Palace of Treason (30 page)

“Thank you, Yevgeny. I will make preparations to travel,” said Dominika. Ironic: Zyuganov thought he was cutting her out, but he had just given
her a two-week window to meet with CIA—and for her to see Nate again. She could not have imagined they would be together again so soon after Vienna. She mentally began drafting the SRAC message she would transmit this evening.

A golden opportunity. She looked at the grimy yellow halo around Yevgeny’s head, the color fading in and out. A plotting toadeater, Zyuganov’s sycophant, but with information she needed. And not dialed in quite right with the ladies, no matter how much he daydreamed about skirts. Dominika looked at this weird creature and shuddered.

Udranka was sitting on top of a file folder, her legs crossed. Get on with it; you don’t have to like it, you just have to do it.

Yevgeny Pletnev had been drafted into SVR after graduating from Moscow University with an undistinguished degree in computer science, the result of patronage from an uncle who was a deputy in the State Duma, the Federal Assembly of Russia, and the head of the Commission for Legislative Support for Anti-Corruption. His uncle’s influence, however, stopped at the imposing front doors of Yasenevo and the new employee—he was twenty-five at the time—found himself directed to the administrative side of the Service in personnel, logistics, and support. It was not long before the hairy young man calculated that advancement was more reliably attained by avoiding the messy and politically dangerous operations directorates.

Yevgeny spent the required dreary years in personnel until there was a vacancy for an administrative assistant in Line KR, the shady office that dealt with counterintelligence and surveillance of Russian citizens abroad. Despite warnings from colleagues, Yevgeny saw an opportunity and applied for the position. Three years in the Line KR staff room spent improving the antiquated computer network and cleaning up the files got him noticed by the horrid, diminutive chief of Line KR, Alexei Zyuganov, who ordered him to move to his personal staff, first in the outer office, then as associate staff chief, then as his personal aide-de-camp, then, last year, as Zyuganov’s deputy. Yevgeny knew it was risky in the extreme—suicidal—to even contemplate hooking on to Zyuganov’s coattails.
Chort poberi,
to join the demon. But the then thirty-five-year-old Yevgeny calculated that Zyuganov was
powerful, irreplaceable, whispered about. Better still, his boss’s serrated and fear-inducing reputation would rebound to him.

“This position is sensitive,” said Zyuganov on Yevgeny’s first day as number two, looking sideways at him, like a turtle. “You will see everything I see, read everything I read. You will have access to my files. Loyalty and discretion are required. I have approved of your work since you arrived in Line KR, but any deviation from these standards will result in immediate disciplinary action. In other words, I personally will bring you to the cellars and strap you to the table. Do I make myself clear?”

Yevgeny had nodded, and for a year worked fourteen-hour days. He was the model of efficiency, a paragon of discretion. He began anticipating his boss’s moods, began recognizing the onset of the dark days, the
bezumiye,
the madness, and saw how the trips to the cellars would lift his mood, how his brow would be clear when he returned to the office with the charnel house smell on his clothes, and in his hair, and on his breath.

For six months, the little sociopath stayed suspicious, but eventually grew accustomed to Yevgeny’s slavish and proper obedience. Zyuganov finally decided the hirsute young man could be trusted—to a point. The only human he ever brought completely into his confidence—the only other human accorded such access—was his mother. In any case, Yevgeny was deputy chief, and there was important work to be done: They had a mole to catch.

It was the beginning of Dominika’s remarkable, precarious, audacious recruitment operation—Nate and CIA would have lost their minds if they knew what she was doing—to penetrate her very own SVR department by suborning her creepy deputy chief. And she had limited time to do it before she departed for Athens. No operation can be rushed before time, for it is to invite catastrophe, a flap, and exposure. But there was no choice.

Dominika knew she had to seduce Yevgeny and steal the secrets of her own office—Line KR—from him. She needed to know about Zyuganov’s progress with the Iranians and about the notorious Washington
rezident
Zarubina, who had something on the stove; perhaps she had developed a source in Washington, something CIA would want to know, really want to know. Then there was this matter of a CI investigation in Athens. She needed details to bring to Nate.

She tamped down a grim revulsion when contemplating using Sparrow School blandishments on the woolly Yevgeny—a nightmare backslide into a chapter of her professional life that had been forced upon her. She heard Gable’s warning in her head; she could see the expression on Nate’s face.

When Udranka wasn’t hovering, it would be Marta sitting at the foot of her bed, tossing her hair and blowing smoke at the ceiling, telling Dominika to get on with it, so she set her guts and clenched her jaw.

At first, Yevgeny was conscious only of Captain Egorova when she stood in front of Zyuganov’s desk, or when she walked down the interior corridor of Line KR. As he did with other women in the office, Yevgeny liked to maneuver himself to the side, so he could look at Dominika in profile, from the elegant chin and throat to the jutting chest, around to the flat swoop of the buttocks, and then to the shapely legs and ankles. Dominika knew when the little squirrel was gawking at her, his yellow bloom pulsing, but she gave him no indication. Yevgeny did not register that, in the next days, Captain Egorova began to contrive an increasingly frequent series of encounters with him: Delivering a memo to him for the fourth floor; sitting beside him at the conference table; bumping into him in the cafeteria
or outside on the sunny terrace during lunch; riding by lucky coincidence the number six metro from Yasenevo, then the transfer to the number three line together most evenings, Egorova to the Park Pobedy stop, Yevgeny farther on to Strogino.

“Strogino,” said Dominika one evening, holding on to a strap in the swaying metro car, which was nearly empty at that late hour. It was safe to talk. “That is where Korchnoi lived,” she said matter-of-factly. Yevgeny looked at her, eyes wide. He licked his lips.

“
That
Korchnoi?” he whispered.

Dominika looked at the canary-yellow flash around his head and shoulders. “It’s quite a distance from Strogino to that miserable little bridge in Estonia,” she said grimly. “A long way to go to pay for his betrayal.” It physically hurt her to refer to Korchnoi like this, to dishonor his memory. She tamped down the rage in her throat. Yevgeny leaned toward her.

“I’ve heard about the case. There’s an old file, incomplete, redacted. You know the inside story.
You were there at the swap
. Will you tell me sometime?”

“The Kremlin was well pleased,” said Dominika, shrugging. “I was able to elicit the information that exposed Korchnoi. The president was very complimentary, but it’s a little embarrassing,” she said airily.

“I hear the stories,” said Yevgeny. “The president likes you, you’re
zolotoj,
a golden girl.” He looked at her again. “You’re clearly in good standing.”

Dominika smiled at him. “Here’s my stop,” she said, standing in front of the doors. “See you in the office tomorrow.” Yevgeny stared at her back through the glass panels.

They fell into the habit most evenings of talking in the relative anonymity of the metro car. With Yevgeny, there was no thought of comradeship, of developing any sort of friendship. Egorova was the teddy bear in the window he wanted to squeeze, and his bituminous thoughts ran from the soft, wrinkled soles of her feet to the rather severe mouth, from which he wanted to hear her begging him for love, or something like that. Yevgeny was loyal to Zyuganov, and he understood that Egorova was to be shut out of the secrets of Line KR, but his dreams of lying with Egorova did not conflict with any of that. Besides, he wanted to know the story of the traitor Korchnoi, of the woman who unmasked him. He
needed
to know about her connection to Putin. It was irresistible. He was a wasp hovering over a dish of sugar water.

“What’s he like, the president?” said Yevgeny one night on the metro.

“Everything you’ve heard about him, it’s true,” said Dominika enigmatically. “Here’s my stop.” She had timed the conversation for just this effect. Yevgeny bent to look out the grimy window of the metro, the brakes of the car squealing, as the elegant Park Pobedy station, gorgeous with its curving ocher granite walls and glowing chandeliers, came into view. His face worked nervously.

“Look,” said Yevgeny, “why don’t I get off with you, if you’re not busy? We could have a drink.” The car jerked to a stop and the doors slammed open.

“You’ll lose your train,” said Dominika, listening for the klaxon warning that the doors were about to close. Yevgeny slung his briefcase strap over his shoulder.

“They run all night,” he said. The klaxon sounded.

“Come on then,” said Dominika, dragging him out of the car just as the doors hissed to a close. Yevgeny stood on the platform, intense, breathing through his nose, lips together in a half smile. He was getting what he wanted; he just didn’t know he was feet away from a leaf-covered snare.

Some days later, the rain beat against the glass of Dominika’s bedroom window and the ivy around the frame outside whipped in the wind. In the kitchen a steam kettle whistled. “It’s preposterous,” said Dominika, shrugging on a short robe to go fetch the tea. “This unidentified source, what did you call him …” She went into the kitchen.

Marta was sitting at the table smoking. You’re doing fine. Rough in bed, gentle in his head, she said. Dominika shushed her.

“He calls himself TRITON,” said Yevgeny sleepily from the bedroom. He looked like a chimp, the hair on his arms running into the dense thatch of hair under his arms, which were tucked behind his head. His chest and stomach were also heavily covered with dark hair, as were his legs. His
khuy
lay flaccid on a riot of crotch hair like a mouse on a potholder. When she first saw Yevgeny naked, Dominika had thought there would not be enough wax in Russia to strip away the hair on his body.

Two consecutive nights after work had sufficed to set the foundation,
establish rudimentary bonds of trust, throw him a bone by describing work abroad, then get him talking about himself. Yevgeny was not stupid, so Dominika had to proceed carefully, but even the most introspective mind cannot resist talking about himself. Recruitment, seduction, persuasion, all began with listening, watching those blubbery lips moving, first snatching at food, then growing confident, then moving inexorably closer, still moving, slick and wet, then the liverish feel of them on her own lips—she remembered the feel of Nate’s lips—and her secret self was barricaded in the hurricane room, the door trebly bolted.

Then
Bozhe pomogi mne,
God help me, there had been Yevgeny’s notions of lovemaking, which hovered somewhere between the equine and the porcine. Nothing new to a Sparrow, but Dominika positively had to separate her mind from her body, to block out the feel of his endlessly molting chest hair on her breasts, as if a burst egg sack of baby spiders were crawling over her. She set her teeth and began to make him forget the rules and start him talking. She could not turn her face away; she could not hide her eyes or shut her ears to the grunts. It was the horrid, familiar hellish swamp They had thrust her into before, and she had sworn to make Them pay, but now she revisited the same bog by her own volition, for the Americans’ sake, and for Nate. There was not a moment’s thought of infidelity; Yevgeny was not shafting the same body that she gave to her lover, not at all the same.

“How can we be sure he’s not part of the controlled operation run by the Americans?” Dominika called from the kitchen. She waited a double beat as she stirred strawberry preserves—an old Russian custom to sweeten tea—into two ceramic mugs decorated with folk-art birds.
My Sparrow cups,
thought Dominika. The prattle continued: The deputy of Line KR, having just slept with his beautiful subordinate, was now talking shop. Nothing could be more natural.

“The
rezident
believes he’s genuine,” called Yevgeny from the bedroom. Dominika walked back holding the two mugs. “Zarubina is not about to make a mistake. She’s determined to become director after her Washington assignment.” He propped himself up on one elbow and took the mug. “Besides, TRITON has already exposed the Caracas case,” he said. “The Americans would never burn one of their recruitments willingly.”

Dominika thought about her double life.
Never say never,
she thought.

She sat crossed-legged on the bed next to Yevgeny as they sipped their
tea. Dominika ran her fingers, heated by the hot mug, along Yevgeny’s furry thigh.
No. 45, “Apply extremes of heat and cold to enhance nerve response.”
Yevgeny looked at her from beneath thick eyebrows. He was still trying to quantify his good fortune at having seduced the stunning Egorova—he could never look at her again in the office without seeing the undraped ballerina’s body of the last thirty-six hours.

“Bona fides are essential in a case like this,” she said, drawing hot circles on his leg. The rain rasped against the window, Yevgeny’s breathing rasped in his throat, and the mouse on the potholder stirred.

Dominika looked up again. “You are quite attractive like that, trembling the way you do.” She heard her own voice, saw her reflection in the darkening windowpane.
Vorobey, shpion, konets.
Sparrow, spy, slut.
Shut up. Focus.

“Operational validation is critical,” Dominika continued conversationally, as if she were not peeling Yevgeny’s brain like skin off a scalded tomato. “Zarubina presumably has tried to identify TRITON?” She leaned forward and rested her chin in her hands, to give him a dose of blue eyes and perfume. Her little kimono parted an inch.

Yevgeny blinked. “No, nothing. She and the colonel don’t want to scare him,” he said shakily. “They think he’s too valuable.” He peeked at Dominika, who looked at him through her lashes as if he were a Polish rum cake. “Zarubina is going along with the double-agent charade to keep the channel open for TRITON.”

“I’d still worry, just a little bit, that TRITON is a
maskirovanie,
camouflage for something bigger,” said Dominika. “Our Service is not the only one that can play this game. CIA has their own grand masters.”

“I am not an operations officer like you, Captain, but—”

“Considering the circumstances, Yevgeny,” said Dominika, “I think you could call me Dominika in private.”

Yevgeny fought the overload. “I was saying that, while I’m not a trained officer, it seems to me that the second TRITON report is incontrovertible proof that he’s genuine. He’s even passed CIA’s own cryptonym for another source … LYRIC.”

“The lead in Greece?” said Dominika.

“Not Greece,” said Yevgeny. “Here in Moskva. The colonel thinks the leak is here, someone with access.” He looked guiltily at her. Dominika moved closer to him, eyes searching his face, as if to identify the one feature
that made him so irresistible to her and to, well, all women. She gripped his bristly chin in her hand, mock serious.

“Then tell me, please, Zhenya,” said Dominika, already sure she knew the answer, “why am I going to Greece?” The use of the affectionate diminutive of his name added to the poignancy.

“I don’t know,” said Yevgeny.

He’s telling the truth,
Dominika thought. His yellow halo may have indicated galloping lust, and careerism, and unreliability, but its steadiness suggested that the
izvrashchenets,
this furry pervert, was likely telling the truth.

“I originally thought the colonel was simply covering all possibilities, sending you to Athens to investigate. But then he specifically told me not to mention TRITON or LYRIC or Zarubina to you …” His voice trailed off as he looked into her eyes.

Dominika saw a shadow flit across his face, felt a tremor run the length of his body. His yellow aura flickered, faltered. Dominika knew he had just realized the enormity of the infractions he had committed (telling her official secrets), of what he currently was doing (sleeping with her), and of the possible ramifications (Zyuganov’s rage and the cellars). Thank God he did not realize the worst: He had just provided content for her report to Nate and Gable.
Congratulations, lover,
Dominika thought,
your first report to Langley
. Now she had to give him a little
muzhestvo,
a little courage. Otherwise, she would have to hit him in the throat with the tea kettle and bury him in the garden. This next stage—anchoring him—was immensely dangerous.