The Kremlin's Candidate: A Novel

“We talked about this for two days,” said Dominika. “Why would I do that? It would be illogical. I told you this will help me politically. I’m more likely to receive the promotion that Putin—”

“—You won’t get the promotion if you’re in the cellars of Butyrka with a strap around your neck, all because of this obsession with revenge and this stupid jihad you’re waging against them all. You’re poised at the pinnacle. You’re too stubborn to realize that you can hurt them a hundredfold

by just being Director SVR and keeping a low profile.”

He felt her stiffen beside him. Dominika got out of bed, wrapped a cotton skirt around her naked body, and started stuffing her few belongings into a shoulder bag.

Nate recognized the flashing eyes and flared nostrils. “Where are you going? We’re leaving tomorrow morning,” he said.

“Jihad? Obsessed? Stupid?” shouted Dominika. “That is what you think of me, of what I am doing? Zhópa

, asshole. I’ll die for my country before I sit still and watch them rob us blind. Thank you for your predannost.”

“What are you talking about? I’m devoted to you more than anyone. I want you to survive.”

“By giving up and running? Poshël ty

, piss off! I’m catching the bus to town.” She jammed her feet into flats and slung her bag over her shoulder.

Nate got out of bed. “It’s pitch-black out there. You’ll walk off a ledge in the dark. Let me get a flashlight.”

“Ischézni, get lost,” she yelled and slammed the door and started crunching down the goat path in the dark. Nate threw on pants and flip-flops, grabbed a flashlight, and ran to catch her. She was crying silently as he held her arm and shined the light at their feet. She wouldn’t look at him as they stood in the dark under an olive tree waiting for the late 122 bus, which eventually wheezed around the bend in the road and pulled to a stop. As the doors swung open, Nate expected to see Gable driving and Benford sitting disapprovingly in the back row.

“Call when you arrive in Vienna,” said Nate as the doors hissed shut in his face. The bus ground out of sight toward Glyfada, where she would take a taxi to her embassy.

She’s changed in the last few years. Hotheaded and impossible. Uncontrollable as an agent, and sure to get caught soon. Some clandestine meeting. Some agent handling. Some Romeo. He could hear Gable already. “Congratulations, rookie, you just hit bottom and started digging.”

Langley. They were gathered in the small, chaotic conference room of Benford’s CID, Counterintelligence Division, the gray fabric-covered (and soundproof) walls of which were adorned with a row of framed photographs of previous Chiefs of CID in an unsettling chronological sequence, all the way around the room, like a ghoulish martyrs’ wall in a Christian catacomb. Photos from the sixties were sepia-toned, with forgotten Ivy Leaguers in thin ties (JFK years). Kodachrome photos from subsequent decades depicted CID chiefs with hipster sideburns and vapid smiles (Carter); expressions of guilty calculation (Nixon); and the thousand-yard stares of hemispheric liberators (Reagan). The final digital photos were of the modern generation of CID chiefs with expressions of mystified alarm (Clinton, Bush). At the end of the row hung the photograph of the most-recently retired CID director during the modern era, a chuff famous for his implacable conceit. The US flag in the room had with malice been moved partially in front of this photo, so only a single eye of the fomite peered around the fabric, rendering him even creepier in memory than he had been in person. There was no remaining wall space for any additional frames of future ex-chiefs, and rumors of commissioning a ceiling fresco depicting a cherubic, bare-assed Benford with a tiny bow and arrow were, up until now, unsubstantiated.