Red Sparrow: A Novel

by Jason Matthews

  Say something, be casual. “If you’re both right, brothers,” said Korchnoi, “and he’s a big fish and he’s in the Service, then the short list of candidates would be the Director, you, Vanya, and the twelve department heads, including Lyosha and me.” Korchnoi saw their sour looks. What was he doing? This was exhilarating madness.

  “That, of course, is not considering that it could additionally be your special assistant, or a secretary, or a communications-code clerk, or a hundred other employees with indirect access to cable reading boards, their bosses’ in-boxes, and to unguarded conversations in anterooms and the cafeteria. Clerks in Records see more sensitive paper in a day than the three of us combined see in a week.” Korchnoi could tell from Zyuganov’s expression that he had already calculated all that. All the more people to interrogate.

  Korchnoi decided to stop there. Too much analysis, too many pat phrases. Egorov ground out his cigarette. “You are exactly correct, Volodya. There are too many possibilities. We’ll catch this svoloch only if we get a creditable internal lead, or if we catch him or his handler on the street. These two options could take months, even years. That’s why our third option is the only one.”

  “Ogovoreno, agreed; your niece is our best chance,” said Korchnoi. This scene was unthinkable, improbable, impossible. He suppressed insane, cackling laughter. He was discussing finding the spy, flushing him out, exposing him, catching him.

  Zyuganov swiveled in his chair, his feet not touching the carpet. “And if your niece does not succeed in a reasonable amount of time? Perhaps we then consider other means.”

  Egorov turned to him quickly. “Absolutely not. I have received instructions from the highest levels. No ‘active measures’ in this operation. Is that clear?” Zyuganov swiveled a little more, a faint smile on his face.

  “You’re right,” said Korchnoi. “In the history of our Service, in the history of postwar intelligence operations, no service has ever intentionally harmed an officer of an opposing service. It is not done. It would create havoc.” Zyuganov swiveled.

  “Volodya, relax. If we wanted to try the rough stuff, I’d be talking to Line F, not you,” said Egorov, laughing. Korchnoi saw Zyuganov’s right eyelid twitch. “No, what I want is an elegant operation, nuanced, brilliant, that will produce quick results and will leave the Main Enemy wondering what hit them, wondering how they lost their sensitive asset and marveling at the SVR’s skill and cunning.”

  MARBLE’S SIRNIKI PANCAKES

  Thoroughly blend soft goat cheese, eggs, sugar, salt, and flour into a sticky dough. Refrigerate. Drop small balls of the dough into flour, coat well, and flatten into thin discs. Fry in melted butter over medium heat until golden. Serve with sour cream, caviar, smoked fish, or jam.

  30

  Korchnoi and Dominika were standing in the tiny living room of the general’s apartment. The old man contemplated her unsettling beauty, and noted how smoothly she moved, how she walked with her back straight, how her eyes locked on his. The more time he spent with her, the more he was convinced that he had chosen correctly. Now he had to enlist her. Tonight would be tricky.

  Outwardly she was unemotional, controlled, focused. But in her interactions, her gestures, even in her deference to him, Korchnoi saw her anger and determination. She had never spoken about Sparrow School, but Korchnoi had quietly found out most of the facts, just as he had done regarding her interrogation in Lefortovo.

  She was hiding something, he knew. She daily declared herself eager to engage again with the American. But the timbre of her voice, the tilt of her head, made Korchnoi suspect that Dominika’s contact with Nathaniel in Helsinki had created conflicts, sympathies, perhaps feelings for him. He would soon find out.

  They had started work on the “Nash Project,” as he called it. In his darkened office with the shades drawn, the general had clicked a remote, and images of Nate were projected on the white wall of the office. Out of the corner of his eye, Korchnoi saw Dominika draw in a breath. From the side, he could see her nostril flare. He went on remorselessly, minutely describing what the SVR knew about Nash, reviewing her own reports from Helsinki, watching her, weighing her inner reserves.

  He had turned off the projector and looked at her sternly. This was more complicated than the previous mission in Helsinki, he told her. Dominika must travel outside Russia, and in order to make her foreign trips plausible, she would be reassigned to the SVR Courier Service in Directorate OT. She had to operate alone, in the West. She had to get close to and seduce the young American, identify the krysa, the rat. Could she still do that? Her dark eyes flashed, wavered. Emotion. Conflict.

  It was a serious challenge for Dominika to look at Nate’s image on the screen. Had the general sensed her agitation? How long could she continue to fool him? Could he tell?

  That evening, Korchnoi invited Dominika to his apartment. He would prepare a simple supper, a decidedly un-Russian pasta dish in celebration of their upcoming Rome trip, and they would continue discussing the operation. There was no hint of anything improper. General Korchnoi was a distinguished senior officer, a veteran spy, not a grubyj chelovek, a cad. They rode the Metro, got off at Strogino in the Fourth District, and walked along a broad leafy park beside the Moskva River. Korchnoi’s apartment building was the third in a line of five identical buildings, tubular high-rises in a row, streaked like candy canes from the rusting window frames. His apartment was on the twelfth floor—the dingy elevator groaned loudly as it carried them up.

  The small apartment was spare but clean and comfortable, the living space of a person who lived alone, but who didn’t mind. There were a few treasures. An exquisite little framed Italian oil on the wall, a silk Persian carpet on the floor; these hinted at a career of foreign travel. In the corner were a well-worn easy chair, a reading lamp, and a low bookcase with a few bound volumes. The small room had a sweeping view of the oxbow curve of the river.

  Dominika saw a framed picture of a woman and a very young-looking Korchnoi standing in front of a lake. It was summer and his arm was around her waist. “That was in 1973,” said Korchnoi. “One of the Italian lakes, Maggiore, I think.”

  “Is this your wife?” asked Dominika. “She’s very beautiful.”

  “Twenty-six years of marriage,” he said, taking the frame from Dominika and tilting it toward the fading daylight to look at it. “We traveled together around the world. Italy, Malaysia, Morocco, New York.” He put the frame back down on the table. “Then she became ill. Misdiagnosed for months.” They walked into the tiny kitchen. “Don’t get sick at a Russian Embassy overseas.” He smiled. Dominika noticed his head was bowed.

  The general said he had moved into this apartment after his wife’s death, he couldn’t go back to their original apartment. He had traded it for this smaller one, relatively modern, relatively quiet, not too far out of town; he could enjoy the swath of green along the river. He didn’t tell Dominika that burst transmissions aimed out the twelfth-story living room window had exceptionally fine line-of-sight to the American satellite.

  He poured two amber glasses of sweet Moldovan wine. The kitchen had a sink, a small refrigerator that rattled when the door was open, and a three-burner cooktop on the counter. Dominika leaned against the counter and solemnly toasted to the successful outcome of their operation. The general was at ease, she saw. He radiated a warm purple glow that came from the depths of him.

  In her short time in Korchnoi’s department, Dominika had grown truly fond of him. Apart from his obvious technical brilliance and his uncanny instincts, he had treated her with respect and, even, kindness, as if he was sorry for what she had endured up until now. And there was his loyalty to her. At a meeting in the department, Korchnoi had defended and endorsed Dominika’s comment about an operation. Actually stood up for her. Where have you been all my life? she thought, reminded again of her father. The double game she was playing would wound him if it came out, might even hasten the end of his career. Would he understand her motives?
/>   As he prepared supper, Korchnoi asked Dominika about herself, her family. Outside the discipline and protocol of the office, she spoke freely, affectionately, about her parents, about her study of ballet, about her delight in discovering the West. Helsinki had been a marvel to her, she wanted to travel around the world. Talking like this to him almost made her forget how she was lying to him. She stuffed the thought under the rug.

  “And yet something happened to you in Helsinki,” said Korchnoi, busy at the kitchen counter. “Can you tell me about it?” She hesitated, gathering her thoughts, while she watched him dice tomatoes, garlic, and onions and sauté them in a pan of hot olive oil. Udivetelno, remarkable, he knows Italian cooking, she thought. The kitchen was instantly filled with the aroma.

  “The American volunteer I helped handle,” she said, draining her glass, “was arrested minutes after passing the document. The rezident was the only other person who knew about the meeting. They could not understand how it happened. They naturally suspected the worst, that I had leaked the information to the Americans.” Korchnoi poured her another glass of wine.

  “But they concluded in the end that it wasn’t me,” she said simply, ending it, not wanting to talk about it anymore, not wanting to keep lying to him.

  “Yes. But I meant something else happened to you in Helsinki,” said Korchnoi slowly. “I read your reports. Despite somewhat regular contacts with Nash, there was very little actual progress with him.” Dominika heard the tone in his voice, considered his choice of words. Be careful, she thought, he’s just started working.

  “Yes, that’s right,” said Dominika evenly. “He was uninterested, avoided sustained contact. It was a struggle to get him to come out.” Could he hear the lie?

  “It’s strange. A woman with your beauty. And a young man, attractive, single, an intelligence officer living in a foreign country . . .” Korchnoi let the thought trail off. The tomato sauce was bubbling.

  Dominika watched as the general poured a splash of balsamic vinegar into the pan, stirred, and began tearing pieces of basil into the sauce. His halo was growing brighter. She was silent, watching Korchnoi’s hands pluck the leaves from the stem.

  He looked up at her. Neither Benford nor Nate had told him the CIA had recruited her in Finland, but he knew it was the answer. Let’s tip over the goblet, he thought.

  “You have been exceptionally lucky up to this point, my dear,” said Korchnoi softly. “Even now, with the Soviet Union long gone, the chudovishiye, the monster, is right beneath the surface.”

  Dominika felt real alarm; he was drawing her in, she could feel it. She hadn’t been that clever with him after all. He suspected, no, this old fokusnik, this conjurer, knew. If she lied, continued to show him disrespect, he could take her off the operation, kick her out of his department. If she put her life in his hands and admitted everything, why wouldn’t he report her instantly? Lefortovo would be mild compared to what they would arrange for her then. Defend yourself, she thought, protect yourself.

  “I know about the monster,” she said loftily. “I slept in the basement of Lefortovo. They forced me through State School Four, Sparrow School. I watched them murder a man with a wire; they almost sawed his head off. My friend Marta disappeared in Helsinki. They said she defected, but I know better.” She realized that her voice was loud in the little kitchen.

  She builds up quite a head of steam very quickly, thought Korchnoi. A little more, he thought. “The young American, Nash, did you like him?” he asked.

  “I suppose so,” said Dominika. “He was funny and courteous and pleasant. I never knew Americans were like that.” My God, I said courteous? She thought she sounded idiotic. He was still looking at her, glowing purple, but with calmness. She felt like a bird, mesmerized, unable to move, watching the emerald-green snake glide up the branch toward the nest.

  “I have the impression that you knew this young man rather better than you reported during your assignment in Helsinki,” said Korchnoi. He paused and stirred the sauce slowly, the only sound in the kitchen. Korchnoi’s voice was very soft. He would try it. “How did they recruit you?” he asked.

  Dominika was still. She looked across at him. She opened her mouth but couldn’t speak. This was where the risk, the danger that defined her secret life culminated; this was much worse than resisting the brutes in Lefortovo. Her hands shook as she put down her wineglass. Korchnoi was stirring the sauce, the kitchen was filled with his expanding purple bubble, she could feel his overwhelming will. Protect yourself, you are the only one who can save yourself, leave, get out of here. Then Korchnoi, the canny master, said a remarkable thing.

  “Dominika, I can see it, I am giving you the opportunity to tell me, to trust me. I will not harm you.” My God, what an interrogator he would make, but her intuition told her he was telling the truth, he would protect her; she wanted him to help her, to share her burden, she needed it.

  “I started out by following orders, trying to develop him, just as he was developing me,” she said, physically shaking. “It was a race to see who would recruit the other first.” She still resisted, she was still hanging on to the lip of the cliff. This was an evasion, not an admission.

  He wasn’t going to let her slide. “Yes, of course,” said Korchnoi. “But listen to me very carefully. I asked you how they recruited you.”

  Dominika’s voice was almost inaudible, she was sleepwalking. He raised an eyebrow, and she decided, she placed her beating heart in his hand, she stepped off into space. “They didn’t recruit me. I chose to work with them. It was my decision. So I did, on my own terms.”

  Korchnoi filled a pot with water from the sink, put it on a second burner, and threw a handful of salt into the water. He motioned her to come to the stove, handed her the spoon. Dominika stood over the sauce, stirring. “It wasn’t a matter of love at all,” she said in a small voice. “It was my choice.”

  Korchnoi did not reply, but she knew she was safe. She was soaring over the cliff now, the wind roaring around her, the sea below exploding against the rocks, and she was flying. She knew she was safe with him.

  Korchnoi was satisfied. He did not view her admission as weakness or folly or stupidity. He saw how she had calculated, how she had assessed his intentions, but most important, how she had accepted mortal risk, based on her extraordinary intuition. A formidable combination. Her admission also demonstrated her trust in him. That was important. She would need to trust him in the near future.

  Now it was he who had to take a chance. In fourteen years he had never slipped, but they had to be partners if this succession strategy was going to work. Telling her would be as difficult for him as it just was for her.

  They stood shoulder to shoulder at the little cooking element, the gas hissing through the burners, the sauce simmering in the pan. The wooden spoon made a soft sound, almost a musical note, against the thin aluminum as Dominika pushed the thickening tomatoes around. She turned her face toward Korchnoi; up close her beauty was matchless, but she didn’t use it. “What do we do now?” she asked quietly. “Are you going to report me?” She wanted him to say it, to declare it.

  “I shall report you if you overcook the pasta,” said the general, twisting a fistful of dry bucatini so it fell into the boiling water in a fan pattern. “And watch the sauce doesn’t burn on the bottom. I’m taking off my coat and tie.” He started down the little hall to his bedroom, then stopped and turned to her. Now.

  “Perhaps you’re wondering,” he said. “My grief can’t bring her back, but since my wife died, I have not believed in the cause; my heart was hardened toward Them forever. I did my work, but I never again became one of them. They did not earn my loyalty, nor do they deserve yours now. They warrant our contempt.” It was done. He stood looking at her: her eyes were wide; her agile mind grasped the implication before he finished loosening the knot of his necktie. She spoke in a whisper.

  “It’s you? You are the one they are looking for? You’re the—” Korchnoi put a fing
er to his lips to silence her.

  “Mind the sauce, keep stirring,” he said, turning down the hallway, leaving Dominika staring after his gray head and purple mantle.

  “We assess the potential for success as good, the operational risk as minimal,” said General Korchnoi. “We are ready to initiate, in Rome. I am familiar with the city.”

  “Go on,” said Vanya. They were seated on the couch in his office. Zyuganov was in a chair to one side.

  “Corporal Egorova will approach the American CIA chief in Rome. We know the address of his residence in Centro Storico. We will choose a sleepy Sunday afternoon when everyone is glued to the game on the telly. Corporal Egorova will explain she is an SVR courier with only a few days in Rome. She has run a fearful risk by coming to him. She wants to contact Mr. Nash, Nathaniel, whom she knew in Scandinavia. The COS will know what to do. He will call and Nash will be on the next plane to Rome.”

  “And once Nash arrives?” asked Egorov.

  “It is likely that they will meet in Nash’s hotel room,” said Korchnoi. “Standard procedure. She will tell him she has been transferred to the Courier Service, and that she will be making regular trips to Europe, Asia, South America. The Americans, of course, will be interested in her access. The possibility of intercepting an SVR pouch will excite them. With this cover legend we can dictate the frequency and duration of future contacts. Corporal Egorova will then rekindle the relationship that was started in Helsinki.”

  “Very good,” said Egorov.

  “I will remain behind the scenes,” said Korchnoi, “providing guidance as required.”

  “I expect positive results,” said Vanya.

  “May I make a suggestion to my operational colleagues?” said Zyuganov. “Why not have Nash come to Corporal Egorova’s hotel room? More control, more secure.” Korchnoi wondered why the dwarf would suggest this.