The Kremlin's Candidate: A Novel

“I ask that both of you make no comment or otherwise display even a mote of surprise or approbation when I brief the candidates. None. Can you do that?”

“What are you going to do?” hissed Forsyth. “What’s the matter with you?”

“I intend to sell my soul.”

“What does that mean?” said Westfall. “You can’t bullshit these candidates.”

“That’s not what he means,” said Forsyth, in a whisper, divining the truth in a flash. “He’s going to save Dominika.”

“Senator, I have a new development to brief you on, one that I’m sure you and Mr. Farbissen will find fascinating,” said Benford. They both looked bored.

“Another intelligence failure?” said Farbissen. “What’s that make it, a major fuckup a year, on average?”

“One a year would be a good year,” said Senator Feigenbaum. Benford smiled.

“Nothing like that,” he said briskly. “It’s what we call a crash dive. Something quite urgent.”

“Yeah, everything you guys do is urgent,” said Farbissen.

“I’m sure you’ll be interested to know an important asset of ours in Moscow has discovered the identity of a highly placed mole in the US government, but unfortunately cannot transmit the mole’s identity due to technical difficulties. We’ve sent a case officer to Russia to exfiltrate the asset—code-named HAMMER—to report the mole’s name so we can arrest the traitor.” Benford heard Forsyth’s chair squeak, but didn’t dare look at him.

“How do you intend to get your man into Russia to meet this HAMMER?” asked the senator, calmly, no alarm on her face. “And how do you propose to spirit him out of the country?” Her decades on intel committees made her familiar with the Game, even though she despised and derogated the Agency with vigor.

“HAMMER will be among the guests at a large reception at President Putin’s Black Sea estate,” said Benford. “Gaining access will be relatively easy for our case officer, certainly easier than doing this in Moscow. Exfiltration will be accomplished by a JAVELIN aircraft, a powered stealth glider. The numerous valleys and plains in the area are more than adequate for STOL aircraft to get in and out.” The short-takeoff-and-landing aircraft was all hogwash, but it sounded good.

“And where is this Russian mole?” said Farbissen, somewhat agitated, whether from fear or congenital disdain was not apparent.

“We do not know,” said Benford. “All we know is that he has been active for some time.”

“I thought you were supposed to be some kind of legendary mole hunter,” said the senator.

“Maybe he’s lost his touch,” said Farbissen, looking at Benford. “Maybe it’s time to turn in your badge.”

From the back, Forsyth saw Benford’s hands shaking. God, what a gamble. What a choice. Deliberately setting up Nate as the ultimate bait. Not even the conspiratorial Russians would consider something so extreme to be a counterintelligence trap. Sacrificing a case officer—for instance by abandoning him behind the Iron Curtain—to save a blown agent had happened before during the Cold War, but an officer had never purposely been set up to protect a source. They both saw it; Benford’s face showed he was trading his soul to sell out Nate. Forsyth knew this was a mortal decision for Simon, one made without the possibility of redemption or exculpation. We all of us are expendable, Benford had once told Nash. Today, that included Benford’s devoir and conscience.

The same briefing was given two more times with the other candidates, each with different code names, the classic barium-enema trap. VADM Rowland was told the CIA asset Nate would contact and rescue was encrypted CHALICE. She was calm and collected at the news, bored as usual. Ambassador Vano was told the agent was encrypted CHRYSANTHEMUM, but his blank stare prompted Benford to mercifully tell him the asset was also known as FLOWER. If he is the mole, thought Benford, looking at that handsome profile powered by room-temperature IQ, the Russians must be better than we thought.

For the three CIA officers, the afternoon was an interminable bad dream, a sightless stumble through a hazy swamp, each of Benford’s compounded lies rendered more bitter by betraying Nate. Admiral Rowland once perked up at mention of the JAVELIN stealth glider, and asked technical questions about the airframe, the answers to which Benford promised to supply. He silently wondered whether Westfall could research gliders and invent a variant they could call JAVELIN. By then he hoped it wouldn’t matter.

As Benford briefed at the front of the room, Westfall leaned over to Forsyth, his own face ashen and eyes wide. “Why not tell Nash ahead of time?” he whispered. “Give him advance warning.”

Forsyth shook his head. He knew how Benford thought. “The surprise has to be genuine,” said Forsyth. “The Russians will be looking for false notes. Besides, Simon knows Nash would have gone in anyway, witting or not. He’ll figure it out in the first ten seconds and sell the deception.”