The Last Agent

by Robert Dugoni

  Federov shook his head. “I don’t know, Arkady. Maybe the months away from Lubyanka have given me time to realize everything I have missed in my life. All that I gave up. The price I paid for my career. My marriage could not be saved, but my daughters . . . I thought maybe.” Now he would never know. “They say age and experience bring wisdom. One can hope. I do know failure is easier to live with than regret.”

  “Yes, but you had to know Efimov would set this trap.” Arkady almost sounded as if he were pleading with Federov.

  “I suppose I did. But I could not leave this way. Could not disappoint my daughters again and have them believe that their impression of their father, the impression I forged for them, was accurate.” He shrugged and offered a thin smile. “And I thought I had evaded surveillance.”

  “You did,” Arkady said, sounding disappointed and a touch angry. “You were free. You could have left with your six million dollars and been free to do as you pleased.”

  Federov smiled. As always, Arkady knew far more than he let on. “So, you know about the money.”

  “And of Sergei Vasilyev, of course. I saw you and Mr. Jenkins leaving the M’Istral Hotel.”

  Federov sighed. He knew what awaited him would be painful. “Efimov also knows then.”

  Arkady shrugged his massive shoulders and pressed his lips together, a habit. After a pause he said, “No. This he does not know.”

  The answer surprised Federov. “You didn’t tell him?”

  “I have told many that what happened with Charles Jenkins was not your fault, that one cannot lose something he never possessed, but the FSB needed a head to put on a stick, and your head was chosen. Maybe mine would also have been, had I not already been in the hospital. No matter. My time, I’m sure, will come.”

  “What then?” Federov said. “Why am I here, in this room?”

  “First, tell me why you would put me in this position.”

  “I have told you, Arkady. I want to leave without regret, to say goodbye to my daughters. It is as simple as that. Not the man you knew, perhaps, but . . .” He shrugged. “Perhaps, in hindsight it was a poor decision. But I would do it again. I missed too many opportunities to make things right with them. I gave too much to my job and too little to my daughters, and I am paying the price for my years of disinterest. Now they have little interest in me. My grandchildren call me Viktor. Viktor. Not dedulya or even dedushka.” He shook his head. “How did it come to this? How did I let it come to this? I do not know.”

  Federov looked at the floor. The Russian Federation had sold him on an exciting career. He had arrived at Lubyanka thinking his life would be like James Bond. Too often it descended into hours of drudgery and monotony.

  “I did not mean to put you in a difficult position, Arkady. You have always had a strong sense of duty and honor, and I respect you for that. I wanted only for my daughters to know that I did not abandon them, again.”

  Volkov looked to his briefcase at the foot of the chair. “The two envelopes . . . I assume then that those are for Renata and Tiana?”

  “To make amends, what amends can be made after a lifetime of neglect.”

  Volkov lowered his gaze to the floor. “And was it worth it, Viktor? It sounds like it was not.”

  Federov gave the question some thought. “I guess time will be the arbiter of that question . . . for all of us, Arkady. As for me . . .” He smiled. “I can tell you that for the first time in my life, I am, at least, at peace. For the first time in my life, I sleep at night. Did at least.”

  Arkady reached down and lifted the briefcase, setting it on his lap. He snapped it open. Federov knew it held the instruments Arkady had been so adept at using to extract information, knives and blowtorches and razor-sharp tile cutters that removed a finger one knuckle at a time. Arkady removed a blade, closed the case with two clicks of the locks, and again set it beside the chair. The light from the single bulb dangling from the ceiling reflected off the metal.

  Arkady stood and approached.

  “You will give the letters to my daughters?” Federov asked, afraid, but hoping his death would be at least quick and painless, that Arkady would spare him the torture that surely awaited him at Efimov’s hands.

  “Yes. Of course.” Arkady looked down at Federov.

  “Do what you must, Arkady. I ask only that you do it quickly.”

  In one quick motion, Arkady stepped behind Federov and sliced the plastic ties binding Federov’s wrists.

  Federov looked up at his former partner, uncertain what to think or to say. “I don’t understand . . .”

  “You were not the only one with time to think, Viktor. I spent many hours and many days in that hospital bed. Yekatarina said you always came. No one came but you, Viktor. You kept my Yekatarina company. You gave her hope when I could offer none. The reading material you brought stunk, however. I would have preferred a good book.”

  Federov laughed, in part at his circumstance, at his nerves, and in part because after nine years he didn’t know his partner. “A book? What would you have read, Arkady?”

  “The Count of Monte Cristo,” Arkady said. “You see, Viktor, I, too, have amends to make. And I, too, hope to someday sleep at night.”

  “But if you intended . . . Why did you hit me?”

  Arkady shrugged. “I could think of no other way to be certain you didn’t do something stupid.”

  32

  Alekseyov checked his watch when he heard the high-pitched whine of the Sapsan train just before it entered the station precisely on time. The train came to a stop, and the doors pulled apart, but no passengers rushed for the exits.

  The police entered the doors to ensure no one left, as Efimov had ordered. Alekseyov entered the first car with Vinogradoff and greeted the head conductor before starting down the aisle. Alekseyov’s eyes darted left and right, studying faces, some concerned, some perturbed, others confused. His gaze lingered on the female passengers; Ponomayova would be more easily disguised than Jenkins, whose skin color and size made him readily identifiable.

  Alekseyov did not see either seated in the first car. He and Vinogradoff moved to the second car, also without success. They entered and departed the third car, now becoming more deliberate. Alekseyov made men stand. Once or twice he tugged on women’s hair, evoking a verbal protest, but again, he did not find either Jenkins or Ponomayova.

  When Alekseyov reached the end of the fourth and final car he felt sick to his stomach. Too easy, he thought again. It had been too easy.

  Vinogradoff looked confused. “What?”

  Alekseyov did not realize he had spoken his thoughts aloud. “Nothing.”

  “Do you wish to go back to the beginning?” Vinogradoff asked.

  “No one has left the train?” Alekseyov asked the conductor.

  “It is not possible,” the conductor said. “This was the first stop.”

  “There is no other way off?”

  “Not at two hundred and twenty kilometers an hour.”

  Alekseyov showed him the pictures of Charles Jenkins and Paulina Ponomayova. “Do you recall seeing either passenger?”

  “No.”

  Alekseyov showed him the pictures of Jenkins and Ponomayova walking through Leningradsky station in disguise. “What about them? Do you recognize them?”

  “I do not, but one of my crew mentioned an old, blind man. He said a Moscow police officer helped him to board this train.”

  “A police officer?”

  “Yes.”

  “I wish to speak to the crewman who remembers the old man.”

  The conductor led Alekseyov into the third car and motioned a male crew member to join them. Alekseyov showed him the picture of the old man.

  “That is the man I helped to board the train,” the man confirmed without hesitation.

  “Blind?”

  “He appeared to be, yes.”

  “He was escorted by a police officer?”

  “Yes. The officer told me not to seek the man’s
passport for fear he’d miss his train.”

  “Did you seat him?”

  “No. He asked to use the bathroom. I offered to assist him, but he was offended. I have not seen him on the train.”

  Alekseyov exited the car. The glass doors between the passenger cars opened, and he stepped to the bathroom and tried the door handle. Locked.

  “Per instructions,” the conductor said.

  “Unlock it,” Alekseyov said, removing his gun. “Then step aside quickly.”

  The conductor did so. Alekseyov pulled open the door to the tiny bathroom. Empty. “Have all the bathrooms searched,” he said to Vinogradoff. “And the luggage. No one is to leave before the luggage is searched.”

  The conductor looked confused. “For what are we searching?”

  Alekseyov held up the photographs again, suspecting he now knew why Jenkins and Ponomayova had carried duffel bags and why the conductor had not seen the old man on the train. “For the clothes in these pictures, wigs and glasses.”

  The man checked his watch. “But that could . . .”

  Alekseyov, not anxious to speak to Efimov, took out his anger on the conductor. “Would you rather I bring you back to Lubyanka to explain how two passengers seemingly vanished into thin air?”

  The conductor shook his head.

  Alekseyov reluctantly stepped from the train and approached Efimov, who did not look happy. Alekseyov felt the nerves in his stomach spike. He shook his head. “A member of the crew confirms an old, blind man boarded and asked to use the bathroom. The conductor also ensures there was no way a passenger could have gotten off before Tver. I believe Jenkins and Ponomayova ditched their disguises and left the train before it departed.”

  Efimov made a noise sucking air between his front teeth and rubbed at the stubble on his chin.

  “Do you want me to call Lubyanka and have them go over the tapes of the train station again? Perhaps the analyst was fooled. Perhaps it was the look-alikes who boarded the train. I have ordered the luggage searched.”

  Efimov checked his watch. His words were terse. “For what purpose?”

  “For the disguises.”

  “I am not interested in finding disguises. I am interested in finding people.” He stepped aside, rubbing the back of his neck. “Call Lubyanka,” he said to Alekseyov. “Have them pull up the footage of platforms eight and nine at Leningradsky station just before this train departed. I want to know if there was a train on platform eight, and if so, when it departed, and to which cities.”

  33

  Jenkins stood as the train came to a stop at the Moskovsky Rail Terminal in Saint Petersburg. He searched the platform for signs of uniformed police or men standing idly in the freezing temperature. He saw neither. Three rows ahead of him, Paulina stood from her aisle seat. She made brief eye contact and gave Jenkins a small smile, which belied how she otherwise looked. She had slept most of the three-and-a-half-hour train ride to Saint Petersburg. When awake, she’d nibbled on an energy bar and drunk water, telling Jenkins her stomach would not tolerate much food. Jenkins worried about her strength. They still had a long way to travel, if they made it off the train. He had no way to be certain the shell game he had arranged with Lemore’s help had succeeded, or whether it would buy them sufficient time to slip from the station into Russia’s second most populated city.

  A duffel bag at the front of the car contained the discarded disguise Jenkins had removed in the Pskov train’s bathroom, immediately prior to exiting the last car just seconds before the doors shut and the train pulled from the terminal. He’d moved quickly into the throng of commuters deboarding from and preparing to board the train on platform eight. Paulina had preceded him, after exchanging the light-brown wig for a short, blonde wig and slipping on a different-colored coat.

  They’d managed to get on the Saint Petersburg train.

  Now they had to get off.

  Jenkins’s stomach had been in turmoil the entire trip. He’d analyzed and reanalyzed their chances, deciding that it would all depend on how long it took Efimov to realize the ruse and to respond—assuming he had followed the correct pair of travelers. The train to Pskov made an initial stop in Tver. Efimov, if the ruse had worked, would have the train cars searched. When neither Jenkins nor Ponomayova were found, would Efimov have the train cars searched a second time? Would he search the bathrooms? The baggage? Or would he quickly assess that he had been duped and focus on the most likely alternative scenarios Jenkins and Ponomayova took to escape? Would he review the tape of the platform in Moscow, or conclude that a train on platform eight was their logical alternative?

  Based on Federov’s assessment of Efimov as practical and pragmatic, Jenkins was not confident they would have sufficient time to flee Moskovsky station, but Federov had also said that Efimov’s involvement indicated the FSB would distance itself from the investigation and limit the number of FSB officers involved, to reduce the potential for an embarrassing mistake that could draw international attention. That meant that instead of alerting the FSB office in Saint Petersburg, it was far more likely Efimov would again use local police and tell them only that Jenkins and Ponomayova were wanted in Moscow for criminal acts. If his assessment was correct, they had a chance.

  The line of passengers funneled toward the exits.

  Paulina pulled up the hood of her jacket and stepped onto the platform, keeping her head down as she walked toward the escalators and staircase. No one rushed forward to apprehend her. A good sign. So far.

  Jenkins pulled down the bill of the baseball cap to just above the rim of his nonprescription glasses and zipped his jacket closed. He left their duffel bags in the forward luggage rack and stepped onto the platform. Cold air and the smell of tobacco assaulted him as nicotine-starved commuters lit up. He kept his head down and his shoulders hunched and allowed himself to be swept into the sea of commuters.

  As Jenkins neared the staircase, he sensed the commuters hesitate and looked up. Half a dozen police officers appeared atop the stairs and escalators. Some descended, shoving and pushing past the flow of people ascending. Additional officers remained on the platform, considering each traveler.

  Paulina, already on the escalator, would be quickly made. The new disguise would not be enough.

  Jenkins turned and moved quickly down the staircase, against the flow of commuters. The result was as he intended: loud complaints and pushing and shoving as he fought his way down the stairs. He looked back over his shoulder, making eye contact with one of the officers. The man pointed at him and started yelling. The yelling increased in volume, as did the commotion. Officers quickly converged, shoving and pushing their way through the protesting passengers.

  When Jenkins reached the platform, he ran, though with nowhere to go. Multiple officers yelled at him to freeze and to get on the ground. He stopped, not wanting to get shot, and raised his arms high over his head.

  As he knelt, he glanced back over his shoulder to the top of the escalator.

  As the escalator ascended, Paulina heard commotion inside the terminal and noticed the sudden appearance of police officers. Some descended. Others remained at the top of the stairs and escalator, alternately considering the commuters and comparing them with photographs on sheets of paper or cell phones.

  Jenkins’s ruse to switch trains had been discovered.

  She kept her head up, and her body relaxed as the escalator ascended. In her peripheral vision she noted one of the officers staring at her, then at the picture in his hand. It was apparently enough to convince him. He stepped toward her as she stepped from the escalator.

  Again, she did not panic. She had identification in her pocket, and she had memorized the Saint Petersburg address and could repeat it fluidly and without hesitation—at least she could do so when she’d practiced on the train. Whether she could repeat the flawless performance now was about to be tested.

  As the officer opened his mouth to speak, voices shouted below them. The noise caught the officer’s attenti
on and he departed, moving down the escalator with others. Saint Petersburg commuters, familiar with terrorist attacks targeting trains and crowds, including the 2017 attack on a Saint Petersburg Metro bus that had killed more than a dozen people, pushed and shoved and ran up the stairs and escalators.

  Paulina watched Jenkins, below her, on the platform, drop to his knees and raise his hands—a sacrifice to draw attention. Tears filled her eyes and rolled down her cheeks and she wished, again, that Jenkins had not come back to Russia. She wished again that she had died in the car accident at Vishnevka, that Federov had not dislodged the cyanide pill.

  She briefly contemplated creating a disturbance, but that would only result in both of them being arrested. Jenkins’s instructions had been clear. If anything were to happen, she was to keep moving forward. She watched an officer shove Jenkins onto the concrete and jam a knee into his back. Others secured his wrists with zip ties, swarming over him like pigeons above a loaf of bread.

  Paulina thought of the photograph Federov had placed on the table in Lefortovo, the one of Jenkins holding his baby girl.

  Reluctantly, she stepped into the flow of panicked passengers hurrying across the marbled lobby and past the bronze statue of Peter the Great. She moved deliberately, but did not run, taking advantage of the commotion and the confusion to slide into the mass of people moving toward the main hall and the exits.

  She descended three steps and pushed outside with other commuters. A blustering wind carried swirling snow that muted the ornate streetlamps and made it difficult to see more than a few feet. Paulina raised a hand and looked to hail a taxi—Jenkins had provided her rubles and an address. A few cabs remained in the parking lot. She negotiated the steps. The fresh snow compacted beneath the soles of her boots, making walking difficult. Halfway to the parking lot, she raised her arm, but someone grabbed her left elbow, yanking her hard in the opposite direction.