The Eighth Sister (Charles Jenkins #1)(30)

“It’s almost over,” the woman whispered to the man. “We will soon leave. But let me warn you. If you tell anyone we were here, those men will find you and they will kill you. Do you understand?”

“Da,” the man said softly.

“You were sleeping. You had too much to drink. You did not see or hear anything.”

“Da,” the man said again.

“Go back to sleep,” she said. “You are having a nightmare.”





15



Jenkins peered through the peephole before opening the door. Clear. He stepped into the hall, wishing he could have taken his winter clothing so he wouldn’t freeze to death.

“How did you get here?” he asked the woman.

“A car, parked at the back of the building.” She moved to the door beneath the red exit sign at the end of the hall, opened it, and looked up and down the stairwell. Jenkins listened for footfalls, hearing none. She gestured for him to follow. They descended the stairwell, stopping every so often to listen. Hearing no other footsteps, they continued to the bottom floor. Again, the woman peered out a crack in the door before she stepped into the hall and turned to her right, winding her way through abandoned hallways, Jenkins following.

They emerged in a darkened dining area and hurried across the room, exiting to another hallway. They continued until they heard voices and music.

“The hotel bar,” she said, pulling Jenkins to her as she backed up against one of the marbled pillars. They resembled lovers, perhaps discussing whose room they would use to continue their evening.

She whispered to him as she ran her hands over his shoulders. “The back entrance to the hotel is just down the marble steps. I will go first. Wait five minutes before you walk outside.”

“I don’t think so,” he whispered back. “We haven’t exactly developed that kind of trust.”

“Then I suggest you develop it,” she said. “At the moment they don’t know what I look like, only my disguise. If I walk out that door I am a woman who was drinking in the bar. If you walk out that door with me and they are watching, you blow my cover.”

Jenkins knew the woman’s anonymity would allow her to walk out the door. He also knew it was a possibility she would get in her car and not look back, leaving him to fend for himself. He also knew he didn’t have much choice.

“Two minutes,” he said.

“Five minutes,” she said, more forcefully.

“Why five?”

“Because the Bolshoi gets out in five minutes. In five minutes you walk out the back door and cross the street to the fountain. If anyone is following, lose them in the crowd exiting the Bolshoi.”

“And then what? Where am I going?”

“To the ballet. Everyone will be coming out. You will be going in.”

“How—”

She spoke over him. “Listen. We don’t have time for questions. If anyone stops you, tell them you left your jacket and gloves at the coat check. Inside, there will be another crowd. Follow the signs to the coat check. Just past it you will find a door. Go through it. The hallway leads backstage to where performers change. There is a back exit the performers use to avoid the crowds at the front of the building.”

“How do you know this?”

“Listen carefully,” she said, more urgently. “Go out the back door. You will be in an alley. Cross it to the building behind the Bolshoi. There is a restaurant on the second floor where many in the Bolshoi go after the performance, and so the door in the alley will be unlocked. Climb the stairs to the second floor. You will be arriving through the back entrance, but do not go into the restaurant. You will see a metal cage blocking a staircase to your right. The metal cage is broken. Open it and descend one flight. You will have to cross a darkened hall leading to an exit into a second alley. I will flash the car’s headlights once. Can you remember this?”

“Yes.”

“Give me the gun,” she said.

“I don’t think so.”

“If I am accosted and have to kill someone, I must do so quickly and quietly.”

“So must I.”

“Yes, but without a car, neither of us is getting very far, very fast, and not likely alive.”

Again, Jenkins couldn’t fault her logic, but logic and trust weren’t the same thing, and giving up his only weapon to someone who hadn’t yet earned his trust—far from it. But, as she said, what choice did he have? They couldn’t walk out of the hotel together, and they wouldn’t get far without a car.

“What do I do while I’m waiting?”

“Use the bathroom.” She looked to her left. Jenkins saw the men’s room door just behind the marbled pillar.

Reluctantly, he lifted his shirt. She grabbed the Ruger, slipping it in the waistband of her jeans and covering it with her sweater.

“Pozhelay mne udachi,” she said. Wish me luck.



Paulina Ponomayova tilted her head and let the bangs of the black wig flow across the left side of her face, hoping the hair and the glasses would cover much of her left eye, which was already swelling shut. She stepped past a security guard standing beside the first set of glass doors.

“Mogu li ya pomoch’?” he said. May I be of assistance?

Ponomayova kept her eyes down. “Nyet, spasibo.”