“Shit! Enough!” Vostov stood up, snapped his towel off its hook, and wrapped it around his waist. Then he opened the door a crack and reached an arm out, steam curling around his fleshy elbows. “Hand it to me, will you?”

The attendant passed the phone to him and backed away. Pushing the door shut, Vostov fingered a button on the keypad to accept an incoming call.

“Yes?” he said, lifting the phone to his ear.

“Ah, Yuri. I sincerely hope I’m not disturbing you.”

Vostov recognized Teng Chou’s voice and frowned again.

“You are,” he said.

“Forgive me, then. But I had been trying to reach you at your office for some time.”

Vostov glanced over at Nadia and Svieta, who had taken places on the bench and were speaking to each other in whispers punctuated by low giggles. Was there something funny here that he was missing?

“Never mind,” he said, growing more sharply annoyed. “What is it?”

“I’ve had trouble getting calls through to a certain party of our mutual acquaintance. Indeed, I’m sure that I transferred some of my impatience with him onto you.”

“I told you to forget it,” Vostov said. “Why get me involved, anyway?”

“My friend,” Teng said in a mild tone, enunciating his words carefully in Russian, “you are already quite deeply involved.”

Vostov blanched.

“You know what I mean. I’m not some permanent go-between between the two of you.”

“Of course not. But you did broker the deal.” Teng paused. “Probably the deficient line of communication, shall we say, means nothing. These are hectic days for us all. Still, my backers need some reassurance that they will receive full satisfaction. That matters will proceed as had been discussed.”

Vostov turned away from the two women and dropped his voice a notch.

“Look, I don’t give a damn about them,” he said. “Regardless of what you’re trying to imply, my part in this is done. You want me to call our friend, see what’s going on with him, I’ll do it. But as a favor, not an obligation, you understand?”

Teng paused.

“Yes,” he said finally, his tone still soft. “Although you should remember the search for truth can be steered back on course as easily as it was diverted.”

Vostov’s gut pulled in. These Asians made him edgy with their elliptical ways. “Meaning what, exactly?”

“You need to reexamine your interests, my friend. It would be unfortunate if they suddenly came into collision with my own. The backers you so casually dismiss have a long reach, and an even longer memory for holding grudges.”

Vostov felt his stomach tighten a little more. There was a sharp burning sensation in the center of it. Damn, he thought. His ulcers hadn’t acted up like this for ages.

He tossed a glance over his shoulder at Svieta and Nadia. They were still whispering and tittering and seemed to be paying him no attention.