“Anton, what are you doing here at this hour?” asked Dominika. “You just missed the president. He left a few minutes ago after a glass of champagne.” Dominika nodded at Agnes as if to say her presence was totally natural. Gorelikov looked from Dominika to Agnes then back to Dominika. Go ahead, assume we’re pizdolizi, girlfriends.
“I have just had the pleasure of meeting this young lady,” said Gorelikov. “She tells me she is one of the restoration experts from Warsaw who arrived this morning. In the same group as the American.” This was trouble, undiluted, unmitigated danger. Dominika felt the ember of rage alight in her gut.
“You recall my proposal to let the American roam the compound freely so he would lead us to the mole?” said Anton. “That idea was vetoed, chiefly on your insistent recommendation, for very logical, very good reasons.” Gorelikov walked to the island and poured himself a glass of champagne. “I resolved to conduct my own modest experiment and follow this young woman who seemed to know the American. A coincidence? The other Poles stayed in the dormitory drinking complimentary vodka. Except Ms. Krawcyk, who walked for some time through the compound on a most circuitous route. And she ends up here at midnight, after the president’s visit, and now we’re all drinking champagne out of a crystal chalice.” That word. They stood looking at each other. The pistol was in the kitchen drawer, a step away. It was unlikely that Anton was armed. Not his style. Dominika knew this was the end, unless she was prepared to react violently to eliminate the threat. Whatever scaly beast lived inside her, it crouched at the entrance to the cave, talons gripping the dirt, ready to spring.
It was Gorelikov who broke the silence, looking at Dominika. His voice was calm, his face pacific. “I suppose it is the nature of espionage that the more monstrous the betrayal, the more effective the operation. You enjoyed the confidence of your peers, the Kremlin, and the president. What is more, I trusted you. Imagine the irony. You are Director of the SVR, reporting to the Americans, even as we influence events to place MAGNIT as DCIA.” He put down his glass and smoothed his hair. “Where does that leave us? What shall we do to resolve—”
Both women moved simultaneously, instinctively. Agnes lunged forward and hit Gorelikov extremely hard with a hammer fist on the side of the neck beneath the ear, overloading the vagus nerve, disrupting heart-rate and blood-pressure signals to the brain, and causing him to wobble and go down on one knee. Without thinking, Dominika circled behind him, and with nothing else at hand, unclasped the president’s South Sea pearls and wound the strand around Anton’s neck in the counterclockwise Sicilian garrotter’s loop, which puts the hands behind the target pushing crosswise—exerting a more powerful constriction than pulling the hands wide apart—a technique taught during Spetsnaz Systema training. Gorelikov started struggling, fell back to the floor, reaching behind his head, scrabbling for Dominika’s eyes, until Agnes flung herself at him, held his wrists, then lay across Gorelikov’s legs so he couldn’t kick. He was thin and light and Agnes controlled him easily. Through his increasingly constricted throat he repeatedly rasped, “Don’t!”
Dominika expected the necklace strand to break, scattering the priceless pearls across the terrazzo, but whatever had been used to string them together must have been unbreakable, wire or monofilament rather than the traditional silk thread, and her vision tunneled as she went a little crazy, leaned back, put her knee behind his neck, and kept applying torque. At least the big pearls were easy to grasp, and the frail Gorelikov was not exceptionally strong. As she strangled him, she heard herself whispering to Anton that Russia was not the Kremlin’s private preserve, that the Rodina belonged to the Russians, not the jackals who fed on the carcass, which struck her as sounding like an early manifesto of Lenin’s, but she was out of her mind with panicked bloodlust. She didn’t know if he heard her over his air-starved grunts. As she whispered to him, Agnes looked at her openmouthed.
Agnes held Anton’s wrists and rode out the last paroxysm of his thrashing legs, and he was still, but they didn’t move for another five minutes, tense. They knew he was gone when his trousers showed wet and a pool of urine spread on the floor under him. Agnes was soaked too, but didn’t say a word as she got to her feet, with wild hair. They both looked at Gorelikov, both panting like murderous ancient queens, Clytemnestra and Electra contemplating crimson bathwater. Dominika saw that Agnes’s halo was bleached and faded. Anton’s corpse was wet from waist to knee, his eyes were open, his neck was bruised purple, and his halo was gone. Interesting. Dominika wondered if she eventually would feel remorse—Gorelikov had, after all, befriended and supported her in the Kremlin—for she felt none now. The elegant boulevardier would have had her executed without hesitation.
Dominika fastened the still-warm pearls back around her neck; they were heavy and slick against her skin. They’d never feel the same again, and she’d always have to contend with Anton’s ghost when she wore them. “Are you ready to take a cruise with Monsieur CHALICE?” she asked Agnes. “He’s decided to defect.”
* * *
* * *
“You’re going to put me in that canoe with Putin’s closest adviser, and strap me in with him to bounce around for thirty minutes?” said Agnes.
“With the president’s closest dead adviser,” said Dominika. “His disappearance will prove he was the mole, a devastating scandal for the Kremlin and for the president personally.”
“Gorelikov becomes CHALICE? The most-trusted man in Putin’s Russia turns out to be the mole who defects? They’ll never believe it,” said Agnes.
“Posle dozhdika v chetverg, we’ll see after the rain on Thursday; we have no idea what will happen. It’s the only evidence they’ll have, and you’ll be gone too, the second CIA operative we all missed when we obsessed over Nate,” said Dominika. “Final confirmation of Gorelikov as the mole will come when Benford arrests MAGNIT.” She ran upstairs to whip the used sheet off the bed and raced back down to the living room to swaddle Gorelikov in the sheet, a burial shroud smelling of Putin’s cologne.
“How are we going to carry him down that steep path to the beach?” said Agnes.
“We each grab one end and drag him down,” said Dominika, gathering one end of the sheet and lifting.
“This is insane.”
“Insane? Now is the time for vera, for faith, and unshakable resolve, which I suspect you know very well.”
Agnes nodded. “Wiernosc in Polish.”
Dominika nodded. “Take his wristwatch off. It’s one of those fancy Swiss models, worth thousands. Keep it, it’s yours, compliments of the Kremlin. Consider it reimbursement for this crazy mission. They never should have sent you. It was an insane risk.”
“Nate came to rescue you and I came to help Nate,” said Agnes. “So I suppose all of us have lost.”
“We have not lost,” said Dominika. “But now it’s time to end this. This is defeat for Them. They sleep in their beds just up the hill, in the main house, while we will be swallowing seawater for Gable, for a white-haired general and two young Sparrows who gave their lives.” She looked at her watch. “We’ve got twenty minutes before the boat is due, and Anton takes his last Black Sea pleasure cruise. Grab the sheet and help me lift him.”
MOUSSELINE SAUCE
Make the sabayon by gently whisking cold water slowly into egg yolks, until triple in volume. Whisk sabayon, slowly adding warm clarified butter until sauce is smooth and glossy. Incorporate lemon juice, salt, and cayenne and continue stirring. Gently fold in whipped cream that has been whisked into firm peaks. Serve immediately.
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