“I am offering you the chance to right a wrong, something very rare in these times. I am offering you the chance at more than a hollow act. I am offering the chance to once again sleep soundly at night.”
“And how will you do that?”
Federov again raised his hand. This time the slabs of meat hanging all around them quivered and shook, then moved along the conveyor belt. The slabs came to a right turn and each piece of meat spun, nearly 180 degrees, just behind Federov’s shoulder. From around that far corner of the room came a man hanging from a hook, with his back to the circle as he proceeded around the track. When he reached the right turn, he spun and faced them.
The blood drained from Yekaterina’s face. “Zhomov,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
“The man who shot your father,” Federov said.
She waited a beat, staring at Zhomov, her eyes emitting pure hatred. She looked to Federov. “You can prove this?” Yekaterina said. “Without doubt?”
“I not only know of the operation, Yekaterina, but I was a member of the task force. I can say with certainty that Alexander Zhomov shot your father. But my counterproposal includes more.”
She gave him a quizzical look.
“I am not just offering you the man who killed your father in exchange for Mr. Jenkins. No. I am offering you the man who ordered your father’s assassination.”
“You are going to produce Dmitry Sokalov? I doubt it.”
Federov raised his hand and again circled his finger. The door from which both he and Mishkin arrived clicked open. This time, Maria Kulikova stepped through and approached. Kulikova knew much about Yekaterina Velikaya from her years working with Sokalov at the FSB, including the operation that had led to the assassination of Alexei Velikaya. As she and Federov had discussed, the trick would be to get Yekaterina to trust that Kulikova could essentially deliver Sokalov—not physically, certainly, but in a manner that would destroy him.
Kulikova stopped alongside Mishkin. “I am told that your father was a fan of the Godfather movies, that he ran his family based upon the fictional Corleone family,” she said.
Yekaterina’s eyes narrowed. “This is true.”
“Then I believe, Ms. Velikaya, that I can make you an offer you can’t refuse.”
52
Irkutsk Meatpacking Plant
Irkutsk, Russia
Jenkins didn’t know how long he’d been suspended from the meat hook. He’d lost all sense of time, certain he had passed out more than once, his only reprieve from the pain. After awakening a second such time, he decided it best not to focus on the present, on each blow, each prick, each electric shock. It was better if he let them blend together, let time pass unimpeded as he got closer to the end. His punishers had hit him like well-trained prizefighters, attacking the body first to weaken his will. When that didn’t cause him to provide information, they had moved to his face. The beating had stopped long enough for Yekaterina Velikaya to interrogate him, but the pain, the excruciating pain, continued. He had thoughts of Alex, and of Lizzie and CJ. He’d wished he’d taken the time to have the talk with his son, to better prepare him for what was to come, being a large Black man in America.
He saw Maria Kulikova enter the warehouse and cursed silently, wondering what game Federov was up to. Maria looked calm, relaxed. She nodded to him, as if to let him know everything would be all right. When he heard Federov tell Velikaya that Maria could provide Dmitry Sokalov, things began to fall into place.
Before Maria spoke, however, Federov requested that Yekaterina remove Jenkins from the meat hook, which he called a sign of good faith. She had agreed. One of Federov’s men, a behemoth Charlie’s height but as thick as a redwood tree, lifted Jenkins from the hook as if lifting a child, Jenkins grimacing in pain, and gently sat him in a chair.
“Spasibo,” Jenkins said, struggling to catch his breath. He could barely sit upright. His rib cage burned as if someone had lit it with an acetylene torch. The question wasn’t whether he had fractured ribs, but how many. He hoped one of those cracked ribs hadn’t also collapsed a lung. He labored for each breath, but mainly from the excruciating pain. He had spit out more than one tooth, and now his tongue traced the jagged remains of several others. He couldn’t breathe through his nose, a clear sign it had been broken; so, too, was the crunch of cartilage when the men struck him. It sickened him. He didn’t want to look in a mirror.
Maria faced Yekaterina Velikaya and provided the intimate details of her relationship with Dmitry Sokalov. She did so as if reciting some bizarre sexual behavior that she had observed, not that she had participated in. Her voice remained soft and even-keeled, rarely rising in volume or displaying any emotion. Jenkins thought that must have been how she had survived all these years, by not allowing herself to become emotionally attached to Sokalov’s demented fetishes. Instead, Maria had created, in a sense, an alter ego—perhaps that person who stares back at us in the mirror; that person who looks like us but lacks depth, morals, and ethics. In addition to the details, she assured Velikaya that she had many locations in Moscow where she had stashed photographs of Sokalov in various compromising stages.