‘What did you expect, flowers?’ Cooper joked. ‘Just remember, revenge is part of the Russian national psyche.’
‘I get the picture.’
‘Stop,’ Leskov ordered.
Leskov straightened up and motioned for the doorman to frisk Cooper and Kilkenny. The man patted down Cooper thoroughly, showing no reluctance to investigate even the apex of Cooper’s inseam in search of weapons or microphones.
‘Search his bag,’ Leskov ordered when the doorman approached Kilkenny. ‘I’ll search this one myself.’
Kilkenny handed his briefcase to the doorman. Leskov began searching Kilkenny as if he were probing for a physical weakness rather than a weapon. Kilkenny sensed he was being appraised as both an opponent and a target, knowing it was an effort to intimidate him. Leskov finished with his front and moved behind.
‘I enjoyed doing this to your woman,’ Leskov sneered, baiting Kilkenny.
Kilkenny slowly turned his head and looked over his left shoulder at Leskov, who smiled, amused by his taunt.
‘Not half as much as you seem to be enjoying doing it to me.’
Leskov’s smile vanished.
Kilkenny pursed his lips and made the sound of a kiss.
‘Yop t’voi yo mat!’ Leskov spat, his face flushing to deep red.
Leskov wound his right arm back, curling his hand into a fist. Pivoting on his left foot, Kilkenny turned his body ninety degrees to Leskov. As he spun, Kilkenny raised his left arm, blocking the incoming punch, and then wrapped his arm around Leskov’s. Kilkenny snapped his arm like a whip, locking Leskov’s elbow as he ground the knuckles of his fist into the soft flesh of the man’s armpit. Leskov’s arm went numb and was effectively immobilized, leaving his chest and abdomen open to attack.
Kilkenny snapped a quick punch into Leskov’s solar plexus, knocking the wind out of him. Out of the corner of his eye, Kilkenny saw the oversize doorman drop the briefcase and begin moving to Leskov’s aid. With a quick lunge, Kilkenny reached up and grabbed Leskov’s throat, the tips of his fingers pressing deep into the flesh around the man’s windpipe.
‘Tell that trained grizzly of yours to back off, or I’m going to rip your fucking throat out!’
Kilkenny’s fingers constricted just enough to let them both know this was no idle threat. Cooper hastily translated Kilkenny’s demand for both Leskov and the doorman, hoping the situation wouldn’t escalate further.
Leskov nodded and held up his hand; the mountain-sized man backed away.
‘Dmitri,’ a voice called out sternly from the doorway at the far end of the lobby. It was Victor Orlov. ‘What is going on here?’
‘I believe it’s a cultural misunderstanding,’ Kilkenny quipped, his eyes fixed on Leskov. ‘But Leskov and I have worked out our differences, haven’t we?’
Leskov stared straight back into Kilkenny’s eyes, unwilling to give an inch. Had the choice been his, he would finish Kilkenny now or die trying.
‘Da,’ his voice croaked hoarsely.
Kilkenny loosened his grip on Leskov’s arm and throat, then backed away with his hands held up at chest level. Leskov retreated as well, with one hand massaging his throat.
‘Did they have anything on them?’ Orlov asked.
‘Nyet,’ Leskov replied, his voice coming back. ‘They’re clean.’
‘Very well, Mr Cooper, Mr Kilkenny, if you’ll follow me, we can get down to business.’
Kilkenny picked up his briefcase from where the doorman had dropped it — checking to see that the laptop computer inside was still in one piece — then slung it over his shoulder and followed Cooper. Leskov trailed a few steps behind, nursing wounds to both his body and his pride.
‘What the hell do you think you were doing back there?’ Cooper whispered harshly. ‘Recon, Bart.’
Orlov led them down a wide hallway that still held a faint aroma of fresh paint and new carpet. Orlov led the group into his office suite, and Leskov closed the large, paneled wooden door behind them and took up station beside it.
‘Gentlemen, before we begin,’ Orlov said, assuming the role of gracious host, ‘I would like to introduce Oksanna Zoshchenko, my scientific adviser.’
‘Good evening, gentlemen,’ Zoshchenko said with cool, professional detachment.
‘Please, sit down.’ Orlov gestured to a broad sofa.
They sat on the sofa with their backs to Leskov. Orlov and Zoshchenko seated themselves in a pair of upholstered chairs from the era of Louis XV.
Cooper coughed lightly to clear his throat. ‘Our presence here is a sign of our good faith. Now it’s time for a similar show from you.’
Orlov nodded and pulled a thin notebook from the inside breast pocket of his suit coat. He quickly thumbed through the pages until he found what he was looking for, then dialed a number into the speakerphone that sat on the hand-carved table beside him.
The sound of a distant phone purred from the speaker; after two rings it was answered.
‘Yes?’ a deep voice asked.
‘This is Orlov. Put the women on.’
There was silence for a moment, then Kelsey Newton came on the line.
‘Hello? Nolan?’
‘I’m here, Kelsey. How are you and Elli?’
‘We’re okay. They haven’t harmed us.’
‘That’s great. Hang in there, Kelsey, this will soon be over. Can you put Elli on?’
‘Sure.’
‘Hello, Nolan,’ Elli called out.
‘Hi, Elli. It’s good to hear your voice. I just wanted to make sure you were all right.’
‘Other than it’s too hot and humid, I’m fine.’
‘Great, I’ll see you both very soon.’
‘Satisfied?’ Orlov asked.
‘What about their release?’ Cooper asked.
‘Once I’m satisfied that you can decode the notebooks, the women will be released.’
‘Nolan, show the man.’
Kilkenny pulled his laptop out of the briefcase and set it on the polished oval top of the coffee table in front of him. The machine booted up quickly.
‘I’m going to show you the algorithm that Wolff created to encode his research,’ Kilkenny announced. ‘He recorded it on the endpapers of each notebook.’
Kilkenny brought up a text file that displayed a complex mathematical formula, then turned the laptop to face Orlov and Zoshchenko. Both looked puzzled by what they saw.
‘In case you’re wondering, it’s an algorithm designed to run on a quantum computer.’
‘There’s no such thing,’ Zoshchenko said skeptically.
‘No, not yet there isn’t. Wolff’s math is valid, though difficult to replicate in conventional terms. When he encoded his notebooks, he used this algorithm and did the work in his head. I’ve rewritten the algorithm to run on a conventional computer.’
Orlov scowled, looking for some deception in what he plainly didn’t understand.
‘What about the key?’ Orlov asked. ‘Where is the ring?’
‘It’s safely waiting for its owner. You don’t need the ring anyway, only the inscription’ — Kilkenny opened a text file and showed them Wolff’s key — ‘which I’ve built into the decoding program.’
‘Cooper said you decoded some of the notebooks.’
‘Yes, I did,’ Kilkenny replied.
‘Show me.’
Kilkenny pulled six file folders from his briefcase and handed them to Orlov. ‘Here’s a few pages from the first notebook. Each folder contains a facsimile of the original notebook page, followed by our decoded version of the text.’
Orlov opened the first folder and saw a laser-printed version of a page from Wolff’s notebooks. Turning the page, he discovered Kilkenny’s plain-text version of Wolff’s research.
‘It’s in German?’ Orlov asked.
‘Wolff’s native tongue. We haven’t had time to translate very much of it, just enough to know that it’s not gibberish.’