“Murderer!”
Rasputin was close behind him, scrambling up the winding steps like an animal on all fours. Yussoupov could hear him panting and felt his hands grasping at the hem of his trousers.
“He’s alive! He’s alive!” he shouted running into the drawing room and slamming the doors closed behind him. Purishkevich and the others, gathering up the torn curtains, looked slack-jawed with disbelief. “He’s still alive!” Yussoupov repeated, barring the doors with his back.
“It can’t be,” Dr. Lazovert said. “He had no pulse.”
“You shot him,” Dmitri said. “You shot him in the back.”
“He’s been poisoned ten times over,” Lazovert added.
“But he’s escaping!” the prince screamed. “Even now!”
“This is impossible,” Purishkevich said, dismissively, but at the same time drawing a pistol from beneath his waistcoat. “Get out of the way.”
Pushing the prince aside, he strode out into the hallway with the gun drawn. A trail of blood led toward the marble vestibule, and a cold wind was blowing into the palace through the open doors. Yussoupov, cowering behind him, pointed outside and said, “You see? You see?”
Slipping and sliding in the falling snow, the monk was making his way inexorably across the courtyard and toward the main gates, which fronted onto the canal.
“Murderers!” Rasputin was shouting. “The Tsaritsa shall hear of this! You are murderers!”
“Kill him!” Yussoupov was screaming. “Before he gets away!”
But even as Purishkevich stepped forward and fired, Yussoupov jostled his arm and the bullet clanged off the iron gates.
“Shoot him!” Yussoupov cried, and Purishkevich, pushing him away, took aim again.
The shot went wide, as did the next. Rasputin was fiddling with the lock on the gates. To concentrate, Purishkevich bit his own left hand, then fired again, and this time the bullet hit Rasputin in the shoulder. He slumped to one side, and the next shot struck the back of his head.
By the time the conspirators huddled around the fallen body, his blood was seeping out onto the snow, but his eyes were still staring up at the sky and he was grinding his teeth in pain and fury. Was there no killing this man, Yussoupov thought in horror? Would it never end?
Purishkevich, too, swore under his breath, then kicked the monk in the temple, hard. Yussoupov, for want of a better weapon, removed his heavy, hand-tooled leather belt with the silver buckle and lashed at the body until, at last, there was no further sign of life. Dr. Lazovert raised a hand to stop them. “Enough,” he said, “it’s done.”
The Grand Duke Dmitri emerged from the house, dragging the blue curtains, but before they could roll the body up in them, Yussoupov said, “Stop,” and kneeling down, he tore open Rasputin’s bloody shirt and searched his neck and chest for any sign of the cross.
“What are you doing?” Dmitri asked.
“The emerald cross—I’m looking for it!”
“Good Christ, Felix, aren’t you rich enough already?” Dmitri said, shoving him aside. “Have you lost your mind?”
A fair question, Yussoupov thought, as he sat back in the snow, watching as the others finished wrapping the corpse and tying a rope around the whole bundle. It was late on a cold and snowy night, so to Yussoupov’s relief, they saw no one, and no one saw them, as they carried the body down an alleyway, under a bridge, and out onto the frozen Neva River; there, they shoved it through a hole in the ice. In the moonlight, it appeared as nothing more than a dark shadow under the water, drifting slowly, silently, downstream. With it went Yussoupov’s dreams of glory. Suddenly it had dawned on him—and how could he have been so blind?—that far from being hailed as a savior, he might just as easily be labeled an assassin. It was hard work killing a man—he’d never done it before—and though the Tsar might secretly rejoice at being rid of the madman, the Tsaritsa would be enraged. Why hadn’t he thought these things through more clearly?
All he wanted now, with every freezing fiber of his being, was for the body to remain undiscovered beneath the ice until spring … or, better yet, doomsday.
Chapter 19
During the funeral service, Slater had received a running commentary, under her breath, from Nika. As one mourner after another took the podium, she told him who it was, how he or she was connected to the Neptune tragedy, how long the family had been working in these Alaskan waters. They were a hardy lot, and Slater felt the anguish of their loss. In a place like this, there wasn’t much to hold on to, and they had all just suffered a devastating blow.
But of all the people present, he had to admit that the most riveting bunch were the Vanes—Charlie wheeling in like a dignitary waiting for his ovation, attended to by the two whey-faced women in the long dresses. Harley scuffling along behind, like a kid about to perform at a recital for which he hadn’t practiced. Even seated in the pews, they seemed to create an air of turbulence around them, and he noticed that after Harley had made his remarks, and the service had concluded, none of the other congregants seemed all that anxious to hang out with them.
“Not the most popular kids at school, are they?” Slater said, as he and Nika made their way next door to the rec center and the refreshments. There was a wide, empty circle around the two women. Slater had never seen a pair of sisters who gave off a more witchy vibe.
“Most folks in Port Orlov know enough not to get mixed up with them.”
Already loaded down with donuts and coffee, Eddie and Russell made their way back outside again.
“With some exceptions,” she added.
Slater himself was an object of some interest, he could tell. Everyone in town had seen the Sikorsky by now, and although the mayor herself had backed up his story—“it’s a routine training mission for the Coast Guard,” he had heard her tell three people already—he was sure that there were other rumors circulating, too. It wouldn’t be a small town if there weren’t.
But as long as the rumors didn’t involve the Spanish flu, he was okay with it.
On the way out, he saw a blue van with what looked like a confab going on inside, among the Vane boys and Eddie and Russell. He wondered if he should post a sentry on the chopper that night or risk having its hubcaps stolen. He’d already been stuck in Port Orlov longer than he’d intended, but bad weather in the Midwest had grounded Eva Lantos’s plane, and military red tape had tied up some of the equipment scheduled for arrival on the second chopper. Murphy’s Law in action. Slater knew that every mission encountered problems like these—especially one like this, organized virtually on the fly—but it didn’t make it any easier to take. Patience had never been among his virtues.
When he got back to the community center, where he’d been bunking with Professor Kozak and the two Coast Guard pilots, he went straight to Nika’s office, where he’d set up his own little command post on a corner of her desk and the top of her file cabinet. It was the most secure office on the premises, and she’d been very accommodating, but he still felt a bit guilty about usurping so much of her space. She’d even given him the spare key.
“Don’t lose it,” she said. “The town locksmith is drunk most of the time, and it’s not easy to get another one made.”
With Nika off making official condolence calls, and Kozak exploring the local terrain, he sat down in Nika’s chair—instead of the stool he’d brought in for himself—and got to work, checking logistics, firing off email queries, figuring out how this assignment could be completed in the shortest amount of time and with the minimum amount of public scrutiny. The weather reports weren’t good—a storm was brewing—and he wanted to beat it to St. Peter’s Island, at least in time to get a few of the necessary structures set up. He didn’t much relish the idea of erecting lighting poles in the teeth of gale-force winds.
For a couple of hours, he managed to lose himself in his work, even phoning Sergeant Groves—and plainly waking him up—to go over the latest alterations to the plan.
“So what’s
your ETA now?” he asked, and Groves, audibly yawning, said, “We should be able to load everything onto the second Sikorsky—including the good Dr. Lantos—by Thursday morning.”
It was only Tuesday night now, and Slater had to bite his lip in frustration.
“What time do you want to rendezvous on the island?” Groves asked.
“We’re not going to,” Slater said, having given it much thought since his aerial reconnaissance. “The colony’s on top of the plateau, but it’s hemmed in by trees and the remaining wooden structures. The graveyard is in an even trickier spot. There’s no room for two helicopters to off-load at the same time.”
“How’s the beach? We could use that, right?”
Again, Slater had to nix the idea. “The beach can handle no more than a Zodiac. It’s too narrow and sloped, and the only way up to the plateau, a considerable distance, is a staircase cut into the stone. I wouldn’t try to carry a kitten up those steps, much less a centrifuge.”
“So you’ll go first?”
“Yes, and you can follow. We’ll leave a two-hour window for the initial cargo deployment, and start at eleven A.M. on Thursday. It won’t be light enough earlier.”
They were discussing a myriad of other details—the order in which the hazard tents would be erected, the grid of the ground ramps and location of the generator shacks—when Slater picked up the aroma of stew and heard a furtive knock on the door.
“Come in,” he said, holding the phone to his shoulder, and looked up to see Nika holding a Crock-Pot between two pot holders.
“The Yardarm is doing their version of chicken Kiev tonight,” she said. “Trust me, you’re better off with my home cooking.”
Slater was embarrassed to be caught so much in possession of her office and started to rise from her chair.
“Finish your call,” she said, “and meet me in the gym.”
“Sounds like you’ve made a friend,” Sergeant Groves said with a laugh before they hung up. “Now don’t blow it.”
Slater straightened up his papers and tried to leave her desk the way he’d found it, then went down the hall to the community center’s gymnasium, where Nika had set up a card table underneath the scoreboard with a bottle of wine, the pot of stew, and a couple of place settings. It was about the least picturesque spot Slater could ever have imagined, which was why he found it puzzling that it felt so cozy and romantic. He instinctively tucked his shirt into his pants to straighten it out and ran a hand over his hair. Maybe he did need to get out more, as Sergeant Groves had often kidded him. “You’re divorced,” Groves had told him the last time they’d had a drink in a D.C. bar. “You’re not dead.”
“You really didn’t have to do this,” Slater said, taking a seat on the folding chair across from Nika.
“Inuit hospitality,” she said, dishing out the stew. “We’d be disgraced if we didn’t do something for a guest who had come so far.”
Slater opened the wine bottle and filled their glasses. He raised his glass in a toast to his host, then found himself tongue-tied. “To … a successful mission,” he said, and Nika smiled. Clinking her glass against his, she said, “To a successful mission.”
“And a terrific meal,” Slater said, trying to recover. “Smells great.” He draped his napkin in his lap. “Thanks so much.”
The conversation went in stops and starts. Slater, who could talk about disease vectors until the cows came home, had never been good at this small talk; his wife Martha had always been the one to carry the day. Between bites of the reindeer stew, he asked Nika about her life and her background, and she was happy to oblige. It even turned out that they had some friends in common on the faculty of Berkeley, where she’d received her master’s in anthropology before coming back to serve the people of Port Orlov.
“I wanted to preserve and record a way of life—the native traditions and customs,” she said, “before they disappeared altogether.”
“It can’t be easy to keep them going in the age of the Internet and the cell phone and the video game.”
“No, it’s not,” she conceded. “But there’s a lot to be said for that ancient culture. It sustained my people through centuries in the harshest climate on earth.”
As they talked, Slater discovered that she had an extensive knowledge of, and even deeper reverence for, the spiritual beliefs and legends of the native Alaskans. It was like receiving a free and fascinating tutorial … and from a teacher, he had to admit, who was a lot better-looking than anyone he remembered from his own school days. She was dressed in just a pair of jeans and a white cable-knit sweater, with her long black hair swept back on both sides of her head and held by an amber barrette, but she might as well have been dressed to the nines. If it weren’t for the scoreboard above the table, which revealed that Port Orlov had lost its last basketball game to a Visiting Team by twelve points, he could have sworn they were in some intimate little bistro in the Lower 48.
He wasn’t even aware of when, or how, she had deftly turned the conversation back to him, but he found himself explaining how he’d been drawn into epidemiology, then about what had happened in Afghanistan to derail his Army career.
“And yet they’ve entrusted you with this very sensitive assignment,” she said, refilling his glass. “They must still have a very high opinion of you.”
“I work cheap,” he said, to deflect the compliment.
But Nika, in her own subtle way, wouldn’t let it go, asking question after question about how the mission was going to proceed, in what steps and over what period of time. Normally, Slater would have been much more circumspect about sharing any of this information, but after she had been so open with him, and considering the fact that she had been so cooperative so far, in everything from sharing her office to letting the chopper remain parked in the middle of the town’s hockey rink, he would have felt churlish for holding back. It was only when she asked what time they would be leaving for the island that he heard a distant alarm bell. What did she mean by “they”?
“The team,” he said, “will be lifting off late Thursday morning.”
“Do I need to bring anything in particular along?” she asked innocently, as she produced two cherry tarts from a hamper beneath the table. “Sorry, I should have brought ice cream to top them off.”
“No, the team has everything it needs,” he emphasized.
“Okay, no problem,” she said, sticking an upright spoon into his tart for him. “I’ve got the best sleeping bag in the world and I’m used to bunking down anywhere.”
“Where are you talking about?” Slater said, ignoring the spoon and tart.
“On St. Peter’s Island,” she replied. “You didn’t think I was going to let you go without me, did you?”
“Actually,” he said, starting to feel played, “I did. This is a highly classified and possibly dangerous mission, and only authorized personnel—all of whom I have carefully handpicked—are going over there.”
Nika dabbed at her lips with her napkin, and said, “I had the tarts in a bun warmer. You should eat yours before it gets cold.”
“I’m afraid there can be no exceptions.”
“I agree,” she said. “Authorized personnel only. And as the mayor of Port Orlov, in addition to its duly appointed tribal elder, I have to point out to you that the island is encompassed by the Northwest Territories Native Americans Act of 1986, and as such it is within our rights and prerogatives to decide who and when and how any incursions are made there.”
Slater sat so far back in his chair it almost toppled over onto the gym floor.
“Now I’m not saying that official permission has been denied,” she said, taking another spoonful of her tart, “but I’m not saying it’s been granted yet, either.”
She looked up at Slater, her black eyes shining, an inquisitive smile on her lips. “If I do say so myself, this is one hell of a tart.”
And Slater, who had been up against some pretty formidable adversaries in his day, could only marvel at
her aplomb. He’d never been snookered so smoothly, or so deliciously, in his life. Her veiled threat to delay the mission could be easily overruled by Dr. Levinson at the AFIP, but the paperwork and bureaucracy involved would tie him up on the ground for several days at least.
“Yep,” she said, nodding over her dessert, “a little vanilla ice cream and this would have been perfect.”
He had just acquired, like it or not, his own Sacajawea.
Chapter 20
“Goddammit,” Harley muttered, “watch where you’re throwing that rope.”
“I didn’t see you there,” Russell said.
“And keep your voice down!”
“You keep yours down!” Russell shot back.
This expedition, Harley thought, was not getting off to the best start. First, they’d had to jimmy the fuel pump at the dock in order to gas up the boat.
And then, of course, there’d been that little “incident” in McDaniel’s storage shed. When Harley had dared to poke his head back inside the next day, all he’d found by the wall was a pile of old rags and some wooden planks. He’d put the whole thing down to a hallucination, brought on by the stress from making that speech in the church, but he still hadn’t managed to completely persuade himself. For now, he just put it out of his mind and resolved to say nothing about it to Eddie or Russell. They’d simply chalk it up to his being stoned on something … and want their share of whatever he’d been stoned on.
“What are you two making all this racket about?” Eddie said, coming up from the hold. “I thought we were supposed to keep quiet.”
It was a freezing night on the docks of Port Orlov, and the chance of anyone else’s being out, much less dumb enough to be setting sail, was pretty slight, but Harley had made it clear from the start that they should go about their business in the utmost secrecy. He hadn’t even breathed a word of it to Angie, though that might have had more to do with the way she’d exchanged looks with that Coast Guardsman at the Yardarm than it did with his discretion. He was still ticked off and jealous.
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