Borya had betrayed her, run to Moscow and abandoned her with this puny gun. Arkady removed the rounds from the breech and clip and tossed the empty pistol in her lap. “I love you, too,” he said.

At an airport souvenir shop, Arkady bought a beer tray and a cotton shawl embroidered with the rats of Hamelin. In a bathroom stall, he covered the painting with the shawl, wrapped the tray in bubble plastic, put it in Rita’s canvas bag, and then rejoined Peter and Irina in a corner of the transit lounge.

Arkady said, “Think of all the paintings and manuscripts confiscated from artists and writers and poets for seventy years, hidden away by the Ministry of the Interior and the KGB. Nothing is thrown away. Poets may get a bullet in the back of the head, but the poem is stuffed in a box and buried in a cellar. Then, at a magical moment, when Russia joins the rest of the world, all that evidence becomes valuable assets.”

“But they can’t sell it,” Irina said. “Art more than fifty years old cannot legally be taken from the Soviet Union.”

“But it can be smuggled out,” Peter suggested.

Arkady said, “Bribes will do. Armored tanks, railroad trains and crude oil have been moved across the border. To bring a painting out is relatively easy.”

“Even so,” Irina said, “the sale isn’t valid if Russian law is broken. Collectors and museums don’t like to be involved in international disputes. Rita couldn’t sell ‘Red Square’ if it came from Russia.”

Peter said, “Maybe it’s a fake from Germany. There were fantastic forgers in East Berlin, all out of work now. Has this painting really been examined?”

Irina said, “Completely. It’s been dated, X-rayed and analyzed. It even has Malevich’s thumbprint.”

“All of that can be faked,” Peter said.

“Yes,” Irina admitted, “but it’s a curious thing about fakes. They can be the best forgeries on earth, with the correct wood, paints and technique, but they don’t look right.”

Peter said, “This is becoming spiritual.”

Irina said, “It’s like knowing people. After a while you learn the fake from the real. A painting is an artist’s idea, and ideas can’t be forged.”

“How valuable did you say the painting is?” Peter asked.

“Perhaps five million dollars. That’s not much here,” Arkady said, “but in Russia it’s five hundred million rubles.”

“Unless it’s fake,” Peter pointed out.

Arkady said, “ ‘Red Square’ is real and it’s from Russia.”

“But they found it in a Knauer crate,” Irina said.

Arkady said, “The crate is fake.”

“The crate?” Peter sat up. Arkady could see him mentally rearranging. “I hadn’t thought from that direction before.”

Arkady said, “Remember, Benz wasn’t interested in the art your grandfather stole. He had his own. He was interested in the crates your grandfather built—with Knauer carpenters, if you remember.”