At the airport it took Jenkins more than an hour to reach the border guard window and present his passport. The besieged guard held up the passport to better compare the photograph with the man standing on the other side of the glass. The young guard looked bored and indifferent as he scanned the booklet beneath an ultraviolet light. The code provided by the CIA would generate a number of visits to various destinations around the world, including Russia.
“And what is the purpose of your visit to the Russian Federation?” the guard asked, speaking monotone English.
The Border Guard Service was a department within the FSB. If Jenkins’s papers or his disguise failed to conceal his identity, it would be a short drive to the front gates of Lefortovo Prison. Having been there once, he had no interest in returning.
“Business,” Jenkins said in a British accent.
“What type of business?”
“Textiles. My company supplies the raw material used to manufacture uniforms, much like the one you are wearing. I’m here to visit manufacturers of machinery used in that process.”
“You manufactured this uniform?” The young man held out the lapel of his military-green jacket and looked and sounded less than impressed.
Jenkins smiled. “Not the uniform. We provide the material to make the product—the cotton, wool, synthetic fibers.”
“Polyester?” the man asked.
“Yes.”
“Do me favor? Make the uniforms with cotton. Something that breathes. In summer I sweat like pig, especially if no air-conditioning.”
“I will do what I can, young man.”
“What businesses in particular you will be visiting?”
Jenkins furrowed his brow. “More than a dozen that make the various components of the textile machinery used in our factories. Would you like me to list them for you?”
“Place right hand on machine.”
Jenkins set his right hand on the scanner and a light illuminated his palm and fingers. The guard’s eyes shifted from the machine to his computer. “You’ve been to Moscow before, Mr. Wilson.”
“Several times, actually.”
The guard stamped Jenkins’s passport and handed it back through the hole in the glass. He wasn’t interested. “Have nice visit.”
Jenkins hailed a taxi outside the airport and instructed the driver, in Russian, to take him to the Gostinitsa Imperkiy in the Yakimanka District. The driver turned and looked at him.
“Adres dadite?” Do you have an address?
Jenkins provided one. Unlike many hotels in Moscow’s historic center, the Hotel Imperial was off the beaten track and did not cater to American and European travelers. It had been vetted by CIA assets in Russia, who confirmed that the rooms were clean, and without microphones or cameras, though there was a low-quality camera in the lobby.
Maria Kulikova lived in the Yakimanka District. Jenkins’s hotel was within walking distance of her apartment, which would ease his surveillance until he determined the reason for her silence. Zenaida Petrekova, the second sister, worked in the State Duma and lived further north, a thirty-minute train ride to the Korolyov suburb where her husband had been an engineer in the Russian space program until his unexpected death from a heart attack.
Jenkins intended to watch Kulikova first. If he determined she was under surveillance, it would complicate communication and, ultimately, exfiltration. He would then move on to observe Petrekova.
The hotel clerk in the small, well-worn lobby was pleasant but reserved. After Jenkins presented his passport and credit card, the clerk handed him a key card for a room on the hotel’s third floor. “Can you provide me the names of some of the trendier places to eat around here?” Jenkins asked, again in a British accent.
When the man did not respond, Jenkins spoke to him in Russian. The clerk handed him a sheet of paper from beneath the counter. A cursory review revealed the names of restaurants that delivered, a dry cleaner, several tour guide companies, and other services. Having been on an airplane for seemingly half a day, Jenkins did not want to eat in his room, but he also did not want to walk into an establishment on the tourist junket. He wanted something like his hotel, well off the beaten path. He made his way to the caged elevator and rode it to the third floor. He detected no camera in the elevator or in his third-floor hallway.
Inside his room, Jenkins shut the door but left the lights off. He scanned the walls and the ceiling, looking for pinpoints of green, red, or white light that could indicate a hidden camera or listening device. Seeing none, he turned on the light and put his suitcase on the bed. He removed a shaving kit and, from within, what looked to be an electric razor. He pressed a button on the bottom and walked the room. The device detected radio waves and magnetic field signals, as well as hidden camera equipment, mobile phone bugs, and GPS locators. When any of those were detected, an LED light illuminated and the machine vibrated.