WE HAD BEEN JUST FUMBLING our way forward. Now something had happened. Not as a result of anything we had done. Fate had taken a hand, rang some changes, and cleared the way. Perhaps at the meeting at the heliport on Wednesday. The Voloshin family’s date of departure was unchanged. But Grigor’s destination had changed. He would be going to Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan, instead of Moscow. Little Leo would go with him. Kaylee could, too. Or she could go to Moscow. Or even to Wherever, the capital of Do What You Want.

Kaylee had no idea why. Therefore, Allison and I didn’t either. It could have been politics. It could have been money. It could have been natural gas. It could have been that God wanted a new girl with that Central Asian feeling.

Whatever the reason, there were security needs. Yvetta and Pavel had gone ahead to prepare. Only Lev and Tomas remained.

There was one day left. Friday. Tomorrow.

I alerted Elizabeth. She did her part. Quickly and efficiently. A helicopter was on standby. A private jet would be waiting in Innsbruck. I didn’t have a list Kaylee’s favorite foods or Leo’s favorite toys. Elizabeth was upset. I told her that for the price she’d be paying to rent the plane, they should be able to improvise, just tell them it was for a young, beautiful, rich woman. Everyone knows what they eat, high cost/low calories. Three-year-old boys, even adorable, blond, blue-eyed ones, are pretty generic. Tell them you want a flight attendant with a graduate degree in early childhood education. I was willing to bet the private jet company had one. Or two.

It was crazy. It was high risk. With luck, escape might be possible.

—

The dinner was surprisingly pleasant.

It had a Russian theme. There was borscht, blini, caviar, smetana—sour cream—on the side, a salad with pickled vegetables, veal Orlov, and Borodinsky bread. There were Georgian wines, medovukha—something like mead—and vodka to drink. Cliché Russia, but why not? If it had been reversed, an American host would likely serve up cheeseburgers, fries, apple pie, cola, and bourbon. We ate, we drank, we talked about skiing, about Russia and America without being political or even mentioning the names of our gallant leaders.

The two remaining bodyguards, Lev and Tomas, didn’t eat with us, but they were around. I didn’t ask, but I guessed that Kaylee had been following Allison’s instructions, because Lev was now so blatantly besotted that I feared Grigor would spot it, would care, and have him shot. Or whatever they did to a bodyguard who slavered over his master’s wife in Russia.