The Silent Sisters (Charles Jenkins #3)(51)

Maria emerged above ground across from the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour and again paused at the bus stop to go through the ritual of removing her lipstick and her compact mirror to scan behind her, searching again for anyone watching her. Seeing no one, she drew a check mark on the glass shelter, but this time she put a line through the stem to signify she was done. She needed to get out. She pocketed her cosmetics and hurried for home.

It had been a risk divulging the plan to kill Ibragimov to her handlers. When she had learned of Operation Herod, Maria had done what she’d been instructed to do whenever the Kremlin got too close. She’d cut off all communication with her handlers. She stopped making dead drops or responding to brush-bys. She stopped answering the phone at night or responded, “There is no one here by that name” to indicate her refusal to meet. She ignored the advertisements in the Moscow Times with hidden messages seeking to set meeting locations and times.

But she could not remain silent when she learned of the plan to brazenly kill Fyodor Ibragimov on American soil. It was not just about Ibragimov—or his wife and his children, who would mourn the loss of a husband and a father. His assassination would eliminate the final sanctuary for those seeking a better Russia. It would accomplish what the president had long sought to accomplish: sending an undeniable message that those who betrayed Russia were never safe. The repercussions would silence dissidents. Silence any opposition. It would send them into hiding and cause the country to hearken back to Soviet times.

The plan to kill Ibragimov had once again given Maria a purpose, and if finding her purpose cost her life, so be it.

But it should not cost Helge his.

What did you do, Helge?

In the building’s marble entry, Maria greeted the doorman.

“A hot one today, was it not?” the doorman said. “I’m glad to be in an air-conditioned lobby.”

Maria smiled and stepped past him to the elevator, repeatedly hitting the button to close the doors. She exited on the twelfth floor and rushed down the carpeted hall, her heart racing. She took a deep breath and inserted the key in the deadbolt. It was not locked. The sound tripped Stanislav’s Pavlovian response. Helge’s lightweight jacket did not hang on the coatrack. Maria stepped past the dog and called out her husband’s name. “Helge?”

The chair in which Helge ritually sat was empty, a glass on the side table half-full. Maria had intended to suggest that he visit his older brother in Poland, with whom he was close and with whom he occasionally hunted. She had intended that Helge go away.

She turned in circles, uncertain what to do or where to go. The telephone on the wall rang. Maria answered it.

“May I speak to Ariana?” the voice said.

“I’m afraid you have the wrong number,” she replied. Then, like the dash she had drawn in the check mark’s stem, she added a phrase she had hoped she’d never have to use. “What number are you calling?” It, too, signified her need of immediate exfiltration.

“Sorry to disturb,” her handler said, hanging up.

She didn’t have much time. She would need to leave immediately. She could take nothing with her but the clothes on her back. She’d give Stanislav to the couple in the apartment down the hall.

Helge . . . Her conscience would not allow her to leave Helge to die. She had compromised so much of her moral fiber she no longer believed she was a good person at heart. To leave Helge to die would be to fall further into the depraved sewer, perhaps too deep to ever again be free. She expected she would pay for her depravity, if not in this life then when she reached the gates of heaven, but maybe, just maybe, God would show some mercy if she risked her own life to save Helge.

She reached for the notepad on the counter to leave Helge a message to call her immediately when he returned home. The pad was not on the counter where they regularly kept it. Nor was the ballpoint pen. She searched the kitchen counter and the table, did not find it, then turned to the living room. The pad and pen rested on the side table, beside Helge’s glass of vodka.

She hurried to it, angled the top page beneath the lamp, and detected the faint etchings of the ballpoint pen, though she was unable to read the written words. This was a problem she had encountered before. Back in the kitchen, she rummaged inside the drawer by the phone and found a pencil. She lightly shaded the etched letters, seeing them form, faint but decipherable.

V . . .

Vr . . .

Vrat . . .

Vratar’—the Goaltender.

She pulled out her phone and punched in the name, obtaining the address for a bar near Moscow State University. She had never heard of it. She doubted Helge had. He had plenty of local bars at which to drink. This, she knew from experience, had Sokalov written all over it. Lure his prey someplace he was not known, would not be remembered.

She pulled up the Moscow Metro app on her phone as she moved back down the hall to the front door. The destination would require that she change cars twice and travel five Metro stops. She grabbed her pen with the cyanide capsule from her bag and rushed out the door with Stanislav. She dropped him at the neighbors’ who had a child who loved Stanislav and came over often to see him, then hurried back toward the elevators.

She would not make her dead drop. She would miss her chance at freedom.

So be it. Better to die this way than to burn in eternal hell.





23


Ramenki District