Maybe not.
The thought sickened him.
Alex descended the staircase. “Thank you for waiting,” she said.
“What’s that?” he said.
“Are we going to watch another episode of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel? I assumed you waited for me.”
“I did,” he said.
She gave him an unconvincing grin. “No SportsCenter while waiting? That’s not like you.”
“I had a visitor today,” he said.
She paused, no longer smiling. “Everything all right?” She sat on the couch beside him, and Jenkins filled her in on his meeting with Lemore.
“I hope you told him to go to hell.”
“I did. He didn’t give up so easily.”
“What do you mean?”
“He showed up again at the Island Café. You recall the recent news story about the man who went to Russia for a wedding and ended up arrested for espionage?”
“Vaguely.”
“This guy, Matt Lemore, told me he was running him. Lemore also said they intended for the man to get caught.”
“Why?”
Jenkins explained what Lemore had told him. “Lemore said the agency wanted the Russians to believe they had the upper hand, that they forced the exchange.”
“So they wouldn’t dig deeper into why the man had been so easy to arrest?” Alex asked.
“Lemore said the goal was for the officer to get sent to Lefortovo Prison to confirm a persistent rumor that a high-level CIA asset was being held there.”
Alex studied his face, reading his eyes. She, too, had once been a CIA officer, though in analytical operations. “A high-level asset you met in Russia?” she asked.
“Paulina.”
Alex looked stunned. “You said she died.”
“I thought she did. She told me she had a cyanide capsule, and when she could no longer lead them away, she would take it.”
Alex blew out a breath, then sucked in another. She stood, wrapping her arms around herself as if suddenly chilled. She walked to the fireplace, facing the mantel and its framed photographs. “What evidence is there that she’s still alive?”
“Nothing solid. It’s thin, but we both know that human intelligence often is.”
“It could be anyone.”
“Apparently not. The rumors started shortly after I returned home from Russia, so the timing is right. And the asset was said to have been in a car accident and believed to have information on a clandestine US mission of a long-standing nature.”
She turned. “The seven sisters.”
Jenkins nodded.
“You don’t have any way to confirm it.”
“I don’t,” he said, his tone giving him away.
“But Viktor Federov would,” she said. “That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?”
“Federov would know if Paulina lived,” he said.
Federov had been the FSB officer who had chased Jenkins from Moscow to the Black Sea and across it into Turkey. When Jenkins escaped, the FSB had fired Federov. Rather than harbor any bitterness toward Jenkins, Federov instead told Jenkins he considered them to be kindred spirits.
“Can you reach him?” Alex asked.
Jenkins shook his head. “While I waited for CJ to finish soccer practice, I looked back through cell phone records. His calls to me were too far back, and I suspect the number was either encrypted or from a burner phone he has long since discarded. He has no further reason to get in touch with me.”
“Then you have no way to find him.” Alex clearly wanted to end the discussion.
Jenkins gave her an uncomfortable smile. “There might be a way.”
“You think you can find him? How?” she asked.
“The Swiss bank account.”
The last time Federov had called, he informed Jenkins that he had hunted down Carl Emerson and located the money Russia had paid Emerson to disclose the names of three of the seven sisters. Federov had killed Emerson and split the money sixty-forty, providing Jenkins with the Swiss bank account that contained Jenkins’s share, though Jenkins had never touched it and now likely never would. Some weeks after the account was opened, he learned the Russian government had frozen it.
“The bank is the Union Bank of Switzerland in Moscow. The account is frozen, but I have the account number. If I went into that bank and made a deposit, then told them I needed to update my signature card, I could learn the name of the Russian banker who opened my account.”
“What good would that do?”
“Odds are that the same banker opened Federov’s account on the same day and at the same time, though Federov would have used an alias. If I find the banker, I can find the alias.”
“There’s no guarantee that banker would tell you the name.”
Jenkins gave Alex a tired smile. “I know from chasing the KGB that if you are an established Russian banker in Moscow, you’re purchasable, have a handler in the government, or have already done nefarious transactions for oligarchs and organized crime figures. Giving me the name on an account for a price would be nothing. Lemore could then run credit card and debit card records, and I could find Federov.”
“That’s crazy, Charlie. They could send an asset to look for Federov. You don’t have to go. You owe them nothing.”
“You’re right—I don’t owe the agency anything . . .”
She sat on the coffee table in front of him. “Paulina made her own choice, Charlie. If she is alive—and that is a big ‘if’—it is not because of anything you did or didn’t do.”
“She was willing to lay down her life for me, Alex. I never would have seen you or CJ again. Never would have met Lizzie.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I’m the only one who can get the account identification card and determine the name on the other account set up at the same time.”
“Bullshit.” She stood. “The agency could send in a Moscow asset and do exactly what you explained, someone who could pose as you. Federov likely set up both accounts electronically.”
“I agree, but if the asset gets the information, then what? Federov won’t speak to just anyone, not about this. He’ll be guarded. If it gets out that Federov killed Emerson and stole the money, he’s a dead man. Like it or not, I’m the only one he’ll trust, and I’m the only one who can blackmail him.”
“The asset can threaten to expose him.”
“And Federov will expose the asset to the FSB, as well as his intentions to find out if Paulina is still alive. If she is, the FSB will move her and bury her, and we’ll miss any opportunity to get her out.”
“Get her out? Get her out of where?”
“Lefortovo,” Jenkins said. “Russia.”
“Are you out of your mind? Do you know what that would take? Even if it is her. Besides, if she was in a hospital for months and is now in Lefortovo, you have no idea what kind of physical or mental condition she’s in.”
“I have to take this a step at a time. First, determine if she’s alive and if she’s in Lefortovo. If she is, Lemore and I will come up with a plan to get her out.”
She shook her head. “Are you even hearing yourself? You’re going to trust an agency that was about to let you go to prison for life?”