The lead guard turned, gave him a right-left-right combination to the stomach. Wells doubled over, stared at the narrow tiles at his feet. He caught his breath, tried to straighten. But the second guard grabbed his cuffed hands, pulled them up and back, driving Wells’s head down toward the floor. Over the years, his shoulders had been dislocated more times than he could remember. They loosened in their sockets. The pain arced like a firework about to burst. But just before they popped out, the cuffs came off. His hands were free. Wells needed a moment to realize that the guard had unlocked him.
Wells didn’t question why. Instinct took over. He straightened up, trying to spin around, get in a quick right hook. Before he even got his arm all the way up, the first guard kicked out his legs, sending him sprawling. The fall didn’t hurt much, but it was humiliating. As he pushed himself up to go after them, they walked out of the room, locked the door. Perfect choreography. Wells wondered how many times they had pulled this routine.
“Remove your clothes,” a man said, a voice so empty it might have been computer-generated.
“I don’t even know why I’m here.”
“Five seconds.”
“Let me call my embassy. Please. Spasibo.” The pose of confused tourist was a weak play, but he didn’t see other options.
The room went dark. And then water drummed his head, soaked his clothes. It was frigid at first. Wells moved to a corner, but the room had been designed so that the showerheads covered it. The water warmed to lukewarm. Then comfortable. Wells didn’t need an engineering degree to figure that in a couple of minutes it would be scalding.
He pulled off his shirt, stepped out of his jeans. A psychological ploy to make him follow their orders without violence, show him that they were in complete control. And a good one. He doubted they would boil him to death in here if he refused to comply. But he couldn’t take the chance.
As he finished undressing, the water again went frigid. He closed his eyes, saw Afghanistan. For months on end he had bathed only in the bone-chilling streams that flowed down the sides of the Kush. The memory relaxed him, and maybe his captors saw that the cold wasn’t bothering him, because the water stopped quickly and the lights came up.
Wells forced himself to remember that the FSB had no reason to keep him for long. Moscow was two hours ahead of Frankfurt, eight ahead of the East Coast. At this moment, Duto and Shafer thought they were doing Wells a favor by letting him get a good night’s sleep in Germany. But when they realized he hadn’t reached Frankfurt, they would call Moscow. Duto still had FSB connections. Wells would spend no more than a day here. Two at most.
He hoped.
The two big guys stepped into the shower. With his hands free, Wells considered taking a pop. But clothes — and shoes — offered a huge advantage in close quarters combat. A boot strike would break his unprotected feet. Other body parts were even more vulnerable.
He let them cuff him.
They led him to an unmarked room at the other end of the hall. The woman waited inside, sitting behind a big and heavily scarred oak desk that looked strangely out of place in here. A relic dating back to the KGB, maybe even the Cheka. There were no other chairs. Wells had no choice but to stand naked in front of her. Water puddled at his feet. Goose pimples covered his arms and legs. He forced himself to stand straight, make no effort to hide himself. Let her look. Her smirk widened. She barked a command and the guards turned him around as slowly as a pig on a spit.
“Let me go,” Wells said.
“Shut up.” Her English was perfect, her tone as dismissive as a Valley Girl’s. He wondered if she’d spent time in California. “You must know we have a hundred ways to hurt you in this place, no marks. You leave, complain, no one cares. A crazy American telling lies about Russia. What do you think we were doing when we had you at the airport? We checked with Moscow station, they say you’re not one of them. Not listed. Not NOC.”
The letters stood for non-official cover. Most CIA case officers operated under diplomatic cover. They worked out of embassies and had immunity from arrest and prosecution. Only a few worked without that protection. Even they usually could count on their stations for help when they got in serious trouble. The FSB had its own operatives under non-official cover in the United States, so both sides tried to keep from playing too rough.
“NOC?” Wells said. “What’s that?”
She barked in Russian, and the guard to Wells’s right rabbit-punched him in the kidney. The pain spread up, slow-cooking his viscera and ribs. Wells forced himself to stay steady.
“Next time, I tell him to kick you in those big balls of yours.”
Wells nodded. He wasn’t sure he could speak. These guys did maximum damage with minimum effort.
“You play games with me, this takes until morning. I don’t want that. I want to get home, turn on the television, go to sleep. And you, I see even from the way you took that last punch, you’re a professional. Please, treat me with respect.”
She stared at him with her lumpy black eyes, almost daring him to argue. But she’d made her point. His best bet was to answer her questions as honestly as possible.
“Da.”
“Good.” She fetched the suitcase that Boris had given him from under her desk, pulled his passports. “Which is real?”
“Both real, both USG issued.”
“Is either your real name?”
“Wells.”
She flipped through it. “John Wells. Where were you born?”
“What it says. Hamilton, Montana.”
“But you use the other also. In the name Roger Bishop.”
“Yes.”
“Are these your only passports?”
“The only ones I’ve used recently.”
“Good.”
Wells didn’t know if she was complimenting him for his honesty or herself for having found such a valuable prisoner. She reached into the desk for a pen and a tiny notebook, scratched out a note. “You come to Russia when?”
“Two days ago.”
“Where did you arrive?”
“Here. On my way to Volgograd.”
“Why?”
“To meet Mikhail Buvchenko.”
Another quick note.
“From where?”
“Saudi Arabia via Istanbul.” No reason to lie. She wouldn’t even need to check flight manifests. The passport stamps told the tale.
“Saudi Arabia. You are Muslim?”
“I am.”
“This is very unusual. A white American becomes Muslim.”
He didn’t answer. She made another note. Wells wondered if she’d press him, but instead she said only, “Fine. Volgograd. You met Buvchenko?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Overnight. His men brought me directly from my hotel. We had dinner, and then he asked me to stay at his house.” Wells left out the tale of Peter the horse. “He didn’t give me much choice, so I stayed. Then, yesterday morning, he brought me back to Volgograd.”
“Where the police come to your room.” Showing him she knew everything that had happened, he shouldn’t bother to lie.
“They said I was carrying drugs.”
“Were you?”
“No. I don’t know why they had that idea. They searched the hotel and didn’t find any.”
He wondered if she’d ask about Salome, but she didn’t.
“Then they put you on a plane to Moscow.”
“The lead detective, Boris, he told me I needed to leave Russia. I didn’t argue.”
“You have much misfortune on this trip. People accusing you of drugs for no reason. The FSB comes for you.”
“I’ve had better weeks.”
She stood up, leaned across the desk, eyed him tip to toe. Wells couldn’t help thinking of the witch in the gingerbread house. Good enough to eat, my dearies. “So why all this travel? You are businessman? You do oil?”