The Silent Sisters (Charles Jenkins #3)(49)

“This afternoon. Petrekova broke from routine.”

“She went to a beauty salon.”

“No. She walked toward the Metro. I turned my eyes from her for an instant and she was in the back of a taxicab. I think she knows she is being followed. I think we should follow the driver. If we’re wrong we come back and continue doing what we’re doing.”

“Which is nothing,” Vinchenko said.

“We are losing the driver,” Chernoff said.

“Okay. Okay.” He sat up and took a moment to adjust his seat.

“Hurry,” she said. “Come on.”

He started the car and drove down the alley, turning left at the end of the block, the same direction as the delivery driver. “You will find that ninety percent of this work amounts to nothing. You’ll see. You spend weeks watching someone only to learn it was a false alarm. You will learn this. But for now . . .”

“There. Turning right,” Chernoff said, spying the Domino’s car’s taillights.

“How long are we going to follow her?” Vinchenko asked.

“Pull her over on the next block,” she said. She put a police light atop their car.

“And what will we say is the reason for pulling her over?”

“We don’t need a reason.”

The lights flashed and Vinchenko pulled close to the car, which slowed as if to allow him to pass. When Vinchenko did not, the driver pulled over and parked at the curb. Chernoff grabbed a flashlight from the floorboard and stepped out as soon as the car stopped. She approached the driver’s side, keeping a hand on her gun. She stopped at the back window and reached to knock on the driver’s window with the flashlight. The driver lowered the window.

“Did I do something wrong?” a young woman asked. Then, eyeing Chernoff more carefully, she asked, “Are you a police officer?”

“I’m sorry,” Chernoff said. “We are looking for a car just like this one. Would you mind stepping out?”

“You are looking for a Domino’s car?”

“Please, step out of the car.”

“I’d like to see some identification. Why are you not in uniform? That’s not even a police car.”

“Step out,” Chernoff said. Under no circumstance was she going to show her FSB identification. If word spread the FSB was in the area, Petrekova would certainly find out, if she didn’t already know.

Vinchenko arrived. “We are working undercover,” he said to the driver. “Please do as she says. This will go a lot faster, and you will be able to get back to delivering pizza and earning your tips.”

The driver exited the vehicle. Chernoff lifted the flashlight to the woman’s face. The driver squinted and looked away. “You are blinding me.”

Chernoff lowered the flashlight and shined the light into the car’s empty interior. “Open the trunk, please.”

The driver hit the latch inside the car and the trunk popped. Vinchenko lifted the trunk. Empty.

“Do you have identification?” Chernoff said.

The woman produced a driver’s license, and Chernoff reviewed it under her flashlight. She took a picture of the license using her phone before she handed it back. “It was a mistake. You’re free to go.”

Chernoff walked back to the car, stopping to take a photograph of the license plate before she got in the passenger seat.

Vinchenko slid into the driver’s seat, chuckling.

“Better safe than sorry,” she said, punching in a number on her phone.

“Who are you calling, the pizza police?”

“Domino’s. I want to be sure the driver works for them.”

Vinchenko pulled a U-turn in the middle of the street and drove back to the alley. Minutes later he parked again beneath the tree. The light in Petrekova’s shaded kitchen window switched off. Seconds later, the light in her shaded living room window switched on. Chernoff could see the television flickering on the shade.

“She’s going to eat watching television. We should be so lucky,” Vinchenko said, sipping his coffee.



Two blocks from the redbrick house, the old woman shuffled along the darkened street to another parked car, her old dog obediently at her side. This time she did not knock on the window to get the driver’s attention. She pulled open the back door and put the dog on the seat, where it curled up, seemingly happy to no longer be walking. Then she pulled open the passenger-side door—the interior light had been removed—and slid onto the seat. Charles Jenkins, still disguised as the old man, started the car and pulled gently from the curb. They looked like an elderly couple out for the evening.

Having Petrekova walk up to the tail had been a bold move, a move out of character for someone seeking to evade a tail. Jenkins could tell it had been nerve-wracking for Petrekova.

“Everything went all right?” he asked.

“What if my neighbor walks her dog?”

“She already has. That was another reason for you to get home later than usual.”

“And if my tail gets suspicious?”

“We would have known of it already. The fact that they haven’t makes it highly likely you’ll have until Monday morning before you’re missed. Depending on what happens from here, you might call in Monday and tell your office you are ill, to buy more time.” He glanced in the rearview mirror for headlights but didn’t see any. “Are you hungry?”