The Kremlin's Candidate: A Novel

Ri shook his head slowly. “That I do not know. We are given plain copies of the research, but we see no original documents or plans. The RGB would never disclose the source of their intelligence. Two things are certain: The stolen technology is authentic—it is accelerating our program, saving us years of research and development.”

“And the second?” asked Dominika.

“This science could come from only one place. The Americans have a big problem. They have a mole in their midst.”

IOANA’S LEMON MEATBALLS WITH CELERIAC

Mix ground beef, chopped onion, chopped parsley, raw egg, allspice, salt, and pepper, and form into short oblong kebab shapes. Aggressively brown the kebabs, then set aside. Sauté celeriac root cut into matchsticks, crushed whole garlic cloves, turmeric, cumin, cinnamon, crushed fennel seeds, and smoked paprika, stirring on high heat. Return kebabs to pan, add chicken stock, lemon juice, and salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, then simmer until celeriac is tender and sauce is thick. Serve with a dollop of thick yogurt and a sprinkle of parsley.

2

Bread in the Oven

Twelve years ago, when LTJG Audrey Rowland, in the suite of the Metropol Hotel, told Kremlin recruiter Anton Gorelikov to go fuck himself after he had proposed an arrangement by which she would share classified information on US Navy weapons research projects with Russian military intelligence in exchange for cash payments and discreet career assistance, Gorelikov was delighted. In the handbook of intelligence recruitments, this blasphemy was not a refusal. The young woman had not said no and, more important, she had not indignantly declared her intention to report the pitch to American counterintelligence officials, which would have definitively blown the approach. Her thirty-minute dalliance with an SVR Sparrow clearly was a reportable contact that would have had grave consequences for her promising navy career. Gorelikov assessed that she would be motivated by her desire to keep the episode secret. There was something more, he thought. This young woman was ambitious, and she already had shown herself to be a brilliant researcher in a critical program, a gold-plated skill that would guarantee rapid advancement in a male-dominated US Navy, which clearly was important to her. She also carried some as-yet undefined baggage regarding men, which perhaps manifested itself in her sexual behavior, even at her young age. Ambition leavened by ego, seasoned by a forbidden taste for tribadism. A potent recruitment cocktail. He had let her consider overnight—in the espionage lexicon otherwise colloquially known as leaving the bread in the oven.

When Audrey Rowland the next day archly stipulated that she would limit her reporting strictly to the railgun project, Gorelikov graciously agreed to her condition. He knew the hook was set. Most agents start by declaring moral limits to their treason, insisting on close-ended arrangements, usually limited to a single topic, in exchange for keeping their original transgressions secret. What none of them immediately realized was that agreeing to provide any secrets to Moscow multiplied the initial infraction a hundredfold, enveloping the agent in the spider’s web for as long as the Russians stipulated, or until she lost access, or until her luck ran out and the mole hunters called her in for the inexorable interviews. Gorelikov knew from long experience that the inevitable outcome—the universal fate of all agents—was that Audrey eventually would be blown by careless tradecraft at the hands of a ham-fisted GRU handler or, more likely, by a CIA source inside GRU who would report the existence of a Russian mole in the US Navy. The goal, therefore, had been to compartment the case, and run the asset for as long as possible, extracting as much intelligence as quickly as was secure. Audrey Rowland’s survival as a reporting source was not Gorelikov’s bureaucratic responsibility, but he told himself he’d rather it be handled by the SVR, a service more adept at handling foreign sources, or better yet, by an anonymous illegal, impossible to trace and trebly compartmented.

Now the lofty Vice Admiral Rowland—encrypted MAGNIT—nevertheless had defied the actuarial odds for agent survival. She had been reporting for twelve years—there had been breaks in contact, unsuccessful turnovers to unacceptable new handlers, and a hiatus after a security scare—but she had been on the books since her recruitment in the Metropol.