Exoteric

by Philip Hemplow

  “Hm. Well, size her up. Make sure she can stay off the morphine. I will arrange for a cadaver so she can practice her technique. What about equipment?”

  “He’s sent me a preliminary list. It’s, ah—it’s quite long, I’m afraid. He says he needs equipment for telesurgery: robotic arms and that kind of thing. Apparently, the room will have to be kept too cold for a surgeon to operate in-person. He also wants surgical simulation software, so they can practice, plus a whole load of refrigeration equipment, tools, operating tables, adjustable beds…we’re basically building a whole clinic for one man—one dead man.”

  “Just as well his daughter’s rich then, eh?” Zolin clapped him on the shoulder. “Talk to her and arrange a line of credit. Tell Zapad to order what he needs. It will arouse less suspicion if the orders come from his clinic. Votyakov can arrange transport and installation.”

  “Right.”

  “I think you and Dr Zapad should fly out and inspect the installation as soon as possible, make sure it’s appropriate. Take him there this weekend, would you?”

  “Okay. We’re really going to do this then, Boss?”

  Zolin clapped his shoulder again, and gave it an encouraging, paternal shake. “Indeed we are, old friend. When next we rest, Maslok will be on trial, justice will have been done, and Molchanov will have his revenge.”

  “Or we will have difficult questions to answer and a melted corpse to dispose of,” countered Arkady.

  Zolin smiled. “At least we will know we did all that could be done. Come—let us go back to the house and talk of other things. Valentina will scold me for keeping you out here in the cold. We shall have coffee and cognac to lift the chill.”

  So saying, he turned and began to lead them back uphill, to where the Black Dacha towered against the winter sky. Arkady followed, trying to stave off a growing sense of foreboding and doubt.

  *

  The squeal of the plane’s tyres kissing the runway roused him from a fitful sleep. There had been a time when he’d found it impossible to doze off on aircraft, but as he aged he’d found it coming to him more naturally. He looked around, feeling grubby and self-conscious, and checked to make sure he hadn’t dribbled on his tie. It seemed not. That, at least, was something.

  Roman Zapad and his stepsister, Galina, were sat together across the aisle, a few rows in front of him. Zapad was nattering away, the kind of passenger no one appreciated first thing in the morning. His stepsister was slumped, long legs stretching out into the aisle, frizzy hair piled up, creating a blonde halo around her headrest. Arkady had booked his own flight separately, in case his movements or those of the two doctors were being monitored. It was unlikely, but the instinct for fieldcraft was ingrained. Long years of surveillance and counter-surveillance had made it a matter of almost-superstitious habit: you controlled the things you could control, the better to concentrate on those you could not.

  Gorno-Altaysk airport was rural and remote, a few kilometres outside the small town for which it was named. It was framed on three sides by the Katun river, where it wriggled along the border between Altai Republic and Altai-Krai. The river was frozen, and would remain so for months, and the scenery now rolling past the plane’s windows was stark and wintry. Brown, rotting grass poked through snow and frozen mud along the river’s shore, and the trees which flecked the hills beyond were black and burnt-looking. It was a hibernating land.

  They had arrived with only carry-on luggage. Only two flights left the airport each day, both state-subsidised and bound for Moscow, and each, infuriatingly, departing within an hour of the other. The first was already boarding as Arkady and his companions disembarked. They were left with no choice but to stay in Gorno-Altaysk overnight after concluding their business; a dreary prospect if the place’s airport was anything to go by. They had departed Moscow in the early hours of the morning and crossed three time zones already. Now they had a long drive ahead of them to get to Zubgorai, where Zolin’s leased resort could be found.

  Arkady kept a watchful eye on his two charges as they strolled through the airport, paying particular attention to Galina Yelagin. Her stepbrother was infuriatingly animated for someone whose body clock should be insisting it was five a.m., but she walked with her head down, paying no attention to her surroundings. Just jet lag, wondered Arkady, or something more? She had been the same at the Domodedovo terminal before they left. Perhaps she just needed coffee; he knew that he did, and sent them both to find some while he sorted out their transportation.

  He had reserved a Japanese SUV from the local car hire, the most prized vehicle in their fleet. Its high centre of gravity would be a liability on the winding mountain roads, especially if there were cross-winds, but it would have to do. Arkady drove, keeping an eye on the mirror for any sign of a tail, even though anyone tracking them would almost certainly be doing so electronically, from a computer in Moscow. Zapad sat next to him, his stepsister in the rear, gazing listlessly at the crenellated, glacial terrain.

  A tongue of decaying two-lane unfurled southwards, following the course of the river valley. Banks of trees hemmed it in on one side, steep slopes the other, treacherous with scree. Overhead, the sky was choked with swollen, shadowy clouds, their bases descending to graze the tips of distant mountain peaks. Arkady could feel his soul stirring in response to the dour magnificence of the landscape, his spirit stretching the way his limbs had after stepping off the plane. It felt good to be out of the city, and to be reminded there was a Russia beyond the MKAD beltway.

  Zapad chattered away, maintaining a faux-jolly demeanour which Arkady assumed was for his stepsister’s benefit. He seemed determined to distract her, as if he thought she might go to pieces if left to dwell on thoughts of her own. She tolerated his solicitousness as it if was a deserved punishment, remaining quiet, staring off into space like a sentry.

  “Of course, you know that this river is sacred to the Altaians,” he rambled. “You see, it flows from one of the glaciers on Belukha Mountain, on the Kazakh border. The shamen say that’s where the entrance to Shambhala is hidden. I expect you’ve seen Roerich’s paintings of it. Did you know the Cheka planned an expedition to search for Shambhala as well, under Bokii? He became obsessed with Theosophy, was convinced Buddhist spirituality held the key to engineering perfect communists—even set up a laboratory to prove it. It’s a shame we can’t make the trip south to see the place for ourselves. They say it’s breath-taking—a World Heritage site, by the way. Oh, I do wish I’d brought my camera.”

  “I’m very glad you didn’t,” said Arkady. “No photographs on this trip, please, and no telephone calls or emails. You will have to make do with memories.”

  “Oh, yes, of course. Stupid of me, I suppose.”

  The car jolted as a pothole passed beneath their wheels. Zapad lurched and braced himself, and Arkady felt Galina Yelagin’s knees strike the back of his seat. He apologised to his passengers and slowed down. The road’s state of disrepair only increased the further into the foothills they drove, a victim of farm traffic, neglected maintenance, and the merciless freeze-thaw cycle of the Siberian seasons. He was driving down the centre-line now, the tarmac’s edges having disintegrated completely.

  They passed through a tiny, anonymous hamlet: cabins with sturdy log walls and flimsy roofs of corrugated metal, smoke curling from stovepipe chimneys the only sign of life. Arkady glanced at the GPS console. No settlement was marked there, but that didn’t wholly surprise him.

  Zapad craned his neck to look at the houses until they disappeared from view around the next bend.

  “Mennonites, I expect,” he said, turning back. “There are thousands still farming this steppe. Mennonites, Rodnovers, Tengrists, Old Believers…these hills are positively wild with minority beliefs. Look! See that cairn up there, on that hilltop? Burkhanists, probably.” He settled back into his seat. “Makes this seem like a good place for challenging orthodoxy, wouldn’t you say?”

  Arkady gave a non-committal grunt and fished
in his coat pocket for the written directions Zolin had given him.

  “Here,” he said, passing it to Zapad. “See if you can work out how far we have to travel along this road. I don’t want to miss our turn-off.”

  The doctor read the instructions through, then began fiddling with the GPS, zooming the view in and out, looking for the landmarks Zolin’s note described. He muttered to himself while he stabbed at buttons and observed the results, thinking out loud, but at a volume low enough to be ignored.

  Arkady took a deep breath, and sighed with quiet relief. It was too early in the morning for lectures. There was something still nagging at him though: a sensation of being watched. His eyes darted to the rear-view mirror where they met those of Galina Yelagin, more awake than he’d supposed, and watching him intently.

  *

  The turn-off, when they reached it, was easy to miss: a slight gap between the roadside pines, nothing more. Brambles clawed at the SUV’s sides as Arkady steered it up the steep slope, keeping to the deep, frozen tyre tracks of whatever vehicles had gone before.

  For all its stylistic off-road pretensions, the car was not well-suited to rough terrain, and they proceeded at little more than a juddering crawl. The track veered this way and that, but upwards, always upwards, towards the small plateau where the sanatorium supposedly stood. As he wrestled with the power steering and wished for four-wheel drive, Arkady could understand why it had gone out of business.

  Occasionally, a gap in the trees allowed them a glimpse of the Zubgorai’s splintered summit above them. A minnow by the standards of the mountains to their south, it was nevertheless grander than the surrounding hills, its three jagged, rocky peaks casting a sawtooth shadow on the forest below.

  The track gradually levelled out, and a sign by the verge assured them they were approaching the Zubgorai Altitude Training Centre. After weaving through the forest for another quarter mile, they finally broke through the tree line to arrive at a large, irregular clearing.

  The trees here were held back on two sides by a rusting, wire-mesh fence, twigs and pine needles pushing against it and poking through. To their left, there was no need for fencing. There, the ground fell away vertiginously, some hundred feet or more of exposed and eroded rock topped by a waist-high railing and signs warning of the edge’s propensity to collapse. In front of them, another cliff wall soared skywards, its folds and fissures filled with ice, climbing by degrees towards the mountain’s trefoil crown.

  At the cliff’s base nestled the sanatorium complex, lost against its background like freckles on a pretty girl. Behind it, a vertical sheet of ice depended from the rock, slippery and gleaming. Presumably a waterfall in the warmer months, it was frozen now until the thaw.

  The evolution of the centre could be traced in its architecture. Arkady scanned the buildings as the SUV bumped towards them. Long, wooden huts, raised off the ground to protect against ticks and miasmas, stood as evidence of its origins as a tuberculosis infirmary. Over the decades, gales whipping water from the nearby cascade had flayed paint from the sides facing the plateau’s edge. The remaining patina was blotchy and scabrous-looking, as if the sicknesses the structures once housed had seeped into their very fabric.

  An administration building faced away from the huts, looking out across the waterfall-cut ravine. It had later been extended into a worker’s resort, a long, curving pavilion with dangerous-looking balconies, the ghost of a hammer and sickle still visible above the door. It was a ruin now, the extension having weathered the elements less well than the original structure or the stout little huts. Holes in the roof were patched with tar, its walls shored up by rusty scaffolding.

  Arkady could remember holidays to similar places with his parents: their determination to secure matching vacation vouchers; the interminable journeys by bus, train, and car; evenings spent playing chess with his father in silent hotel lounges, or sitting by campfires to hear wild stories about the war. They were memories with the crusts cut off, he knew: varnished by nostalgia to the point of propaganda, but more precious than the unremembered truth.

  Adjacent to the resort building, directly facing them as they travelled the last fifty metres, was the most modern part of the enterprise: the altitude clinic and training centre. This was the part they had leased. It looked incongruous and vulgar, its tacky, marble-effect fascia water-stained, tinted windows streaked with bird shit. Blocky and unapologetic, the front of it faced away from the panoramic view, as if declaring itself worthy of equal consideration.

  There was a car parked in front of the entrance, a battered, green Opel, splattered with mud. A man was sitting in it reading a newspaper, which he put down as Arkady pulled up alongside. He was out of the car and waiting for them by the time Arkady turned off the transmission.

  “Doctor Zapad? My name is Sluchevsky. I corresponded with your office in Moscow. I hope you had a pleasant flight.”

  He raked back his hair with his fingers and gabbled on, giving Arkady no time to interject. That was fine. He was in no mood for small talk.

  “The service from Moscow can be quite good, quite good. Obviously, not quite good enough for our needs here—ha, as you know we have been short of customers…we did quite well before the Olympics; there were lots of athletes training here then. The mountain has many great tracks for running, and the altitude is ideal for building stamina. Since then, though, we have been through hard times. Yes, some hard times indeed.

  “Would you like to know the history of the place? I can tell you all about that, or we can just commence with a quick tour. How does that sound? The waterfall you see there is called Dolgo Sila, but it is usually frozen at this time of year. As the weather grows warmer it will start to run. It does make rather a lot of noise, but you’ll find our soundproofing quite ample—yes, quite ample.”

  He seemed tense and nervous, but Arkady got the impression that was how he spent most of his life. Zapad introduced himself. His stepsister didn’t bother, but declared herself keen to “get out of this fucking cold.”

  “Ha, yes indeed,” said Sluchevsky. “I have been inside and turned up the thermostat, but you may wish to keep your coats. Winter here is bitter—yes, very cold. Come, let me show you indoors. I regret I cannot offer you any coffee after your drive. We have the water, but not the coffee!”

  So saying, he led the way up a short flight of steps to the dark glass doors.

  These opened onto a gloomy lobby that smelled, to Arkady’s mind, of blood. Perhaps it was rust. A deserted reception desk sprouted touch-screen terminals, models that would have been cutting-edge five years before. Sofas and chairs upholstered in imitation leather were arranged around a low, glass table, on which a small pile of fitness and athletics magazines gathered dust.

  “The owners have arranged for people to come and give the place a good clean before you move in,” Sluchevsky assured them, tripping over his own feet as he backed up, trying to look all three of them in the eye at once. “It isn’t dirty as such—you know, not unhygienic—but it could do with dusting: dusting and airing out.”

  Arkady stooped and nudged the pile of magazines, spreading them so he could see their publication dates: 2013, 2014…there was nothing more recent than that.

  “Ah, yes. We can probably get rid of those,” acknowledged Sluchevsky, and cleared his throat. “Come, let me show you around. This floor is where the clinic facilities and gymnasia are located. Accommodation is on the floor above. As you have the run of the place, I suggest you use the VIP rooms. They’re a little more luxurious and have the better views. First, though, let me show you the restaurant.”

  He ushered them through the silent lobby, then dashed to get ahead of them and open a set of double doors. The men let Galina Yelagin enter first, then filtered through behind her.

  It was several degrees colder in the restaurant, due, no doubt, to the floor-to-ceiling windows comprising one entire wall. Beyond the glass was a desolate patio, and beyond that the cliff edge and the glistening ice
of Dolgo Sila. It was a spectacular view. The pine forest on the lower slopes was so far away it looked like a head of broccoli, the road they had taken through the valley no more than a stray hair.

  “How high up are we?” wondered Arkady aloud.

  “Two thousand four hundred metres,” answered Sluchevsky. “Above sea level, that is. Of course, the entire region is rather high. Here, we are about six hundred metres above the valley floor.”

  The view aside, what he had described as a restaurant was really more of a canteen, split-level, with fewer than a dozen tables. A wide serving counter, empty vending machine, and a drinks station with no supplies completed the inventory. Arkady was becoming aware of the whole resort’s eerie, under-inhabited atmosphere, like an out-of-season seaside town.

  “You’ll find our kitchen facilities quite impressive, I think,” Sluchevsky assured them. “Of course, many of our guests have very specific, individualised diets, so we need the capacity to prepare all manner of things. There are no fuel deliveries scheduled now until early summer, but there is plenty of propane in the store. You will need to bring your own perishable supplies, of course.”

  “Is there a bar?” asked Dr Yelagin, turning her back on the view from the window.

  “Ah, I regret not. The insurance would not allow for that, and our guests do not really drink, as a rule. Of course, you may bring with you whatever you like!” He cleared this throat again. “Perhaps now I may show you the clinic and exercise facilities. Much of the equipment is in storage, but we would be happy to set up any of it before you arrive. This way, please.”

  Zapad began to belabour him with questions about the clinic’s power supply, worried about its ability to support the refrigeration equipment they would be bringing. Arkady and Yelagin followed behind like eavesdroppers, through dingy hallways lined with mass-produced, bulk-purchased art.

  The clinic was, indeed, high-tech. The deep carpets of the hallway gave way to gunmetal-grey tile, the anonymous, superficial artwork to touchscreens and anatomical diagrams. A central hub housed the records office and massage room, and corridors led from there to swimming and plunge pools—both drained—an echoing gymnasium, in which dust sheets made lumpy, missharpen ghosts of stored exercise equipment, and a medical centre. It was the latter facility which drew Zapad’s immediate interest, and he grabbed Arkady’s lapel in order to whisper to him.