The Silent Sisters (Charles Jenkins #3)(80)

“I am not sure. But I heard the cart passing. The matron knocked. Then someone slipped the paper under the door. What do you think of it?”

Jenkins smiled. “My contact told me to think low tech again when high tech failed or could be compromised. This certainly fits that scenario. We’ll need to be careful. We’ll disembark in Irkutsk separately, as we boarded, until we can be certain.”

“Who is ‘a friend’?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he said. “But it must be someone I will recognize or who will use those words to make him or herself known.”





42


Trans-Siberian Railway

Outside of Irkutsk

Maria Kulikova checked her watch—12:42 a.m. She had tossed and turned on her berth, unable to sleep, for several hours. Their train would arrive in Irkutsk at 3:47 a.m., the early hour perhaps the reason why she and Jenkins would depart the train at this platform. The darkness would help to conceal them. Jenkins had told her to get some rest, but that was not likely. She sat up. As before, he slept soundly in the other cabin.

She put on her slippers, unbolted her cabin door, and looked down the train carriage to the samovar. No one. She walked down the narrow corridor, her legs balancing with the rocking of the train. At the samovar she filled a paper cup with hot water and chose a peppermint tea bag, along with several napkins. She looked through the glass partition into the adjacent sitting car. Arkhip sat alone, staring out the window, his gaze fixed to the glass, his thoughts seemingly far from the carriage. She wondered if he thought of his wife—if her death was the reason he did not sleep. She wished she shared his pain. She wished she had felt the same way about Helge as Arkhip felt about his wife. It might help ease the horrible burden Maria felt for Helge’s death—if she had loved him the way Arkhip had loved his wife, still loved his wife. She saw the love in Arkhip’s moist eyes, heard love in the tremor in his voice, deduced it from the fact that two years after his wife’s death, he still wore his wedding ring. Maria wanted to grieve Helge’s death, but she could not lie, at least not to herself.

Her pain was more guilt than sorrow.

She had not loved Helge.

She walked down the aisle, but Arkhip’s gaze never shifted from the window. “It must be—” she said.

Arkhip startled. He knocked over his tea, what was left of it. The liquid pooled and spilled over the table edge and dripped onto the carpeted floor.

“I am so sorry.” Maria handed him a few of the napkins she’d grabbed at the samovar. She bent to blot the carpet, smelling peppermint and honey.

“No. No worries,” Arkhip assured her. “Clumsy of me. There was not much left anyway, and it had gone cold.” He cleaned up the spill and righted the cup. “Please,” he said and offered her the chair across from him.

“I was going to say, it is either a very complex problem you are solving or a memory you recall vividly.”

“It would seem we are the only two awake on the train, again. I wondered if you might come.”

She sipped her tea and stalled, considering his comment. The train rocked and gave an occasional jerk when the car came to a turn, but, overall, the ride was pleasant and the sound of the train peaceful. Had Arkhip been thinking of her? She dismissed the thought; in a few short hours she would leave this train and her country and never see this man again. “So, what was it?”

“What was what?”

“A complex problem you were trying to solve or a memory you recall vividly.”

He smiled but did not provide an answer, at least not with his voice. His eyes, however, were telling. She had learned to read men’s eyes. He had been thinking of his deceased wife. “What brings you out here again?” he asked to change the subject.

“The same as you,” she said. “I can’t sleep. I don’t like to just lie in bed where my thoughts can do more damage than good.”

“I haven’t seen you during the days,” Arkhip said. “Are you and your husband enjoying the trip?”

“It has been very relaxing, thank you. And you? Is the trip everything you thought it would be?”

He seemed to give her question some thought, and his blue eyes sparkled again. He smiled. “I needed the time to think,” he said. “We don’t take enough time to really think, do we?”

“About your wife?” she asked.

“Yes. And my job. About retiring.”

“I was surprised when you told me. You are still young.”

He smiled, but this time pensive. “Some don’t think so, I’m afraid. The decision has been made for me. Those in power see me as an old dog unable or unwilling to learn new tricks. They want computer nerds.”

“What will you do?” she asked, then sipped her tea.

He glanced out the window before redirecting his attention to her. “I don’t know. That is the problem. I do not desire to sit in an empty apartment alone. Perhaps I will travel more if this trip turns out to be enjoyable.”

“Was this trip then a trial run, in anticipation of your retirement?”

“You might say that it was,” he said.

“I see. I am retiring as well,” she said.

“Are you?”

“And it was not exactly my idea either.”