Another bullet grazed the shoulder of his leather jacket. Zhomov had risen and rushed toward them. With each step closer, his aim would become more accurate.
Jenkins wedged his fingers into the small gap on the right side of the disc and shoved it to the side, revealing a hole two feet in diameter. He strained to lift the disc on one end and use it as a shield. Behind Kulikova the train lights brightened. The wind increased. Another bullet hit the metal disc.
Jenkins peered down the hole into darkness. He had no idea how far the fall.
The train came around the corner.
Lights shined directly on them.
Wind blew back Kulikova’s hair.
He assumed Zhomov was running back to the Y, though he had no time to look.
Kulikova wasn’t waiting. She moved to the hole, dropping through. With the wind intensity, Jenkins didn’t hear her land. It was like being inside a vacuum.
The train lights aimed directly at him. Jenkins fit his legs into the hole and dropped just before the subway train passed overhead. Falling felt like minutes but was certainly only a few seconds. He braced for an impact that never came. He hit water, splashed, and plunged beneath the surface. The freezing water caused him to gasp and open his mouth. He sucked in water.
Instinct took over. He kicked to the surface, gasping and choking. The water current shoved and pushed him, a torrent not unlike rafting rapids. He lifted his head, gulped for air, and tried to get his heels pointed downcurrent.
Up ahead, Kulikova screamed, piercing and sharp.
A second later, Jenkins felt himself free-falling, as if shot from a cannon. He again plunged beneath the water. This time, when he reached the surface, he felt no current. The lights of downtown Moscow lit up the sky and reflected on the surface of what must be the Moskva River. The Kremlin, St. Basil’s, and other landmarks oriented him. He put his head down and swam toward Kulikova, who had reached a ladder attached to a concrete embankment.
They stumbled across the embankment to a park and fell to their knees, retching and coughing up water. Eventually Jenkins caught his breath long enough to ask, “What the hell was that?”
“The Neglinnaya River.” Kulikova struggled to suck in air.
“A river under the city?”
“Covered over many years ago,” she said. “It passes beneath Moscow, under Red Square, and empties into the Moskva.”
“Well, thank God it does.”
“Zhomov?” she said.
Jenkins shook his head. “I don’t know. But we can’t stay here. It’s a little too close to the Kremlin and Lubyanka for my tastes.”
“I know of a place,” she said. “It is a risk. Sokalov and I used to go there. And you will have to get even closer to Lubyanka.”
“As long as I don’t have to go inside the building,” he said. “Lead the way.”
27
Department of Information Technologies Center
Moscow, Russia
Early morning, Sokalov paced the carpet of a darkened room at the Moscow Department of Information Technologies control center on Zhitnaya Street. He drank coffee from a Styrofoam cup and spoke on his personal cell phone, talking his wife off a ledge.
“I cannot tell you everything, Olga,” he said. “You know that. But it is an emergency, and I am doing my best to handle it.”
He listened to her rant, accusing him of spending the night with another woman. He looked through a glass partition into what resembled a command center on a science fiction spacecraft with numerous computer terminals, monitors, and blinking colored lights.
He flexed his head to the left, then to the right. The kink in his neck worsened with stress. Caffeine didn’t help, but he needed the jolt to stay focused; he was operating on no sleep and his brain felt sluggish. He really didn’t need her lecture.
Sokalov had awakened the chairman of the Information Technologies Center, Maxim Ugolov, at his home and told him urgent state business demanded his attention at the center. When Ugolov arrived, Sokalov stressed to him the need for discretion, then provided him pictures of Jenkins and Kulikova. He told Ugolov, “This man is an American spy. We do not, however, want to alert anyone in the media that we are hunting him or if and when we capture him. We do not want the Americans to know he has been apprehended. We will need unfettered time to interrogate him. Therefore, I am counting on your discretion and the discretion of the technician you bring in to assist on this matter. And I will hold you both personally accountable.”
Ugolov had been appointed to his position by the government and well understood that Dmitry Sokalov’s displeasure would bear considerable weight on Ugolov’s continued employment. He advised Sokalov he would bring in one of his senior and most trusted technicians.
“Yes, I will call you as soon as I am able, Olga. I don’t know. Maybe tonight. At present I simply can’t say, but I can assure you this is no picnic. Your father? Why would I want to . . . No. Olga?” Sokalov sighed and looked to the door as Alexander Zhomov walked into the room, his eyes glaring and focused. “Good morning, Roman,” Sokalov said into the phone. “Yes, it has been a long night, and I apologized to Olga that I did not call her. No. This is an emergency I am not at liberty to discuss . . . Surely you understand . . . Tonight? I will do my best, Roman.”
Sokalov looked at the phone. His father-in-law had disconnected the call, but not until making it clear he expected Sokalov to return home and provide a better accounting of his evening.
“Did you bring the map?” Zhomov asked Sokalov. “Dmitry?”
Sokalov looked at him.
“Did you bring the map?”
“Yes.” Sokalov pointed to a rolled-up tube on one of the tables. Zhomov unrolled it and studied the maps of Moscow’s underground tunnels, including those that accommodated Metro-2.
“What happened?” Sokalov asked.
“Too long a story to get into now,” Zhomov said. He carried the map to where the technician sat at his terminal. His fingers rapidly stroked the keys on his keyboard and punched buttons. In the upper right corner of his computer monitor was a picture of Charles Jenkins. The computer screen rapidly clicked through thousands of images taken by CCTV cameras.
“Stop typing,” Zhomov said from behind the man.
The man’s fingers dutifully silenced. He sat ramrod straight, eyes on the screen, fingers poised to begin.