The Black Devil's Cave, page 11
“I don’t know much about my ancestors. But since you’ve mentioned it, I guess my family history may be relevant to what’s happening here.” Sergei got up from his chair and walked to the window. “As I’ve said before, I’ve been asked to assist you because I know Siberia, but also because of my family history,” he said reluctantly, looking away from the women. “My story begins with my great-grandfather. He was the ladies’ man, definitely a player. If it moved, and it was a female, he would screw it. Please, forgive my language.” He looked at the kid. “Just before he died, he sired a child, who was born in 1917. The child was my grandfather. His mother and my great-grandmother came from a noble family, but after her pregnancy became evident, she was disowned and kicked out. Grandpa was born into poverty and as a bastard. Great-grandmother died when he was only twelve, but before she passed, she told him his father’s name and sworn him to secrecy.
“It was a time of a treat turmoil. My grandfather came to this world just a few months before the Bolshevik Revolution. Years later, after he lost his mother, he landed in a Soviet orphanage, where they did everything they could to turn him into a good communist. He hated them. However, he survived. He was a muscular, no-nonsense man who always worked hard and drunk even harder. To this day, I don’t understand why vodka didn’t kill him. I guess he was somehow immune. He would put a bottle on the table, take a kharmoshka, an accordion, into his large hands, play sad music, and sing songs about Siberia. He had a beautiful voice.”
Sergei returned to his seat but still didn’t look at the women. He looked lost in his memories.
“Siberia was the greatest love of his life,” he continued, his voice tender. “He visited every corner of this vast land, and he knew everyone. He told me countless stories. He was the one who instilled in me a passion for this region. My father is also a Siberian, but a different kind; a geologist, always looking for treasures that Siberia keeps hidden underground. But it was grandpa who shaped me. He was also the one who finally told me who his father was.”
“Someone we should know about?” Jenny asked.
“Since you’ve mentioned the healers—his name was Grigori Rasputin.”
Chapter 23
Following the incident in Wisconsin, Krill lost track of the subject and the women again. He didn’t expect them to dispose of their phones, but they did. Both phones were traced to Rhinelander and found in a dumpster. His adversaries must have switched to pre-paid phones. They knew what they were doing, and that was disappointing.
The women also didn’t return to their car, which they left in the woods. They didn’t rent another vehicle and didn’t use public transportation. Krill’s man managed to establish that at least one of them took Uber to the town’s library, but the trail went cold from there.
If not for that young man’s death in Wisconsin, the subject would be back in the PharGen lab by now. Of that, Krill was sure. The killing complicated everything. Krill didn’t want it to happen—one of his men was either incompetent or overzealous and sent his bullets too low. They were supposed to shoot above the people they chased, not at them. The man was dismissed, but the damage was done. Now, on top of his other problems, Krill had to deal with Lisa Van Berg. She was still shaken by what happened and could become a liability. Krill even approached his superiors and suggested that Lisa be removed from the team, but they disagreed. She knew the subject and had to be there when CX-5 was retrieved.
After they lost track of the women in Wisconsin, Krill had to adjust their approach. He put the residences of Dr. Ruiz and Dr. Williams under surveillance. He also arranged for inquiries in their workplaces.
At first, their progress was stalled. Dr. Ruiz shared her house with an elderly mother who didn’t seem involved. The place that belonged to the other doctor was empty after a neighbor picked up her cat. The neighbor was approached but knew nothing. She only said that Dr. Williams traveled a lot.
Almost two weeks later, they finally had a breakthrough. A certain Dr. Hauben, a faculty member at the University of Wisconsin, was invited to lunch by one of Krill’s men, posing as a reporter from the Archeology Magazine. After two mid-day cocktails, Dr. Hauben shared the news that a colleague from his department, a certain Dr. Williams, had just left for an archeological dig in Samarkand. That information was followed by a monologue about how Hauben—and not Williams‒was better qualified to go to that dig.
Archeological work in Samarkand was probably a cover, but it indicated that at least one of the women might have left the country. Hoping that she used her real passport, Krill’s team checked international flights from airports in and around Wisconsin.
In no time, they hit the jackpot. Two days ago, Sonia Ruiz, Jenny Williams, and Jenny’s young son left from O’Hare in Chicago for Yekaterinburg, Russia, with stops in Frankfurt and Moscow.
“Gotcha…” Krill picked up the phone and told his people to be ready to go overseas.
Not surprisingly, the only person reluctant to leave was Lisa.
“I can’t drop everything on such short notice. Mike has to work, and there would be no one to watch over Olivia,” she explained.
Lisa didn’t tell her husband about what happened in Wisconsin. It wasn’t that she tried to hide the truth from him—she just couldn’t bring herself to do it. She knew exactly what Mike would say—that doing the right thing wasn’t hard and that Lisa should’ve alerted the authorities. And then, he’d probably insist that she quit her job. After Wisconsin, Lisa really wanted to do it, but life was never that easy. She made more money than Mike, and losing a significant part of their income was something they simply couldn’t afford. Olivia was enrolled in a prestigious preschool that cost a fortune. And all their savings went into the down payment for the house. If it were only the two of them, she would quit without giving it a second thought, but with Olivia….
“What’s bothering you?” Mike asked multiple times since she returned home.
He knew her too well. But she couldn’t tell him. That made her uncomfortable, and Mike immediately detected that something was wrong. And now, PharGen wanted her to go to Russia, God knew for how long.
“You have to make arrangements. Don’t tell me you’re unable to find a babysitter!” Mr. Hunter, her manager, yelled on the phone after Krill told him that she refused to go. “Let me remind you that we’ve talked about it, and you’ve made a commitment.”
She really had no choice. Maybe that’s for the best? If she left, she wouldn’t have to avoid Mike’s questions.
Lisa went to her bedroom and started packing again.
***
Even if they took the first available flight, the earliest they could get to Yekaterinburg was in over thirty hours. That was almost two additional days, and Krill didn’t like the delay. He decided to reach out to his contact within the Russian Ministry of Health.
Irina Burakova was a high-level official who owed PharGen more than one favor. The corporation cultivated high-level contacts in many parts of the world. Krill checked his watch—it was already morning in Moscow. He dialed the number.
“Robert, how nice to hear from you!” The woman’s voice on the phone sounded almost too enthusiastic.
Krill knew it was fake but didn’t care. If she wanted to continue receiving expensive gifts, she would help. After exchanging a few pleasantries, he got to the point.
“Irina, we need your help.”
“But of course, Robert! If there is anything I can do….”
“Yes, there is. You see, we’re following some people who illegally took possession of… proprietary information that belongs to our company. We must retrieve it. Those people are on the run, and we believe they’ve just landed in Russia. We are going to follow, but it’ll take some time before we can get there. So, we would appreciate it if you could keep an eye on them until we come.”
“Robert, you know I’d be happy to help, but the times of the KGB are over. We’re the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation, and following people or keeping track of them is not what we do,” the woman said apologetically.
“I know, Irina, but I also know that if anyone can help, it’s you.” Krill knew that a bit of flattery could go a long way. “Please, do your magic. We’ll be most grateful.”
He gave her whatever information she needed.
“I’ll see what I can do,” the woman said, non-committedly.
The second the call ended, Irina dialed a number for her contact within the Federal Security Service, which took over many functions of the dismantled KGB.
“Yuri? Irina here. I’ve got something for you. Supposedly, we have a couple of Americans who have just arrived in Yekaterinburg and are in possession of the proprietary information stolen from PharGen, that American pharmaceutical giant. PharGen people are going to chase after them and will arrive in Yekaterinburg in about two days. I’m sure you’d want to look into this. We need to know if we’re involved and if any of our companies have anything to do with it. If not, we want to know if that proprietary information is something we could benefit from. Here are the names and passport numbers.”
Chapter 24
Jenny looked at Sergei with a renewed interest.
“Who exactly was your great-grandfather, Grigori Rasputin? A mystic? A healer? Or a madman?” she asked.
“I guess all of the above.” Sergei turned to her. “Remember that I never met him, and neither did my grandpa. What we know came from books and recollections of others. At some level, Rasputin was nothing but a Siberian peasant, simple, unsophisticated, and proud of it. And I really think he was crazy. When he was young, he joined a sex cult, Khlysts, a weird offshoot of the Russian Orthodox Church. They believed that salvation came only from committing sins, so they committed as many as they could. During their ceremonies, they choked one another, letting go in the last moment to get high on asphyxiation. They would spin around until they fell to the ground, disoriented and drunk, and then had sex with whoever was lying next to them. Those were not religious ceremonies—those were massive orgies.
“But let’s start from the beginning. My great-grandfather, Rasputin, was a son of the Siberian peasants, born to a harsh life of poverty and never-ending struggle. However, even as a child, he demonstrated special powers. People would come to him for help or just for entertainment. But it was Siberia. Nobody was surprised, and nobody cared. Superstition and magic were parts of daily existence.
“Eventually, Rasputin married, like everyone else, and had four kids. According to people who knew him back then, he was nothing but a cheater and an abusive alcoholic. Then, one day, he was accused of stealing a horse. He abandoned his family and joined that crazy cult.
“Yes, he was a willing participant in the orgies, but he also did other things. He wandered across the vast Siberian forests, from one remote village to another. Sometimes, he would wear heavy shackles to feel the pain. That was his way of begging for the atonement.
“When he returned to his village, he was a changed man. His eyes stared with a frightening intensity. Supposedly, he could hypnotize people just by looking at them.”
“It’s still a long way from a Siberian village to St. Petersburg,” Jenny noted. “How did he end up with the royal family?”
“He claimed he had a vision,” Sergei explained. “Virgin Mary appeared to him and told him to go and help the tzar and his loved ones. And so, Rasputin went, on foot, over 2.5 thousand kilometers. That’s more than 1.6 thousand miles. But he made it.”
“I don’t think the imperial palace was wide open to every peasant who showed up at the gate,” Sonia wondered.
“No, of course not. But as you probably know, little Tsarevich Alexei, the heir to the Russian throne, suffered from hemophilia. When Rasputin arrived in St. Petersburg, Tsarina Alexandra had just lost her spiritual advisor, Dr. Phillipe. However, on his deathbed, Phillipe told the empress that she’d soon meet a holy man who could help her son.
“Not long after Phillipe’s death, Prince Alexei had an accident – he fell and scraped his knee. The bleeding wouldn’t stop. It turned out to be extremely serious. The boy was in agony, probably dying, and the doctors seemed helpless. Somebody told the tsarina about a holy man from Siberia who had recently arrived in the city. Rasputin was brought to the palace. He kicked out the doctors and cured the boy almost instantly. The bleeding stopped.”
“I’ve read about it,” Sonia interrupted. “The story is well-documented, but there’s a logical explanation. It was the beginning of the 20th century, and a new wonder drug was aspirin, which had just hit the markets. It was used for everything. Back then, people didn’t know that aspirin was a blood thinner, and it was the last thing you should take when you had hemophilia. But Rasputin got rid of the doctors who kept giving aspirin to the boy. His action would result in a significant decrease in bleeding.”
“Instantly? I’m not into the supernatural, but with Rasputin, the boy was cured within minutes while aspirin was still in his blood.” Sergei shook his head, unconvinced. “And there were other things. Rasputin also cured tsarina’s headaches and soon became the royal family’s most trusted advisor. He also became an instant sensation among the local aristocrats, especially the ladies. He was extremely promiscuous, screwing every woman within his reach, from princesses to prostitutes. He would first beat the prostitute with his belt to drive the devil away and then screw her. There were countless stories about his promiscuity. After he cured one wealthy lady, Olga Loghtina, she left her husband and kids and moved in with Rasputin. More than once, the neighbors saw her holding his penis and screaming, You’re Christ, and I’m yours! She ended up in a mental hospital, by the way.”
“That’s disgusting,” Sonia grimaced. “How could people be so gullible? Those were sophisticated and well-educated women. And it was the 20th century, not the Middle Ages.”
“Remember that during that time, people around the world were drawn to spiritualism and occultism,” Jenny pointed out. “Seances and Ouija Boards were very much in fashion, also in the United States.”
“Rasputin was not just a mystic, but a dirty mystic,” Sergei continued and sent Jenny a devious smile. “Saying that he had a disheveled appearance would be an understatement. He was utterly repulsive. He never bathed. He bragged that he would wear the same underwear for six months. He never brushed his teeth. One French diplomat said that Rasputin smelled like a goat. He would pick his nose in front of the aristocrats and eat it.”
“All right, if you don’t stop, I’ll puke.” Jenny shrugged and grimaced.
“Rasputin became notorious,” Sergei said. “He was feared and hated. The leaders of the Orthodox Church believed he was the Anti-Christ and even tried to kill him. When he went to visit home, back in Siberia, they sent a prostitute to assassinate him. She had a good reason to hate all men—she was a victim of severe abuse, and somebody even cut off her nose. She attacked Rasputin with a knife, even pulled his intestines, but he survived. People started to believe that Rasputin couldn’t be killed.
“However, there was also another side of Rasputin. He would give money to everyone who needed it, especially the kids. He didn’t care about material possessions and was always eager to help.
“Oh, and there’s another story—he may have deprived the tsar. Supposedly, Rasputin started giving Nicholas II opium, morphine, and cocaine. But he also offered a lot of good advice. He pleaded with the tsar to stay away from World War I. Rasputin warned him that if Russia went to war, she would drown in blood. Unfortunately, the tsar didn’t listen. Russia went to war, she did drown in blood, and the royals became increasingly unpopular.
“People viewed Rasputin as the source of all evil. In December 1916, he sent a prophetic letter to Nicholas II.”
“I’ve just found it,” Jenny interrupted, looking at her phone. “It said, I feel that I shall leave life before January the 1st. Tsar of the land of Russia, if you hear the sound of the bell which will tell you that Grigori has been killed, you must know this—if it was your relations who have wrought my death than none in your family, that is to say, none of your children or relations will remain alive for more than two years. They will be killed by the Russian people. And as we know, that prophecy came true.”
“There’s no way he could see the future.” Sonia shook her head. “How did Rasputin die?”
“It was tsarina’s nephew, Prince Felix Yusupov, aided by two co-conspirators,” Sergei explained. “Yusupov was probably the wealthiest and also the most handsome aristocrat in Russia. Moreover, he was married to a woman considered an exceptional beauty. One day, he called Rasputin and told him to come immediately to heal his wife. She supposedly suffered from a bad case of sex addiction.
“That was something right in Rasputin’s alley. When the monk showed up, he was led to the basement and served wine and pastries laced with enough cyanide to kill a horse. He ate, he drank, and… nothing happened. Cyanide didn’t kill him. More than that—it didn’t bother him at all. Finally, the prince was tired of waiting and grabbed a revolver. Rasputin did not show fear, did not plead for his life—he just stood there, looking at Yusupov. The prince shot him point-blank, and Rasputin fell, but when the prince bent down to check his pulse, Rasputin opened his eyes and laughed.
“Yusupov ran upstairs to bring his co-conspirators. When they returned to the basement, Rasputin was gone. Although wounded, he crawled up the basement stairs and was slinking his way across the courtyard. This was where Yusupov and the others found him, and Rasputin was clubbed and shot multiple times. The men then put his body into the trunk of an automobile, drove to the river, and shoved Rasputin into a hole in the ice.
“The body was found two days later and buried, although soon after the tsar’s abdication, it was exhumed and burned. And that was the end of the mad healer.”
