The Silent Sisters (Charles Jenkins #3)(62)
“I cannot tell you everything, Olga,” he said. “You know that. But it is an emergency, and I am doing my best to handle it.”
He listened to her rant, accusing him of spending the night with another woman. He looked through a glass partition into what resembled a command center on a science fiction spacecraft with numerous computer terminals, monitors, and blinking colored lights.
He flexed his head to the left, then to the right. The kink in his neck worsened with stress. Caffeine didn’t help, but he needed the jolt to stay focused; he was operating on no sleep and his brain felt sluggish. He really didn’t need her lecture.
Sokalov had awakened the chairman of the Information Technologies Center, Maxim Ugolov, at his home and told him urgent state business demanded his attention at the center. When Ugolov arrived, Sokalov stressed to him the need for discretion, then provided him pictures of Jenkins and Kulikova. He told Ugolov, “This man is an American spy. We do not, however, want to alert anyone in the media that we are hunting him or if and when we capture him. We do not want the Americans to know he has been apprehended. We will need unfettered time to interrogate him. Therefore, I am counting on your discretion and the discretion of the technician you bring in to assist on this matter. And I will hold you both personally accountable.”
Ugolov had been appointed to his position by the government and well understood that Dmitry Sokalov’s displeasure would bear considerable weight on Ugolov’s continued employment. He advised Sokalov he would bring in one of his senior and most trusted technicians.
“Yes, I will call you as soon as I am able, Olga. I don’t know. Maybe tonight. At present I simply can’t say, but I can assure you this is no picnic. Your father? Why would I want to . . . No. Olga?” Sokalov sighed and looked to the door as Alexander Zhomov walked into the room, his eyes glaring and focused. “Good morning, Roman,” Sokalov said into the phone. “Yes, it has been a long night, and I apologized to Olga that I did not call her. No. This is an emergency I am not at liberty to discuss . . . Surely you understand . . . Tonight? I will do my best, Roman.”
Sokalov looked at the phone. His father-in-law had disconnected the call, but not until making it clear he expected Sokalov to return home and provide a better accounting of his evening.
“Did you bring the map?” Zhomov asked Sokalov. “Dmitry?”
Sokalov looked at him.
“Did you bring the map?”
“Yes.” Sokalov pointed to a rolled-up tube on one of the tables. Zhomov unrolled it and studied the maps of Moscow’s underground tunnels, including those that accommodated Metro-2.
“What happened?” Sokalov asked.
“Too long a story to get into now,” Zhomov said. He carried the map to where the technician sat at his terminal. His fingers rapidly stroked the keys on his keyboard and punched buttons. In the upper right corner of his computer monitor was a picture of Charles Jenkins. The computer screen rapidly clicked through thousands of images taken by CCTV cameras.
“Stop typing,” Zhomov said from behind the man.
The man’s fingers dutifully silenced. He sat ramrod straight, eyes on the screen, fingers poised to begin.
Zhomov studied the map and told the others his intent was to find the most likely places where Kulikova and Jenkins could have exited the tunnels, then review CCTV camera footage in those areas to find them. “Pull up a map of downtown. Zoom out.” The man complied. Zhomov leaned over the man’s shoulder, pointing to the Moscow State University campus. “Give me a live feed here.” The man clicked keys and the camera view switched to a live feed of the campus. “Closer here,” Zhomov said. Again, the keyboard clicked, and the monitor zoomed in on the courtyard directly in front of the main campus building. “Go back in time on the camera feed . . .” Zhomov checked his watch. “Four hours.”
The man did as instructed. After several starts and stops, the camera focused on two people, Jenkins and Kulikova hurrying into the square toward the fountain and eventually to the back side, where the fountain obscured them. “This is where they entered the tunnels, beneath this fountain.”
“Ramenki,” Sokalov said, referencing the underground city beneath Moscow State University.
“Do you have cameras in the underground?” Zhomov asked Ugolov.
“No,” Ugolov said. “We have tried, many times, but the Diggers destroy them and the motion sensors. We are working—”
Zhomov raised a hand. “Stop.” Ugolov did. Zhomov studied the map. The technician remained at the ready. Sokalov assumed that, like most people in Moscow, the technician had no real knowledge of the Moscow underground and certainly no information of its extent. To most Muscovites, the underground was more rumor than reality.
After a minute, Zhomov lowered the map and pointed over the technician’s shoulder. “We proceeded northeast for approximately one hour. A man generally walks five to six kilometers an hour.” Zhomov looked to be calculating in his head. “Draw me a line roughly four kilometers northeast of the fountain.” The technician typed on the keys and used the mouse, drawing a straight line that further along the map roughly intersected Gorky Park. Zhomov alternately studied the map and considered the live feed on the computer monitor. “Draw me another line northeast roughly three kilometers.” Again, the technician complied. Zhomov provided additional directions and the technician drew lines as instructed until Zhomov’s finger touched the screen for Zaryadye Park.