The Eighth Sister

by Robert Dugoni

  “What are you looking for?” the man asked. “Drugs? I don’t have any drugs.”

  “Where are the travel papers?” Federov said.

  The young man nodded to the dresser. “They’re on the dresser.”

  Federov considered them. “Where are the travel papers you are delivering?”

  “What?”

  “Do not play games. I am in no mood.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Federov stepped closer. “Do not lie to me. I am tired of people lying to me.”

  “I’m not lying. Please. I don’t know what you’re looking for.”

  Federov looked down at the wet spot forming on the front of the man’s pants. He swore, then nodded for the others to exit. Before leaving the room, Federov said, “We’re going to be watching you very closely. If you tell anyone about this, or attempt to go to the police, we will come back. Do you understand?”

  The man nodded.

  Federov stepped outside and shut the door. A foreboding feeling enveloped him as he looked out across the blackened waters to the lights of Çeşme. It was possible Mr. Jenkins’s courier had not yet arrived in Chios. He could come tomorrow or the next day or the day after that. Or he could have already arrived and Mr. Jenkins was already well on his way home. Federov also knew the courier could be a man or a woman, young or old, and flying under a United States passport or one from anywhere around the world. His contact had underestimated Charles Jenkins’s skills. So had Federov. His contact could make all the threats he wanted, but they weren’t going to keep Charles Jenkins from getting home.

  And then he would no longer be Federov’s problem.

  He smiled at that thought, at least, and let out a small chuckle.

  “Colonel?” Alekseyov said, looking confused.

  “Make arrangements for our return to Moscow tomorrow morning,” Federov said.

  “We’re not going to watch the airport tomorrow?” Alekseyov said.

  Federov shook his head. “No. Tonight we will go out and have dinner. We will drink vodka and we will toast to Mr. Jenkins. He is no longer our problem.”

  Jake approached the painted city of Pyrgi, as Charlie had instructed. Though it was night, the city would have been hard to miss. Black-and-white geometric shapes adorned the exterior walls of nearly every building. The narrow streets and alleys would not accommodate a car, and Jake recalled from a history class that many medieval towns were built this way to defend against attacks. He parked outside the city, grabbed his backpack, and headed for the narrow streets. Despite the brisk temperature, a fair number of people walked the streets and alleys beneath stone arches, and men sat at tables playing backgammon while women crocheted, their voices mixing with Greek music spilling from open doorways.

  As Jake passed beneath one of the stone archways, the phone in his pocket vibrated.

  “Continue walking into the town square,” Jenkins said when Jake answered it. “Look across it to the north side. Do you see the restaurant with an unopened red table umbrella near the front door?”

  Jake looked across a plaza littered with several dozen unoccupied tables and closed beige umbrellas. He saw the red umbrella. “I see it.”

  “Ask the waiter for a table on the patio in the back. The temperature is dropping so he’ll suggest you sit inside. Tell him it’s your first night and you want to experience Greece.”

  Light spilled from the windows of the shops and restaurants surrounding the plaza. Jake crossed to the restaurant and spoke to the maître d’. As Charlie had predicted, the man suggested Jake would be more comfortable sitting inside, but he relented when Jake said it was his first night in Greece. He lit a candle in a red glass jar, and Jake ordered a Greek beer while he waited.

  Minutes after Jake had sat down, he looked up to see Charlie filling the patio doorway and heaved a sigh of relief. He came around the table and gave him a bear hug.

  “You shouldn’t have done this, Jake,” Charlie said, emotion leaking into his voice.

  “Yeah, well, there really weren’t a lot of choices,” Jake said. They took their seats at the table. The waiter reappeared. Charlie ordered a beer.

  “Do you know how they ended up at the Chios Airport?” Jake asked. “I was under the impression David led them to Costa Rica, then to Cyprus.”

  Charlie shook his head, thinking of Federov. He had begrudging respect for the man’s counterintelligence skills. “Apparently they figured out that was a ruse. It makes sense. David was too obvious. In counterintelligence you must always have a backup plan. So how did you get through customs without them stopping you? If I were Federov, I would have been looking for anyone entering Chios with a US passport, especially someone traveling alone.”

  Jake reached into his pocket and handed Charlie a hunter-green booklet with gold lettering.

  “A Mexican pasaporte,” Jenkins said. “Good old Uncle Frank.”

  Jake shook his head. “Uncle Frank died seven years ago from cancer. His son, Carlos, has taken over the family businesses. And it was Alex who suggested I get a Mexican passport.”

  He smiled at the mention of his wife. “You have my papers?”

  Jake opened his jacket. “Hand me your knife.”

  Jake picked at the stitching on the inside lining and pulled loose the thread. He removed the envelope and handed it to Charlie, who placed it beneath the napkin in his lap, opened the flap, and considered but did not remove a Greek passport, a Mexican passport, and a Canadian passport, along with corresponding driver’s licenses, a couple thousand dollars in US currency, and an airplane ticket leaving Athens tomorrow evening.

  “How are you going to get off this island if they’re watching the airport?” Jake asked.

  “Another principle of good counterintelligence when you’re on the run is to keep moving forward—never double back.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “There’s a ferry leaving Mesta, Greece, early tomorrow morning for Piraeus. You’re going to be on it. From Piraeus, it’s a cab ride to Athens, and from Athens you fly home.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’ll be on a different boat, but not far behind you.”

  The waiter returned. “I’ll bet you’re hungry,” Charlie said to Jake.

  “I’m starving, actually.”

  Charlie looked to the waiter. “Pyrgi pizza. Extra large. Extra cheese. And two more beers.”

  PART II

  47

  After days on the run, Charles Jenkins sat at David Sloane’s kitchen table peering out at the blackened waters of Puget Sound, still disbelieving he was actually home. He’d arrived at SeaTac Airport thirty-six hours earlier, groggy from lack of sleep, jet lag, and physical and mental exhaustion—another reminder that he wasn’t the twenty-five-year-old man who had chased KGB agents in Mexico City. This ordeal had taken its toll. The mental exhaustion surprised him the most. Escaping Russia had been like a marathon chess match, requiring that he constantly think two moves ahead of Federov, with contingencies for moves Jenkins had not anticipated. He never realized, in the moment, how the constant mental strain could wear on the body. When he had finally arrived home, he’d crashed hard, and he was still trying to recover.

  “You hungry?” Alex asked, eyes red from too little sleep and too much worry.

  White take-out boxes from a Thai restaurant littered the kitchen table, but the normally intoxicating aroma of chicken pad thai, tom yum soup, and phat khing did little to entice Jenkins’s appetite, which remained virtually nonexistent since he’d arrived in the US. Not that he wasn’t grateful to be back, grateful to be holding his wife’s hand, grateful to read CJ a book before bed, but something gnawed at the recesses of his mind, and he couldn’t shake the thought that his ordeal was not yet over.

  “Maybe a bit later,” he said.

  Max, perhaps sensing how close her master had been to never coming home, lay curled at his feet beneath the table. CJ, too, seemed worried for his dad,
sensing things had changed though not understanding why. Earlier that evening, when Jenkins put his son to bed, CJ had begged him to continue reading past the usual one chapter. Jenkins realized the request was not an attempt to manipulate, but born from a deeper concern, or fear, of losing his dad. Jenkins had read until CJ drifted to sleep.

  He released Alex’s hand and cradled a porcelain mug of coffee. The warmth against his palms conjured images of the mug of Turkish coffee he’d held after being plucked from the Black Sea’s frigid waters. That feeling evoked memories of Demir Kaplan and his two sons, and of the sacrifices they had made. That thought led to another memory—of Paulina Ponomayova just before she’d departed the beach house to create a diversion.

  “Charlie?” David Sloane said.

  Jenkins looked at Sloane, uncertain how long he had checked out, but sensing from the concerned looks on the faces seated around the table that it hadn’t been for just a moment.

  “You okay?” Sloane asked.

  “Just tired,” he said.

  Music emanated from the Echo on Sloane’s kitchen counter, a country-western station. Jenkins remained concerned someone could be using directional microphones to listen to their conversations. Since his return, he’d spent four two-hour shifts—the limit of his ability to concentrate—explaining what had led him to Russia, what had transpired there, and why he had ended up running for his life. Now they sought to determine what, if anything, they could do.

  “Is there any way to get this information of a leak to the people who might be able to do something about it?” Sloane asked.

  “It’s not going to be that simple,” Jenkins said. “A field officer knows that if an operation is aborted, he is supposed to disappear. He is never to try to contact his case officer.”

  “Why not?” Sloane asked. He, too, looked tired. Dark bags sagged beneath his eyes, and gray strands now flecked his hair. He no longer had the boyish looks that had so easily charmed juries.

  Jenkins started to speak, cleared his throat, and began again. “I was told by Carl Emerson that if the operation went sideways the agency would not publicly acknowledge it, that to do so would be to acknowledge that the seven sisters exist, and possibly put them in greater danger.”

  “What about going to this guy Emerson?” Sloane said. “Can he be trusted?”

  Jenkins blew out a breath. He’d given this question a lot of thought the past few days. “I don’t know. Things were certainly not as he represented, but someone could also have been using Emerson.” He looked to Alex. “He had a lot of contact with the KGB in Mexico City. We all did.”

  “You think he could have turned back then?” Alex asked.

  “I think anything is possible.”

  “What do you mean, ‘turned’?” Jake said.

  “Began to work for the KGB,” Jenkins said. “A double agent.” He sipped his coffee. He’d also had a lot of time to contemplate this possibility while on the run. “But I think it’s more likely that whoever it is—maybe Emerson, maybe someone above him—that person saw an opportunity to sell the names of the seven sisters and took it.” He looked at Alex. “I think that’s more likely than a Russian mole acting undetected within the CIA for years, maybe decades.”

  “It’s happened before,” Alex said.

  “It has,” Jenkins agreed.

  “Why would a well-entrenched mole wait so many years to divulge the names?” Sloane asked.

  “Emerson said the names of the seven sisters were known only to a select few at the agency,” Jenkins said. “This person might not have known the names until recently, or his circumstances might have changed.”

  “But if a mole knew the names, why wouldn’t he give them all up at once?” Jake asked.

  “Again,” Jenkins said, “he might not have known them all. Someone could have been feeding him the information one name at a time, which would make this a crime of opportunity—the person is selling the names individually to get the best price for each name. I’m just not certain who that person is—Emerson, someone above him. And I’m not sure how to discreetly find out. If I make the wrong choice I could be alerting the leak, and that could give the person further time to cover their tracks and flee.”

  “And to come after you,” Alex said.

  “Possibly,” he said, not elaborating on what they both knew—Jenkins was home, but not necessarily safe.

  “Did you try calling Emerson?” Sloane asked.

  Jenkins nodded. “The number he gave me is no longer in service.”

  “He gave you the number or something with the number on it?” Sloane asked.

  “Just a number on a business card. I’m assuming it’s a cell phone.”

  “Do you still have that card?”

  “Not on me.”

  “Where is it?” Sloane sat up in his chair, clearly interested. “A card is tangible proof of contact, which could be important if Emerson was to deny your operation for some reason.”

  “It’s in my home office,” Jenkins said. “But it’s just as likely the number will come back registered to some unknown person or unknown company.”

  “What if we wait and see if Emerson calls?” Jake said. “Seems that if he contacts you, it would be an indication he isn’t the leak, wouldn’t it?”

  “Maybe,” Jenkins said. “But it’s rare for a handler to call a case officer when a mission has gone sideways, so his keeping quiet isn’t indicative of guilt.”

  “And if he is the leak, a phone call might be to protect himself—to find out how much Charlie knows or to throw him off,” Alex said.

  “What about going to a reporter,” Jake said, “and forcing the CIA to search for the leak internally?”

  Jenkins leaned his elbows on the table. “That raises an entirely different set of problems. First, you all had a tough time believing the story when I told it to you, and you know me. A reporter isn’t going to believe what I say just because I say it. He’ll want confirmation, and I don’t have any. An allegation won’t get me very far. Not if I can’t prove it.”

  “That’s where the card might help,” Sloane said.

  “Maybe,” Jenkins said. “But I’m not comfortable with going public to get to that point. Not yet anyway.”

  “So maybe you don’t say anything. Maybe the leak will know he dodged a bullet, and move on,” Sloane said.

  “Maybe,” Jenkins said. “But I can’t do that.”

  “Can’t do what?” Alex asked.

  This was the conversation he was dreading. “I can’t just let this go.”

  “Why not?” Alex said. “If the person keeps silent, doesn’t do any more damage, why not let it go?”

  Jenkins knew Alex was afraid of what could happen to him, and that fear was motivating her questions. “Because someone in the CIA is either a Russian mole capable of continuing to do harm, or an opportunistic leak responsible for the direct deaths of at least three women, and likely others. Beyond that, there are still four more sisters out there. I can’t walk away not knowing if that person intends to disclose their names. They have no idea this is going on, which makes them sitting ducks.”

  “That’s not your responsibility,” Alex said. “You shouldn’t have even been involved in the first place. You were lied to.”

  “But I am involved, and it is my responsibility. I can’t in good conscience leave those remaining four women to die.”

  “Those women knew what they signed on for,” Alex said, becoming more agitated. “They knew the dangers.”

  “Those women have served this country for decades. I can’t abandon them. I won’t abandon them. If I do, it means that a very good woman gave her life for nothing. It means that a Turkish family . . . that all of you put your lives at risk for nothing.”

  “Bullshit,” Alex said, pushing back her chair and struggling to stand. “Those people were paid to get you out, and we put our lives at risk to bring home my husband and my children’s father. You have a family to think of now.”

 
; “I know that.”

  “Then let this go.”

  “And every time I open a paper and read of someone dying in Russia, I’ll wonder if that was another sister, if I could have saved that person’s life.”

  “Well, that would be a hell of a lot better than me opening the paper and seeing your name. Think about that.”

  She threw her napkin into her plate, turned, and waddled down the hall to their bedroom as fast as a woman thirty-two weeks pregnant could move.

  A silence fell over the room. The Echo played a country song with a sad twang.

  Jenkins looked at Sloane. “She’ll be okay,” he said.

  “Let’s table this discussion for tonight,” Sloane said. “It’s late and we’re all tired. Let’s talk again tomorrow, in my office, just the three of us. She’s been through a lot these past few days. We all have.” He paused, and then said, “She has a point though. You’re home and you’re safe. It might be best in this instance to let a sleeping dog lie.”

  It might be, Jenkins thought, except he had no way to be certain the dog was actually asleep, and not just waiting for another chance to bite.

  Jenkins walked past framed photographs of Jake with Sloane and Tina at various points in their lives, before Tina’s death. It gave him pause. He looked back to the kitchen. Sloane had turned off the lights and gone up to bed, alone. No one waited in his room for him and hadn’t for several years. It made Jenkins think of the decades he had lived alone on his Camano farm, not even realizing the depths of his loneliness. Alex had changed that. CJ too. He had a good life now, a life he never imagined possible during all those years he’d spent alone. He didn’t want to lose what he had, but he also couldn’t walk away from the people who’d risked so much to keep him alive.

  Jenkins pushed open the door to their temporary bedroom with some trepidation. He knew what he’d put Alex through, and he didn’t want to be a continual source of worry and concern. He knew the strain that could put on her and on the baby.