They left the somber confines of the Romanov shrine and returned to the staircase they had climbed from the submarine pen. They went up another level and found themselves in a barracks similar to the one below. Whereas the lower dormitory was neat, here blankets were bunched on the dirty mattresses as if thrown there in a hurry. Cigarette butts and plastic cups littered the floor. There was the stale smell of sweat and rotting food.

“Phew!” Zavala said.

Austin wrinkled his nose. “Look on the bright side; we won't need bloodhounds to pick up the trail.”

They followed a wide corridor that slanted upward like the ramp in an underground parking garage. After a few minutes, fresh air blew against their faces, replacing the foul odor emanating from the barracks. Natural light coming from a bend in the passageway began to fill in the spaces between the puddles of illumination from overhead bulbs spaced in the ceiling.

The passageway ended in a steel door that had been left ajar. A short ramp led to the interior of what appeared to be a warehouse or garage. The concrete floor was stained with oil and spotted with the droppings of small animals. Austin picked an old, yellowed copy of Pravda out of a pile of rubbish. The beetle-browed face of Leonid Brezhnev glowered from the front page.

Austin tossed the newspaper aside and went over to a window. Not a shard of glass remained in the metal frame, giving him an unimpeded view of several nearby steel structures. The warehouse was part of the complex of abandoned buildings Austin had first seen from the air. The corrugated exteriors were streaked with rust, and the seams on the walls and roofs had buckled with age. Concrete walks linking the complex were overgrown with tall grass.

Zavala caught Austin's attention with a sharp whistle. He was looking out from the opposite side of the warehouse.

Working his way around the rubbish, Austin crossed over and peered through the window. The warehouse sat on a rise overlooking a large weed-grown field that was roughly rectangular in shape and depressed a few feet, like a giant soap dish. The rusty framework of a soccer goal jutted from the grass at one end. Austin guessed that the area had once been an athletic field used for R&R by visiting submarine crews.

Now, horsemen were strung out along the perimeter of the field on three sides. Only the side nearest the warehouse and the other buildings was open. Austin recognized the gray tunics and black pants worn by the gang of Cossacks that had shot him out of the sky. There were at least three times as many riders, now all facing into the field.

“You never told me this was a polo club,” Zavala said, in a bad imitation of a British accent.