It was raining when Borodin landed in Moscow. As he stepped from the plane, a biting wind snapped at his cheeks. He rode alone into the city, his mood as stormy as the sky.
“I’m running late,” Borodin informed his driver. “Get me to Yasenevo by four.”
The sedan surged ahead, and in moments he was traveling at one hundred fifty kilometers per hour in the private lane reserved for government officials and the wealthiest of the land. Next to him, traffic on the outer ring road was at a standstill. Three o’clock and rush hour was in full swing. In fact, Borodin had noted, traffic was always bad. The experts dismissed the problem as a side effect of the growing economy. One more lie. The economy was cratering and everyone knew it.
He arrived in Yasenevo fifty minutes later. Located in the southwestern suburbs of the city, the headquarters of the Foreign Intelligence Service comprised three towers grouped around a central lawn, as well as several single-story buildings spread over a grassy campus. The largest tower, and first to be built thirty years earlier, had suffered from shoddy construction and had begun sinking into the soft Muscovy earth months after it was occupied. During Borodin’s first years as an agent, the building’s frame had become so warped that the windows would not open. While the central heating worked like a dream, air-conditioning was sporadic at best. During the short but extremely hot and humid Russian summer, air inside the building would grow warm and ripe. Worse, it was an ingrained habit of Russians, many of whom who had grown up sharing apartments with two or even three families, to ration their showers. A good wash once a week was as much as one could expect. Recalling the ungodly stench on the hottest of summer days, Borodin winced. Because of the smell, the main building had garnered a nickname repeated to this day. “The Outhouse.”
“Everything all right, sir?” asked the driver, noting his expression of disgust.
“As good as can be expected,” said Borodin.
Only after Boris Yeltsin came to power—his protégé, an undistinguished KGB agent formerly exiled to the hinterlands of East Germany, at his side—were funds discovered to retrofit the building and replace the HVAC system.
“Three fifty-five,” announced the driver as he pulled to a halt in front of the main building. He turned, his eager face beaming. “Five minutes early.”
Borodin patted him on the shoulder. “Thank you. Now if you’ll give me an umbrella.”
The driver’s face fell. “A what?”
Outside, the rain was falling heavier than before. Twenty meters separated the car from the entrance: Borodin maintained a dignified gait as he walked to the building. He refused to run or appear at all put out by the dismal conditions. He knew that subordinates were watching, eager as always for something to gossip about, even if it were only how the director had made a clumsy dash to the lobby, or, God forbid, slipped and fell. If anything, he walked more slowly than usual. To hell with them. Heavy rain and whipping winds were of no consequence to the director of the SVR.
Once inside, he took his private elevator to the tenth floor. His secretary took one look at him and flung herself from her desk, rushing to his side, helping him take off his sodden overcoat.
“Get me a towel and a change of clothing,” he said politely. “Oh, and tea.”
His secretary was older and rotund, and immune to fashion. “With a little something to lift your spirits?”
“Thank you, but no. Just hot. Very hot.”
It was then that Borodin noticed the blond woman seated outside his office. He passed her without a word or a glance. At his desk, he busied himself reading messages and checking his favorite American websites for the requisite time. At some point his secretary entered with a change of clothing. Borodin’s job often required him to stay at his desk for days at a time. Over the past few years his closet here had filled to overflowing while his closet at home had thinned to the bare essentials. He changed and combed his hair before taking his place at his desk, a slab of mahogany as big as an aircraft carrier. A new headline appeared on the New York Times’ website. Any other day, it would have made his blood boil. Today, it was exactly what the doctor ordered.
“Send in Major Asanova,” he said, speaking into his speakerphone—like the desk, a relic from a bygone era.
The door opened. The blond woman entered and saluted. Even without heels, she was a head taller than he. He waved away the salute and rose from his desk, greeting her with a kiss to each cheek, and a third to show she was in good favor. “Sit, Major.”
Valentina Asanova tucked her skirt beneath her legs as she sat down.
“I understand you were in Berlin.”
“Yes.” A nod. No further words. No smile. The psychologist inside every field man noted she displayed no visible wish to ingratiate.
“On assignment to Division Two,” he continued, without prejudice. No one wished to be assigned to Division Two.
Another nod. The gaze unwavering.
Borodin returned to his desk. He had forgotten how striking the woman was. The blue eyes. The white-blond hair. She was undoubtedly beautiful, but it was her air of maturity and intelligence that elevated her allure to another level.
Valentina Borisovna Asanova was a child of the state, an orphan raised in government institutions. As a youth, she’d excelled at gymnastics and spent her teen years as a member of the national team. After an injury ended her sporting career, she’d studied electrical engineering at Moscow State University. Later still, she’d graduated at the top of her class from the Russian foreign intelligence academy.
Indeed, she possessed the entire package. Intellect, physical prowess, beauty, ambition.
There was, however, something else that had recommended her to Vassily Borodin. As a child, she had suffered abuse at the hands of a succession of counselors, teachers, and coaches. Sadly, such treatment was the norm for the cold, unregulated institutions run by the state. If a child complained, she—or he—was simply abused worse. As a caring human being and a father, Borodin abhorred such treatment and was ashamed to be part of any apparatus that had allowed it to go unchecked. As director of the country’s spy service, however, he took a different view.
Valentina Asanova’s years of trauma had left her a clinical sociopath with limited emotional capability and an abiding antipathy toward her fellow man. In short, she possessed no conscience. Her battered psyche’s greatest need was recognition. In the greatest of Russian traditions, her sole ambition was to serve the state.
She was the ideal recruit.
“Harass and intimidate,” he went on. “That’s your mandate, isn’t it?”
Again the nod. He noticed that she’d placed her hands under her thighs and that her features had settled into a resigned grimace.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, Major, but a hallmark of H and I is stealth, is it not? The job does not demand physical confrontation. On the contrary, it is to introduce an element of fear, an intimation of terror, of uncertainty; to frighten the target without actually doing any physical harm.”
The muscles in the woman’s jaw tightened. Her eyes narrowed, but she said nothing. Borodin noted a daub of color in her cheeks that had not been there a moment earlier. He spun his monitor so she might see it. “This story just hit the wires. ‘Ambassador’s wife attacked by assailant in Berlin.’ At the ambassador’s residence, no less.” He paused to allow her to read a few lines. “Any comment? It was you, wasn’t it? I can’t imagine who else would wish to break into the American ambassador’s house precisely when he was attending a meeting to which we were not invited.”
A vein at the woman’s temple had magically appeared. Even at a distance, he could see it pulsing with frightening intensity.
Borodin turned the monitor back toward him and adopted a less benign tone. “Well?” he demanded. “I suppose you think it was a success because you weren’t caught. Don’t you realize it doesn’t matter if they can’t prove anything? The Americans know who was behind it. Damned careless of you. But then that’s something of your trademark, isn’t it, Major?”
Still no answer, the grimace as tight as a death rictus.
“Just what the hell did you do to the woman? Answer me!”
Valentina Asanova slid forward in her chair. Her hands came free of her thighs. She began to stand, her very pretty lips opening. Borodin felt the force of the wrath, as if hit by the concussion of a grenade. But as quickly, she relaxed. With a schoolgirl’s modesty, she adjusted her skirt, ran a hand across the gold chain at her neck, and offered a polite, subservient smile. “May I inquire why you requested my presence?”
Borodin sat back in his chair and expelled the breath he’d been holding. “I’m glad to see you don’t let your emotions get the best of you all the time.”
“No,” she replied with good humor. “Not all the time.”
They eyed each other, but neither laughed.
Borodin slid a dossier across the desk. “I have a job for you.”