“We’ll put you up at the Hilton Moscow Leningradskaya Hotel. It’s a building Stalin put up near the Kremlin in 1954 and it’s big, with a lot of clear space around it. While you’re going there to check in, we’ll see who follows. That probably won’t be what pays off, but something will.”

“I’m sure it will,” said Sam. He got up and shook Hagar’s hand. “Thank you.”

“There will be cabs outside. Take the first one that pulls up. I wish we could have met under happier circumstances. Rube Hayward was right. He said you’d be coolheaded and not afraid of anything.”

“I appreciate Rube’s compliment, but he’s wrong,” he said. “These people have found what I’m most afraid of on the first try.”

Sam went out the front door of the consulate and saw a line of cabs. He stepped to the curb and the first one pulled up. Sam said, “Hilton Leningradskaya Hotel?”

The driver said, “Da, da,” and gestured for Sam to get inside. The driver seemed a bit impatient, as though he had other appointments to occupy him.

Sam got in and the man pulled out into traffic. Sam had to keep himself from looking behind him out the rear window to try to spot the tail the kidnappers would have on him and the American surveillance team trying to identify the tail. He had been awake all night and all of the following day. Now the exhaustion was beginning to slow his brain and made it hard for him to focus on the challenges he needed to see coming.

As he rode through the city streets, the evening sunshine seared his eyes and reminded him that Moscow was much farther north than the major cities of the United States and the sun would stay out longer. He might be able to use the time.

The driver pulled up in front of the tall-towered hotel. “Six hundred rubles.” Sam knew that was about twenty dollars. He shuffled through the rubles he’d bought at the airport and handed him seven hundred as he took the carry-on luggage he and Remi had brought and got out. The cabdriver accepted his money and handed him a small wrapped package.

“What’s this?”

“Take it,” the driver said.

Sam accepted it, then turned to look behind them up the road. If any car was following, he couldn’t spot it, and he knew that knowing wouldn’t help anyway. He heard the cabdriver hit the accelerator and he turned again to get the license number. He stared at the rear plate, but it was caked with dirt. After a second, he realized the dirt was probably spray paint or a mixture of rubber cement and dust applied an hour ago.