The Kremlin's Candidate: A Novel

Blokhin’s strange bass voice surprised everyone. “I’ll show you my field skills whenever you like,” he said. His vacant look was more alarming than had he been growling. The black wings folded back on each other.

Shlykov and Blokhin pushed back from the table, gathered their folders, and left the conference room. The metronome click of their heels faded, until they turned a corner in the gorgeous hallway.

Gorelikov heaved a deep sigh. “Dealing with that presmykayushchiysya, that reptile, is always tiresome,” said Gorelikov. “His grandfather was a hero in the Great Patriotic War, until Stalin purged—shot—him in 1949. His father was an army marshal in the seventies, and young Valeriy has done well in the GRU. He is ambitious, privileged, and unethical, so watch your back with him.”

“And MAGNIT?” asked Dominika casually.

“An immensely productive case with unimaginable promise,” said Gorelikov, who was not ready to reveal the agent’s identity to Egorova on the eve of her trip to New York. “The asset has risen through the bureaucracy and is now poised on the US national policy stage. If things develop the right way, the source will be handled by the illegals officer in New York and directed from the Kremlin as a Director’s case, despite our ill-mannered Shlykov’s wishes.” Okay for now. No more questions about the mole; you’ll have the name for Benford in a month.

“And would it be overstepping my bounds to ask why in heaven we are helping the North Korean nuclear program?” said Dominika.

“Because I want to disorient the Chinese, and flatter that little dumpling in Pyongyang,” said President Vladimir Putin, entering the conference room from a side door. The usual blue suit, white shirt, aquamarine tie, and darting blue eyes complemented the well-known phlegmatic expression somewhere between a grin and a leer. Putin came around the table with his characteristic rolling sailor’s gait, which an obsequious Kremlin biographer had recently described as a KGB-taught fighter’s stride, but Dominika suspected was just a short man’s waddle. Without speaking, he sat opposite her and rested his hands on the table. His blue aura—intelligence, guile, calculation—was like a kokoshnik

on his head, the traditional conical Russian headdress, half-tiara, and half-diadem.

“I would like you to meet the illegals officer in New York,” he said. Dominika had no doubt he had heard the conversation with Shlykov five minutes before.

The clairvoyant leader, the all-knowing tsar. “Yes, Mr. President.”

“I trust you to take the necessary precautions.”

“Of course, Mr. President,” said Dominika.

“Take Blokhin with you as support,” Putin said.

Gorelikov stirred. “Mr. President,” he said, “a Spetsnaz trooper is not exactly what the operational situation—”

“Take him along, nonetheless,” said Putin. “Keep the major happy until he begins his other project.” Gorelikov kept quiet.

“And when you return,” said Putin to Dominika, “I want to discuss new initiatives in the SVR with you. The recent favorable results of the activniye meropriyatiya, our active measures in the United States tells me we should expand our capabilities in this area.”

“I will look forward to it,” said Dominika. Putin’s face softened as his eyes settled for an instant on the tight buttons of her tailored blouse under her navy suit. I’ll kill Benford if he asks me to do what melon head is thinking right now

, she thought.

Dominika was used to men staring at her figure, and reveled in staring them down. But it was different with the leers of the president. They had a history of sorts. She shuddered as she remembered Putin’s late-night visit to her room years ago during the weekend at the palace outside Saint Petersburg. He wore red silk pajamas and walked in without knocking. Sitting upright in bed in her lacy nightgown, she had held the bedclothes up under her chin to cover herself, then remembered she had to captivate the tsar and lowered the sheet. She had dared to put her hand in his lap as he ran his fingers inside the full cups of her babydoll, to demonstrate her willingness, but her practiced (Sparrow) ministrations had, to her alarm, no immediate effect on him. The president had silently departed soon after, but the encounter hung over them, a preordained coupling sometime in the future, whenever the tsar would appear to claim his prize. And she would let him. She had to.

“Schastlivogo puti,” said the president. “Bon voyage.” He got up, nodded at Gorelikov, and exited by a separate side door that was opened by one of a score of werewolf aides who were always lurking. The door clicked shut, and Gorelikov sighed. Directing Putin’s one-man Sekretariat was a trial.

“I’ve ordered a light lunch,” he said. “Will you join me?”