His in-laws lived on the property, in the guesthouse.
The Coxed Eight was a far cry from those expensive homes, which was why Sokalov chose it for this meeting. The name was a tribute to the gold medal won at the 1985 World Rowing Championships by an eight-man Soviet boat from the Krylatskoye Sports Complex. The bar’s dark interior, with tables shoved in nooks and crannies, made it a good place to have a private conversation.
Sokalov’s hand shook with each sip of his brandy, which only exacerbated the pain in his stomach that four Tums had not helped. Nor had the alcohol. But he needed the alcohol ever since Ilia Egorov had been escorted into his office with news that Charles Jenkins was back in Moscow.
Alexander Zhomov stepped into the bar looking as though he might rob it. A block of a man, Zhomov, retired from the FSB, remained in exceptional shape. He lifted weights, rowed, and played eighteen holes, usually with wealthy clients. Zhomov got his start as a sniper in Afghanistan. His and Sokalov’s relationship began when both later worked for the KGB and had a mutual interest in moving up the bureaucratic ladder. Zhomov eventually worked for Sokalov, and he had been a decorated and celebrated mole hunter who oversaw the arrest of, and took pleasure in, the torture of spies. He had once convinced the CIA that he sought to defect to the United States, and he learned how the US exfiltrated spies through ferry crossings into Finland. A true believer, Zhomov hated nothing more than he hated America, its capitalism, and its incessant meddling, which he believed had caused the fall of the once proud Soviet Union. He was not averse, however, to the pleasures capitalism could buy, like an expensive Mercedes.
Since Zhomov’s retirement, Sokalov had employed him as a troubleshooter and torpedo—an assassin. Zhomov had been the torpedo Sokalov launched in 2008 to take out several mafiya family heads, as well as an oligarch, when the president deemed the men to be a threat to his power.
Zhomov sat across the table from Sokalov. The waitress appeared, but Zhomov—who did not drink—dismissed her with the wave of a hand.
Sokalov picked up his brandy, set it down again. He leaned back.
“The temple exists,” Zhomov said, his voice deep and soothing, like a disc jockey on a classical radio station. “The kneeler exists. The statue of the icon exists.” He paused, just the hint of a smile forming. “The candles . . . do not.”
Sokalov felt the fire in his belly stoke. He took several quick breaths while using a napkin to wipe perspiration from his forehead. The waitress returned, setting a glass of water on the table.
“Napkins,” Zhomov said.
The woman produced several dark-green napkins from the pocket of her apron and placed them beside the water glass before again departing. Zhomov handed a napkin to Sokalov. “Something else. There is a stone in the pedestal that can be removed. Beneath it is a hollowed-out area where messages and cassettes and such could be exchanged. A dead drop. No doubt. I have seen more than my share.”
Sokalov closed his eyes, a burning rage running through his body. Helge Kulikov, the bumbling fool, had solved one of Moscow’s most significant and long-standing security breaches. For decades Maria Kulikova had spied directly under Sokalov’s nose while plying him with alcohol and sex.
After his meeting with Egorov, Sokalov had slowly, reluctantly, fit the pieces together. The night that Helge Kulikov had followed his wife had been the night of the meeting in his office with Chairman Petrov, Gavril Lebedev and General Kliment Pasternak, the meeting in which Sokalov insisted Maria take shorthand notes. She had not been going out to walk the dog or to get dinner and spend time away from her husband. She had left the apartment to pass along information, information she had learned that afternoon, information about the Kremlin’s plan to assassinate Fyodor Ibragimov. The wrong telephone numbers of which Helge had spoken had not been wrong numbers at all. They had been coded messages from a handler, advising Maria of certain drop boxes throughout Moscow. Anna, the name asked for that night, had been code for the Temple Martyr Anastasia.
Even more sickening, Lebedev, the leering shit, had been right.
Ibragimov’s wife had not returned home by coincidence. The Americans only wanted it to look that way. It had been, as Lebedev had insisted, an effort by the Americans to protect a high-level asset who had disclosed details of the plan to kill Ibragimov. A high-level asset with access to what had been extremely restricted information.
Maria Kulikova.
Lebedev, smelling Sokalov’s blood in the water, would have reason to demand an investigation, one that would no doubt reveal other information Sokalov had divulged to Maria during the past decades. But that was not the worst of it. Far from it. Lebedev would argue that, given the magnitude of and the protracted years of these revelations, Sokalov had to have been complicit, himself an American spy.
What other explanation could explain such a wanton breach?
What was Sokalov to say in his defense? That he was addicted to the sex? What evidence could he produce to defend himself?
He couldn’t even recall everything he had divulged.
And what of the Polaroid photographs he had Maria take of him in various stages of bondage? The pictures were a testament to how muddled his thinking became, how misguided. He wanted the photos so he could look at them whenever he and Maria could not get together, or on those occasions when they could, to heighten his arousal.
Earlier that evening, after Sokalov had dismissed Egorov and admonished him to not mention the news of Jenkins’s return to anyone, he had hurried into Maria’s office. He had access to the passwords of every member of the directorate. When he finally opened her safe, he found only files. The jewelry he had given Maria over the years—and the photographs—were not there.
He would surely be executed, but only after he was tortured in Lefortovo. The president would see his betrayal as an egregious slap in the face, but that would be far better than what his father-in-law would do to protect his little girl and the family reputation.