“Split up or stay together?”
Marina considered, then replied. “I’m for staying together at this point. After all, you’ve got the gun.”
“Right answer. Let’s go.”
Marina felt the tension that had begun to leave her shoulders seep back as Gabe unlocked the door. “What’s the plan?”
“We look in every room we can for your father or something else of interest. We stay out of sight. If someone catches us, run like hell and if we get separated, meet back here.”
The hall was just as deserted as it had been when they came through the door from the cave-travel. Marina glanced toward the entrance, which had opened in the middle like an elevator door, and she marked where it was and what it looked like in case a speedy escape was necessary.
“This must be a restricted floor,” Gabe commented, looking down at the activity below. All three floors below them had at least two people moving about with purpose. “I hope there’s no alarm that goes off when we go down.”
“Let’s check out that one there,” Marina suggested, pointing to an entrance she had just noticed at the end of the hall at the opposite side from which they’d initially come. In fact, the door was set into a small alcove, and its boundary seams were nearly lost in the shadows.
He nodded in agreement, and they started off, silent-footed, down the hall.
The door opened with little effort. Marina was startled at how easily the panel slid to the side. If it was a restricted area, it was easy to leave. Perhaps not as easy to return, however.
Pushing past Gabe, she peered through. She felt strangely in her element here; as if she should be the one leading the way; making the decisions. It was something inside her, calm, yet nervy, that prompted her to step through the door and allow Gabe to follow … .if he dared.
He started, then stopped just before he stepped through. “Metal detector. Security screen.” He jerked a thumb toward the walls. “I can’t walk through with a gun.”
“Go hide it by our clothes. We can’t take the chance of setting any alarms off.”
“Marina, I’m not going to walk around in here unarmed.”
“Then it appears you’re not going to walk around in here at all. I’m going to go on.”
She started to walk through the screen, but he pulled her back. “Wait a minute—“
“Your gun didn’t help you when we were attacked at the hotel, anyway. It’s not a lifeline. We’ve only got another hour anyway before we need to report in to Bergstrom. I’ll just take a quick look and then we can leave.”
“Wait.” Marina watched while he jogged back silently to the room where they’d changed.
But once he walked through the security screen, Gabe allowed her to set the pace, and as the door slid closed behind them, she chose their path: to the left, into the side of the building opposite the glass windows. The corridor was short, the walls the same white, sloping into the same rounded ceiling. Marina realized how easily they could become confused in the endless, identical hallways, and she stopped.
“I’m going to mark this. The last thing we need is to get lost in here somewhere.” She dug in her jeans and pulled out a plastic tube of lipstick. It was warm from being in there, which meant it would be soft, so she took care when she made a small little dab on the base of one of the walls.
Gabe watched incredulously as she made sure the mark shifted into a sort of point, so they knew which way to go.
“What, you never saw a woman with lipstick in her pocket before?”
“I didn’t figure you for a lipstick kind of woman.”
“I don’t go many places without it. You never know when you’re going to need it.” She stuffed the tube back into her front pocket. “My expertise.”
“I suppose that’s what you use to mark your trails when you’re caving,” he commented as she continued their walk down the hall.
“No, you don’t mark your trail when caving. That would be defacing the cave. You have to use a map and or look behind you as you’re making your way through.”
She didn’t hear his response clearly; but it sounded suspiciously like a snort of disgust. She ignored it and hurried on down the short hall.
As they came around a corner, Marina nearly ran into a wall. Or, rather, when she looked closer, she realized it was another door. “How many of these halls are we going to be walking through that don’t lead anywhere?” she grumbled.
“I don’t know, but we’re going to either have to turn around or find a way through this one.”
Marina nodded, and moved toward the door, but just as she began to run her fingers around the edge of it, it began to move. Open.
Whirling, she turned and slammed into Gabe, and they both turned and dashed around the corner from which they’d come. Keeping her footsteps light took effort, but Marina didn’t want the pounding sound of her running to alert the person behind her.
Suddenly, a hand yanked her arm, and she felt herself pulled into a room. She landed in Gabe’s arms, felt them come around her as if to steady her. Then he dropped his hands away and they moved together to the wall, pressing up against it behind the door in case it slid back open.
But then a noise behind her made her stiffen.
She grabbed blindly for Gabe’s wrist, slowly turning.
-31-
An old man stared at Gabe and Marina from across the room.
He sat at a large table, a cracked roll of thick, yellowing paper spread out in front of him. Even from a distance, she could tell that it was old and on the verge of deteriorating.
Something moved in her core as the man’s eyes caught hers, delved into them, trying to read her innermost thoughts. A palpable something hung in the room; something that she could only describe as other-worldly, spiritual … powerful.
The man blinked, and she could almost feel the dryness of his eyes as his lids scraped over them.
“You are hiding from someone.” He spoke at last, and it was as if she were in a fog. The words, smooth and low, came as if from far away, and it took a moment for them to penetrate. She nodded
Gabe shifted next to her, barely brushing against her arm, but enough that his movement reminded her that he was there.
“We … wanted to be alone.” She said the first thing that popped into her head, and just as the words came out of her mouth, she felt Gabe’s arm spasm, his movement more startled than before.
Breaking her gaze with the elderly man, she looked up. Shock warped across Gabe’s face and Marina realized what had happened.
The man had spoken in an unfamiliar language. And she’d replied in the same.
She looked back at him again, locking with his fathomless grey eyes, her mouth so dry she couldn’t have spoken again if her life depended on it. And perhaps it did. Damn good thing she and Gabe had changed their clothing.
Maybe, perhaps, they would be able to get out of this.
The elderly man did not move. He stared at them as if considering. She felt the cool wall behind her, and skittered her gaze around the chamber, looking for a possible escape route. She wasn’t in this alone, and the two of them would find a way out.
The room was furnished simply with seven chairs scattered about, including the one holding the frail man. Two large tables: one in front of him, and one, larger one, nearer to Marina and Gabe. Rolls of paper, a stack of what looked like ancient books, and in the corner, two beautiful drums. Crystals piled on the table next to the old man.
“It has been long since I’ve seen young love.” The man spoke again, his voice smooth. “But why must you hide? Deceit is not a strength one should embrace.”
Marina felt her pent-up breath release. She managed it so that it expelled slowly, not to give away her relief. The man believed her.
Gabe’s hand convulsed next to hers and she felt his confusion, but she had no way to explain. She brushed her fingers against his in a command to let her handle this as she nodded at the man.
Somehow she knew he
was an important person. A Skaladeska, of course, now that he had spoken the language. She guessed he was in his late eighties. His pale skin still covered his skull closely, without the sagging lines of one who’d overindulged in his long life. Indeed, he looked as though he’d lived a harsh life, full of tests and trials. Yet an aura of calmness, and acceptance, and something … .spiritual. That word again.
Suddenly Marina knew who he reminded her of. The Dalai Lama. Or Obi-Wan Ben Kenobi.
That same quiet strength, that same calm spirituality, the same knowing.
She wondered what the hell she was doing here. Why she felt so weirdly comfortable.
Here. Heaven knew where.
Why had she left her organized, self-directed life for this?
For duty.
For a heritage she’d thought lost.
“It is a … .” Marina struggled to find the right word in a language she’d not heard or spoken for twenty-odd years, “ … secret.”
Would he let them go?
It wasn’t as if the man’s frail muscles could stop them if they wanted to leave. But … there was something else about him. He might, indeed, be a worthy adversary.
The man nodded. “I trust you have your reasons.” He gestured with his wrinkled hand, the blue lines tracing skin as delicate as an elderly woman’s. “Go, and live, then, with your deceit.”
Just as she turned toward the door, it opened.
Marina froze and Gabe bumped into her from behind.
She looked up into her father’s face.
-32-
He looked down at her, shock flooding his face.
Marina didn’t move. Her breath filled her lungs and held there, then expelled in a long, low, soft huff.
He looked healthier than she remembered; his face filled in, his skin creamy and smooth like he’d just moisturized it. He’d shaved his head, and it gave him a whole different look. His brows were trimmed and he was dressed neatly in clothing similar to that which she and Gabe wore. When was the last time she’d seen him so well groomed, his eyes so white instead of bloodshot?
Yet … he looked different. He had a different air about him.
It felt like minutes, but the mutual paralysis lasted only a few seconds; then Dad closed the door behind him and stepped into the room, standing in front of it as if to block any chance of escape.
Marina felt Gabe tense behind her, but she gave a bare shift backward with her elbow as a signal not to make any rash moves. She had no reason to fear her father. And the elderly man obviously had no problem with them being there.
That Dad didn’t react to seeing her unexpectedly didn’t strike her until he looked over at the old man. “What are they doing in here?” He spoke in Skaladeska.
The old man’s attention flickered toward Marina, but he replied, “You might ask them yourself.”
Dad didn’t appear to embrace that idea. He stood, as if unsure what to do. His jaw moved. She noticed the way it shifted from side to side in a broken rhythm.
Since he did not acknowledge her as his daughter, she assumed he didn’t want the old man to know. Perhaps it had something to do with the email warning he’d sent.
Whatever the reason, she wanted out of there. The tension was too thick, and she felt surrounded by an urgency she didn’t understand. For the first time in a long time, she felt truly out of her element. Frightened.
Let the CIA take it from here.
“We were just leaving,” she said in Skaladeska, and started to push past her father. “I’ll be in touch.”
His face registered surprise, and he looked as though he wanted to stop her … .but he didn’t. She brushed right past him, and he moved aside to let her reach the door. Gabe was behind her and no sooner than they were in the hall than he grabbed her hand and started running.
Marina’s instinct was to run too, but she wasn’t sure why. No one had tried to stop them. Her dad was there.
She pulled her hand out of Gabe’s and slowed to a quick walk. “No need to call attention to ourselves,” she said.
Suddenly, they heard the sound of pounding feet. Many of them.
They looked at each other, and Gabe lunged for her arm, yanking her after him as he ducked into a room.
It was unlit, and once the door closed behind them, she couldn’t see her hand in front of her face. She felt Gabe, bumping up against her, and she put her hands out in front to keep their foreheads from cracking into each other.
His voice hissed into her ear. “You lied to me.” His breath was warm, but his words held ice. And the fingers around her upper arms weren’t gentle.
“What?” Then she realized what he meant. Annoyance zipped through her. “I didn’t realize I could speak—”
The door blasted open and a swarm of people poured into the room. Marina sprang away from Gabe and turned as a flood of light beamed into the darkness.
It blinded her, and she had no chance to move before strong arms grabbed at her, pulling her away from Gabe.
Soft, solid thuds and groans told her that he wasn’t going wherever they were taking them happily; but despite the fact that Marina struggled like a fly wrapped in a web, no one punched her or kicked her. They just held on very tightly. One man at each arm, and one behind.
By now, the flood of light had diminished from a sudden blinding to something less invasive, and Marina noticed that they were in what appeared to be an office. But she had no further chance to examine the room. By the time she got her bearings, she was being dragged toward the door, past a bloody, inert Gabe and his attackers.
Marina jerked her arm hard and fast, and managed to yank it from the grip of the man next to her and wallop him across the side of the head before she was subdued once again. She hoped his ear rang for an hour afterward.
“My father will not be happy,” she gritted between her teeth as her two captors forced her arms, none-too-gently, behind her back. Something wrapped around them, from upper arm to down past her elbow, and she was trussed securely.
By that time, she’d stopped struggling. It was a waste of energy; she needed to save it for later, and spend her time paying attention: to where they were, where they were going, and anything that was being said. She figured it was an ace in the hole that she somehow remembered her Skaladeska … .and she presumed her captors didn’t realize that. Because of her distress, Marina had spoken English during her threat moments ago.
Once the two men realized she was going to cooperate, they gentled their treatment of her. She was allowed to walk down the hall at her own pace, following their lead. Pretending to be subdued, she bowed her head slightly, but kept her eyes raised so that she could take in details of the hallways and their route.
Despite her submission, Marina’s captors remained silent, giving her no information other than what she could see from the walk down the halls. They passed no one; and each passageway appeared the same as the one before.
Finally, they reached a door similar to the one with the old man. She watched with interest as they stepped up to the wall that appeared to have a door with no way to open or close it. One of the men went to the wall next to it, and suddenly a little panel opened. As she watched, he took a small flat object, placed it on his tongue; then removed it and fed it into a small slot.
The wall in front of them split, folding into itself on either side like a theatre curtain, and they stepped through.
Marina stared.
They stepped into a large, open space, glittering with light that shone through a faceted dome ceiling, another huge atrium. It was like being inside one of her clear crystals; except that there were stairs and landings … .hallways, and trees. Trees growing all around; small buildings, and small vehicles that reminded her of golf carts … but shaped like little pods.
Unbelievable.
Like a little city under glass.
That was all she could think as they prodded her along. She walked agreeably, trying to keep her pace as slow as possible so she could absorb it
all.
The realization stunned her. Not only were the Skaladeskas not extinct, but they were as far from being an archaic, primitive tribe locked away in the mountains of Siberia as the U.S. was.
* * *
Once he recovered from his enormous shock at recognizing Marina Aleksandrov in Lev’s private study, Roman seized the opportunity to take control.
Excusing himself from Lev’s presence, he stepped into the hall and ordered his men to apprehend her and her companion. When he returned to his father’s study, Lev appeared to be deep in the study of the parchment paper before him.
Colleen Gleason Page 21