Red Sparrow (33 page)

“You talk about the Kremlin? All the shit going on behind the walls?”

“Sure I did,” said Nate. “But she’s too gung-ho. She looks at it all at the level of the
Rodina.
”

“Hell’s that?” said Gable.

“The whole national myth—the Motherland, the soil, the hymns, chasing Nazis across the steppes.”

“Oh, yeah, some of those Russian Red Army girls were hot,” said Gable, looking up at the ceiling. “Those tunics and boots, they looked—”

“Is this your idea of operational coaching? Are we discussing DIVA?”

“Well, you have to find something to jolt her out of her defensive position.” He leaned back in his chair, rocking slightly, hands behind his head. “Don’t discount her feelings for you,” said Gable. “Maybe she’ll want to help you in your career, a gift. It won’t feel to her like she’s committing treason. Or maybe she’s a thrill freak. Some agents drink adrenaline.”

Nate’s doorbell rang that night. Dominika stood at the door, her face pinched, eyes red. She was not crying, but her lips trembled and she put her hand over her mouth, as if to stifle a sob. Nate checked the hallway quickly while pulling her inside the door. She was leaden, she didn’t resist his tug. He took her coat. She was wearing a white stretch top and jeans. He lowered her gently onto the couch. She sat at the edge of the cushion, looking down at her hands. Nate didn’t know what was wrong or what to do. She was being
sent home short of tour, she was in trouble. That would be a first. Exfiling an SVR officer
before
recruitment.

Got to calm her down. Whatever it is, she’s upset, vulnerable.
A glass of wine, scotch, vodka? Teeth chattering against the glass as she took a sip.

“I know you speak Russian,” Dominika said suddenly in Russian, her voice flat, exhausted. Her head was still down, her hair hung on each side of her face. “You’re the only one I can talk to, a boy from the CIA, it’s mad, isn’t it?”

A boy from the CIA?
thought Nate.
Fuck’s going on?
He sat still, made himself blink. Dominika took another ragged sip.

She started talking slowly, in a low voice. She told him about Marta, about her disappearance. When Nate asked why, Dominika told him about Ustinov. When Nate asked how, she told him about her training.
Those rumors about State School Four,
he thought.
Jesus.

She looked at him then, trying to gauge his reaction on hearing she’d been to Sparrow School. There was no pity, no disdain, his eyes met hers. He was always that way. The purple mantle around his head pulsated. She wanted desperately to trust him. He poured her another glass. “What do you need?” he asked in English. “I want to help you.”

She ignored the question, switched to English. “I know you’re not an American diplomat working in your embassy’s Economic Section. I know you’re a CIA officer. You know very well that I work in the
rezidentura
in my embassy as an officer of our state security. At least you should have realized it when I told you Volontov was my chief. I suppose you also know my uncle is Vanya Egorov, First Deputy Director of the Service.” Nate tried not to move.

“In Moscow after the AVR, I worked in the Fifth Department in an operation against a French diplomat. It was unsuccessful. Then I was assigned to Helsinki.” Dominika looked up at Nate. Her face was puffy. She looked at him searchingly, and he reached out and held her hand. It felt cold to the touch.

“Marta was my friend. She served loyally all her life, they gave her medals, a pension, an overseas posting. She was strong, independent. She had no regrets about her life, she enjoyed everything. In the time I knew her, she showed me who I am.” She squeezed Nate’s hand slightly.

“I don’t know what happened to Marta, but she’s gone, without a word,
and I know she’s dead. She never did anything to them. My uncle is afraid of exposure. He would protect himself. There’s a man, a
koshmar,
a nightmare creature who belongs to my uncle. He would use him for such a thing.”

“Are you in danger?” asked Nate. His thoughts were racing. She was talking about past operations, a political assassination, liquidation of one of their own personnel, scandal at the top of the SVR. She was dictating at least a half dozen intel reports right there, from the couch. He didn’t dare take notes, he had to keep her rolling.

“You were involved in the Ustinov affair,” said Nate, “so your uncle may be nervous about you.”

She shook her head. “My uncle knows I cannot hurt him. My mother is in Moscow. He uses her as a
zalozhnica,
a hostage, like in the old days. Besides, he trained me, put me through school, sent me abroad. I am as much his creature as that monster of his.

“I was sent to Helsinki to meet you, to develop a friendship with you,” Dominika said. “My uncle says he considers me one of his operations officers, but he looks at me as his little Sparrow, right out of the 1960s. They have been impatient with the progress I have been making with you. They want to hear how I took you to bed.”

“I’m willing to help you there,” said Nate. She stared back at him and sniffled thinly.

“You are pleased to continue joking,” she said. “Perhaps you will not think it is so funny when I tell you that I am supposed to find out about your former activities in Moscow, about the mole you meet. Uncle Vanya sent me to watch you, to see if you become operational, active, like you did for two weeks last month.”

The mole you meet?
Nate felt like the child standing beside the tracks as a fast freight roars by, inches from being swept away. He tried not to react, but he knew Dominika saw it in his face.

“I did not say anything to that slug Volontov,” said Dominika. “Marta was still alive then. She knew what I had decided.” Nate was trying to concentrate on her words while numbly contemplating the close call with MARBLE. They had had no idea of the danger. Dominika’s decision not to report most probably saved his life.

“Since I bumped into you at the swimming pool, I was trying to establish
a friendship with you,” said Dominika. “In many ways, we were doing the same thing to each other. I know you were trying to identify my weaknesses, my
ujazvimoe mesto,
what is the word,
vulnerability
?

“Your charming pursuit ensured only that we would spend more time together. I suppose that was Uncle Vanya’s plan all along. What surprised me was that I continued to let you work on me because—it dawned on me—I
wanted
you to continue to work on me. I liked being with you.”

Nate sat motionless, still holding her hand. Jesus Christ, she
had
been working him, just like Gable thought. The SVR were hunting for MARBLE. Thank God she had decided the way she had.
And,
thought Nate,
God bless Marta, wherever she was.

He knew Dominika was already out of the starting gate, the critical stage. Her flat voice was a distillate of anger, fear, her desire to lash out. She had already told him enough to cook her three times over. Now came the infinitely delicate moment when she would pull back and go away, or she would make the decision that she would become a CIA source.

“Dominika,” he said, “I already told you I wanted to help you. I already asked you what you needed. What do you want to do?”

Dominika took her hand out of his, her cheeks flushed. “I don’t regret anything,” she said.

“I know you don’t,” said Nate. There was no sound in the room. “What do you want to do?” he asked softly.

It was as if she could read his mind. “You’re very clever, aren’t you, Mr. Neyt Nash?” she said. “I came here to cry on your shoulder, to tell you about my mission against you, to tell you I helped you.”

“I am grateful for all that,” said Nate, not wanting to show how scandalously relieved he was.

Dominika could see it in his face nonetheless. “But you’re not asking me to work with you to avenge Marta, nor to get back at my uncle, or Volontov, or the rest of them, nor to try to reform my beloved country.”

“I don’t have to tell you any of that,” he said.

“Of course you don’t,” she said. “You’re too careful for that.” Nate looked at her without saying anything. “All you do is ask me what
I
want to do.”

“That’s right,” said Nate.

“Instead, suppose you tell me what
you
want me to do.”

“I think we should begin working together. Stealing secrets,” Nate said immediately, his heart in his mouth.

“For revenge, for Marta, for
Rodina,
for—”

“No, none of those,” interrupted Nate. Gable’s words came into his head. Dominika looked at him. His purple halo had spread like the rays of a rising sun. “Because you need it, Dominika Egorova, because it helps you feed that temper of yours, because it’ll be something you own, for once in your life.”

Dominika stared at him. His eyes were steady, open. “That’s a very interesting thing to say,” she said.

The best recruitments are the ones where the agents recruit themselves,
his instructor had bellowed at the Farm.
Remember that, no surprises, a natural evolution,
he had said. Well, this was hardly a natural evolution of the phased recruitment. Nate felt as though he had just run Class Four rapids in a bathtub.

It was an hour later and Dominika had never actually uttered,
Yes, I will do it.
No agent makes the decision with a handshake and a signature. Instead Nate just got her to start talking about it. He had told her, “Whatever you decide, I promise we will work safely,” which is the standard catechism when addressing agents. You mean it, but everyone—case officer and agent alike—knows that long-term survival for an agent, especially inside Russia, is unlikely. But the bland comment got a reaction.

“To do this work correctly we cannot avoid risks. We both know that,” said Dominika archly.
She said “we,”
thought Nate.

“And we’ll start slowly, carefully . . . if we decide to start at all,” he said.

“Exactly,” said Dominika. “
If
we decide.”

“And we’ll proceed as quickly or as slowly as you want,” said Nate.

“Your side can examine my
motivaciya
at their leisure. If our collaboration turns out to be unsatisfactory, I will tell you and we will agree to the
okonchanie,
the termination of our relationship.” They apparently had the same agent-handling cant in the SVR.

She was through the first stage. It was getting late. Dominika stood and reached for her coat. Nate helped her, watching her eyes, the corners of her mouth, her hands. Was this going to stick? They stood looking at each other
for a moment. She turned to him at the door, offered her hand. He took it and said, “
Spokoinoi noci,
” good night, and she left quickly, making no sound in the stairwell.

After Dominika left his apartment, Nate stayed up, jotting notes, remembering what she had told him. He resisted the idiotic urge to walk to the Embassy, wake up the Station, begin writing cables to Headquarters.
Recruitment. SVR officer, Sparrow cadre, her uncle runs the whole outfit, assassinations. It’s a spy movie, for Christ’s sake.
He couldn’t wait to get into the Station tomorrow.