by Jack Du Brul
He used a brass key on the lock and lifted the lid. The case was a clever disguise, meant to look solid and heavy when in fact it was made of wood veneer over an aluminum shell that weighed just ten pounds. It was what was at the bottom of the trunk that gave it such weight.
Below the few items of clothing and toiletries that Vatutin needed for the two-week cruise were a pair of gloves, a hood, a type of smock, and a specially designed metal flask. The gloves almost looked like medieval chain mail except they were crafted of tightly woven gold thread and weren’t yet a hundred years old. Each one weighed three pounds. He knew from experience that they were clumsy and awkward to wear and even harder to work with.
Next to them was a long hood similarly fashioned of gold thread. Two eyeholes were woven into the mesh, and over them, a special flap could be drawn down to completely cover the eyes if necessary. Fortunately for Vatutin, the cowl’s original owner had had a larger than normal head, so he could slip on the hood without difficulty. He set the glittering gloves and hood aside and strained to withdraw the last item of clothing. This was a recent addition to Vatutin’s collection because the original smock had long since disappeared.
This one weighed almost ninety pounds. It was composed of lead-impregnated cloth with hundreds of small lead plates sewn in place to form a solid shield extending from the waist to the throat. The sleeves were banded with lead rings of various sizes that allowed limited movement at the shoulder and elbow.
Anatoly Vatutin wished that the Brotherhood could have afforded to assemble the garment out of gold, like the original, but they no longer had anywhere near that kind of money. As it was, if they failed in the next two weeks, the Brotherhood would not have the funds to continue their work.
A high-strength stainless-steel flask was left at the bottom of the trunk. Though it was the same size as the trunk and about a foot tall, only half its volume was filled. Its liquid contents had been smuggled at tremendous cost from the Chernobyl nuclear plant before its closure. He looked at it with dread before lowering the smock back into the chest and replacing the gloves and hood. He had just started a prayer of thanks that his secret was still safe when there was a knock on his cabin door.
His heart slammed against his ribs. Oh, God, no! It had to be the Swiss Guards coming to question him. Either he had been betrayed or they had X-rayed the trunk. Not now that I am so close, he cried silently to God. Please, this is your work I am doing.
Frantic, he threw his other clothes into the trunk, slammed the lid, and turned the lock again. “Moment, please,” he croaked in English.
“Father Vatutin?” a man called from the other side of the door. “I am from the purser’s office. Please open the door.”
“I am on the toilet,” Vatutin improvised, eyeing the porthole as a possible escape route. It was much too small, of course. Trapped, he resigned himself to trust in God to see him through. “I am coming.”
On the way to the door, he had the presence of mind to reach into the closet-size bathroom to flush the toilet, maintaining his thin veil of deception. If there was only one of them outside the door, Vatutin wondered if he could kill him. For what he needed to do on this trip, taking the life of a purser was a small price. He had the element of surprise, and even without a weapon, he was formidable at six foot three inches tall and two hundred thirty pounds. He composed himself, wiping sweat from his face. The door swung smoothly and standing in the corridor was an innocent-looking young man wearing a white uniform and holding a bunch of flowers.
“Father Vatutin, these are compliments of the cruise line.” He smiled and offered the flowers to a befuddled Vatutin. “When the sailing arrangements were made, your bishop, Bishop Olkranszy, assured us that you wouldn’t mind being on the lowest deck. However we felt brightening your cabin with flowers was the least we could do.”
“The cabin is fine,” Vatutin stammered, his relief immeasurable. They knew nothing! “Perhaps you can give the flowers to the person in the next cabin.”
“We have them for all guests staying on the inside of E deck, Father,” the young man said and smiled again.
“Ah, thank you, then.” Vatutin closed the door, leaning his back against it as he tried to slow his breathing. He wished he had brought along something to settle his stomach. He wanted to vomit.
Get hold of yourself, Anatoly, he thought. He felt like he was having a heart attack. No one knows why you are really here.
He knew he would not relax until he took possession of the icon being presented to Bishop Olkranszy by the Vatican and confirmed what lay hidden behind its golden cover. Anatoly gave little thought to his own death if he mishandled the relic just as long as he accomplished his mission. It was little wonder that knowing the secret of Satan’s Fist had driven the Brotherhood’s founder insane. Grigori Efymovich had handled dozens of such icons while Vatutin was responsible for only one. It would be days before he received the icon, and the tension was already tearing him apart.
EAST OF THE GEO-RESEARCH STATION, GREENLAND
Over the anemic throb of the helicopter’s faltering engine Anika Klein could hear her grandfather’s voice in her head. “Go to Greenland, liebchen. There you will be safe.”
She could never remember a time when Opa Jacob had been more wrong.
The chopper lurched again, a sickening plunge that made her restraining harnesses dig into her shoulders. The pilot, a young Dane contracted by Geo-Research, fought to keep the dying craft in the air. The grim set to his jaw and the undisguised fear in his eyes told Anika that he wasn’t likely to win the fight. Around them, the storm that the Njoerd’s meteorologist promised wouldn’t hit for another six hours raged with banshee fury. Anika had been on enough helicopters to know that, even if the engine wasn’t about to let go, they had little chance of reaching the research camp. The snowstorm was too intense. For the hundredth time she cursed herself for flying, cursed the daredevil pilot for thinking he could beat the storm, and cursed Opa Jacob for convincing her she’d be safer in Greenland than at home pursuing Otto Schroeder’s killers.
While she had lost all details of the drive from Schroeder’s house to Ismaning, where her friend had picked her up to bring her home, Anika vividly recalled everything that had come before that. The gunfire. The blood. The pain. And most of all the anger that had grown to a fever pitch.
As a doctor, she had dedicated herself to the preservation of life, and witnessing the torture Schroeder had endured sickened her to the very core. She vowed to see that the man responsible, the man Anika admitted she hadn’t really gotten a good look at, was convicted for his unspeakable crime.
When she had phoned Opa Jacob after a full day of recovery, she had related everything, including the presence of the unknown snipers and the fact that Schroeder died believing he possessed a secret more valuable than gold. She also asked if the name Philip Mercer meant anything to him.
“I’ve never heard of him,” Jacob Eisenstadt had said. “This is someone Schroeder mentioned?”
“Yes. He said a mysterious caller a few weeks ago told him that this American could be of help. Does he do what you do, Opa?”
“Not that I’m aware of but he could be new to the field or work for someone else, like Wiesel’s Peace and Justice Center.”
“Well, Schroeder was convinced he could help. And what about the Pandora Project he mentioned? Does that sound familiar?”
“I’ve not heard of that either,” Eisenstadt confessed. “But I bet it’s the code name for a specific Nazi looting program. Remember that Schroeder was an engineer, not a soldier so it could even be the name given to an attempt to build a secure stash for art and precious metals like they did at the salt mines in Austria.”
The idea was an alluring one. “So what do we do now?” Anika had asked, the scent of treasure added to her desire for justice.
“We,” Jacob thundered, “do nothing. I will continue working and you get out of Germany. You aren’t safe there. You said yourself that the men w
ho killed Schroeder have seen your face and could at this very moment be learning who you are. You should go on your trip to Greenland. You will be safe there, and by the time you get back in a few weeks, I will know enough to go to the police and get you proper protection.”
The following argument lasted nearly an hour with Opa’s partner, Theodor Weitzmann, and Frau Goetz, the housekeeper, joining in on the other phones at the Institute. They were unified in their appeal, which was a first as far as Anika knew. That day Anika had called Geo-Research’s main office and told them that she would not be able to make the rendezvous in Reykjavik due to an accident. She didn’t add that she would spend the days letting the bullet graze in her thigh heal.
After the plane ride to Kulusuk and a chopper to the Njoerd, here she was on another helicopter that was minutes away from crashing. Yet her thoughts weren’t on her situation. She thought only of the guilt Opa Jacob would feel when he learned she died following his recommendation. It very well might kill him.
“There’s a rescue effort under way right now,” the pilot shouted into the headphones. “They want you to fire a flare when we get close to the ground. They’re in an emergency pack under your seat.”
Anika was in the copilot’s seat and had to loosen her shoulder restraints to reach under her chair. She waited until the gyrating craft stabilized for a moment before attempting the maneuver. As her fingers brushed against a plastic case, the chopper bucked suddenly, dropping farther into the raging clouds of snow blowing by them like random tracer fire. Her head hit the control stick, deepening their dive, which forced the pilot to jerk back hard, hitting her once again.
“Schiesse!” she cried, rubbing the knot already forming under her hair. She checked her glove to make sure she wasn’t bleeding.
On her second attempt she brought out the orange box and retightened the straps before she could be thrown bodily out of the seat. The flares were in individual firing tubes that could be activated by pulling a short lanyard at their base. She gripped one firmly, getting ready to open the small window next to her. “Tell me when.”
“No. Not up here. You have to go in the back,” the pilot told her, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at the cargo compartment. “The flare will destroy my night vision.”
From her vantage she could see there was an operable window in the hold’s side door.
“Okay.” She pulled off the headphones since the cord wouldn’t reach; then she unbuckled all her safety belts.
There was no pattern to the helicopter’s erratic flight, so there was nothing she could do as gravity either tossed her toward the roof or crushed her to her seat. As if she was mountain climbing, Anika maintained three contact points at all times, only moving a limb when she was certain the other three had a secure purchase. In this fashion, she crawled over her chair and slid into the only open space in the chopper’s hold, bracing herself by pressing her back to the floor and jamming her feet against a built-in shelf on the forward bulkhead.
“Can you hear me?” Anika screamed, testing whether she would be able to hear the pilot when he gave his order to fire the flare.
“Yes!” His reply sounded as if it came from outside the aircraft. “About five more minutes, tops.”
Okay, AK, this is it.
As long as the engine held together, they had a chance to find a break in the storm and land safely. She kept that hope alive by praying to God, Who had kept her safe in situations like this. She thought of the time when a climbing rope had parted two-thirds up Eiger. She recalled when a white-water raft she’d been paddling had been split open in the middle of Class- 4 rapids, dumping her and three companions into a liquid maelstrom. Then there was the case of food poisoning that had forced an end to a hiking expedition in Peru. Anika had eaten the same native stew as the four others with her, and while they had to be choppered back to Iquitos for medical treatment, she hadn’t felt the slightest ill effect.
She liked to brag about her outdoor skills, but she knew so much of what she had survived was due to luck, an ally she sometimes disdained. Not now. She was terrified and would need whatever last shreds of good fortune she’d managed to preserve.
Reaching up, she slid open the small Plexiglas window. She gasped at the raw blast of air that sucked her breath away as if the chopper had just gone through explosive decompression. Intellectually, she knew if they survived the crash, they wouldn’t last more than a few hours on the ice, but that didn’t impair her desire to see the chopper down safely. She would worry about rescue afterward.
The wind rattled the tub of mail left near the door. In the worst bit of irony about this whole ill-fated trip, she’d noted when the crate was put aboard that the topmost envelope was from New York City and had been posted to none other than Philip Mercer. The odds that the man mentioned by Otto Schroeder was on the same trip as her were too long to be coincidental. The anger that had begun at the isolated farmhouse nearly exploded. Though she immediately knew she’d been set up, she didn’t know if it was by Schroeder, his killers, or the snipers. Or maybe even by Philip Mercer himself.
Until the storm struck the helicopter, she had been quietly brooding about this development, determined to find the truth.
“Get ready!” the pilot yelled from the cockpit.
Anika stuck the end of the flare out the window, stripping off one glove so she could get a better grip on the lanyard. From her position she couldn’t see outside and this was better. Let the crash come as a surprise, she thought. If she didn’t know it was coming, her body wouldn’t tense involuntarily.
“Now!”
She jerked the string and the glowing ball of fire arced into space, its red corona flying away like the spectral trail of a meteor. Ten seconds later the chopper’s skids slammed into the ground. The collision was like a full swing of a sledgehammer against Anika’s spine. Momentum made the craft’s nose pitch forward. Its blades sliced through the granular snow until they hit solid ice and came apart. The engine’s torque continued to spin the unbalanced rotor head with enough power to slam the helicopter over on its side. Anika was thrown into the door, her body pinned by boxes forced loose by the first impact.
The ragged bits of blade left on the main shaft chewed into the ground. Teflon-coated shrapnel exploded off with each contact with the ice. The smaller tail rotor hit the snow, digging in before it too disintegrated in a deadly swarm of fragments. Most flew away harmlessly, but several cut through the chopper’s thin skin, one slicing by close enough for Anika to feel its passage. She screamed.
The engine finally died when it became starved for fuel. The sound of the chopper’s frenzied destruction was replaced by the noise of the storm’s full force. It assaulted Anika’s ears like a hurricane, with hail-size chunks of ice rattling against the fuselage. Battered but unhurt, she began to shift bundles of clothes and boxes of food off of her. It seemed that the more she moved, the more the gear shifted and wedged around her. It was like trying to dig in quicksand. The agony radiating from her back wasn’t helping. Then she remembered she hadn’t heard anything from the pilot.
“Hello!” she called. “Are you okay?”
She got no response and called again and again, raising her voice until she was shrieking and tears were spilling down her cheeks.
“Get a grip on yourself, AK,” she said aloud, wiping her eyes. “He’s gone.”
This time she attacked the pile of equipment with deliberation, thinking through each move before executing it. There was a small amount of light spilling from the cockpit, and she balanced her need for caution with the urgency to get to the radios. When the batteries died, so would her chance of contacting the base camp.
Twenty minutes later, with cargo balanced precariously around her, Anika was almost free when the cockpit lights faded to nothing. Darkness enveloped her. She had to fight to keep panic at bay and was succeeding when a gust of wind slammed into the chopper, upsetting its center of gravity enough to topple the cargo back on top of her.
> This time she could not stop the tears. They came in salty waves even as she again began to work, her jaw clamped tight to prevent her teeth from chattering. Without power, the radios were worthless. There was no need to move from where she sat, since there was little chance of a rescue. The moment of pessimism passed and left her infuriated with herself. She would not give up. Life was too precious to squander because of personal weakness.
It took another hour to extricate herself from the helicopter. Anika confirmed that the pilot was indeed dead — killed by the piece of rotor blade that had narrowly missed her — and fired the last flare into the darkness. On her walk around the chopper, she didn’t smell any fuel and assumed the self-sealing fuel bladders had not ruptured. She knew her luck was still holding when she found cans of jellied cooking fuel to keep herself warm.
Propped up in the hold, Anika Klein tucked her head into her arms and prepared to wait out the storm. She had to remain awake so she could light new cans of fuel when they went out, but the struggle became too much after only half an hour. Even as the first can guttered to a weak blue flame, her eyes closed. She jerked herself upright, cursing her weakness, and lit another one.
Her exhaustion was deeper than simple fatigue. She fingered the knot on her head again and decided that she had a mild concussion. Hope of rescue was the only thing keeping her going. It would be so easy to just lie back and let the inevitable overcome her.
“To sleep is to die,” she said aloud, mesmerized by the little tin of fire next to her. “To sleep is to die.”
She kept repeating the mantra, unaware that each utterance was a bit quieter, her voice more slurred and the pauses longer. She fell asleep with only ten minutes of heat remaining. When that second can burned out, the temperature in the chopper crashed to the ambient temperature of the Greenland ice sheet: minus fifteen degrees Fahrenheit — nearly fifty degrees below freezing.