Irkutsk, Russia
Jenkins had hoped for a long drive; he had hoped to be pulled from the car and placed on a plane, to be flown back to Moscow; he had hoped even for a cell in Lefortovo, because then it would have meant he had been picked up by the FSB. Had that been the case, he would have the slightest chance of remaining alive. Yes, he was on an FSB kill list, according to Matt Lemore and Maria Kulikova, but even kill lists weren’t certain death. He could expect to be tortured, interrogated, and kept in isolation for as long as Moscow believed he had information to offer, something of value he could provide. It would be precious time Lemore would need to work on his behalf, if Federov could get word to him that Jenkins remained alive. An unwritten code existed between hostile nations. You expel our diplomats, and we’ll expel yours. You capture one of ours and accuse him of spying, and we’ll do the same to one of yours, regardless if the person is actually a spy. Then we will exchange them. According to Maria, the CIA currently held two members of Zaslon, Russia’s elite and highly secretive special operations unit that Moscow would not publicly acknowledge. That meant Lemore had assets to bargain with.
All of that, however, became moot when the car into which Jenkins had been forced stopped just minutes after departing the train terminal, and the two men pulled Jenkins from the floorboards of the back seat and deposited him on hard ground. These men were not FSB. These men worked for Yekaterina Velikaya. Mafiya. They had no interest in negotiations or trades, and probably not even in enormous sums of money.
They had just one interest. Vengeance.
The men grabbed him beneath his armpits and dragged him, presumably into a building, from the temperature change. Inside, he was lifted off the ground and felt an increased strain on his shoulders. They had suspended him in midair. Not good.
They would interrogate him, but not likely for very long. They had just one question. Why had he killed Yekaterina’s son?
It changed the game.
He hoped Federov, the “friend” at the Irkutsk railway terminal, had reached Maria and taken her to safety. Maria had to then let Lemore know the Velikayas had Jenkins. And Lemore had to then somehow get word to the Velikayas that killing Jenkins would be frowned upon by the CIA, which would launch an all-out war on the Velikayas’ business interests.
Again, it was a lot to hope for, and it would require time, probably too much time. Given the force of the kicks and the blows Jenkins had endured already, he’d likely be beaten to death before Lemore could get involved.
Jenkins’s goal, however, remained the same. Stay alive—for as long as possible. Alive, he retained the faintest chance, the smallest hope, that everything might fall in place, and he could get out of this situation and get home to Alex and his two children.
Jenkins had to give Matt Lemore credit. Federov made sense. He didn’t know how Lemore got in contact with Federov, although Lemore and the CIA had a thick file on the former FSB agent and knew the alias Federov lived under, Sergei Vladimirovich Vasilyev. Lemore likely traced Federov to somewhere in Europe tied to Viktor’s substantial bank accounts. Lemore also knew Federov had been born and raised in Irkutsk, that he had grown up in the Paris of Siberia, and Lemore likely assumed Federov, a very good former FSB officer, remained well connected.
At least Jenkins hoped so.
The chill in the room spread quickly over Jenkins’s body, the temperature some forty degrees less than the temperature outside. The cold caused the kicks and blows to hurt more when the men struck him. The pain shattered his skin like splinters of broken glass passing through his body. Jenkins’s limbs became numb, and not just from a lack of circulation. Had he been placed in a freezer of some kind?
He detected a distinct smell, an aroma he had, unfortunately, become familiar with over the years. Warm blood, tinged with iron, but the faintest odor of bleach.
Suspended from a chain that moved. A freezer. Warm blood. Bleach.
A slaughterhouse.
Another chill, this one running through Jenkins’s entire body, independent of the cold and the lack of circulation in his extremities. Fear.
He could only imagine what the Velikayas had planned for him.
46
Vasin Estate
Irkutsk, Russia
Maria Kulikova stared at the ornate iron gates at which Viktor Federov had stopped the car. What looked like an insect of some sort had been designed into each gate, which hung from thick brick columns and spanned an expansive entrance to a long, paved road. A guard, armed with an assault rifle and a German shepherd on a leash, stepped from a stone guardhouse and approached the gate. A second guard within the guardhouse spoke over a speaker and asked Federov to identify himself and to state his business.
Federov did so and within a minute the gates pulled open. Federov drove forward and the gate closed behind the car. The guard ran a mirror on the end of a long telescopic stick beneath the body of the car, while the dog sniffed and panted. After circling the car in both directions, the guard waved them through.
Unlike the front entrance, which conjured images of a prison, decorative lawn lights outlined the contours of the road as it cut between manicured lawns, pristine flower beds, and sculpted fir and birch trees that gave the property a softer feel.
“This home belongs to Plato Vasin,” Federov said. “He is a childhood friend of mine.”
“What does he do?” Arkhip asked.
“The Vasins are to Siberia what the Velikayas are to Moscow, and there is no love lost between the two families. Alexei Velikaya got his start here in Irkutsk but left when he became rich and successful. He tried to run a lucrative heroin trade from Moscow, but the Vasins would have none of it. Eventually they came to a bloody truce. The Vasins control much of the heroin trade through Siberia.”
“What is the design on the gate?” Maria asked. “It looked like an insect.”
“It is. A fly. When Plato was a young man he specialized in burglaries of small stores and warehouses. A Siberian mob boss said Plato Vasin was nothing but a nuisance, a fly he would squash. Before killing him, Plato made the man eat a bowl full of dead flies.”
“Oh God,” Maria said.
“He keeps the name to remind others of their fate if they cross him.”
“And that is what you call him?” Arkhip asked. “‘Fly’?”
“Only his friends call him ‘the Fly.’ He embraces the name, as you will see from the décor; so much so he once tried to have a fly tattooed onto the tip of his penis but gave up when it proved too painful. He settled instead for flies throughout his home, including the tiles of his shower and the headboard of his bed.”
“His wife must love that,” Maria said.