第 11 页

Lourds smiled. “I told you enough to get you interested in calling your studio.”

Pouting, Leslie said, “I do believe I’ve been, how is it you Americans seem so fond of putting it? ‘Played’?”

“Perhaps a little,” Lourds admitted.

“What would you have done if I hadn’t made the call to my supervisor? Or been able to convince him to make this trip happen?”

“Gone anyway,” Lourds replied. “By any means possible. But I had to assume that your studio’s ability to arrange for immediate travel visas, not to mention plane tickets, is vastly superior to mine. I’ve been banging my head against a wall talking to travel agents today.”

Leslie frowned. “You think you’re very clever.”

Lourds put his iron away. “I do try.”

BRITISH AIRWAYS FLIGHT BA0880

IN-FLIGHT FROM HEATHROW

AUGUST 21, 2009

Hours later, and once more back in Europe, Lourds sat in the quiet darkness that filled the large passenger jet’s interior. He’d had a few hours’ layover at Heathrow before he had to climb aboard this jet after deplaning from his flight from Egypt. Lourds had used his downtime to read the information he’d downloaded from the Internet. He had a small satellite link for his notebook computer, a top-of-the-line gadget he’d been persuaded to invest in. It had come in handy several times.

“You should get some rest,” Leslie said. She sat in the seat beside him.

“I thought you were asleep.” Lourds sat and buckled back into the seat.

“I was. Did you have any luck with your search?”

“No.” Lourds sipped the water. “I’ve looked in any number of places, hoping for more information about the bell and the cymbal, but it doesn’t appear to exist.”

“Is that unusual?”

“You’re dealing with thousands of years of existence. A great number of things have gone missing during that time.”

“Surely not important things.”

“How about the classical Egyptian language? That vanished for over a thousand years. It was a fluke that we could re-create it.” Lourds smiled at her, loving her curiosity. “And would you consider a nuclear weapon important?”

“I don’t understand.”

“The United States has lost at least seven of them since World War Two. That’s only counting what’s been confirmed. There may have been more. Not to mention all those nuclear weapons that ‘disappeared’ when the Soviet Union collapsed.”

“Those were secret things,” Leslie said. “No one was supposed to know about them.”

“Perhaps the bell and cymbal were secret things, too.”

Leslie stared at him with more interest. “Is that what you think?”

“I’ve contacted several friends in museums and private collections as well as insurance companies. When that bell went missing, I figured our unfortunate adversaries might have stolen other related artifacts. That I turned up absolutely nothing except the cymbal indicates to me that there were very few things like them made.”

“You think the bell and the cymbal were unique?”

“I’m not yet ready to make that assumption, but yes.”

“And that others are after them.”

“Indeed.”

“You know, the bell and the cymbal were so far apart . . . and relatively unknown. Neither item was in the care of a collector or an institution. But when they turned up, it appears that someone very ruthless was searching for them. I’m betting my reputation that you will figure out why.”

“There’s something here,” Lourds said. “Otherwise nobody would be killing for these pieces.”

DOMODEDOVO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

MOSCOW, RUSSIA

AUGUST 21, 2009

After gathering their carry-on luggage, which was all they’d brought with them from Alexandria, Lourds and Leslie walked through the tunnel to the security checkpoints inside the terminal.

Lourds glanced at his watch and discovered that the local time was barely after 5 A.M. He was tired because he hadn’t rested well on the flight. Normally he could sleep like the proverbial baby on airplanes, but his mind had remained too busy this time. Leslie, on the other hand, had slept quite well.

They stood in line with the other passengers. Lourds gazed at a knot of uniformed East Line Group security guards.

One guard in his fifties fixed Lourds with dead gray eyes. He glanced at a photograph in his hand. “Mr. Lourds?”

“That’s Professor Lourds, actually,” Lourds said. He didn’t try to deny his identity. If the security men had his picture, he felt certain they knew he was on the passenger manifest.

“You’ll come with me, please.”

“What’s this about?”

“No questions,” the man said. “Come with me.”

When Lourds didn’t move fast enough to suit him, the man closed an iron grip on the professor’s arm and pulled him from the line.

“What’s going on?” Leslie asked. She tried to follow.

A young male security guard intercepted her and held her back. “No,” the guard said.

“You can’t do this,” Leslie protested.

“It is done,” the young man said. “Please stay in line. Otherwise we will have you detained or deported.”

Leslie stared after Lourds.

“Perhaps you might contact the State Department,” Lourds said, trying to sound calm, as if this sort of thing happened to him every day. It didn’t, though, and he was surprised to discover he was actually quite frightened. It was one thing to be a guest inside a foreign country. It was quite another to be treated as an enemy of the state.

CHAPTER

7

DOMODEDOVO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

DETENTION ROOM

MOSCOW, RUSSIA

AUGUST 21, 2009

L

ourds tried to keep calm as he sat in the detention room, even though the windowless, featureless walls felt like they were closing in on him. The gray paint was a dismal addition; it felt to Lourds like it sucked all the life and color from the room and anything in it, including him. A scarred wooden table and three chairs occupied the center of the space. Lourds’s chair sat on one side of the table by itself.

The walls seemed to exude memories of harsh interrogations held here. Perhaps the new Russia didn’t indulge in strong-arm tactics with the same abandon that the old Soviet Union had, and the Czar’s special police before that, but Lourds knew his captors wanted him to remember that ruthless past.

They’d taken his computer, his baggage, and his cell phone.

He knew they were watching him. Since the blank gray walls held no mirror or one-way glass, he assumed they spied on him through hidden cameras embedded in the walls or ceiling. Every time he’d stood up to stretch his legs, a guard stepped into the room to tell him to sit down again.

The woman who walked into the room was beautiful. Rich red hair rippled to her shoulders. Her warm brown eyes regarded him. She wore a gray business suit that complemented her hair and fair complexion.

Without thinking, Lourds got to his feet. His parents had taught him manners so well that, even now, the lessons held.

The woman stopped him immediately, though. “Sit,” she ordered in English. Her hand slid to her hip.

Lourds sat. The move she’d made, he figured, meant she had a weapon.

“I meant no offense,” Lourds said. “When a beautiful woman enters a room, I was trained to stand. Out of respect. I suppose I have my mother to thank for nearly getting shot.”

The woman remained standing. Her eyes were flat and hard.

“Look,” Lourds said, “Whatever you think I’ve done—”

“Quiet,” the woman ordered. “You are Professor Thomas Lourds?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m an American citizen with a visa to travel in this country.”

“One word from me,” the woman interrupted, “your visa is canceled and you’re on the next plane out of here. Do you understand?”

Lourds knew she wasn’t bluffing. “Yes.”

“You’re here, at this moment, at my sufferance. Why are you here?”

“To see a friend. Ivan Hapaev.”

“How do you know Ivan Hapaev?”

“Through his wife.”

“Yuliya Hapaev.”

Lourds nodded. “Yes. Yuliya and I often consulted each other. I teach—”

“Languages,” the woman said. “Yes. I’m aware of that; however, Yuliya Hapaev is dead.”

“I know. I came here to offer my condolences.”

“Are you and Ivan Hapaev close?”

Lourds decided to tell the truth. “No.”

“You came all this way to see a man you know only socially at a time when he’s grieving over the murder of his wife?”

“I had other business that brought me to Moscow. I wanted to stop long enough to see Ivan.”

“What other business?”

“Researching projects. That’s what I’m doing now.”

“Are you a good friend of Ivan’s?”

“Actually, I knew his wife better. As I said, Dr. Hapaev and I were—”

“Colleagues.”

“Yes.”

“If you were such close friends,” the woman said. “I should have known you.”

“You couldn’t know everyone who saw Dr. Hapaev—”

“I knew many of them.” The woman reached inside her jacket and flipped out an identification case. “My name is Natasha Safarov. Dr. Hapaev was my sister.”

Sister! Lourds looked carefully at the woman and could see the family resemblance then. It had been there the whole time.

“I’m investigating my sister’s murder, Professor Lourds.” Natasha closed her police identification case. She studied Lourds’s face. He was a handsome man, and he appeared to honestly care about Yuliya.

“Why was I detained?” Lourds asked.

“The night of my sister’s death, you called her on her cell phone. Why?”

“To warn her. That cymbal she was researching looked similar to a bell that was recently stolen from me and my television team in a studio shoot in Alexandria. We were nearly killed.”

“Tell me about that,” Natasha prompted.

______

He told her, leaving nothing out.

He added, after he finished the tale, “I’m sorry about your sister, Inspector Safarov,” Lourds said. “She was truly a magnificent woman. And she loved you very much. She talked about you a great deal. She said your mother died young and the two of you were very close,” Lourds said. “I know losing her has to be hard.”

Natasha remained silent.

“I don’t know who killed Yuliya,” Lourds continued. “If I did, I would tell you.”

“Do you know why she was killed?”

“My only guess would involve the cymbal.”

“Do you know what it was? Or who might want it?”

Lourds shook his head. “I’m afraid not. If I did, I’d tell you that, too. And I’d be after them for the bell they took.”

Reaching into her jacket, Natasha took Lourds’s visa and passport from her pocket. She deliberately didn’t offer them to him.

“I was there the night my sister was murdered,” Natasha said.

Sadness pulled at the professor’s handsome features. Natasha felt that the emotion was an honest one. “I’m sorry. That must have been horrible.”

Natasha didn’t respond to that. “The men who killed her and stole the cymbal were professional killers.” She intended for her words to frighten him.

Lourds didn’t look surprised. “The men in Alexandria were very good, too.”

“Enjoy your stay in Moscow, Professor Lourds. I hope you find what you’re looking for.” Natasha handed the man his passport and visa, and a card with her name and a number where she could be reached. “If you should discover anything that pertains to my sister’s murder, I want to know about it.”

Lourds put the papers into his jacket pocket. “Of course. It would be my pleasure to tell you.”

One thing Natasha decided in that moment was that the American professor lied guilelessly. She appreciated that skill in another.

______

Tired and frustrated, feeling certain Yuliya’s sister didn’t quite believe everything he’d told her, Lourds stepped into the small office outside the detention room. Leslie was waiting for him.

Nearly two hours had passed. She sat on one of the hard chairs beside all their carry-on bags. The protective case containing Lourds’s computer sat on top of the heap.

Getting to her feet, Leslie inspected Lourds. Worry showed in her eyes. “You’re all right?” she asked.

“I am,” Lourds answered. “You’ve been here all this time?”

“Yes. I called the American embassy. They sent a man over, but Inspector Safarov sent word that he wouldn’t be needed. She said she was going to release you once she questioned you, so he left.”

“She did release me.”

“Why did she detain you?”

“It’s complicated. Perhaps we could talk somewhere else,” Lourds suggested. He didn’t want to talk about anything inside the terminal. The FSB loved their little electronic surveillance toys. He picked up his carry-on, neatly adding Leslie’s to the stack. His carry-on case had wheels that made it easy to pull.

He was ready to be outside and moving. After all the hours in the plane, then in the detention room, he was feeling slightly claustrophobic.

Leslie led the way to the door and he followed.

Standing outside the security office, Natasha watched the professor and the young woman moving along the current of human bodies heading for the car rental agencies. Confusion roiled within her. Emotions twisted inside her. She hated letting Lourds go before she had the whole truth from him.

Lourds had a plan. He’d protected it during the interrogation, had spoken all around it. Perhaps someone less skilled wouldn’t have noticed it, but to Natasha the void had been immediately detectable.

“Are you just going to let him go, Inspector?” a calm male voice asked.

Glancing over her shoulder, Natasha saw that Anton Karaganov had stepped in beside her. The younger man was her partner. She was his field training officer.

Karaganov was quiet and intense, a good Russian. He was in his twenties, tall and lean. He drank, but not too much, and he was respectful of his girlfriend. Natasha liked him for both those things. Such traits weren’t always found in Russian policemen.

“I let him go,” Natasha said, “but I don’t want him to go far unwatched. Let’s keep an eye on him.”

“Airport security has released the professor.”

Outside the terminal, Gallardo sat in a ten-year-old Lada four-door sedan. Sun had bleached the vehicle’s black exterior, leaving it looking like most of the other similar cars. He held the sat-phone to his ear.

“Where is he?” Gallardo asked.

“He and the woman are picking up a rental car.” The man on the other end of the phone connection had been keeping watch over the detention center. He’d also been the one who reported that the security guards had taken Lourds into custody.

“Stay with him,” Gallardo instructed. “I don’t want to lose him.” He ended the phone call and laid the handset on his thigh.

Three other men sat in the Lada with Gallardo. DiBenedetto sat behind the wheel. Two of the men they’d picked up for the Russian operations sat in the back. All of them were armed. Heavily armed, in fact.

Gallardo wanted to be out of Moscow. Although the news didn’t seem to indicate the Moscow FSB had any leads to the persons that had killed Yuliya Hapaev, he felt like a sitting duck staying in-country. The Federal Security Service—Federalnaya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti—had many intelligent police officers these days. Not all of them could be bought off.