“OK, a crop duster from Kansas doesn’t need to file a flight plan and it certainly can’t fly intercontinental. So it’s bogus. It’s something I’ve seen before. It’s what they do when one of the Air Force Ones is prepping to fly.”

“What do you mean, one of? There’s only one Air Force One.”

“No, there are three. Whichever, if the president is on board, that’s called Air Force One. Otherwise it’s just a government plane.”

“So what are you saying?”

“Either the president or some big-shot cabinet member is going to Kashmir. Soon. And that’s where the bad guy is.”

The laptop screen died.

The helicopter came low over an outer Moscow suburb and banked and turned toward an airfield a mile away to the east. Not Domodedovo. A private field. Maybe once military and now civilian. Or shared. But it was a big place. Runways and taxiways were laid out in a huge triangle. There were enormous hangars and long low buildings. There were parked planes of every size. Small Gulfstreams and Lears and Grummans, big Airbuses and Boeings. Nothing less than twenty million dollars. The biggest was a wide-body Boeing 777. Two hundred feet long, two hundred feet from wingtip to wingtip, probably two hundred million to buy. Chernayev’s, Middleton thought. It was a definitive Russian-rich-guy statement, and the helicopter was heading straight for it.

The transfer was fast. Chernayev and Middleton ducked low under the beating rotor and ran bent over to a set of steps set on a pick-up platform. They hustled up and entered through the Boeing’s forward door and stepped into a space that reminded Middleton of the house off Pyatnitskaya Street, where he had met Korovin, which in turn had reminded him of Boodle’s Club in London. There was oak paneling everywhere and dark patterned carpet and oil paintings and heavy leather furniture and the smell of Cuban cigars.

“Business must be good,” he said.

Chernayev said, “I can’t complain.”

The door sucked shut behind them and the world went quiet, except for the hiss of air and the whir and tick of the spooling engines. The cabin PA was relaying the cockpit chatter, every statement made first in Russian and then again in English, world aviation’s default language. Clearance for takeoff was immediate. Middleton guessed that no one ever kept Chernayev waiting. The engine noise got louder and the plane started to taxi. No delay. It turned onto the runway and didn’t even pause. It just accelerated hard and bucked and strained and then took off, carrying two men in a space fit for three hundred.

Chernayev said, “Enjoy the flight, Harry.”