The Silent Sisters (Charles Jenkins #3)(12)

“Good night, baby girl,” he said.

“Buddha.” Lizzie laughed.

Jenkins tickled her stomach. “Buddha belly. Buddha belly.”

He shut the door and went downstairs. CJ wore headphones while he worked at the computer in the family room. Jenkins caught Alex’s attention and motioned to the sliding door to the porch. “I’m going to check the horse pastures. Got a fence down. Care to join me?”

“CJ?” Alex tapped their son on the shoulder to get his attention. CJ removed one of the earphones. “Dad and I are going for a walk. We’ll only be gone a few minutes.”

“You know, this is another reason for me to have a cell phone. It would be easier to keep track of you both.”

The boy was laying it on thick. Maybe he would be a plaintiff’s lawyer—or a politician.

Alex and Charlie walked the pastures and discussed CJ getting a phone, ultimately concluding they could do it on a trial basis and see how responsibly the boy behaved. A few more minutes passed in silence, both of them enjoying the evening. Summers, it remained light in the Pacific Northwest until late, but darkness began to fall earlier as September progressed, and Jenkins felt the chill of fall fast approaching. A breeze rattled the maple trees’ leaves and caused the pines to shimmer, and the rain the prior night had softened the ground. Jenkins filled Alex in on his talk with Lemore while he fixed the pasture fence a horse had knocked down.

“Could their silence be related to the FSB operation to find them?” Alex asked.

“I would guess that’s the reason,” he said. “At least for the one at Lubyanka who revealed it. Not yet sure about the second sister.”

“Anybody thought that maybe these women don’t want to leave their country after sixty years?”

“Me,” Jenkins said. “It’s a weighty decision, especially if their positions have accorded them some luxury. Then again, if they’re that high up, they know what happens to traitors. The other possibility is they turned, maybe years ago.”

“How would you make contact without drawing attention? We’ve been over this. Russia’s population is less than one percent Black; you don’t exactly blend in here, much less in Moscow.”

“Lemore has a plan and said the CIA is already at work on a number of disguises and passports, and I’d receive further training at Langley.”

Alex didn’t speak.

“I know you’re worried,” he said. “But Moscow is an enormous city—”

“With facial recognition cameras everywhere.”

“I’ll be in disguise twenty-four seven. I determine their situations and get them out, or I get out.”

“Anything else I should know?”

Jenkins thought of Lemore’s comment that Jenkins had been placed on a kill list. It wasn’t new information; they had suspected that to be the case, but the confirmation was sobering. Still, Jenkins didn’t intend to get caught. “That’s it,” he said.

“If either of these women has turned—and don’t insult my intelligence and tell me Lemore can guarantee they haven’t—one of them might be providing confidential information to lure you back to Moscow.”

“I’ll have the element of surprise.”

“How do you figure?”

“Not even the Russians would think I was stupid enough to return a third time.”

She shook her head. “Don’t joke. This isn’t funny.”

They walked in silence, then Jenkins said, “We did talk about this. These women gave their lives. They helped us win the Cold War, and they’ve kept eyes on Putin. Three have already died because of Carl Emerson. I’d like to finish what I started and get the remaining two out. There are risks, but this time we can control the risks.”

“Can we?”

“Anything gets squirrelly, I’ll get out.”

“I know you, Charlie; if you see an injustice, a wrong, you won’t be able to keep your nose out of it.”

“I can still take care of myself, Alex.”

His comment stopped Alex dead in her tracks. “What does that mean? I hope this isn’t something you’re doing to prove you still can—some validation that your age is just a number.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Jenkins said, but there was some truth to her comment. “I just meant Lemore has resources to help me.”

He knew she suspected he wasn’t telling her everything, that he was holding back information so she wouldn’t worry. But he also couldn’t deny that when he’d gone back into Russia to get Paulina Ponomayova out, he’d felt an adrenaline rush, the high that came with outsmarting people trying to outsmart him. The feeling had been intoxicating forty years ago in Mexico City, and even more so in Moscow, the darkest corner of the espionage world.

“Just remember one thing,” Alex said.

“What’s that?”

“Not everyone has your sense of duty and justice. Don’t give yourself up thinking someone will repay the favor. Most people choose to save their own skin, even if you’ve given yours for them.”

“I know,” he said.

“You have responsibilities here at home to think about.”

“I don’t plan to get caught, Alex.”