‘What were their names?’ Litvinoff demanded, standing in the lobby.
The hotel manager opened the register. ‘Johnson and Hughes.’
‘I assume you made a note of their passport numbers?’
‘No. It’s far simpler to just photocopy the documents.’
Litvinoff couldn’t believe his luck, as the manager retrieved a loose-leaf folder from a slot below the reception desk and extracted two sheets of paper.
The passports would certainly be fake, Litvinoff knew, because only idiots would use their real identity documents in Russia if they were engaged in criminal activity, but he now had two things he hadn’t possessed three minutes earlier — a pair of poor-quality photographs and two of the false names the Americans had been using. All he had to do now was find out where ‘Johnson’ and ‘Hughes’ had gone when they walked out of the hotel.
And the main railway station, just down the road, seemed the obvious place to start.
‘The house is deserted,’ the inspector announced, stepping out of the rear doorway of the large property.
‘Any signs of a struggle?’
‘No, nothing at all. Several of the beds are still unmade, as if everyone just got up and walked out of the house at the same time.’
‘Shades of the Marie Celeste,’ Qabandi murmured bitterly. ‘So what now?’
‘We can issue a missing-persons report, but that won’t be easy because we don’t know who is missing, or even how many people. Obviously you’ll be able to help, at least with the names and descriptions of the owner and his immediate family.’
Qabandi nodded. ‘Of course, Inspector, but there’s something else. While you were checking the house, my associates and I took another look around the stable block.’
‘We specifically told you not to go inside the accommodation,’ the police officer snapped, his voice growing decidedly angry.
‘I know you did — and we didn’t. We looked only in the outbuildings.’
‘We searched those already.’
‘Yes, but we knew what we were looking for.’
‘Which was what, exactly?’
‘In the garage, each car has an allocated parking space, clearly marked with its registration number and the type of vehicle. A Range Rover is missing.’
‘Perhaps it’s being serviced.’
‘I don’t think so, because a horse transporter is also missing. It’s an easy deduction that my horse could have been taken away in that transporter, towed behind the Range Rover.’
‘That might explain the missing horse, but not the missing staff. That many people couldn’t all have been crammed into a horsebox, especially not if there was a horse already in it. Something else must have happened to them.’
‘Exactly.’ Qabandi nodded. ‘It seems to me that there are only two possibilities. Everybody could have been kidnapped and taken away from here in whatever vehicles the attackers arrived in. It could hardly be for a ransom demand, otherwise there would have been some contact already. And the horses stabled here are far more valuable than the people employed to look after them. That means any reasonably intelligent kidnapper would have taken the horses instead of the staff.’
That thought had not occurred to the inspector. ‘How much are these horses worth?’
Qabandi thought for a few moments. ‘Altogether, I don’t know for sure. Maybe forty to fifty million dollars. Shaf alone is worth over three million, and there are at least another fifteen thoroughbreds stabled here at the moment.’
‘That does suggest other possibilities,’ the inspector agreed, glancing thoughtfully towards the stable block. ‘How many horses should be here?’
‘I’ve no idea, but most of the stalls seem to be occupied, so my guess is they took only Shaf and maybe one or two others. And there’s only one transporter missing, so if they took more than two horses they must also have used a horsebox of their own. The other possibility is that bin Mahmoud and his staff have been taken away somewhere and killed just to eliminate any witnesses. Inspector, I think you should stop treating this as simply a missing-persons case, and start seriously considering the possibility everyone here was murdered.’
None of the station staff remembered seeing the Americans, but it still made sense to Litvinoff that they would have left Volgograd by rail.
It was also most likely that they would have caught a train shortly after leaving the hotel. Litvinoff was certain they’d head south for the nearest Russian border, and that limited their possible destinations. The FSB man quickly came up with a shortlist of three possibilities — Astrakhan, Groznyy and Adler — and he ordered checks on every hotel, restaurant, taxi firm and vehicle-hire company both in and around these three locations.
He also reinforced the watch order he’d issued to the Border Guards, responsible for the physical security of the frontiers of the CIS. Following his interviews with Borisov, his first instruction had been rather vague, simply because the administrator had been too traumatized to provide him with accurate descriptions. Now he knew that the device was no longer in the crate but was probably, he guessed, inside a large suitcase — that was, after all, the concept behind the design of the weapon — the watch order could be much more specific. Both the Border Guards and the police now had the names and photographs of the Americans, so all Litvinoff could do was wait for somebody to provide him with the sighting he needed.
Dawson looked even worse than before. His skin was ashen and he’d vomited several times, though a relay of basins provided by the hotel staff had saved further damage to the carpet.
Wilson had told the manager that Dawson was running a high fever, and that he increasingly feared for his life. His obvious concern had finally produced the result he was hoping for.
‘I’ve made some calls, Mr Johnson,’ the manager said, entering the closed-off lounge — Wilson had refused to let the hotel staff move his colleague. ‘An air ambulance is on its way to the airport at Sochi and should arrive here in about thirty minutes. There’s no medical attendant on board, just the pilot, but that shouldn’t be a problem as you’re a doctor.’
The manager paused, looking almost embarrassed, as if troubled by some new concern.
‘Yes?’ Wilson asked.
‘The ambulance company will require a cash payment in advance, specifically in US dollars, before they will embark your friend.’
‘That’s not a problem. What’s the total cost of the flight?’
‘Three thousand five hundred dollars.’
Wilson nodded agreement. ‘Can you arrange an ambulance to take us to Sochi Airport? Obviously I’ll pay for your time as well as the appropriate fee.’
‘Thank you.’ The manager’s face cleared instantly. ‘Shall we say five hundred dollars in cash for everything? Payment for your room is already covered by your credit card.’
‘That’s fine,’ Wilson said. ‘Please stay here with Mr Hughes while I fetch down our cases.’
Ten minutes later, the manager was back in his office, carefully counting the dollar bills Wilson had just given him. Dawson was lying on a stretcher in the back of an elderly but perfectly serviceable ambulance, with Wilson and a Russian paramedic sitting beside him, as the vehicle headed north out of Adler, headlights on and siren wailing, a police car in front.
The aircraft was already waiting. Because they were flying to a destination within the CIS, there were no passport or customs checks, and the only concern of the airport staff was to get the sick man airborne and on his way to hospital as quickly as they could manage.