The Eighth Sister (Charles Jenkins #1)(52)

He picked up his fins and his mask by their straps, moved to the front of the house, and pulled down a blade of the blind. It crinkled and pinged. Peering out the gap, he saw the car still parked in the street, and he hoped that whatever Paulina did, it would be enough to get the two men to move away, and quickly.

He was about to let the blind snap shut when he noticed movement inside the car. The two men got out simultaneously. Something was up.

The driver talked on his cell phone, looking up and down the street as he did. Then he lowered the phone, slid it into his coat pocket, and said something to the passenger, who had come around the back of the car. Together they walked toward the house. They’d probably been instructed to search door-to-door.

“Shit,” Jenkins said.

He watched them tug on the gate. It shook and rattled. Not about to give up that easily, the first man moved to the aluminum siding used for fencing, gripped a gatepost, climbed atop the fence, and jumped into the yard. The second man mimicked his moves. When he’d landed, the two approached the front of the house.

Jenkins moved to the door at the back of the house, gun in hand.

One of the men knocked on the front door. After a pause, he knocked again, this time with more force, more insistent, and called out, asking if anyone was home. About to open the back door and move toward the easement, Jenkins caught sight of a shadow on the blinds covering a window along the side of the house. The second man had started to work his way to the back of the house. Was the man at the front of the house a decoy, someone to draw Jenkins’s attention?

He retreated from the door into the shadows of the room, bent to a knee, difficult with the weight of the tank on his back, and pressed against the wall. His hand holding the gun shook. He wouldn’t hit much if he couldn’t calm his nerves. He took deep breaths to steady his aim.

He heard feet outside and followed the sound to the back door. The man climbed the steps. Jenkins could see his shadow on the thin piece of cloth covering the window. The door handle turned. Locked. A sharp ping followed, and a large piece of the glass fell inward, shattering on the floor. The man reached his hand through the hole, unlocked the door, and reached for the doorknob.

Jenkins raised the gun, gripping his right wrist with his left to steady it. He couldn’t wait for whatever it was Paulina planned to do.

He’d have to shoot and take his chances.



Paulina pulled the trigger. The agent’s left shoulder looked as though someone had yanked a string attached to his back. His feet came out from under him and he hit the ground hard. The crack and thump of the shot echoed in the still night air. Most would mistake the sound for a car backfiring, but those who knew guns, like Federov, would not.

Paulina moved quickly and deliberately to the agent on the ground, removed his gun from its holster, and tossed it into the bushes. “Vy budete zhit,” she said. You’ll live.

Hurrying to the front of the garage, she picked up the rock holding the doors shut, flung it into the yard, and yanked open the doors. She squeezed along the driver’s side of the car and managed to open the door enough to press inside.

She inserted the key, said a silent prayer, and turned the ignition. The engine came to life. “Time to run, Ivan.”

She dropped the car into drive, saw headlights approaching from the intersection at the end of the road, and, not wanting to get pinned inside the shed, gunned the engine. The car leapt forward, the back end fishtailed on the dirt and gravel before the tires gripped and the Hyundai straightened. She aimed directly at the oncoming car.

She glimpsed two men in the front seats just before the driver yanked the wheel and their car swerved and plowed through shrubbery, striking the trunk of a tree with a loud thud, followed by the persistent blast of a car horn.

Charles Jenkins had his distraction. She hoped it worked.

Paulina accelerated toward the intersection. Without headlights, she saw gray shadows in the road, two cars serving as a roadblock. She aimed for the gap between the front bumpers, powered down the driver’s-side window, and shot at the police officers getting out of their vehicles. They ducked and sought cover. Just before impact, she brought her arm in, dropped the gun into her lap, gripped the steering wheel with both hands, and braced herself.

The Hyundai crashed between the two cars and forced its way through the narrow opening. She felt her body jolt forward, the safety strap digging into her shoulder and across her lap then being pulled back hard against the seat. She hit the brakes, yanked the steering wheel to the right to correct the back end, and punched the gas. The car sputtered up the M27 incline. Behind her she heard more shots.

She wouldn’t get far, but hopefully she’d get far enough to give Charles Jenkins time to run.



Jenkins released pressure on the trigger when he heard the echo of a gunshot fired from somewhere down the street. Paulina. The man at the back door heard it also. He paused, then removed his hand and stepped away. The man at the front of the house shouted something, and the man at the back took off running.

Jenkins stood, struggling for balance, and moved to the door. He stepped outside and heard the sound of tires spitting gravel. No time to waste, he moved as quickly as he could across the backyard, stopping to slip through the gap in the stone fence. The bottom of his tank clanged against a rock. Stepping through, he hurried across the adjacent empty lot, toward the path leading to the Black Sea. Down the street, the opposite direction, he saw the taillights of the car that had been parked in front of the house.