The Last Agent

by Robert Dugoni

  “How many people?” Efimov asked.

  “At least three, possibly four,” the agent said.

  “You can follow the tracks?” Efimov asked.

  “I can.”

  “Do so. We will follow.”

  39

  The woman told Jenkins to call her Nadia, and she led them on snowshoes along frozen Neva Bay. Despite Jenkins’s admonition, Nadia set a fast pace and slowed only upon his urging that Paulina had no chance to keep up. Nadia took a circular route, staying away from the marina parking lot and street. She hugged the shoreline before starting up a slope into a grove of trees, then cut a path back the direction they had come. It was important that they keep pace with her; only she knew their destination, and only she wore a headlamp, which she turned on as needed.

  Snowflakes fluttered to the ground; sometimes the snowfall grew heavy. Jenkins hoped it would serve to cover their tracks. They walked single file to reduce their imprint, Paulina behind Nadia, then Federov and Jenkins. When instructing Jenkins to go last, Nadia had whispered, “If he gives you any reason, shoot him.”

  Jenkins shook his head. “If I shoot him on a night this quiet, that bullet will be the death of us all.”

  With each step his breath exploded in front of his face, and although the exertion warmed him, he knew that to be a double-edged sword. Jenkins already had trouble feeling the tips of his toes and his fingers, despite the woman giving him a pair of wool socks and winter gloves. The chill was wet, as in the winters on Camano Island, and it penetrated deep into his bones.

  Paulina’s coughing had worsened with exertion, and she looked wearier by the minute. She repeatedly assured Jenkins that she was fine, but Jenkins could see she was not herself. Nadia had given Paulina lozenges to reduce the frequency and severity of her coughing, and, potentially, giving away their position. She’d also provided Paulina with additional winter clothing, including a scarf.

  “We don’t have far,” Nadia had told them when they set out. “Less than two kilometers.”

  Not far for her, Federov, or Jenkins, perhaps, but for a woman who had spent months in a hospital and then endured the brutality of Lefortovo, two kilometers would feel like a marathon.

  In addition to watching Paulina, Jenkins kept his eye on Federov. Nadia had given him reason to doubt the former FSB officer, and Jenkins was unable to completely dismiss her reasoning, though he was here only because of Federov. The former FSB officer had once been dogged in his pursuit of Jenkins, and Jenkins had no doubt Federov would have shot and killed him if the need had arisen. What really had changed in the intervening months? Federov wasn’t exactly motivated by altruism. He’d killed Carl Emerson and stole his money. And Jenkins hadn’t given Federov much choice. He was holding the man’s money and essentially blackmailing him. What if the woman was right? What if Federov still worked for the FSB, or hoped to again someday, and his goal was not to just bring in Jenkins and Paulina, but to use them as bait to take down an entire team of intelligence officers working with the United States? What if Federov had come back to the Moskovsky station to free Jenkins because it was more important for Jenkins to complete his mission and thereby expose the others involved? What if Efimov’s blow to the back of Federov’s head had been just another part of that ruse?

  It did give Jenkins pause, but then he would go back to the chess games, and to the night he had given Federov the code to the Swiss bank account and the password. Federov could have taken the money and walked, but he had not done so. It wasn’t about the money. It was about winning. It was about beating Efimov, and the agency that had made him a scapegoat.

  At least, that’s what Jenkins hoped.

  As they started up another slope, Paulina wobbled, and before Jenkins could say anything or get to her, she went down in the snow. He hurried to where she had fallen and whistled once for Nadia, who turned and came back down the hill.

  “Are you all right?” Jenkins asked Paulina, as he helped her to her feet.

  She coughed, softening the sound by holding the scarf provided by Nadia tight to her lips. “I am all right,” she said in between barks.

  “We have to keep going,” Nadia said. “Already we are behind schedule.”

  “Can you keep going?” Jenkins asked Paulina.

  “There is no alternative.” Paulina gave him a resigned smile. “Is there?”

  “Get on my back,” Federov said.

  “What?” Paulina asked.

  “You are right, there is no alternative. Not for any of us.” He stepped around Jenkins and got in front of Paulina. “Now that I have been inside Lefortovo, I have no desire to go back. I’m sure you would agree. Get on my back.”

  “I’ll carry her,” Jenkins said.

  “No,” Federov said. “You cannot carry her. You need your hands free in case you need to shoot me.” He looked to Nadia. Then he looked to Paulina. “Get on my back.”

  “How far do we have to go?” Jenkins asked Nadia.

  “It is not far now. Less than a thousand meters.”

  “Come,” Federov said. “We are wasting time. I used to cross-country ski with my daughters on my back, and you can’t weigh much more than they did, I am afraid. Get on.”

  Jenkins helped Paulina climb onto Federov’s back, but as they were about to depart, lights flashed between the trees.

  Nadia whispered, “This way.” She set out on a path away from the lights, just above the shore, then doubled back to a narrow road, an easement of some sort. She followed a slatted cyclone fence to what looked like an abandoned warehouse and knocked on a metal door next to a rolling bay door. A few seconds passed before a male voice responded and the door opened. They stepped inside to the smell of oil and petrol.

  “Ya ozhida chto vy pridyote ran’she,” the man said. I expected you earlier.

  “Ikh zaderzhali,” Nadia responded. They were unavoidably detained.

  “There are four of you?” the man asked, continuing to speak Russian.

  “Again, an unforeseen problem,” Nadia said.

  “Yes, it seems there are many unforeseen problems. There are police in the park. Many of them.”

  “They will follow their tracks to the marina,” she said, “but it will not delay them long.”

  The man removed a tarp covering two snowmobiles. “You will have to double up,” he said.

  Jenkins knew that would be a problem, the question being who would ride with Federov.

  “What about the noise?” Federov said. “It is quiet outside. The noise from a snowmobile will be heard for kilometers.”

  The man smiled. “Not these. These are four-stroke machines with the exhaust routed through the back to a muffler. I cannot make them silent, but this is as close as anyone could get.”

  “I’ll put Paulina behind you,” Jenkins said to Nadia. “Federov and I will ride together.”

  “Too much weight,” the man said. “Better for you two to split up. The bay and gulf have frozen, but the ice has not been tested.”

  Federov couldn’t very well sit behind Nadia, who had promised to shoot and leave him where he dropped. And Jenkins knew Nadia did not trust Federov to drive Paulina and possibly do something to get them caught.

  “We leave him,” Nadia said. “This is as far as you go, Colonel.”

  “We can’t leave him here,” Jenkins said.

  “I’ll ride with Colonel Federov,” Paulina said.

  “Out of the question,” Nadia said.

  “It is our only option,” Paulina said.

  “No. Our option is to leave him here.”

  “I can’t drive this machine,” Jenkins said, thinking quickly. “I’ve never even been on one, and I don’t think Paulina is in any shape to drive even if she has been. Can you drive one of these?” Jenkins asked Federov.

  “I grew up driving them,” Federov said. “And fixing them. In the winter in Irkutsk, snowmobiles are a way of life.”

  Jenkins shrugged. “We need him if we’re going to get out of here on
two machines.”

  Nadia appeared to be chewing glass. “Then it looks like you are riding behind me, Mr. Jenkins.”

  The man went outside to search the area. He came back minutes later. “I did not see the police. For now, they are gone.” He pulled on a chain, rolling up the bay door. Together they pushed the machines out of the garage. The man handed each of them a battered helmet with scratched visors. “Hug the shoreline. The ice will be thickest,” he said. “I will obscure your tracks before I leave.”

  The officers followed the trail, Efimov pushing them to move faster. Whoever was leading Jenkins, Ponomayova, and Federov knew what he was doing. The footprints had doubled back several times, buying the fugitives precious minutes. Eventually, however, the tracks led down an easement alongside a cyclone fence, stopping well before a metal warehouse, the only building.

  Efimov directed the officers to surround the warehouse. He found no windows, only a metal door and a rolling bay door padlocked to an eyelet in the ground. “Get something to break down the door or to cut the lock,” Efimov said. While he waited, he stepped away, contemplating Jenkins’s move.

  “Why would they come here?” he asked, intending the question to be rhetorical. “What do they need most?”

  “Transportation,” Alekseyov said. “Do you—”

  Efimov raised a hand, silencing the junior officer. For once he’d said something productive. Transportation. Efimov closed his eyes, mentally blocking out any familiar noise. He listened. There. A faint mechanical sound, what sounded like the hum of a distant chain saw. He recalled that sound, or something similar. It could have been petrol-powered generators, but there was nothing in the direction from which the noise had come, nothing but the frozen ships and Neva Bay.

  A ship? Again, possible but not probable.

  Transportation. Jenkins needed transportation.

  Over the snow and the ice.

  The thought clarified, sharp and clear. No ships could leave or enter the frozen bay. To get out by boat would require that they get farther out onto the Gulf of Finland. Efimov opened his eyes and looked at the frozen bay and the string of lights that linked Kotlin Island to the mainland.

  “They’re on snowmobiles,” he said to Alekseyov. “They’re trying to get past the dam. Get me someone from the Saint Petersburg . . . Someone who knows the dam. Then call the coast guard station in Saint Petersburg. Tell them we are in need of Berkuts.” He referred to snowmobiles with heated cabins atop two skis and two caterpillar tracks. More importantly, Berkuts were armed with PKP Pecheneg machine guns. “Tell them to get out onto the bay and to patrol the area before the dam. Tell them to shoot anything that approaches.”

  40

  They negotiated their way through the trees, leaving the natural cover only when necessary. Though the machines were quiet, as the man had said, they were not silent. In the stillness of the snowy night, with all other ambient sound absent, every noise was magnified. Each time the machines bogged down in the thick snow and the engines revved to keep them plowing forward, Jenkins feared the noise would be heard and recognized.

  Still, what choice did they have?

  With the snow continuing to fall and his visor fogging, it was difficult for Jenkins to see much of anything. They left the trees and came back to a field of snow. Neva Bay. Frozen and ringed by lights. Nadia got off the machine and removed a rock from her pocket. She smashed the headlight of her machine, then of the second machine.

  “What are you doing?” Jenkins asked.

  “We have to make time now, but we cannot run the machines with our headlights on. The lights will be visible for kilometers out on the ice.”

  “Federov will have no visibility running behind us,” Jenkins said.

  “Yes” was all Nadia said before she climbed back onto the machine and continued down the slope onto the snow and ice. She hugged the presumed coastline, traveling at roughly fifty kilometers per hour. Though on ice, the ride was far from smooth. The high winds brought by the storm had caused the waves to freeze, creating a rippling effect across the frozen surface. Though Nadia did her best to drive parallel with the ripples, it was not always possible, not while trying to make time. Jenkins felt like he was sitting on a jackhammer, the vibration sending shock waves of pain up his legs and along his lower back. He gripped the seat handholds on each side, but it did little to minimize the jarring. And holding the straps, even with gloves, not only strained his arms but caused blisters that soon burned.

  It made Jenkins wonder how Paulina would have the strength to hold on. He didn’t have to wonder long. Federov drove alongside them and made a slashing motion across his throat. Nadia slowed and stopped.

  Federov flipped up his visor. “We have to slow down,” he said, speaking Russian. “She is having trouble hanging on.”

  Jenkins looked to Paulina, her face hidden by the dark visor. She leaned against Federov’s back. From the hunch in her shoulders, Jenkins knew she was weakening.

  “We cannot slow down,” Nadia said, adamant.

  “Then give me your scarf,” Federov said. “I will tie her to me. If I do not, she will not stay on.”

  The woman handed Federov her scarf and he tied it around Paulina’s waist and his own.

  “Try to stay parallel with the ripples,” Jenkins said.

  “I am trying, but the ski base is not wide enough.”

  “Better to endure the pain and make up the time,” Nadia said.

  They started again, and Jenkins noticed that Nadia reduced her speed, despite her admonition. Though she remained tight-lipped about their plans, likely to keep the details from Federov, Jenkins surmised the goal was to get past the series of levees and dams, though how far past, and for what purpose, he did not know. Snow rushed past his visor, becoming thicker the farther out they drove on the ice. He wasn’t sure how Nadia could even see. Jenkins looked behind him, but Federov’s snowmobile was almost completely obscured by the swirling snow.

  As brutal as the weather made traveling, Jenkins knew it was also their ally. The frozen ice prevented the naval ships at Kronstadt from patrolling the gulf, or the bay, and the snow and the clouds provided cover from satellite technology, much like the heavy fog had protected Jenkins when he had crossed the Black Sea fleeing from Russia the first time. The Russians could not get helicopters in the air to search for them, at least he didn’t think so.

  Jenkins again looked behind them. He did not see Federov, and he wondered if the Russian had slowed, or stopped, if Paulina had fallen off the seat. He was about to tap Nadia on the shoulder when the front of Federov’s machine materialized from the snowfall, like an insect struggling to keep from being swallowed alive.

  Roughly forty-five minutes into their ride, with Jenkins’s back tortured and his fingers numb and sore from gripping the handles, Nadia slowed. Jenkins used the reprieve to flex his back and his fingers, both painful. Federov drove his machine alongside them. Paulina remained slumped against his back.

  Nadia flipped up her visor, unzipped her suit several inches, and pulled out night-vision goggles, holding them to her eyes.

  “What are you looking for?” Jenkins asked.

  She pulled their strap from around her helmet and pointed. “The sluice. Farthest to the right. The gate remains open. That’s our way through to the other side.”

  Jenkins put the goggles to his eyes and, after a moment for his vision to adjust, he saw the dam and the streetlamps—a green hue—delineating the street across the levee. He scanned the bridge, then beneath it, and saw what appeared to be multiple openings, what he presumed to be the series of sluices of which Nadia spoke. He focused on the sluice farthest to the right. Though it was difficult to see detail, he did see light beneath the dam.

  Their opening from the bay to the Gulf of Finland.

  Jenkins continued searching, moving his focus to the landmass and following the string of streetlights to additional lights, which he quickly recognized to be something other than streetlamps. These
lights were not a single string, but pairs, moving toward the levee.

  Car headlights.

  Efimov sat beside the engineer in the back seat of the black Mercedes, peppering him with questions as the car moved toward the levee as quickly as the weather allowed. Middle-aged, with thinning gray hair and round, wire-framed glasses, the engineer worked at the Saint Petersburg Flood-Prevention Facility—not that Alekseyov had found him there, not at this early hour. The engineer had been asleep in bed beside his wife at his Saint Petersburg home when the call came, and he still had the look of a man half asleep, and mostly uncertain of his expected function. He held a tablet in his lap, the screen open to a series of blueprints he was using to best answer Efimov’s questions.

  “The dam is just over twenty-five kilometers,” he said. “It consists of eleven embankment dams, six sluices, and two navigation channels, each with floodgates.”

  “How do the channel floodgates work?” Efimov leaned across the seat to study the engineer’s computer screen.

  “This one swings closed, like a door. It shuts off the main navigation channels.” The man used a simulation on his computer to demonstrate the floodgates swinging shut.

  “And the other?” Efimov asked.

  “The second channel is closed by a steel barrier that lowers and rises in a concrete slot.”

  “And what about in weather such as this, when the bay is frozen? Can the barrier still lower and raise?”

  “The barrier can punch through the ice, no problem. But there would be no need tonight. The two channels have been closed because of the potential for strong winds blowing waves from the Gulf of Finland over the ice and into the bay, possibly inundating the city. This is a primary reason the dam was built.”

  “And those two channels, those are the only ways in or out of the bay?”

  “For a ship, yes.”

  “Are there other channels?”

  “No. Only the two. But there are six sluices that also open and close to control the flow of water into the bay. These are too small for a ship.”