"Because there's no William Turnbull."
"The guy's a spook." Tom shrugged. "I'm not surprised he doesn't show up."
"Since 9/11 we have reciprocal information-sharing agreements with the British on all counterterrorist personnel. Turnbull's not one of them."
"Well maybe he's part—"
"He was one of them. Until he got taken out in Moscow six months ago."
"What?" Archie gasped.
"He was shot dead coming out of a bookshop next to Red Square. Whoever approached you wasn't MI6, and certainly wasn't William Turnbull."
"He was a ringer?" Archie's tone was a mixture of surprise and anger. "He can't be. I checked him out."
"You checked that there was an MI6 agent by that name," Tom corrected him, nodding slowly as the past few days rearranged themselves in his mind. "And there was. Only he was dead."
"But the cars, all those men…?"
"Probably hired for the day. Oh, he played it beautifully. He knew that if he mentioned Renwick's name, I'd listen. That if he just pointed us in the right direction and let us off the leash, we'd do all the running." Tom shook his head, furious with himself.
"You think he was working for Renwick?"
"Well, it would certainly explain how Renwick was able to stick so close to us. How he knew exactly where we'd be last night," said Tom.
"And presumably why he topped Turnbull once he'd served his purpose," Archie added.
"So what now?" Bailey interrupted them.
"We're stuck in here, that's what now," Archie snapped. "How can we do anything, unless we get out."
"I can't let you go," said Bailey. "It's a good story, but I need hard evidence to make something like this stick. Besides, I have no jurisdiction here. I'm sorry."
He walked slowly out of the room, nodding at Agent Cunningham on his way out.
"This is crazy," said Tom. "I can't believe you're keeping us in here. We've done nothing wrong."
Cunningham approached them slowly. "Bailey's right. He doesn't have any jurisdiction here," he said. "But I do." His eyes snapped up to meet theirs. "He told me what you guys discussed. He thinks you're telling the truth, that you're not the people we're looking for. Hell, who knows, he may even be right. But that doesn't mean I can just let you go."
"So what are you saying?" Tom asked uncertainly.
"I'm saying that I came in here with Bailey." Cunningham spoke deliberately, his expression leaving them in no doubt that he was serious. "That after he left the room you overpowered me and handcuffed me to the bed." He produced a pair of steel handcuffs from his pocket and dangled them in front of Archie. "That you took my keys…" He dangled his key ring with his other hand, the metal chinking noisily. "And found your way up the back stairs to the fire exit on the south side of the building."
"And then what?" Archie asked, cautiously accepting the handcuffs and key ring off Cunningham.
"Then you guys have got about twelve minutes before Bailey comes back and finds me. In fact, make that ten," he said, consulting his watch. "After that, we'll be looking for you. The Russkies too. I'd advise you to get out of town."
"What do you want in return?" Tom asked, snapping the cuffs open and fixing them around the painted metal bed frame.
"A phone call when you catch up with these guys." Cunningham pulled a business card from his top pocket, the corners worn and dog-eared. "We'll take it from there."
CHAPTER EIGHTY-SIX
It had taken fifteen minutes of fielding questions before Tom was finally able to hold up the memory card retrieved from Kristenko's camera and turn to Viktor. "You got something that can read this?"
"Sure."
She led them down a long dark corridor to her office, an understated room lined with books and framed movie posters. Tom sensed that this was probably the only room she had had a hand in decorating herself, although he noticed that here, as everywhere, there were no photos, as if the past was a place she preferred not to be reminded of.
The computer screen flashed into life as the system began to load, an egg timer rolling over onto its back every few seconds. In a few minutes it was done, and the screen filled with Cyrillic characters.
"You'd better let me drive," Viktor said with a smile, slipping into the chair behind the desk. She slipped the card into a slot on the side of the machine and called up the pictures of the painting.
There were six in all. One of the front and rear of the canvas, and one of each of the edges, normally hidden by the frame, but typically included in the photographic record of any major work of art, owing to the difficulty for the would-be forger of replicating something that could not be seen.
Tom soon found himself thanking Kristenko for his thoroughness, for it was on these edges that a series of meticulously inked black capital letters could be seen. A code.
"This must have been what Renwick was after." Tom pointed at the screen.
Dominique grabbed a pen and began to scribble the letters down on a pad.
"A bunch of letters is no use without the decoding machine," Archie pointed out.
"A decoding machine?" Viktor frowned.
"The Enigma," Tom explained. "Renwick had one stolen, remember? It's a German wartime encoding machine, about the size—"
"Of a small briefcase," Viktor finished his sentence for him. "I know. I told you, Viktor had one restored so he could use it."
"Is it still here?" Tom asked hopefully.
"As far as I know, it's in the library with everything else. I'll go and get it."
She left the room and returned a few moments later with two wooden boxes, one much smaller than the other. She placed them both on the desk. "Viktor bought it from some dealer in Switzerland about five years ago for his collection."
"Lasche," said Archie. "It had to be Lasche — he's the only one who would deal with something like this."
"Do you know how it works?" asked Tom.
"Of course. Viktor showed me," she said.
She unclipped the battered and stained case, the wood thick with cracked varnish, and folded it back, revealing a machine that on first inspection looked like an old-fashioned metal typewriter. It sat snugly in its box, the raised black keys large and round, with the letters of the alphabet clearly marked in white.
But a closer look revealed differences. There were no rollers between which to feed a sheet of paper. Instead, the flat case above the keys was punctured by twenty-six round glass windows with the faint shadow of a letter in each one. And above these were three narrow slots. The front of the box folded down to reveal twenty-six holes, each labeled with the letters of the alphabet, different pairs of which were joined by black cables.
"Viktor, it took a truckload of boffins almost half the war to crack that thing," Archie pointed out. "How the hell are you going to manage on your own?"
"Because she's not trying to crack it, is she?" Dom pointed out. "The hard work's been done. All she's trying to do is operate it."
"Have you ever used one of these?" Tom asked. "No," said Dominique. "But I know the theory of how they work. Well, some of it at least."
"How…?" asked Archie.
"Codes and puzzles are my thing, remember?" Dominique explained. "I've read some books on it. All she needs to operate it are the settings. After that it's easy."
"What settings?" Tom looked at her blankly.
"The settings for the machine," Viktor confirmed. "What are they?"
"Don't we just plug in the numbers?" Archie frowned in confusion.
"This machine uses substitution encryption," said Viktor.