The Eighth Sister

by Robert Dugoni

  “Did your uncle have a message for my father?”

  Jake thought about what Charlie had told Alex when he’d called on the burner phone, but he wasn’t about to tell that to the man’s son.

  “He said that your father was an artist. He said he’d made several purchases from him when he worked here in Mexico City.”

  “My father an artist?” Again, the man smiled and shook his head like he’d never heard this before. “My father sold antiques all his life. Maybe he sold some artwork to your uncle?”

  “Maybe,” Jake said.

  “What did your uncle do here in Mexico?”

  “I’m not sure,” Jake said.

  The man shook his head and shrugged. Then he picked up the silver pot and returned to polishing it. “I’m sorry you came all this way. Why didn’t your uncle call first?”

  “I guess he should have,” Jake said, and he walked quickly out the door.

  The cool air assaulted him. He sucked in several deep breaths. He felt light-headed and nauseated from a lack of food, a lack of sleep, and a lack of options. He needed to eat something to settle his stomach. The area continued to awaken, more cars driving past, and more people walking the sidewalk, some carrying plastic bags. Jake also needed to call Alex and let her know Uncle Frank was a dead end, so she and Charlie could make other arrangements, if they could. He walked down the street, stopping when he came to a lime-green building with a red neon coffee cup illuminated in the window above a display of pastries.

  Inside, he ordered a coffee and two cinnamon rolls from a young woman with red hair and freckles, who looked anything but Mexican. She spoke to him in Spanish but Jake shrugged and said he could not understand her.

  She made hand gestures. “Aquí o para ir.”

  She was asking if he wanted the coffee and pastries to go or to eat in the store. He saw several small tables pushed up against the store wall, all of them empty.

  “Para tomar aquí, por favor,” he said. “Gracias.” He looked about. “Dónde está el baño?”

  She pointed to the rear of the store.

  Jake carried his backpack into the bathroom and shut and latched the door. He considered his face in the mirror above the sink. He looked pale, dark bags developing under his eyes. He turned on the faucet and splashed several handfuls of cold water on his face, chilling his skin, then drying it with coarse brown paper towels.

  “Now what?” he said to his reflection.

  He checked his watch, which was still set to Seattle time. It was seven thirty in the morning. He’d call Alex and tell her they needed another option. He pulled open the door and walked back into the café. The woman stood behind the counter looking at him with an odd expression. As Jake neared his table he noted only one pastry on his plate and no coffee.

  He looked to the woman, using hand gestures. “¿Dónde está?” he said. “Café. Dos.”

  The woman pointed to the door. “El hombre lo tomó.”

  “El hombre?”

  “Sí. Carlos.”

  Jake looked to the door and felt an adrenaline rush. Had he been followed after all? “Carlos? Quién es Carlos?”

  She pointed to the door, smiling. “Carlos. Antigüedades y tesoros.”

  His mind churned. “Habló . . . anything? Carlos habló?”

  “Sí. Dijo que no le gusta el whisky tan temprano en la mañana, pero que le encantaría una taza de café.”

  Jake didn’t understand. He took out his phone and opened a Spanish-to-English translation app he’d downloaded before leaving Seattle. “Repetir?” He held his phone out to the woman, and she repeated what she had said into his phone. The app translated to English. “He doesn’t like Scotch this early, but he would love coffee and a pastry.” Jake looked to the woman and she again pointed to the door. “Antigüedades y tesoros.”

  “Gracias, señorita. Gracias.” Jake gathered his backpack.

  “Señor.” The woman stepped out from behind the counter holding a coffee cup to go and a white bag. “Dos.”

  42

  Jenkins rose at four thirty the following morning after another long night with only a couple of hours of fitful sleep. He’d found a hotel room on a hillside above the second marina and headed out the door, hoping people in Çeşme fished as early as people in the United States.

  The morning air felt not far above freezing, and he put his hands in his pockets as he walked. Along the coastlines of both Çeşme and Chios, lights sparkled in homes and hotels. Jenkins watched the flashing red lights of an airplane as it approached the Chios airport along the water’s edge.

  Jenkins found a gap between two buildings terraced above the coast that provided a view of the marina and the parking lot adjacent to it. He searched for signs of someone sitting in a car—the yellow burst of a struck match or a flicked cigarette lighter, the red ember of a cigarette tip, the luminous glow of a cell phone. He also searched the shadows around the marina, looking for anyone standing about and seemingly not having a purpose there. He saw no one.

  Headlights approached on the road at the bottom of the hill. The car slowed and turned into the parking lot, stopping in front of garbage bins. A man got out, tossed his cigarette across the ground, and walked to the back of his car. He opened the trunk and unloaded what looked to be a cooler and other items Jenkins could not see from that distance. He closed the trunk and walked to the marina dock to one of the boat slips.

  Jenkins hurried down the hill. As he approached the marina he kept his attention on the parked cars and the shadows, seeing no one. When he reached the marina’s dock he slowed his approach, not wanting to frighten the man, who had stepped inside a boat’s cabin. An African American man of Jenkins’s size could cause fear simply by his presence, at least in the United States. Jenkins waited until the man exited the cabin and made eye contact.

  “Affedersiniz. Günaydin,” he said. Excuse me. Good morning. He had practiced these words during the hours in his hotel room.

  “Günaydin,” the man responded, sounding cautious.

  “Balik tutmak için ariyorum.” I am looking to go fishing. Jenkins removed lira from his pocket. “Lira?” he said.

  The man was not small and he did not appear intimidated. He also did not look interested. He looked at the money, then again at Jenkins. Jenkins could tell the man was about to turn him down.

  “Sakiz gezisi yapmak belki o zaman . . . ,” Jenkins said. Perhaps a ride to Chios then . . .

  This, too, gave the man pause. He looked across the narrow channel. The lights on Chios seemed close enough to touch, no more than a twenty-minute ride. “Chios?”

  “Yes,” Jenkins said. “Sadece bir gezinti.” Just a ride.

  “Ne kadar?” the man said, rubbing his thumb and fingers together. How much?

  A good sign, Jenkins thought. “Beş yüz şimdi,” he said. Five hundred lira now. It should have been more than enough to make the deal, especially if the man was going out anyway. “Biz indiğimizde beş yüz daha,” Jenkins said, hoping to seal the deal. Five hundred more when we land.

  The man looked again to the island, but distrust lingered in his eyes. “Kimi kaçiyorsun?”

  Jenkins shook his head to indicate he didn’t understand what the man was asking. The man pointed to Jenkins, then used two fingers to indicate someone running. “Kimi kaçiyorsun?” he said again.

  If Jenkins said he was running from Russians, he’d scare the man into rejecting his request.

  Jenkins nodded. “Evet.”

  “Kim?” the man said, and Jenkins deduced he was again asking who Jenkins was running from.

  Jenkins nodded and smiled. Then he took out his phone and found the translation he was looking for. “Karim,” he said. My wife.

  Initially, the man looked taken aback. Then he grinned and waved Jenkins aboard. “Belki de seninle gitmeliyim,” he said. Maybe I should go with you.

  43

  Viktor Federov stood outside the central bus stop in Çeşme, waiting for the next round of buses t
o arrive. After the debacle in Bursa, Federov had contemplated two possibilities—that the fishermen had lied to him about Jenkins’s intention to take a bus to the Turkish coast and attempt to flee to Greece, or, Jenkins, knowing Federov remained in close pursuit, had supplanted those plans with new ones.

  Federov dismissed the first possibility as highly unlikely. The fishermen had been paid a price to transport Jenkins across the Black Sea. They owed him nothing more, certainly not their lives or the lives of those they loved. Second, their story made the most sense. The shortest distance out of Turkey was through Greece, where there existed dozens of islands Jenkins could hide on before flying out or taking a ship. That analysis left the latter possibility, that Jenkins, aware that Federov was in pursuit, had changed his plans when he arrived in Bursa, or he wanted Federov to believe he had. In hindsight, Jenkins’s cab ride to the hotel had been purposefully easy to trace—Jenkins having spoken English and leaving a large tip to make him memorable. He had clearly intended to lure Federov and his men to that hotel. Jenkins could have then slipped out of Bursa on a bus headed in any of a number of directions. And if that was the case, he could be nearly anywhere by now.

  Or . . . that could be precisely what Jenkins wanted Federov to believe, which improved his chances of escaping through Çeşme, as originally planned.

  The latter possibility was one of the reasons Federov sat at the bus terminal waiting for the next round of buses to arrive—so he and Alekseyov could ask each driver if he recalled the large American. So far, none had. The other reason was equally as practical. What else was Federov to do? If Jenkins had taken an alternative route out of Turkey, Federov could do little until Jenkins’s passport triggered a notice, an asset saw and recognized him, or they learned more about Jenkins’s attempts to contact friends in the United States to obtain travel documents.

  Alekseyov stepped off the last bus and approached Federov in the courtyard. He’d ditched his suit and dressed as a Turkish tourist in shorts, a colorful shirt, black socks above tennis shoes, and sunglasses. Federov wore slacks, a blue polo shirt, and sandals.

  “Nyet,” Alekseyov said, shaking his head. “It appears Mr. Jenkins did not come to Çeşme.”

  “You may be right,” Federov said. He had called his contact in the United States, who said it was possible Jenkins was attempting to get travel documents from a source who had boarded a plane to Costa Rica. They were monitoring the man’s movements.

  Federov turned and peered at the blue-green water of the Aegean Sea and at the boats in the marina’s slips, just one of many marinas tucked within the coves and the spits of irregular-shaped land masses of the popular Turkish town. And that did not even account for the many pleasure boats, or the fishermen who could drop anchor in the shallow, calm waters and come into Çeşme for just the day. Jenkins had any number of people he could bribe if he had come to Çeşme for a ride to Greece.

  “What should we do?” Alekseyov asked.

  Federov took out a roll of Tums and popped two in his mouth, cringing at the chalky taste. “When do the next buses arrive?”

  “Not until after five o’clock.”

  Federov looked at his watch, then at the red tile roofs of the buildings on what had become a gorgeous day of sunshine and pleasant temperatures. There was little more they could do. “We’ll eat before the next round of buses. It will give me time to call in and determine if anyone has any further information.”

  44

  Jake pushed open the glass door to Antigüedades y tesoros and stepped inside, carrying the white cup of coffee and a bag with two pastries. He crossed the wood-plank floor to the counter where earlier the man had sat cleaning the piece of silver. The pot sat on a tray, along with the red rag and the lingering chemical smell. Behind the counter stood a woman no more than five feet tall with long, straight, black hair. She glanced at the coffee in Jake’s hand, and for a moment he thought she would tell him he could not drink or eat inside the store. Then she smiled.

  Before Jake could ask about Carlos, the woman walked around the counter and crossed to the front of the store. She turned a sign in the window and locked the door with a click. Then she nodded for Jake to follow her, leading him through a maze of haphazard paths between dressers, tables, bed frames, armoires, and stacks of magazines. She opened a door at the back of the store and stepped to the side. Jake looked down a steep staircase that descended to a dull yellow light.

  Jake pointed to the stairs. “Carlos aquí?”

  The woman smiled and nodded but said nothing.

  Jake descended slowly, unsure what to expect. The woman closed the door behind him. He stopped when he heard a click. “Not good,” he said. “Not good.”

  The stairs shook and creaked beneath his weight. As he descended, machines on cobblestones came into view—several copiers, a printing press, and a machine that, he suspected from the clear plastic beside it, laminated cards.

  Carlos stood behind an antique partner’s desk in an office at the back of the room. The other pastry Jake had ordered sat on a napkin beside a mug of coffee. The yellow lighting emanated from a fixture above Carlos’s head.

  Carlos smiled as Jake entered. “Please, take a seat.”

  Jake set down his coffee and bag and sat in a chair on the opposite side of the desk.

  Carlos sat and took a bite of his cinnamon roll. He handed a napkin across the desk. “Please. I hate to eat alone, and you look as though you could use some food.”

  “I could, actually.” Jake opened the bag and removed the cinnamon roll, taking a bite.

  “Where did you come from?” the man asked.

  “Seattle,” Jake said.

  “And Charles Jenkins is your uncle?”

  “He’s like an uncle,” Jake said.

  “I thought so. You don’t look alike.” After a pause, Carlos smiled. “It was a joke. You look tense. Relax.”

  “You know him.”

  “Only from photographs my father has on file.” Carlos tore off a piece of pastry, sat back, and dipped the pastry in his coffee. “I had to send you away to be sure you had not been followed and to give me time to review my father’s files.” He ate the pastry and wiped his fingers on a napkin. “I watched you go into the coffee shop, then hurried down here to determine whether you were telling the truth.” He pointed to a laptop on his desk. “I’ve computerized most of my father’s files. There were many. Your uncle’s file was in the archives. It appears my father and your uncle did business together, more than once, but many years ago.”

  “Is your father really dead?”

  “Yes. That part is true.”

  “You took up his profession?”

  “I worked with and learned both professions from my father. He made a good living because he was careful in what antiques he purchased and what clients he chose to accept. If he couldn’t turn a profit on an antique, he didn’t accept it. If he didn’t like or believe he could trust the person asking him to make travel documents, he simply feigned ignorance, as I just did. It’s the reason my father never conducted business over the telephone. He liked to look a man . . . or woman . . . in the eye. He was highly selective and highly accurate. He was also an artist, as your uncle said, much better than I am, though I don’t have to be as good, with the new technology. Much of what my father did for your uncle had to be done by hand. I rely heavily on computers.” He set down the coffee. “What is it that you need . . . ?”

  “Jake,” he said.

  “What is it that you need, Jake?”

  “May I borrow your knife?”

  The man handed Jake the knife. He used the sharp point to cut loose one of the threads Alex had sewn and carefully opened the lining of his jacket. He pulled out the envelope—on an airport X-ray machine it would look as though the envelope was inside his coat pocket. With TSA precheck, Jake never even had to remove his jacket to be scanned. He handed the envelope to Carlos. Carlos opened it and shook out what appeared to be several recent photos of Charlie, alon
g with photocopies of his passport, his birth certificate, and his driver’s license. Alex kept these documents, as well as travel documents for her and CJ, in the go bag she brought with her from Camano.

  Carlos removed his wire-rimmed glasses, which left red indentations along the bridge of his nose. Without them, he looked younger, his nose and cheekbones more prominent. He read handwritten notes provided by Alex, placing each page facedown as he proceeded. When he had finished reading, he picked up the pages, methodically tapped them on his desk to even the edges, and set them down again.

  “Your aunt?” Carlos asked, placing his palm on the written notes.

  “Charlie’s wife.”

  “She also was a case officer?”

  “Yes. From here, Mexico City.”

  “I can tell.” He pressed the tips of his fingers to his lips and bowed his head as if in solemn prayer. His eyes went back and forth between the materials. After nearly a minute he said, “She said there is urgency. I can get the materials to you by late tomorrow afternoon. That’s as fast as I can go.”

  Jake nodded. “Then I guess that will have to do.”

  “The price is five thousand dollars.”

  Jake felt like a large stone dropped in his stomach. It was all the money he had.

  “But I can tell that you’re worried about your uncle.” He tapped the pages again. “So is his wife.”

  “Very,” Jake said.

  “I’ll do it for twenty-five hundred,” he said. “Since your uncle knew my father. Where will you be staying?”

  “I don’t have a place yet.”

  “Hang on.” Carlos picked up the receiver of an old-fashioned telephone and dialed a single digit. He spoke Spanish, much too quickly for Jake to understand, and replaced the receiver. “I rent out the rooms on the second floor. Veronica tells me we have an opening. You can stay there. I would suggest you stay indoors and largely out of sight. I don’t believe you’re being followed, but better safe than sorry, as they say. Veronica will bring you food. Leave your jacket and your backpack. Everything your uncle needs will be sewn inside the lining.”