The Silent Sisters (Charles Jenkins #3)(74)

The man considered Jenkins’s outfit and handed Jenkins back his passport and ticket. “Enjoy your trip. If there is anything I or my partner can do to make your trip more enjoyable, do not hesitate to ask.”

“Danka . . . I mean, spasibo.”

“Pozhaluysta,” the provodnik said.

On board the train, a matron took Jenkins’s ticket and pointed out the toilet and washbasin in a room at the back of the carriage, then led Jenkins down the narrow corridor, exterior windows on his left and carriage-room doors on his right. They passed four cabins and stopped at a door in the center of the carriage. The matron advised that inside his cabin he could lock the door, but only the matron, or a provodnik or provodnitsa, could lock and unlock the door from the outside. He thanked the matron, handed her ten rubles, and ducked inside the cabin. He tossed the bag containing his backpack on a luggage rack above two berths and turned sideways to step between them to the curtained window. He searched for anyone on the platform who looked familiar.

Moments later, the cabin door opened. Kulikova turned her back to Jenkins. She laughed as she finished a conversation with a man, presumably the father of the two children with whom she boarded the train. She shut and locked the door. Kulikova’s fa?ade disappeared. She looked drained, pale. She sat on one of the berths, which were not much wider than a bench seat, and looked up at Jenkins with tired eyes. Neither of them had slept in more than twenty-four hours.

“Everything all right?” he asked.

Kulikova nodded. Then she said, “I have been invited to have a drink before dinner.”

“That was smart, to appear to be together.”

She shrugged. “Seducing men comes naturally to me, Mr. Jenkins. Do you know how many men in my lifetime have offered to buy me a drink? Nor do I. But I do know how many I accepted because I wanted to get to know the man better. Not one.” She sighed and quickly moved on. “Do you think we were spotted?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m sure you know more about the capabilities of the CCTV cameras than I do. We hear everything, from the system being filled with glitches to being so accurate it can identify a suspect even if he’s wearing a mask.”

“The cameras are very good. They measure the distance between the eyes, the nose, and mouth, and record the shape of the chin, among other things. The government would like us to believe the cameras can detect a person even if that person’s face is partially hidden, but that technology does not yet exist, at least not in the cameras of which I am aware. Once the calculations are made, the camera uses algorithms to compare that face with the calculations for the millions of faces stored in police and other government agency databases.”

“I guess we’ll know soon enough how good they are,” Jenkins said. “When’s the last time you slept?”

Kulikova shrugged. “I haven’t slept a full night in years.”

“Why don’t you lie down. Are you hungry?”

“No.” She shook her head.

“I think it best we stay out of sight, until we know the lay of the land.”

“Lay of which land?”

“It’s an expression. It means, ‘Until we know more.’ I’ll buy drinks and snacks when the trolley service comes by.” Jenkins held up his phone. He pressed the button on the side, hoping it had time to dry out. The device powered up, but he could tell it was glitchy. “At least it works.”

“Yes, but the Wi-Fi and the Internet do not.” She was right. He had no service. “So at present, we are on our own.”

Jenkins opened an interior door to the adjacent cabin.

“Are you married, Mr. Jenkins?” Kulikova asked.

He turned back. “Charlie, please. And yes, I’m married.”

“Children?”

“Two. A twelve-year-old boy and a daughter almost two years old.”

Kulikova squinted as if not understanding him. It was a look he got often. “So young.”

“I got married late in life. My wife is twenty-four years younger.”

“Do you love her?” Kulikova asked in a quiet voice.

“I do,” he said. “More than anything in this world.”

Her smile looked rueful. “I have never known love.” She sounded as fatalistic as Paulina Ponomayova had sounded the night they spent at the beach house on the Black Sea coast, the way Zenaida Petrekova had sounded the night Jenkins exfiltrated her, which was only a day but felt like a week ago.

“I know this has been a very hard life for you.”

She smiled again, wistful. “You have no idea,” she said.

“I’m sure I don’t. You were married.”

She nodded. “Helge. For appearances. Not for love. My parents told me it was better that way—if I did not love him. They were right, I suppose, but Helge deserved better. He sensed I had a lover. There were too many late nights. Too many trips away. It hurt his masculinity deeply, I’m sure. He did not deserve to die.” She wiped at tears.

“Life will be better in the United States,” Jenkins said, trying to raise her spirits. “The relocation center will provide you with a new identity, and you will have the chance to start again. Maybe you will know love yet.”

“It sounds wonderful, but excuse me when I say that I don’t believe you. The Kremlin’s reach for spies is like an octopus. Many arms of much length. I could not put someone in such danger. Especially not someone I truly loved.”