The Emperor's Tomb

“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.

The man entered the room.

Pressing her hands onto the floor, she pivoted up and clipped the legs out from under him.

A tray with bread and cheese clattered away.

She sprang to her feet and slammed the sole of her boot into the man’s face. Something snapped, probably his nose. She pounded her heel into his face one more time. The back of his head popped against the floorboards and he lay still.

Another kick into the ribs made her feel better.

But the attack had generated noise. And there was at least one more threat lurking nearby. She searched the man’s clothes and spotted a gun in a shoulder holster. She freed the weapon and checked the magazine.

Fully loaded.

Time to leave.

NINE

COPENHAGEN

MALONE STARED AT HIS KIDNAPPER. THEY’D ABANDONED THE street just as the police arrived, rounding a corner and plunging back into the Strøget.

“You have a name?” he asked.

“Call me Ivan.”

The English laced with a Russian accent made the label appropriate, as did the man’s appearance—short, heavy-chested, with grayish black hair. A splotchy, reddened skink of a face was dominated by a broad Slavic nose and shadowed by a day-old beard that shone with perspiration. He wore an ill-fitting suit. The gun had been tucked away and they now stood in a small plaza, within the shadow of the Round Tower, a 17th-century structure that offered commanding views from its hundred-foot summit. The dull roar of traffic was not audible this deep into the Strøget, only the clack of heels to cobbles and the laughter of children. They stood beneath a covered walk that faced the tower, a brick wall to their backs.

“Your people kill those two back there?” Malone asked.

“They think we come to whisk them away.”

“Care to tell me how you know about Cassiopeia Vitt?”

“Quite the woman. If I am younger, a hundred pounds lighter.” Ivan paused. “But you do not want to hear this. Vitt is into something she does not understand. I hope you, ex-American-agent, appreciate the problem better.”

“It’s the only reason I’m standing here.”