The Silent Sisters (Charles Jenkins #3)(17)

Jenkins intended to watch Kulikova first. If he determined she was under surveillance, it would complicate communication and, ultimately, exfiltration. He would then move on to observe Petrekova.

The hotel clerk in the small, well-worn lobby was pleasant but reserved. After Jenkins presented his passport and credit card, the clerk handed him a key card for a room on the hotel’s third floor. “Can you provide me the names of some of the trendier places to eat around here?” Jenkins asked, again in a British accent.

When the man did not respond, Jenkins spoke to him in Russian. The clerk handed him a sheet of paper from beneath the counter. A cursory review revealed the names of restaurants that delivered, a dry cleaner, several tour guide companies, and other services. Having been on an airplane for seemingly half a day, Jenkins did not want to eat in his room, but he also did not want to walk into an establishment on the tourist junket. He wanted something like his hotel, well off the beaten path. He made his way to the caged elevator and rode it to the third floor. He detected no camera in the elevator or in his third-floor hallway.

Inside his room, Jenkins shut the door but left the lights off. He scanned the walls and the ceiling, looking for pinpoints of green, red, or white light that could indicate a hidden camera or listening device. Seeing none, he turned on the light and put his suitcase on the bed. He removed a shaving kit and, from within, what looked to be an electric razor. He pressed a button on the bottom and walked the room. The device detected radio waves and magnetic field signals, as well as hidden camera equipment, mobile phone bugs, and GPS locators. When any of those were detected, an LED light illuminated and the machine vibrated.

Jenkins noted no response.

He returned the machine to the shaving kit and slid from his jacket. He undid the buttons of his shirt and removed it, then lifted off the fat suit that gave him the appearance of being forty pounds heavier, mostly in his belly. He peeled off the lightweight, synthetic gloves that extended nearly to his elbows and made his hands appear white, complete with liver spots, and provided the fingerprints for Mr. Charles Wilson, textile manufacturer. The gloves made his hands sweat in the unusually warm weather. He also removed the blue contact lenses that had dried out and annoyed his eyes on the plane and flushed them down the toilet. He left on the prosthetic mask. Moscow’s facial recognition cameras were everywhere in the city and used extensively. The facial disguise was necessary because, if given the opportunity, the cameras would scan Jenkins’s face, link it with his face in a data repository, and immediately alert the Moscow police and the FSB. The cameras would then track him throughout Moscow.

Fifteen minutes after departing his hotel, Jenkins entered the door to the Yakimanka Bar, set off a side street. The bar got an F for name originality and exterior and interior design, but an A for being exactly what Jenkins sought. Except for two men shooting Russian billiards at a ridiculously large table, the place was deserted and dimly lit. He didn’t have to worry that his hands were darker complected than his face. The bar smelled of cigarette smoke and greasy food. Jenkins took a booth where he could see out the window onto the street.

One of the men playing pool shouted, drawing Jenkins’s attention. The man looked to be in his twenties, with a fashionable haircut—short on the sides but long on top. His hair hung over the table each time he bent to take a pool shot. In between shots he strutted around the table, drinking from one of several beer bottles on the table’s edge and verbalizing his next attempt to his large companion, a mountain of a man whose shaved head nearly touched the ceiling. The mountain looked bemused but not concerned.

The shooter was muscled beneath his white tank-top T-shirt. A thick gold chain hung from his neck. Jenkins noticed a long-sleeve shirt and suit jacket hanging on a wall hook near a pool-cue rack missing two cues. The man wore suit pants and dress shoes, but he did not strike Jenkins as the business type. A colorful sleeve of tattoos adorned his right arm from his wrist to his shoulder.

“Ya by na tvoem meste ikh ignoriroval. Yesli ty ne glup, uhodi.” I’d ignore them. If you’re smart, you’ll leave.

Jenkins turned his attention to the bartender, who had come out from behind the bar. The man had a mane of graying hair and a bushy beard that covered most of his wrinkled face.

“Lobotomie,” Jenkins said, ordering one of Russia’s most popular beers.

The man shook his head, exhaled, and departed.

“Suka!” the pool shooter yelled. Bitch. “Prinesi nam yeschche piva.” Get us more beer.

Jenkins had not previously noticed the woman seated on a bar stool in a dark corner near the table. A flimsy white dress barely covered her long legs or her cleavage. She stumbled when she stepped down, nearly falling off her red platform heels. The pool hustler laughed and swatted her backside with the pool cue, causing her to fall forward into the table, then onto the floor.

The woman was high. Something more powerful than beer. A narcotic of some kind.

The man poked her with the pool stick and lifted her dress, then looked to his friend for approval. The woman grabbed the edge of the pool table to rise, unsteady on her feet. She teetered toward the bar, this time falling from a step that elevated the room. She landed hard on the worn linoleum. The bartender looked at her but only briefly. He made no effort to help her. Jenkins nearly got up, then thought better of getting involved. The woman got to her feet and stumbled to the bar. She said something to the bartender, then turned and looked at Jenkins. Black mascara ran down her face, like a clown’s tears.