The Silent Sisters (Charles Jenkins #3)(56)

“We need to get into the woods,” Jenkins said, hurrying to her side. “We need to get out of sight.”

“I know this campus. I went to school here, and I have had reason to study it extensively.”

“Why?”

“Not now,” she said. “Follow me.”

Again, Jenkins had to give her credit. She seemed to have a singular purpose. She was also in good shape, not sounding the least bit out of breath, though she had to be close to his age. He was grateful for his early morning runs, and soon found his wind, his breathing becoming steady.

She came to what appeared to be the entrance of the school, dominated by an expansive lawn and divided by courtyards in front of a massive building Jenkins recognized from photographs.

“One of the seven sisters,” he said, slightly out of breath. He recalled the distinct tiered neoclassical tower, one of seven built in the Stalin era. The central tower was nearly forty floors and flanked by four long wings.

“Ironic, isn’t it?” She moved away from the building toward the courtyards. Paved with red bricks and lined with flower beds and tall trees, they might provide brief cover. Jenkins did not bother her with questions since she seemed to know where she was going and what she was doing. She rushed to a dry fountain in the southwest quadrant of the courtyard that looked like a multilayered wedding cake with a metal dish atop it. Gargoyle heads extended from the round basin, presumably to spew water. Like many things in Moscow, however, the fountain had fallen into disrepair. Several of the heads were missing, leaving pipes protruding from the pitted concrete. There was simply no money to maintain public landmarks.

Kulikova systematically walked around the fountain and pulled on metal grates beneath the concrete base.

“What are we doing?” Jenkins wiped perspiration from his face and looked behind them to the trees and the bushes, trying to discern car headlights.

“There is a ventilation shaft below the fountain. I don’t have time now to explain. We need to get one of these grates opened and get inside.”

Jenkins bent for a closer inspection. The decorative bars were part of a single grate with hinges at the top and a bolt embedded at the concrete base. The concrete had been drilled and the bolt epoxied into place, but the bolt had rusted, creating space. Jenkins yanked on the grate and the bolt head moved. He rattled the grate, and the noise echoed in the courtyard.

“I might be able to pry up the bolt.” He grabbed the head of the bolt with his fingers and tried to force it up. It raised slightly, but not enough. He stopped. “I’m going to need to create some leverage.”

He left the fountain for one of the surrounding flower beds and found a pile of rocks in a corner. He sifted through them until he found two that might work. Hurrying back, he dropped to his knees and angled the longer of the two rocks to put the flat edge under the bolt head, like a chisel blade. He used the second rock like a hammer. The bolt head raised slightly. He tapped again, and again, and again, each time raising the bolt millimeters. The woman kept watch. When Jenkins had raised the bolt enough to grip the head, he wiggled it, but again could not yank it free. He went back to tapping. He had no idea the length of the bolt, or how long it would take to dislodge it. He did know, however, they had very little time.



Zhomov drove slowly, searching the woods to the left and right.

“They could have hidden the car anywhere,” Sokalov said.

“No,” Zhomov said. “They could not. We would see the tire tracks and the bushes would be destroyed. They stayed on the road, trying to get as far as possible until the tire wore off the rim.”

They came to a fork in the road. The main road continued back toward Moscow; the other took them to Moscow State University. “They would not risk taking the car back to Moscow. They would try to hide it someplace on the campus,” Zhomov said.

He took the fork to the university, proceeding slowly, his head on a swivel, scanning the parking lots on each side of the campus. He slowed the car to a near stop.

“What?” Sokalov asked.

He pointed to the portion of the road visible in the car’s headlights. The pavement looked like someone had dragged a spike down it. “He lost the rubber on the tire here. There,” he said and pointed to torn rubber along the road’s edge. “They cannot be far.” He followed the scrape marks into the parking lot on the back side of a dormitory building and pulled behind the car with the blown-out back window, partially hidden behind a garbage dumpster. “They are on foot.”

“They could be hidden in any of these buildings,” Sokalov said.

Again, Zhomov dismissed it. “The buildings are locked,” he said. “Call the CCTV center in Moscow. Throw your weight around. Tell them you want live footage of the campus, that you are looking for a man and a woman on foot, likely running. Tell them to have the computer system search for Maria Kulikova.”

Sokalov took out his phone, made the call to Lubyanka, and was connected to the Moscow Department of Information Technologies. He provided them his access code and told them what he wanted.

“We have located them,” the man on the phone said. “They are still on the campus, near the main building on Sparrow Hill. A woman and a Black man.”

“Black?” Sokalov said.

“Is he an old man?” Zhomov said into the phone.

“Can’t tell.”