The Black Devil's Cave, page 9
One of the men approached him and said something quietly.
“Are you sure?” Krill asked.
The man nodded.
“He didn’t have an ID,” Krill turned to Lisa. “We’ve sent a photo to our people in California, and we’re confident that it was the man who brought CX-5 to the United States. A few weeks ago, we were able to get his picture from ICE.”
“And it changes what?” Lisa asked, not raising her head. She could not stand looking at Krill.
“It changes everything,” Krill crouched next to her. “Think about it. This man brought CX-5 to the country illegally. Everything that’s happened is his responsibility. He put the subject in danger. Not to mention that he has no documents, nobody is looking for him, and nobody will miss him. So, we should just dispose of the body. If he doesn’t exist, there has been no crime.”
“What, the hell, are you talking about? The man is dead! What part of DEAD don’t you understand?” Lisa slowly shook her head, tears racing down her cheeks. Her anger was fading, replaced by a pang of profound sadness.
Krill was losing his patience, but it wasn’t time to get mad. He composed himself and leaned closer to Lisa. His face grew grim. “I understand. Trust me, I do. But the man is dead, and there’s nothing you, me, or anyone can do about it. So, can we just move on? Are you really ready to throw away your career and your future? And not only yours but also the future of your daughter. You have a young daughter, don’t you? I believe her name is Olivia?”
As gently as he could, Krill put his hand on Lisa’s shoulder. Then, with his other hand, he took away her phone.
“We need you, Lisa,” he whispered. “Your little daughter needs you. I need you. So please, let us continue with this mission and help us recover the subject. I give you my solemn promise that nobody will get hurt again. I swear! We’ll get CX-5, and everything will be back to normal. Just think about how much your research can help humanity. Isn’t the sacrifice of one human life worth it?”
Lisa wasn’t convinced, but she couldn’t deny some logic to what Krill had just said. She covered her face with both hands. She felt empty inside, and she was tired. She wanted to be anywhere except by that calm lake, covered by fog as if trying to hide the monstrous act she’d just witnessed. And she didn’t want to be next to a body of a man, who was alive less than an hour ago, and who looked like the subject’s older brother. He seemed so young… Where did he come from? How did those women find him? And why?
She was going to tell Krill that the body should be preserved and autopsied. If the man was related to the subject, the autopsy could provide valuable information. Yet, she remained silent.
Krill’s men worked with impressive efficiency. The body disappeared, and so did all traces indicating that something sinister had happened there. They washed the inside of the aluminum boat and pushed it to deeper water. Krill helped Lisa get up and walked her through the woods, back to their Jeep.
Chapter 19
Jenny curled up in a fetal position underneath large Norwegian spruce that mercifully covered the human visitor with its dense foliage. Jenny didn’t know how long she was there—she lost track of time. She stared at Oge’s blood, now dry, still covering her hands. She was unable to think, unable to feel, unable to process what’d happened. An insect climbed onto her arm, probably lured by the smell of blood. She did not shake it off—just followed its path with unblinking eyes.
It was full daylight. Finally, Jenny forced herself to wake up from her stupor. Everything was dead quiet, and if anyone chased her, they either stopped or lost her track a long time ago. She reached to the pocket—her cell phone was still half-charged. She dialed Sonia’s number.
“What happened?” Sonia asked without introduction.
“How do you know something happened?”
“It’s Nenayu. He’s beside himself with grief. He wanted to go after you, but I stopped him.”
“They… shot Oge.” Jenny’s voice was barely audible.
“Oh, my God! How bad is it? Can he walk? Should we come to you?”
“He is…,” Jenny’s voice was breaking. If she said it aloud, it would become real. “He is dead,” she finally whispered.
Silence.
“Do you know where we are?” Sonia finally asked.
“Near Rhinelander.”
“All right,” Sonia took charge. “Get out of the woods and call Uber. We’ll meet in Rhinelander, in the public library. Let me check. It opens at 8:00.”
“You want me to act as if nothing’s happened.” Jenny did not form her statement into a question.
“Yes. Right now, you have to find the strength to get up and do what I say, as if nothing’s happened. That’s the only way.”
***
Seeing Naneyu made Jenny forget her own grief. She tried to wipe the tears from the kid’s face, but they were stubbornly coming back. Jenny dropped to her knees and took the boy into her arms.
“Look at me,” she said. “Please, look at me.”
The boy stopped crying and did what she asked, his face only inches from hers, his eyes red and puffy.
“I swear to you,” Jenny said, “that I’ll never leave you. I’ll stay with you, no matter what, and I’ll do everything I can to take you home to your mom.”
Naneyu just stared, then slowly put his hand on Jenny’s forehead as if it would give him the measurement of her sincerity.
“So will I.” Sonia hugged them both. “I’ll make sure you get home, kiddo, wherever it might be.”
“Siberia,” Jenny muttered.
“What do you mean, Siberia?” Sonia raised her brows.
“Exactly what I’ve just said. Siberia. In Russia. Probably one of the most inaccessible places on Earth. And a big one.”
Jenny repeated what she heard from Oge before he died.
“All right,” Sonia slowly nodded. “At least, we were correct about the cold climate. Although Siberia never crossed my mind. So, he’s Russian?”
“I don’t think so. I tried many languages with him, and I specifically remember that Russian was one of them. He didn’t react.”
“We’ll try again. But he may not be Russian. To the best of my knowledge, there are many different ethnic groups in the region. Do you know it’s one-third larger than the United States? We need a plan. Otherwise, it will be literally looking for a needle in a haystack.”
Jenny was able to use her university credentials to access the library resources. Once again, she played recordings in Russian, but Naneyu evidently did not speak the language. She showed him clips of different parts of Siberia and asked him to point to the area that looked like home. With some hesitation, Naneyu selected a mountainous region with a dense forest.
“Thank God, it’s taiga and not tundra.” Jenny sighed. “At least, we won’t freeze to death.”
“It’s still a lot of ground to cover,” Sonia said matter-of-factly.
“The best way to do it is one step at a time.”
Jenny called Miss Hanson and asked her to take Nohla again. She then contacted AAA and gave them the location of her Toyota.
“If they’re towing your car, how are we going to get to that cabin?” Sonia asked.
“We won’t. I have a new plan.” Jenny selected a name from her phone’s contacts.
“Uncle Henry? We need your help.”
After a brief conversation, she turned off her phone.
“Who’s uncle Henry?” Sonia asked.
“My grandma’s brother-in-law. He married her younger sister. We lost aunt Christina to cancer years ago, but I’m still in touch with her husband. He’s Oneida. Lives on a reservation by Green Bay.”
“Are you related to all Native Americans in the United States?”
“I guess,” Jenny smiled. “Not that many are left, you know. But we’ll be safe over there. Uncle Henry should be here in about two hours. Going back for my car would be too risky. I’m sure someone is watching it.”
They walked to a small café across the street and ordered breakfast.
“Taking Naneyu home is not going to be easy,” Jenny frowned. “We can’t exactly sneak into Russia unnoticed. We need to somehow get a passport for the kid. We must find a guide who’ll help us over there. It needs to be someone who knows Siberia and speaks English. We must get our own passports. I have to figure out how to arrange for time off at work. The fall semester is going to start soon. And I won’t even mention expenses—this whole endeavor certainly won’t be cheap.”
“I think I might be able to take care of all of this,” Sonia said.
“How? You’re not that rich.”
“Just leave it to me.”
Uncle Henry showed up less than two hours later. By early afternoon, they were in his house near Green Bay, in the area occupied by the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin.
***
Uncle Henry was a bear of a man with white hair and Caucasian features. If Jenny didn’t tell Sonia he was Native American, she wouldn’t have guessed. He lived alone, in a three-bedroom house, no different from other homes in Green Bay. Nothing indicated they were on the reservation.
Jenny told her uncle most of what’d happened, although she didn’t mention the boy’s unique abilities. Uncle Henry was a man of a few words, but when Jenny got to the part that described how a pharmaceutical company conducted experiments on the child, his grey eyes turned into cold steel.
Uncle Henry didn’t ask many questions, and after Jenny finished her story, his only comment was, “You can stay here for as long as you want. You’ll be safe.”
Late in the evening, Jenny saw him cleaning his rifle in the garage.
In the following days, while Jenny and Sonia started preparations for the trip, Uncle Henry took Nanyeu under his wings. They made daily trips to Uncle Henry’s secret locations on the rez, went fishing, even visited Oneida’s buffalo farm.
In the meantime, Jenny and Sonia purchased clothes and other necessities. Sonia took Naneyu to Walgreens to get a passport picture, but when Jenny asked how it would be arranged, Sonia shrugged.
“Just leave it to me,” she said.
Two days later, Jenny received a phone call from the chair of her department.
“Why Dr. Williams, we were not aware that you’ve been invited to participate in the dig in Samarkand! Why didn’t you mention anything to me? But, of course, we’ll cooperate—take as much time as you need. So, don’t worry about a thing. And please, tell your sponsors that we are really grateful for the donation made to our department. I already thanked Mr. Abramov, but we would appreciate it if you could also express gratitude on our behalf.”
“What did you do?” Jenny turned to Sonia after she ended the call. “And who, the hell, is Mr. Abramov? What dig in Samarkand?!”
Sonia just winked.
By the end of the week, Oneida Cultural Center received a certified letter with instructions to deliver its contents to Henry Logan. It contained a US passport issued to Jenny’s son, Jeremy Williams. The passport had Naneyu’s photograph.
“Congratulations! It’s a boy!” Sonia looked at Jenny with a devious smile.
Jenny had a hundred questions but thought better of it and just waved her hand. The passport looked authentic.
The following day, Sonia talked to someone on the phone in Spanish. She seemed happy.
“We’re good to go,” she announced. “We have three tickets from Chicago to Moscow, Russia. We’re leaving tomorrow evening. To get to Siberia, we’ll have to switch the planes over there and take a flight to Yekaterinburg. This is where we’ll meet our guide. His name is… Wait, I don’t know how to pronounce it….” She checked her notes. “I think it’s Sergei Maksimovich Petrov. I’ve been told he’s the best. Let’s start packing.”
“I’m not doing anything until you tell me who’s made these arrangements,” Jenny said in an angry voice. “I have a bad feeling that your cousin, Alex, is somehow involved.”
“I swear it’s not Alex. He knows nothing.”
“Then who? What are you getting us into this time?”
“Well, Pedro says Hi.” Sonia tried to look innocent.
“Oh please, don’t tell me that you’re staying in touch with people from the Mexican cartels!” Jenny was genuinely upset.
Pedro, whose real name was Sebastian Ramirez, was involved in their previous adventure in Mexico and Belize. He provided them with valuable assistance when chasing after a mysterious medieval manuscript. However, Jenny never appreciated that Pedro, aka Sebastian, held a high position within the Los Zetas drug cartel.
“And why not?” Sonia frowned. “We sort of… stayed in touch after Belize. He’s the only person who can help. He’s procured this perfect passport and reached out to his connections in Russia to find us the best guide.”
“Does it mean that now the Russian mafia is also involved?” Jenny raised her voice.
“You don’t have to yell.” Sonia looked at her friend with contempt. “I’ve been told that our guide is an academic, not a mobster. So, I honestly don’t care who’s reached out to him and how. Plus, Pedro has more money than God and to him, paying for this expedition is like nothing.”
“Are you saying that the cartels are also financing our trip?!”
“Well, not the cartels—just Pedro. He is Catholic. He needs to do a good deed from time to time to redeem himself for all the bad stuff he does.”
Jenny’s eyes grew big. “Lord, give me patience!”
***
The following day, when it was time to say goodbye, Uncle Henry kept the boy’s head in his huge hands for a long time. When the women weren’t looking, he sneaked a small pouch, hand-made by his late wife, into the boy’s pocket. It contained a powerful medicine.
The boy just bowed his head, and the old man put a solemn kiss on his forehead. No words were exchanged. Those two understood each other, and there was no need to use words.
Chapter 20
There were no direct flights from Chicago to Moscow, and they had to switch planes in Frankfurt, Germany. Finally, after crossing nine time zones, they landed at Sheremetyevo, in the capital of Russia. Although exhausted after a fifteen-hour journey, they were forced to run across the enormous airport. They were lost three times before making it at the last minute for their connecting flight to Yekaterinburg.
Naneyu’s passport passed all inspections. Sonia commented it would be checked with more scrutiny upon re-entry to the United States. However, they hoped the boy wouldn’t be coming back with them. They’d deliver him to his parents and return alone.
“Siberia is not the place I want to visit,” Jenny said after collapsing into her seat.
“Why are you negative again?” Sonia frowned. “You had the same attitude in Belize.”
“I don’t think there’s another part of the world scarred with as many tragedies as Siberia. It has an amazing history, but every square inch of this enormous land has been soaked in blood. The history of Siberia goes from bad to worse and to heartbreaking. There’re ghosts from the past hanging over this entire area, and it starts where we’re going, in Yekaterinburg.” Jenny slowly shook her head.
“I’ve heard about that name, but I don’t remember the context.”
“Let me guess—the context was a brutal murder of the last tzar of Russia and his entire family?”
“Oh yes, you’re right! Now, I remember,” Sonia nodded sadly. “Do you know how it happened?”
“All right, maybe it’s an appropriate story to start our journey.” Jenny adjusted her position and checked on Naneyu. The boy seemed lost in thoughts.
“You have to know that Romanovs, the last royal dynasty in Russia, ruled over this country for three hundred years,” Jenny started. “They were bigger than life, their power almost absolute, and they were probably the mightiest royals of their times, comparable only to the kings of England. However, Nicholas II, the last emperor, or tzar of Russia, did not inherit his ancestors’ strength and resolve. Instead, although intelligent and pleasant, he was described as weak, submissive, and insecure.
“Nicholas II married Alexandra, a German princess and a favorite granddaughter of Queen Victoria of England. It was a true love story. The tzar adored his wife, and they remained close until the very end. But let’s not go ahead of ourselves.
“Empress Alexandra gave birth to four daughters, the Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia. It was a happy family living a fairytale life. Four beautiful princesses roamed the Russian royal palace, growing up surrounded by an unimaginable grandeur. However, something was missing from that perfect picture, and it was a male heir to the throne. So, you can only imagine the royal couple’s joy when the fifth child born to Nicholas and Alexandra was a boy. The prince, or tsarevich, was named Alexei.
“The baby boy was big and looked healthy, although immediately after his birth, the doctors noticed something was wrong. After his umbilical cord was cut, little tsarevich bled for hours. He was cursed with hemophilia, the disease coming from all that inbreeding among the royals.”
“Actually, that’s bullshit,” Sonia interrupted. “Inbreeding is sometimes linked to hemophilia, but there’s no definitive proof that the disease is a direct consequence of inbreeding. The royal strain of hemophilia you’re talking about actually started with Queen Victoria, probably due to a gene mutation passed on to her by her father. The disease, which causes a severe blood clotting disorder, can be carried by women but manifests almost exclusively in men. But please, continue.”
“Sure,” Jenny grunted, not happy about being interrupted. “Tsarevitch Alexei was adored by the entire family, but it would be difficult to say whether he had a happy childhood. He had to be watched all the time and was not allowed to play with other children because his case of hemophilia was severe. Any cut, or even the most innocent nosebleed, was potentially fatal. In fact, the boy was close to death several times. He would probably have died if not for a Siberian monk and mystic, Grigori Rasputin. Rasputin alone was somehow able to cure the prince, which gave him unique access to the royal family. Rasputin soon became the confidant and a trusted advisor of Empress Alexandra, but he is the topic for another story.
