The Kremlin's Candidate: A Novel полностью

Dominika shrugged. “They will not connect me with her eventual arrest, not if you catch her months later by using spy dust. Of course, the Kremlin will be annoyed, but the Center will rationalize that twenty years as an illegal in the United States exceeds all expectations of survival,” said Dominika. “I know the Russian mind; they will be looking for someone to blame, but if we do this right, Line S will never divine how she was identified, nor will they appreciate the irony that metka was used against them, after all these years. SUSAN will naturally follow orders and destroy the phone, leaving no evidence but her invisibly contaminated hands.”

“Not bad. I’ll run it by Benford.” He picked up his phone, pushed a speed dial, and Westfall appeared in the bar two minutes later, gulping as he shook Dominika’s hand again, mumbling like an embarrassed butler. Dominika got up and gave Westfall a chaste hug of greeting, with the result that he turned vermillion. Gable repeated a summary of Dominika’s plan to him, told him to call Benford on the secure line and get working on it. They had two days to cook up their own batch of metka. Lucius bowed that he understood.

Gable shook his head at Westfall’s awkwardness. “You gonna click your heels like a Prussian?”

Dominika dug her elbow into Gable’s ribs. “Leave him alone,” she said. “Lucius, do you understand the plan?” Lucius nodded.

“We do this right, Domi’s in the clear, and sugar britches glows in the dark until Christmas,” said Gable.

“What is this sugar britches?” said Dominika.

“Skip it, figure of speech.”

“I am sure,” said Dominika, looking sideways at him. “Westfall, do you know what it means?” Westfall gulped, shook his head, and left, saying he’d call Benford right now. Dominika felt even sorrier for him than before.

“Okay. So the FEEBS check after hours the offices of the leading literary magazines in Manhattan—how many of them can there be—and see whose spaces glow under a black light,” said Gable.

Dominika held up a cautionary finger. “There is some need for attention with metka. The KGB had difficulty with overcontamination. In a week, SUSAN will shake many hands, distribute memos, and conduct business lunches in restaurants. In several months, everyone in publishing in New York will be covered in the stuff, not to mention half the talent agents in the United States.”

“No one’s gonna worry about them,” said Gable, finishing his beer.

Iosip Blokhin was walking down Hudson Street in Chelsea, head pointed down, fixated on the sidewalk, bulling forward without apparent regard for other pedestrians, lampposts, or garbage cans. He did not care about the incongruity of wearing a massive pair of wraparound fisherman’s sunglasses at ten o’clock in the evening, and he ignored the occasional stares from amused passersby. He looked like a sightless wrestler without the tapping white cane. The glasses were in fact developed by Line T to detect faint residual traces of nuclear isotopes in order to track a target at undetectable long ranges. Blokhin was tracking Dominika, on the secret express orders of Major Shlykov, and unbeknownst to Anton Gorelikov. Shlykov had instructed Blokhin to begin tailing “Miss SVR tits,” after her Staten Island meeting (even Shlykov would not meddle with that) but continuously thereafter until they departed New York. Shlykov wanted Blokhin to ensure that the SVR would not steal the MAGNIT case, and that Dominika was not meeting with officers from the New York rezidentura preparatory to claiming primacy, or engaging in any number of bureaucratic maneuvers to usurp the case. Shlykov stipulated to Blokhin that Egorova was not to know about the surveillance—he would not risk the wrath of Gorelikov—so coverage was to be invisible.

“She’s supposed to be good on the street, so let her go if you can’t cover her discreetly,” Shlykov had told Blokhin. “Do not let her see you.”

The Spetsnaz gorilla picked his teeth. “What if I see her doing something interesting?” he said quietly.

Shlykov had looked at the scarred forehead. “Like what?” he said.

“Like meeting someone I don’t recognize,” said Blokhin.

Shlykov looked him in the eyes. “It could be an officer from the rezidentura.”

“Perhaps. But if it’s not someone I know, it could be a double deal. Maybe even on Gorelikov’s orders.”

“What are you saying?” said Shlykov.

Blokhin looked at his hands. “Egorova is not yet Director of SVR, and she is already causing problems. When they give her a star she’ll be untouchable.”

Shlykov turned away from Blokhin to shuffle some papers. “You already have one problem to eliminate.”

“Why leave a second one to fester?” asked Blokhin.

“Only if you are one hundred percent. No traces.”

“Chemu byt, tomu ne minovat,” said Blokhin, “things that were meant to be will happen, no matter what.”