Patting the men down produced wallets with local driver’s licenses. Even though I was never a cop in Iran I could tell that the IDs were phony. Even so, the name on the conscious guy’s license was Krystos Gallikos. The other survivor was Constantin Enescu. A Greek and a Romanian. Add in the Russian broad, the Spanish Iñigo, Irish Bob, and whatever the hell Victor and Mihai were and we had a real League of Nations here.

“You speak English?” I asked Krystos.

He stared at me without apparent comprehension.

I simplified things. I put the barrel of his pistol against his forehead, then bent and whispered in his ear. “Don’t fucking move.”

He grasped the subtleties of my request and gave me an enthusiastic nod.

Constantin lay in a fetal ball, apparently unconscious.

Out in the hallway Ghost barked weakly. I shoved the gun into my waistband and hurried out to him. He was a mess, totally entangled in the flexible wire net. It took me a couple of minutes to extricate him, and his panicked flailing did not help. I soothed him and spoke quietly, but Ghost had been pushed past his limits. When he was free he crawled toward me and buried his head on my thighs. He let loose a stream of urine that pooled around him.

I bent and kissed his head and told him that he was a good, brave boy. He gave my face a few nervous licks and his body trembled as badly as if he were in an icebox.

In the enclosed hallway the mingled smells of urine, blood, and garlic made a strange, cloying miasma that was completely unpleasant. It felt like horror and defeat. I tried to coax Ghost to follow me, but he wouldn’t; so I left him where he was for now.

Back in the living room I squatted in front of Krystos. His face was running with greasy sweat.

“I’ll ask this again,” I said, and I was mildly alarmed at how reasonable and calm my voice sounded. Given all that had just happened, this was not necessarily a good thing. “Do you understand English?”

He gave a stubborn shake of his head that allowed me to decide if he was saying no or telling me to go piss off. Behind me I heard a groan and whirled around. It was frigging Iñigo, still alive with two bullets in his chest cavity. Tough son of a bitch. He was crawling like a slug toward a pistol that lay on the floor a yard away. I went over and kicked the pistol under the couch.

Iñigo turned his head and glared up at me with total hatred. I stepped over and straddled his body, staring down at him from my full height. I looked from him to Krystos and back again.

“Who tipped you off about this place?” I asked him.