Red Sparrow

Vanya Egorov sat behind the desk in his darkened office. Shades were drawn across the massive picture windows, his cigarette burned unattended in the ashtray. He was looking at the soundless picture of a flat-screen television in a credenza to one side of his desk—a news outlet from America was reporting a development. A Los Angeles reporter with blond hair and pouty lips was standing in front of an ivy-covered gate on a tree-lined street. Behind him was superimposed the face of Senator Stephanie Boucher, a file photo from several years ago. The scrolling ticker of words along the bottom of the screen read, “CA lawmaker dead at forty-five of apparent heart attack.”

SWAN. The most important asset for Russian intelligence in the last five decades. Gone. Heart attack. Nonsense. It was likely she had used the suicide pen Golov had requested and which Egorov himself had authorized. This was a nightmare. Who could have guessed that the Americans would so quickly identify her as the mole? And who would have predicted, in this post–Cold War age of celebrity agents and politician spymasters, that such a drastic, such a violent—such a Soviet—conclusion to the SWAN case would be played out? Egorov told himself that he had a narrow window to redemption. The CIA-directed mole was responsible for this costly loss. If Egorov could unmask him, he could salvage his position.

There were at present only two options to pursue: the technical chief, Nasarenko, implicated in the canary trap, and the traitor’s CIA handler, Nash. Egorov pointed a remote control at the television to change channels. A clear color picture of Nasarenko appeared on the screen. Every second of the multiple hours of his security interviews in the interrogation chambers of Butyrka had been filmed, and Egorov was coming to the same opinion voiced by Zyuganov, that the twitchy technician was incapable of acting as a CIA internal asset. The tapes showed the beatings, the drug-induced hysterics, Zyuganov leaning over his subject wearing some sort of military jacket. Don’t ask, thought Vanya.

The relevant portion of the tape had been marked, and Egorov ran the counter forward to the spot. Nasarenko numbly was admitting that he had spoken of the crushing backlog of work with the Americas Department chief, General Vladimir Korchnoi. Korchnoi had offered to send him two analysts to ease the workload. Nasarenko had showed Korchnoi one of the discs during the conversation. No, he had not inventoried the discs after that conversation. Yet by the investigators’ count one disc was missing, misplaced. No, it was ridiculous to think Korchnoi would have taken one of the discs. Impossible.

Impossible? thought Egorov.

He had known Volodya Korchnoi for nearly twenty-five years, ever since the Academy. Korchnoi had proved himself to be a superlative operations officer, adept, bold, cunning, the sort of man who could in theory excel as a clandestine asset for the CIA and survive the dangers. His foreign assignments moreover would have presented many opportunities to connect with the Americans. Impossible, he thought. Nasarenko would be spluttering for months, more names, more mewling explanations, more temporizing delays. Egorov would raise the idea of Korchnoi with Zyuganov, but there was no time now. The American Nash was the key. His niece was already on her way to Greece. They would see how things turned out.

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Dominika marveled at the white light in the Athens air. Rome’s sunlight was golden, softer. This Aegean light weighed down on you. The buildings reflected it, the black roads shimmered in it. Downtown traffic—taxis, trucks, and motor scooters—poured in a liquid mass down Vasilissis Sofias to part, like waves against a spile, around Syntagma Square and the House of Parliament, to recede down smaller streets toward the Plaka. Dominika left her hotel and walked downhill through the buzz of Ermou Street, past shops with two-story displays of lighting fixtures, sports bags, and fur coats. Mannequins in white fox stoles stared back at her, signaling her with tilted heads and segmented wrists. Be watchful, they said.

Dominika worked the street hard, crossing in midblock, entering doorways, using the mirrors in the shops and in the sunglasses stores to categorize elements on the street. Short, dark, sleeveless, mustache, dusty rubber sandals, flicking dark eyes. She smelled roasted, popping chestnuts, heard the twang of the wheeled barrel organ on the corner. Look for the foreign face, the blue eyes, the Slav cheekbones. Look for the brown bloom, the yellow, the green, the signals of danger, deceit, or stress.