The Final Fabergé by Thomas Swan

checks out, then I go hunting.”
    â€œBe worth a bloody fortune, I suppose.”
    â€œIn dollars, it might bring five million. If Rasputin is part of the provenance, it will be worth even more.”
    Heston’s frown grew bigger. “If the fool thing hasn’t popped up after eighty years, what makes you believe there’s any chance you’ll find it?”
    Oxby grinned. “That’s the challenge, Elliott. That’s what I like about it.”
    â€œAnd I think you’re going on a wild goose chase.”
    Oxby smiled. “God knows I’ve been sent on plenty of those around here.”
    Heston hunched forward, both arms resting on his desk. “You’re being paid, of course. Plus expenses.”
    Oxby nodded. “First class. But I might need your help, Elliott.”
    â€œGo to hell,” Heston said, glowering. “You’ve never been to Russia. It will take even you a month to learn the damned alphabet. You won’t like the food and they make their wine from prunes.”
    â€œYou’re positively crazy about the country, aren’t you?”
    â€œJust want you to know what you’re getting into.”
    â€œI’ve got a good friend in St. Petersburg. In fact you know him. Yakov Ilyushin. He’s agreed to be guide and interpreter.”
    â€œYakov’s an old man,” Heston said.
    â€œSeventy doesn’t make him an old man. You’ll be lucky to do as well when you are his age.”
    Heston seemed finally resigned to Oxby’s inevitable departure. “When do you go off on this crazy chase?”
    â€œI leave on Tuesday. Forbes is in Paris. I’ll go on from there.”

Chapter 8
    I BM Sales & Service was on the third and fourth floors. Business for the American computer giant had been expanding and the director of the office, a local boy in the process of making good, was planning to expand. The building, on Majorova Prospekt, was a Stalin-era design of straight lines and yellow bricks and was about to go through yet another metamorphosis. IBM would move into the first and second floors once a half dozen tenants were relocated.
    On the top floor, the fifth, were the headquarter offices of a Russian company. Walk off the elevator and one was accosted by a huge outline of post-Soviet Russia with the words NEW CENTURY emblazoned across it. Incorporated into the flamboyant logo were the names of seven subsidiaries. Double doors opened into a reception room, the carpet, lighting, and furnishings executed in a rich medley of copper, gold, red, and a warm brown.
    Mirrors covered the walls and nearly half the ceiling, and gave the square room a feeling of spaciousness. Visitors announced themselves to a receptionist who sat behind an opening in the mirrors. Seated less than ten feet away was a large man wearing a gray suit, white shirt, and vintage Countess Mara necktie. A folded, unread newspaper rested on his lap. One hand held a cellular telephone. The man, or one exactly like him, was present throughout the day.
    Visitors never entered the inner offices unless accompanied, but when they were admitted they found offices that were large by Russian standards and equipped with the same stylish furnishings as were in the reception room. Computer screens beside every desk glowed either with a work in progress or the soundless animation of animals that turned into flowers, then into gyrating geometric designs.
    There was an air of activity accompanied by the sounds of electronic machinery; soft clicks of the keyboard, rapid whooshing of printers, xylophonic chimes of phones and fax machines. And a feeling of tension,
too, that grew out of the relentless high speed and seeming impatience of the myriad machines, and from the people who stared at the work before them.
    Every door in sight was open, save for one. Another man wearing a similar gray suit, and looking remarkably like the guard encountered before, stood in front of the