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“He knows the story?” Lourds asked.

Diop grinned. “More than that, Thomas. I believe Adebayo has the drum you’re looking for.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Because I’ve seen it.”

Natasha hated being without a gun. She was better with one. She’d left her weapons behind for their plane flight. Still, that situation might remedy itself in the next few moments.

She paused in the shadows next to the bed-and-breakfast overlooking the courtyard. The mortar in the stones was loose and had crumbled away under the attack of years, vines, and salt spray. Plenty of finger and toe room existed between the stones.

In the darkness, she stepped out of her shoes and peeled off her socks. Then, knife clenched between her teeth, she started her assault on the side of the building up to the window where she’d spotted the man watching Lourds and the others.

There were other men. She knew that from studying the darkness and seeing them move.

Only moments ago she’d excused herself from the table. She’d barely drawn the attention of the others because they’d been so rapt in their conversation with Diop. When none of the watchers had followed her, she figured she’d eluded them as well.

Her arms and legs strained a little under her weight. It was one thing to use arm and leg strength to assault a vertical climb, but it was another to use only fingers and toes. She breathed in and out rhythmically and worked to clear her lungs of carbon dioxide buildup.

Soon enough, still under the cover of darkness, she reached the fourth-floor balcony and gradually shifted her weight over to it.

The man she’d spotted lounged in the darkness and watched Lourds and the others.

They wouldn’t last an hour on their own, she thought. Moving slowly, she hauled herself over the side and silently crossed the terraced balcony floor. Only two chairs, a potted palm, and the watcher shared the space. She took the knife from her teeth and gripped it tightly in her hand.

The man stood almost six feet tall. He was European, pale white in the night. He smoked a cheap cigar that stank so badly, Natasha could have found him by the scent of that alone.

At the last moment, the man turned as if he sensed something. Dormant senses from a less-than-civilized lifestyle came online.

But it was too late.

Natasha slid behind the man, gripped his chin in one hand, and put the point of her blade against the side of his neck with the other.

“Move,” she whispered in English, “and I’ll slit your throat.”

The man froze, but she could feel him quiver in terror.

Heart thumping wildly as she battled her own fears, Natasha reached under his shirt and relieved him of the 9 mm pistol in shoulder leather. He carried another at his waistband. She took it as well.

The radio receiver crackled at his ear. Someone spoke in Italian.

“What does he want to know?” she asked the man.

“He wants to know where you are,” the man replied.

The fear intensified inside Natasha. She removed the knife and placed the barrel of one of the 9 mms she’d just acquired against the back of his head.

“Don’t shoot me,” the man whispered hoarsely. “Please don’t shoot me.”

“What is he saying?” Natasha asked.

“He’s noticed that you’re missing,” the man added.

“Is it Gallardo?” Natasha asked.

The man nodded.

“Give me the radio.” Natasha held out her hand.

The man gave her the radio.

Natasha keyed the SEND button. “Gallardo.”

There was a moment of silence; then a man’s voice demanded, “Who is this?”

“You killed my sister in Moscow,” Natasha said. “One day soon, I’m going to kill you.”

“Not if I kill you first.” His voice was hard and arrogant.

“I hope you can get off the island tonight,” Natasha said. “Otherwise you’re going to be answering a lot of questions from the police.”

“Why?”

Without betraying what she was about to do, Natasha shoved the man over the low balcony. The fall was a short one by some standards, with nicely tilled garden soil at its end. She doubted it would kill him, but he screamed on the way down. Then he stopped—abruptly.

Natasha stayed back from the balcony’s edge and resisted the impulse to look down. The rush of conversation below let her know that the man’s fall had drawn a crowd.

She walked back into the room, emptied a small suitcase on the bed, and found two boxes of ammunition for the pistols. There was also a small package containing what looked suspiciously like marijuana. The drug wouldn’t cause too much of a disturbance on the island, but it would make for a long question-and-answer session with the Gorée police until payment could be arranged to buy the man out of trouble.

She left it and the clothes behind.

She dumped the ammunition and pistols into the suitcase, zipped it closed, and walked out the door in her bare feet.

“I think he’s broken his leg,” someone said.

“What happened?” another asked.

“He fell from the balcony.”

“Is he drunk?”

“If he isn’t, I’m betting he wishes he was about now.”

Standing on the outside of the crowd of tourists that had gathered around the man writhing painfully on the ground, Lourds glanced around. An uneasy feeling dawned in the pit of his stomach.

“Where’s Natasha?” Leslie asked at his side.

Lourds shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“Do you think she—?” Leslie hesitated.

“Wasn’t her,” Gary said. “I’ve seen her work. She’d have shot him.”

“Not if I simply wanted to create a disturbance so we could get out of here.”

Lourds turned and found Natasha standing behind them. She held a suitcase.

“Where did you get the suitcase?” he asked.

“From his room.” Natasha nodded toward the man curled into a fetal position on the ground.

“You did that?”

Natasha returned his gaze without guilt. “I considered shooting him. But I doubt we would have been able to walk away without answering a lot of questions.” She shrugged. “As it is now, it simply looks like a tourist had an accident.”

“I don’t suppose he’s a tourist.”

“No. Gallardo is here. I hope dumping his minion over the balcony will attract enough law enforcement attention to chase him into hiding for now. Meanwhile, we need to go into hiding ourselves.”

Lourds marveled at how coolly and calmly she handled everything. She hadn’t even worked up a sweat facing an armed man and overpowering him.

“You’re lucky you weren’t injured or killed,” he said.

“You’re lucky Gallardo doesn’t want you dead.” Natasha nodded toward a nearby alley at the foot of the bed-and-breakfast the man had fallen from. “We needed a diversion to get out of here.”

Diop shook his head in wonder. “Well, then, that’s certainly what I’d call a diversion.” He glanced back at Lourds. “You do keep interesting company, Thomas.”

You don’t know the half of it, Lourds thought.

“I’d also suggest we not spend the night on the island.” Natasha found her shoes in the alley and stepped into them. “In case the police decide they want to talk to us as well. Gallardo’s little friend might be persuaded to give up information about us as well as his employer.”

“I know a man who has a boat,” Diop said. “He can take us to the mainland tonight.”

“Good,” Natasha said. “The sooner, the better.”

ATLANTIC OCEAN

WEST OF DAKAR, SENEGAL

SEPTEMBER 9, 2009

Gallardo stood in the stern of the rented powerboat as it beat a hasty retreat back toward Dakar. The trip was twenty minutes by ferry. The powerboat cut that time considerably.

Unfortunately, the powerboat also made him stand out as an outsider. When the Gorée Island police started looking into the life of the man who had ended up in the middle of the courtyard, as Gallardo was certain they would—and he knew the Russian woman had guessed that as well—they were going to track him back to Gallardo in short order.

If the man didn’t give Gallardo up outright, he would certainly have to own up to the relationship when challenged by the boat-rental person or the black market dealer who sold him the weapons he carried.

Gallardo cursed his luck and stared out bleakly across the moon-kissed white curlers rolling across the sea. His sat-phone rang. He knew who it would be, and he thought about whether or not he should answer.

In the end, though, there was no choice.

“Yes,” he said.

“Did you find him?” Murani’s voice sounded coldly efficient and much closer than Gallardo would have wanted.

“I did, and if you’d let me deal with him as I wanted, it would be done by now.”

“No. He’s still of use to us.”

Gallardo paced the short length of the boat. “Only if we can keep him under observation.”

“What happened? Where are you?”

“On our way back to the mainland. There was a problem.”

“What problem?”

“The Russian woman made us. She rendered it impossible for us to stay in position.”

Murani was quiet for a time. “Keep after them. Things are getting hard for me, too. I need you to stay on Lourds.”

“I know. I’m trying. If it weren’t for the woman, he wouldn’t even have known we were there.”

“Have you figured out what he’s doing there?”

“The man he met with today is a professor of history. The kind who specializes in African studies.” Gallardo got that from the street talk he’d paid for in the bars while his men had watched Lourds over on Île de Gorée.

“Ah. Lourds is searching for the other instruments.”

“What other instruments?” Gallardo didn’t like the fact that Murani was withholding information. Especially when that information might get him killed.

“Three other instruments go with the bell and the cymbal,” Murani said. “It’s possible they were all in that area at one time.”

“Why didn’t you mention this before?”

“Because I didn’t know. I keep researching. I’m still learning about these instruments.”

Gallardo swallowed an angry response. Murani usually knew everything when he put him into the field. The fact that he didn’t meant the stakes must be higher than they’d ever been before.

“Find Lourds,” Murani coaxed. “Stay with him. I don’t want him harmed. Yet.”

The phone clicked dead in Gallardo’s ear. He folded the device and put it away. He turned back to the east. In the distance he saw the lights of the city. He hadn’t expected it to be so big. Dakar was new to him, but the movement of the black market was the same. He was good at his work. No matter where Lourds went, Gallardo was confident he could trail the professor.

And when the time came to kill the man and his companions—especially the redheaded Russian bitch—he was looking forward to it.

PULLMAN DAKAR TERANGA EX SOFITEL

DAKAR, SENEGAL

SEPTEMBER 9, 2009

Lourds labored over the languages. He had enough pieces of the puzzle to start putting them together. Assuming that he had the right legend, assuming that the three different languages were all talking about the same event, then he could attempt to replace some of the words/symbols with words he had to assume were in those texts.

He kept a short list of words that he exchanged throughout the text.

Flood.

God.

Danger.

Cursed.

Those all ought to be in there somewhere.

The Russian encryption method provided for plain text to be rearranged before the encryption process, so headers, salutations, introductions, and other standards in texts were all pulled out. That process mixed up the written language enough that decrypting the finished result without a key was almost impossible because it reduced the redundancy that normally took place in encrypted messages.

Lourds sighed and stretched. He tried in vain to find a comfortable position, but his back and shoulders ached fiercely. He glanced at the television set, tuned to ESPN but silent. He used the images to rest his eyes and change the distance of his focus.

Someone knocked at the door.

Remembering the man Natasha had caused to plummet to the cobblestones on Île de Gorée, Lourds got up cautiously. In a way, it gave him a sense of déjà vu. He crossed to the closet and looked for an iron. The one the hotel provided was skeletal and had no heft. It was a sorry weapon at best.

The knock repeated, more insistent this time.

Lourds peered through the peephole. Leslie Crane stood in the hallway with her arms folded over her breasts, looking a little put out.

For a moment Lourds debated answering the door. It was almost midnight. He could claim that he’d fallen asleep. Then again, she could—as she had last time—have kept one of his room keys. He hadn’t checked this time.

He gave in and opened the door, but he didn’t step back.

“Yes?” he asked.

“I thought maybe we could talk,” Leslie said.

Lourds crossed his arms and leaned against the doorframe.

“Well?” Leslie demanded.

“Well, what?”

“Are you going to ask me in?”

“I thought I might find out what kind of mood you were in first.”

“I’m in a fine mood,” Leslie said crossly.

“Fine. You can come in. But the ground rules are that if you become unpleasant, you’re leaving. Even if I have to carry you out myself.”

Leslie bristled at that. “You weren’t so quick to throw me out a few nights ago.”

Lourds smiled. “On that night I found you quite fetching.” He stepped back. “Lately, not so much so. But, please, come in.”

Leslie entered the room and glanced around. Her gaze landed on the computer.

“You were working,” she said.

“Yes.” Lourds closed the door and locked it. Having assassins creep into the room—even though the hotel was rated five stars—would be embarrassing. Not to mention deadly.

“Are you having any luck?”

“I don’t know yet. Breaking languages, especially when you have so little to go on, is a laborious process.”

“Do you think Diop knows what he’s talking about? About the drum?”

“I certainly hope so.” Lourds sat on the couch and gazed at the young woman. He tried to keep his mind on business. It was too easy to remember what she’d been like naked and in his arms.

Leslie paced for a moment. “I’m getting a lot of pressure from my superiors. They want more of the story.”

“We don’t have anything more to tell them.”

“My job is on the line here.”

“I understand. If you want to separate company from me now and declare it a loss, I’ll understand. I’ve got some money put back. I can continue this for a while.”

She stopped pacing and gazed at him. “You’d do that, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Why? Because of Yuliya Hapaev’s death?”

“Partly, although I see that as work for the police rather than a linguistics professor. But it would be nice to give them everything they need to put Yuliya’s killers behind bars.”

“That isn’t where Natasha wants to put them.”

“No, I suppose it’s not.”

“She’s going to get us into trouble.”

“As I recall,” Lourds said, “Natasha’s been far more apt to get us out of trouble than into it.”

“She kills people.”

“I know. I can’t say that it’s something I would do, but if I were to meet those people under the same circumstances—”