Red Sparrow

Benford meanwhile had gone upstairs into the bedroom. A four-poster bed was made with a quilt in a floral pattern with three large pillows at the head with lacy pillowcases. The single closet had blouses and slacks hanging uniformly on hangers. Several pairs of shoes on the floor, all sensible and made for walking, were lined up neatly. No pictures, no mementos, no personal items, a house that could be abandoned in ninety seconds. The bathroom was neutral, the medicine cabinet nearly empty. A toothbrush, bottle of aspirin, a twin pack of saline Fleet enemas. The pervasive smell of liniment.

Returning to the bedroom, Benford pulled out the single drawer of the bedside table. No books, porn, vibrators, or lube. Under a piece of felt he found a piece of paper with a long list of handwritten dates and times. June 5, 2100; June 10, 2200; June 30, 2130. Transmission schedule. She probably carried the laptop and encryption card with her. Standard meeting sked with a handler from the Russian Consulate in New York. A penetration of the submarine program. Benford closed the drawer and started downstairs to tell Nate.

Nate had just finished checking the backs of the other drawers again, but found nothing. He rolled up the blueprint to take upstairs to show Benford. Walking out the door, he stopped. Jennifer Santini was standing in the living room looking at him. A duffel bag was on the floor at her feet. Nate realized that they had never actually seen her before. Huh. She works out. With weights. On steroids. She apparently had just gotten home from the gym. Why wasn’t she at work?

Jennifer was in her late thirties, of average height. She was dressed in skintight spandex shorts stretched by tree-trunk legs, calves and quadriceps bulging. Her arms, shoulders, and neck were corded with muscle, her jawline bulged. She wore a tight tank top that covered not feminine breasts but dinner-plate-sized pectorals with nipples. She had brilliant green eyes, the whites bluish with health and vitality. Her face was etched around her mouth and a sharp, straight nose. Her forehead was deeply creased by the frown splashed across her face. She wore her red hair slicked tight to her head, pulled back in a ponytail, a bullet, a torpedo, an assembled action figure, a crossover SUV with the parts cobbled together.

In that final instant of appraisal, Nate noticed that she had beautiful feminine hands, with manicured nails painted a light pink. She was barefoot and her feet likewise were pretty and delicate, with painted toenails in the same soft color. The sound of Benford clumping down the stairs triggered Jennifer to move, blindingly fast, toward Nate. With hideous power she swatted a lamp off a side table at him as she closed the distance in two long strides. Nate ducked the lamp, which smashed against the wall behind him, but straightened to find himself face-to-face with her, a rock-hard forearm against his throat, pushing him back against the living-room wall, while taking thunderous, sweeping clouts at him with her free arm. Nate put both hands on her forearm and pulled. Nothing.

Nate hammered on her arm, but she stayed with him, crushing against his throat with those Schwarzenegger arms and Grace Kelly hands. Nate threw an overhand punch at her face, his fist glancing off her cheek with no apparent effect. Her face was inches from his, and she bared her teeth with the effort. Nate expected her to bite his lips off. As she continued hitting him with looping punches, insane, disjointed thoughts ran through Nate’s mind: (1) His luck he has to corner the one Russian illegal in the world who isn’t the bird-watching accountant; (2) What in Christ the men in her office must think about her as she sits at her desk every morning; and (3) What, if anything, does this cyborg do for sex? Then, absurdly, Nate thought about what Dominika was doing at this very moment; where was she? An inexpressible sadness swept over him as he thought that Dominika might be dead, and his head bounced off the wall and his throat constricted and he thought that this freak was part of the machine that killed her.

Benford appeared at the bottom of the stairs and stood in shocked immobility. Jennifer looked for a second at the tubby, rumpled man—he would be dessert after the main course—and Nate raked her shin with his shoe and stomped on one pretty, Lolita-pink foot, which made Jennifer ease up an inch, and Nate slid sideways away from her pinioning arm and kicked the spandex bulge between her legs with his instep as hard as he could. Jennifer grunted like a man, held herself with both hands, and thumped heavily on the floor, then fell over on her side, doubled up.