Jenkins hoped the man was right. He thanked him and exited the cab with his bag. He approached a home with a light shining on the pink stucco siding. Somewhere down the block a dog barked; several more joined in. Jenkins stepped down concrete steps and pushed open a wrought-iron gate that swung into a center courtyard with a squeal. He crossed to the door. To his right, a plate-glass slider revealed lights on inside the house, but he saw no one. He knocked, unsure what to expect, whether he’d be welcome, or if this was even the right home. When no one answered, he knocked again.
A woman, middle-aged and heavyset, pulled open the door. She had graying hair tied back in a bun. “Evet?” Yes?
“Esma,” he said, recalling the name of Demir Kaplan’s boat that had provided Jenkins safe passage across the Black Sea. The Turkish captain had told Jenkins he’d named the boat for his wife. “I am with you, Esma, even when I am at sea.”
The woman’s brow wrinkled, and she considered Jenkins with an inquisitive but distrusting gaze.
“Demir? Demir Kaplan?” Jenkins said.
“Kimsin?” Who are you?
A word Jenkins had learned on his last visit to Turkey. As he was about to answer, Demir’s baritone voice called out, deep and rough from cigarettes. The words were spoken too quickly for Jenkins to understand.
Esma turned, about to speak, when the door was pulled open, revealing the stocky man with the unkempt salt-and-pepper beard. Demir Kaplan’s eyes widened in recognition and, likely, some concern.
“Mr. Jenkins.” He sounded as if he didn’t believe his eyes.
Jenkins sat at a round table near a small kitchen with Demir and his two sons, Yusuf and Emir, who worked the fishing boat with their father. The sons, in their late forties, had come to the home quickly after receiving their father’s phone calls. Jenkins recalled Yusuf telling him that his father had purchased three homes on the same street, all a short distance from one another. The brothers had hugged Jenkins as if greeting a lost relative and started asking him a slew of questions. Esma, however, had cut them off and told them to sit, which they dutifully obeyed.
Esma remained cold toward Jenkins, but that did not stop her from the Turkish custom of providing the guest with massive amounts of food and drink. She set down a serving tray with a teapot and four tulip-shaped glasses, followed by a second tray with dark bread, cheeses, figs, and vegetables. Esma’s gaze lingered on Jenkins before she departed the room.
Demir poured the tea, bright red and with a fruity aroma. His two sons added multiple cubes of rock sugar. Emir, the older of the two brothers, commented on Jenkins’s beard, which was salt-and-pepper like Demir’s. Jenkins hoped the beard might help him to better fit in. He couldn’t hide his size, but with the light color of his skin, the beard changed his facial features and, he hoped, made him look more Middle Eastern.
Demir raised his glass. “Sağliğiniza!” To your health!
The tea had a sweet taste.
“We were uncertain you made it home,” Yusuf said, “until we read of your trial.” Yusuf had transported Jenkins from the Esma to the Bosphorus strait on an inflatable, successfully outmaneuvering a Russian Coast Guard vessel. He then drove him to the bus terminal in Taksim.
“The Russians followed me into Greece, but I was able to elude them,” Jenkins said. “I hope they didn’t give you much trouble.”
“As I said on the boat,” Demir replied. “They wanted you very badly. They came to my home. One was . . . persuasive.” Jenkins knew Demir spoke of Federov, and he wondered again whether he could trust the former FSB officer, even with so much money at stake.
“We had to tell them you’d taken a bus from Taksim to Çeşme,” Yusuf said. “We were glad to hear that you made it home safely, though not so much about the trial.”
“Why have you come back?” Demir asked, cutting to the chase.
Jenkins had contemplated how much to tell Demir, who as a young man had a career in the Turkish Navy, including its special forces, before he took over his father’s fishing boat. With the decrease in fish and income, Demir had supplemented his earnings by smuggling items and people into and out of the various countries surrounding the Black Sea, including Russia, for which he had no lost love.
“I need to get back into Russia,” Jenkins said.
Demir’s eyes widened. He sat back from the table, shaking his head.
“Can it be done?” Jenkins asked.
“Our president has made nice with the Russians for now,” Demir said, “but the tensions remain high between Russia and Ukraine. The Russian Coast Guard and navy have become much more diligent.”
“I have money. Whatever the cost.”
Demir shook his head. “A man cannot value money so much as to lose his family. My Esma, after the visit from the Russians, begged me to quit. It is not about money when one can die, Mr. Jenkins.”
“I know,” he said. “And I don’t want to create more conflict for you. I wouldn’t have come to you if I had another way.” When no one responded, Jenkins said, “You asked why I came back. I will tell you.”
The cups clanked against the silver tray as Emir and Yusuf set them down.
“It is to save someone who saved me. She is in trouble.”
Demir’s chest rose and fell, a deep breath. He looked to his two sons, who had remained quiet throughout the discussion, their eyes fixed on their father.
Yusuf broke the silence. “Would it be damaging to Mr. Putin?”
“If I can save this person, it would be very damaging.”
Yusuf looked expectantly to his father, but the family patriarch raised his hands and said, “Revenge is never a good reason to act. My sons and I will talk. I will give you my word tomorrow. Do you have a place to stay?”
“I can get a hotel.”
“It is best to leave the faintest footprint. The Russians now know me and what I do. Though I have remained quiet these past months, it is possible I am still being watched. You will sleep here tonight.”
They made a bed for Jenkins in the basement—a mattress on the concrete floor with sheets and blankets. Esma did not warm to Jenkins, and he did not blame her. Federov must have scared her, and now Jenkins was asking her husband to again take his boat back into the bear’s jaws. Seeing Esma’s pain and her worry gave Jenkins a greater appreciation for how Alex felt, and he deduced it was easier to empathize with loved ones than to acknowledge one’s own fears.
Jenkins knew the risk of again engaging the Turkish captain, but he wanted to get into Russia in a manner familiar to him, without agency help, in case, as Alex had speculated, he was being set up. He’d told Lemore that communication would be minimal and provided only on a need-to-know basis until he was in Russia.
In the basement, Jenkins pulled out the encrypted phone. He and Lemore both knew there was no such thing as a safely encrypted cell phone and had agreed to a code. Paulina would be referred to as a painting, Russia as the owner, Lefortovo as the art gallery, and Federov as the art dealer.
He sent Lemore a text.
Transportation being discussed to meet owner of painting.
He contemplated calling Alex but decided it best not to provide her with each update, not to make her predisposed to hearing from him—which would only exacerbate her worry when he didn’t, or couldn’t, call.