Jenkins swore. “You people really are paranoid.”
“You have no idea. We need to move,” she said.
Jenkins followed. “How do you know this place? Do others know of it?”
“Some,” she said, moving down an arched brick tunnel, the light of her phone illuminating no more than a few feet in front of them. “In college a friend found this shaft. He brought me and others underground to explore the tunnels at night. When the Soviet Union collapsed, he created an organization called Diggers of the Underground Planet and gave subterranean tours. The tours stopped when Putin came to power.”
The ground was moist, slick, and uneven. Jenkins felt his shoes slip. “This is all in anticipation of a nuclear war?”
“Don’t sound so surprised, Mr. Jenkins. During the Cold War, Great Britain and your country also built special underground bunkers where their respective leadership could seek refuge. The Soviet Union built up its underground system far beyond what was built by your country or Great Britain, but as you said, we are more paranoid. Down here you will find bunkers, underground factories, even tank tunnels.”
“How big is it?”
“I don’t know. I have, however, seen the plans. There are twelve levels running beneath Moscow. A few of the passageways date back to the 1300s. Ivan the Terrible expanded the tunnels during his reign in the sixteenth century, fearing he might have to someday flee the Kremlin. The largest tunnel is an underground subway system, known informally as Metro-2 and officially as D-6. It has been an ongoing project since the 1940s and is used only by high-ranking government officials, all of whom categorically deny its existence. You will not find a map or a document to substantiate it anywhere except at Lubyanka and, because of me, at Langley.”
Jenkins’s foot slipped and he reached out to the wall to regain his balance. The wall, too, was moist, and unlike above ground, where Moscow was hot and muggy, the passageway was cool and musty. Jenkins felt a chill on his arms beneath his dampened shirt. He estimated the temperature to be no more than forty-five degrees Fahrenheit. Their breath hung in the light from his phone.
“How do you know so much about it?” he asked.
“Because an issue came up as to who should be responsible for the tunnels. During the Soviet Union, it was run by the Fifteenth Directorate. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the directorate in charge of the tunnels was renamed the Main Directorate of Special Programs of the President, or GUSP. GUSP’s sole purpose is to maintain and expand these tunnels and keep their absolute secrecy. Sokalov was at one time the director, but he is lazy. He had me study the map and provide him with the details. I was glad to do it.”
“Do you have a photographic memory? How do you know where we are going?” Jenkins asked. They had ignored multiple side tunnels.
“I am following the main communication cable.” She tipped her phone so Jenkins could see a series of cables, like tree roots, anchored along the brick wall. “It will lead us back to Moscow. From there, I assume you have a plan to get us out.”
“I had a plan to get us out,” Jenkins said. “At the moment I’m improvising.” He checked his cell phone but, as he suspected, he had no reception. “Are there security cameras or motion detectors we should be concerned about?”
“The government has tried, but the underground belongs to the Diggers and subterranean explorers, and they do not like the government. They have clashed over access to the tunnels. Cameras and motion detectors don’t last long down here. The government has given up spending the money. Walk behind me,” she said. “The passageway narrows.”
Jenkins stepped behind her and they slowed their pace. Walking on the slick, concave bricks was like walking inside a pipe. “I asked earlier: What is Zhomov’s involvement in this?”
She turned her head to speak over her shoulder. “Sokalov brought in Zhomov to try and keep this quiet. He and Zhomov have a history.”
“Keep what quiet?”
“His and my affair. Sokalov is deathly afraid of his father-in-law. If word of his infidelity were to get out, his father-in-law will kill him. If they learn I was one of the seven sisters, the president will kill him. Either way, he is a dead man.”
“Who’s Sokalov’s father-in-law?”
“General Roman Portnov,” she said, providing Jenkins with a quick biographical sketch. “He has the means and the ability to kill Sokalov. And this was not just any affair. I went to great lengths, at great costs, to make sure the details of our relationship would be an extreme embarrassment—one the president and the general would never let surface.”