Red Sparrow

The palatial ground-floor public room of the Spanish Embassy was brightly lit by three massive glittering crystal chandeliers. Rows of French doors lined one side of the room leading to the ornamental garden, but were closed against the late fall frost. The room was jammed full, and a hundred images scrolled past Dominika as she stood on the low landing looking down at the guests. Business suits, tuxedos, evening gowns, bare throats, upswept hair, whispered asides, guffaws with heads held back. Cigarette ash on lapels, a dozen languages going at the same time, glasses wrapped with wet paper napkins. The partygoers circulated in a constantly changing pattern, the din of their voices a steady roar. Groaning boards were arranged along the outer margins of the room with food and drink. People were lined up three deep. Dominika forced herself to tamp down the kaleidoscope of colors, to manage the overload.

She wondered how she was going to catch sight of Nathaniel Nash in this herd. He might not even be here tonight. Minutes after she had entered the reception room, she had already been cornered by several older men, diplomats by the look of them, who leaned in too closely, spoke too loudly, looked too obviously at her chest. Dominika wore a muted gray suit with a single string of pearls; the jacket was buttoned, with occasionally a hint of black lace underneath. Nothing slutty, Dominika thought, but sophisticated-sexy. Certainly Scandinavian women could dress tarty. For instance, that statuesque blonde standing beside double French doors swelled out of her cashmere top, every terrain feature visible. Her hair was so blond it was almost white, and she played with it as she laughed at something a young man said to her. The young man. It was Nash. She knew his face from a hundred surveillance photos in his file.

Dominika slowly made her way toward the French doors, but it was like pushing through evening crowds in the Moscow Metro. When she got to the French doors, Miss Scandinavia and Nash were gone. Dominika tried looking for the woman’s blond head—the Amazon was half a head taller than everyone else in the room—but could not see her. As taught at the Academy, Dominika walked clockwise around the outer edges of the reception room, scouting for Nash. She approached one of the buffet tables where Rezident Volontov was standing, his plate and his shovel mouth both brimming with tapas. He was making no attempt to talk to anyone. He popped a piece of tortilla española into his mouth, oblivious to the crowd around him.

Dominika continued circling the outer edges of the room. She could see the broad shoulders of the big blonde, surrounded by the delighted, sweaty faces of at least four other men. But no Nash. Finally, Dominika saw him in the corner of the room, near one of the service bars.

Dark hair, trim figure, he was dressed in a dark blue suit with a pale blue shirt and simple black tie. His face was open, his expression active. He has a dazzling smile, Dominika thought; it radiated sincerity. She stood close beside a column in the ballroom, casually enough, but unobserved by the American. What was most remarkable, what surprised Dominika the most, was that Nash was suffused with a deep purple, a good color, warm and honest and safe. She had seen it around only two other people before: her father and General Korchnoi.

Nash was speaking to a short, balding man in his fifties with a bulbous nose who she recognized as one of the translators in the Russian Embassy, what was his name? Trentov? Titov? No, Tishkov. The ambassador’s translator. Spoke English, French, German, Finnish. She edged closer, using the crowd at the bar as cover, reached for a glass of champagne. She heard Nash speaking excellent, unaccented Russian to the sweaty Tishkov, who was holding a water glass half-full of scotch. He was listening to Nash nervously, giving him fitful upward glances, nodding his head occasionally. Nash even talked like a Russian: His hands opened and closed, pushed the words around in the air. Remarkable.

Dominika sipped from her champagne glass and moved closer. She watched Nash over the rim of her glass. He stood easily, not crowding Tishkov, but leaning forward to be heard over the din in the room. He was telling the little potato the story of a Soviet citizen who parked in front of the Kremlin. “A policeman rushed over to him and yelled, ‘Are you crazy? This is where the whole government is.’ ‘No problem,’ said the man. ‘I have good locks on my car.’” Tishkov was trying not to laugh.