Jason Matthews - Red Sparrow

Nearly 0300, and Nate dully registered the door to his room opening. A diffused orange glow from the street lamps came through the sheer curtains. He turned his head slightly and saw Dominika’s silhouette—that unmistakable catch in her graceful stride—move across the bedroom to the window. She reached out and drew the sheers open, first one side, then the other, until she stood backlighted against the sliding glass door, which she slid open. The night air wafted the curtains out and back, snaking on either side of her, around her, over her face, and across her body. She walked toward him, the curtains parting, and stood at the side of the bed. Nate propped himself up on one elbow.

“Are you all right? Is there anything wrong?” he asked. She did not reply and stood still, looking down at him. The case officer in him instantly wondered whether she had heard something, some noise at the door. Did they have to bug out of the hotel right now? He had checked the back stairwell earlier that evening. Still Dominika did not reply, and Nate sat up, reached out to take her hand softly in his.

“Domi, what is it? What’s going on?”

Her voice was a whisper. “When we have made love, did you report it to your headquarters?”

“What are you talking about?” said Nate.

“In Helsinki and in Rome, when we were lovers, did you tell your superiors?”

“What we did was against the rules, unprofessional; it was my fault, we risked your security, the operation.” She was silent, looking down at him. It was another second before she spoke.

“ ‘The operation,’” Dominika said. “You mean we risked the continued collection of razvedka, the intelligence.”

“Look,” said Nate, “what we did was crazy, both professionally and personally. We nearly lost you. I thought about you all the time. I still do.”

“Of course, you think about the case, about Dominika, the national asset .”

“What are you talking about? What do you want me to say?” said Nate.

“I want to feel that sometimes we leave the operation behind, that there is just you and me.” Her bosom heaved in her brassiere. He stood up and put his arms around her. His mind was a riptide of damage control battling the stirring of his passion for her. He smelled her hair, and felt her body. You gonna slip a third time, Mr. Case Officer? he thought.

“Dominika,” he said, and the rushing in his ears started, the old danger signal.

“Will you break your rules again?” she asked. She saw his purple lust, it lit up the darkened room.

“Dominika…” he said, staring into her eyes. Her lashes caught some of the light from the window. He saw Forsyth’s face floating in the air above his head, scary, unblinking. He wanted her, more than his power to resist, more urgently than it was possible to think.

“I want you to violate your rules… with me… not your agent, me,” said Dominika. “I want you to violate me.”

The lace of her brassiere rustled as she unclasped it. They fell onto the bed, and she was on her stomach, and she pulled Nate on top of her, heavy and hot, his lips at her neck, his fingers twined in hers. She held his hands tight. He fumbled, she teased him, and he trapped her hips with his legs and her breath came up sharp. She groaned, “ Trahni menya, ” and reached behind to touch him while he whispered in her ear.

“How many rules will you force me to break?”

She looked back at him, wordlessly, to see if he was mocking her.

“Shall I break five regulations, ten?” He kept his mouth close to her ear and began counting to ten slowly, matching the numbers with the cadence of his hips.

“ Odin … dva … tri …” She was trembling but at a different hertz rate than before.

“ Chyetirye … pyat … shest …” She stretched her arms out, gathered fistfuls of bedsheet.

“ Syem … vosyem … dyevyat …” Fingers like claws, she twisted the sheets around her wrists.

“ Dyesyat, ten,” Nate said, lifting himself off her back, hotly connected yet soaring above her glistening spine, and suddenly the gentle line of her back and buttocks arched, and she buried her face in the mattress, mouth gasping.

The bar of moonlight inched across the room and they watched it as they lay next to each other. Nate leaned over and held her chin in his hand, kissed her on the lips. She took his hand away gently. “If you say the wrong thing,” she said, “I will put my thumbnail in your right eye and tip you over the balcony railing.”

“I have no doubt you could do it,” said Nate as he lay back against the pillow.

“Yes, Neyt,” Dominika said, “and if I need anything more, your little Sparrow will lure you into bed again.”

“Okay, okay, that’s not what I meant. Can we get a few hours of sleep? Will you be still for a while?”

“ Konechno, of course, good agents always follow instructions,” said Dominika.

TAVERNA XINOS PAPOUTSAKIA (STUFFED EGGPLANT)

Brown ground lamb with diced onions and peeled diced tomatoes in olive oil. Season well, let cool, and add grated cheese, parsley, soaked day-old bread, and beaten egg. Halve eggplants lengthwise and sauté in oil until soft. Scoop out eggplants (reserve the flesh) and fill cavity with meat mixture. Top with Mornay sauce, drizzle with oil, and bake in dish (with chopped eggplant flesh and minimal water in the bottom) until tops are golden brown. Serve at room temperature.

Zyuganov gripped thereceiver of the encrypted phone tightly. The instrument was as big as his head.

“Of course they will be looking for surveillance,” Zyuganov said. “You’ll never be able to follow them. Stay with your original plan. Do you have the materials prepared? Fifteen minutes will be all you need. One name, confirm it, then the killing stroke.” Zyuganov swiveled in his chair.

“Look, I’m not telling you not to save her, but the name is more important than anything, than anyone. Panimat? Understand? I’m waiting for results, and keep your mouth closed. Out.”

Their last day in Athens, the sun hot at nine a.m., both of them feeling tired and unplugged and drifty. They walked from the hotel down Pindarou, stopped for a fresh-squeezed orange juice in Kolonaki Square, sat elbow to elbow under a canopy as the waiter brought a pastry. They would stay on the move throughout the day, continue to rehearse how Dominika would report the contact to the Center. Dominika took a bite of the flaky roll and licked her fingers. She was feeling better and made an effort.

“Shall I tell them you forced me, or that I blindfolded you and locked you naked in an armoire?” She tore a piece of brioche and tried feeding him. He moved his head away.

“The Center would probably understand stuffing someone into an armoire,” Nate said. He felt scratchy and irritable and guilty, no patience with morning-after love talk. Dominika’s face fell when he said that. She put the brioche down on the plate.

“Well, that is bezdushnyi, ” she said, turning to face him, heartless, soulless, but Nate’s contrarian demons already had their hands in his guts, and he knew his feelings for her, but he knew his duty, and he knew what she wanted, and he knew what he could give, what the CIA would let him give, and that he had let his passion—oh, it was real passion, no doubt—take over again, again, goddamn it, on the day before she was supposed to return to Moscow and sit in front of the interrogators, and if she wasn’t pitch-perfect, well, that would be his fault because he couldn’t tell her no last night. Romantic, hopeless Russians. She wanted some sort of romance, but they were both intel officers, and there couldn’t be any distractions. He looked at her—his last thought was that he probably loved her—but she saw the demons, read the purple bloom around his shoulders, and knew the connection of last night was gone.