Red Sparrow

Egorov was about to scream into the receiver, to tell the little idiot to get on with it. He could feel his own pulse through the earpiece. “That’s most interesting. Did he say anything more?”

“Just that the spy did not really have eye surgery, it was a false trail and the Americans saw through it. My friend seemed quite proud that they had caught the spy,” said Dominika.

And now they will be less pleased when they lose their own spy, thought Egorov. Korchnoi.

“Nothing more?” Korchnoi.

“Nothing, Uncle. Our conversation might have continued if we had not been interrupted.”

“Yes, of course. Now we must get off this line. Where are you? I will send someone for you. You must stay out of sight.”

“I have been staying with a man I met, a stranger, in his apartment. He promised not to turn me in if I was nice to him. That’s what you trained me to do, isn’t it?”

Egorov missed the irony in her voice. “Can you stay there for another day? Are you calling from his phone?”

“I think I can stay. But I have to go out to call. I abandoned my phone in that hotel. The man has no phone, only a mobile, I would not like to use it to call you. There is a kiosk across the street. I’m calling from there, with a phone card.” She gave him the name of the street and the building number in the working-class neighborhood of Patissia, north of Omonia Square.

“Be at the kiosk tomorrow exactly at noon,” said Egorov. “A car will come for you. The driver will mention my name. We’ll get you back home. In the meantime, stay off the street.” He broke the connection.

If they could recover her, Egorov thought, he would be safe. He would cover her in medals if they bagged Korchnoi. First, a telegram to that durak in Athens to see if that jackass could manage to pick up an officer under hot pursuit, then order twenty-four-hour coverage on Korchnoi. No alarms, no alerts, no exfils by the Americans.

Even as he steeled his circus strongman’s body for the wait, he began thinking about his old colleague who had betrayed him and helped the Americans find SWAN. “Get me Zyuganov,” he called to Dimitri.

=====

The Athens rezident’s cable arrived the next day in Yasenevo at close of business. It described the scene as two SVR officers entered the Patissia neighborhood to approach the kiosk and collect Dominika. They reported that no fewer than six Greek police cars and twenty police officers in white helmets and flak jackets were milling around the kiosk. It was chaos, the SVR men could not get close, but they saw two female police officers lift a handcuffed woman up the rear steps of a police van. They described the prisoner as “dark-haired and thin,” nothing positive but likely Dominika. She was in their hands. Not two minutes after the arrival of the cable on his desk, the VCh phone on the credenza behind Egorov’s desk began trilling with a sound unknown in nature.

=====

It was past midnight, and the Moskva River bend visible from General Korchnoi’s living room was a black ribbon between the high-rise lights of Strogino. The apartment blocks across the river were newer than the buildings on this side; construction cranes still towered above unfinished units. MARBLE made a favorite dinner of pasta alla mollica, tossed with anchovies, bread crumbs, and lemon. After washing up, he brought a glass of brandy into the living room, checked his watch, and went to the bookshelf that ran along the wall. He slid a small paring knife into the join of the top of the shelf, wiggling the blade to release two catches mortised into the wood. The top of the shelf opened on concealed hinges like a coffin lid, exposing a shallow compartment.

Korchnoi reached into the cavity and pulled out three gray metal boxes wrapped in a clean cloth. The first two were each the size of a cigarette pack, the third flatter and wider. Korchnoi connected the two small boxes end to end by fitting their tracked rails together. The flatter box—with a tiny Cyrillic keyboard—was in turn connected to the first two by a pinned plug. A stylus lay in a side clip holder. Using the stylus, Korchnoi depressed two recessed buttons to illuminate three tiny LEDs. The first was the battery/power indicator. Green, go. The second indicated whether the integral antenna in the top component could read the US Milstar Block II geosynchronous bird. Green, strong signal. The last LED indicated whether the transmission exchange, the rukopozhatie, the handshake, had been completed. Yellow light, standby.

Korchnoi used the stylus to depress keys to compose a routine message. He wrote plainly, eliminated spaces and punctuation, cryptic economies learned over the years while preparing secret-writing letters—he missed the tactile process of SW, rubbing the paper, preparing the inks, the featherweight pressure while printing the block letters.