The Kremlin's Candidate: A Novel

“What are we eating?” said Dominika, looking at the time. She still had two hours.

“There’s chicken with mushroom cream, like our ciulama de pui in Romania,” said Ioana. “Even beastly Uzbeks know our food is best.”

“Slava Bogu

, thank God for Romanian food,” said Dominika, ordering two plates, which arrived quickly. Tender pieces of chicken in a rich sauce suprême of cream and mushrooms fortified with egg yolks and sour cream, served with Russian mashed potatoes. The women looked at each other after the first bite, approving.

They ate in silence. Ioana was content knowing that Colonel Egorova depended on her and was satisfied with her. This late dinner was proof of that. Dominika trusted her to rent the Vienna safe house. There would be other operations, maybe even the possibility of being made an officer in the Service. Egorova would take care of her.

On the sidewalk outside the restaurant, they kissed on both cheeks and without a word of farewell, Ioana walked north on Neglinnaya Ulitsa. Dominika watched her go, leather pants hissing like a snake, and thought how she would have preferred to be going with Ioana for a nightcap. But there was work to do, and Ioana had nothing to do with it and could know nothing. She would be porazheny

, amazed if she knew.

Carrying the heavy bag with her signaling equipment over her shoulder, Dominika started walking south on Neglinnaya, feeling the ice water flow into her chest as she went operational. It was a transformation both mental and corporeal, the mark of a street operator, partly learned, partly instinctive. Her pulse quickened and she tamped down the adrenaline rush in her neck and shoulders. Dominika’s vision became acute—crystal clear and focused on the middle distance. Her hearing likewise was tuned to the timbre of the street around her—she heard car engines, the hiss of tires on wet cobbles, and the shuffle of footsteps on the sidewalk. It was late; Moscow traffic, while never nonexistent, would be light. She had to determine her status: she had to know she was surveillance-free, she had to get black.