Jason Matthews - Red Sparrow

They collapsed in Gable’s backseat like Bonnie and Clyde, and the wide-eyed medic wrapped Israeli pressure bandages around Nate’s chest, arms, and hand, another around Dominika’s thigh, and taped the diagonal slice across her stomach. Nate’s pulse was thready from loss of blood, so the medic started an IV, and Dominika cradled Nate’s head in her lap, not talking, holding the plasma bag up as Gable slammed through traffic, cursing and pounding the steering wheel.

They banged up the hilly streets into Zografos, under the loom of Mount Ymittos, and Gable helped them up to a top-floor retirée in a quiet Greek apartment block where the Station kept a contingency safe house. They put Nate in the small bedroom, and the medic stayed with him until the Embassy doctor arrived; they were both cleared, but Gable wanted them out as soon as they finished, twenty stitches in Dominika’s leg, three times that for Nate. Gable held Dominika by the shoulders, looking at her over the tops of his glasses, but she shrugged him off and went into the other bedroom to sponge off the blood, insanely flashing to Ustinov, how long had it been? Her breaths started coming in gulps.

Gable thanked the doctor and medic—they wondered what the spooks were up to, but knew to keep quiet—and steered them out and gently closed the door. Dominika was in Nate’s room listening to him breathe, and Gable shooed her out. She didn’t want soup, didn’t want bread, she closed the door to her bedroom, but in five minutes Gable heard her cross back into Nate’s room, and he left her alone. Later that night Gable cracked open the bedroom door and heard her talking to him, he was still out from the sedative, color better, and DIVA sitting on the bed, talking Russian to him. Big ugly mess this was, but thank Christ they survived.

Forsyth snuck in the next day, after dark, wearing a paste-on goatee and wire-rimmed glasses—Greek cops knew his face, and there was a manhunt on for the young Russian woman at the Grande Bretagne Hotel who had disappeared, leaving a dead man in her room. Dominika’s passport picture was all over the television and papers. There had been another man, a dark-haired Westerner, perhaps an American. Gable told Forsyth he looked like a Viennese sex therapist in that goatee, then briefed him on the scene at the hotel, nodded to the two bedrooms in back. Forsyth sat down and threw a stack of late-edition newspapers on the coffee table. The bloodfest at the Grande Bretagne was being covered in a media firestorm excessive even by Greek standards. Station translators had provided a list of headlines:

“KGB Slaughter Plot Sunders Athens Calm”— Kathimerini (center right)

“Cold War Massacre at Grande Bretagne Hotel”— To Bhma (center)

“Russian Beauty Sought in Sex Murder Tryst”— Eleftherotiypia (center left)

“US Disdain for Greek Patrimony, Antiques”— Rizospastis (Communist)

“Assassin Picks Low Season at Five-Star Abattoir”— Tribuna Shqiptare (Albanian language)

They made a little noise in the kitchen, waiting for Dominika to come out of her bedroom. A half hour later Forsyth got up and tapped softly on her door. Through the door she told him she wasn’t feeling well, no, she didn’t need the doctor, but she wanted to sleep. Forsyth came back out into the living room. “I’m not sure, something wrong, more than shock,” he said to Gable.

Then a little stirring and Nate shuffled in, finally awake, holding the wall, orange Betadine showing around the edges of the bandages and tape. One side of his face was purple. He eased into an armchair, face wet from the exertion and pain.

“What’re you guys doing here?” he rasped. “Some kind of emergency?”

“How you feeling?” said Gable, ignoring him. “Any dizziness? You have an appetite?” Nate shook his head, and Forsyth started talking softly.

“I’ve been on the green line with the Seventh Floor. I’ve been called in a half-dozen times by the ambassador, who has himself been summoned by the Greek foreign minister twice. The entire Hellenic Police is looking for a Russian woman, trying to ID the dead guy, and the Russian Embassy claims to have no idea what’s going on. The Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs is just up the street from the GB Hotel, and the TV lights in Syntagma Square have been on for twenty-four hours.”

“That’s the best thing about a clandestine operation, the TV lights,” said Gable, looking at Nate.

“Everyone at Headquarters is in a different stage of pissed, seriously pissed, and fucking outrageously pissed,” said Forsyth. “There are recriminations flying back and forth: Why didn’t we anticipate this kind of SVR action? Why didn’t we yank you off the case? Why couldn’t MARBLE warn us about the ambush? Most of it’s bullshit.

“I received an email this morning from Chief Europe. Admiral Nelson suggested it was ‘time to change the sails’ in the DIVA case. Apparently C/ROD told Chief Europe he had his head up his ass. In front of the Director. That’s all stuff we can handle.

“Then last night Benford called asking whether his guidance about not going to Dominika’s room was unclear. He sends his regards. Explaining your performance to him, specifically, is something we—you—might not handle so easily. It will depend on Benford’s inclination to flog you.”

“I gave him my personal recommendation to do so,” said Gable.

“Yet there is hope. Benford says this incident has created a narrow window of opportunity; he was very excited. He is arriving late tomorrow evening and until then he wants you to stay out of sight.” Forsyth went to the sliding glass doors of the balcony and looked through a gap in the drawn curtains. “It’s important that Dominika stay hidden so the Center keeps thinking the worst, that she’s blown to the CIA, that their plot to ambush Nate is exposed. We’ve got a couple of days at the most.”

Gable got up and walked down the little hallway and knocked at Dominika’s room. He spoke softly through the door and then she told him to come in. They could hear his muffled baritone down the hall, and in ten minutes Gable walked back out and sat down. “Trouble,” he whispered. “She’s agitated. Not hysterical, just pissed. Splenetic. That temper, but this time it’s serious. Doesn’t know who to trust. Us, MARBLE, certainly not her own people.” Nate struggled to get up out of the chair. “Sit the fuck down,” said Gable. “Part of it is that she’s frantic she almost got you killed, first thing she asked was how you are.”

“She saved my life,” said Nate. “That mechanic had me cold.”

“You check out the room when you went up?” Nate avoided his look. “Didn’t think so,” said Gable.

“She’s talking about not going back, about running away, defecting. She’s shocky and betrayed and her leg’s hurting her. Poor kid, just spent two days with droopy over here.” Nate wasn’t going to make things worse by telling them about the lovemaking.

Forsyth stood up. “Marty, stay with DIVA until Benford arrives. Nate, we’ll smuggle you into the Station tomorrow. I want you to start writing up what happened; Benford is going to want a full readout.” Nate nodded.

“Right now let’s give her space,” said Forsyth. “We may have lost her as an agent. We probably won’t find out until she does some thinking.”

Forsyth left and Gable got up, rattled around the kitchen, came back out to the living room, said he was going to the corner to get a bottle of wine, some cheese and bread. “Stay off the balcony,” he said, moving toward the door. He took a pistol out of his coat pocket, flipped it to Nate. “PPK/S,” Gable said. “Ladies’ gun. I brought it for you.”