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.
And when Kozlov made his move, the black man would have to die.
Jones slipped inside the station and studied the flow of people in front of him. A row of turnstiles prevented passengers from entering the subway without a card or token. In the corner of the lobby, he saw three small booths manned by women cashiers. Jones hopped into the shortest line while digging through his pockets for local currency. A moment later, he placed a fifty-ruble note on the counter and signaled for one subway token.