Red Sparrow

The director was authorized to call the Saint Petersburg FSB and the oblast Border Guards Service to provide support during the exchange. A Colonel Zyuganov in Moscow ordered and stipulated that there should be no trouble whatsoever during the exchange and that it should be accomplished with the greatest secrecy.

The Saint Petersburg director acknowledged the directions, and subsequently asked for and received approval to transport the important person from Ivangorod to Saint Petersburg by Border Guard helicopter. A Yak-40 executive jet, part of the presidential squadron, would fly the repatriated individual—whoever the devil he was, thought the Leningrad chief—the rest of the way to Moscow.

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The exchange for MARBLE was scheduled the next day at 1400 Zulu. Perhaps because they were all keyed up, perhaps because Forsyth worried about Gable, perhaps because he knew Nate had been frozen out of the operation and was headed to Washington, he took Nate out for a beer.

They were sitting under pale plane trees at the Skalakia Taverna in Ambelokipi down the hill from the Embassy. Nate had been mooning around the Station, waiting for his flight, and Forsyth felt sorry for the kid; he’d been through a lot, been scratched up pretty good. Forsyth knew what else was nagging at him, apart from Nate’s usual fretting about his hall file and career.

So Forsyth walked him down Mesogeion and up the steep flight of stairs to the polished wood entrance of the taverna, and they sat outside listening to the city quiet down for the midday break. Nate asked Forsyth if DIVA was back in Russia now, after she had blown MARBLE up, then tossed back his beer and signaled for another.

Forsyth looked at him pretty sharpish, and Nate told him he had read the Restricted Handling file in the office when Maggie wasn’t looking and knew the whole story, about Benford’s plan, about Dominika burning MARBLE. Didn’t we try to protect our assets? How could she? Russians. MARBLE wouldn’t have done it; he was a guy apart.

Forsyth leaned into it, gave it to him between the eyes, told him he had his head up his ass. Forsyth said that he was considering kicking it farther up his ass for sneaking the RH traffic. Dominika hadn’t known about the plan to burn MARBLE, Forsyth said; she was following orders, doing what Benford had told her to do, she had no knowledge of the canary trap, of the fatal words she was told to repeat. She was directed not to tell Nate any of it. She had discipline, she was the professional. She had broken down when they told her about MARBLE.

Nate was silent for ten minutes. He told Forsyth he was going to the safe house to see her. “Don’t bother,” said Forsyth. “We closed it up yesterday. She’s with Gable, and even I don’t know where Gable is.” He told Nate about Benford’s spy swap, about the two-lane highway bridge in Estonia. “We’re playing this by Moscow Rules—well, Narva Rules, anyway—because we have only one shot at this.”

Nate’s jaw was set. “Tom, I have to see her. You have to help me.”

“I couldn’t if I wanted to,” said Forsyth. “There’s one point on the surface of the globe where it’s possible that she will show up tomorrow, and that’s fifty-fifty.” Nate understood that Forsyth was telling him because he would let him go.

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