The Kremlin's Candidate: A Novel полностью

About the time Major Shlykov arrived in town to supervise his covert-action arms shipments, the CIA Base in Istanbul had begun transmitting covert-agent electronic-burst messages into the Russian Consulate. Every day for a week, base officers, stiff wires running beneath their jackets and warm battery packs in spandex holsters under their skirts, walked among the shopping crowds on Istiklal Caddesi and past the consulate gate topped with the double-headed eagle of the Russian Federation. They fired three-second, five-watt burst transmissions into the building. The energy bounced invisibly up the ornate marble staircases, ricocheted through the hallways, and rose like clear smoke up to the attic receivers; the consulate was awash in low-powered signals. They were encrypted gibberish, but the signals themselves were detectable and dutifully recorded by Russian SIGINT (signals intelligence) officers who endlessly monitored frequencies across the spectrum. A report was sent to FAO/RF, the Moscow SIGINT headquarters, immediately. The mysterious daily transmissions continued on a regular basis.

A week later, when phone intercepts flagged that Shlykov was traveling from Istanbul to Ankara to confer with the senior rezident, the burst transmissions in Istanbul ceased, and commenced in Ankara. CIA Station officers twice a day drove past the Russian Embassy on Cinnah Caddesi, pushed the recessed buttons, and volleyed the encrypted energy over the embassy fence, through the granite walls, into the elegant Baroque sitting rooms, and out the back of the building to the withered formal gardens behind the embassy. This had not happened before. The astonished Russian SIGINT officers in Ankara also reported their readings to FAO/RF. These reports in turn were sent to the FSB. As a potential counterintelligence matter, neither Shlykov in GRU nor SVR headquarters was privy to the SIGINT reports, nor were they aware that a secret FSB file had been opened on “unidentified encrypted electronic messaging activity in Istanbul.” Signals of this sort were sophisticated and clandestine, and clearly suggested that someone in the Russian diplomatic contingent in Turkey was the recipient. The genetic, reflexive Kremlin assumption that there was a traitor in their midst—a cultural paranoia first introduced by the tsars, nurtured by the Bolsheviks, refined by the Soviets, and perfected by Putin—smoldered in Moscow.

Shlykov returned to Istanbul, and the transmissions ceased in Ankara and again followed him. And when he traveled to Moscow, for consultations regarding his covert-action operation, the transmissions stopped altogether, only to start up again on his return to Turkey, when he touched down at Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport. The SIGINT log of these encrypted signals grew and the FSB counterintelligence file got fatter. It was not long until signals analysis matched the transmissions with Shlykov’s movements.

This delighted Gorelikov, whose refined, gracious exterior concealed an inexhaustible capacity for subterfuge and plotting. When Dominika had quietly brought home news of the murder of her North Korean asset, Gorelikov had listened implacably to Shlykov’s dismissive explanation that the North Koreans almost certainly had detected Ri’s treachery through some tradecraft error of Egorova’s and had eliminated the scientist themselves. And as for the missing Sparrow, either the North Koreans had dealt with her, or she had run off with a ski instructor from the Tyrol. Gorelikov later listened to the recording of Blokhin’s voice in the cottage, and had, incongruously, smiled. Additional evidence to hang this GRU apostate, but never a thought for Ioana, Dominika bitterly noted.

Gorelikov took Dominika aside and for a day briefed her on the developments in Istanbul. Shlykov’s operation had imploded, the munitions had been captured, the Turks were apoplectic, and Russia would be embarrassed on the international stage. The president no longer numbered Valeriy Shlykov as one of his favorites. They began choreographing a discreet counterintelligence investigation—SVR would have the lead role in the foreign field—meticulously led by a dutiful Colonel Egorova. “It’s a shame you have to fly all the way to Istanbul; the findings of the investigation are already drafted,” said Gorelikov. “Shlykov is responsible for the OBVAL disaster, for which he must answer, but it is now more serious. He is suspected of espionage. But there it is, appearances matter, and you must play the part.” But then came the sly question Benford had warned her about. “What do you think is going on in Istanbul with these transmissions? Did the Americans suspect something? Why did they focus on Shlykov?”