Sidelong glances from the milling siloviki were ill disguised; nervous noses already had sniffed the air and tentatively identified a newly formed triumvirate—Gorelikov and the Directors of SVR and FSB, a potent cabal favored by the president himself. But Dominika remembered Benford’s warning when the subject of her becoming head of SVR first was raised: “You’ll be close to the top, but even as you become indispensable to Vladimir, so will you be considered a threat to his suzerainty.” Nate had to translate that word, but she knew he was right. From now on, her official life would be plagued with hidden tests, sly traps, and constant assessments of her loyalty. She grimly told herself that gutting the Kremlin for Benford, Nate, and Forsyth would be trebly satisfying from now on, as long as she survived.
The familiar heartache welled up in her breast. Where was Nate now? Would they let them see each other? She would have to pick a plausible foreign trip, her first as Director, to be able to meet with her CIA friends, and from now on she would have to contend with hovering aides and ever-present security personnel.
Dominika would be busy in the next weeks, and she would have to alter her mode of operating. She’d have to concoct a reason to go out alone without an escort, to put down a signal for a personal meet with Ricky Walters, and make arrangements for a foreign trip in the near future. That would take a few weeks to arrange. Dominika had a lot to pass to her handlers, and she desperately needed reliable, secure commo. She still hadn’t decided whether to tell Benford and Nate that she had saved Nate’s life in Hong Kong. But for now, she had to get ready for a party.
* * *
* * *
The Georgievsky Hall in the Grand Kremlin Palace was an endless series of massive and ornately decorated coffered ceilings supported by spiraled-fluted marble columns at each pier, with intricate capitals and plinths, an ivory and gold arcade of dazzling opulence illuminated by colossal chandeliers hanging in a line from each dome, three, four, five, six of them, with galaxies of lights reflecting off the polished parquet floor inlaid with colored pieces of precious wood, set in patterns as complex as a Tabriz carpet from Persia. The room was filled to capacity with the boisterous Moscow foreign diplomatic corps, jostling and carrying flutes of champagne above their heads as they pressed through the throng. The oligarchs milled quietly in a corner, each wondering whether, when, and under what pretext their pre-Putin fortunes would be appropriated. The siloviki kept loose station around the president as he halfheartedly worked the crowd, dispensing an infrequent wry grin, or very rarely, a lopsided smile, which clearly he managed at a grave cost.
High-ranking Russian military officers from the army, navy, and air force stayed segregated in their herds, respectively green, navy, or light blue, like grazing herds of African antelope, the kudus apart from the sables, separate from the impalas. Dominika had known Gorelikov would stuff her closet with fabulous frocks. Two from Paris (a Vuitton and a Dior) and one from Milan (a Rinaldi), but she had worn the more demure Dior, a silk champagne-pink beaded floral-print gown with hourglass bodice, ruched waist, and low-cut plunge. Gorelikov steered her around the crowd, making introductions. She already knew the buffaloes on the Security Council and the secretary of the Council, dour Nikolai Patrushev, who stayed with her for a few minutes chatting, while looking down the front of her dress. Nikolai drifted off when Bortnikov eased up and kept Dominika amused for fifteen minutes whispering in her ear to point out the known and suspect foreign-intelligence officers from the respective embassies.
“That’s the German BND representative?” asked Dominika. “He looks like a godovalyy bychok, a breeder hog. He cannot be active on the street.” Bortnikov pointed to a thin man with white hair talking to a group of diplomats. “The American Chief of Station Reynolds, capable, cunning, and tricky,” said Bortnikov. “His officers are active on the street, but we have not detected their activities . . . yet.” Keep up the good work, Dominika telegraphed to the American.
Suddenly Gorelikov excused himself and made his way through the crowd, weaving his way around obstructions halfway down the length of the one-hundred-meter room. Russian naval uniforms had gathered at a doorway to greet another arriving group of a dozen foreign naval officers—Bortnikov whispered they were Americans, a US Navy delegation—and there seemed to be as much gold braid and as many chests full of ribbons on the Americans as on the Russians.
“What are they doing here?” asked Dominika.
Bortnikov shrugged. “Some fool discussions proposing joint naval cooperation against Somali and Malay pirates,” he said. “Patrushev has decided we do not have the time or the resources for such adventures, but we invited them anyway for appearances and to collect assessment data on these admirals. Some day we may face them in battle,” Bortnikov said, chuckling. Dominika watched as Gorelikov, Patrushev, and the Russian admirals stiffly greeted the American contingent, which was accompanied by the US ambassador and a phalanx of aides, including, to Dominika’s alarm, the youthful Ricky Walters, her case officer in Moscow for personal meets. Bogu moy, my God, if he saw Dominika would he have the wits to keep expressionless? She resolved not to go near the Americans for the entire evening, slightly incongruous behavior for the new Director of SVR, who would be expected to get right in the faces of US Navy visitors. The thought tickled an ancillary fact she could not retrieve.
Dominika kept quartering the room, “cutting the pie,” like they taught her a hundred years ago at the Academy, circling in the opposite direction, to stay away from the Americans, but to also keep them in sight. Could she dare scribble a note and try to slip it into Walters’s pocket? To say what? What if Gorelikov saw her? No. A thousand times no.
Gorelikov was certainly spending a lot of gratuitous time with the US Navy contingent, handing around flutes of champagne, raising his glass to toast the ranking officer of the group, the Chief of Naval Operations, but then he turned and toasted another admiral who Dominika saw was a mannish woman. Dominika eased through the crowd to get a closer look, and something stirred in her, the female admiral was familiar, somehow. She had smiled at a Gorelikov witticism, revealing uneven teeth. What was it? Gorelikov was recommending canapes from the tray of a passing waiter that featured an assortment of salaka, toasted brioche with herring and melted cheese. A snaggletooth. Twelve years ago. The Metropol Hotel. The GRU honey trap. The skinny naval student. The biter with the tooth. Her shoulder. She had never asked—or cared—about the result of the snap trap. It was possible, probable, that the blackmail did not take, for the historical success rate on honey traps was only 25 percent. If it did take, the Kremlin had been running a US admiral for more than a decade.
Then Dominika stopped, frozen like an idiot mannequin in the middle of the hall, jostled by partygoers under the blazing chandeliers, and felt her spine grow cold. The selection of the DCIA—Benford had written to her with the names of the candidates. This one here tonight had to be the naval admiral, Rowland. Her visit to Moscow on this delegation could mean nothing, but it could also mean much. The pieces tumbled in her head like a collapsed mosaic ceiling. Shlykov. Naval railgun. She knew who this was, and she knew why Gorelikov was toadying to her. Now all she had to do was get word back to Benford to find out whether MAGNIT liked herring on toast. With no commo she was mute and Benford was blind.
* * *
* * *
Gorelikov was sitting on a red velvet couch at the end of the empty hall with his feet up on a brocade chair, his tie loosened, and a flute of flat champagne on the floor beside him. Dominika sat at the other end of the couch. A few remaining waiters scurried about, collecting the last of the crockery from the twelve groaning buffet tables that had been spaced along the length of the hall. An army of cleaners would follow to polish the magnificent floor and to dust the interstices of the chandeliers.