Red Sparrow

Nasarenko’s dark-brown eyes flickered guiltily when he realized what the general was hinting at. “I agree completely,” he said. He gathered his plate and stood, murmuring apologies for leaving so suddenly. MARBLE sat alone, forcing himself to spoon more soup, trying to appear natural and at ease.

Was this the beginning of the end for him, was this a snare, did they suspect him specifically? Or was this a general test for loyalty? He wryly shook his head at Vanya’s canary trap, variants fed to God knows how many senior managers, with his little silver spoon. Here, little kolibri, little hummingbird, how do you spread your pollen? His message to Langley suddenly became more critical than ever.

GRYBNOY SUP—MUSHROOM SOUP

Soak dried mushrooms and strain. Add soaking liquid to beef stock and boil mushrooms for four hours. Sauté finely diced onions in butter until golden and add to soup. Whisk in cornstarch, stir, and simmer until thickened. Season and serve with a dollop of sour cream and parsley.

29

Benford sat in semidarkness in his office, the covcom message alert cable on the small square of visible desk amid the landfill chaos of the rest of it. He had read MARBLE’s cryptic message twice, hearing his voice as he read the words, seeing him conserving the limited characters allowable in a burst transmission. He bellowed to his secretary to fetch Nate and Alice immediately. While he waited, he read the message again:

One: SWAN definitely in US. V says SWAN material best since 50s. Poss he working out of capital city. Golov likely handler. Nasarenko claims work overload, discs and technical data.

Two: V running canary trap. Nasarenko told big source suffering shingles. I told he recovering eye surgery. Other variants likely.

Three: V renewing op vs NN. I assigned to direct (!) V niece in my dept, targeted against NN.

Four: Anticipate travel Rome coincide with EBES conference. Will advise when out. niko.

Benford’s eyes lingered on the lowercase n in the niko signature, which in simple terms was the “no duress” indicator, but which more specifically meant that MARBLE had not composed the message with a circle of men standing around him, one of whom was prying the little finger of his left hand straight up, close to the breaking point, as he wrote what they wanted.

SWAN was a mole in the US government. Game on. That this was considered by the Russians the best case in years suggested SWAN’s intelligence had quality as well as quantity; it meant to Benford that the United States was hemorrhaging information. When Alice stuck her head in the door, Benford told her he was assigning her a single project, starting right now.

“I have the double agent thing in Brazil,” said Alice bluntly. She was not afraid of contradicting Benford.

“That bullshit can wait,” said Benford without looking up from his desk. “I want you to drop everything and compile a list. It’ll be unlike anything you have ever done before.”

“Do tell,” said Alice, vaguely looking for a place to sit. She found none and remained standing in front of Benford’s desk.

“It’s going to be a little unconventional, but that’s right up your alley, Alice,” said Benford. He looked up. “I want you to draw up a Top Ten list for me. I want you to identify the ten biggest secrets in the United States government. It could be military, political, domestic, cyber, banking, space, energy, Islam, or the tattoo on Pat Benatar’s ass, I don’t care—”

“On whose ass?” asked Alice.

“Pat Benatar, the pop singer,” said Benford defensively. “Start with the Pentagon and their hottest SAPs, military secrets, that’s what excites the Russians the most. Find out what DoD considers their ultrasensitive projects. Long-term. Expensive. Strategic. Get the deputy director for military affairs to make a call to SecDef if necessary. Politely ask them to get off their asses and hurry up. Then when we see what they consider the crown jewels, we can begin reviewing the BIGOT lists.” Alice moved to the door just as Nate entered. As they squeezed past each other, Alice turned to him.

“Do you know who Pat Benatar is?” asked Alice.

“Never heard of him,” said Nate, clearing files off a small chair and sitting down. “Is he the FBI guy in Boston who covered the New England thing?”