Jason Matthews - Red Sparrow

Reading the report, Egorov could imagine FSB men darting from tree to tree, NVGs strapped to their heads, a forest full of green, bug-eyed aliens. A tracking dog was brought up to look for buried drops. The keyed-up Alsatian was used to follow Americans, trained to focus specifically on the scent generated by Dial soap and Sure deodorant—the scent of America.

And they waited. And the American waited. Well beyond the traditional four-minute window. Ten, twenty, thirty minutes. Nothing. The rest of the park was empty. The dog was run back along the American’s foot route but did not alert on anything. No caches, ground spikes, devices, nothing. Radio cars on the outer edges of the park cruised slowly, recording one hundred license plates in the area that would be checked and cross-referenced. Nothing. The American then left the park and, again nontraditionally, proceeded directly home, with no effort to test for coverage. FSB radios went silent.

Egorov flipped the report into his out-box disgustedly. The FSB were congratulating themselves on a “perfect surveillance evolution,” in that the rabbit had no idea he had been stoppered in the bottle. Big deal, thought Egorov, what had they accomplished?

Vanya Egorov did not know it, but the thrashing about of FSB coverage on the American case officer created enough of a stir that MARBLE, headed into Sokolniki Park to attempt a meeting with the American, instead decided to wait and watch from a covered bus stop on Malenkovskaya Ulitsa, several blocks from the entrance to the park. His exceptional street instincts were confirmed when he saw three surveillance radio cars pull abreast of each other a hundred meters from him. The surveillance team leaned against the fenders of their cars, smoked cigarettes, and not-so-furtively passed around a bottle. This was the classic surveillance error on the street, bunching and scuttling together like tarakanki. Cockroaches.

Very well, another reprieve in the life I have chosen, thought MARBLE as he walked away from the neighborhood. How many more did he have left? He thought about what he would write in his burst transmission tonight, and how he had to urgently find a reason to travel abroad. He had to meet Nathaniel again.

The next morning Line KR Chief Zyuganov sent a classified zapiska to General Egorov, a memo designed to demonstrate Zyuganov’s prescience and command of the situation.

There could be a limited number of explanations for the American officer’s activities. 1. This could have been an exercise to draw, then quantify, FSB surveillance capabilities, including collecting signals intelligence on FSB encrypted frequencies; 2. The American did detect coverage and aborted his meeting plans, leading surveillance into the park to misdirect; 3. The American was oblivious but his agent aborted the meeting for unknown reasons.

This activity by the Americans seems poorly planned and clumsily executed and reflects our continued assessment of the CIA Station Chief Gondorf as a senior officer unsuited for dealing with the intricacies of his grade, the unhappy product of long-time patronage.

Who cares about that polyp? thought Egorov. We have enough dim-witted, vain, pampered bunglers in our own Service.

Vanya knew, was certain, that they had missed again, that the mole was still out there, sweating in his bed at night, betraying Russia, jeopardizing his—Vanya’s—own political and personal future.

Then the day had been shattered by a midafternoon telephone call from the Kremlin, the smooth voice of the president hollow over the encrypted line. President Putin knew about the last night’s surveillance in Sokolniki Park, recited back the various interpretations of what had happened. Vanya mentally filed away the fact that Zyuganov’s zapiska had found its way to that office.

“A counterespionage success against the Americans would not be unwelcome now,” the president had purred into the phone. “In a time of crisis for the Motherland, there is less time for hozjajki, these housewives, to bang pots and pans in protest.” The line went silent but Vanya did not interrupt. He was familiar with the cadences of the president’s speech. “We do not have the luxury of time,” said Putin finally, and the line was disconnected.

Vanya stared into the phone receiver and replaced it on the instrument. Sookin syn. Son of a bitch. He pushed the key on his intercom. “Zyuganov, immediately.” The mole was still out there, but if clandestine meetings in Moscow were not working, third-country meetings outside Russia were the key. And Nash was right next door in Finland. Nash. He pushed his intercom again. “Egorova. My niece. This instant.”

In twenty minutes, Dominika was sitting in front of his desk. CI Chief Zyuganov, his feet not touching the floor, sat on the other side of her. All three buttons of the dwarf’s shapeless black suit were buttoned and he gripped both arms of the chair. His perpetual bland little smile aggravated Vanya. His poisonous dwarf.

As usual, Dominika was a vision, dressed in a navy-blue wool skirt and jacket, her hair up in the regulation bun. She looked quickly at Alexei Zyuganov, and the black triangles behind his head. She was not so new in the Service as not to have heard about his handiwork in the torture cells of the Lubyanka during the waning years of the Soviet Union.

They were whispered stories, unbelievable, repeated only between close friends inside the Service. Zyuganov had been one of two chief Lubyanka executioners in the old days, young for the job but suited to it simply because he was immune to its horrors. It was said the dwarf had a fascination for his executed prisoners as they hung from the overhead beams, or lay on the tables or splayed on the sloping floor, heads down toward the drains. He would handle them, move them around—“ragdolling,” they called it—would lean them up against the wall so he could talk to them while fussily arranging and rearranging their limbs. Dominika imagined the dirty smocks, the purple necks, the—

“It seems like we are always sitting here, you and I,” said Vanya brightly. Dominika cleared her head of the cellars. She saw Vanya’s yellow halo, bright and broad. This would be an interesting meeting. “It’s good to see you again.”

“Thank you,” she said quietly. She braced herself.

“I am pleased to hear that General Korchnoi offered you a seat in the Americas Department.”

Oh, get on with it, she thought. “When Colonel Simyonov released me from the Fifth, I had no office. I am grateful to the general for the opportunity,” Dominika said.

“Korchnoi told me he was impressed with your work against the Frenchman,” said Vanya.

“Despite the fact that the operation was unsuccessful,” said Dominika.

“We all have our successes and failures,” said Vanya, bathed in yellow, acting sweet.

Dominika’s voice rose a little. “The operation against Delon would still be progressing if the Fifth Department had not acted prematurely. We could have developed a penetration of the French Defense Ministry.”

“I read the file. There was promise. Why did we not?” interrupted Zyuganov mildly. Dominika willed her eyes not to grow large as she saw the parabolas of black unfold from behind Zyuganov’s shoulders like bat wings. Shaitan, thought Dominika, pure evil.

“You’ll have to ask the chief of the Fifth Department,” said Dominika, not looking into Zyuganov’s eyes, not wanting to see what lived behind them.

“Perhaps I shall,” said Zyuganov.

“Enough. There’s no value in recriminations. Corporal Egorova, it is not your place to question the decisions made by senior officers,” said Vanya mildly.