Lucas called Sherwood, told him about the appointment with Titov, and asked whether Mallard or St. Vincent should be notified. Sherwood had to think about it, then said, “I guess. When we told them what happened in Hayward, they turned a couple of those counter-intel people around and brought them back from Washington. They’ve been sitting on their asses not believing me.”
Lucas called St. Vincent and told him about Titov. “You’ll want to send your counter-intel people along with us.”
“I haven’t heard anything about this from Louis,” St. Vincent said.
“That’s because I haven’t told him. I thought I’d leave it to you,” Lucas said.
Pregnant pause, then: “Thank you, Lucas. I’ll tell him.”
It was a step, anyway.
• • •
The afternoon meetingwas an anticlimax: at three o’clock Lucas, Sherwood, and two counter-intel agents were sitting on benches across from the Cinnabon store when Titov ambled up, lifted a hand to them, and got a regular Cinnabon and a soft drink. He was wearing a Chicago Bears sweatshirt, jeans, and running shoes, took a moment to chat with one of the server women.
The counter-intel agents shook hands with him, identified themselves as being with the FBI, and suggested that they find a quiet place to talk.
“I need to be back in Chicago this evening,” Titov said. “I told my contact that I want to pick up my Jeep and return the van to whoever gave it to us. I have my Jeep here at the mall, and I can identify the van if you want to put a watch on it, see who picks it up. It’s over in the airport parking ramp. But I gotta be in Chicago tonight.”
“We won’t need you for long,” the agent told him. “We need to pound out the deal. We want you back in Chicago as much as you do.”
“Can I eat my bun?”
The agent looked around at the mall shoppers walking by, and asked, “Can you eat while you’re walking? We’d like to get you out of sight. There are too many cameras in here.”
That was about it with Titov: he shook hands with Sherwood and Lucas, said nothing at all about the killing of Abramova.
“I would have thought he’d show a little regret, a little worry, alittle something, you know, about Abramova,” Lucas said, after the agents and Titov had gone, and he and Sherwood were walking out to the Porsche.
“Ah, he’s probably a sociopath,” Sherwood said. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”
• • •
The next day,Sherwood flew back to Washington, where a few days later, he went for a walk with Letty Davenport, and they came to a mutually beneficial arrangement. Lucas later found out that there were several walks, and they seemed likely to continue. “He tells me things that I might find interesting, and I do,” Letty said. “He’s not wasting my time. I tell him things and try not to waste his time. We get along.”
• • •
Six days afterthe shooting in Hayward, Bernard Sokolov flew commercial out of Toronto to Paris, on an Irish passport, and on from Paris to Budapest, and from there to Moscow. Neither Lucas nor Sherwood expected to hear any more about him, but weeks later, Sherwood called and said, “I got a back-channel note from the FBI. Titov has gotten a commendation for getting Sokolov out of the country. He’s quite pleased with himself.”
“Are you quite pleased with him?”
“I’m on to other stuff, but I understand the FBI is pleased: quite pleased.”
• • •
Nobody knew exactlywhat to do with the cremation ashes of Leonid and Masha Sokolov—the Russian embassy denied knowingwho they were, when asked—and the FBI eventually took charge of the ashes. What happened from there, Lucas never found out.
• • •
Abramova was buriedin a small cemetery in Hayward, with only the barest of plaques on the grave. The Russians said they’d never heard of her, but a few months after the funeral, a mystery man, with a gravelly voice and a heavy Eastern European accent, paid for a modest marble stone that read “Katerina Abramova—A Faithful Warrior.”
• • •
Haskins, the agentseverely wounded in the street fight with the Russians, retired from the FBI with a disability pension. The other wounded agent recovered and continued in his career. The agent who shot Nikitin was cleared of any wrongdoing, and eventually got a commendation for preventing Nikitin from recovering a machine pistol and continuing to shoot at the other agents at the scene.
• • •
A Hayward skierwas hit in the lower leg by a bullet fired by Abramova, but recovered without a problem. A Hayward lawyer urged her to sue somebody, but she declined.
