The Eighth Sister (Charles Jenkins #1)(51)

Like the house.

“They are not in the house,” Federov told Alekseyov after he’d gone room to room. “Tell the men to go door-to-door starting with the first house at the end of the block. I want every room in every house checked. If no one is home, break down the doors.”

Federov disconnected and slid the gun back into his shoulder holster. He walked to the back of the house and stepped into the yard, still fuming at the police officer’s stupidity for engaging Jenkins at the gas station, thereby alerting him that Federov had discovered the car. Had the officer not done so, this matter would have likely already concluded and Federov would have had Mr. Jenkins. Or his body.

Soon enough, he thought. Soon enough.





30



Paulina slid out the back door into the yard. The clotheslines swayed in a breeze and the poles creaked as if with displeasure. She slid through an opening in the stone wall, moving down the easement toward the house and the shed where she had ditched the car. The marine layer tempered sounds, and the quiet reminded her of those final days in Moscow, when a thick blanket of snow had fallen over the city. She would not see Moscow again, or the Bolshoi, where she and Ivan had once roamed the hallways and the secret rooms, and climbed to the roof to gaze out at their city. Those were good memories she had of her brother, those and the memories of him dancing. He’d looked like an angel trying out his first pair of wings.

She would cling to those memories now, but she could not dwell on them.

She proceeded down the easement, gun in hand, eyes and ears attuned to every movement and sound. A dog barked, but it was a distant echo, the wail of a dog pleading to be let inside, not the barking of a dog disturbed. She continued on.

When she reached the stone fence at the back of the home closest to M27, she paused to study it. The house looked as it had, dilapidated and deserted. As she started to go over the stone fence, movement caught her attention. She retreated and ducked behind the wall. A man, dressed in a long coat, exited the back of the house.

She watched him remove a pack of cigarettes from his inner coat pocket and flick the blue flame of his lighter. The flame briefly illuminated a hardened face she recognized. Federov. The red ember glowed as Federov sucked in the tobacco, then blew smoke into the night air.

She could think of only one reason for Federov to have been inside the house. He had discovered the Hyundai parked in the shed, and he had suspected she and Jenkins were in the house. Now that Federov knew they were not, the FSB and local police would go door-to-door, as Jenkins had said. She did not have much time.

She rested the handle of the pistol on the top stone. The shot was no more than five to seven meters. She would not miss. More importantly, the reverberation would echo and draw attention away from Charlie. She might even have time to get into the Hyundai and get away, if they had not disabled it. She would drive as far as she could, hopefully far enough. She took aim just as Federov tossed his cigarette butt into the yard and moved down the side of the house, in the direction of the front yard.

Time for her to move.

She climbed the wall and dropped into the yard. She crossed to the shed, keeping watch for others. At the back of the shed she paused again and peered around the side of the building. She saw another glowing ember; someone watching the garage. This was a problem.

She retreated, took just a moment to catch her breath, and moved to the opposite side of the shed, sliding to the corner. She picked her steps carefully so as not to disrupt a misplaced sheet of aluminum siding or inadvertently kick a can. She peered around the front of the building. The guard paced as he sucked on his cigarette. She estimated he was no more than three meters from her, an easy shot. She looked down the road—to where others had likely established a roadblock of some kind, trying to keep her and Jenkins from escaping on M27.

She’d deal with that if she got the car out of the shed.

She had run out of time. So, too, had Mr. Charles Jenkins.

She removed the silencer, which was no longer needed, raised the barrel, and peered around the edge. When the man turned toward her, she took aim.

“For you, Ivan,” she whispered.



Jenkins jumped up and down and pulled and tugged on the stubborn dry suit, eventually getting it over his shoulders. When he had done so, he reached for the long strap of fabric attached to the zipper key. Finding it, he sucked in his stomach, thankful he’d lost weight, and raised his arm, tugging on the strap. The zipper slowly pinched the suit together, moving up his back. When the zipper cleared his shoulder blades, it slid easily up his neck.

The suit was tight. So be it.

He sat to pull on his booties and his gloves. Then he took the ziplock bag with his medications, his passport, and his rubles and dollars, and slid it into a pocket of the buoyancy vest, what Paulina had called a BC. He zipped the pocket closed. He’d also take the gun he’d removed from Arkady Volkov. If he reached the beach, he’d discard it in the water. A gun would be of no help to him once he dove.

He crouched down and slid the straps of the vest onto his shoulders, then straightened and lifted the tank from the kitchen table, feeling its weight. He fastened the clips and straps so the vest rested on his hips and was otherwise snug, as Paulina had instructed. Moving with the tank on his back would be easier than trying to carry it, along with his fins and his mask, and it would allow him to keep a hand free in case he needed the gun. He was also mindful of Paulina’s last instruction. When he got to the water, he needed to be ready to submerge.