Red Sparrow (55 page)

“Very good,” said Egorov.

“I will remain behind the scenes,” said Korchnoi, “providing guidance as required.”

“I expect positive results,” said Vanya.

“May I make a suggestion to my operational colleagues?” said Zyuganov. “Why not have Nash come to Corporal Egorova’s hotel room? More control, more secure.” Korchnoi wondered why the dwarf would suggest this.

“A small detail at this stage,” said Vanya, waving his hand. “Concentrate on positive results.”

“Of course,” said Zyuganov, deferring to his chief. He turned to Korchnoi. “You will, of course, keep Yasenevo advised of your status, the meetings, locations.”

Korchnoi nodded pleasantly. “Of course, I will report regularly, security and tradecraft permitting.”

“Thank you,” said Zyuganov.

Korchnoi and Dominika walked down a corridor in headquarters. They each knew the other’s secret now. It was unspoken, but each glance between them now was more knowing, the bond like leg irons—unbreakable and, perhaps, a bit uncomfortable. She walked beside him steadily, a little hitch in her walk, but really she was flying. She would see Rome for the first time, would see Nate again.

Dominika sensed the general’s agitation. He was unsettled and nervous. She looked over at him as they waited at the elevator. “What is it?” Now their every interaction was significant, every question touched the towering secret they shared.

“Something is not right. We must take great care on our little Roman holiday,” he said to her. “From now on you must do exactly as I say.
Likha beda nachalo.
” Trouble is the beginning of disaster. The elevator doors opened and closed, as if swallowing them whole.

In his own office, Zyuganov was on the phone. The walls of the smallish room were covered with photographs of Zyuganov and SVR colleagues, at the seashore, in front of a dacha, standing together in a delegation. Most were gone now, purged by his own hand, he was tickled to note.

He nodded his head and said, “
Da, da,
” into the phone as if receiving detailed instructions.

“Yes, sir, it is clear. I know exactly what must be done. Yes, sir.” He cradled the phone and keyed the intercom.

“Summon Matorin. He is to come immediately.”

Pro serovo rech a servy, navstretch,
thought Zyuganov, sitting down behind his desk. Speak of the gray one, the gray one heads your way.

MARBLE’S RUSTIC TOMATO SAUCE

Sauté diced onions, sliced garlic, and anchovy fillets in olive oil until aromatics are soft and fillets have melted in the pan. Add tomato paste in center of pan and fry, stirring, until rust-colored. Add chopped ripe tomatoes, crushed dried oregano, peperoncino, and a chiffonade of fresh basil leaves. Season to taste. Reduce sauce until thick, add a splash of balsamic vinegar to finish. Garnish with fresh, torn basil leaves and serve over pasta or meatballs.

   
31   

Officers in the
Washington
rezidentura
brewed tea, read newspapers, watched CNN and RTR-Planeta, and occasionally peeked through window blinds last raised in 1990. Cable traffic—both incoming and outgoing—was down. Lunch dates came and went, appointments were missed, new contacts were going cold. The consecutive weeks of FBI vehicular and foot surveillance had been unprecedented, crushing, stifling. After the first month, the Center had directed a stand-down of all operational activity until further notice, and requested the
rezidentura
prepare a security assessment to explain the situation. There
were
no explanations.

Even the elegant Rezident Golov was not immune. He confirmed trailing vehicular surveillance on him
personally
twenty of the last thirty nights, and he desperately needed to get black. The backup meeting with SWAN was approaching and he could not miss her a second time. There was no telling how she would react.

Those ten nights that neither Golov nor his Zeta countersurveillance team were able to detect even the remotest hint of coverage were, perversely, the worst nights. The nights of not knowing, of not being totally certain. Did the Americans have some new technique, some new technology? The devil knew what their strategy was. But he had to get black.

Everything must be done to protect SWAN, but she was a security nightmare. She continued to refuse all reasonable proposals to improve her security—electronic communication, messaging, discreet hotel meets, prearranged alternates to cover missed meetings—she wouldn’t have any of it. “If I have my ass at the meeting,” she had said to Golov, “you can damn well have your ass there too.” Impossible woman. Golov yearned to turn SWAN over to a low-profile illegals officer, but Moscow forbade it, especially after the compromise of the illegal in New London.

Golov therefore was confronted by one of the most classic of espionage conundrums—having to meet a sensitive asset on a predetermined night, at a predetermined site, regardless of conditions on the street. An abort was
unacceptable, impossible. Tonight was the next scheduled meeting with SWAN. He
had
to make it.

That afternoon he reviewed his surveillance detection route with the Zeta Team. Golov told them he wanted to try to channel any trailing coverage into a
dymohod,
a stovepipe, to expose surveillance and, more important, to try a breakout—escaping surveillance altogether. They designated a code number on the encrypted radios that would signal whether the stovepipe had worked. They reviewed the route once again.

Golov knew this was madness. Only an asset as valuable as SWAN would make him take these risks, but the Center was insistent. Golov had to try.

He kicked off in midafternoon, the middle car in a simultaneous departure by eight of his officers in eight cars who exited the embassy gates on Wisconsin Avenue, each headed in a different direction. FBI watchers in the lookout post transmitted
starburst starburst,
a stampede departure, designed to overload surveillance and get a few cars free. The starburst call-out was also heard by the CIA’s Orion Team. They were interested only in the
rezident,
and they patiently listened for the watchers to call out Golov, who was driving his own vehicle, a gleaming black BMW 5 Series sedan. Golov headed up Wisconsin Avenue, his Zeta Team already deployed to the west of Wisconsin. Golov crossed Western Avenue, the border between the District and Maryland, and turned south, reversing his course into the grid pattern of American University Park, using the neighborhood streets to drift sideways, reverse direction, pull up to the curb, and wait. After fifteen minutes the Zetas signaled,
No apparent surveillance.
They had missed two static Orion cars that had been in place on the margins of AU Park.

Golov stairstepped west again along residential streets while his team moved to parallel his route. They did not get the slightest whiff of the familiar swirling movement of active FBI surveillance because there was none. The Zeta Team covered Golov as he pushed west downhill to Canal Road and crossed the Chain Bridge into Virginia. This was called by a static Orion car sitting on the intersection of Arizona and Canal Roads, the single route onto the only Potomac River crossing into Virginia between Georgetown and the Beltway. The Orions were tempted to flood suburban Virginia but the team leader, a sixty-five-year-old former surveillance instructor by the name of Kramer, told them to hold. He instead directed three cars to
parallel Golov’s directional axis on the Maryland side of the Potomac. They were going north along the river anticipating the route. TrapDoor was in play.

One Orion—a grandmother when she wasn’t tracking SVR officers—held at the parking lot of Lock 10 on the C&O Canal National Park. Another grandmother drove four miles to the Old Angler’s Inn on MacArthur Boulevard, took a garden table in the waning light, ordered a sherry, and tried to guess which of the couples at the other tables were having affairs.

Kramer directed a third Orion—this one a great-aunt—another four miles north to the village of Potomac, where she ordered an early dinner salad at the Hunters Inn. As the three women waited, they recorded a score of license plates and marked a dozen loitering people. The list of possibles grew. Were any of them waiting for the black BMW? The two remaining Orion cars—the team was small that day—separated. One covered the upper reaches of River Road southeast of Potomac, the other parked at the entrance of the C&O Canal National Park, where American traitors like Walker and Ames and Pollard and Pelton over the years had pulled misshapen garbage bags of Russian money out of rotting tree trunks. The Orions all sat still and waited, keeping off the radios, their eyes scanning, checking, programmed to catch the profile, the gleam, the shape of the black BMW. If Golov continued into Virginia, they lost; if he headed back to Maryland but away from Potomac, they lost. They were content to wait. It was how TrapDoor worked. There would be other days and nights. All they had to do was be right once.

As it turned out, they lost. Golov crossed back into Maryland on I-495, part of a high-speed loop that enabled his Zeta Team to begin setting up on the final leg of the route, the
dymohod,
the stovepipe, the long, meandering Beach Drive, which traced the gerrymandered Rock Creek Park in and out of the woods and creek bed south all the way to Georgetown. Hearing the distinctive squelch breaks designating “all clear,” Golov exited Beach at the bottom of Rock Creek and parked on Twenty-Second Street in the West End, leaving the Zeta Team to continue south. If the FBI had managed to place a beacon on Golov’s car—unlikely; it was never left unattended and was swept weekly—
the feds would find it a block away from either the Ritz-Carlton or the Fairmont and about fifty restaurants along the K Street corridor. They would be welcome to check all those and more. He locked his car and walked six blocks to the familiar entrance of the Tabard Inn. It was dark now, and the interior of the inn was warmly lit.

More madness, to use the same meeting site twice in a row. At least there had been a cooling-off hiatus since the last rendezvous. Golov entered the inn and walked past the front desk, through the corridor, to the little walled garden in back. This time SWAN had arrived before Golov. She sat at a table hard against the garden wall, smoking. Golov braced for trouble. SWAN had just signaled the waiter for a replacement drink. An empty highball glass was on the table in front of her. She was dressed in a blue suit with a red blouse. A blue stone necklace at her throat matched the suit, and bright red nails matched her blouse. Her blond hair was brushed back off her face, which, in the diffused light of the bulbs in the trees, seemed older and papery.

“Stephanie, how are you?” said Golov in greeting. He extended his hand but she made no move to take it. He smiled at her and sat down. The waiter arrived with a double scotch for Senator Boucher. Golov, tired and stiff from nearly five hours in the car, ordered a Campari and soda.

“Anatoly,” said Boucher with mock warmth, “I have been waiting in this stupid little garden for nearly an hour.” She stabbed at a little gold lighter several times before she could light her cigarette.