Kulikova and Jenkins stepped into a central courtyard reminiscent of apartment buildings in France and climbed an interior stairwell to the third floor. Kulikova pressed the buttons on another keypad and entered the apartment through a dark wood door. She paused in the entry. She looked pained.
“Are you okay?” Jenkins asked.
“What you are about to see, Mr. Jenkins, is not Maria Kulikova. What you are about to see is the personality I had to become to do what I had to do.” She looked up at him, eyes watery but jaw set. “Do you understand?”
“I’m not here to judge you,” he said. “I’m here to get you out.”
Jenkins followed her inside a small entry to a well-decorated front room that spilled into a kitchen modest in size but with high-end appliances. “Wait here,” she said and departed down a dark hallway.
The apartment had a peculiar smell to it. It didn’t smell lived in. Jenkins did not detect the odor of food or cigarettes or even perfume. It had a musty smell to it, like a cabin that needed to be aired out after a long winter. On the coffee table Jenkins noticed magazines of hard-core pornography, mostly sadomasochism. He wondered if the odor he had detected was human perspiration, perhaps lotions.
When Jenkins looked up, Kulikova stood in the hall wearing a plush robe and holding another. She looked embarrassed, and he was embarrassed for her. She handed him the robe. “Give me your clothes. I will put them in the dryer.” Jenkins took the robe and stepped from his clothes.
He pulled the plastic ziplock bag from his coat and checked their passports, credit cards, rubles, and American dollars. They were dry. His phone, however, which had been in his pocket when he fell into the Neglinnaya River, had shut off, likely for good.
Kulikova returned, using a towel to dry her hair. Down the hall, Jenkins could hear clothes tumbling in a dryer. It was the first chance Jenkins had to really see her. An attractive woman, Kulikova had auburn hair, Slavic features, and a full figure she no doubt kept in shape given the rigors they had just endured.
“Phone’s dead,” Jenkins said.
Kulikova stepped past him and into the kitchen. She pulled open a drawer and handed him what looked like an old-fashioned flip phone. “Burner phone,” she said. “It has an app that redirects the contact information to a random phone number in Moscow so it cannot be traced. Sokalov insisted we use these phones in case one of us was detained or could not make an arranged meeting.”
Jenkins figured, given what was at stake, Sokalov would have gone to some lengths to ensure the phone was secure. He also did not have a lot of choices. They needed help. He flipped open the phone and called the number he had memorized. The number went through an internal switchboard at Langley, where it was also scrambled and redirected so, if traced, it, too, would lead to a random phone number somewhere within the United States.
If a call was an internal call, Lemore answered “Lemore.” If it was an outside call, he answered “Hello.”
“Hello?”
“I’m calling about the two love seats to be reupholstered,” Jenkins said. “I’m going to need some help.”
After no more than a beat, Lemore replied. “Yes. What about them?”
“I’d like to change the fabric we picked out, something that will better conceal their current appearances. Can you deliver two different fabrics for me to consider, one feminine and one more masculine?”
“Certainly.”
“I’ve also changed my mind and wish for you to make arrangements to pick up the two chairs, but tell your driver to be discreet. This is a surprise for my wife.”
“Your address?”
Jenkins provided the address. “Tell your driver to ask for Nicholas, the superintendent in 3C. If my wife is out, I will respond ‘spasibo.’ If she is home, I will respond ‘nyet.’ Do you know how long this will take? My wife indicated she would be out no more than half an hour.”
“We’ll do our best to be there before she returns.”
Jenkins disconnected. He slipped the phone into his pocket, then thought better of it. If Sokalov suspected Maria might use the apartment, he might also consider the phone and somehow be able to track it. He put the phone back in the drawer and spoke to Kulikova. “I have disguises and transportation on the way, but I assume they will be nothing as elaborate as what I originally was given—likely just a change of clothes, something to conceal our hair, perhaps wigs and facial hair.” He moved to the window and pulled back the curtain, peering down at the street emerging in the dawn light. “I’m assuming that at some point one or both of us will be identified on the CCTV cameras and those cameras will track us back to this apartment building.”