The Silent Sisters (Charles Jenkins #3)(71)

Jenkins walked to a drain basin in the street curb and bent down as if to tie his shoe. He removed the gun Kulikova had given him from his coat and dropped the magazine down the drain, then dropped the gun. He would have preferred to have kept it, but that option was not possible with metal detectors scanning every person and every piece of luggage entering the railway terminal.

He followed Kulikova to the front door, both keeping their heads down. Inside the terminal, Jenkins veered to the right, to a line moving toward a metal detector. Kulikova veered to her left. Voices of commuters echoed and blended with the computerized voice broadcasting from loudspeakers to announce arriving and departing trains. Jenkins focused on the people around them, the men and women falling into line behind them, and the police officers watching from the other side of the metal detectors. No one seemed particularly interested in him or in Kulikova, and, unlike his excursion with Ponomayova, the police were not considering their phones or comparing a picture to the faces of the passengers stepping through the scanners. Because neither he nor Kulikova had luggage to scan, they stepped to the front of the line and went through the machines, meeting on the other side, though without acknowledging one another.

Jenkins moved quickly toward the interior shops, scanning the various sundries until he found what he sought. He purchased two hats, one a baseball-style cap with a logo, the other a blue beret. He also picked up two extra-large sweatshirts with hoods, one a bright red, the other gray, and a navy-blue scarf. He purchased a backpack, paid with rubles, and shoved everything in a large plastic bag.

Inside a restroom stall he removed the gray wig and mustache and pulled on the red sweatshirt. He pressed the baseball cap so the brim fit low on his head and the bill obscured much of his face. He raised the hood over the hat, slipped the wig and mustache into the backpack, and, before he exited the restroom, remembered the training he had received at the Langley disguise division about creating a counterfeit person. A disguise was not just about masks and makeup but about creating illusions in the way one walked, stood, or gestured, and taking on a character’s role.

Jenkins exited into the terminal with the quick and confident gait of a much younger man late for a trip. He dashed toward the swinging glass doors leading to the outdoor platform, but he did not immediately exit. He moved to the side as people came and went, and pulled out his ticket as if to consider the platform, but kept his gaze outside the glass doors. He searched for anyone watching the doors as well as for the CCTV cameras. He found one camera with four lenses high up a light stanchion, no doubt providing platform coverage. In the center of the outdoor platform was another kiosk with multiple stores that looked to carry similar merchandise as the interior shops. He searched the stanchions on the other side of that kiosk for another camera but didn’t immediately see one. That didn’t mean there wasn’t one.

Jenkins checked his watch. Thirteen minutes until their train departed.

He stepped outdoors and moved quickly to the far side of the kiosk. In his peripheral vision he spotted Kulikova. She had ditched the black sweater for a colorful scarf, and somehow had managed to lift her long skirt above her knees. She had also changed from walking shoes to heels and she had removed the wig. She had put her hair up beneath a fashionable hat that looked like something a 1950s newsboy would wear selling newspapers on the street corner. The most intricate part of her disguise, however, was not her clothing but her company. She strolled alongside a man and two young children, keeping her head turned away from the light stanchion as she crossed the platform. Jenkins looked for the man’s spouse but didn’t see one. The young-looking Kulikova completed the family picture—a mother possibly, but more likely a grandmother.





35


Varsonof’yevskiy Pereulok

Moscow, Russia

Arkhip hurried but did not rush. He did not want to look as though he was in pursuit. As he passed the Range Rover, he studied the faces of the three handcuffed men and committed them to memory. One of the men, the oldest looking of the three, wore a tailored suit and dress shoes that would likely cost Arkhip his annual salary. As Arkhip passed, the man looked up at him, gave him the tiniest thin-lipped smile, and tipped his head, as if to say they would meet again.

Arkhip did not return the gesture.

He turned the corner in the direction Jenkins and Kulikova had walked, blending in with the emerging crowd on the sidewalks and congregated in the cafés and at coffeehouse tables. The crowds were not as dense as on weekday mornings, but sufficient for Arkhip, at five foot six, to not stand out.

He spotted Jenkins and Kulikova in the far distance just before they turned another corner. Arkhip needed to close in but not get too close. He contemplated what would be Jenkins’s and Kulikova’s first priority. Getting out of the country, definitely, but how best to do it? Transportation? Certainly. What method?

He considered his location. Were Jenkins and Kulikova walking to a designated rendezvous site where a car would pick them up? Perhaps, though that would be potentially risky for all involved, especially the person providing aid, given the depth to which Jenkins and Kulikova were wanted.

Arkhip felt his cell phone buzz and removed it from his pants pocket. He noted the number for the Moscow police department.

He answered the call. “This is Chief Investigator Arkhip Mishkin.”

“Chief Investigator, this is Officer Orlov. We spoke at the crime scene.”