“Wait here,” he said, pressing several banknotes into her coat pocket. “Those are for the ride back.”
He had given her five times the amount it would cost to take a cab back to their apartment block, hoping she would use the money to seek a little happiness with her kids during the day. He could tell by the look on her husband’s face that they saw no peace at night. He signaled for the other agent to proceed, and they walked over to have what he hoped would be a friendly chat with Boris Ilkin. He didn’t want to get heavy-handed in front of the Ilkin family in such a serene setting, but he was running out of time. A rogue CIA agent responsible for the recent deaths of several FIS operatives had resurfaced, raising the frightening specter of an even deadlier operation on Russian soil.
“Mr. Ilkin?”
He spoke loudly enough to be heard by the family, hoping to avoid additional unwanted attention from the civilians nearby. He harbored no illusions about appearing to be just another carefree Ukrainian out for an early June stroll. He wore a dark brown suit over a light blue shirt. The absence of a tie was the only concession he allowed in his disguise as a Ukrainian Security Service agent. Since it was Saturday, the sight of two nearby men in suits, with or without ties, broadcast one word: Police. Mr. Ilkin nodded and whispered to his son, patting him on the back. While Ilkin was distracted with his son, Feliks nodded discreetly to the woman waiting behind a tree in the distance.
“Is everything all right?” the man’s wife asked.
“I’m sure it’s fine, honey,” he said, forcing a smile before turning to Feliks and nodding in respect.
“Officers. How can I help you?”
Feliks came closer and produced his fake credentials, holding them low in a useless gesture of discretion. Anyone watching this interaction knew exactly what was happening. Ilkin was being questioned by the police in the middle of Desnyans’kyi Park, right in front of his family. He could feel the stares and whispers. People shrinking away from them slowly. Memories died hard in these former Soviet puppet states, where police and militia were liberally used to repress the people.
“Vadim Salenko. Security Service counterterrorism division. I need your help to identify a foreign operative that may have passed through your ticket station on Thursday,” he said.
“Absolutely,” Ilkin said, barely glancing at his credentials, “but I don’t know how much help I can be. The station serves more than 170,000 passengers every day. It gets crazy in there.”
“I’ll try to narrow the possibilities for you. We know that the agent initially posed as an Australian tourist and landed in Kiev. I’m fairly certain he is headed to Russia, so I suspect that he presented himself to the ticket gate with a Russian internal passport.”
“Sure…” he said, hesitating.
Feliks could tell that he struck a chord. He had run the scenario through his head a thousand times before coming up with the few encounters that might “stick” with a ticket agent that processed hundreds, if not thousands of transactions per day. He was testing one of these theories now.
“I have several photographs I would like to show you.”
His partner handed him the file containing several 8X10 photos of Richard Farrington. He started with the photograph taken at the customs station inside Kiev International Airport. He saw a flash of recognition on Ilkin’s face.
“You remember him?” Feliks said.
“Oddly enough, I do. He…uh. Let me think for a moment…yes. He presented an international passport, and I remember telling him he could use his internal Federation passport when he reached the customs stop near the border. He apologized, saying that he’d just returned from Europe, which I thought was odd, given his destination.”
“Please explain,” Feliks said, exhilarated by what he had stumbled upon.
“He was headed to Yekaterinburg. I know for a fact that it’s cheaper to fly into Moscow from anywhere west of here. From there you have a wide selection of flights to Yekaterinburg that probably cost less than what he paid to ride the train. I think flying to Yekaterinburg from Kiev is less expensive.”
“What are you, some kind of travel agent in disguise?”
“It’s part of my job in a way,” Ilkin replied.
“Do you remember his name?”
“I don’t think I can recall his name. I’m lucky to have remembered him at all. He doesn’t look very Russian, does he?” he said, further examining the photo.
“How many trains leave for Yekaterinburg daily?” Feliks said, not in any mood to waste a second with small talk.
“None. The only way to get out there is to connect with an eastbound train out of Moscow. We have nine trains running daily out of Kiev to Moscow. Most leave in the early evening. It’s an overnight trip. I don’t remember which one I booked him on. There’s an express train that leaves daily at 8:52 and arrives in Moscow at 6:30 in the morning. This is the earliest arrival, which would put him in a position to leave on one of the few mid-morning departures. Save him some time if he was in a hurry to get to Yekaterinburg.”
“None of this is ringing a bell for you,” Feliks said.
Ilkin shook his head.
“How many passengers can the express train carry?”
“Six hundred,” he said.
“Trains for Moscow to Yekaterinburg?”
“Fourteen. Roughly the same passenger count.”
Feliks didn’t respond immediately. His mind was swimming through the options. He didn’t have the time to repeat this process again at the Yaroslavlsky Station in Moscow, though he would certainly have the manpower at his disposal. Once inside Russia, the SVR could muster hundreds of agents to assist him…assuming they let him continue as lead investigator, which he doubted.
With the information provided by Ilkin, he didn’t think it would be necessary to mobilize half of the headquarters building in Moscow. They didn’t have a name, but they knew his final destination. With the passenger manifests for all trains leaving Kiev for Moscow last Tuesday, they could compare passenger names with all trains leaving Moscow for Yekaterinburg on Wednesday. This would significantly narrow their search. Armed with the matching names, they would have a fighting chance of finding Richard Farrington. Of course, all of this was predicated on the assumption that Farrington hadn’t switched identities more than once. If he changed identities in Yekaterinburg, they would be left with nothing but the scattered memories of a dozen ticket agents. He doubted they would get this lucky again.
“Do you know the name of the supervisor on duty at the station today?”
“Sure. Mr. Gleba. Stas Gleba. He gives me weekend shifts when I ask, so we can save up for vacation.”
“Let’s go,” he said to his partner, not the least bit interested in hearing about this man’s vacation plans.
Walking briskly toward his car, Feliks stared up at the sun and allowed himself a moment to enjoy its warmth. Despite the embarrassment of having a known terrorist enter the motherland through his own backyard, he had to admit that the day had gone well. He had acquired a solid lead on Farrington sooner than expected, without having to break any bones or crack any skulls. Unfortunately, the day was still young, and he wasn’t optimistic about the station supervisor. Coughing up passenger manifests for State Security was serious business, and if Mr. Gleba required a warrant or insisted on verifying his request with the State Security watch officer, he wouldn’t be able to keep his promise to Ardankin. Too much was at stake to let a hyperextended finger or a broken nose stand in the way.