Red Sparrow

The office next to his belonged to Alice LNU (last name unknown). In her forties, or fifties, or perhaps sixty, she was square, with apple cheeks and a fleshy nose, russet hair cut tight to her head and combed forward on the front and sides, like Napoleon’s. She wore prison matron’s shoes and walked splayfooted and fast. She spoke to Nate, as to everyone else, by tilting her head and leaning forward, as if to share a confidence or a secret, which of course she never did—no one in CI ever did.

In the first days, colleagues drifted by slyly to tell him that Alice was a “plank owner” in the division. She’s been here forever, they said. She’s the one who really killed Trotsky, they said. She fucked Allan Pinkerton, they said as they fled back to their offices. CID, the Island of Broken Toys. Nate checked behind his door for Boo Radley flattened against the wall.

Benford had told Alice to help Nate. She had sat at her desk—her office was actually sunny, a fern and geraniums flourished on a file cabinet—her sensible shoes propped up and squeaking. “You don’t know much,” she had said. “Let’s review: We have an illegal, we have submarines, we have New England, and we have meetings in Boston and New York. MARBLE mentioned submarine maintenance and five years. Okay,” she said, “where would you start?”

“Navy personnel lists?” said Nate.

“Nope,” Alice said swiveling in her chair. “Lunch.”

They sat on the upper level of the cafeteria. Nate played with a salad, Alice spooned soup. Alice’s friend Sophie arrived, huffing from climbing the mezzanine stairs on massive legs. She worked in OSR, where they still counted the rusting, radioactive nuke subs, the Oscars and Typhoons and Akulas in Olenya Bay and Polyarny, it still mattered, she said, thin-lipped, never mind what the Seventh Floor said. She was fifty and had jet-black hair, big hair, and black eyebrows, a profile off a Knossos frieze. She wore black tights and a black billowing dress and black therapeutic shoes with ski-jump toes. A black scrunchy was wrapped around her wrist for emergencies.

She set a Sailor Moon lunch box on the table and unpacked plastic boxes and containers, chopsticks and tasting spoons that stood up on their own, and a cruet of salad dressing. Sophie looked at Nate’s salad and poured some of her dressing on top, “Try this, homemade.” The dressing had a balsamic sweetness cut with Dijon and a hint of heat, unlike any vinaigrette he had ever tasted. He said so, and Sophie beamed.

Alice told them to stop fooling around and told Sophie what they needed to know, and she ate her curry and reeled it off, eyes closed in the remembering, or in the pleasure of the eating, or both. New London, Connecticut. Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Brunswick, Maine. Only three bases. Subs were big. Only one place repairs them, they’re getting old, being refitted all the time, like the Akulas in the late 1980s, Schukas they called them, really, a lot quieter, and Alice got her back on track. Electric Boat Works, big shipyard in Groton, Connecticut, across the Thames River from New London. Start there, Sophie told them.

Back in Alice’s office, the CID link was cathode-tube-archaic and the names inched down. Security-clearance databases, employee roles, US Navy active duty and contractor rosters. Alice’s mannish finger ran down the screen; nope, nope, longer than seven years, less than three, nope. Senior management at Electric Boat and General Dynamics, of course not. Alice was fast, she looked at a name, scanned the info, and moved on. She had been pulling at names on lists for three decades. They had two piles of papers and Nate stopped arguing about “possibles” because Alice was so fast. She had her “first string,” her Lovely Eleven, she called them, and started going through the holies: employment, salary, taxes, residence, phone, Internet, vehicle, banking, mail, marriage, education, children, arrests, divorces, travel, parents, ethernet or cable, straight or gay. “How well did you prepare our little illegal? How far back did you go? As far as me?” whispered Alice to the screen.

Three days later, Nate and Alice brought Benford the list, and he tapped the end of his pencil on each name as he glanced at the profiles, tap, tap, tap, and tossed the pencil aside and handed Nate the paper. “It’s Jennifer Santini,” Benford said with a yawn, the casual savant with unruly hair. Alice nudged Nate—See, I told you—and cackled.

“Let’s do a deep dive, but I’m sure she’s our boy,” said Benford. He looked at Nate. “Now we go to New London and look around.”

SOPHIE’S VINAIGRETTE

Combine puréed garlic, dill weed, dried oregano, dried pepper flakes, Dijon mustard, sugar, salt, pepper, and grated Parmesan cheese with one part balsamic vinegar and three parts extra virgin kalamata olive oil and emulsify.

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