The Eighth Sister

by Robert Dugoni

  Federov limped back to the hotel parking lot. Two of his colleagues stood in the cold, speaking to the valet, their words punctuated by white puffs of breath. The younger officer, Simon Alekseyov, broke away from the conversation as Federov approached. “Colonel, are you all right?”

  Federov dismissed the question. “I’m fine. What have you learned?”

  “We have the hotel security staff pulling video for the past two hours,” Alekseyov said.

  “Did you find the woman’s glasses and the black wig anywhere in the hotel?”

  “Not yet. No.”

  “Unless you do, the security video will be of no more use in identifying the woman than the interview I already conducted of the reception desk clerk. The woman disguised her appearance.”

  “Colonel?” The second officer stepped toward them. “I think you should hear what the valet has to say.”

  “I’ve already spoken to him.”

  “Yes, well, he remembered something. I think it could be important.”

  Federov motioned for the officer to lead the way. The valet stood outside the wooden shack, smoking a cigarette and otherwise looking cold and nervous.

  “You remembered something?” Federov said, dispensing with formalities.

  “Yes.”

  “Well? Do you intend for us to stand here in the cold guessing? What is it?”

  “It’s about the woman. I remembered that she had dark hair and round glasses.”

  “We know this already.” Federov turned to the second officer, not trying to hide his displeasure. “We know this already. Why are you wasting my time?”

  “She had a black eye,” the valet said.

  Federov returned his attention to the valet. “What did you say?”

  “The woman had a black eye, or at least the start of one. She had her hair down to conceal the side of her face, but I could see the area around the eye was already red and swollen. I asked her if she was all right.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She said it was just an accident. Too much alcohol, but it didn’t look like an accident. It looked like someone had punched her or slapped her.”

  “Did she say anything else?”

  The valet sucked his cigarette to the butt and flicked it across the pavement. He shook his head, releasing white tendrils as he answered. “No. I offered to get her car, but she said there was no reason for both of us to be cold.”

  “Which eye?”

  The valet shoved his hands in the pockets of his gray coat and thought for a moment. Then he said, “Left. It was her left eye.”

  The blow would have most likely come from a right hand. So maybe Jenkins and this woman had not started out as friends after all. “Where was her car parked?” Federov asked.

  “Over there.” He pointed to where the body of the dead FSB officer lay.

  The shooter had struck the man in the center of the forehead, a kill shot, a shot made quickly and accurately by someone likely to have been tactically trained. Federov had assumed it had been Jenkins, but not any longer.

  “Did you hear the shot?”

  “No,” he said. “But I was inside with the electric heater making a racket.”

  Federov turned to Alekseyov. “Find out if anyone heard a shot,” he said. “Ask the man at the door into the building.”

  If no one had heard the shot, it was likely the woman had used a suppressor, further indicating she had tactical training.

  “What type of car was she driving?” Federov asked.

  “A Hyundai Solaris. Gray.”

  “What year?”

  “I don’t know the year.”

  “Was it new? Old?”

  “It was new. I would say within the last few years.”

  “Did you park it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you notice anything more about the car or the woman you have not told us?”

  The valet looked to Alekseyov. “I told him that she smoked Karelia Slims. There was a pack on the passenger seat.”

  Federov raised a hand. “I’m going to have this officer put together a statement. If you think of anything else, do not hesitate to tell him, or to call me.” He handed the valet a card. “Anything at all.” Federov hobbled inside the hotel, speaking to Alekseyov. “I want you to put out a bulletin to every government office. We are looking for a woman with a bruised left eye. Ask for the names of every woman who does not report to work tomorrow, for any reason.” Federov stopped, a thought coming to him.

  “Colonel, that would require—”

  Federov raised a hand, silencing Alekseyov. He paced in a small circle in the hotel lobby. “Start with the FSB,” he said.

  “Colonel?”

  “I want the names of every woman who works for the FSB, in any capacity, who fails to report to work tomorrow. Crosscheck those names with vehicle registration for anyone who drives a Hyundai Solaris. And make sure that the hotel provides any tape they have of the parking lot. Go.”

  18

  Jenkins didn’t want to use the burner phone he’d used with Federov, or his actual cell phone, which was likely being monitored. He had to assume his home phone, and possibly Alex’s cell phone, were also being monitored. If he used the woman’s cell phone, he was taking a different risk. If the call could be triangulated, as in the United States, it could be another clue to the woman’s identity, putting her in still greater danger.

  With little practical choice, and not a lot of time, he decided it best to use his own phone and keep the call short. The woman excused herself and stepped into the other room to give him privacy.

  Jenkins dialed Alex’s number, paced the small kitchen, and prayed she answered. While he waited, he realized that he’d agreed to be reactivated to help his family, and now he was calling because he had put them in danger.

  “Hey. I was just lying here thinking of you,” Alex said, answering.

  He felt overwhelming relief. “I was thinking of you too. You’re in bed?”

  “Just as the doctor ordered. What are you up to? When are you coming home?”

  “I’ve hit a few complications that could delay things,” he said.

  “What kind of complications?” she said.

  “How’s Lou?”

  Alex paused, but just a beat. “He’s sleeping at the moment.”

  “When he wakes up, have CJ take him for a walk, would you? You know how much he loves to get out of the house.”

  “He does,” she said. “I’ll get him out now.”

  “Great. And take Freddie with you.”

  “Okay. Listen, CJ just walked in. I’ll call you later,” she said.

  “I love you, Alex,” he said, but she had already hung up.

  19

  Jenkins drove the woman’s car south on the M4 highway through farmlands covered beneath snow while she continued to press the bag of vegetables to her eye. A wind had picked up, gusts blowing snow across the road and making the car rattle and shake. Jenkins struggled to see, and to keep the car from being pushed off the road. If the wind did not let up, the road would soon become impassable.

  “You are worried . . . about your wife and your son?”

  Jenkins nodded. “And about this weather.”

  “You’re lucky,” the woman said. “To have someone to love so much.”

  Jenkins hadn’t thought of it that way. He corrected the steering wheel when the car shuddered from another blast of wind. “Let’s hope the wind dies down,” he said. “I’m not sure we can drive much farther if it doesn’t.”

  “We have no choice. If we stop, we will freeze to death. I didn’t come this far to freeze to death in my car, and I suspect you did not as well.”

  “How far are we going?”

  She looked at him from the passenger seat and shrugged.

  “Another need-to-know basis?” Jenkins said. “Really? If we get caught now, they’ll catch us both.”

  “The Black Sea.” She flipped down the visor and checked her eye in the
illuminated mirror. Her skin had started to discolor, yellow and dark purple around the edges, but the swelling had been curtailed by the bag of frozen vegetables. “There is small town where friends keep a safe house in times of need.” She flipped up the visor.

  “Are these American friends?”

  “They are friends to anyone who opposes this regime. Once we are there I can make arrangements to have you taken out of country.”

  “What do you mean, me? You’re not coming?”

  “Russia is my home, Mr. Jenkins. I have lived here all my life. I have no intention of leaving now.”

  “If they figure out who you are, they’ll torture you for information about me and the seven sisters.”

  “You don’t know anything more about the seven sisters than they already know,” she said. “Neither do I.”

  “They’ll torture and kill those you love.”

  “I love few, Mr. Jenkins. My parents are dead. My only brother is dead. My marriage ended many years ago.”

  “Do you have children?”

  “No.”

  Jenkins had not seen any photographs in the woman’s apartment. “Why did you do this? Why are you working for the CIA?”

  “It is long story, Mr. Jenkins.”

  “And we have a long drive,” he said.

  After a silence she said, “My brother is the reason I do what I do.”

  “Did someone kill him?”

  “The state killed him. They killed what he loved, what he lived for. My brother took his own life.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It was many years ago.”

  He let a moment pass. Then he asked, “What was his love?”

  “The ballet,” she said softly. “The Bolshoi.”

  “That’s how you knew the building so well. He danced for the Bolshoi.”

  “No. He never did. That was his dream. That was his love. You see, Mr. Jenkins, for many years, after my parents divorced, my mother would take my brother and me to the Bolshoi on nights that she performed. She was not one of the stars, but she worked regularly in the cast. She did not make enough money to have someone watch us. I used to explore backstage, to imagine that I was living other places, other countries. I had to use my imagination, because Ivan would watch almost every performance. I used to get mad at him. I would say, ‘Ivan, it is the same show tonight as last night and the night before and the night before. Come. Let us play.’ But Ivan loved the Bolshoi more than anything in the world, and he wanted only to someday perform as my mother did. He worked very hard for that opportunity. When he surpassed what my mother could teach him, she saved every ruble and begged and pleaded to get him into the prestigious Bolshoi Ballet Academy in Moscow. The academy is almost as old as your country, and it has produced some of the finest dancers the world has ever known.” She paused. Jenkins heard the wind howling outside the car. Then in a whisper she said, “My brother would have been one of those dancers. He had the drive, the ambition, and he had the talent.”

  “What happened?” Jenkins asked.

  “My brother fell in love,” she said. “He fell deeply and hopelessly in love with one of his instructors, a married man many years his senior, and this man led Ivan to believe that he also loved him. He told Ivan he could be instrumental in Ivan’s career, that he could get Ivan leading roles in some of the most prestigious shows in all of Russia.”

  Jenkins sensed what was coming.

  “But he was using him,” the woman said, “along with several other students. When he’d had his fill, he discarded Ivan as if he was trash. In his anger, Ivan made the mistake of threatening to expose this man as a homosexual. You see, Mr. Jenkins, Russia is not so accepting as in your country, not even today. Back then, it was worse. The man went to Ivan’s instructors and told them Ivan did not have what it takes to dance for the Bolshoi. He said he had told Ivan this, and that Ivan had threatened him and made spurious allegations that this man was a homosexual. Ivan was expelled from the academy.”

  “What about the other boys? What about the others this man was abusing?”

  She smiled but it had a sad quality to it. “They saw the handwriting on the wall, as you say in your country. They saw what happened to Ivan. They weren’t about to make the same mistake. Ivan was alone with his allegations and with his failure. He was alone with the knowledge that he would never dance for the Bolshoi, or any other company. Devastated, he climbed to the roof of the Bolshoi and jumped to his death.”

  The woman paused and Jenkins could tell she had become emotional. After a minute she again found her voice. “I had taken him there many times. It had been a place to look at the lights of Moscow and to dream of what life had to offer each of us.”

  “I’m sorry,” Jenkins said.

  “Yes, for many years I, too, was sorry,” she said, now sounding more adamant, more determined. “I was sorry my brother could not see his way out of his misery. I was sorry my mother and I had to live with his decision. Then I realized that what happened to my brother was not his fault. It was not even the fault of this man who had abused him. What happened to my brother was the fault of the institutions that made this man go into hiding in the first place, that punished my brother simply because he had loved another man. I swore I would get my revenge, and I would not stop until Russia was a real democracy, and all the people had real options and real opportunities. I thought that day had come when Gorbachev took power, but it was a fleeting and false hope. Each year, Russia falls farther and farther away from a true democracy.” She looked at him. “So you see, Mr. Jenkins, I will not stop now. Not even if it means that I must die.”

  If it was all an elaborate story, it was a good one, one she told with honesty and emotion. “How were you recruited?” Jenkins asked.

  “I have a proficiency for computers and for math. I studied at Moscow University. One day I made a call to the US embassy. A week later I was at home and there was a knock on my door. The courtship took several months. I was asked to perform many mundane tasks.”

  Jenkins knew from his own experience that an agent motivated by money could not be trusted. Instead, the agency recruited or responded to those who had an ideological or a more personal reason for wanting to betray their country. “They were testing you,” he said.

  “Yes, whether I could be trusted.” She shrugged.

  They drove in silence for several miles. Then Jenkins said, “What did you dream of on the roof of the Bolshoi?”

  “It does not matter any longer.”

  “You said you had dreams. What were they?”

  She smiled. “I dreamed that I would become the Bill Gates of Russia. I would start my own business and develop my own software that would someday be used in every computer in the world.”

  “You said that you used to dream of other countries, of America. Now you can go. You can still have your dream.”

  She pointed out the windshield. “Tollbooth.”

  Jenkins slowed as they approached flashing lights reflecting in the blinding snow. The tollbooth looked like a gas station, with multiple lanes beneath a solid-blue awning. Everything was automated, which gave Jenkins a second thought.

  “Do they have cameras?” Jenkins asked.

  “I would suspect so, but Federov will have no reason to suspect me, and I told you the plates are for a different car.”

  Jenkins didn’t think the woman was giving Federov enough credit. He knew there were too many possible ways to identify her—and the car. “Maybe not. But I’d prefer we ditch this car and find another.”

  “What is ‘ditch’?”

  “Hide,” he said, “and take another car.”

  “Look around you. There is no one. And if we steal a car, then they will look for that car.”

  She made a point. Jenkins slowed and powered down his window, struggling to insert a bill into the machine. When he’d succeeded, the red-and-white arm across the road lifted. He drove from the tollbooth back into snowy conditions. “How many more hours do w
e have?”

  “Many,” she said. “Stay on M4. I think that I will sleep. Try not to kill us.”

  “Listen, if we’re going to be driving together for that many hours, at least tell me what I should call you if you don’t want to tell me your name.”

  “You can call me Anna,” she said. “I always wanted the name Anna since I first read Anna Karenina.”

  “All right, Anna. Will you ever tell me your real name?”

  “Perhaps,” she said, tilting back her seat and turning her head toward the window. “Perhaps when I know that you are again to be free. Then I will tell you.”

  20

  Viktor Federov stood in his office watching his computer screen and drinking another cup of black coffee, despite his stomach’s protests. He hadn’t eaten dinner or breakfast, and the coffee felt as though it was burning a hole in the lining of his stomach. Federov wore the same suit as the prior evening, the pants ripped in the knees and wrinkled where they had gotten wet. He hadn’t bothered to go home to change. There was much to do, and little time to do it. Jenkins and the woman, whoever she was, would be working to quickly get out of the country, and with Russia’s vast borders, and its often disinterested border guards, that was not an insurmountable challenge. Federov had ordered that Jenkins’s picture be provided to every border-crossing guard, and that an alert be put on his passport, but those measures would only work if Jenkins used his passport and the border guard paid attention to the alert. Neither was a given.

  Federov set down his coffee cup and pressed a button on his computer to fast-forward through another hotel security tape. He’d started with footage of the parking lot. They’d located the Hyundai Solaris, but the camera was of poor quality and so, too, was the image. They had enhanced it enough to read the license plate, but the plate number turned out to be for a Lada Granta, which further research revealed had been totaled in an accident. It would be of no help identifying the owner, only the car. He moved next to hotel footage of the reception counter and watched the woman in the dark wig and glasses approach. Her long coat nearly touched the floor. The scarf and large eyeglasses covered everything but small portions of her face, which eliminated any chance of obtaining a screen shot to perhaps identify her. Everyone who worked in a government office was fingerprinted and photographed. With facial recognition software, they might have been able to get a match. The woman appeared to know this—further proof, perhaps, of her employment at the FSB. A mole. In addition to the scarf, she kept her body turned to the left, as if she knew the location of the hotel cameras in the ceiling.