Federov switched to different footage, this film from a camera on the eighth floor. He watched the woman step from the elevator and walk down the hall toward Jenkins’s room. Again, she kept her head down, likely to prevent the camera from obtaining a meaningful shot of her face. She used a key card—one she had purchased with the rubles—to gain access to Jenkins’s room, and slipped inside.
Sometime later, Jenkins exited the elevator. Before reaching his room, he stopped and retrieved something from a food tray. Federov backed up the tape and watched again in slow motion, zooming in on the plate. A knife. Jenkins had picked up a knife and slid it up the sleeve of his coat.
“Interesting,” Federov said.
When he reached his room, Jenkins did not immediately enter. Rather, he dropped to the ground—as if anticipating a gunshot—reached up from his knees, and pushed the door open. Only then did he step inside and allow the door to close behind him.
“He suspected she was in his room,” Federov said. “How?” He made a note to talk again to the clerk. Someone had alerted Jenkins to the woman’s presence at the hotel.
The only reasonable deduction from Jenkins’s actions was that he also knew, or at least strongly suspected, the woman could be in his room. And his retrieval of the knife strongly indicated he did not consider the woman a friend, at least not initially, though something had apparently changed his perspective.
Roughly fifteen minutes after Federov had been informed by his hotel contact that the woman had come to the desk and asked for Charles Jenkins—after the third act of his daughter’s play but before the cast party Federov had promised to attend but did not—Federov and Volkov arrived at the hotel. Federov watched the tape of the eighth floor to determine how they had missed Jenkins and the woman. He sat forward as Jenkins exited his room. He had a black backpack slung over his shoulder. The woman followed. Jenkins initially moved toward the staircase at the end of the hall but stopped and turned back. The woman had said something to him, most likely that the staircase would be covered. It had been.
Whatever had happened inside the hotel room, Jenkins and the woman were now acting as a team.
Without the long coat and the scarf, which Volkov had found in Jenkins’s hotel room—a ruse to make Federov believe Jenkins and the woman had quickly fled—Federov got a better look at the woman. He estimated her to be five foot seven or eight, based on a comparison with Charles Jenkins. She also looked to be in good physical condition, with developed shoulders and a thin waist. The woman walked across the hall, stopping to pick up a champagne flute from a room-service tray. She knocked on the hotel room door. Federov felt sick to his stomach and it had nothing to do with the coffee. He knew what was to happen next. The tape only confirmed it.
Federov noted the hotel room into which Jenkins and the woman had fled. He would send someone to speak to the guest and find out what, if anything, Jenkins or the woman had said to him.
Simon Alekseyov knocked on Federov’s door as he entered the office. “I have the list of female employees who did not report for work this morning. There are six.”
“Did you cross-reference them with their car registration?”
Alekseyov nodded. “Two drive a Hyundai. One is blue. The other is gray.”
Federov motioned for Alekseyov to hand him the sheets of paper. He stared at a picture of Paulina Ponomayova. Forty-eight years of age, she was attractive, with light-brown hair, brown eyes, and a strong jawline. She was also five feet eight inches and weighed 130 pounds, which comported to what Federov had just seen on the tape.
“What do we know of her?”
Alekseyov read from a sheet of paper. “She was hired by the FSB fresh out of Moscow University, where she earned degrees in computer science and systems hardware, and mathematics. At the FSB she has had an exemplary work history, with promotions to positions requiring higher and tighter security clearance.”
Based on the ages of the three sisters already detected, Ponomayova was not one of the seven. Federov looked through her personal life, which was equally unremarkable. She’d been married in her early twenties but divorced. She had no children. Her parents were deceased, as was her only sibling, a younger brother, Ivan.
“She has very little to live for,” Federov said.
“She works as a computer systems analyst for the Directorate of Records and Archives,” Alekseyov said, which meant that Ponomayova would have computer access to all reports filed by all personnel, including reports by and about Russian assets and targets, such as the reports Federov had written about Charles Jenkins.
“You have an address?” Federov said, already moving around his desk to his coat stand.
“Yes.”
Federov grabbed his heavy winter coat and hat from the hook and started from the office, then stopped. “What do you know of Volkov’s condition?”
“He is in the hospital but he is alert,” Alekseyov said.
Federov would stop by to see him when he got the chance. At present, he had a man to catch. “Come. You will drive. I wish to review the file.”
Federov stepped from Paulina Ponomayova’s apartment into the drab hall. Inside, FSB technicians would continue processing the apartment, but it appeared to have been cleaned. The shelves and walls contained no framed photographs of family members or friends. They found no photo albums on the shelves and no personal mail, not even junk mail, in any of the drawers. They did not find a computer. The kitchen was spotless and smelled of a lemon-ammonia product, though they had found a spent match in the sink. The rest of the furnishings were equally Spartan. Even the trash bag had been removed from the wastebasket in the kitchen. Federov had a junior officer checking the garbage bins in the parking lot, though he thought it highly unlikely Ponomayova would have dumped anything compromising in so accessible a location.
In fact, the room was so clean, Federov initially wondered if it was a false address, an address Ponomayova had provided on her employment files, but not a place where she actually lived. Her neighbors, however, confirmed that she did live in the apartment, and the match in the sink indicated she had been there recently. The neighbors described her as quiet, said she did not socialize, and revealed very little about herself. No one could recall seeing anyone else at the apartment, and no one had heard her come home the prior evening.
Federov continued to scour an FSB dossier on Ponomayova, which he’d read front to back on the drive to her apartment. It confirmed what the tenants were telling him, and it all pointed to someone working diligently to remain anonymous, and to have largely succeeded. Fingerprint technicians would dust her apartment, but the lemon-ammonia smell made it equally unlikely they would find Jenkins’s prints.
As Federov read the dossier, looking for something he might have missed, Alekseyov hurried down the hall toward him, grinning like a young boy on Christmas morning.
“We have the car,” he said.
Federov felt his adrenaline spike. “Where?”
“A tollbooth camera on M4 recorded the license plate. Subsequent tollbooths confirm the car continued south throughout the night.”
“They’re heading to the Black Sea,” Federov said. He checked his watch. “They should almost be there. Find us a plane or a helicopter. Alert the local police in the towns along that route of the car’s potential presence. Tell them if they locate the car they are to keep an eye on it, but they are not to approach. Am I clear? They are not to approach the car or any house or apartment where the car is parked. Go. I will be right behind you.”
21
After hanging up the phone with Charlie, Alex grabbed Freddie from the gun safe, a go bag she kept with a change of clothes for her and for CJ, basic toiletries, medications, and $5,000 in small denominations. Old habits died hard, for her and for Charlie.
She drove to CJ’s school and pulled him from class, then drove directly to David Sloane’s law office in the SoDo district. Sloane had bought a warehouse and converted the building in an up-and-coming area sou
th of Seattle’s downtown. Charlie would know to call Sloane’s office to reach her. They had established this plan if ever needed. Alex had never thought it would be.
As she pulled into the parking lot, a commercial train crossed at the intersection behind the building, bells clanging and the train’s horn blaring. Max sat up in the back of the Range Rover and barked.
“Stop it, Max,” CJ said, pouting. He wasn’t happy to be missing soccer practice. He’d talked to his coach, just as Charlie had prepped him, and the coach told him he would play striker in their next game. Alex didn’t have the heart to tell her son that wasn’t going to happen, at least not until she determined what was going on.
What have you gotten yourself into, Charlie?
Alex, CJ, and Max took the elevator to the third floor of the pet-friendly, converted warehouse.
Within minutes of checking in at reception, Carolyn, Sloane’s secretary, walked into the lobby. Close to six feet, Carolyn protected Sloane’s calendar like a hawk. “Alex,” she said. “And CJ.” She looked to Tara, the receptionist. “You didn’t tell me it was family.” She bent to pet Max. “What brings the three of you here?”
“I need to speak to David,” Alex said.
“He’s in a deposition, but he should be finishing soon. Why don’t you wait in his office? I’ll let him know you’re here.” She looked at Alex’s stomach. “You look like you’re getting ready to bust.”
“Not too soon, I hope,” Alex said. “I have several more weeks to term.”
“Tara, can you call Jake and tell him Alex and CJ are here?”
“I know where his office is,” CJ said, and he took off running down one of the halls, Max in pursuit, setting off dog barks in the offices as they went.
Carolyn led Alex to Sloane’s office in the front corner of the building, told her to make herself comfortable, and departed. The office was large, with a desk in one corner, a couch in the other, and a round table with two chairs. Alex sat at the table and took out the laptop they used for CJ Security business. Her mind churned. They had never used the protocol before, and she had no idea why Charlie had used it now, or what danger she and CJ could be in. She felt better now that they were in Sloane’s office and she could set her mind to determining what had happened.
She logged onto the Internet and studied Charlie’s search history, scanning what he’d been doing, looking for his travel itineraries. She found his most recent itinerary and noted his flight to Heathrow, but what followed sent a chill down her spine. After a two-hour layover, he’d taken a connecting flight to Sheremetyevo Airport, Russia.
Alex broke out in a cold sweat. She researched further and found a second flight coinciding with his current trip. It, too, included a stopover in London before a connecting flight to Sheremetyevo.
She opened a second tab and quickly accessed CJ Security’s business accounts, scanning the recorded charges on the company credit card. She found charges for multiple nights at the Metropol Hotel in downtown Moscow. The dates of the charges coincided with the dates Charlie first flew to Sheremetyevo Airport. She did not find hotel charges coinciding with his current trip, at the Metropol Hotel or any other hotel in Russia.
She found the Metropol Hotel’s website and called the number. The phone in Moscow rang several times before a man answered, speaking accented English, the clerk probably alerted by the international number.
“I’m trying to reach Charles Jenkins. He’s a guest at your hotel.”
“One moment, please.”
The clerk put her on hold and she suffered to hotel music for several minutes. Anxious, she stood from the desk and looked out the windows to the beat-up RVs and trailers in the lot across the street.
The desk clerk returned. “I’m sorry, but we don’t have a guest by that name registered at the hotel.”
“Did he check out?”
“I’m afraid you’ve misunderstood. We have no record of anyone by that name having stayed at the hotel.”
Alex provided the clerk with the reservation dates for the trip in December, along with the confirmation number.
“Yes, a Mr. Jenkins was here on those dates,” the clerk said.
“But nothing more recently?” she asked.
“I’m afraid there is no other record,” the desk clerk said, rushing her now. “Can I be of any further service?”
“No, thank you.” Alex hung up just as Sloane walked into his office.
“Hey,” Sloane said. He set down a notepad and stack of documents on the round table and greeted her with a hug. “Is everything okay?”
Alex grimaced from a cramp.
“Are you all right?” Sloane asked.
“Give me a second.” When the pain passed, she said, “I’m worried about Charlie. He’s in some kind of trouble.”
“How do you know he’s in trouble?”
“He called me and, in short, he told me to get out of the house, pick up CJ from school, and come here. He also told me to arm myself. It’s a protocol we have if something goes wrong.”
“He didn’t say why?”
“No, which means he’s worried our calls could be monitored. He also isn’t in London, as he told me.”
“Where is he?”
“Moscow.”
“Russia?” Sloane said, sounding surprised. “Why?”
“I don’t know why, but he has airline reservations, a hotel reservation, and credit card expenses in Moscow for December, and a second airline reservation to Moscow just a couple days ago. I called the hotel; they said they had a record of him staying there in December, but nothing more recent.”
“Another hotel?”
“Maybe, but I didn’t see any other credit card charges coinciding with this second trip.”
“You’re certain he took the second flight?”
“I’m not certain of anything yet, but we have a code in case any one of us is ever in trouble. He was definitely telling me to get out of the house. Charlie’s also a creature of habit. He would have stayed at the same hotel.”
“But the hotel has no record?”
“That’s what they told me. I also know that without a record, it’s easier to say the person was never there.” She grimaced when she felt another pain.
“Take it easy, Alex. We’ll get this figured out. You have no idea where he is now?”
She shook her head. “Not at the moment, and I can’t call his cell until I find out what is going on. I don’t know for certain, but this smells very much like a CIA operation.”
Sloane blanched. “Charlie would never do that. He walked away years ago.”
“I know,” she said. “And I know he’d never do it for himself, but he might for me and CJ.”
“What do you mean?”
Alex explained CJ Security’s financial situation. Then she said, “I’m worried, David. If he’s somehow involved again and he’s in trouble . . .”
“We don’t know that,” Sloane said.
They didn’t, but Alex also knew Charlie had spent his time in the CIA running operations in Mexico City against the KGB, and that the Russians had long memories and were very patient when it came to getting what they wanted.
22
After nearly twenty hours of continuous driving, Jenkins drove the Hyundai into the town of Vishnevka on the Black Sea coast. They’d stopped only to pay tolls, to change drivers, fill the car with gas, and use the restroom. By midmorning, the snow and wind had given way to rain and fog, but at least they were no longer being pushed all over the road or driving blind. The better weather had allowed them to make up time. Anna explained they would not stay in Vishnevka, but only stop for food, water, and other supplies.
Vishnevka sat on a slope above the Black Sea and, from first appearances, looked to Jenkins to be a beach town largely deserted in the winter. Anna said the population in the beach towns tripled during the busy summer months.
The diminished population was a problem. Jenkins still wanted to ditch the car for another, but
with fewer people, there were fewer cars, and a stolen car would be quickly noted. He looked at the gas gauge, which was below a quarter of a tank, and said, “We should get gas while we’re here, just in case. How much farther do we have to go?”
“Not far.”
“When we get there we should look for someplace to hide the car.”
He pulled into a Lukoil station and they both got out—Jenkins to fill the car, Anna to walk across the street to a small market to buy food and supplies.
After fitting the nozzle into the gas tank, Jenkins walked into the attached convenience store, ordered a coffee, black, and asked the attendant if he could use the bathroom at the rear of the store.
After relieving himself, Jenkins washed his hands at the sink while considering his image in the dull mirror. He had not slept in thirty-six hours, maybe longer. His eyes were bloodshot and puffy, and dark bags had formed beneath them. He could run three times a week and watch his diet, but there was no reversing the aging process. Days like this, he felt his years. He hoped that, wherever they were going, he could crash for at least a few hours.
He stepped from the bathroom into the store, scanning the shelves for something decent to eat but finding mostly junk food—chips, donuts, candy, and products he could neither identify nor pronounce. The glass freezers contained soft drinks and alcohol. He hoped Anna had better luck in the store across the street. He looked out the windows as a beat-up compact car with a blue stripe along the side and a light bar across the top pulled into the petrol station. Police. The car continued past the pumps and parked. A young police officer got out, but he did not walk to the store. He went around the back of the Hyundai, pulled a slip of paper from his breast pocket and looked to be comparing what was written on the paper with the car’s license plate.
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