When he turned toward Rebecca, Ridgeway froze at the sight of the woman’s throat or rather what was left of it Automatic weapons fire had replaced skin with a gaping red hole.

Rebecca Weinstock’s face wore a puzzled expression. Her lips moved, but no words came from them, just a raspy liquid sound. Almost nonchalantiy she closed her eyes and pitched forward onto the dock.

Then shouts: “There! Next to the woman.” A volley of gunfire followed the shouts. Ridgeway looked over just in time to see a line of slugs cratering their way along the dock toward him. Reflexively he dived into the dark cold waters of the harbor.

FIVE

Zoe sat on the edge of the sagging metal bed and screwed plugs of toilet paper into her ears. Beneath her, the rusty bedsprings screeched in concert with the metal grid that supported her thin lumpy mattress. Their protests were lost beneath the rattling of the ventilator fan welded into the metal door. Across the room from her, an obsolete PC sat on a scarred metal desk, its fan wheezing like an old hair dryer. The monitor made erratic arcing sounds in the saturated dampness that reeked of mold and spilled industrial fluids. In the corner, an electric heater hummed and buzzed against the damp winter chill with little effect. Zoe wore a heavy ski sweater with a snowflake design, wool twill pants with panty hose underneath, and two pairs of thick wool socks.

Moments later, the sound ricocheting off the bare concrete walls began to fade as the toilet paper plugs, moistened with hand lotion, began to swell.

The noise receded. Zoe allowed herself a small satisfied smile. Yet another improvisation had allowed her to prevail in a situation she once thought she’d never survive. She thought of her father, the welder, mechanic, and gifted would-be sculptor who had taught her how to use all his tools despite her mother’s insistence that tools weren’t for girls. Zoe shook her head slowly and gave her own hands a faint frown.

Then, as she did every night before her dinner arrived, Zoe closed her eyes and tried to remember. The days had become weeks had become months. She remembered in vivid detail all but the early days when the Russians came from Moscow with their bag full of drugs.

They had ransacked her mind in search of the painting, using drugs that had left her memory scattered like pages spilled from a file. Every night she focused on recovering another page, placing it back in its rightful order.

The first hypodermic had brought her unwanted sleep as she waited for the elevator at the Eden an Lac. In the swift dimness that followed, she felt hands supporting her, and voices, some Russian, most German.

“Let’s get the professor while we’re here,” said a German voice. Zoe tried to scream, but the nightmare had taken away her voice.

“No,” said another German speaker, this one with authority. “He’s excess baggage right now; two bodies means twice as many headaches. If the woman tells us he knows something, we can always pick him up later.”