The Kremlin's Candidate: A Novel

Dominika and Patrushev got out of their chairs at the same time, but Patrushev strode to the door, slamming it behind him as he left. Weak stomach? Or guilty panic? Dominika instead walked around Nate to face him and raise his lolling head with a finger under his chin. She kept her face neutral—Blokhin was watching her like a mastiff—but her heart beat wildly as she felt Nate’s sweaty face and saw his eyebrows, cracked lips, and his closed eyelids, the eyelids she used to kiss to wake him up. No emotion, show nothing, my God, she couldn’t sit motionless and watch him be ground to a paste by this Spetsnaz maniac, she couldn’t, she’d confess to save him, he’d be sent back and Forsyth could patch him up, it didn’t matter what happened to her, but no! that’s what this was, a trap, Nate would tell her so, Benford the same thing, Gable would bellow it from Valhalla, stay whole, we’re all spies, spooks, ferrets, survival is worth any price, defeating Putin’s monstrous snake pit is worth anything, even if you have to watch Nate die, forgive me, dushka, ya lyublyu tebya vsem serdtsem, I love you with all my heart.

She let Nate’s head drop like a rejected melon at the market and turned to the young Kremlin toad. “Go immediately to the Kremlin and tell the president that this interrogation is an abomination, and that this subhuman piece of Spetsnaz shit will kill the American officer before he utters a word.” She stamped her foot. “Go! Go now, immediately!” She pointed at one of the armed guards. “You, go with him to see he gets out of the prison without trouble. Did you hear me?” The guard and the Kremlin toad jumped as if scalded and ran out the door.

Dominika turned to Blokhin. “You animal! This American has important information, the identity of a mole operating inside our government, passing our most sensitive secrets, and you are breaking arms and legs with a steel bar. You are an imbecile.”