The Eighth Sister

by Robert Dugoni

  “You will be at office at two o’clock today. I will come for you at one thirty, yes?” Uri said, placing Jenkins’s bag on the ground. “You will sleep but not too deeply.”

  Jenkins thanked him, picked up his bag, and climbed the steps. A valet opened the door to a marbled hotel interior. Ornate, beaded chandeliers hung from a boxed ceiling above gold statues and marble pillars. Expensive watches glistened in lobby display cases, and a harpist plucked the strings of her instrument. The clerk at reception spoke perfect English, and within minutes Jenkins entered his fifth-floor room. He had to fight the urge to lie down on the king-sized bed, knowing that if he slept, it would be “too deeply” as Uri had warned. Jenkins had work to do.

  He walked into the bathroom, shut the door, and turned on the shower. Then he reached behind the toilet and felt the duct tape. Peeling free the tape, he pulled out a manila envelope. He sat on top of the toilet lid, opened the envelope, and removed several sheets of paper, reading the name of the inactive operation and the identity of the Russian double agent he would use to get the FSB’s attention.

  Jenkins had the bait. Now he had to cast his line and hope for a strike.

  After committing the materials provided by Carl Emerson to memory, Jenkins creased each page into an accordion fold, placed the first page onto the rim of the toilet, and ran the flame of a lighter across the top of the page. The folds caused the paper to burn without smoke or smell, and thus did not set off the smoke alarms. When the page had burned down, he pushed the stray ashes into the bowl and continued with the remaining pages, except for a small piece of paper he tore off and set aside.

  Emerson had provided the telephone number to the FSB headquarters in Lubyanka Square. Jenkins opened his suitcase, pulled out a burner phone, and keyed in the number. He trusted his memory, but he was no longer a midtwenties kid without a care in the world. He hoped nerves, and not something worse, explained why his right hand had started to shake. The tremor was slight, but not one he’d ever had.

  He shoved the burner phone into his coat pocket and grabbed his thick wool cap and fur-lined leather gloves from his suitcase. Then he committed to memory the position of every object in the room, which would be searched.

  He walked to the door and dropped to a knee, as if to tie his shoe, and placed the piece of paper he’d torn from the dossier beneath his sole so the breeze when the door opened would not disturb it. Standing, he pulled open the door and stepped out, carefully shutting the door.

  In the hotel lobby, the valet asked Jenkins if he desired a cab. Jenkins declined. “Just going for a walk,” he said, practicing his Russian. “I don’t suspect I’ll get very far in this cold.”

  He zipped his jacket and pulled the knit hat down over his ears as he stepped outside. A gust of Russian winter smacked him in the face like a fist. He stopped just outside the door to slip on his gloves, which provided a moment to confirm the continued presence of the black Mercedes parked across Teatral’nyy Prospekt.

  He walked north, each breath marking the air as he approached the burnt-orange building in Lubyanka Square. The rectangular edifice had once been one of the most feared in the world, home to the KGB and its infamous prison.

  Emerson said the KGB had been Keystone Cops compared to the FSB, and that when Putin seized power, he made strengthening his position and the state top priorities. He created his own oligarchy, bringing friends and colleagues with him from Leningrad, then planted them inside the FSB to keep him apprised and to ruthlessly stop anyone who challenged him.

  Across the square from the Lubyanka Building stood Jenkins’s destination, the massive, multistory building once called Detsky Mir, home to more than one hundred children’s stores. Jenkins trudged to a glass door entrance decorated for Christmas with three large neon figures—a young girl, a bear, and Pinocchio. He wondered if they had political significance—the young girl, new Russia; the bear, old Russia; and Pinocchio, a character caught in between. What Jenkins cared about, other than the building’s location, was that mothers and their children would pack the stores, particularly this close to Christmas. He wanted a public place for his first meeting, if a meeting was to take place at all.

  Inside the mall, Jenkins removed his gloves and hat and shoved them inside his coat pockets. His face tingled as if he’d spent the morning at the dentist and the Novocain had begun to wear off. He found a Starbucks coffee shop on the ground floor, ordered a grande cappuccino, and carried it to an open table beneath an ornate and colorful glass atrium roof. Shoppers’ voices—a low hum—nearly drowned out Christmas music. Jenkins busied himself on his cell phone to give his two Russian handlers time to catch up. The two men entered the mall and stood near an ornate lamppost, one of the men with his head buried in a folded newspaper.

  Jenkins took a deep breath and placed the call. It rang several times and he thought it would go to voice mail. Then a male voice answered. “Federov.”

  “Dobroy dien,” Jenkins said, greeting him in Russian, then speaking English. “I’m an American businessman in Moscow, and I have information I think would be of interest to the Russian government. I would like to meet with somebody to discuss a proposal that may be of value to you.”

  Federov paused, likely scrambling to record the conversation. “Kakaya informatsiya?” he said, using Russian, though he no doubt spoke English. Language was a means to control a contact, and you never wanted to divulge how much you understood.

  “Information that must be discussed confidentially,” Jenkins said, again speaking English.

  Federov paused. Then in English he said, “We don’t handle anything like that. If you’ve lost your passport or are in need of directions, why don’t you go to the American embassy?”

  “I don’t believe they would be as interested in the information as the FSB. But if you’re not interested, then I’m sorry to have wasted your time.”

  “Podozhdite,” Federov said quickly.

  “Yes,” Jenkins said. “I’m still here.”

  Another pause. Federov asked, “Where did you learn to speak Russian?”

  Jenkins smiled. The game had changed little in the intervening decades. This was an opportunity to impress. “Mexico City in the 1970s. But I’m finding that it is like riding a bike.”

  “Riding a bike?”

  “An American expression. Once you learn, you never forget.”

  “You wish to come to Lubyanka?”

  “No. If you or someone else is interested in speaking to me, you can call me back at this number. I’m close by. I’ll tell him where to meet.” Jenkins did not wait before rattling off the burner phone’s number. He could hear Federov searching for a pen and paper.

  “I won’t be here for more than fifteen minutes,” Jenkins said. “Once I finish my coffee, I will leave. You might want to tell the two men following me that mothers tend to get uncomfortable when they see men in a children’s store unaccompanied by a child. Proshchay.”

  Jenkins disconnected and sat back, watching his two Russian minders in his peripheral vision. Within a minute, the one closest to him turned his head ever so slightly to try to hide the wire snaking up from the collar of his jacket to his ear. He was receiving a call.

  Fifteen minutes passed. No one returned Jenkins’s call. Like the KGB, the FSB would be patient. It preferred to do things on its terms.

  Jenkins picked up his drink, sipped the final contents, and discarded the cup in a garbage can as he left the building. He walked past his minders and just couldn’t resist the chance to tweak them and in the process communicate he was an experienced field officer.

  “Vy mozhete byt’ arestovany za besporyadok v detskom magazine,” he said. You could be arrested for loitering in a children’s store.

  Jenkins spent the afternoon going over security measures with Uri for LSR&C’s offices in Moscow. When they’d concluded their meeting, the investment team suggested dinner at a Chinese restaurant. Jenkins, who hadn’t eaten since a snack on the plane, readily accepted.
He kept vigilant that evening but did not see anyone who appeared to be shadowing him, or watching him while at dinner.

  Toward the end of the evening, Jenkins excused himself to use the bathroom. Standing at a urinal, he heard the door swing open and another man enter. Though there were several open urinals, the man stood at the one adjacent to Jenkins. Jenkins flashed back to his training and realized his mistake. He’d been taught to never use a urinal, leaving his back to the door and his hands occupied.

  “Mr. Jenkins.” The man spoke without turning his head or shifting his eyes from the white tile above the urinal. “I am Federov, Viktor Nikolayevich. We spoke this morning by phone. We would be interested in speaking with you. Come to the lobby of the Lubyanka tomorrow morning at ten a.m. Do you know it?”

  “Too well,” Jenkins said. “So, you’ll excuse me if I decline your invitation. Old prejudices die hard. I prefer someplace neutral.”

  It was a matter of keeping a fish on the line but not making it too easy.

  Jenkins heard Federov inhale and exhale sharply. “You are familiar with Zaryadye Park?”

  “Is that where the Hotel Rossiya once stood?” Jenkins said, sensing another opportunity to impress Federov as an American intelligence officer, though Federov had likely found that out already. The Hotel Rossiya, once the largest hotel in the world, had housed all foreign visitors during Soviet times. After the fall of communism, a new owner had sought to remodel the hotel but was forced to tear it down when his contractor found the walls to be filled with cameras, listening devices, and pipes to distribute gas. Putin, it was said, convinced the owner to walk away from the building so as to prevent a national embarrassment. He built the park instead, and called it a gift to the Moscow people.

  “It is,” Federov said.

  “I believe they built the hotel on the foundations of a skyscraper never built, the Zaryadye Administrative Building, did they not?” Federov did not answer. “The building would have been the eighth of what are now referred to as Moscow’s ‘Seven Sisters,’ would it not?” Federov turned his head. Jenkins had his attention, and in the process he got a good look at the man.

  “You can walk from your hotel,” Federov said. “There is an eleven a.m. showing in the media center, a documentary on the 1812 fire of Moscow. Sit in the second-to-last row.”

  5

  Jenkins positioned his body to block the breeze when he opened his hotel room door and glanced at the carpet. The scrap of paper had moved. He did not let his gaze linger for long. Technology now made it possible to put a camera on the head of a pin, and he would be watched.

  He dropped his winter clothing on the bed and checked his watch. Moscow was eleven hours ahead of Seattle. That meant Alex would be in the middle of getting CJ to school and wouldn’t have a lot of time to talk, or to ask questions.

  Using his cell phone, he called her at home. Alex answered on the second ring.

  “Hey,” she said, sounding rushed.

  “Just thought I’d call to let you know I arrived safely and to find out how you’re doing.”

  “I’m trying to get CJ out the door.” She yelled, “CJ, let’s go. You’re going to be late again, and if you’re tardy I’m not going to bail you out this time.” Then she said, “Sorry. How are things going?”

  “Everything is fine. Listen, remember your blood pressure. Yelling isn’t going to help. If he’s late he can face the consequences. It’s the only way he’s going to learn.”

  “Yelling reduces my blood pressure,” she said.

  “Just don’t overexert yourself.”

  “I have your lunch and your jacket,” he heard her say to CJ. “I’m starting the car.”

  “Sounds like you have your hands full. Give CJ a kiss for me.”

  “Will do,” she said.

  “I love you, Alex.” It wasn’t his nature to tell her he loved her each time he called. He hadn’t been raised that way, and so it never became second nature.

  She paused. “I love you too,” she said. “I’m looking forward to you coming home.”

  “See you soon.”

  Jenkins disconnected, felt suddenly sick, and hurried into the bathroom. He shut the door and turned on the shower. Then he threw up in the sink. After a few minutes he straightened. His reflection in the mirror looked pale, and he felt light-headed and dizzy, and a cold sweat chilled him. He gripped the sink counter to steady himself and took several deep breaths, holding each before exhaling. When he no longer felt light-headed, he quickly undressed and stepped into the shower, allowing the needles of hot water to prick his skin.

  He’d accomplished what he’d intended. He’d cast the bait, and Federov had seemingly taken it, but Jenkins knew Federov would be patient. He would be cautious. He would try to manipulate each situation so he’d be in charge. Federov could do so. Jenkins was on Federov’s home turf, and they both knew he could make Jenkins disappear—in an instant.

  Forty years ago, in Mexico City, Jenkins had teased the KGB agents. He took pride in being a pain in their side, and he had enjoyed every minute of it. But it had been different back then. He’d had nothing to lose. It was not unlike the feeling he’d experienced in Vietnam, where he’d discovered young men, soldiers, who had stopped caring whether they lived or died, believing death in the jungle to be inevitable. Jenkins swore he would not become like them. He swore he would make it out of that hellhole alive, that he would not forget all the reasons he had to live.

  And then he had.

  He, too, came to accept death as inevitable, and he, too, had stopped caring.

  He’d carried that same attitude with him to Mexico City, and it had allowed him to be fearless in whatever he’d been asked to do.

  But this was not that time, and he was no longer that person.

  Jenkins lifted his right hand. The shake evidenced how much he cared, and how much he had to lose—a woman he loved and who loved him, a son he adored, and another child on the way. No, he was not dodging bullets in the jungle, but he knew this game he was playing could be every bit as deadly.

  6

  Jenkins rose the following morning after a fitful night, dressed warmly, and headed out into the Moscow cold. He wanted to collect his thoughts before meeting Federov—if Federov showed. Russian KGB officers had frequently set up meetings and drops with no intention of showing, as a way to exert power over the individual and to control the situation. Jenkins sensed the FSB operated similarly.

  He exited the hotel and walked toward the Lubyanka Building. This time, however, he turned right beneath a “50 percent off” sales sign written in English, and proceeded down a cobblestone pedestrian path dusted with a light snow and lined with restaurants and high-end stores such as Giorgio Armani, Saint Laurent, and Bottega Veneta, all decorated for Christmas.

  This was definitely not your grandfather’s Moscow.

  He paused, as if to look in the store windows, and allowed his eyes to scan the reflections of the people on the street, to determine if his minders were following. He didn’t see them. He continued to Red Square, the Kazan Cathedral on his right, and the GUM department store, decorated with thousands of sparkling Christmas lights, to his left. Across the square, a line of tourists waited in the cold to enter Lenin’s Mausoleum. Jenkins continued past St. Basil’s Cathedral and exited Red Square across from Zaryadye Park on the banks of the Moskva River. The park looked to be a mix of freshly planted trees and lawns along with gleaming glass buildings. Jenkins crossed a busy intersection to a glass-domed building, paid the entrance fee, and obtained a map and brochure in English that touted Zaryadye to be the first public park built in Moscow since 1958, and applauded Putin for this gift to the Moscow people. The brochure omitted any mention of the scandal-ridden saga of the adjacent Zaryadye Hotel. Construction of the hotel had necessitated demolition of a valuable art nouveau building owned by billionaire businessman Dmitry Shumkov. Shumkov resisted the demolition of his building and was subsequently found hanging in his Moscow apartment. Inves
tigators described his death as a “noncriminal” suicide.

  Following the brochure map, Jenkins crossed the floating bridge and walked past curvaceous structures seemingly carved into the sloping grass lawns until he came to the Media Center. He paid an admittance fee and searched for the room showing the fire of Moscow in 1812.

  Jenkins suspected that Federov’s choice in films had a purpose. He’d studied Russian history as part of his training and knew that the 1812 fire had been deliberately set by retreating Russian forces, leaving Napoleon’s invading French army without food, shelter, or people to rule. Napoleon had ridden into Moscow victorious but had no choice but to flee the city or starve and freeze to death.

  Russia would not be dominated.

  As instructed, Jenkins took a seat one row from the rear among a sparse crowd.

  At eleven fifteen, with no sign of Federov, Jenkins concluded this had been another FSB test. He gathered his coat and belongings, about to leave, when he noted two men entering the darkened theater and moving purposely toward him, the first being Federov. The FSB agent sat in the seat beside Jenkins. A second man, this one built like a block of cement, took the seat directly behind them, which made Jenkins think of Peter Clemenza from the Godfather movies, specifically the scene when Clemenza sat in the back seat of a car so he could strangle Talia Shire’s husband in the front passenger seat.

  “You wish to speak?” Federov said in English.

  Jenkins nodded. “I do.”

  “All right, but if you want us to cooperate, you’ll have to come to Lubyanka,” Federov said, trying to sound disinterested. “You’re the person making the proposal. We’re willing to listen, but if you want to talk to us, you must come over.”

  “Ya dumayu, chto ya dostatochno blizko. Krome togo, korotkaya progulka po russkomu kholodu khorosha diya zdorovya, net?” Jenkins said, deliberately speaking Russian. Ordinarily he never would have divulged how much Russian he knew or understood, but he wanted Federov to believe he controlled this meeting. I think I am close enough. Besides, a short walk in the Russian cold is good for the health, no?