Jason Matthews - Red Sparrow

Nate sat inthe Station staring through the slats of the venetian blinds on the window in his office. He absentmindedly batted the cord of the blinds, making the plastic handle hit the wall and bounce back, click, click, click. Last night had been another National Day reception at some embassy. The half dozen calling cards on his desk amounted to squat, and there was a knot between his shoulder blades.

The thought of swimming reminded him of Dominika. He had looked hard at her, they had been out several times, but he still thought the case was going nowhere. She was a believer, way committed, no doubts, no vulnerabilities. He was wasting time. The plastic at the end of the cord clicked against the wall. The cards on the desk mocked him. A single paper—his latest cable on contact with Dominika—lay in a metal tray on his desk.

Gable stuck his head into his office. “Jesus, the fucking Prisoner of Zenda in the tower,” he said. “Why aren’t you out on the street? Take someone to lunch.”

“I struck out last night,” said Nate, staring out the window. “Four National Days this week alone.”

Gable shook his head, walked to the window, and yanked the slats of the blinds closed with a snap. He sat on the edge of Nate’s desk and leaned close.

“Bend over, Hamlet, I’m about to give you a pearl of wisdom. There is a perverse element to this HUMINT shit we do. Sometimes the harder you try to find a target, to start a case, the farther away it gets from you. Impatience, aggression—in your case, desperation—gets in the air like a whiff of sulfur, no one wants to talk to you, no one will dine with you. Sulfur in the wind. You smell like rotten eggs.”

“I don’t follow you,” said Nate.

Gable leaned closer. “You got performance anxiety,” he drawled. “The longer you stare at your pecker, the softer it’s gonna be. Keep trying, but ease off the accelerator.”

“Thanks for the graphic image,” said Nate, “but I’ve been at Station for a while and I have nothing to show for it.”

“Stop, or I’ll start weeping,” said Gable. “The only guys you have to please are me and COS, and we ain’t complaining… yet. You got time, so keep going.” Gable picked up the cable in Nate’s in-box.

“Besides, this Russian sugar-britches is gold waiting to be mined, your professional assessment notwithstanding. Get to work on her, for Christ’s sake. I have an idea how we can blow air up her skirt for a better look.”

Gable suggested they direct the small Station surveillance team on Egorova to get a sense of what she was doing in Helsinki. Putting surveillance on her struck Nate as overkill. He had been trying to tell Forsyth and Gable that Egorova was a low-level target, an admin type with no access. Surveilling her was a waste. “Let’s agree to disagree,” Gable said. “In other words, shut the fuck up.”

Forsyth held up his hand. “Nate, since you’re the action officer with Egorova, why don’t you handle the team while they cover her? Useful experience, and you can provide input. They’re an interesting old couple. They’re both sticklers for tradecraft.”

Great, thought Nate. Gable had made the suggestion to employ surveillance to kick-start the operation, and Forsyth assigned him to run the team to focus him on the case. Forsyth and Gable worked well together, real pros, they knew how to motivate their officers.

Gable slid the file to him, daring him with a look to say anything. “Here’s the file on ARCHIE and VERONICA.” He paused for a beat. “These two are legends. They’ve been working since the 1960s. Worked some shit-hot ops over the years, including Golitsyn’s defection. Tell ’em I said hello.”

Twenty-four hours later, after a two-hour vehicular SDR that took him north for an hour on the E75 and then west on secondary roads to Tuusula and back into the city on the 120, Nate ditched his car in public parking at the Pasila train station and walked into Länsi-Pasila, a district of high-rises and commercial buildings. He found the right one, a modest apartment block of four stories of brick and glass, with enclosed angular balconies. He pressed the intercom button marked RÄIKKÖNEN and was buzzed in. Nate rang the bell at the door of the fourth-floor apartment.

“Come in,” said the elderly woman who opened the door. Spry. In her seventies. VERONICA. Her face was narrow and patrician, with a straight nose and firm mouth that hinted at what must have been considerable beauty in her youth. Her ice-blue eyes were still striking, her skin was pink with good health. Her thick white hair was in a bun and a pencil stuck out of it. She wore woolen pants and a light sweater. Reading glasses hung from her neck, and there was a pile of papers and magazines on the floor beside a chair. “We’ve been eager to meet you,” she said. “I am Jaana.” She grasped Nate’s hand and shook it firmly. She radiated vitality and energy. Her grip, her eyes, the way she stood.

“Would you like a cup of tea? What time is it?” She checked her watch, which she wore with the face on the bottom of her wrist, a classic tell of a street surveillant, thought Nate. “It’s late enough to contemplate something stronger,” said Jaana. “May I offer you schnapps?” All this was said in a flurry of movements, gestures, smiles, twinkling eyes.

“Marty Gable sends his regards,” said Nate.

“How kind of Marty,” said Jaana, clearing a space on a cluttered coffee table. “He’s a dear. You’re lucky to have him as a supervisor.” She was shuttling back and forth from the kitchen with glasses and an unidentified clear liquid that seethed in an oval bottle. Schnapps. “We’ve seen some strange chiefs over the years,” she said, “on both sides. Of course, the Russians were uniformly worse, beastly clods trying to survive in their beastly system, bless them. They certainly provided us with interesting times.”

Jaana Räikkönen poured two glasses of schnapps, raised her glass in a Scandinavian toast, looking him in the eyes while taking the first sip. The living room was small and comfortable, with overstuffed furniture and bookshelves lining the polished wood walls. The house was filled with the smell of vegetable soup.

“Is your husband home?” asked Nate. “I hoped to meet him too.”

“He won’t be long,” said Jaana. “He was out on the street covering your arrival.” She shrugged. “I’m afraid it’s a habit with us.” Nate chuckled to himself. He had run a two-hour dry-cleaning route looking for a tail and had missed the old guy hanging around outside his building. That’s how they’ve operated for so long, he thought.

Just then a key rattled in the lock, the front door opened, and Marcus Räikkönen walked into the room. ARCHIE. He led a tan dachshund on a leash, which, after sniffing briefly at Nate, trotted over to his bed and flopped down. His name was Rudy. Marcus was tall, over six feet, and broad across the shoulders. He had clear blue eyes under bushy eyebrows. Muscular cords stood out on the side of his neck, under a sharp jawline. He moved easily, athletically. He was balding and wore his remaining hair in a buzz cut. His handshake was firm. He wore a dark-blue tracksuit with black training shoes. There was a small Finnish flag on the left breast of the suit.

“Across the street in the courtyard?” asked Nate. “The bench near the steps?”

“Good,” said Marcus. “I didn’t think you noticed.” He smiled and picked up the third glass of schnapps. “To your good health,” he said, draining the glass while looking Nate in the eyes.

Nate remembered the summary file on them. ARCHIE and VERONICA had been the core of Helsinki Station’s unilateral surveillance team for close to forty years. Both were retired pensioners now. ARCHIE had been an investigator in the Finnish Tax Administration, VERONICA a librarian. They were effective simply because they mixed different looks on the street with an instinct about what the rabbit was going to do next. Of course, they knew the city and its Metro system intimately, they had grown up as the city had grown. Dogged, discreet, with the patience and perspective of a lifetime, they could work on a target for months without being burned. Their style of coverage was what Gable had called “more of a wife’s caress than a doctor’s finger.”