Helsinki Affair

by Anna Pitoniak

Genres: Literary Fiction; Women's Fiction; Spy Thrillers

Synopsis

CIA agent Amanda Cole is thrust into an international conspiracy involving high-profile assassinations and Russian blackmail. It’s the case of her lifetime, but solving it might require her to betray another spy—who just so happens to be her father.

Amanda Cole is a brilliant young CIA agent, following in the footsteps of her father Charlie. But Amanda’s posting in Rome is a sleepy one. She’s listless and looking for action when, on a hot summer day, it walks right through her door. A lowly Russian operative is desperate, telling her that a US Senator is about to be assassinated on an overseas trip to Cairo. Amanda believes he’s telling the truth, but her superiors do not, and they determine that the best course of action is no action at all.

But when the assassination occurs, Amanda is suddenly thrust into an international conspiracy as she tries to find out why the senator was killed. What did he know that made him a target of the KGB and the Kremlin? Amanda pairs up with fast-talking, take-no-bullshit Kath, a brash older woman, and legendary spy, to get to the bottom of the case. The investigation takes them from Rome to London to Moscow to Helsinki.

As Amanda and Kath get closer to solving a case that involves double agents, blackmailed CEOs, illegal arms transfers, yachting oligarchs, and more, one question keeps coming back to haunt Amanda: why was her father’s name written down in the senator’s notes, notes that he seemed to be putting together right before he died? In order to get to the bottom of this international plot of blackmail, murder, and lies, Amanda must decide where her loyalty lies: with her country or with her family.

The Helsinki Affair is Pitoniak’s entrée into the genre of full-fledged spy fiction. This explosive novel is for fans of the masters of the genre—John Le Carre and Alan Furst—but will also introduce Pitoniak as a singular new talent in the world of female-centric spy fiction.

Release date: November 14, 2023

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Print pages: 368

Sample

Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE

It wasn’t exactly the sensible thing to do, standing outside in the hot noon sun in July in Rome. Semonov paced back and forth, mopping his brow, his handkerchief long since soaked with sweat. No, this wasn’t sensible. He ought to have done as the Romans did, escaping the summer heat by stopping at Giolitti for a cone of gelato, or napping in a shuttered bedroom, or fleeing the city altogether for the breezy hills of Umbria. But Konstantin Nikolaievich Semonov was not standing here, pleading to be admitted to the American embassy, insisting that he had urgent information to share, because he was an entirely sensible person.

In his air-conditioned booth, the soldier hung up the phone. “You need to make an appointment. No one can see you today,” he said.

“Sir!” Semonov exclaimed, leaning toward the pinprick holes in the glass. “You are a Marine. I am speaking to you as a fellow military man. I am an officer in my nation’s army. My nation which is Russia.” A needless emphasis, as ten minutes earlier he had slid his passport under the bulletproof glass barrier to identify himself. “You must understand. I have information that matters today. Not tomorrow, not next week.”

In fairness to the soldier, Semonov was a hard man to take seriously. His shirt buttons strained to contain his plump stomach. His pockets jingled with loose change. Behind his round glasses, his eyes were wide and guileless. But when the Marine hesitated for a moment, Semonov’s instinct, which was well-honed, told him to seize his opening.

“I am from Moscow.” Semonov lowered his voice. “I am here in Rome on holiday with my wife. It would not be possible for me to communicate this information while in Moscow. The nature of my work means that I am closely watched. Do you understand? The nature of my work has also exposed me to certain information that I believe your officials will value.”

“Even if that’s true,” the Marine said, “you still need to make an appointment.”

The Marine was no more than twenty-four or twenty-five years old. Crew cut, clean shave, trim as a sharpened pencil, a good soldier, a rule follower. To grant exceptions to the rules—to take pity, for instance, on a sweaty stranger with a thick accent—required the seasoning of age, which he didn’t have. And so Semonov realized, with some reluctance, that he would have to resort to blunter tactics.

Semonov stood up straight. A change passed over his features, like a shadow passing over the sun. Staring at the Marine, he said: “My information concerns Robert Vogel.”

The tiniest flinch in the young man’s brow as he registered the name.

“Senator Vogel’s flight is due to land in Cairo in one hour,” he continued calmly. “His life is in danger.”

As postings went, Rome was one of the sleepiest. It had its perks, of course. The glamorous garden parties at the Villa Taverna, where the American ambassador plied his guests with crystal flutes of prosecco. The wine-soaked weekends in the hill towns of Tuscany. The simple ability to walk safely home from the embassy without an armed escort. But Amanda Cole would have gladly given up any of those perks for the chance to do her job.

Her real job. The job she had trained for. Back in Washington, when she received news of this posting, her boss in the Directorate of Operations only shook his head, both sympathetic to and bemused by her obvious disappointment. “Enjoy it,” he’d said. “Try to make some memories, Cole. You’ll be glad to have them when you get to the next Third World bunker.”

Italian-style lunch breaks were another perk of the posting. On any given day, between the hours of noon and 3 p.m., most of her colleagues were nowhere to be found. They went home to eat and take a midday siesta, or they enjoyed a leisurely meal at one of the city’s finer restaurants, entertaining a source on the government’s dime. They had learned to take the work for what it was. If they were bored, at least they were bored in comfort.

On that hot July afternoon, Amanda Cole was halfway through her two-year posting as deputy station chief for the Central Intelligence Agency. She was forty years old—though everyone said she looked much younger—which meant that she’d been in this line of work for almost seventeen years. It was the only career she’d ever had, if you didn’t count her stints as bartender and dishwasher and au pair. After graduating high school, she had no interest in college. Beyond that surety, her sense of her future was painfully unclear, so she decided to travel the world, paying her way with a series of short-lived jobs. It wasn’t until she eventually came home and started at the agency that she learned to channel her restless curiosity to more productive ends. To succeed in the Clandestine Service required an appetite for the world’s chaos. Travel had whetted that appetite.

Her success, over time, had made her more disciplined. Amanda knew how to play the game. From the moment her flight landed at Fiumicino, not a single word of complaint had passed her lips. She nodded, smiled, acted the team player. And yet she wasn’t exactly one of the gang. The ambassador’s dinner parties, for instance. They tended to run late, but Amanda always left early. After she had slipped away, when her colleagues were deep into the Montepulciano, they sometimes speculated. Was she running something off-the-books? Was she trying to set an example? In any case, they agreed, among themselves, that there was something obnoxious about her workaholism.

Regardless of her reasoning, the fact was that Amanda was the only person there, in Rome station, to answer the phone on that summer afternoon, and to tell the young Marine not to admit this strange Russian man to the building. This was a problem for their embassies around the world. All kinds of people liked to bang on the gates and demand an audience. Ninety-nine percent of the time, they were utter kooks.

After hanging up, Amanda stared at her computer screen, trying to regain her concentration. She was in the midst of approving a spreadsheet of expense reports, which (no one ever warned you of this) comprised a significant portion of her work as deputy station chief.

The phone rang again. She picked it up and said, irritably: “You know, Sergeant, if you want to talk to me so badly, you can just ask me on a date.”

“He says he knows something about Senator Vogel,” the Marine said. “He has all the details about his trip to Egypt.”

“Bob Vogel?” Amanda sat up slightly. “What else did he say?”

“He said…” The soldier hesitated. Amanda could imagine the young man’s gaze flicking back to the visitor, wondering if repeating the words would make him sound like an idiot. “He said Senator Vogel’s life is in danger.”

She could have laughed at the melodrama of it. But when she glanced around, taking in the deserted station, the dull windowless chamber with its beige walls and gray carpet, with its lone fiddle-leaf fig plant yellowing in the corner, she found herself thinking, Anything is better than these spreadsheets.

“Fine,” she sighed. “Send him up.”

At least the conference room had a window and made for a change of scenery. Amanda slid a bottle of water across the table. Konstantin Nikolaievich Semonov took it gratefully and gulped it down. Amanda raised an eyebrow and said: “Would you like another?”

“Please,” he said. “It is very hot today.”

Despite the air-conditioning, Amanda noticed beads of sweat kept gathering on Semonov’s brow. She noticed too the wedding ring on his right hand, and the meticulous care with which his shirt had been patched and mended, and the gold watch on his wrist. She folded her hands atop the table. “So,” she began. “Mr. Semonov. I understand you have some information you’d like to share with us?”

“I apologize. My English isn’t very good,” he said.

“It sounds quite good to me. But if you’d rather continue in Russian, we’ll have to wait until one of my colleagues returns, because I don’t—”

“No,” he interrupted. “I am your guest, of course we will speak English. But I say this because I must have misunderstood. You work on economic affairs for the U.S. State Department?”

“That’s right. I’m an attaché in the economic section.”

“But my information does not concern economic affairs.”

“Well.” She smiled brightly. “It’s July in Italy, Mr. Semonov. The embassy is a little bare-bones at the moment.”

“I see.” After a long pause, staring at her, he said: “So you are Amanda Clarkson. Amanda Clarkson, the economic attaché.”

She could perceive, beneath his sweaty brow, a deeper perception. Something inside her twinged to attention. The detached part of her brain carefully registered it as another data point.

“That’s me!” she chirped.

“Very well.” Slowly, he nodded to himself. “Very well, Amanda Clarkson. Even if you are the economic attaché, I hope you can help me. I come to you today with information concerning Mr. Robert Vogel. He is a senator in your country, from the state of New York. A powerful man, I understand. An aging man, too. I have read reports that his health has been declining recently.”

Another twinge. “Yes,” she said. “I’ve heard that, too.”

“He is part of a delegation en route to Cairo. Yesterday evening, the delegation boarded a plane in Washington. In less than an hour, that plane is due to land. A military convoy of the Egyptian government will escort the Americans from the airport to the Four Seasons, where they are staying. Tonight, at six o’clock, the convoy will escort the Americans to the Heliopolis Palace, where they will be dining as guests of the president.”

He could have googled this, though, she told herself. It would only take a few minutes.

“The military convoy will accompany the American delegation for the duration of their three-day visit.” Semonov spoke with bureaucratic precision. “The Egyptian president is determined that their safety be absolute. He does not want his guests exposed to unstable elements. There will be one exception, though. Tomorrow morning, the delegation will be participating in a review of the Egyptian military. This is the primary purpose of the trip to Cairo. For the American visitors to assess the strength of their ally.”

She kept smiling, even as her pulse accelerated. Sure. Nothing unusual about this. Nothing weird about a Russian man walking in with detailed knowledge of the Senate intelligence committee’s movements.

“During this review the Americans will, of course, be surrounded by the military,” Semonov continued. “It will be the safest place in all Egypt. Therefore, there is no need for the convoy. The Americans will be free to move about, speaking to various generals, examining the artillery, interacting with soldiers. The review will begin at eleven a.m. At that hour, the temperature is typically thirty-seven or thirty-eight degrees centigrade. They will be assembled outdoors. There will be very little shade. The president has ordered that the review last no more than one hour. He is aware that several of his guests are older and may struggle in the heat. Unfortunately, his precaution will not be enough. Just before noon, Senator Robert Vogel will suffer a heat-induced stroke. He will be taken to the nearby hospital, where he will be pronounced dead.”

She swallowed. There was no mistaking this internal quiver. But now, right now, it was important not to spook him. “Okay.” Piano, piano, as a local might say. “Okay. Mr. Semonov. Let me begin with an obvious question. How can you know about a stroke before it happens?”

“I can’t. But there are certain chemicals that produce symptoms in the human body that appear very similar to those of a stroke. So similar that there is no reason to question the initial conclusion. Especially when the deceased is eighty-one years old and in frail health.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Semonov. What you’re describing sounds like an assassination.”

“Yes.”

“And how could you know about this assassination before it happens?”

“Because I work with the men who will carry out the assassination.”

“And where is that?”

He squeezed the water bottle in agitation, the thin plastic crackling in his hands. “You don’t believe me, do you?”

“It’s not a question of—”

“Then I should leave. I shouldn’t be here!”

He began to stand, but Amanda placed a hand on his arm to stop him. “Mr. Semonov,” she said. “I want to believe you. I want to take this seriously. But to do that, I’m going to need more information.” She paused. “You work with the men who will carry out the assassination. Where do you work?”

The tension in his forehead was visible. “I work for the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.”

“And which division, specifically?”

“The Main Intelligence Directorate,” he whispered. “The GRU.”

“Jesus Christ,” he said. “Cole, are you drunk?”

Osmond Brown stood behind his desk, hands planted on his hips, narrowing his eyes at Amanda Cole, who had followed him into his office as he returned from lunch. Amanda Cole, who was more than thirty years his junior. Amanda Cole, who worked for him, but who never seemed to remember that goddamn fact.

Amanda closed the door and gestured for him to sit down. There was something especially impertinent about this coming from her, what with her slight stature and the childish freckles across her nose. He almost snapped at her (this was his goddamn office, he would decide whether to sit down), but then he shut his mouth and sank into his chair. Over the past year, Osmond had discovered that it was difficult to raise his voice at Amanda. She never flinched, no matter how much he yelled, and this was strangely deflating.

“He’s telling the truth,” she said.

“And how on God’s green earth can you know a thing like that?”

“Because he’s scared. He’s terrified. It’s not the kind of thing you can fake.”

“Did you ever stop to consider,” Osmond said, in his Mississippi drawl, which often grew exaggerated after a glass or two of wine, “that maybe the man is so goddamn terrified because he’s being dangled as bait to the Americans?”

“They would never pick a man like him for a dangle.”

“Oh yes. My apologies, Ms. Cole. I seem to have forgotten you’re a mind reader, too.”

“If the Russians were trying to sell us on an agent,” she continued, ignoring Osmond’s sarcasm, as she always did, “they’d pick someone who looks the part. Someone with an obvious motive. Greed, preferably. Greed is always the most convincing.”

Osmond scowled. “Let me guess. Now you’re going to tell me that your new friend doesn’t have a greedy bone in his body.”

She held up her wrist. “His watch. He’s wearing a TAG Heuer. So he’s well-off, he’s comfortable, but his shirt is mended in at least half a dozen places. He clearly isn’t materialistic. Not enough to make for a convincing dangle. The Russians only pick people who look the part. Semonov doesn’t, and he’s terrified. That fear is the information we’re working with. And in less than twenty-four hours, there’s going to be—”

“Whoa,” he interrupted. “Whoa! Hold it right there. You’re acting like we have to do something about this.”

“Well, yeah. Of course we have to.”

“Says who, Cole?”

“Says the evidence, sir.”

Across the expanse of his desk, Osmond regarded her. Despite his best intentions, he had allowed himself a glass—okay, two glasses—of Vermentino with lunch. How could he resist when it paired so beautifully with the sweet summer cantaloupe? But now he was tired, and he had a headache, and this whole thing sounded like a boondoggle, and Amanda was possibly the stubbornest person he had ever met. Dealing with this woman was one of the more exhausting parts of the job. And yet, he knew her kryptonite. Amanda Cole did, despite appearances, possess an essential kernel of respect for the Way Things Were Done. She would push back, but she wasn’t one to disobey a direct order. At the end of the day, he saw it as his task to remind her of her fealty.

Well, clearly she was all worked up about this. Why not indulge her a few moments longer, before he lowered the boom? So he settled back into his chair, folded his hands on his stomach, and said: “Okay, Cole. Let’s talk this one through. Let’s say we decide to believe this guy, this what’s-his-name—”

“His name is Semonov,” she interrupted. “Konstantin Semonov.”

“Sure. Okay. Let’s say we decide to believe this Semonov, and decide that the threat to Bob Vogel is real, and decide to act on it. We’d need to get word to Senator Vogel about what’s happening and tell him to skip the review. How do we do that?”

“Verbally. Send someone to tell him. One of our people in Cairo.”

“But when? Where? How? Every minute of the delegation’s schedule is accounted for. They have some downtime at the Four Seasons, but you can’t just have one of our people waltz in. Everyone in that hotel, from the maids to the managers to the goddamn window-washers, every person in that hotel is on someone else’s payroll. That hotel is wired six ways to Sunday. So if we send one of our people to deliver the message verbally, what happens when that person arrives at the Four Seasons and beelines straight for Senator Vogel? Hmm?”

The furrow of her brow softened slightly. I’m a good teacher, Osmond thought. No one ever wants to admit it, but I’ve got a knack for this part.

“You think they want to blow our network in Cairo,” she said.

“Bingo.”

Amanda nodded. Osmond was pleased. See, at the end of the day, he just wanted these kids (and yes, they were kids, he was older than most of their fathers) to be a little more careful. Not to get themselves killed for no good reason.

But instead of thanking him, she said: “I don’t buy it.”

He sighed. “And why is that?”

“He’s telling the truth. I’m certain he is. And don’t just say he’s their useful idiot, that his bosses at the GRU gave him this line to swallow and counted on him feeling guilty and running to the Americans. He’s smart. He’d see through it. He saw through my cover in about three seconds flat.”

“Look, Amanda, I get it. You’re bored out of your mind.” He tapped a finger against his temple. “Nothing happens in Rome. This isn’t where the action is. And they know that, too. They’re trying to use that boredom against you.”

“You’re really suggesting we do nothing about this?”

“I’m not suggesting. I’m telling.”

She shook her head, but her eyes went glassy. She tended to do this, to go quiet and retreat into cool detachment when she was overruled. Osmond respected her for fighting as hard as she did, but he also respected her for knowing when to surrender.

“We’re the soft underbelly,” he explained, feeling that pleasant flood of paternal benevolence that was, quite frankly, the only aspect of the job that still made him feel good. “Our networks in the Middle East are airtight. It wouldn’t work to target them directly. So the Russians try to take the back door. They plant a seed in Rome and hope the tendril reaches Cairo. All they need to do is keep an eye on Senator Vogel. If we send someone to meet Vogel at his hotel, bingo: they’ve just identified the Cairo network. It’s clever, isn’t it? So the best response, or actually the only response, is to do nothing. You see?”

But that was the point, Amanda thought. The scheme Osmond had just outlined was too clever by half. It wasn’t how the GRU worked. The many moving parts, the subtle contingencies: it lacked their signature bluntness.

Amanda left his office and walked through the bullpen, back toward the door that led to the rest of the embassy. One of her colleagues called after her (“Hey, Cole, that guy in the conference room one of yours? The fat guy with glasses? James Gandolfini past his prime?”), but she didn’t hear him.

She buzzed through the unmarked door, walked down a hallway, down a flight of stairs, down another hallway. Through the glassed-in walls of the conference room, she saw what her colleagues would have seen as they returned from lunch. Semonov, pacing back and forth, like a goldfish desperate to escape the confines of his fishbowl.

Amanda had been trying to figure out what to say, how to explain this failure of hers, but as soon as he turned and looked at her, he seemed to know. As she closed the door, Semonov shook his head. She felt a strange gratitude for his perception. It was a terrible feeling, having to deliver this kind of bad news, having to shatter another person’s desperate hope. Semonov had just spared her that feeling.

He sat down and dropped his head into his hands. She sat beside him, touched him on the elbow. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m really, really sorry. I did everything I could.”

He was saying something, but his voice was muffled by his hands.

“Mr. Semonov?” she said. “I can’t understand you.”

When he lifted his head, tears were spilling from his eyes. “My mother died last year,” he said. “It was a spring day. The lilacs were in bloom.”

“Oh,” she said. “I’m, um… I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Just before she died, she called me to her side, and she said: ‘Kostya, you have a soft heart. You must be careful. The world suffers when there are too many soft hearts.’ She was right! I’ve been a fool.” He shook his head. “A fool of the worst kind. I knew that this day would come. And what did I think? That I could stop it? Look at what I have done!”

Amanda slid a box of tissues across the table. Semonov looked at her with watery appreciation and blew his nose with a comedic honk.

Your menagerie, her best friend Georgia once called it. Your strange little petting zoo.

Bartenders in seedy dives, hostesses in swanky clubs. Taxi drivers with photographic memories. Hairdressers with a knack for gossip. Restaurant owners with private back rooms. Chambermaids and bellboys and window-washers at five-star hotels. They liked making the extra money on the side, and they liked how seriously she took them. They liked to feel that occasional brush with danger. Together they comprised her strange little petting zoo. It was part of the job, collecting people like this, although Amanda tended to hang on to the assets even when they had ceased offering any obvious utility.

Look at what I have done! Semonov had exclaimed. She was curious about what, exactly, he meant by that; what role he played in the Vogel story. The expense reports could wait. So Amanda patted his hand and said: “Tell me about your mother. What was her name?”

In late July the sun didn’t set until 8:30 p.m. As Amanda walked home, a benevolent twilight lit her way. Past the church that housed the famous Bernini carvings; past the imposing marble fountain that marked the terminus of an old Roman aqueduct; past the ancient Baths of Diocletian. The seventeenth century, the sixteenth century, the third century. “It sounds like you’re practically tripping over history,” her mother once said. And she meant it as a good thing, but history, Amanda knew, was a tricky Janus. History provided important context, but history also exerted a dangerous narrative gravity. If you expected the present to be a continuation of the past, you weren’t actually looking at the present through clear eyes.

“It’s like this,” Amanda once said to Georgia. “Remember how we used to see that old man feeding pigeons outside school every afternoon?”

“Hector? I loved Hector.”

“And you could reasonably assume that you’d see Hector every afternoon, right?”

Georgia squinted. “Why do I feel like I’m being set up?”

“But then one afternoon Hector doesn’t show up. And everyone is so surprised. Because if Hector does the same thing ninety-nine days in a row, then obviously he’s going to do the same thing on the hundredth day. But where is it written that the past ever predicts the future?”

“So you can’t bank on anything? Is that really how you look at the world?”

Amanda shrugged. “I mean, no. Not really. But I try to not be surprised when the pattern gets broken.”

But that night, on her walk home, she wasn’t engaged in such profound considerations. As Amanda squeezed past a crowd outside the Repubblica metro, she could only think about how hungry she was, having missed lunch thanks to Semonov. The refrigerator in her apartment was bare. For the umpteenth night in a row, she was going to have to stop at her usual stall in the Mercato Centrale. The market was housed in an old wing of the Termini station, just a few blocks from her apartment. Stalls sold colorful heaps of vegetables, creamy orbs of burrata, dimpled sheets of focaccia, blistered rounds of pizza. Her favorite stall sold fresh pasta and premade sauces. Amanda had been pleased to discover that this demanded no more effort than did a box of Kraft macaroni and cheese. And it tasted good and it was cheap. She had decided, a long time ago, that this was the easiest way to feed herself.

During her visit last September, Georgia had been appalled by this habit. “You can’t eat the same thing every night, Amanda. You know that you’re in Rome, right?”

“I just don’t care that much.”

“This coming from the girl who once ate a scorpion in Bangkok. Who once drank pig’s blood in Seoul. Who once—”

Amanda laughed. “Oh, yeah, you mean the girl who was a drunken shitshow and didn’t know what she was doing with her life? You mean that girl? Should we bring her back?”

“You’re not giving her enough credit. She was fun.”

“She was crazy.”

“Well, she’s still in there. I know she is. No amount of Talbots can cover her up.”

“This is J.Crew, thank you very much. And also, fuck you. I like Talbots.”

Georgia laughed. Curled up on the couch in the apartment in Rome, she prodded Amanda with her foot. “I don’t understand it. Your mom is so chic. And even your dad, you know, he has decent taste, in that boring Waspy way. And you, somehow, have the world’s worst style.”

“So this is my rebellion. Besides, who am I trying to impress? Other than my bitchy best friend?”

Georgia rolled her eyes. “It’s not about impressing anyone. It’s about a little self-respect.”

At the market, Amanda also stopped at the wine stall. She rarely kept wine in the house, but it had been a long day, and she needed it. She unlocked her apartment to find the air inside hot and stale, so she opened the windows in hopes of a breeze. Sometimes s