The Eighth Sister (Charles Jenkins #1)(29)

“Let’s say I’m questioning what I was told.”

“My purpose is not to determine the names of the remaining seven sisters for the FSB. My purpose is to determine the name of the person disclosing the names of the seven sisters to the FSB. Is that you, Mr. Jenkins? No.” She shook her head slowly. “I do not think you are the rat. I think, Mr. Jenkins, that the rat sent you to find me so the rat can kill me before I find him.”

Jenkins again looked down at the street. A black Mercedes had pulled to the front of the building. The reception desk had reached Federov. The FSB officer emerged from the passenger’s door. Volkov stepped from the driver’s side and came around the back of the car.

“They are coming, aren’t they, Mr. Jenkins?” the woman said. “They are coming to—how do you Americans say it—kill two birds with one stone.”

Jenkins was far from convinced of anything, but he also couldn’t dispute that things were not as they’d been presented to him by Carl Emerson. Was Emerson the rat? He didn’t know. But he wasn’t about to wait here to find out the answer. He needed to get out of the hotel. He needed time to seek answers. And his best option at the moment was to keep the woman alive to find out what else she knew. He assumed she had the same goal. It made for what case officers referred to as an uncertain but necessary alliance.

He grabbed the steak knife, moved behind the woman, cut the cord binding her hands, and discarded the knife. “We need to go.”

“Yes,” she said. “We do.”

He grabbed his backpack with his passport and what cash he had, then stepped into the bathroom and shoved his shaving kit with his medicines in as well. He picked up his coat, hat, and gloves, and stepped to the door. “How well do you know Moscow?”

“I was born here,” she said. “This is my city.”

“Then I suggest you get us out of here or we’re both going to die.”

“My wig.” She moved quickly to the closet and flipped the black wig on her head, adjusting it in the mirror as she moved toward the door. She slid on the large, round glasses, picked up her coat and the scarf, seemed to rethink the decision, and dropped them on the floor. “Better for us if they think we have left the hotel.”

“We are leaving.”

“Yes, but we must make them believe they are too late, that we have left in a hurry. It is the only way.”

Reluctantly, Jenkins dropped his winter coat, hat, and gloves back onto the bed.

She pulled open the door to the room and looked in both directions before stepping into the hall. Jenkins moved toward an exit sign above the stairwell.

“They will guard the stairwells and the elevator,” she said. She moved down the hall, stopping to pick up a wineglass from a dinner tray and knocked on the hotel room door. She directed Jenkins down the hall so he was out of the view through the peephole.

Jenkins turned and looked to the elevator. The woman knocked again. “Vpusti menya,” she said in a drunken voice. Let me in. She began to sway. She rapped three more times. “Vpusti menya.”

Jenkins turned again to the elevator.

A man spoke from behind the door. “U vas nepravil’naya komnata.” You have the wrong room.

“Otkroy dver’. Ya zabyl svoy klyuch.” The woman slurred. Open the door. I’ve forgotten my key.

The elevator bell pinged the car’s arrival. At the same time, the man unlocked and pulled open the door. “U vas nepravil’naya—” he began. The woman bull-rushed forward. Jenkins followed, shutting the door behind them.

The man started to protest, but swallowed his words when Jenkins raised the gun and pointed it at the man’s forehead. He clasped his other hand over the man’s mouth. The man’s eyes widened with fear. He stood naked but for white cotton briefs, his hairy stomach protruding over the waistband.

“Listen to me,” the woman said, speaking Russian in a hushed tone. “If you scream or make any noise, he will kill you. If you stay quiet, we will leave in due course. Sit down on the bed.” The man hesitated, eyes fixated on the gun. “I said, sit down on the bed.”

The man retreated two steps until the backs of his legs hit the mattress, and he collapsed onto the bed, shaking.

Jenkins moved to the door and looked out the peephole. Federov and Volkov, along with two others, hurried down the hall from the elevator. He felt the vibration of the floor as they approached and continued past. If the woman was FSB, now was the time for her to scream. She remained silent.

Federov held a room card and motioned to the others to stand on either side of the door to Jenkins’s room. Each man held a gun, muzzle pointed at the floor. Federov swiped the key and pulled down on the door handle. The men barged inside.

The woman whispered to the man on the bed. “There are men coming to kill us. These are not police. These are not good men.”

“Mafiya?” the man said.

“Da, mafiya,” the woman said. “If they find us in your room they will kill us and then they will kill you. They will leave no witnesses. Do you understand?”

The man nodded.

Jenkins watched the men exit his room. Federov motioned for them to move to the doors at each end of the hall. They did so, but not to stand guard. They entered the stairwells. Volkov stepped from the room holding the woman’s long coat and scarf as well as Jenkins’s winter clothing. Her plan had worked. They thought Jenkins had already left. Jenkins heard muffled conversation between Federov and Volkov, but he could not understand what they were saying. Federov looked displeased. He hurried down the hall in the direction of the elevator, Volkov jogging to catch up.