Total radio silence, but that could mean they’re being extra careful.”

  “And if we lose the agent? Is it worth it?”

  “You figure it out. We make the Bolshies waste seven years planning cyber attacks against what they think is our infrastructure, for nothing. What’s more important?”

  Nate looked over at Gable, who was staring back at him. “Enjoy your fucking omelet,” said Nate.

  =====

  Forsyth looked up from his desk in the Station at midday. Gable had just heard from his guy who had spent the morning watching from the OP. Nate didn’t like the way Gable’s face looked. “A van left the Russian Embassy at nine o’clock this morning. DIVA and two others. They were carrying a diplomatic bag, and headed to the airport.”

  “There’s an Aeroflot flight to Moscow every day at noon,” said Gable, looking at his watch. “That’s in ninety minutes.”

  “That’s it?” said Nate. “What are we going to do about it?”

  “What we’re going to do is absolutely nothing,” said Forsyth. “The van going to the airport is normal. The first thing they’d do—all last night—is copy the damn thing and prepare the pouch. Now they’re bringing the original back in the bag on the noon flight. Dominika and two escorts. Volontov would do something like that, send her, to kiss ass and get the credit.”

  “We don’t know that,” said Nate. “What if they’re escorting her back? What if she’s in trouble?”

  “Even if that’s true, what do you suggest?” asked Forsyth. “That manual is going to get to Moscow.”

  “Let me go to the airport,” said Nate. “I won’t fuck around. I’ll just scope it out. Maybe we’ll get a feel for what’s happening. We’d like to know what the situation looks like, wouldn’t we, we’d like to be able to report the details, right?”

  “No fucking way,” said Forsyth. “You’d be like Romeo yelling for Juliet to come out on the balcony.”

  Nate looked over at Gable.

  “I can’t stand this,” said Gable. “Any second this dickhead is going to start weeping. Tom, I’ll go with him. I won’t let him step on his dick. We might see who she’s traveling with, get an indication of what’s going on.” Gable looked at Forsyth and nodded.

  When Forsyth didn’t say anything, Nate and Gable threw on their coats and pounded down the stairs. With Nate at the wheel, the drive to the airport was on two wheels. They walked along the glassed-in observation mezzanine that overlooked the departure hall. Gable spotted Dominika sitting close to the Aeroflot gate. She was dressed in the same navy suit and white shirt. Her hair was tied with a ribbon. An embassy official sat on either side of her. The yellow canvas diplomatic bag was on the floor between one of the officials’ knees. Dominika looked small and quiet, dressed like a good little functionary, returning to Moscow and the Center.

  Gable grabbed Nate by the collar and hustled him behind a broad pillar. “Just stand there. No waving. No movement. If she sees you, we don’t know how she’ll react. If you fuck up, you could kill her.”

  Dominika sat between the rezidentura security man and an embassy admin flunky who, when told he was getting a free round-trip home, packed his suitcase full of tinned salmon and music CDs to sell to his neighbors and friends in Moscow. He didn’t even know who the busty young bonbon sitting next to him was, and he didn’t care. The security man on the other side had received whispered instructions about this trip. He was told only that Corporal Egorova would be met at the airport by officials and that he was to turn over the bag directly to the same officers. He was to get a signed receipt for the bag and was granted two days’ leave before he returned to Helsinki. Period.

  Dominika was enveloped in the overpowering double wash of the security man’s cologne and the gagging smell of cooked cabbage from the admin sloth. Something caught her eye and she looked up at the observation mezzanine. Standing beside a column in the glass wall was Nate. He stood looking down at her, his hands by his sides, the glass tinted purple. Her breath caught in her chest; she willed herself to stay still. Their eyes met, and she gave an imperceptible shake of her head. No, dushka, she willed her thought to reach him through the glass. Let me go. Nate looked down at her and nodded.

  GABLE’S PROPER FRENCH OMELET

  Beat eggs with salt and pepper. When butter in pan over high heat has stopped foaming, pour in eggs. Violently stir eggs while shaking pan until eggs begin to scramble. Tilt pan forward to pile eggs at the front. Run fork around edges to fold into the still-wet center, ensuring ends of the omelet come to a point. Change to underhanded grip, tap pan to bring omelet to lip of skillet, and invert pan onto a plate. Omelet should be pale yellow and creamy inside.

  21

  Volontov didn’t look at her when he told Dominika he wanted a summary translation of Bullard’s manual, but the air around his head was suffused with a dark orange cloud. Deception, mistrust, danger. Sh
e could feel it. She would have to stay in the embassy overnight, she could sleep on the couch in the dayroom next to Records. The rezident KR thug kept her in his sight the whole time. She was unaware that he had observed the flurry of men pulling the volunteer Bullard to the marble floor of the Kämp lobby, tourists milling, but her intuition told her something was seriously wrong.

  Volontov looked at her from across the room, and she felt the acid of the old days, the look of Stalin’s hangmen Dzerzhinsky, Yezhov, Beria, the blank, bloodless look that sent men and women to the cellars. Dominika knew something had happened, she fought a rising surge of panic. They were keeping their distance, always a bad sign, the machinery of distrust had kicked in. Dominika resolved to act as if nothing had happened, to assume an air of innocence. She thought about the safe house, about Nate and Bratok, then she told herself to stop thinking about them, to prepare for what was coming. She began bricking up her mind, burying the secrets as deeply as she could. They mustn’t get at her secrets, no matter how deep they dug.

  Two gray men met them at Sheremetyevo, standing shoulder to shoulder in the middle of the terminal. They took the dun-yellow canvas pouch from the security man, who then left the terminal in a separate car. They told her she was required at an interview, walked on either side of her to the waiting car. She rode in silence from the airport in the late afternoon light to a nondescript building in the eastern end of the city. It was off Ryazanskiy Prospect was all she could see, a creaking lift, a long corridor painted green, and she sat there as daylight faded to night. She had not eaten and she had worn the same clothes for two days. A man with glasses opened a door and gestured her to enter a room that was made to look like a private office, but it was unlived-in, a stage set, down to the bowl of roses on the sideboard.

  The man had thin hands, pianist’s hands. He was bald, with a dent in the side of his head, as if from a trepanning that, remarkably, also bent and distorted the yellow bubble around his head. Zheltyj, the familiar yellow of treachery and betrayal. He welcomed Dominika back to Moscow, it was always good to return to Moskva, was it not? They were pleased, he said, with her work in Scandinavia, especially with the handling of the volunteer. No, not zheltyj, but zheltizna, the man was yellowness itself. This was deception, this was danger, mortal danger, she could smell it.