Red Sparrow

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.

Volontov shut his door to make the call on the VCh phone, and Dominika had heard the gratuitous laughter and the servility in the repeated, barked “Da, da, da,” a real l’stets, how do you say it, she asked, buttock-kisser? Close enough, said Forsyth. Volontov summoned her for the tenth time that day and archly informed her that the deputy director of course had ratified Volontov’s suggestion that Dominika, and only Dominika, would assist the rezident in this operation. She would prepare the funds—she was told to draw only $5,000. She was directed to rent the room at the Kämp. She would translate during the meeting with the American. Start now, he said, dismissing her with a wave.

Unbeknownst to Dominika, Volontov also called in his Line KR referent, the former Border Guards prodigy. “I want you to countersurveil a meeting I’m having at the end of the week. In the lobby of the Kämp Hotel. Just sit and watch.”

“A meeting?” said the counterintelligence officer. “How many men will we need? Of course we’ll be armed.”

“Idiot. Just you. No weapons. Just sit in the lobby. Watch me meet a contact. Stay there. Then watch me leave. Is that clear?” said Volontov. The KR man nodded, but he was disappointed.

Nate hustled Dominika out of the safe house after an hour. Moscow Rules from now on: No unnecessary meetings. No daytime meetings. Look for surveillance, assume surveillance. Curtail ostensible social contacts. Stay close to the embassy until after the Kämp Hotel rendezvous was complete. Volontov would be on edge, jumpy, might draw in the strings, watch everyone. They would take no chances, no risks. “There’s a cobra in the toilet bowl,” said Gable back in the Station. “We have to proceed very carefully. Anything happens to blow the meeting, anything—this shithead American gets arrested, the SVR doesn’t get the manual—Dominika is the only other person in the SVR who knows about the volunteer.”

Forsyth sent a restricted-handling cable reminding Headquarters of the risk to DIVA. Chief Europe for one was shocked, shocked, to read Forsyth’s recommendation that Station simply identify the traitor and let the FBI settle his hash after he returned to the United States. Chief Europe could not countenance a plan that would result in the grave loss of national security information—not as long as his hand remained at the tiller of Europe Division.

When the Legal Attaché of the American Embassy, a fifty-two-year-old Special Agent of the FBI named Elwood Maratos, barged into Forsyth’s office to coordinate the “takedown,” they knew Headquarters had briefed the walk-in all over Washington. Maratos had distinguished himself during a twenty-five-year career as a bank-robbery investigator in the Midwest, and he put his feet up in the office, showing the soles of his shoes to Forsyth and Gable, and said this was a clear case of espionage committed by an American citizen, and therefore under the strict purview of the FBI.