Colleen Gleason

by Siberian Treasure

  Those who continued flying despite being ill were lauded and kept on, but those who were not able to continue were not.

  Marina herself had flown enough aerobatics that she was immune to the motion sickness problem, and found that as long as she flew a few hours regularly, she kept that immunity up.

  She was counting on George and Bran—and, unfortunately, MacNeil—to be on the other end of the spectrum, and hoped neither of the kidnappers would have had the fortitude to make it through the Air Force training.

  If Marina felt any regret for putting MacNeil through the same, she didn’t dwell on it. If it didn’t kill him, it’d make him stronger. Besides, it would give her a good sense of just what he was made of.

  She banked the plane to the left, and then to the right, in quick succession, ignoring George’s frantic demands to know what was wrong. Instead, she kept her face tight and her eyes focused outside the windshield as if she was just as terrified as he was. That in itself was a battle, to keep the exhilaration from showing in her face.

  After leveling the plane for about three minutes, during which time she responded to George with a clenched-jaw, “Be quiet! I’m just trying to keep us in the air!” she slipped the plane into one of the aerobatic routines she’d learned.

  It was fifteen minutes of loops, banks, and steep turns, and it was certain to turn the stomachs inside out of every man on the plane.

  She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from grinning in delight when George finally succumbed, bending forward to rest his head against the other yoke. That was the worst thing to do, but she wasn’t about to share that little tidbit with him.

  Marina settled for bumping the plane up and down as if it were going over the moguls in the snow below so she could take a good look at the man sitting next to her. Yes, the gun butt was sticking up between George’s bottom and the seat, forgotten.

  A quick look toward the back told Marina that MacNeil wasn’t doing much better than George; and she couldn’t see Bran. But she managed to catch MacNeil’s attention again and gave a quick nod. He coughed, but she wasn’t sure if that was his signal or a precursor to him retching all over the floor.

  But someone puked as she turned back quickly. A quick glance told her it was Bran. And that pushed the beleaguered George over the edge.

  Marina did another loop for good measure, then made her next move. With a measured shift, she twisted the yoke to the right, and as George flew up off his seat in the same direction, she snagged the gun from under his rear and dropped it on the left side of her chair in one motion as smooth as the plane’s loop.

  “Marina.” She heard a choked voice from behind. Gabe. She righted the plane and cast a quick look back. He caught her eyes, then, holding his hand over his mouth, he flipped open his seatbelt and lurched across the small cabin toward Bran.

  She couldn’t see what happened next, but Marina assumed Gabe was relieving Bran of his weapon, so she kept the plane steady for a moment so as not to jar him out of his calculated move.

  When she glanced back around, she saw Gabe back in his seat, fumbling with his seatbelt with one hand, clutching the gun in the other, and retching over the side of the armrest.

  The plane was going to be hell to clean up.

  * * *

  Once the plane was flying level for more than five minutes, Gabe recovered from his bout of motion sickness. Now that he and Marina had the weapons, it was short work for him to take control of George and Bran, who hadn’t realized they’d lost their guns along with their dinner until it was too late.

  Marina kept the plane straight and level as easily as if they were out for a Sunday jaunt while training one of the guns on George. She appeared to have gotten over her reluctance to hold a weapon at this juncture. When she turned toward the back as if to see what he was doing, Gabe assumed she’d put the plane on auto-pilot.

  Still a bit weak queasy, he assisted Bran in moving the handcuffs from his pocket to his wrists. Bran barely resisted; he was covered with vomit and his face was speckled with tiny red dots from the force of his puking. Gabe was thankful for the fact that he hadn’t had anything to eat since that long-ago piece of pizza in the hotel room, and had therefore been content with little more than dry heaves.

  After Bran was cuffed with his wrists behind the seat so there would be no unexpected distractions, Gabe made his way to George and half-dragged, half-pulled him from the front seat to a back seat and cuffed him in a similar manner.

  “Sorry guys. We’re not going to be as accommodating as you were for us.”

  Once he was sure they were immobilized, Gabe dropped into the seat next to Marina, taking care not to step in George’s vomit.

  “That was some fucking ride.”

  “I’m sorry.” She didn’t sound the least bit remorseful. In fact, she dashed him a cocky grin, which made her exotic features all the more attractive.

  He couldn’t decide whether to be pissed off and tear a chunk out of that shapely ass, or kiss the hell out of her for her quick—and creative—thinking. Annoyance won out, for it was obvious she had loved every minute of the discomfort she’d inflicted on them. Including him. “Couldn’t you have faked something else?” he asked. “Like low fuel?”

  “Then I would have had to land, and we might not have been able to disarm them. I thought it would be better to disable them first.”

  Couldn’t fault that logic. “Speaking of landing … .”

  “I’m going to try and contact a nearby airport and see if we can land there. We can get something to eat and clean up and maybe rest.”

  “I’ll let Bergstrom know where we are so we can get these guys into custody.”

  “Yes. But I want to get some info from them if we can, because I think we ought to finish the flight and go to wherever they were taking us. It’s the only way to find out what’s going on.”

  “What about your career?” Admittedly, he had to work to keep the sarcasm from his voice. Hard.

  -26-

  July 10, 2007

  Siberia

  Victor Alexander never expected that he would step foot in the world of the Skaladeskas again.

  But Roman had called him home. Insisted that he rejoin the family. The ideal time was at hand, he’d said. The ideal time.

  An event that Victor had not expected to occur during his lifetime.

  And since he’d arrived, he’d been treated like an honored prisoner. Not a guest. Not the welcomed prodigal son of the Bible’s New Testament. But as a hostage. A prisoner of sorts.

  Yet, his conscience told him, deep in the recesses of his mind, do you deserve anything different? If his father knew the truth, he’d as likely order him banished into the wilds of the rough mountains to meet his fate at the paws of the wolves and mountain lions, or have him executed.

  It was only by Roman’s grace that Victor remained alive. Roman had had use for him over the years; the decades. But Victor greatly feared that his summons home portended the end of his usefulness. The thought nauseated him.

  It had been the method of his travel that gave the first indication that all was not as simple as it appeared; when he was ushered from what had been a neutral meeting place into a waiting car.

  It wasn’t that the rooms (there were three of them in his suite) were uncomfortable or lacking in anything … no, Roman would not go so far as to keep his prisoner in physical discomfort. His style of manipulation was much more subtle. And there was always the chance that Lev might learn of his presence; perhaps be willing, at his late age, to listen to Victor’s story. Perhaps he would forgive him.

  No. He would never forgive him. Lev had loved Irina almost more than Gaia herself. Perhaps more.

  Victor swallowed the bile that burned his throat. He would not think of it.

  He forced himself to look around the room again, as if there might be something he’d missed noticing over the last fifteen days.

  There was plenty of space, plenty of entertainment options including a slew o
f Broadway musical DVDs, food, even women sent to him for massages or anything else he might wish. It was the women and the DVD selection that had Roman’s fingerprints all over them.

  Amazing how Roman disdained the Out-World, yet embraced certain aspects of its culture. Just one of the amazing inconsistencies in his younger brother that others failed to see.

  He’d been in his suite of rooms for nearly two weeks and hadn’t heard from Roman at all.

  The only people Victor had seen was a maid, who came to clean every other day, and the women who brought in food twice daily and offered massages and more.

  One thing that was lacking in his accommodations was a replacement for the bottle of Stolichnya he’d found and finished off by the second night. The bottle had been replenished four times since, but not since he finished that fifth one more than three days ago. The trembling of his fingers told him that his body missed it as much as his psyche did.

  What bothered him most was that he wasn’t exactly sure where he was. Was Roman even here? Could Victor possibly be in Siberia?

  He’d left his home in the northernmost part of Michigan via the small submarine late in the evening. He’d traveled under the lake to the Canadian shore, and three hours after leaving home, he beached in a thick forest along the Canadian side. The spot was a rendezvous site where someone was to escort him back to Siberia and the Skaladeskas. Having been gone for more than thirty years, and well aware of Roman’s penchant for technology and secrecy, Victor knew he would never find the place himself.

  No one could, unless they were Skaladeska. Roman had made certain of that. Even with their fancy radar and the satellite scopes, the Out-World couldn’t locate them.

  His wariness had not been ill-founded; once he met Bran and his companion, they pulled guns and urged him into a car. The fact that they carried firearms shocked Victor; for that couldn’t be on Roman’s order. Unless he’d somehow overcome his deep-seated fear of guns; or unless he permitted his men to use them outside of the Skaladeska world.

  They drove for well over an hour, then they flew in a small plane for another four or five hours and landed in a remote area of northern Canada. Surely they were well into the Arctic Circle, but he couldn’t be certain.

  Victor had been taken deep into a cave and escorted onto a small, egg-like vehicle that fit perfectly in a cylindrical tunnel that ran underground.

  He’d fallen asleep and awakened several hours later to be escorted once again out of the train and into these scalding white rooms that had been his home and prison for the last fifteen days.

  Surely he wasn’t in Siberia.

  * * *

  “They’ve what?” Roman did not succeed in keeping the shock from his voice.

  “We believe the plane might have landed … crashed, perhaps, or made an emergency landing. We’re not able to raise them through normal communications.” Shyna looked at him as if waiting for the ax to fall.

  And well it should, but not on her.

  “Is it possible … no, I’ll not even consider that. Give it another five hours, and if we haven’t been able to raise them on satellite radio, I authorize you to send someone up there to investigate.”

  “Of course.” She gave a formal nod and turned, hurrying out of the room as if to escape before he changed his mind and lowered that ax.

  Roman’s control was leaking.

  First, the oil spill from the Crimson Shell and the necessary steps that had required.

  And somehow papers with the sacred symbol had been released at the test site. Next the reports from Stateside that one of the boxes and drills was missing. Lev wasn’t aware of that fault yet, and Roman prayed to Gaia that he wouldn’t learn of it. He couldn’t afford for him to find out.

  And now … .Bran and George, missing somewhere in Canada with Marina Alexander and a man named MacNeil.

  The only thing that could make the situation more dangerous would be news of Fridkov being identified or apprehended. If that happened … no, no. Fridkov was too good.

  Nearly as good as Roman himself.

  But now Roman could put it off no longer.

  -27-

  July 10, 2007

  Langley, Virginia

  Helen Darrow’s heels clicked like a countdown as she approached Colin’s office. He could hear her drumming down the hallway, in time for the urgent meeting she’d called only thirty minutes earlier. She’d been en route in a helo, insisting that he clear his calendar for an update on the earthquake investigation. He’d had no qualms about obliging.

  “Come on in,” he said unnecessarily, rising as she opened the door ahead of his assistant. Carol Mueller, his iron-haired and iron-fisted admin, probably wouldn’t like being left in the dust.

  But Helen Darrow, it appeared, cared little for niceties. A fact which was neatly confirmed by her first words.

  “I need to know what your team’s got, Colin,” Darrow announced as she hurried in past him in a gust of some kind of perfume, towing a box on a luggage cart. She slid the strap from her briefcase from her shoulder and let it gently thud to the floor. Her heels clicked purposefully, annoying at this close range, as she walked back to the door and closed it. “We’ve got evidence that the Skaladeskas caused those earthquakes, and I need to figure out how to nail them. You’re the only person who knows anything about these people, so I hope you have some updates for me.”

  Colin could have been offended or irked by her presumptive attitude; but sharp women didn’t threaten him. He knew his job and did it well.

  Even when he went out on a limb like he had with this one. Thank God that limb had begun to sprout some leaves.

  “So far our best connection is between the Skalas and a murder suspect in Riyadh. And as soon as I reach Marina Alexander, who is with my officer investigating the Skaladeskas, I’ll see if she can identify the composite of the murder suspect. That might be a connection, as we know her home was broken into by a man who left a card identifying himself as a Skaladeska.”

  “When did you learn this? What kind of murder?”

  “Only hours ago. In Riyadh, a Saudi oil baron was found murdered. He’d been injected with a kind of oil.” Colin explained about Hamid al-Jubeir’s phone call and the murder of Israt Medivir.

  “Injected? Barbara Melton was injected with her own chemicals—she was the CEO of AvaChem. Same M.O. There’s a connection with the symbol?”

  “They were both injected with a poison of sorts.” This was it. The connection they needed. Things were starting to look up.

  “The Skaladeskas … based on what your initial report said, thank you by the way, they’re earth worshippers,” Helen said slowly, putting into words the same thoughts that had gelled in his mind. Her heels clacked again as she stalked over to the box on the table. “Oil and chemicals … injected. AvaChem was known for its environmental violations … Chemicals … there’s a connection … the Skaladeskas would see those chemicals as a poison to their beloved earth. They killed their victims in the same manner in which they believe we’re killing Gaia. And they’re creating natural events for large-scale destruction. Earthquakes.”

  They stared at each other, each mind nipping along to assimilate this possibility.

  And who could say, Bergstrom considered, that the Skaladeskas were completely out of line in their beliefs? That the earth wasn’t being destroyed, little by little, day after day, policy after policy?

  Global warming. Waste and usage of natural resources. The pollution of the ground, water, and air. Deforestation.

  Who could argue that those practices didn’t damage the environment? That something had to change? And that governments and policy-makers hadn’t listened?

  This wasn’t about a difference in religious opinions, or societal or economic practices.

  This was about something that affected every living being on the earth.

  Yet to the Skaladeskas, it was their religion. The essence of their beliefs: to protect their goddess.

  “A new k
ind of holy war,” he breathed. For the health of the earth.

  Darrow nodded. Then she moved over to the cart she’d pulled in.

  “That’s the why. And now we’ve figured out how they did it. How they caused the earthquakes.” She summarized the situation as she unhooked the straps on the luggage cart and hefted the box onto Colin’s conference table.

  “What is this?” He had risen from his desk and came around to help her, but by then, she was already standing back, gesturing to the box.