The Boy Who Stole From the Dead

by Orest Stelmach

  “It’s the largest of the caves that make up the Gypsum Giant,” the guide said, as he unloaded their supplies from the back of the jeep.

  “Gypsum Giant?” Marko said.

  “The Ukrainian system of natural caves. Not to be confused with the Caves Monastery in Kyiv, which was built by men. Five hundred fifty kilometers long. Second longest cave network in the world.”

  Marko whispered in Nadia’s ear. “What’s with all the underground action in this country?”

  “Maybe life has been less than kind above ground,” Nadia said.

  “The Gypsum Giant is a crystalline structure,” the guide said. “The crystal cracks like glass. So you have precise arteries but with jagged edges. That means we know where we’re going but it can be dangerous.”

  They put on yellow overalls, helmets with chinstraps and mounted headlamps, knee pads, and elbow pads.

  “Are we really going to need these pads?” Marko said, as he worked one over his forearm.

  “Probably not,” the guide said. “But in case your friend has gone farther than most folks, it’s best to be prepared.”

  The guide handed each of them a knapsack containing two flashlights, spare batteries, bottled water, a pocket knife, a variety of plastic bags, a candle, a lighter, a roll of toilet paper, and an empty jar with a seal.

  “The original entrance to the cave is filled with weeds and debris. We’ll use a secondary entrance instead.”

  They hiked a hundred yards to a patch of shrubs and small trees. A shaft protruded four feet above ground. The guide strained to lift a manhole cover. Nadia and Marko peered inside.

  Rusty metal pipes formed a ladder that disappeared into a black hole. A sense of dread gripped Nadia. She remembered her experience evading Kirilo Andre in Kyiv’s Caves Monasteries. She didn’t like tight places a quarter mile beneath the Earth.

  The guide shined the light. “The ladder is made out of gas pipes,” he said. “There are three of them. Each one is two meters long. So we will go down one at a time, about six meters deep. I will be last. I will close the cover.”

  “Can’t you take the lead?” Marko said. “I’ll go last. I’ll close the entrance.”

  “I can’t let you do that,” the guide said. “I need to know you’re both on solid ground before the cover is closed. If I go first, I can’t be above ground to help you in the unlikely event something goes wrong.”

  Nadia lowered herself onto the first horizontal pipe and descended into the shaft. She hugged the ladder as she stepped down, her face almost kissing the dirt between the rungs. The Caves Monastery in Kyiv had a staircase. A year ago that staircase had felt like a portal into darkness. Now it seemed like a resort experience.

  She focused on her breathing. Counted the rungs. Each pipe measured three meters. That was about three yards. Nine feet. Nine rungs per pipe. Three pipes. Twenty-seven steps down.

  Marko’s voice echoed down the shaft. “You counting in English or Uke?”

  Nadia stopped. Her heart thumped in her ears. “What’s the difference?”

  “Numbers are a little longer in Uke. You’ll make it down faster if you count in English.”

  The dialogue caused her to lose count. She swore under her breath. Took a deep breath and continued. When her right foot touched ground she lifted it and dropped it again. To make sure she wasn’t imagining the sensation.

  She stepped forward into a passageway. The walls were wide enough for two people to walk side-by-side but the ceiling was only four feet high. She had to stoop.

  “Done,” she said, looking up into the light.

  “Move into the cave,” the guide said. “So nothing falls on you.”

  So no one falls on her, Nadia thought.

  Marko descended next. After he joined her in the cave, the guide closed the shaft behind him.

  Darkness enveloped them. They took turns aiming their headlamps at each others’ knapsacks and removed their flashlights. The guide scurried down the ladder with frightening speed, sliding down the last pole without touching a rung.

  “Our destination is the “Khatki,” he said.

  “Khatki?” Nadia said. “The Ukrainian word for ‘little cottage.’ ”

  The guide pulled out his flashlight. “That’s where the families lived.”

  “What families?” Marko said.

  “The ones that hid from the Nazis,” the guide said.

  He took off before Nadia could ask questions. She and Marko followed. Shards of crystal hung from the ceiling. Gypsum crystal covered rocks. Water rolled down walls. Nadia brushed aside a sense of claustrophobia.

  The cave’s height gradually increased until they could walk upright. They weaved their way a hundred yards through a labyrinth of passageways to an open area. It was the shape of a diamond and the size of a living room. Beyond it the floor of the cave pitched upward and the ceiling soared. The forward chamber’s soaring height created the illusion that the outdoors lay ahead.

  “We’ll rest here for a moment,” the guide said. “Drink some water.”

  They took off their packs, sat down on rocks, and drank from their bottles.

  “People hid from the Nazis in here?” Nadia said.

  “Three Jewish families,” the guide said. “Thirty-eight people. They spent three hundred and forty-four days under ground. They had three separate living chambers. A ventilated cooking chamber. They lit candles for only a few minutes a day so they wouldn’t be seen.”

  “How did they get supplies?”

  “They found a water supply in a chamber of the grotto on the east side. This cave is called ‘ozero’ for a reason. As for food, a Ukrainian farmer kept them alive.”

  “A Ukrainian farmer? A gentile?”

  “Yes. He brought food to designated places outside the cave at pre-arranged times. Weekly, for almost a year. Until one day when the men went out to get the food and there was none. Instead there was a piece of paper. On the paper was a message. The message read: ‘The Germans have gone.’ ”

  “What happened to the families?” Nadia said.

  “When they stepped into daylight for the first time, a four-year-old girl asked her mother to extinguish the candle. It was too bright for her eyes, she said. She was so young she’d forgotten daylight. The families ended up in displaced person camps in Germany. Then they went to Canada and America and started their lives all over again.”

  Nadia enjoyed a rush of adrenaline. She sipped her water, replaced it in her knapsack, and stood.

  “Let’s go,” she said. She held the map in her left hand and a flashlight in her right. “Which way?” she said to the guide.

  There was only one direction to go. Nadia marched onward.

  Marko and the guide sprang into action.

  “Hey, Nancy Drew,” Marko said. “What the heck?”

  The guide took the lead. Nadia and Marko followed him for another ten minutes.

  The guide stopped in front of a cracked rock. The fissure was no more than six inches long.

  “In other parts of the caves, the cracks are so wide they can swallow a person,” the guide said. “Always watch your step. The scientists have done studies on the cracks. They are as much as two and a half kilometers deep. You fall. You die.”

  Nadia and Marko followed the guide deeper into the cave. They rounded a corner. Light came from an opening on the right side of the cave. Nadia heard a rustling noise. The sound of metal sliding against metal pierced the silence. It was the racking noise a semi-automatic pistol made when the sliding mechanism was pulled back and released to put the first bullet into the chamber.

  Marko glanced at Nadia. She made a gun with her right hand. He nodded. She assumed he understood the signal meant someone had loaded the gun in the adjoining chamber. Instead, Marko reached down to his pant leg and removed his own pistol.

&nbs
p; “Where did you get that?” Nadia mouthed.

  In the glow of her headlamp, a glint shone in his eyes.

  He had a gun. Somehow, her lunatic brother had procured a gun in Ukraine. Where? Kyiv? Lviv? Not Zarvanytsia, that’s for sure. And from whom? Not the concierges at their two fine hotels. Then she remembered. She’d left him alone at the café in Lviv after she’d lost the man with the pointed chin.

  Her concerns about how he’d gotten the gun and the risk he’d assumed in getting it gave way to relief. Marko knew how to use a gun. They both did, courtesy of their training during summer camps.

  The guide’s eyes widened when he saw the gun. Marko stepped in front of him and shut off his headlamp. He edged along the wall closest to the chamber. When he got near the entrance he squatted down to his knees. Took a deep breath. Nodded at Nadia to let her know he was going in. No discussion, no hesitation. He was going in. It was just like Marko, she thought. She wanted to help him. Pull him back. But toward what end? They had no choice. They needed to find Karel. And there was no way for her to share the risk. He was the one with the gun.

  He pivoted into the doorway. The light illuminated him. Legs spread wide, both hands on the gun. He stretched forward and glanced in each of the near corners. No one there. He disappeared into the room.

  The guide tapped Nadia on the shoulder. “Guns in the cave?” he said. “Not allowed. We must leave now.”

  Nadia shook her head. Put her finger to her lips.

  Marko came out of the chamber. “Clear,” he said. “I don’t know what we heard but it wasn’t from this room. It must have been an echo.”

  The guide eyed the gun in Marko’s hand. “Who are you people? And this friend of yours who’s caving? Why would he have a gun?” The guide stepped back. “No guns in the cave. I’m leaving now. Are you coming or are you staying?”

  “We’re staying,” Nadia said. “Go to the car and wait for us there. That way we can still get back to Lviv and you’re not in danger. If you see someone else coming out of the cave, you can take off without us. I promise I’ll make it worth your while for waiting. Fair enough?”

  The guide thought about it, nodded, and took off.

  She followed Marko into the chamber. They aimed their headlights at each of the four walls. One of the walls featured cracks in the form of an upside-down horseshoe. Nadia aimed her light at the floor. Crystal dust shone in the light, scattered over rocks. A ledge protruded from one of the side walls. It was slightly higher than knee height and wide enough to accommodate a seated person. Something glittered beside it.

  “Over here,” Nadia said. She picked up a shiny blue fountain pen with gold trim. The pen was open. The cap was secured over the base. “This doesn’t look like something from the 1940s.” She pressed it against her yellow sleeve. Blue ink spread through the fabric. “Someone was here—”

  “Drop the gun,” a man said in Russian.

  He stood in the entrance to the room, a gun in his right hand and a flashlight in his left. He also wore a headlamp. The light from the latter two overwhelmed Nadia’s equipment and rendered her blind.

  “Do it,” the man said, waving the gun. “Do it now.”

  Nadia thought she recognized the voice the first time. The second time she heard it left no doubt.

  “Karel, it’s me,” she said. “It’s me, Nadia.”

  “Who are you? What did you say? Are you trying to trick me? I said put the gun down.”

  Nadia switched to English. “Marko, put the gun down.”

  Marko didn’t lower his hands.

  “Marko, it’s him. It’s Karel.”

  “How can you be sure?” Marko said.

  “Nadia,” the man said in Ukrainian. “Nadia-Panya. Is that you?”

  “Of course it’s me. What can I say, Karel. It was animal attraction. You knew I wouldn’t be able to stay away forever.”

  The man approached. He kept his gun aimed at Marko. His flashlight continued to blind them. When he got to within three feet, he aimed it at the floor.

  Wiry Einstein hair. The pale complexion, sunken face, and frail physique of a prematurely aged man. Large knapsack on his back. He lit up when he recognized Nadia. Stuffed his gun in the canvas belt cinched around his narrow waist.

  “My God,” he said. “It is you.”

  He stepped forward and hugged her. He held on a little longer than another acquaintance might have. Nadia didn’t mind. She expected it. He’d done the same thing when they said good-bye outside reactor number four in Chornobyl last year. She had been sure she’d never see him again.

  Nadia introduced Marko to Karel. Marko put his gun back in the holster around his ankle.

  “We heard you load your gun,” Nadia said. “But when Marko came in you were gone. How did you get out of here?”

  Karel nodded toward the side wall with the horseshoe-shaped crack. “That’s actually a hole in the wall. The people who hid here during the war found a rock and chiseled it to close the opening. It was their escape route in case they heard the Nazis coming. It leads to a series of secondary passages that extend along the outer edge of the cave. Very narrow. Some treacherous passes. I circled around to confront you.”

  Nadia showed him the pen. “Yours?”

  He snatched it. “A gift from my friend Arkady Shatan. You remember. The scientist I told you about.” He glanced from Marko back to Nadia, as though making sure it was okay to speak of Arkady in front of him. “What news of the formula? I’ve been watching the papers. Trolling the Internet for a headline that you’ve changed the world.”

  Nadia laughed. “Please, Karel. The gig is long up. You don’t have to play along anymore. Obviously I know the whole thing was a ruse. Obviously there was no formula.”

  He frowned. “No formula? That’s nonsense. Of course there was a formula. Of course there is a formula. I showed you the slides. How the cells regenerated. I showed you the wolves. How they kept coming back for the water treated with the formula.”

  “You made all that up.”

  “I made nothing up. You must not have searched the locket properly. It must be there under your very nose but you must not be able to see it.”

  Nadia stood flabbergasted. The formula for a radiation countermeasure had been a hoax. Or so she had thought. The last thing she expected from Karel was a heartfelt assertion that she was wrong. That it existed. And yet, here he stood before her, trembling with urgency.

  “You must search it again,” Karel said. “Where is the locket?”

  “In an envelope. With Adam’s other personal possessions. In jail.”

  “In jail? Adam? This can’t possibly be. For what?”

  “Murder.”

  “Murder?” Karel mumbled under his breath. “I must be having a nightmare. But no, I’m awake. That’s complete nonsense. That boy would never hurt anyone. Life is too precious to him. Whom did he supposedly murder?”

  “A young British businessman named John Valentine. But he was born in Russia. He was actually named after his father. His father’s name was Ivan Valentin.”

  “Valentin.” Karel’s frown deepened. “Why is that name so familiar?” His eyes widened. A look of recognition turned to horror. “Valentin. The Zaroff Seven—”

  Light filled the doorway.

  “Don’t move,” another man said.

  Nadia recognized him. It was the rawboned man who’d helped retrieve their bags from the thieves in Lviv. Her headlamp illuminated his rifle. He held the barrel with his left hand. A piece of jewelry glittered in the light from his ring finger. It was the same ring Valentin had worn in his family portrait.

  Karel pulled the gun out of his belt and lifted it. Two loud thumps followed. Karel’s head exploded.

  Nadia dived for the floor. Her headlamp slipped off her head. She killed her flashlight. Marko did the same. He rolled atop her, pul
led out his gun, and fired two bullets into the light at the doorway. The room turned dark. Pain wracked Nadia’s eardrums.

  Marko slid to the side wall. Fired another shot where the light had been. The man with the rifle had retreated out of the room. Marko put the gun in his overall pocket and slid the rock aside to reveal the hole in the wall.

  “Go, go, go,” he said.

  Nadia scampered through the hole into a narrow walkway. The walls of the cave pressed tight against her torso. She had to stand up sideways to get her legs out.

  “Come on,” she said.

  But instead of crawling through the hole, Marko began to slide the boulder back in place.

  “Run,” he said.

  “No,” she said. “You come, too.”

  He ignored her. Instead he sealed the opening.

  Nadia heard more gunfire followed by silence. Then a man’s voice. She couldn’t make out the words. There was a measure of reason about it, as though he was trying to coax someone into obeying his order. She heard a deeper voice answer. Marko, she guessed. Voices and footsteps. More men entering the room.

  He surrendered, she thought. They would keep him alive to find out what he knew. Which was nothing except that some group of men called themselves the Zaroff Seven. Jonathan Valentine’s father had been one of them. Perhaps the rawboned man with the same ring was another. Somehow Bobby had gotten mixed up with them in Chornobyl, where the senior Valentin travelled every year.

  They would be coming for her any second. She needed to move. Marko was resourceful, she told herself. He’d find a reason for them to keep him alive. Then he’d find a way to escape.

  Still she couldn’t bear to leave him. She knew they’d be pushing the boulder aside momentarily but how could she leave her brother alone?

  Nadia focused on her breathing. Tried to think of an ingenious strategy to save him.

  A single muted thump. The unmistakable sound of a gunshot.

  Marko, she thought.

  Light trickled in through tiny cracks in the sealed door. Then voices. Closer. Much, much closer.

  Nadia’s heart pounded in her ears. If she didn’t do something, they were going to kill her. She was going to die.