The incident of him taking advantage of her in his office had occurred soon after. He now recalled that part of the reason for it was to see if she could even go through with it.

Now he saw the real reason she’d been unsuccessful in Damascus.

The report was difficult to read. There were so many code words and redacted segments that Igor had to go over it a few times just to make sense of it. But from what he could gather, a Russian Agency with the code RA_999 had been following a high-value American target coded as AP_000245.

The high-value target was an assassin for an elite CIA unit, and his arrival in Damascus had been leaked to the GRU by someone on the American side coded as AP_006758. The leaked information included not only the cover the target was traveling under, but also the hotel he’d be staying at, the Hotel Europa. They didn’t know the room number, but because of the target’s value, the Russian Agency pulled out all the stops, placing microphones and cameras in all ninety rooms of the hotel, as well as the hotel lobby, bar and other public areas.

Igor remembered something about that. There’d been complications for his own operations at the Hotel Europa during that time.

He needed to refresh his memory.

He opened a new SQL terminal and accessed the Main Directorate database. He accessed his own file for Tatyana’s Hammoud Hassan operation and scanned through it until he found what he was looking for. It was all there. Hammoud Hassan had been staying at the same hotel, the Europa. Room 55. Igor had been denied authorization to bug Hassan’s room because the top floor had a conflicting surveillance request that took precedence.

Igor had to tell Tatyana to take Hassan to her own hotel across the street, the Royal Damascus, as it was the only way he could film the liaison.

Igor flipped back to the other terminal and continued reading. The American high-value target checked into the Europa under room number 57, putting him directly next door to Hassan’s room.

Tatyana had come back from Damascus reporting to Igor that she’d never made meaningful contact with Hassan. She’d said she approached Hassan in the hotel lobby and he ignored her. She’d tried a second night at the bar and was unsuccessful again.

According to this report, on the second night, Hassan hadn’t ignored her, but bought her a drink at the bar. Igor watched the video footage, there was no audio but he could see Tatyana doing her job perfectly, drinking with Hassan and flirting with him.