The Emperor's Tomb

still exist, Minister.”

“How do you know any of this?”

“Because I am one of their number.”

EIGHT

CASSIOPEIA VITT WAS SHOVED BACK INTO THE ROOM THAT had been her prison for the past two days. Her shirt was soaked, her lungs aching from trying to breathe.

The door slammed shut.

Only then was she allowed to remove the blindfold from her face.

Her cell was perhaps four by two meters, under a staircase, she assumed, as the ceiling sloped sharply. The room was windowless, light coming from a low-wattage bulb that was never extinguished. No furniture, just a thin mattress lying on a plank floor. She’d tried to learn what she could during the limited times she’d been removed. It appeared she was inside a house, the distance from here to the torture room only a few steps and in between them a bathroom that she’d visited twice.

But where was she?

Two days ago she had been in Antwerp.

She bent forward, hands on her knees. Her legs were limp, her heart pounding, and she shuddered.

Twice she’d been strapped to the board, the towel slapped across her face. She’d thought herself capable of withstanding anything, but the sensation of drowning, while her arms and feet were restrained, her head lower than her legs, was proving too much. She’d read once that mental violence needed no punches.

She believed it.

She doubted she could take another session.

Near the end of the first one, she’d involved Malone, which seemed like a smart play. In the few hours between leaving Pau Wen’s residence and her capture, she easily could have handed the artifact off.

And they’d apparently believed her.

Cotton was all she had.

And she could not give these people what they wanted. Would they kill her? Not likely, at least until they made contact in Copenhagen.

After that?

She didn’t want to think about the possibilities.

She was proud that she hadn’t begged, whined, or compromised herself.

But she had compromised Cotton.

Then again, he’d told her many times that, if she ever needed anything, she shouldn’t hesitate. This situation seemed to qualify.

Over the past two days she’d played mental games, remembering dates in history, forcing her thoughts away. She’d multiplied numbers to the tens of thousands.

But thoughts of Malone had also kept her grounded.

He was tall and handsome, with burnished-blond hair and lively green eyes. Once she’d thought him cold, emotionless, but over the past year she’d learned that this was not the case. They’d been through a lot together.

She trusted him.

Her breathing settled. Her heart slowed.

Nerves calmed.

She stood upright and rubbed her sore wrists.

Pushing forty years old and in another mess. But usually it beat the heck out of anything else she could imagine doing. Actually, her project to reconstruct a 14th-century French castle, using only tools and materials available 700 years ago, was progressing. Her on-site superintendent had reported a few weeks ago that they were at the 10% point in construction. She’d intended to devote herself more to that endeavor, but a call from China had changed that.

“They took him, Cassiopeia. He’s gone.”

Lev Sokolov was not a man prone to panic. In fact, he was a smart, clever, concise individual. Born and raised in the old Soviet Union, he’d managed to flee, escaping to China, of all places.

“My son was playing at his grandmother’s vegetable stall,” Sokolov said in Russian, voice cracking. “One of his grandmother’s neighbors passed by and offered to bring him back home on his way, so she allowed him. That was eight weeks ago.”

“What about that neighbor?”

“We went straight to his door. He said that after giving him money for sweets, he left him at our apartment block. He is a lying bastard. He sold him, Cassiopeia. I know he did. There is no other explanation.”

“What did the police do?”

“The government does not want to talk about child stealing. To them it’s isolated and under control. It’s not. Two hundred children disappear here every day.”

“That can’t be right.”

“It is. Now my boy is one of them.”

She hadn’t known what to say.

“Our options are limited,” Sokolov said, his voice wretched with despair. “The media is too close to the government to do anything. The police will not speak to us. Even parents’ support groups that exist for others like us have to meet in secret. We plastered the province with posters, but the police threatened to arrest us if we kept on. No one wants reminders of a problem that officially doesn’t exist.” He paused. “My wife has fallen apart. She is barely coherent. I have nowhere else to turn. I need your help.”

That was a request she could not refuse.

Five years ago Lev Sokolov had saved her life, and she owed him.

So she’d obtained a thirty-day tourist visa, bought a ticket to Beijing, and flown to China.

She lay down on the mattress, belly-first, and stared at a wall of unfinished gypsum. She knew every crack and crevice. A spider occupied one corner, and yesterday she’d watched it snare a fly.

She sympathized with that fly.

No telling how long until the next time she’d be summoned. That all depended on Cotton.

She was tired of being caged, but a four-year-old boy was depending on her. Lev Sokolov was depending on her.

And she’d messed up.

Footsteps outside the door signaled someone was coming. Unusual. She’d been visited only five times. Twice for torture, a third to leave some rice and boiled cabbage, two more to take her blindfolded to a bathroom a few feet down the hallway.

Had they discovered Cotton to be a dead end?

She extended her arms above her head, palms flat on the wood floor, which pulsated with each approaching step.

Time to do something, even if it’s wrong.

She knew the drill. The lock would release, the door would open on squeaky hinges, a blindfold then tossed inside. Not until its elastic was firmly around her head would anyone enter. She assumed her captor was armed and he was clearly not alone, as at least two had always been with her. Both times a man had questioned her, the same man who’d spoken to Malone via computer in a clipped voice with no accent.

A key was inserted in the lock.

She closed her eyes as the door eased open. No blindfold was tossed inside. She cracked her lids and saw a shoe appear. Then another. Perhaps it was feeding time? The last time food had been left, she’d been asleep, dozing from pure exhaustion. Maybe her jailers thought she was too spent from the ordeal to be a threat?

She was indeed tired, her muscles aching, limbs sore.

But an opportunity was an opportunity.