Red Sparrow

by Jason Matthews

  But the result turned out the same. They had colluded against her. Even the general had broken faith. Her Russian mind saw conspiracy, her Russian soul felt betrayal. She would not work with them. She told him she had decided that she would not stay in Russia either. She realized the futility of defying the system. The vlasti would always win. All that remained was to decide where she would go. If the Americans would permit her to resettle in the United States, she would go there; if they refused to accept her defection, she would consider settling in a third country. If the CIA blocked her, she would return to Russia as a civilian. But she was quitting. She was out.

  Gable let her talk and brewed tea for her and put lemon in the Perrier and listened. When she became tired they sat on the balcony with their feet on the railing and looked at the turquoise water and he told her stories about his early assignments as a young officer and made her laugh. He kept her laughing over a lunch of fried calamari with parsley, lemon, and oil, and as the afternoon shadows lengthened they walked around the gardens. Gable told her that he was not going to try to persuade her to do anything. Dominika smiled and said, “Which is the first step in persuading me to do exactly what you want.” Gable laughed and took her back to their room and let her take a nap in the bedroom while he sat awake on the balcony. That evening Dominika put on a summer dress and sandals and they took a rattletrap bus along the coast to a small fish restaurant in Lagonissi and Dominika ordered baked sardines in grape leaves, and shrimp yiouvetsi baked with tomatoes, ouzo, and feta, and grilled swordfish in latholemono sauce, and Gable ordered two wines, a bottle of ice-cold Asprolithi and an aluminum beaker of pungent retsina.

  They stopped at another taverna for coffee and Gable ordered two glasses of Mavrodaphne, sweet and arterial-black from southern Greece, which once turned Homer’s sea wine-dark. The Christmas lights on the canopy of the taverna glowed and small waves chuckled on the beach beyond, invisible in the night. Looking at Gable’s big beefy face and brush-cut hair, Dominika waited, leaning back against the ropes, waiting for him to begin throwing punches. “You’re going to talk to me now, aren’t you, Bratok?” said Dominika. Gable ignored her and said he wanted her to think about the whole thing seriously, he wanted her to reconsider on her own terms. He would explain how he saw that, what that would mean for her. She agreed to listen, she expected his tricks, but his steady purple bloom told her he would probably tell her the truth. Probably.

  Gable said he thought her original reasons for joining the SVR were just and right and fine. She could serve her country, she could excel at a demanding job. Turned out she was good at it. But the promise of it all turned to ashes because of the beastliness of the system. There was nothing left. “Am I right so far?” he asked.

  Dominika sat back and nodded. His purple was steady and strong.

  “Okay,” said Gable, “now ops or luck or fate comes along and you meet Nate Nash, and he’s unlike anyone you ever met before—and that goes for the other handsome senior officers in the CIA—and you stick your big toe in the water to see how it feels, maybe to get back at the bastards. It isn’t about money or ideology, it’s your self-worth.” Gable signaled a waiter for two more glasses of wine.

  “Then something screwy happens. You realize that you thrive on this life, on the risk and the trickiness and the ice and the deception and the secret in your head every day. You thrive on it, you develop a real taste for it.” The wine came, and Gable sipped. “How am I doing?” he said. Dominika crossed her arms.

  “So suddenly you’re betrayed again, this time by the people you thought were the good guys, but that would be the wrong way to think about it.” Dominika blinked at Gable sideways. “The general, and Benford, and all of us wanted you to assume the general’s place as our top gun in Moscow. Maybe we should have asked you, but it didn’t happen. So now we’re in the last act, and Benford is trying to get you back inside Moscow, and sweetheart, it’s up to you. No one can force you; you have to decide on your own.” Dominika looked out at the black water, then back at Gable.

  “What are you going to do without all this?” he asked. “What are you going to do without your fix?”

  Dominika closed her eyes and shook her head. “You think I cannot live without this?” she said.

  “Forget about the CIA. Think about the general; he’d tell you the same thing. Go back and get to work. Don’t think about the CIA for the first six months, a year. Don’t give those bastards at the Center an inch. Run them over. You have a head start now; begin building your career. Go back and finish with your uncle. Tell the Center what he did, make sure he gets what he deserves. You’ll be on the winning side, and it’ll make you seem unpredictable and dangerous. First you caught Korchnoi, now you demolish your own uncle. They’ll be scared of you.

  “Choose, demand, force them to give you an important job, something with a lot of access, somewhere in the Americas Department, Line KR, whatever. Run your shop like you mean it. Recruit foreigners, cause trouble, catch spies, make allies, throw your enemies off balance. Be bitchy around the conference table.”

  Dominika tried not to smile. “Bitchy, this means zlobnyj, I think,” she said.

  “Once a year, twice, you come out on an operation of your choosing and I’ll be there. You tell us what you want to tell us. You call the shots on internal communications. If you need to see us in Moscow, I’ll personally make sure you’re safe. You want commo gear, we’ll give you some. You need help, you got it. You want us to go away, we’re gone.”

  “And would Nathaniel be involved in the future?” she asked.

  “People think it would be ill-advised to bring the two of you together, given the operational history. But I’m here to tell you that if you want him handling outside meetings, we can arrange that.”

  “You’re being very accommodating,” said Dominika.

  “This work, Dominika. It’s in your blood, you can’t leave it alone, it’s in your nose and under your nails and growing out of the tips of your hair. Admit it.”

  “I would never have come to dinner with you if I knew you were a janychar,” she said. “Did the CIA take you from your crib and train you from youth?”

  “Admit it,” said Gable. The air was filled with purple.

  “And now you’re being nekulturny,” she said.

  “You know I’m right. Admit it.” She was enveloped in it.

  “Mozhet byt’,” Dominika said. “Perhaps.”

  “Dominika,” he said. His purple cloud had descended from above his head and was swirling between them.

  Dominika’s face was calm and clear. “Perhaps.”

  “Think about what I said. I want you to agree, you know that, but whatever you decide, you have to make up your mind by tomorrow.”

  “I see,” said Dominika. “I detect another surprise from you. Why must I decide by tomorrow, dear Bratok?”

  “Because we need you, Benford needs you, in Estonia tomorrow.”

  She looked at him coolly, her hands flat on the table. “Tell me why, please.” And Gable told her about the swap in Estonia, watching her eyes narrow.

  “Don’t get mad again,” said Gable. “I didn’t tell you before because I wanted to talk to you without it hanging over our heads.”

  “And you are not making this up?” said Dominika.

  “You’re going to be walking past him on the freaking bridge,” said Gable. “It would be difficult to fake it.”

  “I assume the CIA could build a bridge.”

  “Be serious,” said Gable.

  “All right, I will be serious,” said Dominika. “By telling me this you are again making me the general’s executioner. You are not giving me a choice at all.”

  “What did I tell you before?” said Gable. “It is your choice. You can decide right now, right here, not to continue. We already owe you a modest resettlement. You have a bank account. I will call Benford and then personally fly with you to the United States. Tomorrow.”

  “And the general?” she
said.

  Gable shrugged. “He was the best Russian asset we ever had. He lasted fourteen years. He engineered his own demise because he was at the end of his run; he thought he found in you a replacement for his work, he wanted continuity. But it was his decision. Assets live and die. You are bound by the situation to the extent you let yourself be.”

  “You do not believe this,” said Dominika. “Nate has said you told him that the most important thing—ever—is the safety and well-being of your assets. Your conscience would not let you abandon him.”

  “Perhaps you’re right,” said Gable. “To rescue the general from the Lefortovo cellars would be a good start as we resume our work.” Dominika stared at him and took a sip of wine. Gable raised an eyebrow and looked her in the eyes. She knew he was telling the truth.

  “You all are such bastards.”

  “Flight to Latvia’s at ten o’clock.”

  “I wish you a pleasant flight,” she said.

  =====

  They took the last bus back to the Astir Palace. They sat beside each other but did not talk for the fifteen-minute ride. They walked wordlessly through the lobby with the scent of bougainvillea and the sea and went out to the sweeping patio and ordered mineral waters and watched the lights of the ferry to Rhodes move across the horizon.

  Gable didn’t think he had reeled her in, she was too indignant, too angry. He could tell when someone was wavering and when someone had made up her mind. Dominika had what it takes, but she couldn’t be bullied. Benford’s face would fall when Gable showed up without her. The worst part would be seeing the guards across the bridge leading MARBLE away. No swap. Carry out the sentence.

  But he had made his pitch, she knew he was her friend, she knew it was up to her. They took the elevator to their floor. The curving corridor of the hotel was quiet, it did not seem as if anyone else was on the floor. A magnetic servo whine from the elevator shafts was the only sound in the air.

  Dominika unlocked the door and stepped inside. Neither of them heard the footsteps; the two men had taken off their shoes and were padding toward them from either end of the corridor in a silent rush. Dominika saw them as she turned, and tried to pull Gable into the room, but the men shouldered their way inside, flinging the door shut. Lamps on each bedside table gave the only light in the room.

  One of the men in a low growl said, “Ne boisya my s toboi pomoch’tebe,” don’t be afraid, we’re here to rescue you, and Dominika registered that he used the formal “you.” The four of them stood stock-still for an instant, the silence before the explosion. She could see the butt of a pistol in one man’s belt.

  Both men were huge, giants from Georgia, judging from their faces. Dominika pushed past Gable and into the arms of one of the men, sobbing as if relieved to be rescued. The other monster launched himself at Gable, who stepped back a quarter turn and drove the man past him into the end table and lamp, demolishing both, but the man was up, too fast, too agile for his size, and they locked arms and wrapped legs and went down to the floor, each looking for openings, eyes, throat, genitals, joints.

  Dominika put one arm around the neck of her man, which slowed him from doubling up on Gable. He smelled of wet dog and garlic, and she gagged and turned to look at the heaving mass that was Gable and the Russian. She realized with sudden clarity that she would not allow Bratok to be hurt. She pawed the front of her man’s shirtfront and down to his belt and felt the checkered grip of the small pistol and did not bother to draw it clear, but reached in and thumbed the safety off and pulled the trigger as fast as she could, three times, four times, and the muffled shots were drowned out by the man’s scream and he was on his back writhing, his shirtfront and trousers a mass of blood.

  Holding the pistol at her side, Dominika walked over to the other Russian, who had Gable pinned to the floor with a forearm against his throat. The second time a CIA man is fighting for me, Dominika thought, and she reached for the man’s hair and pulled his head back, relieving the pressure on Bratok’s neck. The Georgian’s head swung around, eyes wide, to see who had pulled his hair, and Dominika put the barrel of the gun under his chin, turned her face to avoid the blood spray, and, careful to point the muzzle away from Gable, pulled the trigger twice. The Georgian spat blood, toppled sideways, and did not move. The first man continued writhing on the now-wet rug. Gable got up and reached to take the pistol from her, but Dominika turned away and would not let him. Amazed, Gable watched her walk over to the first man, bend down, and, shielding her face with her free hand, put the muzzle of the pistol against his forehead and pull the trigger twice. The man’s head bounced once on the floor.

  Dominika threw the empty pistol, its slide locked back, into the corner of the room. Gable had a bruise under his left eye and fingernail scratch marks on his right cheek and neck. They both knew there could have been no other way with these two mechanics. He studied Dominika intently in the nearly dark room, her chest rising and falling, a little blood on her arm.

  “I will be a little bitchy from now on,” she said. “Zlobnyj.”

  SHRIMP YIOUVETSI

  Sauté onion, red pepper flakes, and garlic, add chopped tomato, oregano, and ouzo, and reduce to thick sauce. Add shrimp, stir in chopped parsley, and cook briefly; transfer to baking dish, top with feta cheese, and bake in medium-high oven until bubbling.

  42

  The next evening at 1700 hours a bank of fog settled low over the Narva River in an otherwise clear night sky. Thick and ragged as a plug of surgical cotton torn from the box, the fog occasionally licked up over the roadway of the bridge. The lamps along the bridgeway came on and caught the fog, blowing right to left, making it seem as if the bridge itself were moving on casters along the riverbank. Well above the fog bank, the tower of Hermann Castle on the west bank faced the deserted battlements of the Ivangorod Fortress on the east bank.

  On the Russian side of the bridge, two light trucks were positioned lengthwise across the roadway. Six border guards in camouflage utility uniforms were slouching around the trucks. Behind them was a small armored personnel carrier, a Tigre, with a light machine gun mounted on a ring turret in the roof. There was no one on the gun, which was locked on its pintles, pointed at the sky. Behind these vehicles, parked along the side of the road that led past the convenience store and administration building, were five cars from Saint Petersburg SVR—two Mercedes and three BMWs. The drivers stood together in the dark talking. The rest of the SVR men had entered the checkpoint tollbooth and were waiting out of sight, following orders to stay discreet. On the sloping riverbank below the bridge two border guards stood completely enveloped in the fog, dripping wet.

  On the Estonian side of the bridge Benford sat fifty meters from the bridge inside a van parked in the center of the road. He could look straight down the roadway of the bridge at the parked Russian vehicles. Next to Benford’s van a small KaPo jeep was pulled over on the shoulder. Four black-suited troopers sat in the jeep smoking. KaPo had intended to put two spotters in the bastion of the Hermann Castle tower, but the ministry did not have the budget for nightscopes. The lights on the bridge would have to be enough.

  =====

  There was a sound of squeaking brake pads and the crunch of tires on the gravel shoulder, a car coasting to a stop. Benford saw Nate get out of a little green compact, his hair down over his forehead, a ridiculous blue and white—no, it was the Greek flag—on his T-shirt. Benford got out of the van and walked back to the car.

  “What are you doing here, Nash?” said Benford in a low, even voice. “And what is that ridiculous shirt you’re wearing? Do you know what is supposed to happen in a half hour? Have the kindness to get into the van and stay out of sight. You need a shower.” Benford steered Nate into the van and slid the door closed. The KaPo troopers in the jeep looked over and wondered what was going on. Benford walked over to them and accepted an offered cigarette. The troopers were respectfully quiet.

  Benford could see more activity at the other end of the bridge. Th
e light trucks parked lengthwise across the bridge were separated slightly and the Tigre APC had moved between them. A soldier had unlimbered the gun on the roof. From behind Benford came the sound of another vehicle, and Gable pulled up in a nondescript black sedan. He appeared to be alone in the car. Gable got out and walked toward Benford.

  “Tell me what you have done,” said Benford. “Tell me you have her.”

  “The Russians tried for her last night in Athens. A rescue team, they called themselves. I have no idea how they tracked us, someone the Russians have at the hotel, the cops, I don’t know. She killed both of them, executed them.” The KaPo troopers had climbed out of their jeep and were standing behind it, looking at the Russian side of the bridge through binoculars.

  “She killed them? Where is she right now?” asked Benford. “Do we have someone to swap for MARBLE?”

  “She told me no. For six hours it was no. Nothing I could say to change her mind. The next morning I was going to turn her over to Forsyth to fly her to the States, and she was waiting for me by the car. Waxing the two Center goons may have done the trick, I don’t know. She’s seriously furious.” Benford looked as though he was going to pass out. “She’s in the backseat, lying down; she got back there as we entered Narva. I wanted to change the profile.” Benford blew out a stream of smoke. It had been nearly seventy-two hours of not knowing.

  “She agreed?” Benford asked.

  “Yes and no. Told me to go to hell, that she was doing it to spring MARBLE, for no other reason. Said she’s going back to think about working with us. In the meantime, she intends to raise hell in the Center. We might have an agent, we might not. She’ll let us know.”