Chris turned to Larson, “So they are doing what? Rebuilding or something?”
Larson shook his head, “It's difficult to understand, but Russian territories are classified in certain ways, and supported by the Russian government according to that classification. The territory of Ingushetia is actually quite beautiful, but Nazran is so volatile, with every ethnic background trying to kill off all the others, that it has been deemed the most dangerous city in Russia. It is also a hot bed of governmental corruption signified by the number of people kidnapped or murdered by the government’s, so called, officials.
“And I suppose that we suspect the person who has likely been responsible for these government kidnappings, and other associated violence, is actually Dimitri Lagos?”
Larson nodded as Chris called out, “Watch this.” He fingered the mouse pad and brought up a smaller screen that sat in a window on top of the satellite’s image, “I recorded this earlier.”
I watched a line of flashy and expensive cars that seemed completely out of place in the otherwise drab surroundings as they pulled in to park quite neatly along a row of brightly illuminated buildings. On the street a crowd of relatively young and well-dressed people milled around with everyone holding a cigarette in their hand and a ’ready to party’ expression on their faces.
“Our guest mentioned that Dimitri ‘owned' the city,” Chris volunteered. “Well, it looks like the king has come to court with his entourage in tow.”
I watched men, dressed in all black with the appearance and demeanor of law enforcement or security personnel, aggressively part the crowd and open the door of the lead vehicle, a beautiful Rolls Royce Ghost Bespoke. Two men dressed in identical designer business suits, which immediately gave them away as Dimitri's bodyguards, exited the vehicle and surveyed the crowd. When they were apparently satisfied the area was secure, the bodyguard closest to the door waved a hand and Dimitri Lagos stepped from the vehicle. I instantly recognized Dimitri from when he had come to recruit Lei and me at my office in Las Vegas, and I knew the small and somewhat frail-looking appearance he sported was a sham that the ancient man liked to project. What I hadn't expected was that he had lost the rumpled business suit he had worn to my office and replaced it with something that I can only describe as “Rock-star” attire, which involuntarily made me think of Mick Jagger... minus the long hair.
I was about to comment on the spectacle when another man's leg emerged from the vehicle. A large head ducked out from under the door’s frame, followed by a man's body that just kept coming and coming from within the car’s rear seat, until the man was able to stand at his full height, which was more than a foot taller than the bodyguard next to him.
I was about to make the expected comment on the man's size, when something beyond the obvious struck me as odd. The large man was wearing a grey wool overcoat and a traditional “Ushanka” winter hat that made him look more like an old Soviet military man, as opposed to a business man or club goer.
“Who's the big guy?” I asked.
Larson and Chris looked uncomfortably at each other.
I turned from the screen and frowned at their expressions,
“What?”
Chris spoke up first, “I ran a facial recognition program on him. We had a hit, but it only registered a 68% reliability.”
I raised my eyebrows, “So who does the computer ’think’ he is?”
Larson walked to the table where the laptop sat, lifted a small stack of paper and handed it to me.
There was the pixilated image from the satellite feed, along with another black and white photo that took up most of the page. The only type was the name I read at the top of the page and I frowned at the name of “Nicholas Nickolaevich.” I took my eyes off the paper for a moment and looked at nothing in particular, “Why does that sound familiar to me?”
“Next page,” Chris said as he pointed at the stack in my hands.
I looked back to the stack and flipped the page over and began reading, “Nicholas Nickolaevich, also known as Nicholas the Tall, Nicholas The Hunter and Grand Duke Nickolay Nickolaevich Ro...” my eyes widened as the word caught in my throat, “...Romanov?!”
Larson nodded, “It doesn't really seem possible, but the computer seems to think that we are looking at the grandson of Nicholas the First, of Russia and the first cousin of Nicholas the second, the last Tsar of Russia before the Bolsheviks took power.”
My Russian history was next to nothing, but I remembered Dimitri having mentioned ’The Romanov’ in my office, along with Pollard's recent confession mentioning such a person as well.
“The man was a public figure. Isn't there a record of...”
Chris cut me off, “If you had kept reading, you would have seen that our man managed to escape Russia before the Bolsheviks could execute him, and lived in Italy where he became the center of an anti-Soviet monarchist resistance group. He remained in exile until his recorded death in the French Riviera in 1929, where he had moved in order to get out the cold winter in Genoa.”
“I take it the reports of the man's demise were greatly exaggerated?” Larson quipped, “so, that means he's one of you.”
I pointed to a spot in the packet of papers in my hand, “It says here that he was born in 1856.”
“Right,” Chris agreed, “that would make him over one hundred and sixty years old, which is pretty much the upper limit in age for most of our kind. If he was one of our kind, then he would still look like an old man in the winter of his life, but look at him.”
I glanced to the screen as Chris continued, “He's not young, but he’s far from the senior citizen that he should resemble.”
Larson asked, “Didn't you say Alpha was something like five hundred years old?”
I nodded, “Six actually, in fact, William is around that old as well, but it's pretty rare among our people to be ageless. When it does happen the person seems to resemble a normal human who is around thirty five years old.”
“So how do you, account for Dimitri?”
Chris responded, “He has a point Steve. Dimitri is supposed to be one of those ‘ageless’ what-ever you might call him, and he looks older than dirt.”
I shrugged, “There's no written record that can explain what happens to us if we keep on living like that, but Alpha has said it is different for everyone. Just look at Alpha as compared to William. Alpha's eyes have become black orbs, while William still looks pretty much normal.”
Chris laughed, “Normal being a very relative term.”
I heard Larson cough to hide his own laugh as I continued, “Fair enough. I simply mean that as far as we know, the condition might manifest in a different way for anyone afflicted.”
“So it is still possible that this “Nicholas” is one of your ‘Ancients’?”
“Quite likely, actually,” I confirmed as I studied the photo of Nicholas Nickolaevich Romanov, “I don't know, but I think we are going to need to be very careful. Dimitri wanted William as a weapon against someone he called, “the Romanov” and given the similarity of their sizes I am thinking this might have been his target.”
“They seem pretty chummy to be enemies,” Chris observed, “unless Dimitri is using him to get what he wants and then plans on eliminating him.”
I let that thought roll around in my head, but I couldn't shake the feeling that there was something we were missing.
“Why does Dimitri need such a man?” I asked to the room in general.
Larson turned to Chris, “Did you say something about this guy Nicholas being an ‘anti-Soviet monarchist’?”
Chris looked back at his screen and nodded.
Larson shrugged, “Sounds like your answer right there. Dimitri recruited an ally who is a military expert, at least he was back in his day, and is likely highly motivated by the prospect of reclaiming at least part of what used to belong to his family before he was forced to abandon it.”
Maybe it was the old Detective instincts I developed back in my days
with the LAPD, but I shook my head, “We’re still missing something.” I turned to Chris, “Are there any other living descendents of the Romanov’s?
Chris nodded his understanding, “Give me a sec,” the screen started loading a new page and I could see Chris' eyes vibrating as he read the words. “Says here that the Tsar and his entire family were killed by firing squad in some kind of storm cellar where they were being held by the Bolsheviks.” Chris continued reading and his face grew ashen, “Christ, his children were little more than babies at the time, but none of them were reported to have been spared.”
“What was this Romanov's relation to the Tsar?” Larson asked.
I re-read the paper for Larson, “First cousin, once removed.”
He nodded, “I'm no genealogist, but it sounds like anyone with a more direct link than this guy,” Larson pointed at the tall man on the screen, “was either executed or hunted down and killed.”
I sighed, “Ok, let’s focus.” I changed the subject, “In the end it doesn't matter who this ‘Romanov’ is, because I really don't give a shit about Dimitri's plans. He has Lei. He has Pha. We need to go and get them, period.” I gave that uncompromising statement a moment to sink in before asking, “Have you figured out how we're going to get into the country yet?”
Chris smiled and hit another set of buttons on the keypad. The screen went blank and then faded into a YouTube video called “The Mystic Land of Ingushetia.” Immediately the video began playing modern music with what might have been lyrics native to the region, as panoramic shots of beautiful mountains and landscapes with ancient looking ruins in the background rolled artistically across the screen.
“Lovely, but what am I looking at here, Chris?” I asked.
Chris pointed to the video where people were standing to one side photographing the ruins. “It would appear as though photographic tours of the countryside surrounding Nazran have become popular amongst photography enthusiasts.”
“So you'll need to go in as photographers,” Larson said matter-of-factly.
Chris nodded, “I can put enough credentials together to make the three of us appear to be a professional photography crew on assignment to photograph the historical ruins throughout Ingushetia. With Nazran being more or less centrally located it would make sense that we set up a base of operations for our work in the city.”
I looked questioningly at Larson, “You're not coming?”
Larson lowered his eyes as Chris looked over. Chris had apparently missed the fact that Larson had said, “You will, need to go in as photographers” and not “We will need to go in as photographers,” thereby effectively taking himself out of the equation.
“Can't,” Larson said simply, as Chris and I waited for an explanation. Eventually he got the hint and expanded, “I'm still active military status despite my ongoing hiatus of the moment. If any Russian official were to learn that a member of the United States Special Forces has crossed the border into Russian territory without the permission of the Russian government, or the knowledge of the United States government, then I and anyone with me would be as good as dead.”
I looked at Chris, who shrugged his shoulders and said, “Hard to argue with that.”
I nodded and asked, “What will you do?”
Larson jerked a finger at the room where Timberland was still locked in his cage, “You said you were going to cut him loose?”
“I will, unless I suddenly change my mind and believe he's a threat, then I'll just shoot him.”
Larson frowned, “You don't currently think he's a threat? Why not?”
I held up my hands in a helpless gesture, “I'm only guessing, but the bottom-line is that he's a mercenary and mercenaries aren't loyal, or at least their loyalties are for sale. His employer abandoned him to die back in Thailand, and probably a far greater betrayal in Timberland’s mind, is the fact that he has been left unpaid. My guess is he'll go back to wherever he came from, and wait until he has a chance to avenge himself on his former employer.”
Larson thought about it and said, “Maybe, but I think I'll follow him and see if he turns over any rocks that might help.”
“Not a bad idea.” Chris volunteered.
Larson nodded, “Just make sure you keep a satellite phone with you so I can contact you as needed.”
“Can you prep us for the trek to Nazran?” I asked.
Larson grimaced at the thought, “Fair warning, it is going to suck. But sure, I can even give you the name of someone who can get you geared up, once you're in Nazran.”
I shook my head to clear it of disbelief, “You're on friendly terms with arms dealers in the middle of nowhere?”
Larson smiled, “Well, I did tell you that I had been there before, and I have an ongoing relationship of sorts with a particular individual there.”
“I don't suppose your ‘friend’ can help us sneak across the border instead?”
Larson laughed, “You aren't familiar with the terrain around that area are you?”
I shook my head soberly, “Not even a little, but from your expression I take it that was an ill-advised suggestion?”
Larson nodded, “The geography of the region is one of the reasons that Nazran was originally founded as a military base. Anyone foolish enough to attempt an invasion would be physically spent scaling the mountains, not to mention that any supply trains would never be able to get to the troops.
“Okay,” I said, “scratch the idea of sneaking in. Do you think we could falsify our way through customs?”
“Why would we have to?” Chris asked.
I was about to scold Chris when Larson cut me off, “He's right. The place is so backward in its networking abilities, that they probably wouldn't be able to run a check on you even if they wanted to. Add into the mix a well-placed bribe to expedite the process, and they'll probably carry your bags, as they hustle you on through.”
I thought about that and let it roll around in my head a moment before asking, “Is there any chance that the bribe would do us more harm than good?”
Larson shrugged, “There's always a chance you could end up arrested and thrown into whatever is passing as a jail in Nazran these days, but the corruption runs so deep that bribes are pretty much expected. It might even be construed as rude not to offer a bribe.” Larson grinned wickedly, “Hell, you could be stopped simply because you have American passports, because the camera equipment is worth more than the bribe you are giving, or simply because the person checking you through is in a bad mood. There's always a risk.”
I frowned at Larson, “Try not to enjoy this so much.”
Larson laughed, “Definitely relishing the ‘better you than me’ moment here.”
“That only leaves us with two big problems,” Chris said as he held up two fingers, Larson and I remained silent as we waited for Chris to explain.
“Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum in the other room,” Chris pointed to the room where William and Alpha were resting, “are never going to pass for professional photographers.”
He was right, even if we could convince the local authorities that William and Alpha were a legitimate part of a photography crew, their larger than life presence and unsettling appearance would certainly attract too much attention.
“So what do we do about them?” Larson asked, “I don't know them all that well, but I don't think they will like the idea of being left behind.”
“Alpha has his ways, “I said cryptically, “just tell him the destination and I’d bet that he and William will beat us there.”
Chapter 8
When Larson had said the ride to Ingushetia was going to suck, it had been an understatement of such magnitude that I might actually give him a nomination for the “Biggest Understatement in the History of Mankind” Award. The flight to Istanbul just sucked in general, but the drive from the airport, over the waterways and across the border into Georgia while bouncing in the back of a truck, sucked a lot more. The boat ride up the Terek river from Georgia to sout
hern Ingushetia was a frozen and turbulent catastrophe, which also sucked, while the final Cessna flight over the mountains and its subsequent landing in a pasture just outside Nazran was the pinnacle of all suck-i-tude. And finally, I kid you not, there was an actual fully harnessed horse and cart, accessorized with wooden wagon wheels, for our final ride into Nazran. Meanwhile we were showing falsified passports, and handing out bribes like candy on Halloween, just for the honor of traveling in such decrepit splendor. It was almost as if Larson had arranged for us to suffer just as he had two decades ago, and he didn't want to deny us the experience of nearly three days-worth of aggravation, discomfort and possibly death, in transit. Chris and I made a pact to kick Larson in the ass, once for each leg of the trip, for his efforts in preparing our journey, yet personally opting out of this little adventure, regardless of the legitimacy for his reasons.
When we finally arrived in Nazran we both felt beaten and bedraggled, as we climbed off of the cart and ambled from the marketplace into what appeared to be a decent hotel, decent in this case referring to the fact that there wasn't any graffiti on the building, or squatters sitting outside the establishment. Once we stepped inside the hotel every eye in the joint scrutinized us as if we had just been added to the menu.
The front desk clerk was nice enough and seemingly extra helpful once she saw the color of our money. Chris and I got separate rooms, although the second room would serve more as a decoy and extra storage space in case anyone came looking for us, forcing a split of their forces between the two rooms. For our part, we had no intentions of separating ourselves at night, and would sleep in shifts, as if we were on watch in hostile territory, which was probably an accurate description of our situation.
Once we unpacked and separated our gear, including the handguns from the camera equipment, Chris asked, “So do you want to sleep first, or get started now?”
Instantly my mind flew to Lei, and the desperation I felt at wanting to locate her, but we had been traveling hard, and I knew we wouldn't be helping her if we weren't at our best.
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