Jenkins stepped behind her and they slowed their pace. Walking on the slick, concave bricks was like walking inside a pipe. “I asked earlier: What is Zhomov’s involvement in this?”
She turned her head to speak over her shoulder. “Sokalov brought in Zhomov to try and keep this quiet. He and Zhomov have a history.”
“Keep what quiet?”
“His and my affair. Sokalov is deathly afraid of his father-in-law. If word of his infidelity were to get out, his father-in-law will kill him. If they learn I was one of the seven sisters, the president will kill him. Either way, he is a dead man.”
“Who’s Sokalov’s father-in-law?”
“General Roman Portnov,” she said, providing Jenkins with a quick biographical sketch. “He has the means and the ability to kill Sokalov. And this was not just any affair. I went to great lengths, at great costs, to make sure the details of our relationship would be an extreme embarrassment—one the president and the general would never let surface.”
“Can Sokalov do it; can he keep the affair secret?”
“He can if Zhomov finds us.” She explained to Jenkins that the Counterintelligence Directorate was self-contained, and Sokalov might survive were he to kill her. The tunnel widened. “You wore a disguise.”
“To trick Moscow’s CCTV cameras.”
“How then could they have known of your return to Moscow?”
Jenkins told her of the confrontation in the bar.
She stopped and looked back at him. “Eldar Velikaya?”
“You know him?”
“Everyone in Moscow knows what happened to Eldar Velikaya, Mr. Jenkins. You killed him? Why?”
“I didn’t kill him, but I was there when he was killed. It’s a long story. In short, I likely left a fingerprint on a beer bottle or the surface of a table in the bar.”
They followed the tunnel of white light cast by Kulikova’s phone. After a few minutes she said, “This is starting to make sense.”
“What is?”
“How Sokalov determined my betrayal. My husband followed me when I made a dead drop, to provide information on the attempt to kill Fyodor Ibragimov in Virginia.”
“Hang on. You’re saying Lubyanka attempted to kill Ibragimov on American soil?”
“I took notes at a meeting between Sokalov and others. When the assassination failed, they must have looked for the leak. I would be the primary suspect.”
Jenkins realized now what Lemore had meant last night when he said there was something “in play” and told Jenkins to proceed to exfiltrate Petrekova first. The CIA did not want to exfiltrate Kulikova until after they had arrested the two assassins.
“Sokalov confronted me about it,” Kulikova explained. “But I am very good at diverting his attention. He must have learned of your return to Moscow and decided it was all too big a coincidence.”
“We have to assume Sokalov knows I’m here.”
“And if that is true, I assure you the Velikayas also know you are here. They have many ears and eyes inside the Moscow City Police, as well as at Lubyanka. Yekaterina Velikaya will be hunting you with as much vengeance as Sokalov harbors for me. So, I guess we both now have a problem.”
“We’ll deal with the Velikayas if we have to,” Jenkins said. “Let’s focus on Zhomov. You’re saying he might be the only one within the FSB we have to be concerned about?”
“You say that like it is a good thing. Let me assure you, Mr. Jenkins, Zhomov is more relentless than a dozen FSB task forces, and more deadly. He made his reputation as a sharpshooter in Afghanistan, and recorded more than one hundred and fifty kills. Since then he has served the Kremlin and is responsible for the deaths of twice as many.”
Jenkins thought of Viktor Federov and of Adam Efimov, who had hunted him on his first two trips inside Moscow. “Seems like the FSB has a whole warehouse of those guys,” he said.
Jenkins heard a noise and tapped Kulikova on the shoulder, stopping her. He put a finger to his lips. “Shh,” he whispered. He had her hold her cell phone light against her body. He watched the darkness behind them and heard drops of water falling from the vaulted ceiling. Zhomov could not follow them in the dark, not unless he had brought night-vision goggles with him, which Jenkins doubted. He’d also need to use a light. Jenkins counted silently two full minutes. As he was about to step forward, a faint reflection of light illuminated a tunnel wall. Jenkins watched it for a moment to be sure he wasn’t imagining it.
“Vot der’mo,” Kulikova said.
26
Moscow Underground
Moscow, Russia
Zhomov walked at an uneven pace. He had no choice; the bricks beneath his feet were slick and the tunnel concave, sloping toward the middle, likely to facilitate drainage. He walked in pitch-black but for the few cones of light descending from the street above. He kept the light on his phone facedown, spotting the ground so he could see where he was going, but not giving away his position, and so he could better discern any artificial light in the tunnels ahead of him. The tunnels, however, twisted and turned, and it was possible he wouldn’t see a light until he was on top of Jenkins and Kulikova, if he was even going in the right direction. He followed the communication cables along the tunnel walls, figuring they would be the best guide for someone not intimately familiar with the tunnels to find their way.
Zhomov knew of, but was not familiar with, the labyrinth of tunnels beneath Moscow. In 2002, he had been part of a special forces unit that freed 850 hostages held by Chechen rebels at the Dubrovka Theater. Their problem had been how to get into the theater and neutralize the threat before the hostages were assassinated. The resolution came from an unlikely source, the head of the Diggers of the Underground Planet. He provided Zhomov’s unit with a detailed map of the tunnels, including an entry inside the theater. Zhomov and his men used the underground passage to storm the theater, killing all forty of the stunned Chechens.
Zhomov had been hyperfocused at the time but was now amazed at the vastness of the tunnels and how they spoked from a central tunnel. Each time he came to an intersection he stopped, listened, and searched the intersecting tunnels for a glimpse of artificial light. Seeing none, he followed the cables.
He picked up his pace as his eyes adjusted to the dark and his footing became more sure, but he remained information blind, with no cell phone reception. He needed to either find Jenkins and Kulikova or conclude they had left the tunnel, in which case he would go back to Lubyanka and search footage to determine where they had surfaced.
He turned at a bend in the tunnel and thought he detected a flicker of artificial light. It was quickly extinguished. He doused his own light and used a hand on the wall to feel his way forward. The light appeared again, this time more than a glimpse before it was extinguished.
Zhomov needed to get closer before he fired his weapon. Not knowing the bends and turns in the tunnels, he could fire the gun with no chance of hitting Jenkins or Kulikova but alerting them to his presence. He decided to keep his light off and use only his hand to guide him, hoping to get close enough for a decent shot.