The Last Agent

by Robert Dugoni

  CJ shook his head.

  “I know you’re scared, CJ. After what we all went through, you have a right to be scared. But I promise you no one is threatening to put me in jail.”

  “Then what were you and Mom fighting about?”

  “It wasn’t a fight . . . I have a friend, a good friend, who may be in trouble and need my help.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “I can’t really say, CJ, but if my friend needs help, you’d want me to help, wouldn’t you?”

  CJ thought for a moment, his chest rising and falling. “I guess so. If it was a really good friend.”

  “It is . . . a really good friend.”

  They arrived at the school drop-off. Rather than bolting out of the car as usual, CJ leaned across and hugged Charlie, then pushed out the door and ran up the breezeway. Jenkins fought back tears until a car behind him tapped its horn, and he drove from the drop-off zone.

  He returned to the Island Café to wait for Matt Lemore. Jenkins and Alex had agreed that he would get more information, which they would then discuss before he made a decision. He’d called the young officer at 5:00 a.m., fully expecting to wake him, but Lemore, who was on East Coast time, had been working out at an Anytime Fitness.

  The café was significantly more crowded and significantly noisier this early in the morning, but Jenkins managed to slip into a booth as four construction workers gathered their hard hats and gloves and departed. The busboy cleared the table, and Maureen filled his coffee mug, not bothering to greet him; she was hopping busy. Jenkins sipped his coffee and pretended to consider the menu. Despite the usual rich aromas coming from the café’s kitchen—bacon and the sausage gravy spooned over biscuits—Jenkins didn’t have much of an appetite. He peeked out the bottom half of the window. A light fog had rolled in from Skagit Bay, dimming the streetlamps. Across the street a blue Ford parallel parked at the curb. Matt Lemore stepped out.

  White puffs escaped Lemore’s mouth and nostrils as he waited for a car to pass, then he jogged across the street and stepped inside the café. He wore blue jeans, white tennis shoes, and a black down jacket that made him look even younger than the previous day. Spotting Jenkins, he crossed to the booth and slid onto the bench seat across the table. He blew into his hands, and his cheeks glowed red from the cold. “Have you been here awhile?” he asked over the clatter of silverware and plates, as well as voices in conversation.

  “Just got here.”

  Maureen dropped off an order at the table beside them, picked up a pot of coffee, and approached. She flipped over Lemore’s mug. He put a hand over the rim. “Decaf?”

  Her eyebrows knitted together, then raised in a challenge. Lemore removed his hand. She filled the mug before moving on to the next table. “Thank you,” he said, calling after her.

  “You’re learning. Slowly,” Jenkins said.

  Lemore ripped open two sugar packs and stirred in the granules. Someone from the counter called out an order. The cash register rang.

  “I think I have a way to find Viktor Federov,” Jenkins said.

  Lemore sipped from his cup and placed the mug on the table, cradling it to warm his hands. “Yeah?” he said.

  Jenkins nodded. “Maybe. Federov won’t speak to just anyone. I do think he’ll speak to me.”

  “Okay. If you can find him, we can provide a secure number to call—”

  “He won’t trust just anyone sent to find him. And he won’t trust a number provided to him by the CIA. He’s aware of my trial for espionage, and he sees the two of us as kindred spirits—each screwed by our agencies.”

  Lemore sat back against the green vinyl. “Then, what are you proposing?”

  “I’m proposing the only thing that might work. I go. I find him.”

  “Go back into Russia?” Lemore asked with an uncertain smile.

  Jenkins nodded.

  Lemore chuckled, apparently thinking it a joke. The chuckle faded and the smile disappeared when he realized it wasn’t. He crumpled the empty sugar packs and set them on the table. “You’re serious?”

  “I’m serious.” Jenkins sipped his coffee.

  “Even if we got you in . . . It would set off all kinds of bells and whistles, and cameras all over Moscow. You’re not exactly inconspicuous, especially over there. The black population in Russia is less than one percent. Your light skin helps, but only to an extent.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t plan on living there,” Jenkins said. “And I have a way in . . . maybe. What I’ll need is a way out. For two.”

  Lemore’s brow pinched in confusion. “Two?”

  “I don’t come out without her . . . If it’s her.”

  Lemore’s mouth opened but he spoke no words. He sipped his coffee, letting a few seconds pass. Finally, he said, “My job is only to confirm the asset.”

  “You’ve run missions before?”

  “Of course.” He sat forward. “But this would require approval at a very high level. And by approval, I mean even if we were given the green light, they won’t acknowledge the mission. Relations with Russia are sensitive right now. The agency is not going to publicly do anything that could be linked to an international incident.”

  “I understand. How good is your intel that an asset exists at Lefortovo, that this isn’t some lure by the Russians to get us to make a mistake?”

  “We’re reasonably certain—”

  “Don’t give me agency speak.” Jenkins stared at Lemore. “I want to know how certain you are.”

  Lemore looked over his shoulder and lowered his voice. “As I said yesterday, we have HUMINT confirming that an asset was kept as a patient at the intensive care unit of the Hospital for War Veterans in Moscow.” HUMINT stood for human intelligence.

  “When did that patient arrive at the hospital?”

  “Undetermined.”

  “Best estimate.”

  “Intel started sending reports late January.”

  Jenkins counted the days in his head as Lemore continued. He had returned to Russia—the second time—during the second week of January and spent approximately five days trying to get out of the country and another four to five days getting to Chios, Greece, before getting home.

  “What about hospital records?”

  Lemore shook his head. “The patient was never admitted, never given a name. Not even a John Doe.”

  “You’re sure it’s a woman?”

  “Reasonably, though the patient’s sex was also not documented. Intel said the hospital security was intense. The patient was kept isolated in a secure ward with FSB occasionally showing up dressed as doctors, nurses, and civilians.”

  “How long was the patient in the hospital?”

  “Approximately four months.”

  “And then moved to Lefortovo?”

  “Without any written records of discharge and no record of admittance at Lefortovo. The prisoner is being kept in an isolated prison block under secure measures with limited access.”

  And inadequate medical attention, Jenkins knew, based upon recent findings by the European Court of Human Rights.

  “What we’re being told is the asset refuses to speak,” Lemore said.

  That sounded like Paulina. Tough as nails.

  “How do you plan to get Federov to help you?” Lemore asked.

  “There will need to be a financial incentive. He won’t do it for ideological reasons, and he isn’t going to be happy with me after I tell him what has happened to the money he did have.”

  “I’m not sure I can get money—”

  “Federov doesn’t need money . . . not yet anyway.” Jenkins told Lemore about the money Federov stole from Carl Emerson and split with him. When Jenkins checked his Swiss bank account balance that morning, it confirmed that Federov had deposited $4 million into the account on October twelfth the prior year, which meant he’d stolen roughly $10 million. “I need to steal that money so Federov has an incentive to get it back,” Jenkins said, and he had a plan to make that h
appen. If he could get Federov’s alias, he’d have Lemore’s computer gurus steal the money in Federov’s account also.

  “To get access to my account I’m going to need to make a deposit, seed money, which will require the bank to unfreeze the account. When it does, I’m going to need technological support to steal it.”

  “What if they won’t unfreeze the account?”

  “You’ve studied Russia. Have you ever known a Russian bank to refuse money?” The question was rhetorical. “When the account is unfrozen, I need someone to hack the bank and quickly drain the money from my account. When I get the alias Federov used on his account, I’ll need someone to drain it as well, and transfer the money to a place where Federov and the Russians can’t get it back,” Jenkins said.

  “I can get some people started on figuring out the technology side. If it can be done.”

  “After we move the money from the two accounts, you keep the new account numbers until I have Paulina—if it is Paulina. When I tell you, you release the four million to Federov. When Paulina and I are back on American soil, you release the six million. That way, Federov will be less inclined to double-cross me.”

  “Less inclined?”

  “If he sees an opportunity to make more money . . .”

  Lemore smiled. “Then this is a go. We’re going to do this?”

  “You check with whoever you need to check with and get back to me, especially about the technological side, if it can be done. I have someone much more difficult to convince. One more thing,” Jenkins said. “You’ve heard the saying ‘fool me once’?”

  “Shame on you,” Lemore said.

  “Fool me twice . . .”

  “Shame on me.”

  “I have two children and a wife. Fool me twice and I’ll make you, and anyone else responsible, regret it.”

  6

  After putting CJ and Lizzie to bed, Jenkins and Alex wrapped themselves in warm clothing and blankets and went into the backyard to speak in private. On the concrete patio was a firepit surrounded by Adirondack chairs. Alex sat and placed the baby monitor in her lap so she could hear if Lizzie cried out.

  Jenkins lit the fire and sat beside her. They sipped from Yeti tumblers with decaffeinated coffee and a shot of Bailey’s Irish Cream, and they looked to the darkened pasture. Jenkins could see the shadows of the three horses and occasionally hear them snort and snicker. The flickering flames crackled and popped and sent sparks dancing into the star-laced sky. The subject on both their minds soon came to the forefront.

  “Have you made a decision?” Alex asked.

  “I promised I wouldn’t make a decision without you.”

  “Were you being polite? Or do you mean it?”

  He turned his head, considering her. “I mean it,” he said. “If you tell me no, I won’t go.”

  She looked to the flames as if for an answer. “I’m conflicted. I’m sure you are as well.”

  He nodded. “Very.”

  “We have two children to think of, Charlie.”

  “I know.”

  “Your responsibility is to them.”

  “And to you. My first responsibility is to you and to the children. I realize that, more now than ever before.”

  “At the same time, if it wasn’t for Paulina . . . you wouldn’t be here right now.”

  He reached over and held her gloved hand. “I’ve had similar thoughts,” he said. “I know Paulina would tell me not to come for her. In Russia she told me she was prepared to die for her brother. I doubt that has changed. I’ve also considered what you said, about what type of condition she’ll even be in, if it’s even her, whether she’s even mentally capable of understanding who I am, or is physically capable of getting out.”

  “They wouldn’t have kept her alive if she wasn’t mentally capable.”

  It was a good point.

  “What did Lemore say? Does Paulina even know the identities of the remaining four sisters? I assume that is the agency’s primary concern.”

  “Lemore didn’t say. Carl Emerson did say the names of the seven were known only at the highest levels within the agency.”

  “Yes, but let’s not forget that Emerson was a liar,” Alex said. “The agency would need someone in Russia to communicate with the sisters, wouldn’t it?”

  “Seems logical.”

  Alex sighed and let go of his hand. A breeze blew across the farm, fanning the flames and sending sparks flittering higher into the sky. “I don’t know, Charlie. Maybe I’m just jaded after everything that has happened, but I don’t trust the agency to do right by you. I’m afraid this could be some sort of a trap.”

  “After I talked to Lemore at the Island Café, I called an old friend, someone I worked with and trusted in Mexico City. He called a friend still working at Langley, who confirmed Lemore works in Clandestine Services and focuses on Russia and the Eastern European countries, and that he’d been an officer in the same arena. All of which comports with what he told me.”

  “That helps, unless this whole thing is a setup and Lemore is as much a pawn as you.”

  “For what purpose?”

  She shook her head. “I’m being paranoid. But I have the right.”

  “Tell me why. Let’s talk it through.”

  She sighed. Jenkins could see that something else weighed on her. “Assume this highly placed asset is real, and the Russians have this person in Lefortovo, and the agency here wants him or her back.”

  “Okay.”

  “What if Russia has already agreed to an exchange? And what if Russia really wants . . .” She turned her gaze to him. “You?”

  Jenkins hadn’t thought of that possibility.

  “Tell me I’m wrong, Charlie.”

  “The Russians could have sent someone here to poison me, like the Russian spies in London. Putin thinks it enhances, not disparages, the FSB’s reputation. They could have arranged a traffic accident, a cardiac episode, a fatal mugging, any number of things they’ve been known to do. They haven’t.”

  “Not yet,” she said. “But you took away the best chance Putin had to find the remaining four sisters when you exposed Emerson. And remember, Russia doesn’t know Federov killed Emerson. They think the US did it.”

  “If Paulina could be Putin’s best last chance to learn the identities of those remaining,” Jenkins said, “why would he exchange her for me?”

  Alex shrugged. “He might already be convinced she can’t identify any of the other sisters and is looking to get something for nothing. I don’t know. I’m not saying this is how it is, Charlie; I’m saying this is how it could be.”

  Coyotes barked and yipped, then howled from deep in the forest. The sound had become more rare as Camano Island developed and once-wooded land became cul-de-sacs with houses. The horses snorted, whinnied, and pawed the ground. They feared the coyotes, though they were big enough to stomp them. But that wasn’t Jenkins’s initial thought. What immediately came to mind was that the pack sounded like a woman wailing in pain.

  “I can’t leave her in that prison. If it’s her.”

  “I know,” Alex said. “But promise me that if it is her, and if you try and fail, that you won’t let that cloud your judgment. That you won’t do something stupid.”

  “My judgment isn’t clouded anymore, Alex. You and the kids focused it. If I find Federov and he tells me Paulina is dead, I’ll get out. And if it’s her and I can’t get her out, I won’t do anything stupid.” He took hold of her hand once more. “That’s a promise.”

  “When do you meet again with this Matt Lemore?” Alex asked.

  “Tomorrow morning, at the diner.”

  “Tomorrow’s Saturday,” she said. “Have him come to the house for dinner.”

  “With the kids here?” he said.

  “Exactly.”

  7

  Saturday evening, at six o’clock sharp, there was a crisp rap of knuckles on the front door, which caused Max to bark, which caused Lizzie to cry, which annoyed CJ, who was try
ing to watch television, which caused Alex to reprimand their son—which caused Jenkins to liken parenting to dominoes falling into one another. As Alex tended to Lizzie, Jenkins silenced Max and answered the front door. Matt Lemore held a box of ice cream bars and a bouquet of flowers. Except for the casual clothing, he looked like a high school senior picking up his prom date.

  “For the kids.” He handed Jenkins the ice cream bars.

  “They’ll be delighted,” Jenkins said. “As will my wife. Tulips are one of her favorite flowers.”

  Lemore nodded. “The woman at the flower shop in town recommended them.”

  Jenkins smiled. “Good intel. I’ve bought a few dozen over the years to dig myself out of some deep graves. Come on in.”

  Alex came down the hall as Jenkins shut the door and Lemore stepped inside. A little over five foot ten, she nearly matched Lemore in height. She wore comfortable blue jeans and an old, white V-neck T-shirt. “Mr. Lemore,” she said, extending a hand.

  “Matt, please.” He handed her the flowers. “These are for you.”

  “You didn’t need to bring anything.”

  He chuckled. “My mother would beg to differ.”

  “Tulips.” She looked at Jenkins with a raised eyebrow. “My favorite. I’ll put them in water.” She started down the hall to the kitchen. “I hope you like lasagna.”

  “I do. Very much,” he said, following her into the kitchen.

  Lizzie had fresh tears on her cheeks as her stubby fingers struggled to corral Cheerios and navigate the tiny circles to her mouth. Her other hand bashed the tray with her water bottle. “This is Lizzie,” Alex said. “Do you have children?”

  “No. Not yet. My wife and I are expecting.”

  “Congratulations,” Alex said. “We’re the poster parents for raising children past your forties.”

  “I might actually be a national symbol,” Jenkins said. “Can I get you a beer?”

  “Sure, love one.”

  Alex led Lemore through the kitchen into the family room. CJ sat on the couch, watching TV. “CJ?” Alex said. “Can you turn off the television and introduce yourself to Mr. Lemore?”