Red Sparrow

From the other end of the buffet, Dominika watched Nash fetch another scotch for Tishkov. Tishkov was now telling his own story, holding on to Nash’s arm as he spoke. Nash laughed, and Dominika could actually see him applying the force of his charm on the man. Attentive, charming, discreet, Nash was putting Tishkov at ease. He’s a spy, thought Dominika.

Dominika looked beyond Nash and Tishkov at Volontov halfway down the room. The warthog rezident was oblivious to a textbook encounter between an American intelligence officer and a potential target. Nash looked up for a second and quickly scanned the room. Their eyes met and caught for a beat, Dominika looked away, and Nash quickly turned his attention back to Tishkov. He didn’t register seeing her. But in that split second, Dominika felt a jolt, the first-time electric zing of seeing your target up close. Her quarry. They used to call them the Main Enemy.

Dominika eased back behind the column and watched the American. Fascinating, that easy-standing attitude. The younger man was keeping the older Tishkov interested. Confident but not nevospitannyi, not boorish or swaggering, nothing like her former colleagues in the Fifth. Sympatichnyi. Her earlier nerves about making contact, about engaging with the American, evaporated. She itched to approach him right then, get into his space, into his head, as she had practiced with Mikhail in Moscow, using her face and figure to get his attention. A simple matter of edging closer, a quick introduction…

No. Calm yourself. With Tishkov around, Dominika would not approach him. Instructions from the Center regarding Nash were specific. Contact must be private, unofficial, and no one in the embassy was to know, save Volontov. She would stay professional, exacting, calculating. It was what the operation required, and she was not going to deviate. To meet him, Dominika needed a better strategy than simply planning to attend all the diplomatic functions in Helsinki for the next calendar year.

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Several days later, fate supplied Dominika the opportunity she needed, at a venue she could not have predicted. Despite a modest street entrance under an unassuming neon sign, the Yrjönkatu Swimming Hall in downtown Helsinki was a neoclassical gem, built in the 1920s, located several blocks from the train terminal. Copper Art Deco lamps along a balustraded mezzanine above the elegant pool cast movie-set shadows on the gray marble pilasters and glimmering tile floors.

Thanks to constant swimming-therapy sessions at ballet school, Dominika was a strong and devoted swimmer. She began going to the pool, a few blocks from her apartment, as an outlet. She favored the noon hour. Going in the evenings was too dark, too cold, the walk home alone too depressing. Besides, she was becoming increasingly lonely and fitful. Volontov, reflecting Moscow’s impatience, was pressing her for progress on meeting Nash; he didn’t care that engineering a plausible, random “bump” on a target, even considering the smallish size of Helsinki, was not automatic.

Dominika’s breakthrough came when she was asked by Volontov to complete an urgent update report to Yasenevo. She missed her noonday swim. So she went after work, despite the dark and cold. And saw Nate come out of the men’s locker room and walk around the edge of the pool, a towel draped around his neck. Dominika was sitting at the far end of the pool, legs trailing in the water, when she saw him. Without haste she got up and moved closer to one of the marble pillars and watched him. He swam smoothly and powerfully. Dominika watched his shoulders bunch and flex as he plowed through the water.

Dominika fought down her nervousness. Should she take the plunge, literally and figuratively? She could wait and report to Volontov that she had discovered one of Nash’s patterns and that she was moving ahead with plans to establish contact. But that would be viewed only as a delay. She should move now, this instant: Privodit’ v dejstvie, they had said at the Academy, throw the operation into action. This was a perfect chance for a first contact that would seem random and uncontrived. Move.

Dominika was wearing a modest one-piece racing suit and a plain white swimming cap. She slipped into the water and slowly made her way across several lanes to the one beside Nate’s. She began swimming slowly down the lane, letting Nash pass her, then pass her again on the next length. She timed his third overtaking pass to occur at the end of the pool as Nate made a relaxed open turn and started another lap.