The Last Agent

by Robert Dugoni

  A match flared. Jenkins glimpsed someone leaning against a stone wall on the other side of the courtyard. Jenkins and Paulina approached. The man had one leg bent, the sole of his boot braced against the archway. He looked like a sailor in a dark peacoat and knit cap. Strands of blond hair—nearly white—peeked out from beneath the cap. His cigarette glowed a bright red when he inhaled. A camera hung by a strap around his neck.

  “Is it too late for a tour of the church?” Jenkins asked.

  “Yes. But not too late for confession.” The man dropped his cigarette and crushed it with the toe of his boot. “I am André. Come.”

  André led them through the arch into an inner courtyard with antique cannons on wooden wheels. Maple trees lined cobblestone walkways. The wind rustled the leaves and circled the courtyard, emitting a soft, ghostly howl. André climbed a stone step and pressed down on an iron door handle to a wood door. Jenkins and Paulina followed him inside.

  The church smelled of incense and burnt candles. Ambient light streamed through a round, stained-glass window at the rear of the nave, and below the window rose the pipes of an organ. The church was empty. André led them quickly down a side aisle to a confession box and pulled open the door. Inside the small confessional he touched something on the back wall and the edge popped free. Inserting his fingers into the gap, he slid back the wall, revealing a hidden passage. He switched on a penlight and handed a second one to Jenkins, then directed the beam of light onto steep descending steps carved into rock. André started down, Paulina following. He looked up at Jenkins, speaking softly. “Close the confessional door behind you.”

  Jenkins shut the door, eliminating what little ambient light had helped him to see. Shining his penlight into the gap, he stepped down the first stone step, turning his foot sideways because the stairs were too narrow to accommodate his size 13 shoe.

  “Slide the wall closed until you hear it click,” André said from the tunnel at the bottom of the stairs. Again, Jenkins did so. Then he descended into darkness.

  Efimov emerged from behind the stone wall, watching Jenkins and Ponomayova ascend a cobblestone ramp to the Akershus Fortress. His initial instinct was to shoot Jenkins immediately, but he had to assume there were others waiting for Jenkins and Ponomayova, or in position to provide them security. He needed to find a situation in which he could act quickly and slip away, making Jenkins’s death look like a criminal act.

  After Jenkins had turned the corner at the top of the ramp, Efimov stepped forward, walking briskly but remaining on high alert. He slid behind the trunk of a tree and waited a beat before proceeding to an archway, where he stopped again behind the stone wall. He leaned out and caught sight of Jenkins and Ponomayova talking to a man beneath an archway. The three stepped beneath the arch, out of sight. Efimov gave them a few seconds before he followed. He removed his gun and screwed on a silencer.

  At the archway he braced his back against the wall and then peered around it, looking into an inner courtyard. He did not see them, but he did see a wooden door on the side of the church. He stepped into the courtyard, again deserted, and crossed to the door. He pressed down on the handle until he heard it click. Carefully, quietly, he opened the door, waiting a second to ensure it was not an ambush. He slid inside a dark interior, holding the door until it closed, silently. He took a moment to listen for voices.

  Hearing none, he stepped into a church with rows of wood chairs aligned from an altar to the back of the nave. The altar sat beneath a chandelier, with a raised pulpit extending from the wall. Near the back of the nave, another door swung shut. Efimov slid down the aisle past statues and ducked beneath a Norwegian flag hanging from a pole set into the wall.

  As he stepped to the door, he heard a faint whisper, a man’s voice. He gripped the door handle, raised the muzzle of his gun, and pulled the door open, aiming inside. The room was no larger than a few square feet. But no one was inside.

  Efimov removed a light from his pocket and turned it on, shining the narrow beam along the edge where the walls met, but not seeing a seam. He pressed on the wood, and on the carved features. Nothing. He stepped closer. A faint, cool breeze blew on his face. He pulled a hair from his head and held it along the wall edge. Up high, the hair fluttered. He moved it closer to the gap and the flutter increased. A passageway.

  He pressed and pulled on anything protruding from the wall. Nothing. He kept at it, lifting up onto his toes to press on a carved rose near the ceiling. It depressed and the wall snapped open a few inches. Efimov waited a beat, gripped the edge, and slid the wall back, revealing a descending staircase.

  At the bottom of the steps Jenkins encountered a narrow passageway with an arched ceiling cut into rock but clearly not intended for a man his height. He had to duck his head to keep from hitting it. The tunnel was cold and damp, and the stone walls looked slickened by water, but the dirt floor remained dry. He directed the light down to his feet and noticed that they were leaving shoeprints. As André and Paulina went down the tunnel, Jenkins looked about the passage and saw some stones on the ground. He gathered a handful and climbed halfway back up the steps, dropping the stones and pebbles on two of the stairs. Then he hurried to catch up, though his size prevented him from moving quickly.

  “What is this place?” he asked in a hushed voice when he reached the back of the line.

  “The Akershus Fortress has existed for more than seven hundred years,” André said, his voice a near whisper. “Many have tried to rule it because of its proximity to the sea. These tunnels were dug for those in power to flee when the fortress was besieged. In World War II the Nazis expanded the tunnels, as did the Norwegian resistance, who used them to move around much of Oslo undetected to commit sabotage. Few know of the tunnels’ existence. You will not find them on any map, and the military does not acknowledge they exist. Some remain escape routes, others security rooms for government officials in the event of a nuclear attack.”

  Jenkins turned and stopped walking at the sound of the stones being displaced and bouncing down the staircase in the otherwise silent passageway. He looked for a light, but didn’t see any. André and Paulina continued on, but Jenkins remained still, listening, certain he had heard the rocks. He directed the beam of light to the floor and picked up additional stones, then hurried down the tunnel.

  André turned right at the first fork, leading them down another passageway. Jenkins stopped at the fork and strategically dropped the rocks across the dirt floor. He went another few feet and planted more rocks across the ground.

  “Where are we headed?” Paulina asked.

  “Where I lead you,” André said. “It is not far. A kilometer.”

  They pressed on.

  A minute later, Jenkins heard another sound behind them, someone stepping awkwardly on the rocks he’d dropped. “Shh,” he said. Paulina and André stopped and turned back. Jenkins directed the light to his face, put his finger to his lips, then pointed to his ear. Paulina and André shook their heads to indicate they had not heard anything.

  About to continue, Jenkins heard the sound a second time. This time, when he looked to Paulina and André, their eyes confirmed they, too, had heard it.

  Someone was coming.

  Efimov’s foot slipped on one of the stairs, and he fell on his ass, but managed to keep from tumbling down the remainder of the staircase. Stones, however, pinged as they hit the steps. He directed the light to the stairs, illuminating pebbles on several steps.

  He wondered if they had been deliberately placed.

  He descended to the floor and used the penlight to illuminate a narrow, arched tunnel cut into the rock. He shone light on the ground, seeing faint footprints, and followed them, keeping the beam of the light low—just a foot or two ahead of him so as not to unexpectedly give himself away. After several minutes he came to the first fork in the road. The footprints continued to the right. Efimov stopped, listening, not wanting to unwittingly come upon Jenkins or to step into a trap.

  He s
tepped forward and stumbled on uneven ground, more rocks. His ankle twisted and he fell into the wall, the gun scraping the rock with a metallic tink. He listened for a moment, waiting, but heard nothing. Cautiously, he stepped forward, the muzzle of the gun raised. Several more steps and again he stepped on uneven ground. This time he stumbled but regained his balance before he hit the wall.

  No doubt now. The rocks had been placed in his path.

  Jenkins knew, or suspected, they were being followed.

  Efimov picked up his pace.

  At the second fork, André took a right. Jenkins motioned for them to go forward without him. “Stay straight,” André said, looking back at him in the dim light. “It is not far.”

  Jenkins stepped down the opposite fork and dropped to his knees. He lowered his mouth just inches above the ground, which he illuminated with the light, and blew the dust and dirt until the footprints were no longer detectable.

  Then he stood and placed his back against the wall.

  Soft footfalls approached the fork. Jenkins peeked around the wall and saw a dim beam of light directed at the ground. He pulled back, struggling to control the adrenaline rush and the rapid breathing.

  Surprise was his ally, one he would no doubt need.

  Efimov came to a second fork in the tunnel and used the light to study the ground. The shoeprints continued to the left but not the right.

  He stepped to the left. The blow caught him by surprise, flush in the face. It drove him backward. Though stunned, he managed to remain upright, back braced against the rock wall. He’d dropped the penlight, but not his gun. His assailant grabbed the hand holding the gun and delivered a second blow, an elbow across Efimov’s jaw, but in the narrow passageway it was without momentum.

  Short and compact, Efimov sensed he had an advantage. He held the man while struggling to clear his head. He sprung from the balls of his feet and launched his body. The top of his head struck just beneath the man’s chin and drove him backward into the stone wall on the other side. Efimov heard the man’s gun clatter against the rock and land in the dirt.

  They bounced off the rock walls, each fighting to gain leverage. Efimov drove a hand up and delivered another blow to the chin, again knocking his opponent’s head against the stone wall. The grip on Efimov’s gun weakened, the man’s strength fading. Efimov felt another elbow strike his jaw, and the two men pinballed down the tunnel walls until the tunnel came to an end and Efimov saw ambient light.

  Efimov spun, broke the man’s hold, and shoved him, hearing his head strike the stone arch just before he stumbled and fell backward into the dimly lit room. Charles Jenkins’s knees buckled and he landed hard on his back.

  Efimov aimed the gun.

  For once Sokalov had been right. Efimov would personally end this matter.

  Jenkins’s head smashed the top of the tunnel a second time. Stars clouded his vision. He stumbled backward, felt the gun wrenched from his hand, and lost his balance, his back striking the ground. He looked up into the muted light and saw Efimov step from the tunnel, the muzzle of the gun pointed at him.

  Efimov took aim but turned his head, likely searching for Paulina, or perhaps others who had helped them. Jenkins, however, could not take advantage. He’d lost his gun in the tunnel and he could not shake the cobwebs, could not get his limbs to move quickly enough. In his blurred vision he saw Paulina ten feet to his left, her gun in hand and aimed directly at Efimov.

  “Bros’ pistolet, ili ya yego ub’yu,” Efimov shouted. Drop the gun or I will kill him.

  “Pozdno,” Paulina said. Too late.

  She squeezed the trigger and advanced, each bullet hitting its mark. The gunshots echoed like cannon blasts inside the stone room.

  Efimov’s pistol flew from his hand with the impact of the first bullet. The second and third drove him backward. His arms and legs flailed, much like a marionette dropped from his strings by his puppeteer. He struck the ground, bounced, and struck it a second time.

  Paulina stood over him for the briefest moment. Then she fired one last bullet, finishing it.

  She turned her steel-eyed gaze to Jenkins.

  “This time,” she said, “there is no doubt about who lives and who dies.”

  Epilogue

  Months after Jenkins had returned to his Camano Island farm, he walked into his backyard, Max plodding along at his side. Jenkins pulled off the black plastic to prepare his vegetable garden for the spring. He’d purchased seeds in Stanwood and planned to plant squash, lettuce, tomatoes, green beans, zucchini, even some corn. There was nothing quite like homegrown, fresh vegetables.

  As he pulled on the tarp, he flexed his hand, feeling a dull pain in his ring and pinky fingers, remnants of his fight in the tunnel with Efimov. He’d fractured two small bones in his right hand and had only recently had the cast removed. His doctor said arthritis was possible in the knuckles. Jenkins laughed. The hand would not be the only place for arthritis. But at the moment, he felt physically strong and mentally fresh. He’d maintained his weight and even increased his conditioning, taking up sparring at a gym in Stanwood and doing more than holding his own. The younger fighters refused to believe Jenkins was in his sixties. His mother, who Jenkins most resembled, hadn’t turned gray until her late seventies, and she had lived by herself into her late nineties. She’d told Charlie the family had good genes, if he took care of himself.

  He’d had stitches to close the wounds on the top of his head where he’d struck the tunnel ceiling multiple times, as well as along his chin. And he’d had his nose straightened, a hellacious experience he hoped never again to experience. He’d also suffered a concussion, and remembered very little about his battle with Efimov or the plane ride home from Oslo. Paulina had filled him in while he recuperated in Virginia.

  Matt Lemore had them both flown to Virginia on a private jet. After a few days recovering, Jenkins spent a week at Langley being debriefed at CIA headquarters. Anxious to get back to Camano Island, he told Lemore they could talk further by phone, and Lemore made arrangements to fly Jenkins back to Seattle and then to Camano. Paulina’s stay in Virginia had been longer by several weeks. She had given years of her life spying for the CIA, and she had learned much and still had more to provide. After debriefing her, the agency supplied her with a new name and a new identity, and otherwise helped her to get situated in America. She told Jenkins she was uncertain where she would settle, but she promised she would see him and meet his family.

  More than his physical well-being, Jenkins felt mentally recharged. He hadn’t felt so good in years, and while he gave some credit to a better diet and to his increased workout regime, he knew much of his rejuvenation was because he once again felt useful. The investigative work he’d performed, the lip balm and beeswax and the cords of wood he had sold were all well and good, but he’d always felt as though he was just living out his years on the farm, each day getting one step closer to the grave. Even after meeting Alex, and CJ’s and Lizzie’s births, he’d never felt personally fulfilled. He’d walked away from the only job he’d ever truly loved, the only job that made his blood rush and his adrenaline spike and gave him a strong sense of purpose. It was one of the reasons why he had agreed to start CJ Security. Sure, he had needed the money, but getting up each morning and going to work had also fulfilled his desire to do something with his life. It made him feel young again. It made him feel needed. It made him feel important. No, CJ Security hadn’t worked out, but he couldn’t deny the feeling of accomplishment he felt running his own company.

  That rush of intoxicating and addictive excitement had never faded, nor had his need to once again feel that his professional life had a purpose, and that he was useful.

  “Charlie?” Alex stepped down from the back porch and approached. “Someone here to see you.”

  Jenkins dropped the plastic covering and met her halfway across the pasture. He sensed she had something to tell him. “Who is it?” he asked.

  “Better for you to see for y
ourself.” She put a hand on his chest. “Before you do, I wanted to ask you something.”

  “Sure. Everything okay?”

  “Are you happy?”

  “What? Of course I’m happy. How could I not be happy with you and CJ and Lizzie?”

  “No. Are you happy? I know you love me and the kids, and you’re a great husband and father. A great lover. You’re everything I ever wanted and more. Which is why it’s important to me.”

  “What?”

  “That you’re happy. That you feel fulfilled.”

  He smiled, glanced away, then back to her. “You always could read my mind,” he said.

  She nodded. “It isn’t that hard. And it isn’t wrong to want more,” she said. “It’s human nature. I’ve watched you the past couple months, and I’ve never seen you this alive.”

  “I’m getting older,” he said. “I need to be realistic about what I can and can’t do.”

  “Maybe. But maybe you should let others be realistic. You know what you can and can’t do. Seems to me you can still do more than most men, some half your age.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “I just wanted you to know that it’s okay if you want to . . . be happy. I’ll never stop worrying about you, but I realize I can’t hold you so close that I crush your spirit. That would be selfish, I know. Okay?”

  “Okay,” he said. “But now I’m a little scared to find out who’s in the house.”

  She smiled and kissed him. “You may be a tough guy, but you’re still a big chicken. Come on. See for yourself.”

  Jenkins followed Alex in through the sliding door. CJ sat on the couch watching television. “Is this how you’re going to spend your weekend?” Jenkins said as he passed through the room.