The navigation screen suddenly flashed green. It meant the relationship between the current outline of the passageway, based on the sonar reading, had matched with a known section of the map. The two readings became superimposed, and the computer placed an asterisk where it believed he was inside the dungeon’s passageway. He grinned. It was a good start. He clicked the route button, and a red line followed a series of tunnels, like a giant maze, beneath the mountain — where the dungeon of the Ivangorod Fortress awaited them.
Chapter Sixty
Outside of the Ivangorod Fortress, Sam shuffled forward in line.
He followed some tourists from Sweden in shorts and button-down shirts. Sam was sweating in his long sleeves but he didn’t pull them up and he didn’t dare take off the sweater. Under it he was wearing a Kevlar bullet proof vest.
At the end of the line Sam could see a ticket checker in a glassed-in booth. Before it was a man in uniform screening the arriving tourists. Sam inched forward, steeling himself to submit to inspection. He glanced around him. Everything seemed normal. He thought of Catarina and wondered where she was. How she was. He wondered if she knew he would come for her.
He hoped Tom, Elise and Genevieve had gotten in.
A man said, “Next.”
Sam jerked out of his reverie. The guard beckoned again. “Sir?”
Sam stepped forward and presented his credit card. “One ticket, please.”
The man made the exchange and handed Sam back his card. Sam tucked it in his wallet and his wallet in his pants. As he took the ticket, three men approached from the sidelines with friendly smiles and cold eyes. “Mr. Reilly?” the first said genially.
Sam turned to them, taking a breath and pushing away his fear. Underneath their shirts he saw the outline of guns. “Yes?”
The man touched his hip. “You’re to come with us. Special tour.”
Sam glanced at the ticket checker, but the man had ducked on to the next in line as if he were scared of the entourage.
“Yes,” he said. “Thank you so much. I’ve been looking forward to it.”
Sam’s eyes swept the entrance. He spotted Tom, Elise and Genevieve loitering in the wings, admiring tapestries as if they were merely tourists enjoying the spectacle of all the ancient history.
They turned casually and watched Sam being led past the guard and off down the halls. They grinned at each other.
“Show time.”
When Sam and his entourage had traveled far enough that their footsteps couldn’t be heard, Elise checked her phone. A little light blinked on it, tracking Sam’s phone in case they got separated in the labyrinthian interior.
“Okay, folks. Let’s hit it.”
Sam marched behind the mafia men through the corridors. The halls loomed around them covered with tapestries. As they walked, the corridors grew increasingly dilapidated and the walls became crumbling and damp. Sam kept a sharp eye out and followed in their wake. “Where are we going?” he asked.
Their steps just marched. They didn’t answer. Sam watched their backs.
“Not much for talking, are you?”
Still no reply.
They walked until they reached a bolted wooden door with rusted hinges in the crumbling section of the fortress. Though Sam knew he’d be going in alone, the fact that no one knew where he was made his blood cold and hot at the same time.
Not no one, he reminded himself. Tom, Elise, and Genevieve know.
That he didn’t know who they were didn’t comfort him at all.
Still. There was a certain comfort in being a man with no past. It gave him a certain liberty for what he was about to do. Sam let his morals go. He was a man on a mission, and he gave himself to it completely.
The men in front of him knocked on the door, a series of coded raps. Sam memorized them but knew it was useless. There was no way he could pass the information on to the others. He just hoped they were following close enough to hear. Or that whatever cache of firepower they’d brought with them didn’t care about secret codes.
A voice spoke in Russian from behind the door. One of Sam’s escorts responded in kind. He smiled at Sam with all of his teeth. There weren’t that many. The ones he did have were gold.
Sam smiled back.
The door opened.
He stepped inside, wedged between a massive man built like a wall and a tiny wisp of a girl with a semi-automatic- the same kind of gun Sam had found in his bag on the train to The Hague — just above his spleen.
The light in the room was dim, but Sam could make out old furniture covered in dusty drop cloths, ancient relics tucked out of the way for storage, old power tools, their cords wrapped carelessly around unused bodies. No one had been in here for a long time. It seemed the Russian government suffered the same problem as everywhere else: funds for restoration always took a back seat.
But that wasn’t what caught his attention.
What Sam saw was the woman sitting bound and gagged on the chair, the gun trained on her, the way her short hair stuck to her skull with sweat and the fire that still burned in her eyes despite her predicament.
An older looking man with a barrel chest and a mulish grin said, “So good of you to join us, Mr. Reilly.”
“I didn’t have a choice.” Sam recognized the man’s voice as the same one he’d spoken to on the cell phone. “Did I, Igor Mihailovich?”
Igor smiled. All bullies liked to be recognized, as though it was a secret to their power.
Sam gestured to Catarina. “Now that I’m here, I suggest you let her go.”
Igor nodded. “Yes, that was the deal, no?”
“Yes.” Sam kept a level gaze on the men in the room, gauging the distance. He could take out two, he thought. Maybe three. If he was quick and if he took them by surprise.
He couldn't take them all.
The boss shook his head. “What is that phrase you use, you Americans? Ah. Russian Roulette.”
Without warning he raised the gun and fired at Catarina.
Sam flinched and screamed.
So did she.
Nothing happened.
Sam’s heart pounded in his chest as the gun swung to him.
“Oooh,” Igor Mihailovich said. “She was lucky. That time. How about you, Mr. Reilly?”
Sam said, “I don’t know anything! I don’t know who you are, what I’m doing here!” He felt a gamble coming as the seconds ticked by and he knew they were coming, hoped they were coming… He gestured to Catarina. “I don’t even know who she is!”
Mihailovich planted the barrel of his pistol up against Sam’s forehead. “Do you feel lucky?”
Sam swallowed. “Not really, to be honest…”
A single shot fired.
Chapter Sixty-One
Sam blinked.
Death seemed less painful than he was expecting.
And a moment later, Mihailovich slumped onto the ground, a large bullet wound in what remained of his head.
The room turned silent, before turning into a cacophony of Russian orders.
Sam threw himself over Catarina, dragging her to an alcove at the side of the room.
Guns blazing, Tom, Genevieve, and Elise stood in the doorway spraying the room with unmerciful fire.
He gathered Catarina to him and hurried her out of the room under the spray of gunfire. It was an all-out firefight and he had to remember to thank his new friends if they didn’t get him killed with their rescue mission.
“Go!” he shouted, pushing Catarina into the hall. Tom pushed him out as well. “You too! Up! Get to the roof! We’ll cover you!”
Sam had no choice but to obey.
He launched himself into the moldering corridor as cornices fell around him, loosened by the heavy gunfire.
They smashed into damp stone as he and Catarina raced down the hall.