Jason Matthews - Red Sparrow

A senior Canadian official and a pidor, to boot. The Americas Department had primacy, and MARBLE was the logical candidate to travel to Helsinki to sniff at Trunk’s cologne-scented personage. The trip was approved by the Center. As MARBLE knew would happen, instructions were issued to exclude the Helsinki rezidentura from both the conference and the operation. MARBLE had subsequently signaled in his satellite burst transmission that he would be able to meet with CIA handlers late at night after the daily sessions and celebratory dinners concluded. Risky, but possible.

A Headquarters Russia analyst would arrive two days before the start of the conference to help prepare current intelligence requirements for the meetings. A long list of follow-up questions generated by MARBLE’s previous intelligence reports was cabled to Station. At the bottom of the list, as always, the softly phrased counterintelligence questions: Do you have knowledge of any moles in the US government? Are you aware of the compromise of any US classified material? Do you know of any intelligence operations being directed against US persons or systems? Mild, opened-ended questions designed to open the furnace door and look inside.

They went down the checklist. Replenishing commo gear was impossible—MARBLE would go through customs on his return from Helsinki. A universal contact plan would be updated. Forsyth vetoed the addition of two senior officers from Headquarters to participate in the debriefings. Nate was MARBLE’s handler and he would do the job.

Now there were preparations no one else could make: Nate receded into the background, went out onto the streets, dropped from sight. By night he cased dark alleys, angled walls, loading-dock stairways—Brief Encounter sites—near the neoclassical splendor of the Kämp Hotel, where the summit would be held and delegates housed. He wandered past cafés, restaurants, the City and Sculpture Museums, pacing distances, measuring angles, determining flow and screening—these would be the Brush Pass sites—all within easy walking distance of the Kämp.

Lastly, during a night of driving rain with sheets of water pouring off the monoliths on the façade of the train terminal, Nate went up the side steps and, just inside the doors, felt the hand, then the heavy weight of the hotel key in his pocket. A thin-faced man, a nonofficial cover officer, an NOC from Europe, had taken a room at the Hotel GLO for a week with a throwaway alias. Every night during the conference, Nate would wait in the hotel room to meet MARBLE when he could get away, wait for the minute scratch at the door, wait to begin the long conversations in the overheated room with the shades down and the television turned up, into the early morning hours, while the city slept and the changing traffic lights reflected endlessly off the wet, empty streets. By the time MARBLE stepped off the plane in Helsinki, the Station was prepared to spend as much time as securely possible with him, without remotely showing an American hair on the street.

It was early evening, after work, and Dominika stood by a window on the mezzanine level of the Torni Hotel across from the swimming pool, waiting for Nate to show. They swam together now at least three days a week, but Nate had not been at the pool for six days straight. Strange, she thought, feeling a little jilted. A week ago, on a windy spring Sunday, they had met for coffee at the Carusel Café on the water in Ullanlinna. There was a growing forest of swaying rigging in the harbor as halyards clanked against aluminum masts and clouds moved across a rare blue sky.

Dominika had taken a bus, then the Metro, and finally two taxis to get to the marina. She argued with herself as she walked along the Havsstranden, but in the end had dabbed a little perfume behind her ears. He came on foot, walking across the road, and there was a spring to his step. Nate was his usual charming self, but there was something else. His purple halo was hazy, faded. He was distracted, something was on his mind. When previously they would have spent four, five, six hours together, Nate after an hour said he had another commitment—it was unexpected work, nothing social, he assured her, but he had to go. They had walked a little ways together, and when Dominika suggested that next weekend they might take the ferry to Suomenlinna and spend the day exploring the old fortress, Nate said he would love to, but two weekends from now would be better.

Trees along the street were budding, they could feel the sun on their faces. At a quiet street corner they stood and faced each other. Dominika was heading home, Nate was going the other way. Dominika could feel him; he radiated nervous energy. He was waiting for something to happen, she thought. “I’m sorry I’m such a pill,” said Nate. “It’s just a lot of work. So we go to the fortress in two weeks together?”

“Of course,” she said. “I will look for you at the swimming pool. We can arrange Suomenlinna when we see each other.” She turned to cross the street. What, she asked herself, had possessed her to use perfume? Nate watched her walk away down the sidewalk of the leafy neighborhood, registering the slight hitch in her stride. Her lean dancer’s legs bunched at the calves and she swung her hands easily as she walked.

Then he thought about MARBLE’s imminent arrival. He still had to find an all-clear signal site near the Hotel GLO so MARBLE would know to come upstairs. He took off.

GREEK STRAPATSADA EGGS

In heated olive oil reduce peeled, chopped tomatoes, onions, sugar, salt, and pepper to a thick sauce. Add beaten eggs to the tomatoes and stir vigorously until eggs set into a small, fine curd. Serve with grilled country bread drizzled with olive oil.

It’s been too long. Where is he? What’s he doing? Does he have another target, another woman ? Did he break contact because she dropped her cover? She let it go another day, standing in the Torni Hotel across from the swimming pool each evening, waiting for sight of him. She knew he wasn’t coming again tonight. This is it, this is what I was sent here to do . She fought off the image of Uncle Vanya in his office, the suety face of Volontov looking at her each day. She would have to report in the morning.

Walking to her apartment, Dominika barely registered the streets or the lights in the windows. She thought about what would happen tomorrow in the rezidentura. Her report about Nate’s weeklong no-show would be forwarded by immediate cable to the deputy director, Eyes Only. In Line KR, an urgent request to the travel office would produce a list of all Russians traveling to Scandinavia, for six months previously and six months in the future. Diplomats, businessmen, academics, students, officials, even flight crews. The list would be finite. The patient wolves in KR would start eliminating names based on age, profession, history, and, most critically, access to state secrets. The pared-down list of leading suspects might contain a dozen names or a hundred. It wouldn’t matter. The SVR would then start watching them in Moscow, covering their mail, monitoring their phones, searching apartments and dachas, dispatching informers to get close.

The search would surely extend to Helsinki, she thought. A Directorate K surveillance team might be deployed to cover Nate for two or three weeks, a month, to observe his activities. Unexpected and invisible—the Directorate K team was referred to in whispered awe—they would record their observations, then the endless watching would begin once back in Moscow. It was inevitable. At the end of the process, if the agent was indeed a Russian, he or she would be arrested, tried, and executed. The Gray Cardinals would have their way again.