Red Sparrow

“Atta girl,” said Gable. The KaPo troopers in the jeep nudged one another.

Dominika and Nate looked at each other for a beat, no one else in the entire fog-shrouded world, then Dominika whispered, “Poka, be seeing you.” She straightened and pulled Gable and Benford forward. “Come on,” she said.

“Be cool, baby,” Gable said out of the corner of his mouth. He and Benford steered Dominika by each arm, like custodians in a prison. Her hands were fists as she resisted their pressure. They walked up to the beginning of the bridge roadway and stood there, watching the fog spill over the span. At the far end of the bridge there were flashes of cars pulling up, impossible to make out details, and there was a flurry of movement, then three men silhouetted at the other end, a short one in the middle. A spotlight winked off, then on again, and Benford signaled the troopers to send the same signal. The KaPo lights glinted off a dozen binoculars looking at them. “Stop when you get to the center,” Gable said.

Dominika contemptuously tore both her arms free of their grasp, told them, “Yob tuvoyu mat’,” straightened her coat, and stepped forward. With that slight hitch, she began walking into the fog, head up, ballet calves flexing, shoulders back. The short figure at the far end of the bridge also began walking.

“What did she say?” asked Benford.

“Sounded fairly obscene,” said Gable.

Dominika’s silhouette grew less distinct as she passed progressively through the faint circles of light on the roadway. She and the solitary figure walking the other way were nearly abreast of each other.

“She’s at midspan with MARBLE now,” said Gable softly. A bullhorn barked something and the two figures stopped. The two silhouettes were standing side by side in midspan, in the light of one of the lamps, fog swirling between them, soaking them. Dominika looked straight ahead, imperious, disdaining. She never turned her head, but she could feel his majestic purple presence, it was the last time she’d feel him. MARBLE looked over at Dominika, his white hair caught in the lamplight, and he shrugged off his overcoat and held it to her, an offering from one exchanged spy to another. Dominika took the coat and dropped it on the fog-wet pavement. Just as MARBLE had hoped she would do. The light glinted off a dozen binoculars.

MARBLE looked straight ahead, noting the city glow of Narva, the loom of the castle keep, the wink of a star in the western sky, the headlights and silhouettes of the men at the far end of the bridge. When lights on both ends of the bridge flashed again, he began walking. He heard Dominika’s footsteps fading behind him. His body felt light, the pains were familiar, but the hollowness in his chest was gone. His head was clear and he concentrated on not walking too fast, he would show them to the last how a professional finishes. As he came nearer, the silhouettes turned into faces, familiar faces. It was more important to see his friends than it was to actually be free. Benford. Nathaniel. A spy swap. He almost laughed.

The 9x39mm round from Lyudmila’s suppressed rifle passed through the left side of MARBLE’s neck, severing his carotid artery before exiting his right pectoral muscle below the armpit. Tsukanova, intending a head shot, had held a touch low, and the cold night air had affected the subsonic SP-5 round. She was up and walking her egress route along the south fortress wall before MARBLE’s legs buckled. The Russians on their side of the bridge did not know anything had happened.

Benford caught him, but MARBLE’s dead weight slipped through his arms and the old man collapsed to the wet asphalt. Nate sat on the roadway and cradled MARBLE’s head against his thigh, but the old spy was still, they had flipped a switch on him and he was gone, eyes closed, face strangely composed. Benford looked at his hands, red with Korchnoi’s blood.

The KaPo troopers unslung their Galils and brought them up, but Gable screamed, “Stop!” and waved them to stand down. Across the bridge, Dominika turned briefly—she had heard Gable’s bellow—but she was swallowed up in the searchlights’ glare. She registered the dark knot of figures around the black lump on the ground, and she knew, instinctively, what had happened.

She screamed, No! once in her head, then willed herself to close down, to compose her face, relax her shoulders. She was hustled into a waiting vehicle, a heated Mercedes, luxuriously warm, which immediately sped off down the highway. The car rocked around the curves, and she contained her horror, replaying images of Korchnoi. She choked down her venomous rage as a yellow-draped Leningrad colonel filled the inside of the car with cigarette smoke.