Petrov let out a sigh and pushed out of his chair. “Do so, Dmitry. I am receiving pressure from the Kremlin about how best to respond to the Ibragimov situation. I do not wish to give them a false hope, nor will I take responsibility if Zhomov were to fail. I warned you. The fault will lie with you.”
“I will get back to you as soon as I can.” Sokalov ushered Petrov out the office door, then closed it behind him. He turned and looked to the box as if the contents were rabid and might bite him. He walked slowly to the table. The tape across the top of the box had already been sliced open, per protocol. Sokalov carefully pulled open the lid. Inside he found a Styrofoam cooler. Again, he did not rush to open it. He recalled seeing a similar cooler at his home, though he had been too preoccupied to ask where it came from. He removed the Styrofoam lid. Inside he found multiple links of sausage, like the ones Olga had served the prior evening. The links were shrink-wrapped, six to a pack, with labels also identifying the source of the meat as the Irkutsk Meatpacking Plant.
Sokalov lifted the first pack and found a second beneath it. He removed the second pack, then a third. He lifted the fourth pack from the box and dropped it as if it burned his hands. Inside, the pack, vacuum sealed, were a thumb and four fingers, the index finger bearing a ring Sokalov recognized as the ring worn by Russia’s elite Spetsnaz forces.
Zhomov.
At the bottom of the box he found a handwritten message.
Alexei Velikaya sends his regards from the grave.
Sokalov bent and threw up the contents of his stomach into the cardboard box, retching several times. Rivulets of perspiration ran down the sides of his face and dampened the collar of his shirt. He ripped at the tie, lowering it, and undid the button of his shirt, struggling to breathe. He felt a chill.
Think.
He needed to think.
Zhomov was dead.
But what of Maria and Jenkins? Did Velikaya have them as well? Could he negotiate somehow? Could he tell Petrov that Jenkins had somehow escaped, that his efforts to capture him had been well taken but had failed? Jenkins had escaped twice before. The chairman would understand. Would the president?
He teetered to his desk like a man on the deck of a ship rocking in high seas, clutched his chair, and fell into it. He could still get out of this. He would need help, but . . . His father-in-law. He could go to his father-in-law, tell him of his efforts to bring Jenkins to justice. If his father-in-law understood . . .
For the good of his grandchildren . . .
And the reputation of his daughter.
Yes. That would work.
He could still get out of this. Sokalov looked across his desk to the interdepartmental envelope. His secretary said it had been on her chair with the box when she arrived at work this morning. Given the hour that he requested she arrive, it meant the envelope had to have been hand delivered to the office by someone the prior evening.
Sokalov picked up the envelope and looked at the routing lines, but the envelope was new and contained no names except his own.
He undid the red string wrapped around the button at the top of the envelope and opened the flap. From inside he pulled out dozens of photographs, all taken of him in various stages of bondage. He flipped through them, dropping them onto his desk one by one. A few missed and fluttered to the floor.
In each picture, a woman, Maria Kulikova, though her face was concealed by a leather mask, loomed over him. She wore six-inch spiked heels, and held chains, leather whips, feathers, hot wax, and other assorted gadgets.
The phone rang. Sokalov stared at the photographs. Numb.
Reality set in.
The phone rang again.
He pushed the button as if on remote control.
“Deputy Director. I’m sorry to interrupt, but you have another visitor. I explained that you were not feeling well but . . . He has insisted that he see you immediately.”
“Who is it?” Sokalov asked.
“Your father-in-law.”
Sokalov felt his stomach drop. The room spun. He fought the urge to again vomit.
“Deputy Director, he is adamant that I allow him in to see you,” his secretary whispered, the panic his father-in-law could evoke clear in her voice.
Sokalov opened his desk drawer and removed the pistol, setting it on his desk. “Tell him I need just a moment,” he said. He disconnected the call and stared at the pictures on his desk, knowing many more existed and that a similar packet had undoubtedly been delivered to his father-in-law.
Maria Kulikova. The source of so much pleasure, and so much pain.
He reached inside the packet, but it contained no note or letter from Maria as Yekaterina Velikaya had said.