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.
Walk south on Neglinnaya, stair-step west, use the empty high-end walking street Stoleshnikov, luxury stores dark, surveillance would shy away from this funnel, this choke point, so look for the squealing, leapfrogging units hurrying to get ahead, negative, turn north on Bolshaya Dmitrova, cross street for a snap look, parked car with sidelights on, negative, past Muzykalnyy Teatr, its bas-relief columns illuminated, woman with shopping bag, second hit, but she’s hurrying home, disregard, and cut through Petrovskiye Vorota, leafy walking path lined with empty weekend market stalls, no flanker silhouettes under the trees, get to the little car parked under the sooty overhang of the Rossiya Theatre, no stakeout units, no finger smudges around the door locks, get in, pause, smell the car for the lingering reek of an entry team, proceed, check the trapped glove box, tape still in place, pull out in traffic, ignore horns, look for trailing units reacting, swerving to keep up, keep windows down, hear the street, feel the street, north out of town on Tverskaya, change lanes, watch for reaction, keep speed slow, lull coverage, no turn signal, merge onto the M10, gradually increase speed, traffic sluggish, articulated trucks belching smoke, headlights slotting behind? Negative, Sokol District coming up, pay attention, take split onto Volokolamskoye Shosse, lighter traffic, goose it, watch for reaction, negative, nearing timing point, black ribbon of Mosky Canal, check time, Svoboda overpass coming up, reach into the oversized purse on the passenger seat, feel for the button under the fabric, light rail overpass for number six tram coming up, check mirror, clear, now, two-second, low-power burst, 1.5 watts waking up the SRAC receiver buried six inches under the grassy rail embankment under the catenary lines, yellow light inside the purse winking green, electronic handshake, message received, message to Nathaniel, secrets in the night, moles in our midst, ICBMs and warheads, now the roar of the tunnel underpass, check mirror, drifting, steer straight, don’t jackrabbit away, looping ramp to the elevated E105 ring road, traffic faster now, your six is still clear, past sleeping towns, Strogino, and past Myakinino, and past Druzhba, the Rodina dark, Mother Russia in shadow, her countrymen snug in their homes, believing only what their blue-eyed tsar told them to believe, eating only what the tsar fed them, hoping only for what the tsar let them hope for, fatigue now from gripping the steering wheel for so long, watch for the exit, west on Rublevskoye, take it slow, left, right, left, natural reverses in the triangle formed by Rublevskoye, Yartsevskaya, and Molodogvardeyskaya, look for swirling coverage, negative, cross Rublevskoye and east on Kastanaevskaya, her building, Number nine, dark windows, half-covered by ivy, bulb burned out over the entrance, dim staircase, she’d have to finger the key into the lock of her apartment door.
She rested her forehead against the steering wheel. Kastanaevskaya at this early-morning hour was completely lined with parked cars, both sides of the street. Cursing, Dominika had to cruise several blocks west before she found an empty spot near an all-night Almi pharmacy, its green neon sign coloring nearby trees and the scrawny grass verge in front, its front door reinforced with bars and opened remotely by the duty clerk. Trash paper swirled in the empty lot. Dominika locked her car door and started walking on the darkened sidewalk toward her building. The neighborhood was deathly silent. She clutched the oversized tote with the stiff bottom that was the concealment for her SRAC unit, antenna wires and transmit button sewn into the leather, standby and receive LED lights concealed as interior compartment snaps.
Once home, she would fit a thin lead into a port inside the bag to download the incoming message from CIA: intelligence requirements, or personal meeting skeds (schedules), or occasionally the rare operational requirement. Since her recruitment five years ago, she had met her CIA handlers overseas—sparingly and cover permitting—to participate in a recruitment, or in a false-flag approach, or in a debriefing, all of them glorious, heady trips to meet her secret CIA colleagues, including Nate, with whom she was still furious, but missed terribly. What message awaited her? Last week’s message had mentioned Istanbul, and Dominika anticipated new instructions.
She thought about Nate as she walked. Bozhe, God, loving him was against all the rules of tradecraft, but Dominika wouldn’t stop, and Nate couldn’t stop. She had told them she was committed, that she was not spying against Russia but for Russia to flush out the Kremlin sewage farm, and send them all back to their filthy little beginnings. So, if she was CIA’s irreplaceable agent, valued beyond all measure, and she wanted to love Nate, they should shut up. Pravil’no? Right? She dreamed of kissing Nate again, in a taxi or an elevator, or pressed hard against a hotel-room door. His hands on her, and—
Dominika saw movement under the trees in front of the pharmacy, silhouettes coming up off the grass, one, two, three, like demons emerging from the underground. They began moving through the trees, parallel to the sidewalk, heads turned toward her. Dominika’s first thought was that somehow the internal security service, the FSB, the spy catchers, had discovered her, knew she was spying for CIA, and had intercepted tonight’s burst transmission to the Americans on Volokolamskoye Shosse. Impossible. How? A mole in Washington? A breach of security in Moscow Station? A cracked cipher? However they did it, all the evidence they needed to bury her was sewn into the oversized purse hanging on her shoulder. Could she resist, somehow get away? How many of them would swarm out of the night and overwhelm her? She’d soon find out. Beside her hands and feet, the only weapon in her purse was a key ring. Keeping an eye on the silhouettes, Dominika laced keys between three fingers of her right hand.
Dominika had been trained—and kept up a weekly sparring session—in Systema Rukopashnogo Boya, the hand-to-hand combat system used by Spetsnaz, the ferocious Russian Special Forces. Systema was an amalgam of classic martial arts, ballistic hand strikes, management of an attacker’s momentum, and devastating strikes against the six core body levers. She had killed, with desperate luck, trained assassins in hand-to-hand encounters. But she knew that in combat, one slip, one missed block, or sustaining a crippling strike would be the end.
The three silhouettes stepped into the light, and Dominika breathed a sigh of relief. Gopniki. Not an FSB arrest team. A gopnik was a male street tough—head shaved, gap-toothed, perpetually slurry eyed and red faced on cans of Jaguar alcoholic energy drink. Invariably dressed in Adidas tracksuits, pointed-toe leather tapochki, and gondonka flat caps, they infested suburban Moscow street corners, bus stops, and city parks, sleeping, drinking, puking, pissing, and mugging passersby. Their byword was bychit, to behave like a bull. They would want her purse, and would bludgeon her to death to get it. She would be just as compromised if these reeking deadheads dragged the purse off her shoulder and found the concealed SRAC burst transmitter as she would if FSB had.
The three were whip-thin and malnourished, but Dominika knew they would be quick and able to absorb punishment. It would be critical to keep them off her. She would trap the lead attacker with a joint hold, and drag him in circles to keep him in front of the other two. She would use the keys to rake their eyes, then sweep their legs with her foot and stomp a high heel into their throats or temples. That was the plan, at least.
“Suka, bitch, give me your purse,” said Number One, stepping toward her, front right. They were indistinguishable from one another, simply incoming threats. Their yellow halos mingled, and matched the color of their crooked teeth.