by Tom Hron
“Sasha, crawl up front and hand me the crowbar, then stay on the floor. Hurry.”
Two more rounds hissed through the car, closer this time. Sasha dove over the front seat, like a frightened child, legs and dress flying. Seconds after, the crowbar sailed into the back seat.
“Tell him to drive as fast as he can.” Molly wedged herself in the corner of the car, shielding herself with its metal corner, and swung the crowbar again and again, until she had beat out the back window.
She saw the green car gaining, the taxi’s blue exhaust smoke, the springtime slop of the muddy road flying up. Now she had the gunport and dead rest she needed. She pulled out her pistol, snapped on the laser sight, and aimed.
The car chasing them dropped back. Well, it was a cinch the godfather and his fat friend were the ones trying to kill them, because no one else knew how well she could shoot. She watched them keep their distance for a few miles.
“Ask the driver why they’re just sitting back there, beyond range. Is there some reason they think this car will quit?”
She heard Sasha question the cabby, and his guttural answers. Oh, would they hurry up? In a little while they’d freeze to death in the wind whistling around the inside of the car. Maybe that was the bad guys’ plan, wear them down and run them out of gas. She started worrying.
“He doesn’t know but says this road is very lonely and there’s no place to stop. They know the car will soon need oil, or else the engine will blow up. It’s old with over a million kilometers . . .” Sasha’s voice faded.
What should they do? Now they had become sitting ducks, ready to be picked off, one by one, the moment the cab faltered. She had to get them close enough for a shot. Then an idea struck her.
“How far to some corners in the road? Are there any sharp ones ahead?”
“He says a few kilometers, but why do you want to know?”
“Tell him to slow down and act like he’s trying to get them to run up on his bumper again. They know I’m trying to get a shot at them, so they’ll hang back. When he sees the curves, I want him to race ahead, as if he wants to get away. I’ll tell him when to slam on his brakes. Maybe they won’t get stopped until it’s too late.”
She knew it was a weak plan, but infinitely better than waiting to get murdered somewhere down the road. They had crept up, caught her off guard, taken their best shot, and missed. Now it was her turn. There were eleven rounds left in her pistol, bad luck for them.
The cabby slowed, drove at a hundred kilometers per hour, seventy, then fifty. No matter what speed, though, the other car held back, pacing them. They knew their time would come. Besides, they were mad as hell and wanted to get even. But the longer everyone played cat and mouse the better it was for her. They’d likely lose their patience and get stupid. Please give us some hairpin turns.
She saw the road begin corkscrewing down a deep valley, perfect for what she had in mind, although scary as well. A tunnel lay at the bottom, one that looked several hundred feet long, leading into the sharpest corner. What if they raced downhill, zoomed through the tunnel, and stopped on the far side? Chances were the godfather and his friend wouldn’t see the trap, not until it was too late.
“Sasha, tell him to drive like crazy, then stop on the far side of the tunnel below. I’ll yell when.” She heard her voice screeching a bit. The old taxi was in no condition for the steep descent into the valley. But what else could they do?
She saw Sasha’s head pop above the front seat. “He won’t do it because he’s afraid.”
“I’ll pay him a thousand dollars, because it’s the only chance we have.” She felt him take off, and supposedly he couldn’t understand English.
She hung on for dear life. The taxi began to screech and rattle as it careened around every corner. Either die running off the road or get killed by the Mafiya. Jeez, what a choice. She saw Sasha sit up and look forward, then turn and gape at her, realizing she’d put them on the edge of disaster.
The green car dropped back, accelerated, but not enough to keep up with the cabby. He drove like a madman. Molly began to see that he was very, very good, and knew his old car like his own evil heart. He had hustled her out of $2,500 and had no intention on losing the chance to collect it. Oh, well, shut up and do your part, she thought, and make sure you don’t miss when he slams on the brakes. Somehow, she knew he’d do a good job of that as well.
They tore through the tunnel doing one hundred kilometers per hour. The cabby timed his turn perfectly, waiting until the last second to slow for the last one, so the chase car wouldn’t see his red lights come on. He shot around the curve, cornering his car on two tires. When Molly screamed to stop, he slammed on his brakes, making the most maniacal face she’d ever seen.
Now everything was up to her. She turned, knelt on the back seat, switched on her laser sight, and waited. In a few seconds they’d come around the corner and find themselves way too close.
She heard the green car’s wail as it raced through the tunnel, then its tires screech as its driver braked for the bend in the road. They were coming too fast and might end up in her lap. She saw the car fly around the corner.
Pow, pow, pow! Give them a taste of their own medicine right through the front window. Let’s see how they like lead zipping past their heads. She saw them brake, lose control, and skid over the embankment on the right, crashing through the trees and brush. Spinning, she kicked open the door and jumped out as they slid by, screaming their heads off. They were in serious trouble and would be lucky to live.
Spreading her legs and taking the power stance, she began blazing away again, holding her red dot on their fuel tank. Let’s see how they like getting their rear ends fried as well. She would make sure it would be a long time before they ever wanted to chase her again. She saw them hit bottom and tumble out, their car on fire. She hadn’t killed them, but both were seriously hurt. Good enough—now she’d taunt them. There was no use being nice. They would hunt her for the rest of her life, maybe even put out a worldwide hit on her.
“Sasha, wave at them and laugh. I want them to remember us. Tell them I’ll kill them if I ever see them again.”
“Molly, stop it and come here. We have to go. Have you gone crazy? Those men won’t ever forget.”
She walked to the cab and climbed in. “I don’t really care—I’m sick of being afraid. Why should we live with them hunting us? I should have killed them.” Afterward, she began bawling, uncontrollably, letting all the craziness and terror pour out. She felt the cab pull away and Sasha climb back and hold her, trying to quiet her. Please leave me alone, she thought, she’d earned a good cry and wanted to have it.
Once again the cabby drove toward Kansk, speeding over the primitive road that had been bulldozed through the southern part of Siberia, connecting all the towns along the way to Irkutsk, on the south end of Lake Baikal. Molly dried her eyes and looked around. The sunlight had begun reflecting off the snow-capped mountains and the forest still ran on and on, rugged and picturesque, much like Alaska. What must it look like in the summertime when it had all turned green? She would soon find out—she and her friends meant to live in it, searching for Sasha’s father and the diamonds. What an incredible adventure she was on, and who else was as lucky as she? She felt her spirits lift back up.
They rattled their way into Kansk, almost four hours being spent on the roughest road she’d ever ridden on, along with her wild shootout with the Mafiya. The train had just pulled into town as well, so Sasha and she had plenty of time to board and get to their berth, both now feeling better than before. The godfather wouldn’t be following them anymore, not for a week or two, and then he’d have to guess which way they went. Siberia wasn’t a small place. Nevertheless, Sasha wouldn’t be able to return to Akademgorodok, and she would have to stay hidden for the rest of her life.
When she paid the cab driver the additional money she owed him, he grinned and chattered gobbledegook for the longest time. Now what did he want? Hadn’t she
paid him enough?
Sasha laughed. “He wants to know if you’ll marry him? He says he’s great in bed.”
Molly couldn’t help laughing as well. Finally, something had come along to chase away the troubles of the past two days, and none too soon. Life must be like that for a temptress like her, so deadly with a gun, in the middle of a dangerous mission. Naturally men would want to make love to her. She felt her imagination run wild once more.
“Tell him no because the marriage would end badly. He’s seen what would happen whenever he let me down, and no one should have to make love under such stress.”
After Sasha translated, they laughed. Molly let the cab driver kiss her on both cheeks and shake her hand. They would always remember each other because both were kindred spirits, thrown together under the worst of circumstances. Maybe both dreamed too much for their own good. She waved good-bye and led Sasha back to their berth.
They watched the scenery pass by on the ride to the Baikal-Amur Mainline terminal at Tayshet. Then darkness fell and they boarded their new train for the north end of Lake Baikal. Now there would be nothing to see but the streetlights of Bratsk when the BAM stopped there, in the blackness covering the countryside. They would have to wait until the train stopped in the morning at the small village of Severobaikalsk.
“Once we reach Severobaikalsk,” Sasha said, “we’ll see the most beautiful sight in Russia, the oldest and deepest lake on earth. It holds almost twenty percent of the world’s freshwater and many animal species all its own, like the nerpa, a seal imprisoned millions of years ago. Maybe we’ll see the oddest creature of all as well, the six-toed bear. Wildlife biologists argue the bear is fictitious, but one never knows around Lake Baikal. It’s a very special place.”
Morning came, and they saw Severobaikalsk in the distance, sitting alongside the frozen lake that Sasha had talked so much about since they’d boarded the Trans-Siberian Railway. It lay there like a sea, four hundred miles long and fifty miles wide, surrounded by cliffs of black rock, forests of birch, pine, and spruce, and hillsides of meadows, waiting for the first flowers of spring. Now they’d catch the bus to Baikalskaye, a village an hour or so down the coast.
When they got off the train, Molly saw Severobaikalsk was by far the smallest place she’d visited, with its single street, post office, exchange bank, cafe, and small market, although the prettiest place as well. Its carved cottages and log homes were adorable. Could Baikalskaye be as beautiful? She would soon find out. They had arrived in time for the first bus.
Another rough road, she told herself, as they endured the awful beating the bus received from the frost heaves and potholes left by the wintertime. Hadn’t Russia heard about asphalt? Not one road she’d ridden on had been paved. All Siberia seemed like she’d moved back in time. The other passengers began groaning in harmony as the bus hit bottom again and again. Sasha and she laughed and joined the chorus. Their gaiety rose higher as they neared Baikalskaye, with only twenty more kilometers to go before they reached their rendezvous with Jake and Simon.
They saw Baikalskaye was an oldfashioned fishing village in the midst of the most beautiful scenery in the world. Snowy mountains and green pinewoods stood all around and the wonderful lake lay at its doorstep. Colorful fishing nets hung between homes built of logs, some with carved shutters, doorways, and gables. Wooden boats, painted every color of the rainbow, rested upside down everywhere, waiting for the summer. Molly wanted to stay because she’d found Valhalla. Then she remembered the native Buryats who had lived beside the lake for thousands of years believed the lake was sacred and had always worshiped and taken their holy sustenance from it. Maybe she had found real heaven.
Sasha interrupted her muse. “Let’s hire a horse-drawn sled to take us across the lake, then we can get to the dacha before dark. It will feel like a winter sleigh ride. Wouldn’t you like that? Otherwise, we’ll have to take a motorcar.”
Molly smiled. Why would Sasha even bother asking? She hadn’t ever ridden on a winter sleigh, probably a sacrilege in Texas. What a fine way to end their long journey, and by far the best means to see the sights along shore.
“I’ll wait here with our things and you go find one. Have them throw hay on the sled so it feels real. I don’t care what it costs. I’d like to have Jake and Simon see us coming across the lake in style.” She laughed because her crazy journey had become fun again.
She stood in the afternoon sun, watching the locals who had come to greet the bus. None seemed very interested in her, though she must, at least, look like a Muscovite. Maybe they didn’t care. They had their wonderful home and meant to keep it. She could tell by their hands and weather-beaten faces that life was hard for them, fishing for a living, fighting the wilderness for their place on earth. Still, peace prevailed all around them. Bliss was what God had given them. Why should they fight for prosperity when their poverty was so rich? She started seeing a solemn message in their eyes, one she needed to remember.
She saw Sasha coming toward her, riding on a horse sled with yellow hay stacked on it. An old man sat up front, looking sleepy, wearing the quintessential Russian fur hat. Absolutely picturesque, she thought to herself, everything set against the green pines and white mountains, backlit by Lake Baikal. How could anyone ask for more?
They helped the elderly man load the luggage, sat on the hay, and watched him swing his horse toward a rugged headland a few miles away. He whistled and the horse started trotting, heading for their new home high above everything, where they could see great distances. Molly guessed Jake and Simon were watching them . . . always on guard, those two. She could hardly wait to see both, and saw Sasha felt excited, too.
At last the horse driver stopped below the high bluff, unloaded, and turned back to Baikalskaye. They watched him grow indistinct in the vastness.
“I wonder why Jake and Simon haven’t come down to help us,” said Molly.
“It’s getting dark,” Sasha answered. “Maybe they missed seeing us.”
They left their luggage on the ice and climbed the narrow footpath leading up the precipice the log dacha stood on. When they reached the front yard, both stood still and listened, eyeing the place. It looked like a morgue at midnight.
PART THREE—THE WANDERERS
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE SAKHA REPUBLIC
Five thousand reindeer, clicking fetlocks and piggish oinks harmonizing with their drumming hooves, trotted out of the taiga, then, after the lead cows saw themselves clear of the trees, they slowed down. The great herd had finally reached its calving grounds, the rolling tundra sweeping north to the More Laptevwych, the icy sea off the Lena River delta. Now the pregnant mothers could drop their newborn calves and the summertime could start again. Pawing at the lingering snow of the past winter, some nibbled on lichen and others rested in the sun. Calling geese wheeled overhead, cupping their wings. They had come north to raise their young as well.
Yuri Pavlov rode his bull deer to a nearby hilltop, stopped, and gazed across the land. The plains of Siberia spread before him. He watched the Nenet herders come out of the forest, driving the reindeer that were pulling the tribe’s camp sleds, and steer for a small river, overflowing because of the spring breakup. They would soon have their skin chums up and chayneeks boiling water, preparing their tepee-like homes for the night. The Evenki shaman named Wolverine rode up, reining his bull like an expert horseman.
“White man, what do you think of this? A person’s spirit is never truly free until he rides the tundra. The Nenets know how to live, don’t they? Look at them. They’re like my ancestors.”
“It’s wonderful, but I still miss my daughter and Akademgorodok, and I wonder if I’ll ever see either one again.”
“Your life is done back there and so is mine. We’re destined to stay with these people or die the moment Zorkin finds us. He’s too smart to believe we’re dead, and he’ll hunt us forever because we cost him a fortune. You and I are the only outsiders who know about the sacred place.
The Nenets will even kill us if they learn we know their secret.”
“What makes you think they know about the pink diamonds? Why would they live like this and work so hard?”
“They have no interest in living in today’s world, and Moscow would take all the wealth for itself, anyway. What makes you think the Nenets would ever see any money from a diamond mine? The communists stole their reindeer and made them live on collective farms many years ago, locking up a race who had lived as nomads for thousands of years, and most died of tuberculous. It’s only central governments that know how to be so cruel. This clan survived because they stayed hidden and Siberia was so large. I love them like my brothers and sisters. Since Zorkin murdered my wife, these people are my family, and I will stay with them till I die. Please don’t think I’d ever harm them.”
Yuri, not surprised by the subtle warning, shifted his gaze to the man beside him. How old was Wolverine, sixty or seventy? It was difficult to tell with the indigenous people of the North. Whatever his true age was, he was as cunning, tough, and dangerous as the creature he’d been named after, the devil animal of the Arctic. His friend exemplified the wisdom, witchcraft, survival skills, and bravery of a wild idolater of old, but with a modern twist. Of all the men and women he’d worked with in the past, some of the finest minds in the world, the Evenki was by far the cleverest, especially when it came to staying alive in the harshest conditions. The man was a magician. Who else could have saved them from Zorkin?
“Wolverine, how did you get the helicopter to quit. Why won’t you tell me?”
The shaman’s eyes beamed. “I’m so hurt. You still don’t believe in my mighty powers, do you? Why do you always doubt me?”