The Eighth Sister (Charles Jenkins #1)(22)

The walk back to the Metropol Hotel might have killed Jenkins. Ironically, he was saved by an ambulance that stopped as he reached the other side of the Crimean Bridge. He would have considered this a good deed, or perhaps a practical solution by two men who figured if they didn’t help him they’d be by later to pick up his corpse, but when the driver opened the door he asked for “forty American dollars.” Jenkins had read that Moscow vehicles of all types—even hearses and garbage trucks—were picking up pedestrians. In a city where so many struggled to make ends meet, every ruble helped.

He gladly paid the not-so-altruistic ambulance driver.

When he returned to his hotel room, the scrap of paper remained on the floor where he’d placed it, and the pencil lead balanced on the closet-door hinge. He bolted and chained the door and collapsed onto the bed.

His ringing cell phone awoke him. Caller ID indicated Alex. Jenkins checked the time: eleven a.m. He’d slept almost twelve hours, which was six more than he normally slept on a good night. He looked about the room, considering whether it was possible he’d been drugged. If he had been, he felt no side effects. Everything looked to be in place.

“You sound like you’re still sleeping,” she said.

“I had a bit of a late night last night,” he said. “The Brits enjoy their pubs. I hope to be home in a day or two. How are you?”

“Tired. CJ negotiated an additional chapter of Harry Potter tonight. I think that kid is going to be a lawyer.”

She sounded down. “Everything okay?” he asked.

“I don’t want to alarm you.”

Jenkins sat up. “What is it?”

“I had some spotting today,” she said. “The doctor said it could be nothing, but he wants me to put my feet up for a couple of days.”

“I’ll come home,” Jenkins said. He’d never forgive himself if anything happened to Alex or to the baby.

“No, don’t,” she said. “I spoke to Claire Russo and she’s agreed to pick up CJ in the mornings and take him to school and to soccer practices. All I have to do is get him out of bed and out the door on time.”

“I’ll call CJ today and tell him we need his help.”

“Don’t,” she said. “I’ve already spoken to him and he’s trying. He made dinner tonight.”

“I’ll bet that was special,” Jenkins said.

“Turkey sandwiches. And they were pretty good. I’m going to bed. I’m tired. I just wanted to hear your voice. I love you.”

“I love you too,” Jenkins said.

He disconnected and stared at the phone. What the hell was he doing? What the hell would he do if Alex lost this child because he was in Russia, working again for the CIA? He didn’t belong here. He was too old to be out at night in the bitter cold talking to FSB officers about classified material. He should be at home, taking CJ to school and caring for his wife. He thought again of why he’d started CJ Security. Was it to provide his family with financial security? Or was it his ego, his never-satisfied quest to try something new, something different, something challenging? That might have been okay when he was young and could afford to make mistakes, but he was sixty-four years old, with a nine-year-old son and a pregnant wife. He wouldn’t be much good to them dead, and he wasn’t so na?ve that he hadn’t considered that a distinct possibility. The Russians did not like to be fooled. If Jenkins was successful, and he determined the identity of this eighth sister, he could be looking over his shoulder for the rest of his life. The CIA would not protect him or his family. Emerson had made it abundantly clear that if things went sideways, they’d disown the mission faster than a busted teenager disowned a bag of pot. Jenkins needed to move. He needed to find the eighth sister and get the hell out of Russia.



Jenkins returned to the Metropol Hotel at just after six in the evening following another meeting at the LSR&C Moscow office. The clerk at reception greeted him with a wave and handed Jenkins an envelope.

Jenkins thanked him. Stepping inside his hotel room, he noticed the scrap of paper on the carpet where he had placed it. He took off his coat, hat, and gloves, set them on the bed, and opened the envelope. Inside was a folded sheet of paper. When he unfolded it, a ticket fluttered to the carpet. Jenkins bent and picked it up. The ticket was to the Vakhtangov Theatre for the 7:30 p.m. performance that evening of the play Masquerade.

Federov wanted to meet. He also apparently seemed intent on convincing Jenkins he was not just a brute, but a man of the arts.

Jenkins wasn’t buying it.



Jenkins exited his cab and walked the Arbat, a cobblestone street rich with history. At present, the Arbat looked to have become gentrified, which was to be expected given its proximity to the center of Moscow.

Tonight, the pedestrian foot traffic was light due to the blistering cold. A crowd stood outside the Vakhtangov Theatre, sucking on last-minute cigarettes, their breaths trailing them like smoke from steam engines.

At one of several entrances, a woman scanned his ticket and Jenkins shuffled inside. He quickly shed his coat, hat, and gloves, but decided not to check them in case of the unexpected. He handed his ticket to an usher. Rather than lead Jenkins down the aisle, she directed him to a staircase and said something about following the stairs to the third level.

Jenkins did so, and eventually made his way to a private booth with six red velvet seats. Predictably, Federov and Volkov were not there. Jenkins took the seat closest to the railing. The curtain remained drawn across the stage, and a cacophony of voices, atop instruments being tuned in the orchestra pit, echoed up, along with the audience’s strong odors of perfume and cologne.