The Last Agent

by Robert Dugoni

  “And if they learned the leak wasn’t Emerson, but someone Emerson was working with . . . Someone who provided Emerson with the identities of three of the seven sisters in exchange for a lot of money . . .”

  Efimov rocked in his chair, the creaking spring the only sound in the room. He kept his gaze on Federov, as if looking through him. Federov did not speak. He did not want to oversell the idea. Better for Efimov to figure it out on his own. If Federov’s theory was correct, then by finding Vasilyev, Efimov might not only find Jenkins, but a possible source who knew the identities of the remaining four sisters.

  After nearly a minute, Efimov leaned forward and replaced the brick in the box on the desk, setting it down gently. He wiped at the dust on the desktop. “You have tomorrow to find out if this is true. If you do not make progress . . . whatever your theory, I will make alternative arrangements.”

  “I will need photographs of men who worked for the KGB in Mexico City during the time that Carl Emerson was the CIA’s station chief there.”

  “Do what you need to do. But understand. This will be your last chance.”

  Charles Jenkins could tell the moment Viktor Federov entered his apartment that something was wrong.

  “What happened?”

  Federov crossed the room to the cabinet and pulled out a glass, but not the Scotch. From the freezer he removed a bottle of vodka. “I was summoned to Efimov’s office following my continued interrogation of Ponomayova. He wants to replace me.”

  “Did you offer the alternative reason we discussed?”

  Federov unscrewed the cap, poured himself a considerable shot, and downed it. “Yes. Of course.”

  “And?”

  “And then I said bullshit. I said a lot of bullshit.”

  “What was his response?”

  Federov told Jenkins the details of his conversation.

  “In return, Efimov has given me one more day. If I don’t get any information out of Ponomayova tomorrow, then I will be replaced.”

  “Then you’ve got to do the card trick tomorrow. You’ve got to let her know—”

  “I am not prepared,” Federov said. He slapped the glass on the counter.

  “I’ve watched the film. The switch is almost undetectable.”

  Federov stood at the counter shaking his head. “I am not prepared, Mr. Jenkins. One slip and it is the end for me, and I won’t have to go far to find a cell.”

  “We don’t have a choice,” Jenkins said.

  “You don’t have a choice,” Federov shot back. “I can do whatever the fuck I want, and don’t tell me about the millions of dollars of mine that you control. A man in Lefortovo has no need of money. Nor does a man in Novodevichy,” he said, referring to the famous Moscow cemetery.

  Jenkins sat in silence. He’d suspected this day might come, and he’d thought it through, what might motivate a man like Federov. Turned out, Federov had already let him know.

  In the kitchen he found a pen and a piece of paper. He wrote on it. Then he handed the paper to Federov.

  “What is this?” Federov asked.

  “It’s your money,” Jenkins said. “All of it. Six million dollars.”

  Federov stared at him with untrusting eyes. “This is a trick.”

  Jenkins returned to the living room and sat. “No trick.”

  “Why would you do this?” Federov asked, skeptical.

  “Because it’s yours.”

  “And what of Ponomayova?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe there’s another asset. I’m going to have to start over.”

  Again, Federov studied him. “I don’t believe you. This is a ploy. This is a number to some . . . I don’t know what. I enter it and I get arrested.”

  “You can confirm it in about five seconds on the Internet.”

  Federov stared, as if trying to solve some complex game.

  “It’s an account at a bank in Switzerland,” Jenkins said. “The password is ‘Dostoevsky.’ Your favorite writer.”

  Federov flipped open his laptop on his kitchen counter. He again looked to Jenkins, letting several seconds pass. When Jenkins remained silent, Federov typed on the laptop’s keyboard, then again considered Jenkins as the site loaded. He typed again and waited, presumably having entered the account number Jenkins had written on the slip of paper.

  Another beat. He typed in the password.

  Federov’s eyes widened.

  “You can transfer the money anywhere you like,” Jenkins said. “Then you’re done. You can go wherever you wish.”

  Federov studied Jenkins.

  “But I don’t think you will,” Jenkins said.

  Federov closed his laptop. “No?”

  “No.” Easy now. He heard his grandfather’s calm voice teaching him to fish. Set the hook first. Then reel him in.

  Federov smiled and scoffed. “You wish to offer me more money. I told you, a dead man cannot spend—”

  “No. No more money. Just yours. Six million dollars.”

  “You don’t think I will transfer it.”

  “No. I don’t. Not yet, anyway.”

  Federov pondered this, as if contemplating whether he wanted to ask the next question or to hear the answer. His curiosity got the better of him. “Why not?”

  “Because you haven’t won yet.”

  For once, Federov did not respond. Jenkins had found his pressure point. He’d set the hook.

  “Money is not what motivates you, regardless of what bullshit you tell me and everyone else.”

  Federov stepped toward him. “Really?” was all he could muster, and it wasn’t very convincing.

  “Really,” Jenkins said.

  Federov sat on the couch, crossing his legs, one arm draped over the back of the pillows. He picked at imaginary lint on his suit pants. “Please. Tell me what motivates me?”

  Reel. Slow and steady. Keep pressure on the line. When he runs, let him run.

  “I already told you. Winning. You don’t like to lose. Not even a friendly chess game. It isn’t about the money. It’s about winning. It’s about beating me. It’s about beating the FSB, Efimov. That’s why you’re still here, in Moscow, though you have enough money to live anywhere in the world.”

  “I have two daughters, grandchildren.”

  “Who you never see and who never make the effort to see you. You have no wife. No girlfriend. No job. You have nothing keeping you here except the fact that the FSB beat you . . . and you want a second chance.”

  “Moscow is my home, Mr. Jenkins.”

  “Is it? Your parents are gone. You’re divorced. You haven’t remarried. You live in a sterile apartment with almost no personal touches to make it a home. You took a prostitute with you to the M’Istral Hotel—someone you could pay to have a good time. What exactly is keeping you here, Viktor?”

  Federov didn’t answer.

  Now boat him.

  “They made you a scapegoat, after all the years you gave them. After everything you gave up. Your job cost you your marriage, your daughters, maybe your grandchildren.” Jenkins paused. Federov did not respond. “Go ahead, Viktor. Tell me I’m wrong.”

  Federov continued to pick at imaginary lint.

  “You tell me,” Jenkins said. “Where are you going to get another chance to kick the FSB in the nuts the way it kicked you?” An offer that had surely influenced Federov’s decision from the start.

  Federov kept his eyes on Jenkins but leaned forward to pick up the deck of cards from the coffee table. He shuffled them with one hand, as Jenkins had taught him, showed Jenkins the top card, the ace of spades, then buried it. His right hand theatrically shot to the side, a distraction. He flashed the top card again. The ten of clubs.

  Then he reached behind him and produced a card. He tossed it on the glass tabletop, where it landed faceup.

  The ace of spades.

  23

  Federov stepped through the metal detector and waited for his briefcase on the conveyor belt. When it reached the other side, a
guard removed it. Still young, still naïve, and still malleable, Dementi Mordvinov opened the briefcase, giving the interior a cursory glance. He removed the stack of photographs inside and slid off the paper clip, tossing it in a wastebasket at his feet.

  Federov retrieved the photographs and his case, and he and Mordvinov walked down the corridor together. “Another day in this shithole, Colonel Federov?” Mordvinov said under his breath. “This is my job; I have to be here. How did you get such a plum assignment?”

  They stepped into an elevator and descended several floors. “I made a crass comment about the deputy director’s niece,” Federov said. “A real good-looking piece of ass with a flirtatious smile and a body to make the heavens sing.”

  “No?” Mordvinov said, eyes wide. “You are bullshitting me.”

  Federov shrugged.

  When the doors opened, they walked the pitted, concrete hallway illuminated beneath fluorescent lights in round metal cages. The hallway held the damp odor of mildew. Federov reached into the pocket of his coat and produced a pack of smokes, as had become his routine. The young guard glanced over his shoulder before taking the pack and sliding it into the breast pocket of his uniform. “My wife thanks you. She can’t stand to smoke the Belomorkanal anymore. I’ve spoiled her.”

  “I hope she’s been appreciative,” Federov said.

  The guard grinned like a prepubescent youth. “I’ve taken more turns among the cabbages this week than I have in a year.”

  Federov laughed.

  Mordvinov nodded to the door at the end of the hall, the room where Federov had been interrogating Ponomayova. “This bitch going to say anything today?”

  “One can only hope,” Federov said. “I’m getting sick of staring at her face, but I am following orders of the deputy director and, I am told, he is following orders of the president.”

  The young guard stopped in midstride. “Putin?” He looked and sounded both impressed and concerned.

  Federov shrugged as if this were no big deal. “Just means a sharper ax will swing if I am unsuccessful.”

  “Maybe she would prefer a different kind of persuasion. The face may not be so good, but the body is not bad, a little skinny. If she puts some meat on the bones . . . Here she comes now.”

  A guard Federov did not recognize led Ponomayova down a narrow side hall, an arm on her bicep. The chain connected to her wrist cuffs dangled between her legs and dragged on the floor. At the moment, however, Federov’s focus was on the guard. He was older, with a hardened appearance—the way some of the other guards looked after years working in Lefortovo. Over time, the suppression of emotion and the acceptance of inhumane treatment wore on them, at least those who were not sociopaths or psychopaths. The guards compensated by becoming robotic and strictly adhering to rules and regulations to justify the treatment.

  This guard walked too quickly, a deliberate act that caused Ponomayova to stumble on the links of her chain, nearly causing her to trip and fall to the ground. This was not a good development. Federov had spent much of his time acclimating the guards to his orders and to his position of authority. He needed the guards to think of him as a superior officer, someone whose orders were to be followed without question.

  “I have not met this guard before,” Federov said to Mordvinov.

  Mordvinov turned his head, whispering. “Ravil Galkin. He’s been out. Disciplinary charges. He’s a jackass.”

  Ponomayova wore the long-sleeve, navy-blue jumpsuit. Mordvinov unlocked the door and motioned for Federov to enter the cell. Federov stepped inside the now familiar concrete room and glanced at the camera mounted in the corner. The light changed from red to green. He stepped behind the table and slid back the chair, setting his briefcase on the ground before sitting. He folded his hands on the metal surface as the older guard, Galkin, shoved Ponomayova to the footstool. She lost her balance and fell to a knee but was able to right herself.

  Galkin clipped the chain to the ring in the floor, with just enough slack for Ponomayova to sit upright, then he retreated to the corner beneath the camera. Mordvinov took his position in the alternate corner, both staring straight ahead, at nothing.

  Ponomayova’s gaze remained fixed on the tabletop. Federov reached down and pulled his briefcase onto his lap. The locks clicked in the otherwise silent room. He opened the briefcase and pulled out a folder, setting it on the table before returning the case to the floor. He compulsively straightened the file to align with the table edges, then flipped open the file cover. He removed the black-and-white photographs of former KGB agents assigned to Mexico City, all now deceased or in their late seventies and eighties. Each man wore a dark suit, white shirt, and thin tie.

  Federov set the photographs aside and commenced his inquiry, hoping to further dull the new guard’s attentiveness. After forty-five minutes Federov lifted the stack, holding them as Jenkins had taught him, as he had practiced.

  Jenkins said the trick was all about deception and misdirection, two words that described what had been Federov’s chosen profession for more than two decades. He told himself this time would be no different than the dozens of times he had practiced in his kitchen. His nerves made it abundantly clear that was not the case. Still, he could not allow the guards to see any crack in his well-honed demeanor.

  “Ms. Ponomayova,” he said, keeping his voice low and deliberately precise. “I’m going to show you seven photographs. I want you to consider them carefully. Then I am going to ask you questions about each one.”

  Paulina did not respond. She did not raise her gaze.

  Federov pushed back his chair and stood. About to place the photographs faceup on the table, he noticed Galkin advance. The guard stuck out his hand.

  Federov fought to remain calm, to appear even a bit annoyed. He stared at the hand as if it were distasteful, then slowly raised his gaze to Galkin’s face. “What do you want?”

  Galkin motioned with his fingers for the photographs.

  “My briefcase was checked upon my entering the building,” Federov said. “Go back to your post and do not interfere again with my interrogation.”

  Galkin did not rescind his hand. “It is protocol if you intend to hand the witness the photographs.”

  Federov knew better than to back down, that this was his chance to establish a chain of command with Galkin. “Protocol for you. Not for me. I am a colonel in the Federal Security Service, and you are interfering with my interrogation. Now step back.” The two men glared at one another. Time to let Galkin save face, or at least believe he had. “And I don’t intend to hand the photographs to the prisoner, only to have her look at them.”

  Galkin stared for another moment, glanced down at Ponomayova shackled to the floor, and retreated to his corner as if he’d won.

  Federov held the photographs in his left hand and returned to his interrogation.

  “As I was saying, Ms. Ponomayova.” He made a gesture with his right hand while bending his left index finger, the one with the bandage, placing it against the back of the bottom card. Blow this one move, and he would be looking at Galkin through a small slit in a metal door. Deftly, he slid the card from the pile and flipped it behind his right hand, cupping it.

  “I am going to show you seven photographs.” He gestured with his left hand as he slipped his right hand into his pocket and exchanged the photograph for the one of Jenkins. Using only his right hand, he flipped the top card over onto the table, as he’d practiced, directing everyone’s attention to the first photograph while he cupped the picture of Jenkins behind his hand. “Do you recognize this man?”

  Ponomayova shook her head.

  Federov brought his hands together and flipped the photograph of Jenkins to the bottom of the deck. Federov had practiced with seven photographs in his apartment and decided to keep that same familiar number. Slowly, methodically, he placed the second photograph on the table followed by the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth, each time pausing to ask, “Do you know this man? Have you ever seen
his face before?”

  Each time, Ponomayova shook her head.

  He set the Jenkins photograph faceup in the corner of the table blocked by Ponomayova’s shoulder.

  “And this man, do you know this man?”

  Charles Jenkins stared up from the table. He held his daughter in his arms. The word “Paulina” was scrawled in black ink across the baby’s blanket.

  “Look carefully,” Federov said. “Is there anything about him that you recognize?”

  Ponomayova did not move, but a tear slid from the corner of her eye along the edge of her nose and dropped onto the ground.

  Federov noticed Galkin stepping forward, tilting his head as if to determine if Ponomayova was indeed crying. He quickly gathered the photographs. The picture of Charles Jenkins was now on top of the deck. “We are going to try this again, Ms. Ponomayova.” Federov bent his left ring finger and flicked the photograph of Jenkins from the top, deftly cupping it on the back side of his hand. “But before we do, I want to ask if you have ever heard the name Sergei Vasilyev.” While speaking, Federov moved his hand to slip the picture of Charles Jenkins into his back pocket, but his nerves, and Galkin’s unexpected attentiveness, caused him to miss his mark. The photograph fluttered to the floor behind a table leg.

  Charles Jenkins stared up at him from the ground.

  Galkin stepped toward the table, as if to retrieve the photograph.

  “Yes,” Ponomayova said in a bold voice. “I have heard that name before.”

  Galkin stopped his advance, turned, and considered Ponomayova. From the look on his face they were perhaps the first words he’d heard Ponomayova speak at Lefortovo. Federov pulled the seventh photograph from his back pocket and placed it on top of the pile while he bent and retrieved the picture of Jenkins.

  “Tell me where you have heard that name,” he said, straightening.

  “Let me see the photographs again,” Ponomayova said.

  Federov cupped the photograph of Jenkins behind his left hand. This time when he leaned to put the first picture on the table, he slipped the Jenkins photograph into his back pocket. Galkin took another step forward, intently watching the table as Federov set down all seven photographs.