“Sounds like an excellent job. I’ll give Kaskov a call and tell him to use his influence to smooth out any problems with the Albanians.”

“Couldn’t hurt.” He paused. “So what have you been doing while I’ve been busy saving your asses? Did that note you snagged at Walker’s pay any dividends?”

“It might have.” He handed him the note. “It’s much better crafted than the others; it was probably done last night after I’d agreed to protect Walker. It’s the Volkov mountain sketch, this time in detail. It even indicates a waterfall. He must have been feeling generous because he’d told me that he’d found those old dog tags I gave Sandrino in the brush near there. He probably knew I was going to ask him to take me there.”

Rennell was studying the sketch. “Interior and exterior. He did do a good job. Anything else?”

Tanner shook his head. “We’ve just been going over the other sketches again. Maria’s been comparing the lines and features in the sketches to the possible actual natural geographic features in the areas she found doing research in her computer. She was able to line up quite a few possibilities.”

“Sharp lady.”

“We’re all in agreement there,” Tanner said. “But we’ll still have to do on-the-ground visuals to find out how accurate she was.” He picked up the map sheet. “We can go only so far with this one before we run into areas where Walker indicated practically no features. After I leave the road, it looks like I’ll be on my own.”

“What about the casino?”

“When I get there, it will be pretty much the same. No friendly warnings of booby traps on the horizon.”

“Any word of Volkov showing up yet?”

“Mallory has one of his men monitoring the Gulfstream at the airport to see who comes knocking on their door. He said there was a report of someone asking questions at the rental car desk shortly after we landed. I’ll bet that they’re here in full force now and know we are, too. Which means we’ve got to get moving so they don’t zero in on us.” He tilted his head. “Or maybe make an advance move to stir the pot a little while we’re doing it. That may be a way to take the initiative. I don’t like the idea of the sitting around meekly waiting for an attack.”

“When did you ever do that?” Rennell asked dryly. “You were always raising hell if you couldn’t find any other way to get one of your games started. Sandrino used to laugh about it.”

“But I have to be more careful this time. Maybe just a few phone calls to my casinos in the east will light the bottle rocket. You complained I wasn’t moving fast enough; that should please you.”

“It will please me if you let me go after Volkov.” He added as he turned to go, “I can see you might be on the way now. Go ahead. Just don’t be too subtle.”