and put it in her hands, and then one of the men took her picture. After they checked to be sure the picture was clear, they all left.
Remi listened as the door closed. It was solid, not hollow. She heard the key turning in the lock but no snap of a dead bolt. Good news.
Remi sat on the bed. She knew that the thing she was entitled to do now was to cry, but she refused. The right thing to do was to search the suite for any surveillance equipment—pinhole cameras, peepholes, any place where a camera might be hidden. There were none. Next she began her examination of the furnishings, especially the bed and the plumbing, for pieces of metal she might remove and use as tools.
These people had no idea, she thought. That man, that character out of the Romanov era, thought of her and Sam as victims, people he could simply rob or hold for ransom or kill as he wished. But since the Fargos’ business had become successful over ten years ago, they had become potential kidnapping targets. They had known it was possible that at some point either one of them might be taken and had planned their response carefully, agreed on every move each of them would make as soon as they were separated. The prisoner would never stop learning about the place and the captors, always preparing to signal his or her location when the time came, and to facilitate a rescue. And the one outside—Sam this time—would simply never stop looking. If no break ever came their way, he would still be searching, a year from now or twenty years from now.
Sam would never give up, never let a lead go uninvestigated, never let a day pass without progress. She thought about Sam and tears welled up. Right about now he would be appearing to let the Moscow authorities handle the problem but would actually be quietly, relentlessly pressuring the U.S. authorities to help him.
SAM SAT PATIENTLY IN THE U.S. CONSULATE’S WAITING room, not pacing or drumming his fingers or showing irritation. In the glaring evening sunlight, the room looked like a waiting room in a Midwestern doctor’s office with leather easy chairs, a couch, and a lot of magazines on a table, even though the consulate on Bolshoy Deviatinsky Pereulok was an aggressively modern and efficient-looking eight-floor box.
He knew they were observing him, running a slapdash background check to see who he really was, and they needed time to accomplish it. Just as he was beginning to wonder whether the result had been negative, the door across from him opened. A man in a dark suit came in, his face set in a flexible expression that was not a smile, but was not unfriendly. “Hello, Mr. Fargo. I’m Carl Hagar, Diplomatic Security. Sorry to keep you waiting.”
“Thank you for seeing me,” said Sam.
“I’ve been briefed on what happened,” Hagar said. “And I’m very sorry and very concerned. We haven’t experienced this kind of thing in Moscow since the Cold War. The idea that an American citizen could be kidnapped from Sheremetyevo Airport is unprecedented. There have been terrorist attacks there, and times when people coming in at the airport have been arrested at customs, but never kidnappings.”
“I don’t think this was the Russian government. It’s more likely to be some underworld group that’s learned of our attempts to find a series of treasures from the fifth century.”
“That’s what we think too,” said Hagar.
“You’ve been looking into my wife’s disappearance already?”
“As soon as we heard about it. We always investigate the disappearance of any U.S. citizen from Moscow. But when we began asking questions about who you were, we ran across your years at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. They make your story more credible and make you a potential military asset. Rube Hayward had flagged your record, asking to be notified if you got in trouble. I’m sure you can imagine what that means to us.”
“I’m sure I can’t,” said Sam. “I’ve known Rube for twenty years, but, whatever he does, he doesn’t talk about it with civilians.”
“Let’s just say you have friends in high places. We’ve been in touch with our contacts in Russian law enforcement, letting them know we’re extremely interested and won’t go away if they ignore this. I’m convinced they’ve given us what they know so far.” He placed a file on the table, opened it, and pushed five photographs across to Sam.
Sam could see they were fuzzy black-and-white screen grabs from surveillance cameras mounted in the airport.
Hagar pointed at the first one. “Here is Mrs. Fargo entering the ladies’ room at the airport. Next you see the two female janitors let two other women in after her, then put out a sign that says ‘Closed for Cleaning’ and lock the door. Here’s what happens when the door opens.” The photograph showed the cleaning women pushing out a flatbed wheeled cart with two big cardboard barrels on it.
“I saw those women,” said Sam.
“What did you see?”
“They came out, pushed the cart around the first corner, and then went out through an unmarked doorway.”
“The Russian police don’t know who these two women are. They’ve blown up their pictures and they don’t match the photo ID of anybody who works there. They’ve fast-forwarded their way through about eight hours of tape, and Mrs. Fargo never comes out that door. We think they had your wife in one of those barrels.”
“This is awful,” said Sam. “I wasn’t really worried yet when I saw them. They didn’t register as out of the ordinary because I didn’t know what was or wasn’t ordinary.”
“Of course.” He brought out another photograph. It showed the women outside the big terminal building, rolling one of the barrels onto a hydraulic lift at the back of a truck operated by a man in coveralls. There was Cyrillic script on the side.
“What does that say?”
“
Sam said, “I have a suggestion. I think the people who did this must have a connection with a man named Arpad Bako, the owner of a pharmaceutical business in Szeged, Hungary. He has been attempting to find the treasures before we can and he’s shown he’ll do anything to succeed. The people who did his searching and shot at us in France worked for a man named Le Clerc, who has been buying illegal prescription drugs from Bako. Somebody here must be importing Bako’s drugs to Russia or supplying him with raw materials.”
Hagar said, “I’ll find out and get the results to you.”
“Thank you.”
“There’s one more thing,” said Hagar.
“The ransom,” Sam said.
“Right. If they took Mrs. Fargo so they can exchange her for the artifacts you found in these hoards and tombs across Europe, they’ll be getting in touch with you. They might already be watching you, so they’ll be aware you went to the police at the airport and probably that you’re here too. They’ll threaten to kill her if you have anything more to do with us. You’ll have to appear to go along with their demands.”
“I’ve considered that.”
Hagar reached into his pocket and then handed Sam a cell phone. “We’re giving you a new phone. At some point they’ll try to separate you from your cell, so, when they do, give them the old one. We’ll use this cell’s GPS to keep track of your location. We’ll also try to watch you in other ways, so if you don’t have a phone, we don’t lose you.”
“Okay,” Sam said. He put the new cell phone in his pocket. “I should find a hotel and wait for them to call me. We weren’t planning on stopping in Russia except to change planes.”
“We’ll put you up at the Hilton Moscow Leningradskaya Hotel. It’s a building Stalin put up near the Kremlin in 1954 and it’s big, with a lot of clear space around it. While you’re going there to check in, we’ll see who follows. That probably won’t be what pays off, but something will.”
“I’m sure it will,” said Sam. He got up and shook Hagar’s hand. “Thank you.”
