The Kremlin's Candidate: A Novel by Jason Matthews (37)

Hussar Condoms

It was 2230, and Dominika walked through her dacha, turning off the lights. She had taken off her party dress and was wearing a satin sleep shirt with snaps down the front. The doors to her upstairs bedroom balcony were open and the gauzy curtains heaved back and forth with the land breeze. Dominika knew she would not be able to sleep, not with Nate handcuffed to an aircraft seat flying back to Moscow, his broken arm and finger haphazardly set in a cast and splint. At least she had stopped the interrogation—for now. It had been a relief that Gorelikov and Bortnikov both had ultimately endorsed her plan of stashing Nate in Moscow and holding him in reserve as a hostage. Once commo with Benford was reestablished, she would inform Langley about Nate’s whereabouts, and diplomatic negotiations could commence to retrieve him and return him home.

That unmanned boat was due on the beach below her dacha at midnight tonight, according to the exfiltration plan. Dominika would meet the silent craft, open the hatch, and emplace a thumb drive with a detailed report of the events of the past three weeks, but primarily with the presumed identity of MAGNIT. The mole was US Navy Admiral Rowland; Dominika had approximately five days before the admiral was confirmed as CIA Director. Would Dominika’s intel get back to Benford, from the 6th Fleet frigate on patrol in the Black Sea through US NAVEUR in Naples, through the maze of the Pentagon, and onto Benford’s desk in that short period of time? She would, of course, address the thumb drive to the immediate attention of Simon Benford, CIA, but the ponderous US Navy bureaucracy was an unknown. Would they react accordingly?

Her mind seethed, trying to calculate all the imponderables of the situation, her concern for Nate, her lack of commo. The opening day of Putin’s reception had been lavish, with two more days to go, and with enough food and drink to feed half of Moscow for a year. The bovine wives of the siloviki, dressed in outrageous satin and velvet frocks in teal, peach, or tangerine, the height of Soviet haute couture, vainly competed with the lithe trophy wives of the oligarchs in their bodycon minidresses and tanned cantilevered bosoms. The heavyweights could not compare in the sex department, but they held their own at the buffet tables. Gorelikov, Bortnikov, and Dominika had watched the exuberant guests from the sidelines as they milled about, whispering to each other, privately assessing the likelihood that one of them could be the mole. A score of one meant unlikely, a two meant a possible, and a three meant a short-list finalist. Dominika went along with the Star Chamber game with mock enthusiasm and grim determination. Some of the threes were going to have their lives rudely disrupted next week back in Moscow.

Dominika padded downstairs to the dacha’s stainless-steel kitchen, took a bottle of champagne out of the refrigerator, and started peeling the foil and wire to pop the cork. A slant of silver moonlight was the only light in the room, and cut diagonally across the marble countertop. The sea breeze picked up a little and the house stirred.

“Do you need help with that cork?” said a female voice. Dominika jumped a foot. A sturdy woman appeared out of the shadows of the kitchen and walked toward the kitchen island. She was dressed in a white T-shirt and black leggings, which did nothing to conceal a prodigious bust and athletic legs. She was Slavic and classically attractive; Dominika thought she might be close to fifty years old, with a dramatic white forelock that started in front and was swept back with the rest of a thick lion’s mane of hair. She had a crimson halo of passion—like Nate’s—strong and bright.

“Who are you?” said Dominika. “How did you get into this house?” The woman smiled and approached closer, but without any menace.

“As elegant as this villa is,” said the woman, “the locks installed are of inferior quality, especially those on the sliding doors. But I suppose you don’t have to worry about security here on the compound.”

“You are right about that,” said Dominika. “In fact, I can summon a security patrol to this house in about ninety seconds.”

“I have no doubt of that,” said the woman. “Forgive my bad manners, but are you General Egorova?”

“As much as I’ve enjoyed your unannounced visit,” said Dominika, “I believe it’s time for me to call security. Who are you?” The woman seemed unfazed. She approached closer and began whispering. She obviously knew about the limitations of audio emplacements in a large room with tall ceilings and cement walls. But this conversation was too dangerous in what Dominika assumed was a bugged space.

“I know you are Egorova, and you are exactly as Nathaniel described you.” This situation was too bizarre, insane, implausible. Was this a trap or trick conjured up by Bortnikov? Did he think she was a three on the suspect list?

“I’m afraid I know no Nathaniel, and I believe I’ve asked for your name for the last time.” She opened a drawer of the kitchen cabinet and took out a small PSM pistol, favored by senior security service officers and politburo members. She racked the slide back.

“You have every cause to be cautious, but before you shoot me, I’d appreciate a glass of champagne,” said the woman. Dominika intuitively knew what this must be: this Polish beauty was from Langley. She poured a glass of champagne for the woman, while holding the pistol in the other hand. Dominika waggled the muzzle, indicating they should walk upstairs. Once in the softly lighted bedroom, Dominika led the woman outside onto the balcony. She held the PSM down by her side and sipped champagne. The sea breeze hissed through the pines and the Black Sea moon hung over the horizon.

“Who are you?” Dominika asked.

“I arrived with Nathaniel posing as an art restoration supervisor,” whispered Agnes. “My name is Agnes Krawcyk. Nathaniel was arrested within five minutes of our arrival. I could tell he was surprised. Someone must have given him up.”

Dominika sipped at her champagne. “How long have you known this Nathaniel?” she asked, still cautious.

“Only several years,” said Agnes. “But I worked during the Cold War in Poland for Tom Forsyth.”

“Describe this Forsyth,” said Dominika.

“Salt-and-pepper hair, six feet tall, and slender; he wears his reading glasses on the top of his head. Very experienced, amazing operational mind. He brought Nathaniel to Helsinki from Moscow and saved his career. Satisfied?” Her halo was steady, assured. Dominika put the pistol on the ledge of the balcony. This was Nate’s wingman, and Benford’s clever addition: sacrifice Nate, clear the field, and hope for success. Crazy, but it worked; this woman was here, wasn’t she?

“I’m sure your instructions were never to come to this dacha,” Dominika said.

“I don’t care about the rules anymore,” said Agnes. “I want to save Nathaniel. Where is he? Do you know? Is he all right?”

More than professional focus, thought Dominika. There’s a personal dimension here too. “They were halfway to killing him this afternoon. They broke a finger and his left arm. He resisted a preliminary course of psychotropic drugs. As the Director of SVR, I argued that he should be kept incognito in Moscow, in good condition, to use as a future bargaining chip as developments require. He’s already on a plane to the capital.”

Agnes put down her glass. “You sent him to Moscow? I can’t get to him there. There’s no way he can escape.”

“I saved his life by sending him to Moscow. What were you going to do, shoot your way into the guardroom, grab Nathaniel, and run for the beach? There are five hundred troops in these woods.”

“He might be in one of your prisons for five years,” whispered Agnes.

“I’ll worry about Nate later,” said Dominika. “Right now, you and I need to accomplish one thing. I believe Nate’s superiors in Langley arranged a canary trap to determine the identity of a high-placed mole in the United States named MAGNIT. Did Nate tell you any of this? No, he probably didn’t know himself. During Nate’s interrogation they kept asking about an informant with a code name of CHALICE. I believe that is part of a blue-dye test, a telltale incriminating variant, because I’ve never heard it before. Do you understand what that is? Do you know the word CHALICE? Forsyth and Benford need to know that variant immediately. The word CHALICE will flag the identity of MAGNIT. Do you understand?” Agnes nodded.

“Tonight you’re getting on that drone speedboat, whatever they call it, and you’re going to bring back that code name, and deliver a thumb drive with the details. Demand to speak personally to Simon Benford the minute you get on board the navy ship. Directly to Benford at CIA. No one else. Do you understand?” Agnes nodded her head again.

“How can you protect Nate in a Moscow prison?” asked Agnes.

“There’s only one thing that’s important now,” said Dominika, ignoring Agnes’s mule-headedness. “CHALICE. Bring that name back to Benford. I’ll watch over Nate in Moscow.”

The dacha’s doorbell rang, a strange cacophony of tubular bells that sounded more like wind chimes. Putting a finger to her lips, Dominika signaled that Agnes should hide in the spacious bedroom closet next to the vast bed. Agnes slipped in and soundlessly pulled the louvered doors closed. Dominika ran downstairs, put Agnes’s champagne glass in the cabinet under the sink, and left hers on the counter with half a bottle of champagne. Tugging at the hem of her nightshirt, and fluffing her hair, she walked across the living room to the glassed-in front door.

President Putin was standing under the front entrance lantern, the glow casting shadows under his eyes, nose, and chin, transforming him into a blue-haloed gargoyle, an otherworldly creature on a late-night pop over to visit his new Director of Foreign Intelligence, who was barefoot and dressed in a satin sleep shirt that barely covered her sex, and whose wild hair was tied with a blue ribbon. The satin shirt did nothing to hide the swell of her breasts, or the imprint of her nipples, or the rhythmic flutter of her heartbeat. The president’s retinue of bodyguards was clustered on the paved path below, in three or four electric golf carts, watching. In an acid flash, Dominika knew the head of state of the Russian Federation would in ten minutes be between her legs, that this was the inescapable moment—no more creepy frottage during furtive midnight visits—the moment that CIA asset DIVA would be required to sacrifice herself to her chosen role as spy, seductress, and implacable foe of the monster in the Kremlin. She thought of Gable as she felt herself shutting down, closing the internal doors of her emotions, marshaling strength to overcome revulsion. She was moving into full Sparrow mode. She wondered if Gable was looking down from Heaven’s cocktail lounge.

“Dobriy vecher, Mr. President, good evening,” said Dominika. “This is a pleasant surprise. Do you have time for a glass of champagne? I was having one myself.” Putin waved his security men away into the darkness after one of them asked if he should check the dacha beforehand. As she poured a glass of bubbly, she noticed the extra wet ring made on the countertop by Agnes’s glass, but she smeared it away with her hand, and they clinked glasses and sipped.

“To the quick discovery of the traitor among us,” said Putin, and Dominika rolled the champagne around her tongue, savoring the secret.

“The American knows who it is. We will grind it out of him like a peppercorn under our thumb. Bortnikov and Gorelikov briefed me this afternoon on the CIA officer,” said Putin. “They described the bumbling preliminary interrogation this morning about why he came here and what he knows. They also told me about your proposed solution to the problem, which I found astute and well-timed. Are you enjoying the party?” A typical Putin conversational swerve that, Dominika was convinced, was designed to demonstrate the president’s rapidity of mind.

“I told them both we cannot be eliminating our opponents as if we were barbarians,” said Putin. Króme Shútok Are you kidding? marveled Dominika. She silently thought of the names of the two-hundred-plus journalists, dissidents, and political activists eliminated since the year 2000 under this president’s beneficent reign, not to mention half the civilian population of Grozhny, in Chechnya.

“Thank you for your confidence in me, Mr. President,” said Dominika. “I am sure we can discover the American mole from a pared-down list of fifty names. In fact, I was going to suggest that you review the final list—your perspective on individuals will be invaluable.” Putin smiled and nodded; he could purge other enemies in the process.

“In five days we will know that name, and all the others,” said Dominika, soothingly. Putin had endorsed her plan not to damage Nate, and to keep him in reserve as a bargaining chip. Now he was talking about crushing peppercorns. A faint sound came from upstairs and Dominika was terrified that Agnes thought the coast was clear and was coming back downstairs. Vladimir had heard the noise and was looking up the stairs. Would the tsar care for a threesome?

“The breeze from the balcony moves the drapes in the bedroom. Come, I’ll show you.” Dominika put her glass down, took the president’s hand—it was callused because he picked at it—and led him upstairs, making as much racket as possible.

“The view from the balcony is exceptional,” said Dominika. “I must thank you again for the use of the dacha.” Putin stuck his head out of the sliding doors, glanced at the sea and the moonlight shining on the surface riffled by the land breeze that started after sunset. He came back into the bedroom. He didn’t care about moonlight. His blue halo pulsed in time with his heartbeat.

“A handsome view, but not as beautiful as you.” Dominika imagined Agnes falling out of the closet, hands over her mouth. Quiet sestra, sister, our tsar is a love poet, don’t ruin the moment.

“Mr. President. Are you always this poetical?” She walked up to him, put her hands on his shoulders, and pressed against him, flattening her breasts on his chest. Their mouths were inches apart. A thumbnail into his eye. A wristlock to lead him onto the balcony, a mighty heave over the wall, and Russia will be done with you. Instead, Dominika brushed her lips against his and peeled his T-shirt over his head. The musk deer scent of him came back to her—part gaggy cumin and cinnamon cologne, part day-old armpit and crotch. If it had been Nate, she would have run her chin and lips over every inch of him to inhale his sweetness, but not now. She stepped back and pulled open the top three snaps of her shirt, which hung open, revealing a hint of cleavage (No. 95, “Keep the banya door slightly open to create more steam”).

Putin put his hands inside her shirt and ran his fingers around her nipples. “I think in these circumstances we can dispense with ‘Mr. President,’ ” he said. Perhaps to illustrate, he trailed his fingers down Dominika’s flat stomach, then lower, running his fingers along her pubis, then pushed up and in. The trained Sparrow stifled a flinch—men were always stuffing their fingers everywhere prematurely, as if they were looking for the light switch—and instead closed her eyes and whispered “Oh, Volodya,” the affectionate diminutive of Vladimir. “I do not know what to call you,” she whispered, “lest someone overhears our intimacy.” What I’m asking you, you, svinya, is whether you’ve bugged this whore’s cottage.

Putin laughed. “Not tonight. Don’t worry, no one’s listening.” Not tonight, how charming. Audio emplacements switched off for tonight.

Every time he got close to her, he was struck by how beautiful she was. Her blue eyes were mesmerizing, and it was as if she could read minds, a psychic skill he himself believed he possessed. Her lush body triggered his organic covetousness: he wanted to own her, to dominate her, to wrap his fingers in her chestnut hair and drag her across the room, simply to validate the power he had over her. He knew very well she was independent and intelligent, and that her operational accomplishments far exceeded his own tepid overseas KGB career in the eighties in communist East Germany. But that did not matter. His control over others—including trusted friends among the siloviki—was based in fear, or money, or family, or simply by bestowing access. With Egorova, it would be different. Putin this evening intended to dominate her with carnality. As a former Sparrow, she would get the message.

Putin shucked off his tracksuit pants as Dominika shrugged off the satin shirt, and flicked off the overhead chandelier, leaving only the soft glow of a small bedside lamp bathing her soft curves in pink light. If Putin saw the silver stiletto scars on her rib cage, he did not mention them; after all, they represented the sacrifices his vassals necessarily made to preserve the Rodina, or more precisely, his Rodina. Putin whipped the coverlet off the bed and onto the floor like a matador performing the extravagant pinwheel rebolera pass of the cape.

Putin then wordlessly placed a red foil pack of Hussar brand condoms on the nightstand for reasons not entirely clear, since he made no move to put one on. These were produced exclusively in Russia after a government decree banned imported American Durex prophylactics, alleging the US product promoted the spread of HIV, a transparent bit of dezinformatsiya in retaliation for US sanctions. Hussar condoms were known in Moscow as Russian-roulette rubbers because of their unreliability—never mind their overwhelming odor of petroleum. This shortage of reliable prophylactics had resulted in the appearance of numerous black-market products on the street, including the infamous silver packages of condoms printed with a caricature of the president above the English logo, “I’ve Got Something to Putin You.” Samizdat, protest materials, had greatly changed since the days of Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov, thought Dominika. What does he expect me to do with this? she wondered. She slid the president’s condom package into the nightstand drawer.

He gently pushed Egorova onto the bed on her back, and knee-walked on the mattress closer. He grabbed her ankles and spread them to either side, like haggling drumsticks apart on a roast goose. He saw her face was swollen with desire, her breasts heavy, her nipples distended. No one could fake those responses, not even a Sparrow. He mashed his hands on her breasts, then planted them on either side of her head, and loomed over her, looking at her face. Putin had bedded plenty of women since his divorce from Lyudmila Putina after thirty years of marriage—the gymnast Kabaeva, the skater Butyrskaya, the boxer Ragosina. All of them blond, all of them champion superathletes, but this Egorova was different, somehow more continental, less a Slav broodmare. She was also his new SVR Director, a cool operator who started as a Sparrow, had exposed the traitor Korchnoi, and had killed opponents in the field. She kept her counsel, knew operations, appeared discreet and loyal, and Gorelikov approved of her. Other lovers would appreciate the blue eyes, or the smile, or the charitable spirit, or even the exuberant libidinousness, but Vladimir valued other attributes. He wedged his knees between her legs.

Putin liked to plunge straight in, right away, feeling the pinch of the dry spots, looking for the sharp intake of breath, the wince at the initial plunging penetration. He liked when they gasped like that. Then when the woman had finally wetly flowered open, he favored a measured metronome pace—no jackrabbit sprints for him, not with his judo-damaged disc—pounding his pubic bone hard against the woman’s sex to elicit huffing grunts of pleasure at each wet slap. He liked that too, their animal huffs of pleasure. He was in control. Egorova’s breasts oscillated with each shock, her head was back, mouth slightly open, breathing through her nose. Vladimir felt he was really giving her a workout—her eyes were clenched closed.

Keep your eyes closed so you won’t have to look at his blond moon-pie face or his doughy eunuch’s chest she thought; there must be at least one albino—a cousin or nephew—in his family, the genes are there. At least there was no slobbering into her mouth. In bed with Nate, groaning into each other’s mouth while she came was ecstasy, but thank God she didn’t have to “Suck on Putin’s Tongue,” which should be the title of a song by the dissident Russian girl band Pussy Riot. And she knew Russian men of his generation did not do the other, put their mouths down there, and he had been too impatient to ask her to put him in her mouth. Thank God for Russian priggishness.

Putin had put his legs over her spread thighs, pinning her like some animal on the veldt, showing his teeth. And Nate is on a plane to Moscow, by my own hand, and Agnes is in the closet looking at me through the louvers, fucking this man, watching his khuy splitting me apart, and I know she loves Nate too. Will she understand what is happening?

The wrecking-ball stroke of the tsar of all the Russians never changed, just a steady rhythm devoid of all the heady variations of positions, or pillow talk, without the ecstasies of edging or beads, or what she had seen in Hong Kong with those crazy chakras. The president’s blue eyes never left her face, looking for the slightest trace of feigned reaction, which, she was sure, would equate in his mind as deception, and the equivalent of disloyalty. Fake an orgasm with Vlad, baby, and you’re off his favorites’ list. Not even Benford would have calculated that bit of tradecraft.

At Sparrow School they intensely studied (and filmed hundreds of women experiencing) sexual climax, including the physical rhythmic contractions, the psychosomatic euphoria, and the chemical release of endorphins during the refractory period. Sparrows faking orgasm, therefore, were trained to avoid the novice’s display of histrionic screaming, head thrashing, hair tossing, and the clawing of the partner’s back. A pro Sparrow instead knew the orgasmic subtleties of a change in respiration, a stiffening of the limbs, the brief, racking shudder(s) through the body, followed by the frantic levitating off the bed if the man touched overly sensitive plumbing sooner than five minutes after. Dominika put on her Sparrow mask of pleasure-pain, as if waiting for salvation, for ecstasy, at the hands of her blue tsar. Then the impossible happened.

It started as a little buzz in her stomach—the whisper hints of a real orgasm, not faked—that radiated to her crotch, then grew, and hovered like an antique vase on the edge of the mantelpiece after an earthquake, waiting for the next trembler that would set it wobbling over the edge to the floor below. This cannot be happening, she thought. Not with this lizard cleaning her chimney. The sensation grew; her orgasm was going to happen if she let it, and it would be a big one, it had been too long without Nate, a time of prolonged stress, and she had built up a lot of, well, kilowatts, that were ready to arc and burn someone’s eyebrows off. She no longer used her grandmother’s long-handled hairbrush, for she assumed her official residences—here and in Moscow—were filled with audio and video. Bogu moy, my God, the vase on the mantelpiece started chittering, vibrating closer to the edge.

This cannot happen. This will not happen, she thought. Even as she began the Sparrow School routine for Putin’s benefit (No. 44, “A single snowflake will start the avalanche”), Dominika shut down her real climax, chased it away by thinking about Bratok, banished it back to her spleen, or her liver, or wherever it resided. It was easy enough to do, considering the dibbuk, the ogre who was hunched over her, nose-whistling as he plowed in and out.

Putin was himself laboring; it was catching up to him too: the image of this unattainable Venus, head back, throat offered to him, eyes white in their sockets, was having its effect, not to mention the quite remarkable sensation of her pubococcygeus muscle actually milking his organ with the result that he felt the telltale gathering in his groin, the insidious thickening of his member, and finally the leaden palsy that sweeps over the limbs at the moment of spuskat, of ejaculation. He said nothing, blinked once—his expression did not change—and disengaged the moment he was done, wiping his face, sliding off the bed, and collecting his tracksuit pants off the floor. The tsar was not one for kissy endearments, or stroking of hair, or tender embraces in the soft après-sex twilight. It was sufficient that he had deposited on his bedewed Director of Foreign Intelligence, an SVR general, the imperial spoor that marked one of the boundaries of his predatory range.

She was outwardly languid, but breathing hard and sweaty between the breasts. Dominika’s thoughts raced madly in the postcoital asylum that was her brain. She had to get rid of the president. Agnes in the closet probably had to pee. Would the freshening land breeze prevent Benford’s USV—due in fifty minutes—from landing on the beach below? Ugh, her thighs were sticky. As a trained Sparrow, Dominika knew that a healthy man ejaculates approximately 5 milliliters (a teaspoon) of semen, which contains approximately one hundred million sperm. That meant one hundred million melon-headed Putin spermatozoa with whippy tails were all on the move inside her, intent on annexing her cervix like the Crimean peninsula. (Thank God for the Agency-issued IUD, a copper coil PARAGARD device developed [purely by coincidence] by Lockheed in 1962 during the design phase of the SR-71 Blackbird supersonic reconnaissance aircraft.) The president was saying something, and Dominika stilled the cascade of her disjointed thoughts.

“I would like you to have this,” said Putin, sliding a long velvet box onto the end table. “Wear it tomorrow at the concert.” Tomorrow’s entertainment was to be a live performance by a hugely famous American music artist, also well-known as a vocal and committed progressive activist who, despite the absence of demonstrable human rights in Russia, found he could accept $5 million from the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation to appear at Cape Idokopas to entertain the siloviki. Dominika opened the case. Nestled inside was a priceless strand of multicolored South Sea and Tahitian pearls, each one 114 millimeters, as big as marbles, sea green, gold, ivory, and mocha, a sublime strand.

“Mr. President, these pearls are magnificent. I couldn’t possibly . . .”

Putin put up his hand to quiet her, took the strand from the box, and fastened it around her neck, where a separate pearl nestled heavily in the hollow of her neck. Personal gifts exchanged between governmental colleagues—Dominika’s pizda in exchange for the pearls—did not pose the slightest conflict of interest in this tsar’s Russia. “I would like you to accept them,” he said.

Dominika fingered the pearls. “Thank you, Mr. President,” she said. “And thank you for a wonderful evening.” His blue halo glowed.

CIA star asset DIVA saw Vladimir Vladimirovich to the door. She did not kiss him good night, with all the shining raccoon eyes of the security detail fixed on her in her silk kimono from the darkness. They shook hands instead, the feel of the president’s calluses scratching her palm.

The electric whine of the golf carts speeding uphill faded. It was dead quiet inside, but the pines outside stirred noisily in the breeze. No audio bugs working tonight in the dacha, right? Dominika retrieved Agnes from the closet and they walked downstairs in silence. Dominika opened another bottle of champagne and poured two glasses, leaning on the marble island with her elbows, her head in her hands, exhausted. Forty minutes to the arrival of the USV.

Agnes ran her fingers through her white forelock. “Half a cup of white vinegar with a teaspoon of baking powder,” she said, also leaning on the marble top. They were like two cowpokes at a bar.

“What?” said Dominika, looking at her glass.

Agnes shook her head. “Not to drink; it’s a homemade douche solution. I assume you’d rather not carry the president around with you all night.” Dominika laughed. She liked this Polish Cold Warrior. Thank God she could carry Dominika’s message to Benford personally. And thank God Dominika would be able to get her out of Russia in one piece. But she didn’t have vinegar and there was no time.

“How often does this happen?” asked Agnes.

“This is the first time,” said Dominika, trying not to sound defensive. She noted Agnes’s nonjudgmental expression. “But I expect his attention will grow more acute now that I am a member of his inner circle.”

“It’s important not to blame yourself. No self-recrimination, not ever.”

“I don’t dwell on anything but doing what I have to,” said Dominika.

Agnes nodded. “In Poland, it was the same for me. I slept with half the politburo for their secrets, and with three Soviet colonels on the military advisory staff in Warsaw.”

“I trust you sleep well at night? No nightmares?” said Dominika, impressed.

Agnes averted her eyes. “And what does Nathaniel think about this?”

Dominika stiffened. Here it was. “What Nate and I have together is apart from all this. What we have together is despite all this,” said Dominika, with an edge in her voice. Agnes looked down at the floor.

“Tell me,” said Dominika, standing straight to look at Agnes squarely. “What is it exactly that you and Nate have together, if I may ask?”

“You can rest easy, General Egorova,” said Agnes softly. “We worked together, and I love the boy, but his heart belongs to you. You have nothing to fear from me.” The two women knew the unspoken parts, which needed no further discussion.

Agnes looked at her watch. “When does that damn boat arrive?”

“Exactly at midnight about thirty minutes from now,” said Dominika. “You must carry back the thumb drive that explains the whole situation, MAGNIT’s identity, and Nate’s status. It’s absolutely critical that you talk to Benford or Forsyth. Even if you have to call them from a phone booth in Varna, just tell them CHALICE.”

“Do you have something that is waterproof that I can carry the thumb drive in?” asked Agnes “I don’t want to risk getting seawater on it.” Dominika ran upstairs, dug out the thumb drive, and stuffed it into the now unwrapped Hussar condom from the bedside table drawer and tied a tight knot in the rubber. Back downstairs, she flipped it to Agnes.

“Are you serious?” she said, holding the rubber between thumb and forefinger.

“Don’t worry,” said Dominika. “One owner, never been driven, low mileage.”

“Okay, now it’s waterproof. But if I don’t get the message to Benford in time, you are in grave danger, isn’t that so?” asked Agnes.

Dominika nodded. “If you consider that the execution chamber in Butyrka Prison constitutes grave danger, then you are correct.”

“So if something befalls you, something catastrophic, and Nate eventually is released, it leaves the field open for me, wouldn’t you say?”

“Absolutely,” said Dominika, staring at her. “He would be all yours.” This was one cat hissing at another, establishing the relationship. Agnes’s crimson halo was steady and bright. She would not betray the cause any more than Dominika would, and they both knew it. Agnes looked again at her watch.

“All right,” she said. “Let’s get down to the beach.”

Dominika left Agnes downstairs briefly while she dressed in tights, black stretch top, and rubber-soled shoes to walk on beach rocks. She stood stock-still when she heard voices downstairs. The man’s voice was unmistakably that of Gorelikov. The words were indistinguishable but the tone was pure Anton: courtly, polite, and modulated. Agnes’s voice was also calm, but Dominika couldn’t make out her words either. Bogu moy, my God, what possible cover story could explain Agnes’s presence in the personal dacha of the Director of SVR? Old school chums? A shared interest in the decorative arts? Saving water by taking showers together? Dominika set her jaw, and walked downstairs, to confront disaster.

“Anton, what are you doing here at this hour?” asked Dominika. “You just missed the president. He left a few minutes ago after a glass of champagne.” Dominika nodded at Agnes as if to say her presence was totally natural. Gorelikov looked from Dominika to Agnes then back to Dominika. Go ahead, assume we’re pizdolizi, girlfriends.

“I have just had the pleasure of meeting this young lady,” said Gorelikov. “She tells me she is one of the restoration experts from Warsaw who arrived this morning. In the same group as the American.” This was trouble, undiluted, unmitigated danger. Dominika felt the ember of rage alight in her gut.

“You recall my proposal to let the American roam the compound freely so he would lead us to the mole?” said Anton. “That idea was vetoed, chiefly on your insistent recommendation, for very logical, very good reasons.” Gorelikov walked to the island and poured himself a glass of champagne. “I resolved to conduct my own modest experiment and follow this young woman who seemed to know the American. A coincidence? The other Poles stayed in the dormitory drinking complimentary vodka. Except Ms. Krawcyk, who walked for some time through the compound on a most circuitous route. And she ends up here at midnight, after the president’s visit, and now we’re all drinking champagne out of a crystal chalice.” That word. They stood looking at each other. The pistol was in the kitchen drawer, a step away. It was unlikely that Anton was armed. Not his style. Dominika knew this was the end, unless she was prepared to react violently to eliminate the threat. Whatever scaly beast lived inside her, it crouched at the entrance to the cave, talons gripping the dirt, ready to spring.

It was Gorelikov who broke the silence, looking at Dominika. His voice was calm, his face pacific. “I suppose it is the nature of espionage that the more monstrous the betrayal, the more effective the operation. You enjoyed the confidence of your peers, the Kremlin, and the president. What is more, I trusted you. Imagine the irony. You are Director of the SVR, reporting to the Americans, even as we influence events to place MAGNIT as DCIA.” He put down his glass and smoothed his hair. “Where does that leave us? What shall we do to resolve—”

Both women moved simultaneously, instinctively. Agnes lunged forward and hit Gorelikov extremely hard with a hammer fist on the side of the neck beneath the ear, overloading the vagus nerve, disrupting heart-rate and blood-pressure signals to the brain, and causing him to wobble and go down on one knee. Without thinking, Dominika circled behind him, and with nothing else at hand, unclasped the president’s South Sea pearls and wound the strand around Anton’s neck in the counterclockwise Sicilian garrotter’s loop, which puts the hands behind the target pushing crosswise—exerting a more powerful constriction than pulling the hands wide apart—a technique taught during Spetsnaz Systema training. Gorelikov started struggling, fell back to the floor, reaching behind his head, scrabbling for Dominika’s eyes, until Agnes flung herself at him, held his wrists, then lay across Gorelikov’s legs so he couldn’t kick. He was thin and light and Agnes controlled him easily. Through his increasingly constricted throat he repeatedly rasped, “Don’t!”

Dominika expected the necklace strand to break, scattering the priceless pearls across the terrazzo, but whatever had been used to string them together must have been unbreakable, wire or monofilament rather than the traditional silk thread, and her vision tunneled as she went a little crazy, leaned back, put her knee behind his neck, and kept applying torque. At least the big pearls were easy to grasp, and the frail Gorelikov was not exceptionally strong. As she strangled him, she heard herself whispering to Anton that Russia was not the Kremlin’s private preserve, that the Rodina belonged to the Russians, not the jackals who fed on the carcass, which struck her as sounding like an early manifesto of Lenin’s, but she was out of her mind with panicked bloodlust. She didn’t know if he heard her over his air-starved grunts. As she whispered to him, Agnes looked at her openmouthed.

Agnes held Anton’s wrists and rode out the last paroxysm of his thrashing legs, and he was still, but they didn’t move for another five minutes, tense. They knew he was gone when his trousers showed wet and a pool of urine spread on the floor under him. Agnes was soaked too, but didn’t say a word as she got to her feet, with wild hair. They both looked at Gorelikov, both panting like murderous ancient queens, Clytemnestra and Electra contemplating crimson bathwater. Dominika saw that Agnes’s halo was bleached and faded. Anton’s corpse was wet from waist to knee, his eyes were open, his neck was bruised purple, and his halo was gone. Interesting. Dominika wondered if she eventually would feel remorse—Gorelikov had, after all, befriended and supported her in the Kremlin—for she felt none now. The elegant boulevardier would have had her executed without hesitation.

Dominika fastened the still-warm pearls back around her neck; they were heavy and slick against her skin. They’d never feel the same again, and she’d always have to contend with Anton’s ghost when she wore them. “Are you ready to take a cruise with Monsieur CHALICE?” she asked Agnes. “He’s decided to defect.”

“You’re going to put me in that canoe with Putin’s closest adviser, and strap me in with him to bounce around for thirty minutes?” said Agnes.

“With the president’s closest dead adviser,” said Dominika. “His disappearance will prove he was the mole, a devastating scandal for the Kremlin and for the president personally.”

“Gorelikov becomes CHALICE? The most-trusted man in Putin’s Russia turns out to be the mole who defects? They’ll never believe it,” said Agnes.

“Posle dozhdika v chetverg, we’ll see after the rain on Thursday; we have no idea what will happen. It’s the only evidence they’ll have, and you’ll be gone too, the second CIA operative we all missed when we obsessed over Nate,” said Dominika. “Final confirmation of Gorelikov as the mole will come when Benford arrests MAGNIT.” She ran upstairs to whip the used sheet off the bed and raced back down to the living room to swaddle Gorelikov in the sheet, a burial shroud smelling of Putin’s cologne.

“How are we going to carry him down that steep path to the beach?” said Agnes.

“We each grab one end and drag him down,” said Dominika, gathering one end of the sheet and lifting.

“This is insane.”

“Insane? Now is the time for vera, for faith, and unshakable resolve, which I suspect you know very well.”

Agnes nodded. “Wiernosc in Polish.”

Dominika nodded. “Take his wristwatch off. It’s one of those fancy Swiss models, worth thousands. Keep it, it’s yours, compliments of the Kremlin. Consider it reimbursement for this crazy mission. They never should have sent you. It was an insane risk.”

“Nate came to rescue you and I came to help Nate,” said Agnes. “So I suppose all of us have lost.”

“We have not lost,” said Dominika. “But now it’s time to end this. This is defeat for Them. They sleep in their beds just up the hill, in the main house, while we will be swallowing seawater for Gable, for a white-haired general and two young Sparrows who gave their lives.” She looked at her watch. “We’ve got twenty minutes before the boat is due, and Anton takes his last Black Sea pleasure cruise. Grab the sheet and help me lift him.”