Adam sat down. Luo handed him the phone.
“So tell me,” Luo said. “And be honest. If you had to guess now, do you believe I am who I say I am?”
Adam shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. Our interests are aligned.” He paused before adding a final thought. “For now.”
Luo smiled, closed his eyes, and reclined his head against the wall. “Smart boy.”
CHAPTER 40
Nadia received a call from Bobby midair between Kyiv and Vladivostok.
It lasted only ten seconds. The pilot told them that altitude was not the problem. Cell phones were built to transmit a signal up to ten miles, and an altitude of 30,000 feet was the equivalent of six and a half miles. The problem was that the plane was moving quickly. On land, a call might be facilitated by a network of three towers pointing in different directions. In a plane, the caller might lose access to two of those cell towers before the call was completed.
Nadia tried calling the number from which Bobby’s call had originated but she couldn’t get through. Nor did the phone ever ring again.
“Cargo… Irkutsk… father.”
Those were the defining words Nadia had heard.
“You’re the forensic analyst,” Simmy had said. “What do you think?”
“The key words are cargo and Irkutsk. There are two possibilities. Cargo is leaving Vladivostok for Irkutsk. Or cargo is arriving from Irkutsk to Vladivostok.”
“That one seems rather obvious.”
“Given Genesis II is the cargo,” Nadia said, “and the cargo was moved via ferry from Japan to Vladivostok, it makes less sense that it’s coming from Irkutsk. More likely it is going to Irkutsk. That means Genesis II is being taken to Irkutsk.”
“Agreed. But would a boy who is in love with a girl — and we can assume that Bobby is acting as though Genesis II is Eva — would he refer to that girl as cargo? English is not my first language, but in Russian, no man would ever speak about a woman this way. No matter what his age.”
“No, he wouldn’t. I still think cargo is heading to Irkutsk, but Bobby’s use of the word wasn’t in reference to Genesis II.”
“Then what was he referring to?” Simmy said.
“Maybe it was part of a phrase. What word might Bobby have spoken after cargo? Ship? Truck? Plane? Aren’t they the most obvious?”
“Especially in a port city. Especially in Vladivostok. A ship is unlikely. Irkutsk is accessible by the Angara River but that would be slow. So would a truck. My guess is they’re moving Eva to Irkutsk via a cargo plane.”
“That’s possible,” Nadia said.
“The question is where is Bobby?”
“We don’t know. The only conclusion we can be comfortable with is that wherever he is, he’s headed to Irkutsk.”
“What about the last word you heard?”
“Father?”
Simmy nodded.
“That makes no sense. Can’t be Bobby’s father. He passed away last year. Can’t be Eva’s father. He told me she’s an orphan. The only thing that makes sense to me is that I misheard him and that he said ‘farther.’ As in, ‘If you’re in Vladivostok, you need to go farther west to Irkutsk.’ Or, ‘Don’t land in Vladivostok, keep going farther.’”
“Either way, we need to reroute for Irkutsk.”
“It’s logical but not a sure thing.”
“It’s not realistic to expect a sure thing, “Simmy said. “But the odds are a touch better than you suggest.”
“You sound like you know something I don’t.”
Simmy pressed a few keys on his tablet computer. “I had my people do some research into the three living members of the Zaroff Seven. The richest and most powerful one, Constantin Golov, has a mansion on Baikal sixty kilometers from Irkutsk.”
“Lake Baikal?”
“There is only one Baikal. His mansion is outside a town called Listvyanka. Very popular with men of means in Russia. Some rich Azeri oilmen have built their castles there, too. The higher echelon of the Russian business world is a relatively small place. Employees change companies. People talk. My men learned from a good source that Golov is there now. And the other two Zaroff Seven members are on a vacation at an unspecified location at this very moment.”
“Irkutsk,” Nadia said.
Simmy nodded. “Irkutsk.”
Simmy pressed a button for the copilot to come out. When he did so, Simmy told him to reroute for Irkutsk. The copilot spoke Russian with an unfamiliar regional accent. Nadia had to consider his words twice to understand him. The linguistic distraction reminded her of Bobby’s choice of language on the phone.
“Oh my God,” she said.
Simmy dismissed the copilot. “What?” he said.
“He’s not alone.”
“Who’s not alone?”
“Bobby.”
“Why do you say that?”
“He spoke English to me. We don’t speak English to each other. We speak only in Ukrainian, unless there are English-speaking people present and we don’t want to be rude.”
Simmy frowned. “So what are you saying? There’s an American with him and he didn’t want to offend him?”
“No. On the contrary. He’s travelling with a Russian and he didn’t want him to understand everything he said to me.”
Simmy considered the situation. “The operative word was Irkutsk. That transcends language. Everyone would understand that.”
“True,” Nadia said. “If Irkutsk was the operative word.”
“What else could it have been?”
“Some other word. Something else he said that I didn’t hear.”
CHAPTER 41
Bobby sat in the passenger seat of the buhanka, a cross between a minivan and a military jeep. Luo guided it along the two-lane highway from Irkutsk to Listvyanka. A series of steep descents followed protracted climbs of similar height. At each peak, the Lake flashed silver and blue on the left, only to vanish as Bobby’s line of sight fell below tree line.
The buhanka reminded him of his escape from Russia a year ago. One of his father’s friends had used one to transport him over a long stretch of treacherous terrain. Bobby recalled his trek along the Road of Bones in the Kolyma region of Siberia, where snowcapped mountains and a desolate forest stretched for hundreds of miles. Bobby took comfort knowing the buhanka was indestructible, but it still would take them only so far. The castle where Eva had been taken by her captors was probably heavily guarded. They would have to park their car rental in the forest and cover the final half mile on foot.
They’d arrived at the Irkutsk Airport at 5:10 p.m. Luo had insisted Bobby wait outside the domestic terminal while he made inquiries inside. A Siberian man could approach a fellow countryman working as ground crew more comfortably than if he were a party of two. Bobby’s presence would attract additional attention. Alone, Luo would not have to make explanations. Bribes were a way of life. He would simply offer money for information, he said.
A cloud of steam formed in front of Bobby’s nostrils. The frigid air cleared his sinuses but left him trembling within a minute. Temperatures remained well below freezing into May, especially at night. He needed something heavier than his windbreaker.
Bobby tried calling Nadia with Luo’s phone while he waited but she did not pick up. He did, however, leave her a voice mail. He feared she hadn’t heard any part of their previous call because it had ended abruptly. As a result, Bobby left Nadia a detailed account of what had transpired since he’d arrived at the ferry building in Vladivostok. Bobby used up the entire time allotted to a single message, and had to call back to complete his story. When he was done, he surprised himself when he admitted something else to Nadia in the second voice mail. The words rolled off his lips in a stream of consciousness.