“Where is this thing supposed to take me?”
“At fifty knots you’ll be twenty miles offshore at the pickup point with a gray hull in twenty-four minutes,” said Walters, proudly.
“Where you gentlemen will greet me aboard the navy ship, and we watch at the rail as we sail away and my Rodina sinks below the horizon forever,” said Dominika, dully. “And I will have effectively deserted my country.” Pissed-off agent. Walters couldn’t remember this precise situation coming up during role-playing exercises at the Farm.
He searched for the right words. “It’s an exfil plan, Colonel . . . I mean Dominika. In case of hot pursuit, to get you to safety.” She shook her head, finished with arguing, and handed Walters the thermos bottle. Walters wiped the thermos to get rid of DIVA’s prints.
“There are six single-spaced, double-sided printed sheets inside the shell. If you smash it to break—”
“—I know the thermos trick.” Walters smiled. “What more?”
“Please tell Gospodin Benford I will be in Vienna in ten days to meet with my North Korean. I will call to confirm my hotel, but we have used the K?nig von Ungarn, on Schulerstrasse, behind St. Stephen’s previously. Please tell him I believe Professor Ri will accept the introduction of an additional debriefer. We have done it before, with Mr. Nash impersonating a Russian officer, thanks to his Russian language. In this case, it would be easier, as our meetings are conducted in English. CIA can service your own North Korean requirements without risk.” Walters nodded.
“If you handle him in English, then any nuke analyst can—”
“—I would prefer the officer be Nathaniel Nash,” interrupted Dominika. “We have worked together for years and operate compatibly.” Walters thumbed DIVA’s request—demand—into his tablet, not knowing the phrase “operate compatibly” would result in knowing glances at Headquarters, for he was unaware of the forbidden relationship. The woman was something.
“I’ll pass the word,” said Ricky. Dominika’s face darkened, and her voice became low and serious.
“Also, please tell him that I can confirm that President Putin approved the assassination of dissident Daria Repina in New York City.”
“That created a panic in Washington,” said Walters. “It was all over the papers. Who did it?”
“Never mind his name. I know who is responsible, and I will deal with him,” said Dominika.
“I’ll tell them,” said Ricky. This Amazon is serious. Look at that face. “I suppose I should say, for the record, that you should not try any dangerous or risky action against the assassin. You’re too valuable and—”
“—and a frail woman?” said Dominika. Walters held up his hands in armistice. His tablet, a second-generation TALON device, was recording their conversation, standard procedure for restricted-handling cases. When they play it back, I should get a medal if I get through this meeting without DIVA punching me in the face.
“That’s not it at all,” said Ricky, thinking furiously for the correct word. “I just meant you’re too precious to us.” Precious. Fortuitous word.
DIVA’s face softened. “I do not mean to snap at you,” she said in apology, then became serious again. “Next item: I have written details of a GRU covert action in Turkey. They propose to supply weapons and explosives to Kurdish separatists in Istanbul. Despite objection from the intelligence services, President Putin last night approved the operation. I have included all the details.”
“So much intel. Your reports will go out tonight,” said Walters, stowing the thermos in his backpack.
“One last thing. Are you aware of the situation with someone called MAGNIT?” said Dominika. She knew Benford’s penchant for compartmentation, and did not want to say too much. Walters nodded.
“Simon Benford briefed me by secure phone when they tapped me to meet you. I know the general facts, as much as any of us knows.”
“I’ve reported all I have heard,” said Dominika, “but please emphasize to Benford that MAGNIT is being looked at for an unspecified job in the administration. The Kremlin is very excited. I still do not know MAGNIT’s identity.”
“This will create a storm in Headquarters,” said Ricky.
“It will create more than a storm if MAGNIT begins reading my intelligence reports in his new position, and begins feeding them to Moscow,” said Dominika. Ricky for the first time in his young career saw and appreciated the icy danger this woman—all agents—live with every day, and marveled at the courage required to keep operating.
He checked the elapsed-time counter on the tablet. “Fifteen minutes, I should get going,” he said, remembering a last item. “Mr. Benford wanted me to ask you for confirmation—when you can—on who was behind the death of our late Director Alex Larson. He’s obsessed with finding out.”
Dominika looked at her shoes. “Please tell Simon only the president could have given the order. I suspect Anton Gorelikov would be entrusted to design such a plan. I will confirm when I can.”
Walters nodded. “You’ll be talking to Nash in ten days.” Dominika could not shake his hand; she had heard that the FSB had absolutely stopped deploying metka when its use against Western diplomats became an embarrassing international story in the heady years of glastnost, but CIA continued the prophylactic protocol nonetheless. “You trust Putin wouldn’t ever start spritzing our asses again?” Gable had snorted. When they saw each other in Vienna, she would ask Nate about any results from using spy dust on SUSAN.
Her Nate. As mad as she had been at him in Athens, she missed him and yearned to see him.
She smiled at him. “You know your way back? Take care with the thermos. And thank you for the watch and glasses.”
Walters shrugged on his backpack. “Stay safe, Dominika,” he said. “I’ll come out anytime, anyplace, if you need me. I’ll be checking the signal sites every day.” He turned and disappeared around a bend in the streambed, stirring the ground fog as he moved. Let one of the seventeenth-century Tartar ghosts living in the mossy Golosov Ravine speed you safely home, Dominika thought.
* * *
* * *
Benford raved in his office, prompting Dotty, his secretary of eight years, to shake her head in warning at various CID officers who wished to speak with the Chief this morning. “Best not; perhaps this afternoon” was the whispered refrain.