The Eighth Sister

by Robert Dugoni

  39

  David Sloane paced the hardwood floor behind his family room couch and shook his head. He repeated himself, one arm raised as if to say, Speak to the hand. “No. No way.”

  Music filtered through the room from speakers in the ceiling—loud enough to drown out their voices, in case anyone was listening, but not so loud as to wake CJ, who was sleeping upstairs. Sloane had also lowered the blinds.

  He talked to Jake, who stood on the throw rug between the two white leather couches, imploring Sloane to listen to reason.

  “Alex can’t go, Dad.” Alex sat on a couch. She looked tired and forlorn. “She’s on bed rest.”

  “I’ll go,” Sloane said. “I can go.”

  “You can’t go, especially not now,” Jake said. “If Alex was followed here, or to the office, they already know who you are. It would take someone about ten seconds to look up who owns this house, if they haven’t already. Besides, you’re not exactly anonymous, given your career, and Charlie worked for you. If you go, they’ll follow you. They wouldn’t even have to follow you. They’d just look for your name and determine where you were flying and on what airline and what flight.”

  “You can’t go, Jake. No. No.”

  “I’m twenty-three years old. I’m not a kid. I can handle myself, and I can handle this.”

  Sloane continued to shake his head. “Not this you can’t. These people are professionals.”

  Alex spoke. “Your father is right, Jake. It’s too dangerous.”

  Jake shook his head. “It’s dangerous for anyone, but it’s the least dangerous for me. They aren’t going to expect me.” He turned to Sloane. “I have a different last name than you, and they won’t know it. You can buy a ticket to some other place, South America or Japan—be a decoy—and I’ll get a ticket under the name Jacob Carter.”

  Alex turned to Sloane. “He actually makes sense.”

  “I don’t care. He’s not going.”

  “We can’t just leave Charlie,” Jake said. “We have to do something. I’m the only one—”

  “I don’t intend to just leave him,” Sloane said. “And I’m not losing you the way that I lost . . .” Sloane caught himself and took a breath. After several seconds he continued. “If I can’t go, we’ll hire someone to go.”

  “Then you put that person at risk. And you heard Charlie—his contact in Mexico City isn’t going to trust just anyone. We can’t even call to confirm he’s still there. Charlie said he doesn’t own a phone, and he would never acknowledge himself to someone over the phone. It has to be in person. If we send just anyone, and this guy, Uncle Frank, says no, the guy will leave. He has no stake in this beyond what you pay him.”

  “Why would the guy in Mexico City, if he’s even still alive, trust you?” Sloane said.

  “Because Charlie’s my godfather, and I’m young and naïve and desperate, and I’m not going to take no for an answer.”

  Sloane stopped pacing, pulled out a chair, and sat at the kitchen table. He had his hands folded, as if in prayer. After a moment he looked to Alex. “What about someone else who Charlie knows?”

  “What are you going to tell them, Dad? That you need them to pick up a package and ‘Oh, by the way, someone might be trying to kill you’?” Jake said. “I’ll be careful. I’ll take a taxi from the airport and I’ll double back to make sure I’m not being followed before I go into the store.”

  “And if you are being followed?”

  “If I am then I will abort, and we’ll think of something else.”

  “How do we stay in touch?”

  “In the morning I’ll buy burner phones for you, me, and Alex. Alex can call Charlie and tell him our plan.”

  Sloane took a deep breath.

  “They aren’t going to try and kill me, even if they could somehow follow me. They want Charlie, not me. The smart play would be to allow me to get the papers, then follow me to wherever Charlie wants me to drop them.”

  Sloane looked from Jake to Alex. “He’s right, isn’t he?”

  Alex nodded. “I don’t want him to do it either, David, but, yeah, he’s right. They don’t know him and even if they figured it out, they don’t want him. They want Charlie.”

  “There’s a chance it will work,” Jake said. “If you go, there’s no chance. Our best bet is to use you to draw them away and increase my odds. They’ll follow you to South America. You can lead them on a wild goose chase, then get on the plane and come back.”

  Sloane nodded. It did make the most sense. “You sure you want to do this?”

  “Yeah,” Jake said. “I do.”

  “There’s another reason why this makes sense,” Alex said. “I don’t know what’s going on, but if Charlie makes it back home, he said he could need a lawyer, and if you help him to do this, to break the law, you’d definitely be disqualified from representing him, and very likely disbarred.”

  Sloane nodded. He hadn’t thought of that either. He turned to Jake. “Can you get computer access at Seattle U?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Go to the library, to a terminal unconnected to you, and look up flights to Mexico City leaving tomorrow. Purchase a ticket using your own credit card and go to the airport straight from school. Take Uber or Lyft. Don’t drive. Make sure you’re not followed. If at any time you suspect you’re being watched or followed, you promise me you’ll abort.”

  “I promise,” Jake said.

  He looked at his watch, then at Alex. “I’m assuming you have instructions for him, things to do and to look out for?”

  Alex nodded and looked at her watch. “I’ll teach him everything I can in the time that we have.”

  Sloane moved toward the kitchen. “I’ll make coffee.”

  40

  Viktor Federov swung the barrel of the gun left, then right. The hotel room was empty, the bed made. There was no closet door, just an area with a clothing bar and unused hangers. He heard water running in the bathroom. The shower. Light leaked from beneath the door. Federov motioned for Alekseyov to move to the side next to the door handle. Federov stood on the opposite side of the doorframe from Alekseyov.

  He nodded and Alekseyov reached for the door handle. Unlocked. He gently pushed on the door. It snapped open and gave a small click. Federov stepped in and swung the barrel of his gun at the shower stall. Water sprayed against the glass and shower pan, with no one to deflect it.

  Federov turned to the sink. On the counter was an opened bar of soap and the paper in which it had been wrapped. Someone had used the soap to write on the mirror.

  Missed me.

  The bus pulled to the curb in Çeşme at just after 6:00 p.m., one of half a dozen buses to arrive. Tourists disembarked, some dragging roller suitcases behind them. The wheels on the cobblestone street rumbled like small jet engines. The sun had nearly set, leaving a reddish-orange winter light and cool temperatures. The Turkish flag, red with a white star and crescent, hung lifeless from a flagpole. Behind it, the bare masts of sailboats protruded above a crowded marina. The street looked to have been recently renovated, with a center divider of stone pavers, immature palm trees—eight to ten feet in height—and decorative streetlights.

  Charles Jenkins stepped from the bus wearing a full-length black burka that stopped just above his sandals. The headdress made it difficult to see, but with practice getting on and off buses, he could get by without stumbling.

  Jenkins knew Yusuf would have had to tell Federov that Jenkins was on his way by bus to Çeşme. He also knew Federov would make his way to Istanbul, find the bus terminal, and, sooner or later, catch up with him, or with his bus. His detour to Bursa was intended to convince Federov that Jenkins, knowing Yusuf owed him no loyalty and would give up Jenkins’s travel plans, had changed how and where he intended to get out of Turkey.

  After leaving an easy trail for Federov to follow, Jenkins had walked out the back of the hotel to an alley of restaurants and shops. He made his way to a Muslim clothing store. A woman on the bus had b
een dressed in a burka, giving him the initial idea. He told the man behind the store counter that he wanted to buy a burka for his daughter, who was almost as tall as Jenkins. The man did not have a garment long enough at the store, but he directed Jenkins to a store close by that did. Jenkins purchased the garment and the sandals, found an empty alley, and slipped them on, along with the headdress. Fully concealed, he made his way to a bus stop, and took a circuitous route to double back to Çeşme. Along the route, Jenkins got off the bus twice, wasted time, then boarded a different bus. He identified two men watching the terminal in Izmir, but nowhere else along the line. He hoped Federov had called off the dogs after he’d arrived in Bursa and read Jenkins’s message on the bathroom mirror.

  Jenkins crossed to the opposite side of the street, to the stores that apparently did not close until after the arrival of the last tourist buses. He walked past sparsely populated restaurants emitting mouth-watering smells, and newly constructed two- and three-story apartment buildings wedged in the sloping hillside of red rock, shrubs, and small, spindly trees. He ducked into what looked to be a novelty shop playing loud Turkish music. At the back of the store he found a cheap backpack, bottled water, candy bars, crackers, sunglasses, a red baseball hat with the Turkish flag sewn on the bill, and a black cap with Turkish lettering. He did his best not to speak and not to display his hands any longer than necessary to the woman at the register. This time it was not his intent to draw attention to himself.

  Outside, he slid behind temporary fencing for a development under construction and quickly pulled off the headdress and long black dress. The cool air against his perspiring skin felt refreshing. He rolled the clothes into a ball and tucked them into the backpack. Then he tugged the bright-red ball cap low on his head, slid on sunglasses, and made his way out from behind the fence, eventually returning to the marina.

  He was immediately discouraged. Most of the vessels were not fishing boats, but pleasure yachts, and clearly owned by people wealthy enough to decline a bribe to take him to Chios, which he could see just across the Aegean Sea. He walked the pier, trying to look like a tourist admiring the impressive boats. He stopped when he saw a man dressed in shorts, despite the brisk temperature, hosing off the deck of a yacht. The man smiled as Jenkins neared, and he held the hose to the side so as not to spray him.

  Jenkins asked the man if he spoke English. The man responded with a universal sign, two fingers an inch apart—a little. Jenkins asked if he spoke Russian. The man shook his head and gave an emphatic “No.”

  “Español?” Jenkins asked.

  A shrug. “Un poco.”

  “Es este tu barco?” Is this your boat? Jenkins asked, pointing to the yacht.

  The man laughed. “Ya me gustaría.” I wish. In broken Spanish and some English, he told Jenkins he worked at the marina—a good sign—and that the owners came mostly in the spring and summer.

  “Espero ir a pescar mañana. ¿Conoces algún barco que me pueda llevar?” I’m looking to go fishing tomorrow. Do you know of any boats that will take me?

  “Here? No,” the man said in English.

  It was as Jenkins suspected.

  The man pointed north. “Por la calle.” Down the street.

  “Por la calle?” Jenkins asked.

  “Sí. Por la calle. Fishing.”

  Jenkins looked in the direction of the man’s outstretched hand. Down the street, perhaps half a mile, he could see boats moored in a much smaller marina.

  “Early,” the man said in accented English. He pointed at the sky. “Karanlik . . . dark.”

  “Dark,” Jenkins repeated, then understood. “Sí. Mañana. Early. When it is still dark. Muchas gracias.”

  41

  Jake stepped from his plane into the terminal at Benito Juárez International Airport in Mexico City after a night without sleep. He was running on adrenaline. It had been forty-two degrees when he left Seattle. Early morning in Mexico City, the terminal already felt warm. Still, he didn’t dare take off his jacket. Alex had sewn a packet of documents into the lining. She’d also sewn $5,000 into the bottom of his backpack, which Jake would use if he could find the man Charlie referred to as “Uncle Frank.”

  He followed terminal signs to immigration and customs, had his passport stamped, and located an exchange service. Alex said American dollars were widely accepted in Mexico City, but it would be less conspicuous if Jake used pesos. He then found a duty-free shop and purchased a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue Label Scotch, which Jenkins said had been Uncle Frank’s favorite drink. Given the price, it would be anyone’s favorite drink.

  They had booked David on a fourteen-hour slog from Seattle to Costa Rica with a five-hour layover in Charlotte, North Carolina, hoping to give Jake a several-hour head start. At least that had been the plan.

  Jake slung the backpack over his shoulder and, speaking a combination of broken English and even more broken Spanish, he hailed a brown-and-tan taxi outside the terminal. Alex had written down several key phrases and addresses. Having lived in Mexico City, she was familiar with its neighborhoods. Her intent was to send Jake from one side of the city to the other. In each instance, Jake was to walk the neighborhood using the techniques Alex had quickly taught him. She told him to window-shop, focusing on the reflections across the street to determine if he was being followed. She further told him that he should go into and out of stores frequently to determine if anyone paralleled his movements. After ten to fifteen minutes, he’d get into another cab, go to the next destination, and repeat the process.

  He did this four times, seeing no one suspicious. At just before 9:00 a.m., he made his way to what the Internet confirmed to still be Antigüedades y tesoros in the historic center of Mexico City.

  The area reminded Jake a bit of Seattle’s Pioneer Square, with low-level brick-and-stone buildings, retail stores, and mature trees in the sidewalks. Jake exited the cab across the street from a stone-and-brick building. With wrought-iron railing across second-floor balconies, it looked like a jail from the Old West. He walked across the street and confirmed the name inscribed on the glass door in antique script: Antigüedades y tesoros. Jake breathed his first sigh of relief. Still in business. Hopefully, Uncle Frank was also.

  Rather than immediately enter, he strolled the sidewalk. He couldn’t window-shop. There were no store windows. The proprietors rolled up metal gates and set out fruits and vegetables in sidewalk stands. They hung T-shirts, hammocks, and other trinkets to attract tourists, then swept their sidewalks with odd-looking brooms while shouting to one another. At the end of the block Jake crossed the street, turned quickly down an alley, and doubled back around the block. No one appeared to be following him or paying him any attention.

  He walked back up the far side of the street and entered Antigüedades y tesoros. A buzzer announced his entry. Alex had told Jake to be sure no one else came into the store after him—what she had described as an intended coincidence. No one did.

  The interior smelled of wood dust and was packed with a menagerie of antiques—everything from furniture to toys, knives, lighters, and jewelry in locked glass cases. Jake walked wood-plank floors as if browsing while considering the man seated behind the counter. He smiled and acknowledged Jake, then went back to polishing a silver pot. He looked a bit like one of Jake’s law school professors, dressed in a comfortable brown sweater over a collared shirt, round glasses, and long hair. This was not the man Alex had described. For one, he was far too young. When Jake felt confident, he approached the glass counter.

  “Hola,” he said. “Habla inglés?”

  “Sí.” The man smiled and put down the silver pot and rag, which held a strong chemical odor. “How can I help you, amigo?”

  “I’m looking for someone,” Jake said, which drew a smile but no verbal response. “My uncle, Charles Jenkins, told me I could find someone in this store he called Uncle Frank.”

  Uncle Frank, Charlie had told Alex, was the code name for a man named José. The man behind the cou
nter shook his head and wrinkled his forehead. “I’ve never heard of anyone by that name,” he said. “Are you sure you have the right store?”

  “I understand Uncle Frank would be in his seventies, maybe early eighties. Charlie knew him when he worked here in Mexico City. Have you worked in this store long?”

  The man nodded. “I have, but I don’t know an Uncle Frank. What did you say was your uncle’s name?”

  “Charlie. Charles Jenkins. He said Uncle Frank was about five feet eight, bald, and wore round wire-rim glasses, like yours. Oh, and he said Uncle Frank liked to drink good Scotch.”

  The man grinned and leaned against the counter. “You’re describing my father,” he said. “But his name was José. He owned the store before me. And he liked good Scotch.”

  Jake felt great relief. He put his backpack on the counter, talking as he unzipped a pouch and pulled out the bottle, setting it on the counter. “My uncle said to tell Uncle Frank . . . José . . . that I need to talk to him, that it’s important.”

  The man put out a hand. “Slow down, amigo. Slow down. I’m sorry, but my father died seven years ago of lung cancer.”

  The words felt like a punch in the gut. “He’s dead?”

  “Sí.”

  Jake felt paralyzed by the news, not sure what to do.

  “Are you all right?” the man asked.

  “I’m sorry. I’ve had a long night and a long morning. He’s dead, your father?”

  “Sí.”

  Jake stepped back from the counter, feeling as if he might throw up. “I’m sorry to have bothered you.”

  “It’s no bother, amigo. Was your uncle a friend of my father’s?”

  “He was,” Jake said, still stepping away from the counter.

  “Amigo.” The man held up the Scotch bottle. “Your Scotch.”

  “I can’t take it on the plane.” Jake shrugged. “Enjoy it.” He started for the door.