“Just sit back and enjoy the ride,” said the woman. “If you’d like a snack or something to drink, just speak up.”

“Thank you very much, but I think I’ll just try to doze off a little,” said Remi. “Dawn is my bedtime.”

As the sun came up, the 1948 Tucker drove on toward it, cruising smoothly, pushed along by its converted aircraft engine. Sam sat in the backseat, quietly marveling at the feeling of having Remi back again, leaning her head against his chest as she slept. Before too long, he would fall asleep too, but not yet. A moment like this was too good to cut short.

Chapter 26

THE RUSSIAN STEPPES

IN THE MORNING, THEY REACHED A SMALL STATION EAST of the Volga, far enough from Nizhny Novgorod so that the stir the Tucker caused was not likely to reach the wrong ears. The tall man in the Hawaiian shirt opened the trunk in the front of the car and showed them two leather suitcases. “They won’t let you get on a train like that. You’d better take some clothes to the restroom and get cleaned up and changed.” He opened the suitcase monogrammed CC, and Sam chose some men’s clothes. The one marked JC contained women’s clothes for Remi. Mr. C. closed the suitcases and the trunk while Sam and Remi went into the station to change. The clothes were long on both of them, but they rolled the pant legs up a bit and came out looking nearly normal in time to see C.C. supervising the loading of his car.

The Tucker was loaded onto a special railroad car used for moving heavy equipment, chained down, and covered with a tarp to protect it from dust and rain, then locked inside and sealed.

The Fargos and the Cs, who had rescued them, waited a few hours in the terminal for a train called Rossiya No. 2, which was the Moscow-to-Vladivostok run. It would take seven days and cover 6,152 miles. Their new friends, the Cs, who seemed knowledgeable about every spot on earth but didn’t mention when they’d traveled there, watched the special railway car added to the train and then helped Sam buy two berths on the first-class sleeper, called a Spliny Wagon, as far as the Russian city of Omsk.

As soon as they were on the train and moving steadily across the Russian steppes, Sam asked C.C. if he could borrow his cell phone. He went into his private sitting room, sat beside Remi, and turned on the speaker. He called the number that the man in the American consulate in Moscow had given him and said, “This is Sam Fargo.”

“One moment, please.”

The operator switched him immediately to another line.

“Hi, Sam. This is Hagar.”

“Hello,” said Sam. “Thanks for taking my call.”

“Where are you?”