The Kremlin's Candidate: A Novel

They sat on the tiny balcony of the cottage, the sun setting below the mountain behind the house. The rickety table had uneven legs and wobbled. The wicker chairs creaked loosely. They ate a peasant dinner with two oversized spoons, communally from a chipped terra-cotta bowl with painted blue dolphins around the rim. Nate had cooked the green beans slowly all day in olive oil, with onions, garlic, and crushed tomatoes. A separate dish was piled with olives, feta, and crusty country bread. They drank cold Retsina from a bottle floating in a tin washtub with the last of the ice slurry from yesterday. The shadows on the hillside were growing longer as they talked.

“All I’m saying is that it’s dangerous for you to continue bouncing around the world personally recruiting North Koreans—or anyone for that matter—considering Putin could make you Director of SVR soon,” said Nate. They had spent the entire first day in the safe house discussing Dominika’s recruitment of Professor Ri, and the other intelligence Dominika had brought out of Moscow. Especially the most exciting news.

Dominika had told Nate that as a result of President Putin’s continued sponsorship, he had hinted that he might soon promote her to the rank of general and, just possibly, give her the Directorship of the SVR, an astounding development that Nate immediately reported to Langley on his THRESHER encrypted satellite phone that was approved for limited use in NATO countries. Gobsmacked by the notion that his star agent might soon be running the SVR, Benford had spilled coffee on his tie, already liberally spotted with crab bisque and mayonnaise.

In one blink, DIVA would have access to all SVR secrets; would automatically claim a seat at the National Security Council; and would become a fledgling member of the siloviki, Putin’s gaggle of insiders with access to not just secret plots roiling the halls of the Kremlin, but also the plans and intentions of the circumspect and coy Vladimir Vladimirovich, whom many foreign observers had analyzed, but few genuinely knew.

“It helps, not hurts. When I acquire intelligence assets, it raises my stock,” said Dominika to Nate, sopping up tomato sauce with a crust of bread. “No one in that crowd besides Bortnikov of the FSB, the internal service, recruits foreigners. The president was a KGB officer; he appreciates the accomplishment.”

“But there’s added risk,” said Nate. “If word leaks out, for instance, that CIA knows the North Koreans are using US railgun technology, you’re immediately compromised as the obvious source. Moscow’s got too many ears in Washington.”

Dominika poured two more glasses of wine. “If your people cannot keep secrets, perhaps I should not tell you secrets.”

“That’s a fine solution,” said Nate.

“Well, then tell Benford to prosmatrivat the information, how do you say it?”

“Compartment the intelligence,” said Nate, who was fluent in Russian. “In Washington that means only a thousand people will read your reports—the air force, navy, Department of Energy, ODNI, DIA, NSC, FBI, and half the committees on Capitol Hill. We have a single leak, you’d be on the Center’s short list of suspects in a week.”

“And then I suppose you’d get your wish for me to defect,” said Dominika, smiling. From the beginning, for seven years, she vowed that she’d never accept exfiltration. She was spying to save her Russia, and nothing else mattered, she would not contemplate fleeing. Nate knew the higher she rose in the SVR, the more exclusive her reporting would become, and the more likely she could be compromised by a leak from Washington. She had to keep a low profile, and CIA had to increasingly obfuscate that she was the source of exceptional reporting.

To the extreme annoyance of Benford, Nate had been preaching for a year that they should exfiltrate Dominika before she was compromised. She’d had two close calls, and once had even been interrogated in Lefortovo prison after an operational flap. She’d survived that ordeal and been cleared, but Moscow teemed with counterintelligence bloodhounds, jealous rivals, and political enemies who would relish destroying a competitor, especially the lissome Egorova, the rising star. Nate argued that losing her would be a dereliction of their duty to keep her safe, and it would be debilitating to future CIA recruitments worldwide. Plus, even in safe retirement, she would be an invaluable observer and a useful operational adviser.