Red Sparrow (70 page)

   
40   

Benford, Forsyth, and
Gable were in Athens Station. They sat at one end of a scarred conference table in the secure room—a thirty-foot Lucite trailer on Lucite legs inside a larger host room, under the harsh light of the fluorescent tubes arrayed on the top of the trailer. Their coffee mugs added fresh heat rings to the numerous old ones along the table. Nate was down the hall, in the infirmary, some stitches were coming out.

“It’s going to be quite a scene if DIVA doesn’t agree to return,” said Gable. “The Russians will be so pissed they’ll shoot MARBLE out of spite.” Benford put a satchel on the table and unclipped the clasps on the flap. He turned to Gable.

“You will be pleased to hear that you have just been elected to convince DIVA not to defect, but to return inside, and in harness,” said Benford. “Apart from our young superstar out there, she respects you the most. You are the only one she calls, what is it, bratwurst?”

“
Bratok,
” said Gable. “It means ‘brother.’ ”

“I see. Well, brother, she views me as having betrayed her, and by extension the entire CIA. For operational reasons we do not want to involve Nash too closely—besides, there is a fatal strain thanks to the ill-advised physical interaction between the two.” He looked at Forsyth and then pointedly at Gable. “That is why I am entrusting this infinitely delicate part of the operation to you,” said Benford. “
Bratok,
get DIVA to agree.”

Benford opened the satchel and turned it upside down. Papers and glossy black-and-white photographs spilled onto the table. Forsyth stacked them and looked at each one in turn, then passed it over to Gable. The glossies showed a rural river, smooth and slow, with a slash of foam over a weir and above it a two-lane highway bridge on concrete abutments, light poles with curving arms along the railing. Castles on either side of the river, one with a square tower, the other crenellated and squat. Rude little houses along the river and sooty apartment blocks in the distance against a gray sky. Articulated trucks with canvas tops were stacked up in a line on the bridge.

“The Narva River Bridge,” said Benford, pointing at one of the photos. “On the right, Russia. On the left, the West, if that’s what you want to call Estonia.” He spun another photo around. “Control station. This crossing is quiet, mostly trucks, very slow. Petersburg is one hundred thirty klicks north.” Benford tapped the photo. “This is where she’ll cross.”

“Why are we doing this?” asked Gable. “The Greeks could escort her to the airport and put her on a plane. She would be home in three hours.” Benford studied one of the photographs, then finally answered.

“To use one of Forsyth’s unfortunate gambling metaphors, we have broken even, more or less. On one hand, thanks to MARBLE, we have neutralized a mole in Washington. On the other hand, we have sustained the grievous loss of MARBLE. In exchange, DIVA has, we hope, immensely advanced her standing. I might add,” he said, sipping his coffee, “that we were extremely lucky in that DIVA and Nash escaped mortal injury at the hands of that Spetsnaz assassin.

“For me, the one unsatisfactory aspect in all this is the ultimate price paid by a courageous old man. I tried to reason with him to continue as before, to avoid precipitate action, but he was adamant. He sensed his time was short.” Benford looked at the faces around the table, then began shuffling through the photos again.

“I refuse to let it go at that,” Benford said, lightly slapping the satchel on the table. “I want to address the one outstanding issue.”

“The one issue?” asked Forsyth.

“MARBLE. I intend to get him back. He’s earned his retirement,” said Benford. It was quiet in the bubble. The rush of forced air coming through the Lucite vent was the only sound in the room.

Gable shook his head. “There’s the small matter of his current status. Arrested Western spy,” he said. “There’s no work-release program in Lefortovo.” Forsyth stayed quiet; he saw what was coming.

“I believe the Center will be glad to exchange MARBLE,” said Benford.

“Exchange?” said Gable. “Who do you propose—”

“DIVA. They want her back badly enough to let MARBLE walk. It never would have happened with Stalin, or Andropov, but this is the new Russia. Putin is concerned about his image at home and abroad. DIVA knows a secret—several secrets—that would cause him a lot of trouble domestically.”

“The Russians will never agree,” said Gable. “They will never let MARBLE loose. They’ll be thinking about future traitors, loss of face, looking weak.”

“Actually, they already have agreed. Putin will have ordered the Center to make the deal.”

“Let me get this straight,” said Gable. “You made a deal with the Russians for a spy swap without knowing for certain whether DIVA will agree to return?”

“That is precisely why I am counting on you,” said Benford. “Besides, it is inconceivable that DIVA will continue to demur when she is told that a decision on her part
not
to return will effectively annul the release of MARBLE by the Russians.”

“Bitchin’ trump card,” said Gable. Benford looked up in annoyance. “That’s no way to motivate this woman to return to Moscow as our clandestine asset. I mean, if she resents us, resents our manipulation, she might simply pull the plug out of spite. It’ll be the last we hear from her.”

“I expect you to vitiate the negative aspects of our manipulation of her. Motivate her anew. Sit with her and prepare her for internal handling. Emphasize that she alone holds the key to MARBLE’s freedom,” said Benford.

“Vitiate the negatives, got it. All right. I’ll go out to Glyfada in an hour,” said Gable.

“We have a deadline,” said Benford. “I told the Russians we’re in a hurry. We have days, hours left.”

“Narva,” said Gable. “Estonia. Jesus wept.”

The two Georgians stood at attention in Zyuganov’s office, looking at a spot on the wall above the dwarf’s head. They were midgrade
chistilshchiki,
mechanics from SVR Department V, the Wet Works, the inheritors of General Pavel Sudaplatov’s Administration for Special Tasks, which had eliminated the Soviets’ enemies at home and abroad for four decades. Zyuganov read from a just-received report from a Greek police informant. The thugs left.

Zyuganov then called for Lyudmila Tsukanova. She entered the office slowly, chubby, hesitant, looking at her polished brown shoes over an ample
if doughy bosom cinched tight by a uniform jacket a size too small. Her brown hair was cut unevenly and quite short. Her round Slav face was at first glance rosy with good health, but closer inspection revealed that the thirty-year-old woman suffered from rosacea. The red blotch on her chin looked painful.

Ill at ease, Lyudmila sat and listened to Zyuganov speak steadily for more than half an hour. Uncomfortable as she appeared, Lyudmila’s black eyes, shark’s eyes, doll’s eyes, never left his face. When he was finished, she nodded and walked out of the office.

Beneath the surface, Gable later remarked, Benford had a large case of flop sweat as he laid out the Chinese-puzzle operational schedule in a narrative flood that suggested the drive belt of his tongue had slipped the flywheel of his mind.

“Forsyth, you must remain at Station to deflect the inevitable obstreperous cable traffic from the First Lord of the Admiralty, Chief Europe, and the other savants in Headquarters.

“I will fly ahead to Estonia to take the local young COS in hand and to liaise with the police—KaPo, they’re called, once Russian-trained but now NATO and very earnest and intense. I expect the Center to be active, ticks all over Estonia, to see what they can pick up, even try a snatch to get DIVA back.

“You, Gable, have the most critical task. Hide her, keep her safe. Convince DIVA to return. You have one or two days in which to do this, then deliver her, at the end of the second day, to the bridge in Narva at 1700 local.

“Until that time, under
absolutely no circumstances
is anyone to use a phone, cell or landline. Moscow Rules, is that clear? Russian SIGINT is every bit as good in tracking mobile phones, and the Center still controls assets in their former satellite.

“I suggest, Gable, that you fly from Greece to Latvia, then make the trip from Riga in the early morning; it’s three hundred sixty kilometers from Latvia on the E67, and the Narva Bridge will be closed by KaPo when the daily traffic subsides and before the night truck traffic begins.

“Gable, you must devote any available time to coach DIVA on the exchange on the bridge. They’ll be looking at her very closely.

“I want MARBLE out of Estonia within two hours of the exchange, out of their reach. The air attaché promised me a C-37 in Tallinn, but Forsyth, please remind him to have the aircraft there; I do not want to have to fly economy on an Estonian Air flight to Trondheim to get him clear.”

Later, as he walked Benford to the departure gate at Venizelos, Forsyth took him by the arm. “Quite an operation you’ve put together here, Simon,” he said. “You will have Russians, Estonians, SVR, and CIA at the bridge, all fingering their weapons nervously. God willing, MARBLE will be standing in the night fog, waiting to be exchanged.”

Benford stopped and turned toward Forsyth. “Tom, Gable and DIVA
must
stay black. No cell phones, no contact, nothing that would give the Center even the remotest opportunity to attempt a hostile action.”

“Gable’s already disappeared,” said Forsyth. “As of yesterday afternoon, even I don’t know where he is.”

Benford nodded. “We have no choice; we’ve got to move ahead as if she’s already agreed. I want MARBLE there, physically, before they decide to execute him. This is our one chance.” Benford stared out the window at the tarmac. “Gable will convince her. He has to.”

In the Station in Tallinn, Estonia, the young Chief of Station put down his coffee cup and sat up when he read Benford’s cable, relayed by Headquarters. He stuck his head around the corner and called his wife into the office; it was just the two of them, a tandem couple. Together they reread the cable several times. She stood behind him, her chin on his shoulder, making a list of things to do quickly, hotels, cars, radios, binoculars.

Per Benford’s instructions, the young COS called his liaison contact in KaPo, the Kaitsepolitsei, to ask for an urgent meeting. Escort in town? Follow car to Narva? Overwatch at the bridge? Kick our former Russian tenants in the bloody balls? Delighted, KaPo said. Everything will be arranged.

Benford arrived in Tallinn from Venizelos via Tempelhof on Lufthansa. With a brief stop at the Hotel Schlössle in the Old Town, Benford dragged the eager young COS on a pounding casing-and-timing run to Narva and back. A nondescript Lada followed them sporadically on the E20, but disappeared on the outskirts of Narva. The Russians knew where the action was
going to be. On the way back to Tallinn, Benford stopped at a highway café grill, to see how the Lada would react. Surveillance proceeded two hundred meters and waited on the side of the highway. Benford made himself stretch out a lunch of boiled sausages, pickles, herring, Baltic
rosolje
salad, black bread, dark loamy beers. He hoped the goons in the car were hungry.