Red Sparrow

He was an old whore, with a dozen foreign assignments under his belt. He had made his bones working the Cuban target and had shifted in midcareer to the Russian target when it was revealed that the entire stable of the CIA’s Cuban agents—half a hundred of them, recruited and handled and producing intelligence for three decades—had with two exceptions been double agents controlled all along by the General Directorate of Intelligence in Havana. The revelation so demoralized a dozen veteran officers who had devoted their entire professional lives to Cuban operations that the DGI could not have destroyed the CIA’s Cuban Section any better if they had blown it up.

Now C/ROD was busy managing Russian cases around the world. Running existing agents, a score of the best ones solid producers. MARBLE was still the sine qua non of ROD’s stable, but there were other potential acquisitions coming up, developing nicely.

Every morning he would read the “daily board”—historically a three-inch stack of printed telegrams, now a cascade of ops cables scrolling luminously down his screen from young officers in Stations around the world about their “developmentals.” A global palette of events from Rio or Singapore or Istanbul, descriptions of contacts, budding friendships, drunken evenings spent knee-walking with Russian second secretaries or attachés or, most exhilarating, with suspected intelligence officers from the SVR or GRU.

A recent cable made him remember. The young and convivial wife of a CIA case officer posted to a dusty African capital had shared her grandmother’s recipe for fried cheese pancakes with the new bride of a quite formal GRU major. The women bonded as the young Russian wept over the platter of golden cakes. She was homesick and thinking of her own grandmother. Feed her enough pancakes and he may flip, thought C/ROD.

Against this backdrop, once, or twice, or five times a year, somewhere in the world, there would be a recruitment. A human in a state of need would say da to the offer, whether gentle, oblique, fraternal, or simply a business proposition. And then cable traffic would increase as Headquarters and the Station in question plunged into the arcana of production, validation, tradecraft, and, in a few delicious, exceptional cases, internal handling on the asset’s return to Moscow.

There were problems, as always. Recruitment targets lost their resolve in the light of a hangover dawn. Others could not—could never—summon the nerve to brave the wrath of their system. A few escaped the pitch simply by reporting the Americans’ offer to their superiors, to be hustled back to Moscow, out of reach, on the next available Aeroflot flight.

And there was the dark side of the Game, a reminder that the opposition was not always in defensive mode. The bombshell cable, one a year, sometimes a rash of them, reporting that a young CIA officer somewhere around the world was himself or herself the object of a Russian recruitment attempt, usually because the Center was making a point or was trying to exploit a perceived vulnerability. The last flurry had come the year CIA salaries had been frozen by Congress, and the Russians were asking around, “Who needs money?” or “Who is disillusioned?”

To this world of ebb and flood, C/ROD had another, immediate problem. He had been wondering how he could open the door to the zoo cage and get Nate Nash the hell out of the office and back to the field. The covcom message that came in last night provided the answer.

C/ROD liked Nate, was thoroughly familiar with his record. He saw the inner fire, guessed at the emotional component, recognized firsthand the personal doubts of the thinking case officer, doubts that colored successes and caused brooding over setbacks. He knew about the DIVA case and how it colored Nash’s days and nights. C/ROD stood and went to the door of his office, leaned against the jamb. Marty Gable would have bellowed for Nash. C/ROD was quieter than that. He waited till Nash caught his eye and gestured with his head to come see him.

“MARBLE signaled,” C/ROD said, putting a cold pipe into his mouth. “He’s coming to New York, UNGA, for a couple of weeks.” Nate sat up in the chair, a bird dog on point. “It’s been some time since we’ve seen him; there’ll be a lot to cover. You free right now to start prepping?” C/ROD was amused at the look on Nate’s face. “Go introduce yourself to Simon Benford in CID before you go. He’ll want you to cover the CI leads carefully, not to mention MARBLE’s current security situation.” Nate nodded and rose to leave the office.

“Hold on,” said C/ROD. “When you see Benford… don’t say or do anything stupid, okay? Try really hard. I talked to him about this upcoming session with MARBLE. I’ll quote him directly. ‘Tell the case officer to scare me with his brilliance in managing these meetings with MARBLE.’” Nate turned to look at him.

“You get the message?”