On the other hand, if he had shown up a minute later, the black man would have been long gone, Kozlov would have found nothing inside, and his employer would have been pissed.
No, Kozlov was thrilled with the way things had worked out. He could shadow the intruder wherever he went, hoping to generate more leads to follow. With a little luck, Kozlov could recover Byrd’s things, figure out why Byrd had come to Saint Petersburg to begin with, and catch the morning train to Moscow so he could start working on his next contract.
Two days earlier, bumping into Byrd had been the result of horrible timing.
But this was just the opposite. This couldn’t have worked out better.
At least that’s what Kozlov believed.
Payne eyed the Russian the way a cheetah eyes a gazelle. He wasn’t ready to spring on him just yet. That would come later. For now Payne was more interested in studying his opponent, deciding if he was alone or part of a dangerous herd.
“What’s going on?” Allison demanded.
“D.J. is being followed.”
“How do you know?”
Payne didn’t have time to hold her hand or explain things. He could always fill her in later when they were safe. For now, he had to concentrate on his surroundings. He couldn’t miss anything or it could cost them their lives. “Just trust me, okay? I know what I’m doing.”
“I know you do, but-”
“Listen,” he ordered. “If I tell you to do something, you do it. No questions. No delay.”
“Okay,” she said, nodding her head.
Payne kept looking straight ahead. “If something happens to me or I tell you to run, go to the American consulate. Don’t go to the hotel. Go directly to the consulate. Understood?”
“Yes.”
“I doubt it will come to that, but I need to know you’ll be safe.”
“I promise. I’ll go to the consulate.”
Payne continued to watch Kozlov. He was a block behind Jones but was definitely following him. “The man I’m tailing is in a gray suit. I mention that for one reason. Not because I want you to stare at him, but because I want you to know he’s trouble.”
Allison spotted Kozlov a block ahead and nodded.
“Is that the man who killed Richard?” Payne asked.
“I can’t tell. I didn’t get a good look at him.”
“Come on,” he said as he grabbed her elbow. “We’re crossing the street.”
“Why?”
“What did I tell you about questions?”
Allison blushed but didn’t say a word. Filled with adrenaline, she had forgotten her agreement from a moment before. All this was so new to her. It was one of the reasons she had kept spouting random facts about the city: she didn’t know how to handle the excitement. So she burned her nervous energy by babbling.
At the intersection, several pedestrians waited for the light to change. Payne and Allison stood among them, hoping to blend in with the crowd. A few seconds passed before the entire group made their way across Nevsky Prospekt. Cars and buses filled every lane. It was mid-afternoon, but traffic was starting to build. Once they reached the far side, they turned right. They were now walking on the northern side of the street, the same side they had used on their journey from the Palace Hotel. The side they were most familiar with.
“Keep watching,” Payne said as they passed a small war monument that he had seen before. “D.J. will cross the street soon. It will help me spot other shadows.”
Sure enough, Jones did as Payne predicted. He walked across Nevsky Prospekt in the middle of a block, dodging cars as he did. This simple act, crossing the street with no one else around, forced Kozlov to react. He didn’t have time to wait or think. He had to cross immediately or risk losing Jones in an alley, a building, or a taxi heading in the opposite direction.
Payne studied the avenue, checking to see if Kozlov was the only one who followed.
And as far as Payne could tell, Kozlov was acting alone.
While crossing the busy avenue, Jones spotted the man in the gray suit. He didn’t have a chance to look for Payne and Allison, but he knew they were back there, too.
Probably a block behind.
In situations like this, that was a safe distance. Close enough to keep an eye on his shadow but far enough to be inconspicuous. Normally, a man of Payne’s size would have a tough time blending in. Yet that wasn’t the case with Allison on his arm. She was the perfect cover. The two of them would look like a happy couple, strolling through the high-rent district.
And that gave Jones an edge that he planned on using.
Knowing virtually nothing about his opponent-who he was, who he worked for, what he wanted-left Jones with few options. Especially if this was the same man who had killed Byrd. Jones had seen video of him in action and realized he was highly trained. That meant there was little chance Jones was going to lose him, not while carrying three bags he couldn’t afford to drop. Not in a city he wasn’t familiar with. Not without the help of a friend.
A friend with the skills of Jonathon Payne.
43
The Church on Spilled Blood, a breathtaking Russian cathedral built on the spot where Tsar Alexander II was mortally wounded by revolutionaries in 1881, sits off of Nevsky Prospekt beside the Griboyedov Canal. The church’s onion domes and ornate façade look beautifully out of place in Saint Petersburg. Contrary to the European look of the city’s architecture, it resembles St. Basil’s Cathedral, the famous church that overlooks Red Square in Moscow.
As a tourist boat chugged up the waterway toward the colorful landmark, Jones crossed the canal on foot, hoping his blood wouldn’t be spilled next to the tsar’s.
For the time being, he felt optimistic that his shadow was working alone. Back at the Astoria Hotel, Jones had heard a single set of footsteps in the stairwell, and only one man had followed him across Nevsky Prospekt. Still, in this age of technology, Jones knew reinforcements were just a phone call away.
And phone calls were something Jones wanted to prevent.
While prepping for this mission, he had studied a map of the local terrain. He had memorized street names, bridges, and multiple escape routes. He had learned as much as he could as fast as he could, just in case something bad happened along the way. Something like this. Thankfully, his knowledge of the city gave him several choices. Instead of being trapped like a rat in a maze, he knew exactly where he wanted to go and what he hoped to accomplish when he got there.
In this situation, there was one obvious solution: the Saint Petersburg Metro.
A white sign with a blue letter “M” marked the entrance to the Nevsky Prospekt/Gostiny Dvor stations. Jones had never been inside, but he understood the basic layout of the system. Four lines, all assigned different colors, extended throughout the sprawling city and its suburbs. The blue Moskovsko-Petrogradskaya Line ran north and south. The green Nevsko-Vasileostrovskaya Line ran east and west. Both lines could be accessed from this central location, which happened to be the busiest terminal in the city.
To Jones, the large crowds were a bonus. If he timed things right, he might be able to slip away in the chaos underground. He was also thrilled that he could leave the city in any direction. That made it tougher for his opponent to anticipate where he was headed next.
In his mind, however, the best asset of the Metro system was the natural geology of the city. Because of potential flooding from all the rivers and canals in Saint Petersburg, the Metro is the deepest subway system in the world, buried under a thick layer of bedrock that prevents cell phone reception of any kind.
And no phone calls meant no reinforcements.
Kozlov smiled at the development. He had used the Metro several times in the past week, so he was familiar with all four lines, where they went, and which stations would be crowded.
His immediate goal was to follow the black man wherever he went, hoping to generate as many leads as possible. But at some point, Kozlov knew, he would be forced to grab the bags that the black man carried-just in case they were filled with information about Byrd.