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  Caldwell paused again, staring out the diner’s window. Greg waited.

  Caldwell turned back to Greg and smiled. “It was quite something to be in the field in those days. Suddenly, any number of spies wanted to come in from the cold. Not so much defection as desertion, as the great communist ship of state capsized. Suddenly, we had more potential assets than we knew what to do with, all of them willing to trade what they knew for whatever they could get. Needless to say, quite a few of those assets were residents of Nevada.”

  Greg nodded. “That makes sense.”

  “But like I said—ancient history. Even spies retire.” He chuckled. “These days, all those ex-Soviets probably spend their days in trailer parks outside Reno, or playing the slots in Caesars.”

  “Or maybe Circus Circus?”

  Caldwell met Greg’s eyes. “Sure,” he said softly. “But these guys, they’re all old now. In their seventies, the ones who are still alive. Even getting out of bed in the morning is probably a circus act for most of them.”

  “I guess so. The idea that one of these ‘assets’ could be posing as a strongman is ridiculous.”

  “Ridiculous,” Caldwell agreed. “I don’t know how the DNA you found wound up where you found it, but it clearly couldn’t be what it appears to be.”

  “Yeah,” said Greg glumly. “That seems to be a pretty good description of this entire case.”

  Caldwell got to his feet, pulled out a five, and tossed it on the table. “Sorry I couldn’t be of more help. If it’s any consolation, remember one thing: in this business, almost nothing is what it appears to be.”

  After Caldwell left, Greg stared down at his cold burger. “Almost nothing,” he said. “Almost nothing. . .”

  * * *

  Catherine and Ray stood beneath the famous “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign at 5100 Las Vegas Boulevard South. A small parking lot was off to one side, with enough spots for a dozen cars and two buses. A limousine currently occupied one of the bus spots, loud music pulsing from behind its tinted windows.

  “Well, she’s not here,” said Ray. “There’s no place to hide.” They’d even checked inside the sign itself, to no avail.

  “Maybe we’re at the wrong sign,” said Catherine. “This is the original, but there are two others: the ‘Welcome to Fabulous Downtown Las Vegas’ is technically more accurate—it’s also on Las Vegas Boulevard but at the actual city limits.”

  “Oh?” said Ray. “You mean we’re not in Vegas right now?”

  “Nope. Vegas is largely a state of mind, Professor; the only reason this sign is here is to mark the southern edge of the Strip, which is a completely artificial zone with no official boundaries. Believe it or not, most of Vegas isn’t in Vegas.”

  “Then where is it?”

  Catherine gave him a wry smile. “Paradise.”

  “I don’t think I follow.”

  “That’s the name of the unincorporated township the Strip is located in. Paradise.”

  “I wonder if our two runaways knew that.”

  “Does it matter?” Catherine shook her head. “Like I said—paradise or hell, Vegas is largely a state of mind.”

  “You mentioned a third sign?”

  “Yeah, there’s also one on the Boulder Highway, near Harmon. It’s not at any official boundary, either—it’s just there to direct tourists off the road. About as historic as an off-ramp sign.”

  “Think we’ll have any luck?”

  “I doubt it. If she isn’t at the original, I think we made a wrong turn somehow. But maybe I’m wrong.”

  “Let’s hope so.”

  They walked back to their Denali and got in. The sunroof of the limo slid open and a woman wearing sunglasses and a black push-up bra popped up, a bottle of champagne in one hand. “I love Las Vegas!” she yelled.

  “And she loves you,” muttered Catherine as she started the car. “Just don’t expect roses the next day. . .”

  Catherine and Ray had no luck at either the downtown Vegas sign or the one on the Boulder Highway.

  Catherine leaned back in the driver’s seat of the Denali and tapped her fingers on the steering wheel in frustration. “Another dead end. At this rate, she really will be a corpse by the time we find her.”

  Ray, sitting beside her, studied the sketch John Bannister—or part of him, anyway—had made. “Perhaps we’re being too literal,” he said. “Or not literal enough. What was it that clerk told you? That John and Theria were going to ‘follow the signs’?”

  “That’s what she said. But we’ve been to all three signs without any luck.”

  “Yes, but we didn’t actually ‘follow’ them. That implies some sort of direction being given—the Las Vegas signs are simply a greeting.”

  “I’d be happy to follow any and all directions at this point. Too bad we don’t have any.”

  Ray squinted at the drawing. “Catherine, I need your opinion. The longer I stare at this drawing, the more my evaluation of it changes. At first I thought it was somewhat crude, probably the result of loss of fine motor control—but now I see the simple elegance of Chinese brushstrokes, almost like calligraphy. I don’t think the roughness of the style is an accident. See where these lines don’t quite match up? I think this is supposed to be a rendering of a sign in decay, one that’s falling apart. Not unlike John Bannister himself.”

  Catherine took the picture from him and studied it herself. “But the Vegas signs aren’t decaying—the original was recently declared a national landmark. The chamber of commerce makes sure it stays in perfect condition.” She paused. “Well, except for the time the company that actually owns the sign forgot to pay their bill and the electric company shut it off for a month.”

  Ray frowned. “Truly?”

  “For sure. If there’s one thing Vegas can’t stand, it’s a deadbeat.”

  Ray paused. “It could be that the drawing of the sign is a symbol, that it isn’t supposed to represent the sign itself. What might be literally true, though, is the remark overheard by that clerk—because there’s another, quite different way to follow a sign.”

  Catherine nodded. “When that sign is moving.”

  “Exactly. Perhaps we need to look for some sort of marker on a vehicle—”

  Catherine leaned down and started the Denali. “No. You were on the right track with the metaphor angle, Professor, but you didn’t take it far enough.” She pulled into traffic with a squeal of protesting tires; Ray fumbled for his seatbelt.

  “We’re all on a journey,” said Catherine as she accelerated. “From cradle to grave, right? In the eyes of John Bannister and Theria Kostapolis, they’re almost at the end of the road—a road that leads everyone and everything to the same place.”

  “Oblivion?”

  “For people, yes. For something more physical—like a large neon sign—it’s more like obsolescence.”

  “Where are we headed, Catherine?”

  “We’re following the signs, Professor,” said Catherine as she snapped across two lanes. “All the way to the graveyard.”

  26

  GREG FOUND NICK AND SARA in the break room and told them about his visit from Caldwell. “He didn’t tell me who his ‘asset’ was,” said Greg, “but if the guy is Russian and in his seventies, that pretty much narrows the field.”

  “Nazar Masterkov,” said Nick. “The owner of the Bruin Rescue Ranch.”

  “You know,” said Sara, staring first at Nick and then at Greg, “I think I get it. If Nazar Masterkov is an ex-Soviet spy, then there’s a clear link between him and our vic. Grigori Dyalov was ex-KGB.”

  “And now he’s just ex,” said Greg. “From what Caldwell told me, a lot of people spying for the Russians during the Cold War were pressured to do so, often through blackmail. Maybe Masterkov was one of those guys.”

  “If so,” said Nick, “he must have had a handler. Someone he passed information to, someone who kept him in line.”

  “Somebody in the KGB?” said Sara.

&
nbsp; “Sure,” said Greg. “Until the Wall came down and suddenly everyone was a free agent. Dyalov used his skills and contacts to sign up with the Red Mafiya, while Masterkov traded whatever he knew to the U.S. government.”

  “Sounds like Dyalov got a better deal,” said Sara. “Country-club memberships don’t come cheap.”

  “I don’t know,” said Nick. “Masterkov obviously has contacts and experience, too—in an entirely different world. His family’s been involved with the Russian circus for generations.”

  “And from what I understand,” said Greg, “if there’s one thing a Russian family knows how to do, it’s hold a grudge.”

  “This whole elaborate scheme?” said Sara. “It was never about the money. It was about revenge.”

  Nick looked at Sara, then at Greg. “There was no heist.”

  “There was no heist,” said Sara. “Just a command performance by the Red Star Circus, cleverly staged to make certain people think there was a heist.”

  “Including us,” said Nick. “They must have planted some of the forensic evidence—like the chip powder and the tool marks from the pulleys.”

  “Don’t forget the bent pipe,” said Greg. “Not that it would have been hard to fake—given the right leverage, you could do it with a car jack.”

  “But some of it was real,” said Sara. “They really did launch and burn a dirigible and fire someone a hundred and fifty feet into a pool.”

  “Sure,” said Nick. “It had to be convincing. Dyalov must have been keeping a pretty close eye on the whole operation.”

  “The veterinarian, Villaruba,” said Greg. “Dyalov must have insisted the ranch hire him so he had a man on the inside.”

  Nick nodded. “And they made sure he saw exactly what he was supposed to see. But for people in their line of work, every unbelievable stunt they had to pull off was just another day at the office. And their job on this particular day was to get Grigori Dyalov to go out on a limb.”

  Greg shook his head. “Yeah, so Masterkov could chop it off. How badly does someone like Dyalov have to screw up to wind up in a desert tunnel with a gullet full of poker chips?”

  “I don’t know,” said Nick, getting up from the table. “But I know someone who does.”

  “She’s got to be here,” said Catherine as the Denali slammed to a halt. She jumped out and looked around, Ray right behind her.

  They were at the entrance to a junkyard. Not just any junkyard, though; this was where old neon came to die, an elephant’s graveyard of rusting and discarded signs from old Vegas. The shattered plastic remains of two-dimensional cowboys and showgirls leaned against the skeletal framework of a giant roulette wheel; burned-out bulbs lay scattered on the ground like the dead eggs of blown-glass birds.

  “Follow the signs,” said Ray. “This is where they ultimately end up?”

  “Some of them,” said Catherine. “The ones too broken to be fixed up and resold, anyway. I’m going to go this way, you go the other.”

  “All right.”

  This has to be it, Catherine thought. A final resting place, a place where there aren’t any more words, any more messages. A place where the lights can go down. A permanent sunset.

  And then she heard it. A scraping noise, somewhere off to the left.

  She broke into a trot. “Theria?” she called out. “Theria, can you hear me?”

  No response. She stopped, looked around. A sign shaped like a fanned hand of cards was right in front of her, a 3-D royal flush. The last card was the ace of spades.

  She got closer, peered around the edge of the sign. An old piece of plywood had been propped against it, but when she moved it out of the way, she could see a jagged hole behind it that led into the body of the sign itself.

  “Over here!” she yelled. “Ray, she’s over here!”

  Theria Kostapolis lay on an improvised bed of flattened cardboard boxes, her head pillowed by a folded piece of clothing. Her eyes were closed. Catherine couldn’t tell if she was breathing or not.

  Ray’s voice called out, “Catherine? Where are you?”

  “I’m in here, Ray! The card sign!”

  He appeared a second later and ducked inside. Catherine moved aside to let him work. “Is she alive?”

  “Barely. I’ve got a pulse, but it’s weak. She’s badly dehydrated and probably suffering from heatstroke.”

  Catherine was already on the walkie, giving directions to the dispatcher. “Paramedics will be here in a few minutes,” she said.

  “You’re going to be all right, Theria,” Ray said. “Your nightmare is over.”

  If Theria Kostapolis could hear him, she gave no response.

  The last time Nick had been at the Bruin Rescue Ranch, he’d only gotten as far as the front porch of the house Nazar Masterkov lived in. This time, he came bearing an invitation. Nadya Karnova opened the door when he rang the doorbell. She wore jeans and a plaid shirt tied in a knot in front. “Hello, Mr. Stokes,” she said. The twang of her Texas accent held a thin layer of frost. “I understand you want to speak to Mr. Masterkov.”

  “I phoned ahead,” said Nick. “He said it was—”

  “Come with me.” She turned and headed back into the house without waiting to see if he was following.

  Nick wasn’t sure what to expect of the interior—communist flags and busts of Lenin? kitschy Americana?—but what he saw was many, many mementos of the circus. Signed and framed photos covered the walls, along with brightly colored posters in different languages: English, French, Cyrillic.

  She led him down a long hall lined with pictures of bears riding motorcycles, bears on seesaws, bears wearing dresses and flowered hats. It ended at a sprawling living room, Navajo rugs on a hardwood floor, low-slung, comfortable couches and chairs upholstered in a pattern of cacti and blazing suns. Nazar Masterkov was in one of them, reading a book, dressed casually in lightweight summer clothes and sandals. He looked up and smiled as Nick entered.

  “Ah, Mr. Stokes. Please, have a seat.” He motioned with his book before putting it down on the coffee table in front of him.

  Nick picked a couch and sat. Nadya Karnova remained on her feet, unsmiling, until a nod from Masterkov told her she could go. She didn’t say good-bye.

  “Thanks for agreeing to talk to me,” said Nick.

  Masterkov leaned back in his chair. “And why wouldn’t I?” His tone was light, but there was the barest hint of a challenge in it.

  “Well, sir, that’s a good question. The best answer I can give you is that you might not want to.”

  “Ah. Well, Mr. Stokes, in my experience it’s best to answer questions, even uncomfortable ones. Silence can lead to others making mistaken assumptions.”

  “Even if you don’t answer honestly?”

  “Honesty is not always an option. Nonetheless, that doesn’t mean information can’t still be exchanged.”

  “Just that it can’t necessarily be trusted.”

  “Exactly. But that’s the nature of your job, is it not? To verify what can be trusted?”

  “Pretty much,” Nick admitted. “And I think I’m good at what I do. But every now and then, I run into someone who’s almost as good at deception as I am at uncovering it.”

  “Really? I have a hard time imagining such a creature. If I could, what would I be looking at?”

  “Well, they’d have a great deal of experience in concealing their true identity and motives. Like me, they’d be very good at collecting information, though they’d also be adept at falsifying data. They’d have to have a certain amount of show business in their blood, because they’d have to play their role convincingly.”

  “All performers have a bit of liar and a bit of thief in them, it’s true,” Masterkov said with a chuckle.

  “Overall, I’d say they’d have to be highly intelligent, extremely motivated, and very, very patient.” Nick paused. “Not to mention more than a little ruthless.”

  Masterkov’s smile was gentle, but his eyes were cold. “What some
people call ruthlessness others simply call expediency.”

  “Not in this particular case. A man was systematically manipulated, with the end result being his death. I don’t call that expediency; I call it an execution.”

  Masterkov nodded. “Perhaps so. But systematic manipulation resulting in death—that’s an accurate description of many processes, wouldn’t you say? War. Slavery. Politics.”

  “Most politicians don’t wind up dead at the hands of their constituents.”

  “You miss my meaning. It’s not the ones in control who die; it’s the ones being manipulated. The soldiers, the slaves, the citizens. And then there are the ones who are all three.”

  “You’re talking about spies.”

  “I’m talking about people who had no choice. People who were blackmailed with the welfare of their families, threatened with death or worse, hammered with an ideology that said to steal secrets for the good of their country was their sacred duty.”

  Nick shook his head. “I can’t imagine what that would have been like.”

  “But you must, Mr. Stokes. Imagination is the only tool available to us at this moment, and so we must use it as best we can.” He nodded. “Allow me to assist. As an old performer, I’m something of a storyteller—or so my associates tell me—and I rarely get the chance to indulge anymore. Forgive me if I wander a bit afield in the narrative; I am, after all, an entertainer and not a scientist. Do you mind?”

  “Go ahead, Mr. Masterkov. I’m interested in hearing what you have to say.”

  Masterkov leaned back and stared into space for a moment before starting. His eyes grew distant, and then he began to speak.

  “Let us imagine a young man who idolizes the circus. He wants nothing more than to stand in the center of one of those rings, to hear the roar of the crowd and know that all eyes are upon him. Perhaps he is an acrobat, perhaps a clown; perhaps he works with animals. The details are not important. He studies, he trains, he works hard and diligently to master his craft—and he succeeds.