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Remi eased the door open another inch, pressed her eye to the gap for a few seconds, then pulled back and whispered, “No cameras that I can see.”
“Let’s go.”
Remi opened the door and they stepped through. The room was circular, with gray-painted walls and navy blue carpet. Pot lights in the ceiling cast pools of light on the floor. Directly ahead of them, at the ten o’clock and two o’clock positions on a clock face, were two card reader doors. They each took a door, Sam left, Remi right, and checked for wires. They found none.
Repeating their earlier swipe/thumb process, they first checked the left-hand door. Inside was a small landing and a set of steps that descended fifteen feet to a burgundy-carpeted corridor lit by soft baseboard lights.
They checked the right-hand door. “It’s a square alcove, about ten by ten feet,” Remi whispered, pulling it open an inch. “Straight ahead is another door—a latch but no lock that I can see. The wall to the right is glass from waist height to the ceiling. On the other side is what looks like a control room—a couple computer workstations and a radio console. There’s another door, behin
d the workstations.”
“Lights?”
“Dark except for the glow of the computer monitors.”
“Cameras?”
She peeked again, this time dropping into a crouch and craning her neck. She pulled back again and nodded. “Only one that I can see—a blinking green light near the ceiling in the right-hand corner.”
“Is it fixed?”
“No, rotating.”
“Good for us, bad for them.”
“How so?”
“In a space that small they should have gone with a fixed camera and a fish-eye lens. No blind spots to hide in. Watch it, count how long it takes to make a complete pan.”
She did so. “Four seconds.”
Sam frowned. “Not a lot of time. You have a preference?”
“No.”
“Let’s go left first.”
They dragged the guard through the door, dropped him on the landing, then descended the steps, hunched over so they could scan the corridor ahead. They saw no blinking green camera lights. They kept going.
After thirty feet the corridor ended at an oaken door bearing a gold plaque embossed in Cyrillic lettering. While neither of them read Russian, the style of the plaque suggested its context: PRIVATE. KEEP OUT. The knob, too, was gold. Sam tried it. Unlocked. He swung it open.
Another circular room, this one thirty feet in diameter and pan eled in polished and center-cut burled walnut. The floor was covered in what looked to be a handwoven Turkish rug.
“That’s a Dosemealti,” Remi whispered.
“Pardon me?”
“The rug. It’s a Dosemealti—they’re woven by Yoruk nomads. Extremely rare and extremely expensive. I read an article about them last month. In every square yard of that thing are almost two hundred thousand hand-stitched knots.”
“Impressive.”
“Yes, but something tells me it’s not the prize of this room.”
“No kidding.”
Spaced every few feet along the curved walls were gleaming glass cases, each containing yet another piece of militaria displayed on a marble pedestal. The room was dark save a single halogen lamp mounted inside each case. Unlike the Sword Room, however, the decor here made it clear this collection was for Bondaruk’s eyes only. Any remaining doubt about this was quashed by the high-backed leather chair sitting in the exact center of the room.
“It has a distinctly thronelike feel, doesn’t it?” Sam asked.
