And then he came. Remi was tapping on the pipe as usual when she became aware that something had changed. She had been in this small space so long that adding another human being changed everything—air, sounds, a new vibration on the floor as he walked in the door.

Remi sprang up instantly, hurried to Sam and threw her arms around him. She held him as tightly as she could for a full ten seconds, tears welling in her eyes. She recognized the familiar contour of his shoulders under the bulky jacket. Then she looked up at him and whispered, “What took you so long—enjoying being single?”

“No. You just forgot to tell me you were leaving.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“Ready to get out of here?”

“Almost,” she whispered. She sat on the bed and put on her shoes. “We’ve got to go that way and down the back stairs to the second floor, which will get us past the family’s floor and the bodyguards. Then we use the main staircase to reach the first floor, so we miss the kitchen, where the night guards go for their breaks.”

“You know that?”

“I made a friend—a girl who works in the kitchen. How did you get into the house?”

“I saw a second-floor window that had been left opened. It turned out to be a hallway. I heard your signal, and from there I went up the back stairs.”

“Dumb luck. That was about the only way that was clear.” She stood. “I’m ready.” She opened the door and walked out, waited for Sam, and locked it behind them.

She led him down the spiraling stairs for two stories, then silently and carefully moved up the hallway to the broad main staircase. She stopped for a moment to listen for the two guards in their room snoring, then moved onto the stairs. The steps were carpeted, so their footsteps were muffled. They descended to the ground floor, where there was a large foyer with a marble floor with a round escutcheon mosaic at the center. As they stepped onto its surface, three men seemed to materialize from a shadowy doorway somewhere beside the stairs.

One man pulled back the charging lever on his Škorpion machine pistol, but the man beside him grasped his shoulder and said something in Russian that made him lower the weapon. Sam said to Remi, “They need us alive, to turn over the treasure.”

“Do you promise?”

The three rushed toward Sam and Remi, who separated and dodged them. Sam faked to the side and redirected the first man’s momentum into the staircase railing, then gave the second a glancing punch along the side of the head as he went by.