Kate paused a second time. She crouched, crossing her arms over her chest and hugging her shoulders. Looking up, she gazed at the blackness around her. Damp, fetid air brushed her cheeks.
Standing, Kate shrugged and rotated her head to relieve the tension in her back and shoulders. Then she reached across the coffin and, grasping the thick glass, turned it on its axis so that it rested crossways, fully exposing the dead priest’s upper and lower body.
Kate searched again, this time reaching under Father Mikhail’s form. Beneath his right shoulder, her fingers touched something firm and round. Frantically, her hands dug at the rotting cloth beneath the body. Whatever she’d felt, she couldn’t budge it.
If only she could shift the cadaver out of the way. Kate walked to the casket’s head. Leaning over, she tried not to look at the priest’s closed, sunken eyes. Inserting both hands just below the neck, she flattened her palms against his shoulder blades. His corpse felt like a hard leather husk.
Tightening her knees and belly for greater power, Kate lifted her body straight up.
Crack! A dry, splintering sound ruptured the silence.
The mummy’s head had broken off at the neck, and now lolled awkwardly back from its desiccated body. The priest’s upside-down, pie-shaped face blindly ogled her, his trunk gaping open toward the ceiling. From his now mutilated form, the stench of trapped, dead air and rotting clothes escaped like a volatile gas, enveloping her.
Kate stifled a scream and dropped the flashlight, fighting nausea.
Get hold of yourself! Pick up the flashlight and get on with it.
Kate slid her hands beneath the ruined cadaver until she again felt the object. It seemed surrounded by material, as if in a satchel or purse. Kate tugged the container and it started to move.
In an instant it lay in her hands, heavy, about the size of a pear, in a gathered velvet pouch.
In the darkness, the thirty-one-year-old professor sank to the floor and splayed her legs like a little girl. She clutched the pouch to her chest with both hands. You’ve found it! My God, you’ve actually found it!
She loosened the drawstring and drew out a pocketsize book bearing the inscription, in faded gold, “Bank of England, Private Account.” Next, she withdrew what could have been a large potato.
Without her flashlight, the miniature Faberge carriage would have been almost impossible to see.
Reverently, Kate placed the piece on the floor. She shined the beam directly upon it. The egg-shaped container’s glistening enamel surface gleamed like colored vapors. She touched the top with her finger and heard a solid click.
Slowly, Kate partially opened the egg. As she did so, her flashlight bathed the stone, causing it to emit a bright crimson glow. Kate’s heart pounded.
Suddenly, she was seized by panic. What if the authorities found her? She’d heard of old Soviet prisons, where inmates’ leg irons were removed only upon death. What if she were caught stealing, as both Ukrainian and Russian law would surely define it, a state treasure? She imagined Krasky’s face, saw him sneering.
Abruptly, she closed the Faberge container and jumped up, brushing the casket.
The glass cover momentarily teetered, then slid to the hard floor.
It shattered in a dozen sections, clattering into a jagged, crystalline heap.
Kate froze, paralyzed by the cacophony that echoed through the cavern. She had to get herself under control, think through her options. What options? She had zero time. She had to get out of here. Slinging her tool bag over her shoulder, she grabbed the pouch with her free hand, then bolted back toward the stairs.
She pulled open the heavy door to the caves and an instant later was outside, sprinting free.
Behind her, a window being raised creaked in its jamb. Kate heard muffled shouts. Lights blinked on in the cathedral. She dumped her burglar’s bag in a trash can and kept running.
Only a trained athlete could catch Kate Gavrill in full flight. By the time the curious few had convinced themselves they’d only heard an animal, she’d reached the edge of the city. The Monastery of the Caves again lay shrouded in darkness.
* * *
Temporarily safe in the bed and breakfast where she’d checked in the night before, Kate slowly and delicately, undid the ancient cloth wrapping. She eased the alexandrite out of the egg. Heavy and surprisingly cool to the touch, in the dim light, the gem glowed a dark, sparkling green. She flicked on the lamp next to her bed. Magically, the jewel blazed back at her, flaring into a pool of fire.
Kate contemplated the stone. She’d never cared a whit about jewelry, but this incredible gem seduced her. She felt a deep, visceral bond with the alexandrite’s history, so much of which was interwoven with her own. But something more held her: the stone’s fundamental mystery. Beneath its glistening surface, nature had captured the essence of ambivalence. Was it an emerald or a ruby? What, Kate asked herself, was its true identity? What, indeed, was her own?
Chapter 20
Vulcan Krasky’s monthly meeting with Boris Lada had not gone well. As was their custom, the two men sat together in the back room of a Kiev strip club. With the door open, they could watch the girls walking to and from the stage, naked breasts jiggling, faces shiny with makeup, thighs quivering under net stockings. Sometimes, Lada would order one of the dancers to come into the room and service his companion with oral sex.
Today, however, no such favors would be granted. The door remained closed. Lada knew, as boss of the local mafiya, they would not be disturbed. His hired cop could speak freely, after which Boris would slip him a 100 hrivnya note. Even allowing for rampant inflation, the money was worth less than one hundred dollars. The arrangement had made Boris a rich man. Krasky the mule owned an apartment and a shiny used car.
“You fool!” Red islands blotched Lada’s pale neck. He stared at the ancient photograph of a large alexandrite. The tangy odor of female sweat, 10-kopek vodka and dense tobacco smoke hung over the room, creating a scent as pungent as a barnyard in the steppes.
“The woman didn’t have the stone,” Krasky protested. “Just the picture.”
“Of course she didn’t have it then,” Lada said. He rose and circled Krasky, seated at a small wooden table, before returning to glare into his eyes. The Slovenian-born criminal was nearly two feet shorter than his gunsel. Standing, his eyes were on a plane only slightly higher than Krasky’s, yet the feeling of relative dominance was unmistakable. “Admittedly, I’m no detective”—Lada drew out the word with scorn—“but isn’t it possible that the break-in at the monastery was carried out by this Gavrill woman or her accomplice? And isn’t it possible that they made off with this, this treasure?” His voice rose and he flung the picture down on the table between them.
“We don’t know that,” Krasky responded, finding his spine. “We aren’t sure if there is such a treasure. It’s an old photo; it could just be a piece of costume jewelry, a family remembrance of some kind. And we don’t know if Miss Gavrill broke into the monastery, or even if anything was taken. A coffin lid was broken, but nothing was reported stolen.”
“You idiot!” Lada shouted. “Of course nothing was reported stolen! No one knew it was there.” He sat down in one of the room’s two wooden chairs and, resting his elbows on the table, buried his face in his hands.
When he’d looked up, his eyes were glacial.
“Hear this,” Lada said. “I am not going to be the one to tell our superiors in Moscow that we let this slip away. Today is Monday, July 31st. You will find this woman and the stone by our next meeting. Either that”—he paused—“or we will find a new Vulcan.”
* * *
early the next morning, Kate sat in a restroom stall at Kiev’s airport.
She balanced her suitcase on her knees. She’d repacked her belongings to render the pouch’s contents as invisible as possible. She was certain the Faberge E
gg contained no ferrous metal, so she didn’t have to worry about detectors. They had x-ray machines in Kiev, but nothing resembled a weapon in her belongings. Still, she couldn’t be too careful. She decided to leave the pouch and egg in the suitcase and keep the jewel and bank documents in her purse.
Setting the suitcase down, Kate rested her elbows on her knees, and put her head in her hands.
Her mother’s disclosures, and their implications, tumbled in her head like nested Russian boxes. Irina had insisted the lies she and Anya told were for Kate’s own good. But if there were a real threat, how could it have been safer to keep that knowledge secret? Confusion, loss and anger mingled uncomfortably in Kate’s mind, like immiscible liquids.
None of the questions she faced appeared straightforward. Even if rampaging Bolsheviks seemed faintly antiquarian, her mother’s death was not. It remained a raw wound, open and, for now at least, unexplained. There was also the matter of justice. Kate couldn’t let Irina’s killers get away with their crime—that she knew with burning certainty. What if she had children of her own some day? Choosing not to act could condemn them to a life of fear or, worse, the same cycle of self-deception begun by Anya and Irina decades before.
Shaking her head, Kate stood, shut the snaps on her purse and suitcase and left the stall. In passing, she briefly paused to check her appearance in the faded restroom mirror, then stepped out onto the concourse. She gasped, and immediately turned toward the nearest wall.
A man stood thirty yards away.
Even at a distance, and even with his back turned, Kate recognized him. A coil of flesh rolled above his collar, and his coat rode high at the left shoulder, probably from the bulge of a chest-holstered automatic. The man was Detective Lt. Vulcan Krasky.
Chapter 21
Krasky moved the weight of his large frame from one foot to another, eyeing the Aeroflot ticket desk. His upper body was still strong, but at forty-three, his arches had fallen and standing for long periods was a misery. Nonetheless, he had to stick it out. His membership in Kiev’s petite bourgeoisie depended on keeping Boris happy and the hrivnya flowing.
It was a tricky situation. He had no warrant, and despite his network of corrupt judges, no Ukrainian court would certify a search for items never reported stolen. When the Gavrill woman showed up, he’d have to bluff his way through. Head her off before she got to the ticket counter, then escort her into a customs inspection room. Flash the badge and tell her he was seizing the stone under the republic’s contraband art treasures law. Hell, he’d strip her to her knickers if he had to.
Krasky glanced at his watch. Allowing for bathroom breaks and a stroll to the coffee counter, he’d been standing here for nearly four hours. Where the fuck was she? He’d pressed an informant into service to watch her hotel entrance, but she hadn’t been there either.
The woman at the ticket counter didn’t mask her annoyance when he approached for the fourth time. Resting both elbows on the counter, she leaned forward and smiled stiffly.
“As I told you before, Lt. Krasky, the Miss Gavrill you are looking for did not change planes or cancel her reservation. She simply never showed up.”
* * *
Kate slipped out of the airport when Krasky went to the men’s room and—at the rail terminal where she caught the Bulgaria Express for Moscow—evaded two of the thugs who’d been with him in her hotel room.
Arriving in Moscow, Kate called Simon Blake’s number from the train station. He didn’t answer and she left a voice mail message. Before she exited the phone booth, Simon called back on the international cell phone she’d leased.
“I warned you this was hazardous,” Blake said. His voice carried an equal mix of irritation and concern. “I’ve said this before: Even if the stone isn’t real—and I very much doubt it is—you may be in serious danger simply because others think it’s valuable.
“You must understand,” he went on, “that today’s Russia is filled with desperate, not particularly sophisticated, characters. Chechen terrorists. Gangsters. Corrupt cops. People who’ve been cut off from the old state but aren’t a part of the new one either. That’s why the Russian mafia is among the strongest in the world.
“Please, Miss Gavrill—Kate, take the next plane home.”
Fiddling with a pencil and small spiral notepad from her portfolio, she ignored his plea. “Simon, Mr. Blake, assuming the stone is real, how do I get it—and the egg and bank papers—to New York?”
He sighed in exasperation. “Well, if they were mine, I’d have them shipped by Brinks Overseas. But you don’t have that option.”
“Why not?”
“Because without the proper documentation, receipts and so on, Customs officials would take these pieces away from an official courier, just the same as they’d take them away from you. Besides, Brinks would never accept it under those conditions.”
“So what’s your answer?”
“You’d have to conceal them. And that’s so risky I don’t even want to think about it. You could wind up in a Russian jail. Are a fake stone and Faberge container worth that? Frankly, my advice is go to a public library, find a quiet room and leave the stone and egg on a reading table. Somebody will pick them up and have the gem made into costume jewelry, which is all it is or ever was. I’m sure the egg is a copy. And you can toss the bank documents in a trash can.”
“You’re not taking me seriously. You may be the world authority on precious gems, but you haven’t seen what I’ve seen.”
His voice took on a cajoling, almost flirty tone. “Look, Kate, you’ve won our little bet. You found the stone. I’ll buy you dinner at your favorite restaurant in New York. Just get rid of those ticking time bombs you’re carrying and come home. Now. Please.” The last word was uttered softly, as if he were begging.
Kate twisted her lower lip between her thumb and forefinger. Outside the phone booth, hundreds of dark-suited evening commuters rushed for their trains home. The faces of working Moscovites looked utterly fatigued and emotionally drained. Much as Irina’s had on a Pennsylvania hospital pillow.
You’ve gone through too much to slink back with your tail between your legs. Call Novyck; he said he would help.
“Kate? Please.”
Kate pressed the receiver into her ear, fingers clutching the device with a fierce grip. “You’re wrong,” she said, “I’ve seen it. I know it’s real.”
Hanging up, she immediately began searching her bag for Imre Novyck’s mobile number.
#
Chapter 22
“You were wise to call me.” Imre Novyck’s soothing tone seemed disconnected from the bustling world outside Kate’s telephone booth. “I told you earlier, I can get you out of the country, no trouble. But I’ll need a few hours to arrange things. Phone me back tomorrow morning. By the way, use your mobile; I’m not certain these public telephones are secure.
“Come to the prison at exactly noon,” he instructed the next day, “and say you are my niece. I have friends here; I need to time your arrival with the guards’ shift change so they will be on duty.”
The following day, Kate’s pulse raced as she entered Leftortovo’s small, shabby waiting room. She identified herself as Novyck’s relative and was escorted to his cell. She wasn’t searched or even asked to sign in. She thought again about how differently he lived than most of the prison’s miserable souls.
“We won’t be disturbed,” Novyck said, closing the door and removing his paper mask. Viewing his unobstructed features for the first time, Kate saw a striking if narrow East European face—a straight, slender jaw with a short, thin nose and heavy brows. The Bluetooth headset still crept around his ear and along his cheekbone, and he wore a full beard, which heightened the intensity of his dark eyes.
For some reason, his uncovered visage unnerved her. Kate felt jittery, as if she were attempting a dive she’d never practiced.
&
nbsp; Novyck, by comparison, remained smoothly in control. His room—in contrast to the dim, stone-floored corridors, which stank of mildew, sweat and urine—was freshly painted and brightly lit, and even boasted a single screw-in ceiling light. “Unlike most of our residents,” he noted, “my cell is fully enclosed. And I have a purifier to cleanse the air.”
Besides Novyck’s bunk, the room contained a worn but comfortable looking sofa, a painted chest of drawers and a small wooden table with two chairs. It was the sort of room, Kate thought, that might suit a priest or university student.
“For being in prison,” she said, hoping to nudge him off balance, “you seem to live well.”
He shrugged. “My friends know that I am here as the result of injustice, so they try to make me as comfortable as possible.”
He looked at her closely, dark eyes piercing. “You’re very tense, my dear.”
“I think it’s this place.” She shuddered, sensing that the two of them were somehow struggling for control. “And I’ve never possessed anything this valuable before. I must have been crazy to bring it here.”
Novyck laughed. “Just the opposite is true, Katya,” he said, using her given first name.
She sat still. The last person to call her Katya had been her mother.
“This den of thieves is the safest place in Moscow for your treasure,” he went on. “Most inmates want to get out of here so badly they wouldn’t take the stone if you gave it to them. You really do need to relax. In any case, I am going to make your alexandrite appear so dull and dowdy that even you will no longer believe it is valuable.”
As he always did when a young woman visited his cell, Novyck propped a chair against the doorknob, insuring their privacy. The guards would think Kate was just another of his “nieces.”
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