As it turned out, they did, and he was. After a month of burst communications heating up Russian SIGINT antennas in Turkey, followed by the shootouts, the Kremlin had enough. Colonel Egorova traveled unannounced to Istanbul to observe the situation in the consulate, accompanied by two FSB heavies collegially lent by FSB Chief Bortnikov, who expected Egorova would discredit Shlykov and prove to the president that the Security Council members who opposed the rash OBVAL operation had been correct.
Intermittent rain squalls blown in from the Sea of Marmara were slashing across the runway when Dominika’s Aeroflot flight from Moscow arrived at Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport. As the plane taxied to the gate, the rain pattering against the smudged windows, she could feel the thready pulse under her jaw; she was about to initiate a konspiratsia against a dangerous adversary and, she presumed, his Spetsnaz bullmastiff, though Blokhin had not been seen in the city at all. She was in a foreign country now and the Turks were shrewd and aggressive. This was hostile territory, and she was here to conduct a mock counterintelligence investigation, the result of which had to be the arrest of Valeriy Shlykov for treason. She had a delicate role to play; a too-facile conclusion to her investigation might raise suspicions. She would have to “discover” the evidence against this ambitious officer plausibly and convincingly. The role-playing starts now, she thought as the plane jerked to a stop.
As she entered the modern arrivals hall with its soaring vaulted ceiling, the burnt-nut aroma of Turkish coffee in the air enveloped her, and reminded her she was now in the mysterious Orient, among the small dark men who watched all yabanci, foreigners, with distrust and uncertainty. She walked past a small take-out cantina, the steam table laden with appetizers—roasted peppers and garlic, flat k?fte sprinkled with sumac, a tray of kabak graten, golden zucchini gratin. Past Customs, two nervous officers from the Russian Consulate rushed up to greet her, bobbing their heads. An SVR colonel was an important visitor. Chin up, Dominika walked with them to the waiting car, saying nothing.
Istanbul was this morning a mass of blocked roads, snarled traffic, and emergency vehicles. The police action of last night had resulted in the capture of lethal munitions of Russian manufacture. Endless television news reported the killing of scores of PKK separatists in as many firefights. The Grand National Assembly met in emergency session. The TNP put the captured land mines and rocket tubes on display. In the Russian Consulate, an apoplectic Valeriy Shlykov cursed. He suspected perfidy and betrayal from some quarter. As Shlykov raved, the junior officers in the rezidentura cowered, clueless. This ambitious GRU major had lorded it over everyone, and had not briefed them on the covert action, to ensure compartmentation and security, but really so he could hog the credit.
Gorelikov regrets I have to make this trip, thought Dominika, but I do not. Apart from their compromising Shlykov, the Istanbul trip would, of course, be an opportunity to meet her CIA handlers, their first contact since New York. She had been passed the address of an Istanbul yali, an elegant three-story wooden Turkish Baroque mansion in Anadolu Kavagi, a resort town on the Asian side of the Bosphorus, designated CIA safe house AMARANTH. The mansion had been rented by a real estate firm in Beverly Hills ostensibly for peripatetic senior Hollywood studio executive Blanche Goldberg, who used the house twice a year to meet mesmeric French film star Yves Berléand, with whom she’d had an on-again, off-again love affair for three years and counting (you never knew with a French lover). Blanche was only vaguely witting that the house was paid for by CIA—she didn’t ask the reason—but made her contribution to the love-nest cover-for-status by keeping a bedroom armoire full of expensive Beverly Hills lingerie and toiletries, including a bottle of Swiss Navy Lube in the elegant master bathroom medicine cabinet.
In Moscow, Dominika had been passed descriptions of the CIA moves to discredit Shlykov via thumb drives placed at a timed-drop site in the bushy verge against the ornamental wall of the Zhivonachalnoy Troitsy Temple on Kosygina Ulitsa on the southern border of Vorobyovy Gory (Sparrow Hills Park) on the Luzhniki bend of the Moskva River. Benford himself had included the key information regarding what Dominika should look for in Shlykov’s apartment: chemically treated brochures, suitcase lining with crimped flashing, chessboard.
The result was that Dominika was aware of every nuance of the CIA sting, and could direct her investigation unerringly to the evidence, to the astonished admiration of her FSB wingmen. She noted that suspicious Western foreigners were sitting across from Shlykov at lunch (were they signaling him?). The FSB boys followed them and they turned out to be US Consulate employees, presumed CIA. She spotted a thumbtack signal in a tree near Shlykov’s apartment that was pushed in too low to affix a poster. A horizontal chalk mark that was noted on a wall outside Shlykov’s apartment building on one day had a fresh vertical cross stroke two days later. And the electronic burst messages continued. Things were looking decidedly worse for Major Shlykov.
* * *
* * *
At no time did Shlykov mentally connect the massive operational flap culminating in running police shootouts at twenty locations in the city with any singular, personal failure in tradecraft, comsec, or planning. He was rarely burdened by introspection. Now this ridiculous Egorova had arrived to conduct a preposterous investigation on some nonsense about transmissions, and the timing ensured she would be here to witness his humiliation. He had been ordered to remain in Istanbul until the postmortem of OBVAL was complete.
The interview with a scowling Shlykov seated at a table in the rezidentura secure room developed nicely: Valeriy reacted angrily when asked about the mysterious transmissions, claimed not to know any Americans in town, and dismissed as ridiculous the existence of clandestine signals near his apartment. The FSB officers present looked at one another skeptically. Things got more interesting when Shlykov flatly refused to let the FSB “donkeys” search his apartment. The yellow halo around his head, bleached by rage and pulsing with fright, told Dominika a lot. His fear of career disintegration was eclipsed by his bol’shoe samomnenie, his self-importance, and his outrage at being challenged and questioned, especially by a woman. He’ll hang himself with that ego, Dominika thought. This would be easier than she expected.
“This is an uncomfortable situation for us all,” said Dominika equably. “I personally regret the need to interview a fellow colleague from the GRU.”
“Then fly back to Moscow and leave me to my work,” said Shlykov. “I have critical operational tasks, which you should realize take precedence.” He glared at Dominika with the disdain of privileged Soviet Golden Youth.
“Yes, well, the police shootouts in this city with your terrorist protégés seem to suggest that your critical operational tasks have not been totally successful; in fact, they were unrelievedly disastrous,” said Dominika. “They almost certainly may yet prove to be damaging to the Russian Federation and embarrassing to the president.” In the silence that followed, every Russian in that interview room knew that damaging the country was by far the lesser delinquency.
“I’ll attend to the operations,” said Shlykov, seething. He decided to add a towering insult. “Why don’t you concentrate on what you do best: filming yourself seducing men?”
“I suggest you take a less defiant line,” said Dominika. “It is unfortunate.” The FSB men heard something in her voice that made them shift in their seats. Shlykov seemed not to register the danger.
“There are anomalies that correspond to your movements,” said Dominika. “I trust they will amount to nothing, but I am here to confirm that there are no counterintelligence issues.”
“Do you think I’m working for the Americans?” Shlykov shouted. “You’re ridiculous, Po’shyol ’na hui, fuck off.” He stood and loomed over Dominika.