Chapter 18
In Saint Paul, the Russian team found two fresh vehicles, a pickup and a minivan, parked where the Chevrolet had been.
They were newer than the abandoned Chevrolet, and they appreciated the difference—they were not vehicles that would be viewed as “getaway cars.” The street person they’d seen freezing in the doorway was nowhere in sight.
Nikitin, still struggling with his left leg, took the pickup for its extra-wide seat, Abramova the minivan, while Titov stayed with the red Ford.
On this morning, Titov headed to the hospital in Minneapolis while Nikitin and Abramova went to find a place where they could park and wait, maybe for a long time, without being noticed.
· · ·
Titov drove around the Hennepin County Medical Center, scouting the layout.
He’d done some research on the ’net, and once inside, was prepared to ask for the birth center, because he was a credible-looking new father, and that might be a credible destination.
When he got to the hospital, he didn’t have to fake anything—the place was busy with people, nobody paid any attention to him, and he never got as far as the birth center.
Instead, he got on a nearly full elevator, and when a bunch of people got off, he got off with them.
He was on an internal medicine floor, and he tagged along behind an elderly couple, close enough that somebody might think he was with them.
When they peeled off at one of the rooms, he kept walking, then turned back and grabbed a down elevator and got off at the first floor down and wandered some more.
He saw cameras.
A half hour after he went in, he walked out to the red Ford and called Abramova. “Call Kuznetsov. The hospital is impossible. It’s a maze, and we would be trapped like rats.”
· · ·
Abramova was parked in a beige Toyota Sienna minivan outside the Minnesota Veterans Home on the south side of Minneapolis, near the airport.
The lot was sprawling, full of cars, unlikely to attract police attention, and had good access to freeways going in all directions.
Nikitin parked facing her. When nobody was crossing the parking lot nearby, he walked over and climbed in Abramova’s van and lay down in the back.
“How was the drive?” she asked.
“Not good, not terrible,” he said. “I can drive. This Tylenol helps.”
“Good. Move over. I’m coming back.”
They lay on the back seat cushions, out of sight, and killed time reading their phones, waiting for Titov to call. They didn’t wait long: the hospital was impossible, and Abramova agreed to call Kuznetsov.
· · ·
Kuznetsov answered on the third ring; he was outside, Abramova could hear traffic sounds.
She explained the situation: “We almost certainly couldn’t find him in the hospital, and if we could, we almost certainly couldn’t get past his protection.
Our two options are to attempt to spot the FBI pickup when they move him to an airport, and ambush the vehicles.
We think this is a low percentage play. There are too many hospital exits for us to cover, and the teams who are moving him, the marshals or the FBI, will not make the mistakes they made the last time.
I would not be surprised if they sent vehicles to all the different hospital exits, making us guess which one has Sokolov, even if we could see them all.
I expect they will now use armored vehicles. ”
“We have time, but it’s hard to tell how much,” Kuznetsov said.
“They have cleaned out Sokolov’s wound and sewn it up.
Nothing hit his heart, but there was damage to chest muscles and lung damage.
He is still unconscious, but improving. They will move him in the next day or two, and I believe it will be as you say. ”
“We have the Novichok. We could drop it, if your asset is free to pick it up.”
Silence, five seconds, ten seconds. “I will have to consult. I will call back very soon. Are you safe where you are now?”
“We are operating from the cars. We will move to another state this evening, still close by.”
“Good. I will call.”
He was gone, and Abramova called Titov to pass the information. Kuznetsov called back an hour and a half later.
“In this hospital, this Hennepin, there is a men’s restroom on the first floor by the emergency room entrance.
Our asset has used it. He says there is a paper towel dispenser on the left end of a row of sinks.
If you can tape the ChapStick to the far back underside portion of the dispenser, he could get it there.
He said not to tape it heavily. He needs to move fast.”
“Titov can do that.”
“Then if everything else you say is true…”
“It is…”
“This will be our best hope,” Kuznetsov said. “This has been personally approved by the man.”
“If you can, thank him for this opportunity,” Abramova said.
· · ·
Abramova called Titov, and filled him in. Titov said, “I need to go to a hardware store for double-sided tape. The ChapStick will be suspended under it, so it won’t fall on its own, and the asset will be able to grasp it instantly.”
“I wonder if the asset will survive. I can’t believe that the FBI would let many people get close to the target,” Abramova said.
“That is no longer our problem,” Titov said. “Your problem is that you need to get the ChapStick to me. My problem is that I have to get in and out of the hospital again.”
They agreed that Titov would get the supplies from a Home Depot, then drive to the Veterans Home parking lot to meet with the others.
After the transfer, Abramova would drive to a parking spot close to the hospital, in case Titov needed an emergency pickup.
Nikitin would remain at the Veterans Home, where he would wait until Titov had dropped the ChapStick, then trail Titov and Abramova to Wisconsin.
Titov found a Home Depot not far from the Minneapolis downtown and bought a box of thin plastic painter’s gloves and a pad of double-sided stickers meant to mount small objects to walls.
At the Veterans Home, he slipped into the back of the minivan with Abramova; Nikitin had moved back to his truck.
The ChapStick was tightly sealed inside a small plastic box—so tightly that Abramova couldn’t open it with her short fingernails and had to use her switchblade to pry it open.
That done, she carefully lifted out the ChapStick, which looked ordinary enough.
“Gloves,” Titov said.
They put on the gloves. Abramova picked up the small tube, and then, hesitating a few seconds, she turned it in her hands and said, “It looks like nothing.”
“Made by devils,” Titov said.
Abramova said, “Must be done,” and she twisted off the cap.
That took some effort: the cap didn’t come off easily.
When it was off, Titov held one of the unused plastic gloves open at the wrist, and Abramova began twisting the dial at the bottom of the tube, pushing the ChapStick out of the tube.
She had ejected a little more than an inch of the waxy stuff into the open glove when the black glass separator appeared.
“We are there,” Titov said, quietly. “Careful now, hold tight, I will lift the seal.”
The seal had a tab sticking up from the top, not more than a half-inch long. He gripped it as tightly as he could and lifted the seal off.
Below it, in what looked like more waxy ChapStick, they could see a pink dot. “That’s it,” Abramova breathed.
Titov said, “Don’t move, let me…” He carefully dropped the seal into the glove they were using for the ChapStick disposal, then tied the glove off. He set it aside and picked up the top of the ChapStick tube.
“Push up a little more,” Titov said.
Abramova twisted the dial at the bottom of the tube, lifting the contents up an eighth of an inch above the rim of the tube, and Titov fitted the cap back on top. He fished another glove out of the box of gloves, dropped the tube inside, and tied the glove at the wrist.
They both sat back and exhaled. “I think we are okay,” Abramova said.
“I believe so.” They both looked at the two gloves sitting on the minivan seat. “You should call Kuznetsov, tell him we are ready to place the ChapStick. We need to know when his asset will be ready to pick it up.”
· · ·
Kuznetsov didn’t have a precise time, but it would be sometime after three o’clock, but before five. Titov looked at his watch: “Not much time. I’ve got to hurry.”
“Your sticky tape?”
“Got it.”
“Good luck.” Abramova reached out and patted him on the hand.
· · ·
And it went like the recon.
Titov walked into the hospital, found an empty booth in the men’s room, put on a plastic glove, took the ChapStick out of the glove where he’d carried it, and put an inch-long piece of double-sided tape on the ChapStick tube.
Somebody had followed him into the restroom, and he could hear a man shuffling around by the urinals.
Then another man came in and took the booth next to his.
There was a splash of water and the sound of paper being pulled out of a towel dispenser.
He waited until he heard the outer door open, and the shuffling of feet stopped.
When he was sure the other man was gone, and the man in the next booth was still occupied, he flushed the toilet, listened, then stepped out into the room, walked to the sink and, in three seconds, stuck the tube to the bottom of the paper towel dispenser.
He threw the plastic gloves in the trash and felt a sudden and urgent need to pee.
He did and got out of the hospital.
· · ·
About an hour later, Bernie followed a bored FBI agent into the restroom. The agent looked around, saw that the room was empty, and said, “I’ll be outside.”
“Two minutes. I gotta pee like a Russian racehorse,” Bernie said. The agent didn’t laugh, but did leave. Bernie peed, for verisimilitude, washed his hands, and when he went for one of the paper towels, reached under the towel dispenser and found the ChapStick.
He looked at the door, then pulled the top off the ChapStick. The bead of poison was right there, a watery, fleshy pink. He put the cap back on, dropped the tube in his pocket, checked his hair—gave it a damp hand in back, where his hair tended to flare up—dried his hands again, and walked out.
The agent said, “Home?”
Bernie considered. “Let’s go see the old man, then I won’t have to go tonight. How come I don’t have one of your FBI females following me around? Somebody who knows how to get it on, on the dance floor? Do you even have anyone like that?”
“We asked, and none of the women volunteered,” the agent said.
Bernie said, “Don’t know what they’re missing.” The ChapStick in his pocket pressed on his leg like a concealed carry weapon, which, he supposed, it was. “How’s my hair look?”
· · ·
They were only at the hospital for a few minutes.
Leonid Sokolov had been mostly immobile since his operation, and when Bernie entered the hospital room—his two bodyguards remained in the hall—the two agents inside the room nodded at him, and one said, “He woke up a little bit, around lunch time and again around dinner time. Couldn’t eat anything.
Doc said he could be more responsive tomorrow, when they start backing off the painkillers. ”
“I’m always surprised you’re not dead from the boredom,” Bernie said.
“We’re okay,” one of the agents said.
Bernie nodded and moved to the far side of Leonid’s bed, and asked, softly, “How are you, Papa?”
Leonid Sokolov didn’t respond, but did snore, a little snorting sound. The two FBI agents were in chairs oriented toward the door, both of them were looking at laptop computers, and their backs were to the Sokolovs.
Bernie slipped the ChapStick tube out of his pocket, and, watching the agents, pulled the sheet loose along the side of the bed.
Leonid was wearing a hospital gown, which left his legs exposed.
Bernie took the top off the tube and dragged it along the exposed flesh on Leonid’s leg.
The pink poison left a barely perceptible streak on Leonid’s skin, which Bernie had been told would fade in minutes.
He put the top back on the tube, dropped it in his pocket, tucked the sheet back in, and said in his most depressive voice, “He doesn’t seem to improve. ”
One of the agents turned in his chair and said, “Maybe tomorrow.”
Bernie bent over his father’s bed, kissed him on the forehead, then whispered in his ear, which the agent thought was touching, possibly some kind of Russian prayer, because he couldn’t hear Bernie say, “Suck on this, you miserable motherfucker.”