His brother was shouting at him, but he could no longer hear the words and even if he had, his brain was now so starved of oxygen that he would have had trouble interpreting them. He spotted Demyan’s face one last time. The terror seen a few minutes earlier had already been replaced by something different, something entirely more painful – a profound and despondent loss – and dishonorable shame.
Ilya wanted to tell his brother it was okay. There was nothing he could have done. Neither of them could swim. But he couldn’t seem to get to the surface. And even if he could make it one more time, he’d never have the breath to produce words.
Fatigue and hypothermia kicked in and fear was replaced with a simple feeling of regret and loss. They say on your deathbed you eventually reach acceptance, but that wasn’t the case for him. Instead, he just felt the harrowing torment that he had never escaped Oymyakon.
His burning lungs settled, and he no longer felt the urge to take a breath. Everything slowed. His failing heart eased into a progressively slower rate. His vision turned into a strange purple blur. That was unexpected, he thought with surprising curiosity, no one had ever told him about seeing purple before you die. The muscles in his arms and legs jolted, as he vaguely attempted to continue to move them until they simply stopped working.
Ilya heard the final beats of his heart pounding in his water-soaked ears. He heard the very last one, and waited for another… but it never seemed to come.
Every muscle in his body went limp.
Paralyzed, he retreated into the deep subconscious branches of his rapidly deteriorating mind. With the heart stopped and his brain starved of oxygen, he knew it wouldn’t be long now.
The pains he’d lived with for most of his life had finally ended. They hadn’t been replaced by any sense of euphoria, but the loss of pain was a comfort.
So, this is death.
A calm peace and clarity swept his mind, in a way he’d never experienced in life. Fear and loss disappeared and at last there was acceptance.
This is not too bad…
A split second later, something gripped his leg and yanked. It pulled him downward with the ferocity of an ancient predator. And Ilya retreated into the final branch of his subconscious, where total darkness finally swept him away.
*
Demyan watched bitterly as his brother disappeared into the icy waters below. At the last moment, the water turned a fluorescent purple, and a strange creature – that looked remarkably similar to a merman – took Ilya, and dragged him deep into the lake.
Unable to grasp what his eyes had seen, the shock stirred some inner desire to survive. There was nothing he could do to save his brother, even if he’d been taken by some mysterious creature from the lake’s icy depths. He turned toward the south and spotted the Volk. It was still far away, but getting closer. There was time, but not a lot of it. He might still just make it into the forest.
He glanced at the now dark water below, where he’d lost his brother and cursed Oymyakon and the wretched world that took his mother and brother in the same week. Fear finally broke through the shock and despair as he forced himself to run toward the western edge of the forest.
On the western bank of Boot Lake, he hacked at the fence – cutting through with the third hit – and kept running up the steep slope into the dense forest of spruce.
Behind him, he heard the Volk’s massive engine whine as it tried to follow his trail up the slope, followed by the sound of soldiers climbing out and running after him. Demyan was big and at the age of fourteen, was already larger than most adult men in his village. A life of hardship had sharpened his body with the endurance of a professional athlete. Adrenalin surged through his veins and he kept running.
Soon the distant sounds of his pursuers, unused to and ill-prepared for the inhospitable environment, quietened and eventually disappeared.
It didn’t slow him down. Instead, he continued running all the way back to his family home. As it became apparent the soldiers were no longer following him, Demyan’s mind returned to the loss of his brother and the mysterious purple creature that took him to his death. Fleeting thoughts of despair and wonder distracted him from his burning thighs and slowly numbing toes.
Guilt tore at his soul, and he wondered how he could possibly face his father. He even considered grabbing whatever possessions he could carry and leaving Oymyakon before his dad came home from the mines. That was a coward’s path, but he couldn’t see any other way out of it.
Demyan never stopped to look over his shoulder. He didn’t have to. If they had kept up with him, and followed him, there was nowhere else for him to go. It was early evening by the time he ran down the main road of his village, and stopped just short of his house.
There, someone was waiting for him.
An older man, in a thick fur coat, standing in front of the wooden cottage glanced at him expectantly. Demyan swallowed hard. Surely, they didn’t know where he lived? His face had been mostly covered the entire time. His eyes swept the rest of the Oymyakon village, deciding whether he still had time to make a run for it – head back into the forest and disappear into the Siberian wilderness where few people could survive more than a few hours in winter.
No. He simply didn’t have the strength to run anymore. Demyan decided to face his consequences and be damned.
He stepped forward toward his home.
The man’s cold, hard eyes fixed on his. “Would you be Demyan Yezhov?”
It was a relief to give in and stop running. “Yes, sir.”
“I’m sorry to tell you this, Mr. Yezhov, but there was an accident at the Yakutsk diamond mine today. Your father was down below at the time. He didn’t make it to the surface. I’m really sorry.”
It took Demyan a moment to contemplate the news. His father was dead. He was now entirely on his own in the world. A week ago, his family consisted of a proud and violent father, a younger brother who often had a right to hate him, and a mother who he hated for not getting them out of their wretched world. It wasn’t a lot, but it was his family, and now he’d lost them all.
He knew he should have felt nothing but grief and loneliness, but as the words sunk in, he felt a different emotion rise vigorously to the surface. There should have been guilt, too – why did he survive when his entire family didn’t? – but there wasn’t.
Instead, he felt relief. Now he didn’t have to face his father and tell him that Ilya had drowned and there was nothing he could do to help him. With time he would feel remorse, but for now, all he could feel was the rush of survival.
Demyan looked at the stranger’s face. “Do you want to come in for a tea?”
“Sure,” the stranger acknowledged.
Demyan lit the oil heater and poured a glass of Russki chai – AKA, straight vodka.
The stranger accepted the glass and said, “To your father.”
Demyan looked at his glass. “To my father.”
And both men drank the entire contents of the glass in one gulp.
“I’m so very sorry. It was a terrible accident. But your father did work down the mines.”
Demyan nodded. “I know. It was always dangerous.”
The stranger held out his hand. “My name’s Leo Botkin.”
Demyan took it. “My father’s mentioned you before. You own the mine, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“What are you doing here, Mr. Botkin?”
“I knew your father well.” Botkin shrugged, as though he personally handled the visits to all the families of his mine when someone died. “He was a good man. Hard, but fair. He did a lot of good for the company. He will be missed.”
“Thank you,” Demyan said, and he meant it. “It’s more than I expected, and I’m sure my father would have appreciated it.”
“There’s another reason I wanted to come in person, too.”
“Yes?”
“Your father told me of your recent loss of your mother. He was a conscientious man, and has been paying
into a company insurance fund for years. It’s not a lot but it should help you and your brother out, until you’re old enough to find jobs. I wanted to deliver it to you, personally.”
“My father left money for my brother and I?” Demyan asked, without admitting that he’d lost his brother today, too.
“Yes.” Botkin handed him a receipt. “This has been deposited into the Yakutsk branch of the Bank of Russia, under your name. You’re to use it wisely to better the lives of you and your brother. If your family needs anything else, I have left you with a contact number for me, personally.”
“That’s very kind of you, sir.”
Demyan unfolded the receipt. There in front of him was the deposit receipt to an account in his name, for five million rubles – the equivalent of a hundred thousand U.S. dollars.
He looked at Botkin. “Is this for real?”
“Yes. Your father worked hard to ensure that you and your brother would have a good life.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. It was simply an insurance policy your father took out on your behalf. Many of my workers do the same.”
Demyan smiled at the lie. No one working in the Yakutsk diamond mine could afford to take out such an extravagant policy. He wondered what his father could possibly have been involved in to provide so much money. “All the same, I must thank you for coming all this way to deliver it.”
“You’re welcome. Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“No.”
“All right. I’m sorry for your loss.”
Demyan watched as Leo Botkin, the bearer of his great fortune and misfortune, left. He looked at the sorry log hut that a week earlier was considered the home of all four members of his family. Now he was all that was left. Well, I’m not going to die here. He packed what few possessions he had into a small rucksack.
When the goods truck came the next morning, he hitched a ride to Yakutsk and from there a flight to Moscow.
His mind was sharp and he was already stronger than most adults. He was now rich. He would survive, and he would make something of his life – someone in his family needed to get out of Oymyakon.
He would leave and never think about the family he’d lost, or his village again.
Chapter One
Tepui Mountains, Amazon Jungle, Venezuela – Present Day
The Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk banked hard as it rounded one of the fortress-like giant stones that rose from the dark green canopy of the jungle. It crossed the rocky tabletop mountain in almost absolute silence, before dipping its nose and descending the steep sandstone cliffs into the ancient valley below. The nose was soon brought to level, and its angular, radar-disrupting fuselage, heavily modified for stealth, skimmed the tips of the dense forest canopy as it raced by at sixty knots.
Inside, Dr. Billie Swan peered into the inky blackness. Her face displayed all the signs of a person who hadn’t slept much in the past 24 hours. Despite that, her intelligent hazel eyes appeared sharp and focused. The dark of the moonless night shrouded the most stunning and potentially deadly landscape as it shot past them. Hundreds of feet of sheer sandstone cliffs, topped with dense jungle foliage, and torrents of water dropping over the edges of the tabletops into pools below – all hid one of the world’s oldest and most mysterious cave systems, carved from quartz sandstone.
In the cockpit, wearing military grade night-vision goggles, were Sam Reilly and Tom Bower. Billie smiled at the image. The two men made an unlikely pair. Sam was shorter and stocky, while Tom was tall… and even broader in the shoulders. Both had been good friends since childhood. Both had spent time in the U.S. military as helicopter pilots, before Sam took over the salvage branch of his father’s shipping company, bringing Tom with him.
Her lips formed the crest of a half-smile as she watched Tom at the controls. It required constant minor and major adjustments of the three major controls. The collective pitch, cyclic pitch and the antitorque pedals moved in one constantly changing triangle. Despite the complex task, he looked more like someone out for an evening date in a sports car. In this case, the sports car was an experimental, nearly silent, stealth helicopter, worth millions of dollars, on loan from the U.S. Defense Department.
She had dated him for a while. If things had been different, she might have even married him. But things weren’t different. Like her grandfather before her, she had dedicated her life to finding the remnants of an ancient race, nicknamed the Master Builders. That life didn’t leave a lot of time for relationships. She could live with that. She’d always seen herself as her own master. Besides, Tom was now dating Genevieve, and he seemed happy.
Everyone was still waiting for there to be conflict between her and Genevieve now that she was back, and they were working closely together. It never happened. Never would. Billie never understood jealousy. She’d made the decision to leave Tom to find the Master Builders. By the time she came back, he was with someone else. No harm, no foul. Besides, she liked Genevieve. She had that sort of assertive, hard ass personality that didn’t take shit from anyone. Her personality was backed up by the fact that she’d spent many of her younger years as an enforcer in the Russian Mafia. Genevieve kind of reminded her of Geena Davis in that nineties movie, The Long Kiss Goodnight.
Tom swore and banked hard.
Billie’s head snapped around toward the cockpit windshield. The Black Hawk banked at a ninety-degree angle and narrowly slipped past another giant pillar of stone. Tom audibly thanked divine providence and the Northrop Grumman Corporation for the cockpit upgrade that simplified his instrument panel into a few multi-functional flat-panel displays that alerted him to the close encounter.
Sam just grinned, as though he’d come along for the ride.
It was another day in the office. The Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk was ideal for their current mission deep into the Amazon jungle. Equipped with stealth technology, the bird’s illegal route across two borders and into Venezuela was untraceable by radar or any other tracking method.
They were flying low and dangerously. Though that phrase was relative when the surface was already an alpine valley some 7000 feet in elevation above sea level. Billie decided it was best not to know how close they were to death, and turned her head to face the other members of the team in the back of the Black Hawk.
Veyron Blanc, Sam’s chief engineer, sat opposite her. He made a practiced smile, full of teeth, and a knowing look in reference to their near-death experience. “It’s good to be back working with Sam again, isn’t it?”
“I’ll let you know if we survive.” Billie cursed, and then said, “If I could have done this without him, I would have.”
Veyron nodded, as though he was enjoying her discomfort.
She’d had a love-hate relationship with Sam for many years now, in their combined search for the Master Builders. There was plenty of respect for him professionally and no interest romantically. Where they clashed often stemmed from their expertise. They were both used to being in charge of any situation. Like the age-old saying goes, you can’t have two chefs in one kitchen. She didn’t like being anyone’s subordinate, even when the pay was good. She was good at what she did, and expected everyone around her to keep up. Sometimes, that need manifested in the form of being a bitch, which had made her highly unpopular at times.
Next to Veyron sat Elise. She was the youngest in their crew. Somewhere around her mid-twenties at a guess, and probably the smartest of the lot of them. She was a computer expert, who provided Sam with access to anything he required – legal or otherwise. Rumor had it, she once worked for the CIA as a hacker. When she lost interest in the job, and the government was less than keen to release someone with her knowledge and skills back into civilian society, Elise hacked into the U.S. Vital Records office and created a new identity for herself.
At the back of the cabin, Genevieve rested in her seat, sleeping. Practicing one of those old battle mottos, rest when you can.
The only person missing f
rom Sam’s eclectic team of experts was Matthew Sutherland, the master of his salvage vessel, the Maria Helena, who stayed behind to ensure they had a ship to return to in the Caribbean Sea, to the north of Venezuela.
Everyone aboard the chopper would have preferred to see what they knew was spectacular scenery below, but the mission required utmost secrecy. Hence the perilous 3 a.m. flight to the top of one of northern Brazil’s Tepui Mountains, that left them dodging the vast towers.
Three months ago, Billie had been rescued by Sam and his team from the Amazon jungle. She, along with the entire Pirahã tribe, had spent nearly two years enslaved by the Master Builders. She still didn’t quite accept the term enslaved. Instead, she considered it more of an empowerment. A thick, black smoke would come for them along the banks of the Maici River. It would fill them with joy, and wonder, and strength, and then they would be taken somewhere to construct a new temple, in perfect harmony with one another for months at a time.
When a section of the temple was complete, they would all be returned. Although she couldn’t recollect what she had done or where it had taken place, she was always filled with a tremendous sense of achievement. As though she’d taken part in something far greater and more important than her mere life. Of course, she had since learned that the black smoke was a strong hallucinogen that shared similar properties to the drug LSD. The drug tapped into an undeveloped and primitive part of her brain to allow a form of communication similar to telepathy. Only, instead of being told what to do, the entire group of workers would simultaneously act as one entity.
Ever since she’d been rescued, Billie had frequent thoughts, images, and sensations occur in her sleep. Too real to be the dreams of a restless mind, they seemed more like flashbacks. She recalled long hours of physical labor, indigenous people, thick smoke, and the smell of the mysterious hallucinogen used to obtain her cooperation to help build a new temple. Awake, she had no recollection of that temple or the location, but she’d known it was buried deep in her subconscious. In secret, and hardly daring to believe the parlor game could provide a clue, she’d used automatic writing to draw a map.
Code to Extinction Page 3