At Dominika’s thought of Putin, the warming sun went behind a cloud and she felt a cold shiver. The cemetery was utterly still now, no birds, no traffic noise, as if the spirits knew what was happening. The grass around the gravestones stirred; she heard whispers around her, or was that the breeze? But there was no breeze. Get a hold of yourself, she thought as she walked, keep your head, meet this bitch, and let’s complicate Vladimir Putin’s life. Dominika kept left, and followed the footpath into a dark forested section with very little sunlight. It smelled cold here, and she pushed her sunglasses onto the top of her head. Her hand drifted into her purse and around the shaft of the tactical steel pen in the side pocket. She looked left and right into the trees, her Russian imagination conjuring up wolves weaving through the coppice, keeping pace with her.
She rounded a bend in the path and saw the massive wrought-iron lych-gate, the entrance to the private cemetery grounds of the Vanderbilt family. The gate was secured with a heavy-duty chain, but Dominika followed the boundary wall ten meters to the right, and was able to hitch up her dress and boost herself over. The path curved left, and the woods opened up to a grassy clearing ringed by a low-curved curb. The white-stone mausoleum at one end dominated the space. It resembled the front of a Romanesque church, with three arched doors, a tall central gable, and two conical cupolas on the roof. The crypt itself extended from the ornate façade into the earthen hill behind.
It was deathly quiet, the sun behind the clouds. Dominika stood still and watched the woods, listened to the air around her. There would have been no way for Gable to set up on this spot without spooking SUSAN. The veteran illegal knew what she was doing picking this site. Dominika checked her watch; it was time. She walked up the five curving steps to the entrance, and pushed on the central steel door with matching ornate handles. Dominika knew the crypt doors normally would be locked and probably chained, but mechanical locks posed no problems, ever. The door swung in easily, soundlessly, and a fetid breath of cold stone hit her, a coffin smell, a whiff of endless time. The dim vaulted room was flanked by wall crypts with stone coffins, and a massive tomb with a curved top and adorned with intricate carved decorations—presumably the sarcophagus of the paterfamilias—dominated the center of the chamber.
“Dobriy den tovarishch, good afternoon, comrade,” said a silky voice in Russian. Dominika willed herself not to jump. Gripping the fighting spike in her purse, she turned slowly toward the voice and saw a dark silhouette in the corner of the crypt, completely in shadow. No halo was visible in this darkness. The only illumination came from the milky bar of light through the cracked central door, keeping most of the room in darkness. “You are precisely on time, but that is to be expected from the famous Colonel Egorova.” Moscow accent, educated, but originally from the south, with a trace of yakanye, the broad vowels of the lower Volga, thought Dominika.
“Good afternoon. I am glad we could meet,” said Dominika, holding out her hand. Will you come closer to shake? The woman didn’t move, and Dominika lowered her hand.
“How much time do you have? I presume we both have to return to Manhattan tonight,” said Dominika. She had a mild goal of getting the woman to talk a little, to see what she could learn. But carefully. “This Staten Island is a strange place.” The silhouette shrugged.
“It is remote, quiet, and parochial. I find it well suited for operations,” she said. Okay, you operate here. Interesting.
“I would find all of New York operationally challenging,” said Dominika.
“One becomes accustomed to the rhythms of the city,” said the woman, vaguely. She isn’t going to volunteer anything. She’s too smart.
“I imagine you do,” said Dominika, now talking a little shop between professionals. “But in my assignments I have had to contend with active, hostile opposition on the street. As a civilian you, of course, have greater latitude to operate than does a diplomat officer in the rezidentura.” The silhouette shifted slightly.
“I suppose so. The magazine industry has provided effective cover over the years,” said SUSAN. “It fortuitously is dominated by savvy and aggressive women—our timorous male counterparts are less dynamic. Still, there are disadvantages: dealing with writers can be a trial, you have no idea.” This is going nowhere. Back to business.
“I have the devices—one each for you and MAGNIT—which will provide secure voice communications. If you need to meet personally, you are to coordinate with Line S. I imagine there are ample discreet sites, equidistant from New York and Washington,” said Dominika. She slid the zippered pouch with the EKHO phones across the dusty curved lid of Commodore Vanderbilt’s sarcophagus, half expecting to hear him complain from inside about being disturbed in his sleep, by Russians no less.
“MAGNIT has less latitude for travel than I,” said SUSAN. “And Washington is an easier counterintelligence environment, even within the city.” Okay, you meet in Washington, in the city. Benford will be glad to learn that.
“Is there anything else I can do for you?” asked Dominika. “Is there anything you or the asset requires?” A long shot—what couldn’t MAGNIT obtain in the United States that SVR could? Gold bullion? Blood diamonds? Polonium? No more questions. Maybe walk out into the sunlight with her? A glimpse of her halo?
“Spasibo, there is nothing I require,” said SUSAN, condescension edging into her voice. Then Dominika saw the smear of dust on the sarcophagus lid where she had slid the zippered pouch, and her thoughts raced.
“Then I have a requirement for you,” said Dominika sternly, holding her breath, hoping this would work. “I was given a third encrypted mobile phone for contingency use, including for contacting you. I would not like to carry it back to Moscow through airport security. I will pass it to you to dispose of securely the night before I return home. I, of course, could myself throw it into the river, but that kind of haphazard destruction has proven to be disastrous in past cases—equipment has been recovered by the opposition. You must melt the chip, break apart the handset, and disperse the pieces widely so they will not be associated with each other. Passing the phone to you would not require another personal meeting—I will emplace it at a timed drop of your choosing.”
“There are a million places in the city where you can dispose of a phone,” said SUSAN, pettishly. She’d been on her own for twenty years, met by servile Line N handlers who never questioned her. Dominika put some menace into her voice, the vocal grit all Russians recognize as looming trouble.
“Your long record of service in America—how many years has it been?—undoubtedly has given you encyclopedic knowledge of the city, which is precisely why I am enlisting your assistance. Given that your own contact numbers are on the instrument, it moreover is an operational requirement that we do this,” said Dominika, flatly. The shadow of the woman stirred, clearly nettled at being told what to do. But all illegals, especially the longtime ones, feared one thing even more than exposure and capture: recall to Moscow, the end of this cushy existence, the end of comfort and abundance, to be cast down again into the pit of Russian sloth, and bureaucracy, and depravation, with a headquarters desk, a dingy apartment, and perhaps a subcompact car, with a medal to wear at ceremonies, the end of foreign assignments, and even of personal foreign travel. Forever. And this blue-eyed chief of CI just made reference to SUSAN’s many years in America, and could conceivably make trouble over a stupid regulation. She sullenly gave Dominika the address of a dead drop in Manhattan along with a description. Okay, a way to identify our silky-voiced friend.