The Last Agent

by Robert Dugoni

  CJ did so. He shook Lemore’s hand as Charlie had taught him, looking him in the eye. “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Lemore.”

  “Nice to meet you, CJ.”

  “Do you and my dad work together?”

  Lemore looked to Alex, uncertain how to respond. “Maybe,” Alex said. “We’ll see.”

  Charlie entered the room carrying three Coronas, each with a wedge of lime in the stem. He handed one to Lemore and one to Alex. “Cheers.” They touched the necks of the bottles.

  “Make yourself at home,” Alex said. “Dinner will be ready in a few minutes.”

  She handed Lemore plates and glasses, and he and CJ set the kitchen table under Lizzie’s watchful gaze. Jenkins knew Alex was more intent on Lemore seeing the full extent of Jenkins’s family responsibilities than on impressing him.

  Jenkins sat at the head of the table. Lemore sat to his right, next to CJ. Alex sat at the other end of the table, within reach of Lizzie’s high chair. Jenkins picked up his fork, but Alex said, “Can we say a prayer?”

  Though raised Baptist, Jenkins lost his religion when he served in Vietnam and hadn’t rediscovered his faith. Alex, Catholic, wanted their children to be raised with a faith, and Jenkins capitulated. They clasped hands, forming a circle. Jenkins noted that Lemore bowed his head.

  “Dear Lord, bless this family, and bless our guest, Matt Lemore,” Alex said. “You are the way, the truth, and the light. Let your light shine down upon all of us present so that we can be truthful.” Jenkins tried not to flinch or otherwise react. “Anyone else?” Alex said.

  CJ spoke. “And thank you for helping us win our game today, and thank you for the three goals I scored today.”

  Jenkins caught his son peeking out from the corner of his eye at Lemore. “And teach us all to share in your humility,” Jenkins said.

  At that moment, Lizzie hurled her bottle onto the table with a loud thud. “That’s Lizzie’s way of saying, ‘I’m hungry,’” Alex said, retrieving it.

  “I don’t blame her. It smells wonderful,” Lemore said.

  They ate lasagna, salad, and garlic bread with a bottle of Chianti. The conversation flowed easily, and Lemore seemed comfortable in the chaos. If the young agent was putting on an act, withholding information, or lying to them, Jenkins could not detect it. Lemore told them he and his wife lived in Virginia, not far from Langley. They’d married later in his life, travel and work commitments having made it difficult to date with any consistency. He also had played soccer at the University of Virginia. It comported with the information Jenkins had learned from his contact.

  “What position?” CJ asked.

  “Center fullback,” Lemore said.

  “Stopper,” CJ said.

  Lemore speared his salad. “I had a coach who believed that if the other team didn’t score, we had a better chance to win. It worked too,” Lemore said. “My senior year we made the quarterfinals of the NCAA tournament.”

  “Did you play professionally?” CJ asked.

  “No. I really wasn’t good enough, and I wanted to serve my country. I enlisted in the Marine Corps.”

  “I’m going to play professionally,” CJ said.

  “CJ,” Jenkins said in a tone intended to convey a message to his son.

  “I mean, that’s what I want to do . . . If I work hard enough and I’m good enough.” CJ looked to Jenkins for approval.

  Jenkins gave him a nod.

  “I like your confidence,” Lemore said.

  Following dinner, after they’d cleared the table, Alex let Lemore give CJ and Lizzie an ice cream bar each. CJ took his into the family room to watch television.

  “Don’t get it on the couch or the remote,” she called after him. Lizzie was a different story. She’d make a mess, adding to the lasagna all over her hands and face. Alex turned to Lemore. “Can I get you coffee, Matt?”

  “Decaffeinated?”

  “No problem.”

  Lemore smiled. “You’re a lot easier than the waitress at the diner. I asked for decaffeinated the other morning and thought she was going to pour it in my lap.”

  “Maureen takes a while to warm up to people,” Jenkins said.

  “A decade or two,” Alex said. “Instant okay?”

  “Fine.”

  Alex handed Lemore cream and sugar, and sat again while waiting for the kettle to boil. Lizzie was making a mess of her ice cream and loving every minute of it.

  “I’m not going to insult you,” Alex said. “I think you understand what this night was about.”

  Lemore nodded. “I do,” he said. “Charlie is a husband and a father. He has a lot to lose.”

  Jenkins nodded but remained silent. This was Alex’s conversation.

  “We all have a lot to lose. We almost lost him once. Charlie’s dedicated. He can be loyal to a fault. Lizzie’s middle name is Paulina.”

  Lemore sat back from the table. “I didn’t know that.”

  She nodded. “Charlie wanted to remember Paulina’s sacrifice. You understand why I’m concerned about you coming here and telling him that she might be alive.”

  “I do,” Lemore said. “And I wish there was something I could say that would alleviate your anxiety and your worry, but since I know you were also an officer, I won’t insult your intelligence. And since I can see what you’ve created here, how special it is, I won’t insult you by saying I understand.”

  “Just tell me you’ll be there if he needs help this time,” she said. “Tell me that you won’t abandon him.”

  “I won’t abandon him.” Lemore looked to Jenkins. “I won’t abandon you. You have my word. And not because I’ve met both of you, and CJ and Lizzie, though that’s a serious concern. I won’t abandon you because I was a case officer. I was in the field on my own.” He looked to Alex. “I told Charlie we all knew of the trial, and we were all rooting for him.”

  “He said that. Not sure it means much,” Alex said.

  “It does to me,” Lemore said, sounding sincere. Again he looked to Jenkins. “You’re one of us. What happened to you could have happened to any of us. I won’t forget that. And I won’t abandon you. That’s my word.”

  The kettle on the stove whistled, at first a low hum that grew in volume and pitch. Charlie turned to the kettle, but the sound reminded him of the night he’d had tea in Paulina’s apartment, and the sound he and Alex had heard the other night, of the coyotes howling.

  The sound of a woman in pain.

  8

  A week after his dinner with Matt Lemore, an unshaven and bleary-eyed Charles Jenkins stepped off a Turkish Airlines flight at the new airport in Istanbul. He’d slept little of the eighteen hours of flight time, spending nearly all of it practicing his Russian.

  Given the recent conflict between Turkey and the United States, Jenkins flew under a British passport provided by Lemore. After clearing a crowded customs line and locating his checked bag, Jenkins stepped outside into the night. The temperature had dropped into the thirties, but the cold invigorated him after breathing recycled airplane air. Jenkins hailed a taxi at the curb and climbed into a well-worn back seat that held the aroma of Turkish cigarettes, which reminded him of the smell of rum.

  “Rumeli Kavaği,” he told the driver, providing a street address.

  The driver turned and looked at Jenkins as if he’d misspoken. “Rumeli Kavaği?”

  “Ne kadar tutar?” Jenkins asked. How much will it cost?

  They negotiated a price, and the driver turned off the meter and pulled from the curb. Jenkins leaned his head against the window, hoping to sleep on the long drive.

  He awoke as the taxi wound its way through the hills above the Bosphorus strait. The lights in the homes and the hotels glistened on the sloped hillside and clustered in cluttered marinas at the darkened water’s edge. Further out in the strait, tankers had set anchor and turned on lights, looking like dozens of islands.

  The driver slowed and Jenkins searched for an address on the homes, not finding one. />
  The driver stopped the taxi. “Işte,” he said. Here.

  “Işte?” Jenkins asked.

  “Evet. Bir yerde.” Yes. Somewhere.

  Jenkins hoped the man was right. He thanked him and exited the cab with his bag. He approached a home with a light shining on the pink stucco siding. Somewhere down the block a dog barked; several more joined in. Jenkins stepped down concrete steps and pushed open a wrought-iron gate that swung into a center courtyard with a squeal. He crossed to the door. To his right, a plate-glass slider revealed lights on inside the house, but he saw no one. He knocked, unsure what to expect, whether he’d be welcome, or if this was even the right home. When no one answered, he knocked again.

  A woman, middle-aged and heavyset, pulled open the door. She had graying hair tied back in a bun. “Evet?” Yes?

  “Esma,” he said, recalling the name of Demir Kaplan’s boat that had provided Jenkins safe passage across the Black Sea. The Turkish captain had told Jenkins he’d named the boat for his wife. “I am with you, Esma, even when I am at sea.”

  The woman’s brow wrinkled, and she considered Jenkins with an inquisitive but distrusting gaze.

  “Demir? Demir Kaplan?” Jenkins said.

  “Kimsin?” Who are you?

  A word Jenkins had learned on his last visit to Turkey. As he was about to answer, Demir’s baritone voice called out, deep and rough from cigarettes. The words were spoken too quickly for Jenkins to understand.

  Esma turned, about to speak, when the door was pulled open, revealing the stocky man with the unkempt salt-and-pepper beard. Demir Kaplan’s eyes widened in recognition and, likely, some concern.

  “Mr. Jenkins.” He sounded as if he didn’t believe his eyes.

  Jenkins sat at a round table near a small kitchen with Demir and his two sons, Yusuf and Emir, who worked the fishing boat with their father. The sons, in their late forties, had come to the home quickly after receiving their father’s phone calls. Jenkins recalled Yusuf telling him that his father had purchased three homes on the same street, all a short distance from one another. The brothers had hugged Jenkins as if greeting a lost relative and started asking him a slew of questions. Esma, however, had cut them off and told them to sit, which they dutifully obeyed.

  Esma remained cold toward Jenkins, but that did not stop her from the Turkish custom of providing the guest with massive amounts of food and drink. She set down a serving tray with a teapot and four tulip-shaped glasses, followed by a second tray with dark bread, cheeses, figs, and vegetables. Esma’s gaze lingered on Jenkins before she departed the room.

  Demir poured the tea, bright red and with a fruity aroma. His two sons added multiple cubes of rock sugar. Emir, the older of the two brothers, commented on Jenkins’s beard, which was salt-and-pepper like Demir’s. Jenkins hoped the beard might help him to better fit in. He couldn’t hide his size, but with the light color of his skin, the beard changed his facial features and, he hoped, made him look more Middle Eastern.

  Demir raised his glass. “Sağliğiniza!” To your health!

  The tea had a sweet taste.

  “We were uncertain you made it home,” Yusuf said, “until we read of your trial.” Yusuf had transported Jenkins from the Esma to the Bosphorus strait on an inflatable, successfully outmaneuvering a Russian Coast Guard vessel. He then drove him to the bus terminal in Taksim.

  “The Russians followed me into Greece, but I was able to elude them,” Jenkins said. “I hope they didn’t give you much trouble.”

  “As I said on the boat,” Demir replied. “They wanted you very badly. They came to my home. One was . . . persuasive.” Jenkins knew Demir spoke of Federov, and he wondered again whether he could trust the former FSB officer, even with so much money at stake.

  “We had to tell them you’d taken a bus from Taksim to Çeşme,” Yusuf said. “We were glad to hear that you made it home safely, though not so much about the trial.”

  “Why have you come back?” Demir asked, cutting to the chase.

  Jenkins had contemplated how much to tell Demir, who as a young man had a career in the Turkish Navy, including its special forces, before he took over his father’s fishing boat. With the decrease in fish and income, Demir had supplemented his earnings by smuggling items and people into and out of the various countries surrounding the Black Sea, including Russia, for which he had no lost love.

  “I need to get back into Russia,” Jenkins said.

  Demir’s eyes widened. He sat back from the table, shaking his head.

  “Can it be done?” Jenkins asked.

  “Our president has made nice with the Russians for now,” Demir said, “but the tensions remain high between Russia and Ukraine. The Russian Coast Guard and navy have become much more diligent.”

  “I have money. Whatever the cost.”

  Demir shook his head. “A man cannot value money so much as to lose his family. My Esma, after the visit from the Russians, begged me to quit. It is not about money when one can die, Mr. Jenkins.”

  “I know,” he said. “And I don’t want to create more conflict for you. I wouldn’t have come to you if I had another way.” When no one responded, Jenkins said, “You asked why I came back. I will tell you.”

  The cups clanked against the silver tray as Emir and Yusuf set them down.

  “It is to save someone who saved me. She is in trouble.”

  Demir’s chest rose and fell, a deep breath. He looked to his two sons, who had remained quiet throughout the discussion, their eyes fixed on their father.

  Yusuf broke the silence. “Would it be damaging to Mr. Putin?”

  “If I can save this person, it would be very damaging.”

  Yusuf looked expectantly to his father, but the family patriarch raised his hands and said, “Revenge is never a good reason to act. My sons and I will talk. I will give you my word tomorrow. Do you have a place to stay?”

  “I can get a hotel.”

  “It is best to leave the faintest footprint. The Russians now know me and what I do. Though I have remained quiet these past months, it is possible I am still being watched. You will sleep here tonight.”

  They made a bed for Jenkins in the basement—a mattress on the concrete floor with sheets and blankets. Esma did not warm to Jenkins, and he did not blame her. Federov must have scared her, and now Jenkins was asking her husband to again take his boat back into the bear’s jaws. Seeing Esma’s pain and her worry gave Jenkins a greater appreciation for how Alex felt, and he deduced it was easier to empathize with loved ones than to acknowledge one’s own fears.

  Jenkins knew the risk of again engaging the Turkish captain, but he wanted to get into Russia in a manner familiar to him, without agency help, in case, as Alex had speculated, he was being set up. He’d told Lemore that communication would be minimal and provided only on a need-to-know basis until he was in Russia.

  In the basement, Jenkins pulled out the encrypted phone. He and Lemore both knew there was no such thing as a safely encrypted cell phone and had agreed to a code. Paulina would be referred to as a painting, Russia as the owner, Lefortovo as the art gallery, and Federov as the art dealer.

  He sent Lemore a text.

  Transportation being discussed to meet owner of painting.

  He contemplated calling Alex but decided it best not to provide her with each update, not to make her predisposed to hearing from him—which would only exacerbate her worry when he didn’t, or couldn’t, call.

  He set the phone on the bedcovers and looked out a narrow rectangular window, high up the stucco wall. Through it, beams of moonlight streamed, the blue-gray the only light in the room.

  9

  The following morning, Jenkins awoke to bright sunshine, and the light revealed the window to be covered with grime. He checked his watch and calculated that he’d slept nearly twelve hours, another reminder that he was no longer young. He dressed and walked upstairs into a quiet house. Demir sat at the table, speaking with his two sons. It looked almost
as if they’d never left their places from the prior evening.

  “We thought maybe you were going to sleep all day,” Yusuf said.

  “I feel like I did,” Jenkins said. “I’m a little groggy.”

  “Sit down. Have some breakfast,” Demir said. “The tea will help to wake you.”

  Along with tea, Esma again served a mountain of food—plates of rye bread, several cheeses, honey, and jam. On another plate she placed tomatoes, cucumbers, and hard-boiled eggs. Demir poured the red tea into Jenkins’s glass, and Yusuf handed him the cubes of sugar. This time Jenkins added two and stirred to break up the rocks.

  “We have discussed your proposal,” Demir said.

  Jenkins set down his spoon. His eyes searched the three men but found no indication of an answer.

  “I was glad to hear that your return has good intentions. For this, God will bless you.” Demir looked to his sons, then to Jenkins. “We have decided to take you back to Russia. But it will be expensive.”

  “As you said, money is not an issue in these circumstances,” Jenkins said, relieved.

  “The extra money is not for me, but for another vessel. I will need help keeping the Russian Coast Guard occupied. We cannot be confronted.”

  “A diversion,” Jenkins said.

  Demir nodded. “Today I am making phone calls to see if anyone is willing.”

  “Assuming someone is, when would we leave?”

  “Tonight. There is a storm brewing. The waters will be rough, but hopefully that means fewer Russian patrol boats.”

  “How big a storm?” Jenkins asked.

  “Big enough to deter them, but we have fished in worse weather. If I am successful finding a . . . diversion, we leave at dusk. Dress warmly. It will be very cold.”

  At dusk, having found another boat to serve as a diversion, Demir took no chances of Jenkins being seen leaving the house. Jenkins sat low in the back of the family’s windowless van, and when they reached the marina dock, Yusuf wheeled over a basket. Jenkins tumbled inside and Yusuf covered him with blankets and fishing supplies. As Emir and Yusuf wheeled the basket down the dock to the Esma, they bantered with other fishermen.