Federov looked to Arkhip. “It seems you and the Velikayas are not the only ones who want Mr. Jenkins, Senior Investigator Arkhip Mishkin.”
“It would seem not,” Arkhip agreed.
“As I said, when Mr. Jenkins steps in the shit, it is deep. Tell me, Mishkin, about the death of Eldar Velikaya and why you wish to speak to Jenkins. We may be able to use this to our advantage. But be quick about it. I don’t believe Mr. Jenkins has much time.”
45
Irkutsk Meatpacking Plant
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.