“I’m not married.”
Another smile. “You are a very good liar, but your FSB profile says otherwise. Born in New Jersey. A Vietnam veteran. America’s Afghanistan, no? Central Intelligence officer stationed in Mexico City, though only for a short time. Then you disappeared. You did not resurface until decades later, in Moscow, asking to be a double agent. A ruse you somehow survived. You returned to Moscow a second time and managed to free a woman from Lefortovo Prison, which, I must tell you, is impressive. No one who enters Lefortovo leaves. So, you are a man of courage, principle, morals, ethics.”
Jenkins grunted. “Doesn’t do me much good now, does it?”
“Married to Alex Hart, also once a CIA analyst,” she continued. “You have two children. A son, CJ, and a daughter, Elizabeth, not yet two.”
Jenkins felt the adrenaline rush at her mention of his wife and children.
She dropped the cigarette and crushed it beneath her shoe. “So . . . you can understand my pain.”
He shook his head. “No.”
She looked up from beneath bangs and met the gaze from his one eye. “No?”
“Your pain is a mother’s pain. A mother’s loss. A father doesn’t know that kind of pain.”
His answer momentarily silenced her. When she finally spoke, she sounded emotional. A small burst of air preceded each word. “So, you do know.”
“I did not kill your son,” Jenkins said again, too many times to keep count.
“But you did cause his death.”
Jenkins couldn’t dispute that, nor did he believe this was the time to get into semantics. “What, then?” he said. “You’re going to have Boris here kill me?”
“You have left me without choices.”
“I’m sure we can think of some.”
“Another thing my father taught me that has served me well. ‘Never look weak. Others will take advantage.’”
“I won’t tell,” Jenkins said.
She chuckled. “No, Mr. Jenkins. You will not.” She stepped away, checking the diamond-studded watch on her wrist. “Do you know what they do with the scraps of meat and the sides of beef they do not sell, Mr. Jenkins?”
“I can guess,” he said.
“Yes. I am sure you can. But let me tell you. They grind the unwanted pieces into hamburger and sausage. Have you ever seen a slab of meat go through the meat grinder, Mr. Jenkins? No? The grinder crushes everything—the bones, the cartilage, the tendons, the muscle, the fat. Of course, the cow is already dead. It feels no pain.” She considered him coolly; he could see now that her eyes were as blue as ice. “You will not be so fortunate.”
Jenkins gave her a tired smile, then said, “Nor will be the person who gets a sausage made out of me.”
1
About Three Weeks Earlier
Lubyanka
Moscow, Russia
Maria Kulikova pulled a brown paper napkin from the dispenser on the cafeteria counter and blotted the sweat beading at her temples. Her early morning Pilates class at the Ai-Pilates studio had been particularly challenging. The exercises activated the muscles deep in her abdomen, glutes, and obliques. She usually cooled down on her walk from the studio to Lubyanka, where she worked as the FSB’s director of the Secretariat. But not this week. Moscow was enduring a September heat wave, and the morning meteorologist had again forecast temperatures of thirty-four degrees Celsius.
The bitter aroma of coffee teased her, as did the tempting odors of scrambled eggs, ham, and sausage, but those were luxuries not on her menu. Coffee made her jittery, and she followed a strict diet to keep her figure. She supplemented her three-day-a-week Pilates class with yoga to stay limber. At sixty-three, she could no longer run, though she had once been an Olympic-caliber long-distance runner who had held the Soviet record in the three thousand meters. Her years of training had worn out her knees.
It could have been worse. At least she had avoided the “supplements” her Soviet trainers imposed on other athletes, who now experienced heart and lung problems and various forms of cancer.
Maria had loved the competition, but that had not been the reason for her pursuit of athletics. Being a Soviet athlete had elevated her stature and given her access to people she would not have otherwise met. She exercised now for much the same reason. Her appearance. Her figure opened doors and provided opportunities. Her boss, Dmitry Sokalov, the FSB’s Counterintelligence Directorate’s deputy director, liked fit women with large breasts. The joke within the Secretariat, a ruthless rumor mill at Lubyanka, was that Sokalov liked the contrast to his own slovenly visage—he, too, had large breasts, to match his even larger gut.
Kulikova’s appearance, and her decades-long position as Sokalov’s mistress, provided her access to classified information, but it also subjected her to a degradation most could never imagine or stomach.
“Maria.”
Kulikova turned at the familiar sound of the voice of her assistant, Anna. The poor woman looked flushed and sounded out of breath as she crossed the marble floor to where Maria stood in line at the “Prison” cafeteria. One of two staff dining rooms at Lubyanka, the Prison was in the building’s basement, where the infamous KGB prison had once been.
“Thank God.” Anna blew out a breath. “He is looking for you—again. Something about a file he cannot find. I don’t know who or how many he has fired this time.”
Maybe if Sokalov lost twenty-five to thirty kilograms, he could find things on his own, like his belt buckle. If not for Kulikova, Sokalov would have been fired years ago, childhood friend of the president or not. He drank too much, ate too much, and was too disorganized. He remained in power because he was ruthless.
She checked her watch; she had another fifteen minutes before she officially clocked in to start her day. Fat chance. She couldn’t get away for ten minutes without someone, usually Sokalov, searching for her. Nights, weekends, holidays. As the Secretariat director, Maria was always on call. The government paid her handsomely and provided a luxury apartment close to Lubyanka that she and her husband, Helge, would have otherwise been unable to afford. In her position she served as the gatekeeper to all Lubyanka files, and absolutely no one in the FSB could do without her or her staff. The execution and completion of every FSB officer’s work was dependent upon the women of the Secretariat. They typed, registered, and trafficked each document. They sent and received all mail. They booked vacations. If the Secretariat broke down, the Counterintelligence Directorate would grind to a ponderous halt.