Jason Matthews - Red Sparrow

“Well, Priapus,” said Gable, setting the glasses down on the table, “run your fingers around the rims while I get the ice.”

PELMENI DUMPLINGS

Roll two-inch discs of wafer-thin dough made from flour, egg, milk, and salt. Mix ground beef, ground pork, minced chicken, grated onion, puréed garlic, and water. Place a dot of filling in center of each disc, moisten edges, fold closed, and crimp. Bring bottom corners together, pinching to attach. Boil in salted boiling water until dumplings float to the surface. Serve with sour cream.

“It got awayfrom you?” said Forsyth, leaning over his desk. “You are handling, by Headquarters’ reckoning, one of the most promising Russian cases in the Operations Directorate in the last decade, and you lack the discipline to stay out of her bed?”

“Chief, I know it was a mistake, I didn’t plan it, it just happened. She was freaked out about the Director. He called her Dominique. It’s been building up with her, she needed a connection, she’s been under a lot of pressure.”

“She needed a connection ?” said Gable from his usual seat on the couch behind Nate. “Is that what your generation calls scrogging now?”

Forsyth’s normally kindly, patrician face was dark; his eyes held Nate’s until the younger man looked down. “Then you address her needs, you talk her down, you give her support. But you don’t—”

“Go at it like minks,” said Gable.

“Yeah, minks,” said Forsyth. “What happens if your relationship hits a bump? What if you have a fight in four months and she decides she can’t stand you?”

“Easy to see it happening,” said Gable.

“Is she going to keep working for the CIA? Or is she doing all this because she’s besotted with your—”

“Macho gazpacho,” said Gable.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” said Forsyth, looking at Gable slouched on the couch. He turned back to Nate, who had laughed at Gable’s comment.

“C’mon, Nate,” he said. “Despite the intelligence she’s provided to this point, and despite her poly, DIVA is a new asset. We need to see her operate productively before we know your recruitment took. Does that mean we don’t trust her? Yes and no; you never totally trust any agent.

“Russians get morose, they get dramatic, they get homesick. They get nutty. Remember Yurchenko waving good-bye on the steps of the Aeroflot flight? DIVA’s strong, but we all know she’s temperamental, impulsive.” He held up his hand to stop Gable from making a puerile comment.

“Your job as a case officer is to collect the intel, ensure her security, sublimate your personal emotions, and make DIVA the best agent you can.”

“Sublimate,” said Gable. “That means no fucking.”

“You’ve been moping since you came to Station about making a big recruitment, about not losing the case, about your hall file. Well, goddamn it, start running this Russian like a pro. Run her with a cool head—”

“The one on your shoulders,” said Gable.

“And consider what a love affair could do to the operation, to her. We’ve got to start thinking about her return to Moscow. We don’t know the timing. She could flat refuse to work inside, so start her thinking about that grind, prepare her for it.”

“Yessir,” said Nate, looking back up at Forsyth.

“Are we clear?” said Forsyth, bearing down a final time.

“I know, I know, I know, ” said Nate. “I’m all over it. Thanks for the pep talk, I’ll get it back on track.”

“That’s good to hear,” said Gable, pushing up from the couch. “Now I can yank the four nanny cams out of the safe house.” Nate looked over at him, eyes wide. Forsyth was keeping a straight face.

“Just kidding, Romeo,” said Gable. “I couldn’t bear watching the replays.”

What prevented Forsyth and Gable from further kicking Nate’s ass over the affair was a signal from Dominika the next day: Nate studiously did not jerk his hand away when he touched the slick smear of Vaseline on the underside of his car door handle in the morning. She had wiped it on during the night. Emergency signal, he thought, plus twelve hours. The night was chilly, Scandinavian fall had arrived, with hoarfrost on windshields, steam dribbling from the vents. They were waiting at the safe house, reviewing the emergency contingencies. Was she on the run, was this a hot pursuit situation? Nate had researched the air and ferry schedules. Gable’s Supo guy was on standby. ARCHIE and VERONICA were sitting by the phone. All three CIA officers dealt with the waiting, the stomach feel. No one checked his watch—they were too good for that.

Nate stood up when her key turned in the lock, and they knew it was okay because her ice-blue eyes were sparkling and her cheeks were flushed—from not only the SDR, but also something else.

Gable fetched a cup of steaming tea and she blew on it while she told the story, quickly and well, details up front because that was how they all were trained. She wanted to rock them a little, impress them. The day before, an unidentified man had come to the Russian Embassy, asked to see the “security man,” and had given him an envelope with block printing on it: DELIVER UNOPENED TO M. VOLONTOV. The man slipped out of the embassy before the bovine security officer could get his name, but the security officer instantly took the letter upstairs to Rezident Volontov, who found a second envelope inside the first. Volontov had bellowed for Dominika to come in and had hovered and fumed in a dusty orange cloud while she translated the English-language note. Printed in block letters, it said that the bearer was offering a classified US technical manual to the SVR for the sum of $500,000, and proposed to meet in five days at the Kämp Hotel.

Dominika looked from Nate to Forsyth to Gable, sipped her tea, kept going. There was a second page in the envelope, with three torn strips as if yanked out of a three-ring binder. TOP SECRET/UMBRA top and bottom of the page, boldface title US National Communications Grid,an upper corner trimmed diagonally. Volontov was nervous, made her read the warning notice under the title to him twice: “Unauthorized distribution,” “If found, return to Office of Coordination,” “Misuse subject to prosecution.”

Volontov’s face was gray, he barked at her to make a copy. His Soviet sycophant juices were flowing, and he puffily told her he was going to pouch the original title page directly to First Deputy Director Egorov, top priority, more secure that way. Forsyth looked at Gable, and Gable was standing up, throwing on his coat, when Dominika lifted her sweater and pulled a folded piece of paper from her waistband and slid it across to Forsyth—she’d made a second copy. The Americans clustered around; Gable tapped the torn diagonal corner and muttered, “Fucker’s cut out the serial number,” then looked at Dominika and said, “I thought I told you never to do that again,” then leaned over and kissed the top of her head and went out. The Station’s NIACT cable would be in Washington in thirty minutes. Gable liked sending night-action cables and waking the doughnut-eaters in Langley.

Volontov had been in torment the rest of the day, said Dominika. He had called her into his office half a dozen times, an orange Ferris wheel of anticipation around his head. Even he realized that this could be a colossal intelligence windfall. Near the end of the day he decided that he would call Vanya Egorov directly to inform him of the sensitive and potentially spectacular development, and to alert him to the incoming pouch. Let the deputy director see how he, Volontov, personally was handling the operation.