“Chief Investigator?”
Arkhip removed a business card from his coat pocket and handed it to the officer. He then removed his hat and his sport jacket, and he also handed them over. “Do me a favor,” he said. “Place my hat and jacket on my desk at Building 38, Petrovka.” He provided the man detailed instructions. “You can do this for me, yes?”
“I will take care of it, but—”
“Take the four men to Petrovka. Book them on suspicion of armed robbery and illegal possession of weapons. Keep this one separate from the other three.”
“What are you going to do?” the officer asked.
“I am a chief investigator,” Arkhip said. “I am going to do my job.”
34
Yaroslavsky Rail Terminal
Moscow, Russia
Jenkins and Kulikova kept to side streets and, when possible, alleys. They moved as quickly as they could without looking suspicious. Jenkins checked his watch. They had forty-five minutes to get to the train station and through security. Jenkins had been told that while the Yaroslavsky rail terminal had CCTV cameras, the Trans-Siberian trains did not. Just the same, once on board, he and Kulikova would need to stay within their cabin and mostly out of sight. The ticket purchased for them was for a family of four traveling to Vladivostok, the end of the line. Seven days. Jenkins didn’t expect to ever see the end of the line, however. He expected Lemore would somehow get word to him to get off at a designated location, where alternative travel arrangements were being made for them. How Jenkins was going to retrieve those messages with a water-damaged phone, he had no idea, but he’d solve one problem at a time.
“How much farther?” Jenkins asked, grateful at least that Moscow had awakened, and they could better blend with the crowd emerging on the sidewalks. Buses and cars spewed diesel fumes.
“Not far,” Kulikova said.
“We’ll split up when we get there,” Jenkins said. “But stay within eyesight and meet on board the train. This is what I would suggest when we get to—”
“Mr. Jenkins,” Kulikova interrupted. “I have spent my life hidden, real or imagined. Yaroslavsky is Moscow’s busiest railway station, with many shops in which we can hide until our train departs. Do not worry about me. Worry about yourself. A man of your skin color and height is rare in Moscow. I’m surprised you have survived this long. You must be very good at what you do.”
And lucky, Jenkins thought. “I assume the man in the Mercedes was Zhomov?”
“Yes,” she said. “And I am assuming the three men in the Range Rover were Yekaterina Velikaya’s men. All four will be detained, but not for long. Hopefully long enough for us to get on the train.”
“How are Velikaya’s men getting their information?” Jenkins asked.
“Ordinarily, I would say from FSB officers. Yekaterina pays many, and the pay is more than what they earn as federal employees. But if Sokalov is keeping my betrayal and your return quiet, then Velikaya’s information must be coming from the Moscow police, who have access to the Information Technologies Center.”
“That’s the agency that runs the CCTV cameras?”
“And stores the information collected.”
“Did you recognize the plainclothes officer who approached Zhomov?”
“I did not get a good look at him. I assume he is Moscow police, likely an investigator.”
“Why would an investigator respond to an emergency call of an armed robbery?” Jenkins asked.
“This I do not know.”
They came within sight of Komsomolskaya Square, a bustle of activity with four different train stations and trains departing to dozens of destinations and people walking in all directions. Jenkins and Paulina Ponomayova had caught a train to Saint Petersburg from the Leningradsky station across the square. Jenkins scanned the sidewalks behind them but did not see anyone who appeared to be following them. Then again, he didn’t have a lot of time to watch. A stream of passengers entered and exited the Yaroslavsky rail terminal, enough people, he hoped, for the two of them to become lost. The terminal looked like a cathedral of white stone, with thick columns, narrow windows, and a tall steeple.
Jenkins walked to a drain basin in the street curb and bent down as if to tie his shoe. He removed the gun Kulikova had given him from his coat and dropped the magazine down the drain, then dropped the gun. He would have preferred to have kept it, but that option was not possible with metal detectors scanning every person and every piece of luggage entering the railway terminal.
He followed Kulikova to the front door, both keeping their heads down. Inside the terminal, Jenkins veered to the right, to a line moving toward a metal detector. Kulikova veered to her left. Voices of commuters echoed and blended with the computerized voice broadcasting from loudspeakers to announce arriving and departing trains. Jenkins focused on the people around them, the men and women falling into line behind them, and the police officers watching from the other side of the metal detectors. No one seemed particularly interested in him or in Kulikova, and, unlike his excursion with Ponomayova, the police were not considering their phones or comparing a picture to the faces of the passengers stepping through the scanners. Because neither he nor Kulikova had luggage to scan, they stepped to the front of the line and went through the machines, meeting on the other side, though without acknowledging one another.
Jenkins moved quickly toward the interior shops, scanning the various sundries until he found what he sought. He purchased two hats, one a baseball-style cap with a logo, the other a blue beret. He also picked up two extra-large sweatshirts with hoods, one a bright red, the other gray, and a navy-blue scarf. He purchased a backpack, paid with rubles, and shoved everything in a large plastic bag.