Wall of Night

by Grant Blackwood

  Hadin and his crew of forty men had sailed from Lake Baikal in late summer of 1909, ostensibly on a mission for the Smithsonian to collect specimens from the wilds of Siberia. Knowing Hadin’s penchant for the dangerous and outlandish, U.S. newspapers didn’t buy the explanation and soon after his departure rumors began circulating about the true nature of the expedition.

  While most modern-day scientists have generally come to agree that the 1908 Tunguska Event had been caused by an asteroid impact, in 1909, less than year after the explosion, whatever had happened in the remote forests of Siberia was still a mystery. Something had flattened half a million acres of trees and created shock waves that had been felt all the way to Belgium, and no one knew why.

  Many newspaper editors and fans of Hadin’s surmised that Tunguska was the real driving force behind his voyage, and that he’d taken on the Smithsonian’s mission merely as a way of bypassing Russian bureaucracy and secrecy surrounding the event.

  Four months after Hadin’s departure, the Priscilla was officially declared missing. The Russian government sent out search parties along Hadin’s supposed route, but found no sign of the boat or her crew. A handful of Hadin admirers and emulators also attempted mounted searches for the billionaire, but they too failed.

  “You’re a long way from home, Andy,” Tanner whispered. As the crow flies, they were 1100 miles from Lake Baikal and probably twice that by water course. “How did you get so lost?”

  Briggs opened the diary and thumbed through the pages; every one was filled with Hadin’s precise handwriting. He scanned the entries, reading as he went:

  Yablonovyy Mountain Range, 9 September 1909

  Left the damned gorges behind this morning. The Pris got rather banged up in all the rapids, but we’re already making repairs and should have everything mended soon.

  Our maps, I fear, are woefully inaccurate. Of course, it doesn’t help matters that Tunguska isn’t clearly marked on any of them. All we can do is trust the word of natives we pass along the way. Even Nogoruk seems a bit lost at times, but I’m not worried …

  Vitim River, 28 September 1909

  Woke up to frost on the bridge windows this morning. It certainly gets colder here earlier than I’d imagined, but the crew is a hardy bunch and seem to be in their element.

  Had to backtrack twice today after taking the wrong branch. Lost hours. Damned frustrating. Making good progress, however, and I feel we’ll reach our goal before another month passes.

  East of Ogoron, 19 October, 1909

  Ran into first ice on the river today. Sat immobile until sun began to break up chunks and we were able to push forward …

  Engrossed, Tanner kept reading, his heart sinking with each entry. Hadin and the Priscilla had kept pushing eastward as autumn descended upon them and his entries reflected his frustration and confusion as they slowly became lost in the expanse of Siberia. Toward the end of October, his location entries became more and more vague until they finally started reading “Location Unknown.”

  Despite this, Hadin forged on, still confident they would find their way. In twos and threes the crew began abandoning Priscilla in hopes of reaching civilization before winter swept down on them. Finally only Hadin, his guide Nogoruk, and four loyal men remained behind.

  Briggs flipped to the last entry:

  Location Unknown, spring of 1910

  Nogoruk and others gone forty days now. Haven’t seen a soul since. Priscilla is a ghost ship. Food running low, and despite my best efforts, radio still inoperative. Generator contraption should work, but it doesn’t; I’m obviously missing something. Tried my hand at hunting yesterday; no luck.

  Miss Nogoruk. Good man. Loyal to the end, he‘d refused to leave until I made it an order. As he and the others disappeared into the trees along shore, he turned and waved. “I’ll come back for you!”

  I believe him. I’m not worried.

  He’ll be back with a fresh crew and supplies and we’ll start the journey anew.

  ​Tanner closed the journal. What a god-awful way to die, he thought. The loneliness must have been overwhelming. And yet, to the very end, Hadin had been optimistic. What of his family? It must have been torturous for them, waiting and praying for news—good or bad—about his fate.

  Briggs slipped the diary into his breast pocket. He would make sure it reached Hadin’s family. Though almost a century had passed, they would finally know his fate.

  Curious about Hadin’s comment regarding the radio, Tanner wandered around until he found the radio room one deck below the bridge. Inside he found the transceiver missing from its mounts, the cables ripped from the bulkhead.

  “Generator contraption …” he murmured. “Engine room.”

  He found the engine room a jungle unto itself. Water from the sandbar had seeped through the Priscilla’s rotted hull, creating a swamp. The creepers lining the bulkheads and catwalks joined with the roots poking through the ceiling to form a cave.

  Following his flashlight beam, Tanner searched the cat-walks until he was at the very stern of the boat. Below him he could see the giant cogs of the reduction gear; aft of these lay the telephone pole-size shaft leading to the waterwheel.

  Sitting on the uppermost catwalk, he found the generator Hadin had mentioned. A makeshift hand crank jutted from the side of the rusted machine. Amid the tangle of electrical cables was an ancient Marconi radio the size of a small steamer trunk.

  Hadin’s contraption, Tanner realized. A hand-powered generator.

  A pair of cables led upward from the radio, spiraled around the catwalk support, and disappeared through a ragged hole in the ceiling.

  He traced the cables to the roof of the bridge. The sun had risen. Aside from a line of scrub bushes and small trees lining the railing, the roof was mostly open. Despite the chill wind, the sun felt good on his face.

  The cables ended at a pile of rusted, steel rods, wire mesh, and wire. It took Tanner several minutes of sorting before he realized the mess had been Hadin’s attempt at making an antenna. Where Dashing Andy had gone wrong, Tanner didn’t know, but he realized the idea might be worth a second shot.

  He was climbing down the aft ladder well when suddenly a snippet from Hadin’s diary popped into his head: “I’ll come back for you!” It had been Nogoruk’s promise to Hadin. It had also been his promise to Han and Lian twelve years ago. His mind flashed back to his first sight of her at the camp, sitting in the chair, her hands clasped in her lap as she looked up at him …

  “He told me you were coming back for us.”

  “… were coming back for us,” Tanner murmured.

  Were—a certainty. Not “would,” as if repeating an as yet unfulfilled promise, but “were,” as if describing something already happening. Briggs suddenly felt dizzy. He sat down on the steps. Even as half of his brain was putting together the pieces, the other half was arguing against the conclusion.

  You’re wrong, Briggs. You’re exhausted and not thinking straight. You’re wrong.

  “He told me you were coming back for us …”

  He returned to the cabin to find Hsiao sitting beside the stove nursing a small fire. Tanner shivered as the warmth hit him. Soong and Lian were both asleep, Lian curled up on the bunk above the still-unconscious pilot. Tanner stood staring at her face. God, let me be wrong.

  “Briggs …” Hsiao whispered. “Briggs … ?”

  “Yes?”

  “What did you find?” Hsiao whispered.

  “A way to phone home, I hope. I’ll need your help in a few minutes.”

  Tanner knelt beside Soong’s bunk. Hsiao had splinted his legs with slats from the bunk then secured them with duct tape. Briggs gently shook Soong awake. “Sorry to wake you.”

  “What is it? Is everything okay?”

  “We need to talk. Keep your voice down. Tell me what happened the day you were arrested.”

  Soong frowned. “I was taken to Guoanbu headquarters and—”
>
  “What about Miou? She wasn’t arrested at the apartment, was she?” Tanner asked.

  “No. One of her friends was sick; she decided to take some soup to her.”

  “She hadn’t planned on it?”

  “No, it was last minute.”

  “What about Lian?”

  “I don’t know,” Soong answered. “The last time I saw her was at our apartment that morning.”

  “You never saw her again—never spoke to her?”

  “No.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes, Briggs. Please, what is—”

  “Not even by letter or through an intermediary? Last night was the first time you’d seen her or spoken to her since you were arrested? You have to be sure, Han.”

  “I am, Briggs. She’s my daughter. I would remember.”

  Tanner nodded and forced a smile onto his face. “Okay, thanks.”

  “What’s this all about?”

  “Nothing—just trying to refresh my own memory. Go back to sleep.”

  In a daze, Tanner shuffled out of the cabin and stood in the alleyway, listening to the wind whistle down its length. He pressed his back against the bulkhead and slid down to the deck.

  It hadn’t been Fong, after all, Tanner thought. Fong had been just a bit player; a conduit.

  It had been Lian from the start. Lian had betrayed her own mother and father to the Guoanbu.

  My God …

  Briggs hung his head between his knees and wept.

  80

  Am I wrong about this? Tanner wondered.

  Had Lian’s words at the camp been merely a slip of the tongue? As much as he wanted to believe so, the hollow feeling at the pit of his stomach told him otherwise.

  Many things made sense now. From what little the CIA had been able to gather following Ledger’s failure, Tanner knew that Soong’s wife, Miou, had not been arrested at their apartment, but rather at a friend’s. He’d always assumed the Guoanbu had followed her there, but now he wondered. If they’d had her under surveillance, why not take her as she stepped onto the street? The answer: Just as Fong’s feeding of the Guoanbu had relieved them of having to keep Briggs under constant surveillance, Lian’s had made it unnecessary to follow Miou. They knew about her unexpected trip that morning. Lian had told them.

  He now also understood why Xiang had brought Lian to the camp; she was his insurance policy in the event Tanner managed to rescue Soong. What Briggs had mistaken for a leverage gambit was in fact Xiang’s ultimate leash on his prisoner.

  They were in real trouble, he realized. How long did they have?

  Hsiao appeared beside him. “Briggs, are you okay?”

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t look it.”

  Tanner pushed himself to his feet. “Hsiao, I have to do something—something I don’t want to do. I’ll need your help.”

  “Of course. Tell me what you need.”

  “Just do what I tell you.”

  They walked back into the cabin. As Hsiao woke Soong, Tanner gently shook Lian until her eyes opened. “Get down,” Tanner told her.

  “Why?”

  “Please get down, Lian.” She climbed down from the bunk and stood before him, frail, delicate, her doe eyes staring up at him. “What’s the matter, Briggs? What are you—”

  “When I found you at the camp, you said, ‘He told me you were coming back for us.’”

  “Did I?”

  “Yes. What did you mean?”

  From his bunk, Soong said, “Briggs, why are you—”

  Tanner held up a silencing hand.

  “I don’t remember saying that,” Lian replied.

  Tanner took a step toward her. “I’ll ask you again: What did you mean?”

  “If I said it, I must have meant my father. He promised me you would come back for us.”

  “When did he tell you that?”

  Lian shook her head. “I don’t know.” She looked at Soong. “Father …”

  Soong said, “Briggs, she must have imagined the words. From a dream, perhaps.”

  “No, I don’t think so.” He turned back to her. “You meant Xiang, didn’t you? Xiang told you I was in China, and that I was coming for you and your father.”

  “No.”

  “That’s why he brought you to the camp.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “He wanted you at the camp, and I know why.”

  Lian shook her head; tears welled in her eyes. “That’s not true. I’ve been a prisoner—”

  “You’re lying,” Tanner said, his chest aching. “Hsiao, search her.”

  “What?”

  “Search her.”

  Soong said, “Briggs, why are you doing this? Lian would never—”

  “I’m sorry, Han. Go ahead, Hsiao.”

  Hsiao stepped forward and began patting down Lian’s clothes. As he moved down her body, Tanner studied her face. In the blink of an eye, her expression hardened into a mask of hatred, her eyes narrowing as they bore into his. It was as though he were looking at a different person. In that instant he knew with sickening certainty that he was right about it all.

  As Hsiao reached the top of her trousers, he stopped and frowned. He reached into the waistband and withdrew a black box the size of a cigarette pack. He backed away from her and handed the box to Tanner. It was a radio beacon.

  Briggs dropped it to the floor and crushed it under his heel.

  Lian Soong glared at him. “It’s too late,” she said. “He’s on his way.”

  “Lian, what is that?” Soong said. “What is he talking about?”

  Tanner said, “It’s a beacon. She’s drawing them to us.”

  “No, that can’t be.” Soong looked at her. “Lian, it’s not true. Tell me it’s not true.”

  She glowered at him. “Of course it’s true! You’re a traitor!”

  “What?”

  “You betrayed Zhongguo! You sold yourself to the West like a common whore!”

  Eyes brimming with tears, Soong looked to Tanner. “Briggs, they’ve done this to her. They’re making her say these things.”

  “I wish that were true,” Tanner whispered. “This started a long time ago—before the defection, didn’t it, Lian?”

  “Lian … My God, what happened to you?”

  “You happened to me!” she snarled. “Since I was old enough to listen, you were always talking about the glory of the Middle Kingdom, about patriotism and loyalty—about how we had to defend our way of life. And then those … rabble-rousers at Tiananmen came along and suddenly all your talk was for nothing!”

  “Lian, those were students—young people like yourself. Our government murdered six thousand people who were guilty of nothing more than speaking their minds!”

  “They were trying to destroy our way of life! For eighteen years I listened to you talk about patriotism only to watch you betray it all over some morally corrupt thugs!”

  “They were slaughtered, Lian!”

  “And rightly so! They were traitors—just like you! As far as I’m concerned, you should have gotten the same punishment!”

  “No, Lian—”

  “I would have gladly pulled the trigger my—”

  Tanner snapped, “That’s enough. Not another word!”

  “And you!” Lian snapped. “You’re no better! You’re scum!” She spat at him.

  Soong gaped at her, then looked to Tanner, his face etched in agony. Briggs could think of nothing to say; there was no way to ease his friend’s pain. Han had wasted away in a dank cell for the last decade, surviving on the hope of being reunited with his daughter, only to find it was her betrayal that had imprisoned him and killed his wife.

  Tanner couldn’t decide if Lian’s hatred was inherent or had been cultivated by the Guoanbu, or was a mixture of the two. What about her feelings for him? Had it all been an act—the affair, their love—ever
ything? His heart was pounding so hard he could hear it in his ears. Put it away, Briggs. No time for this now. Xiang was coming.

  “Hsiao, get the duct tape out of my pack. Bind and gag her.”

  Soong said, “No, Briggs, don’t—”

  “She’ll betray us again if we give her the chance, Han.”

  “Please, don’t hurt her.”

  “I’m not going to hurt her.”

  Once Hsiao was finished binding her, Tanner asked him, “How good are you with electronics?”

  Hsiao shrugged. “I used to tinker with shortwaves when I was a child.”

  “Good enough. Grab one of the AKs and the lantern, then take Lian down to the engine room. On the upper catwalk there’s a hand-powered generator and a radio—one of the old-style vacuum sets. Look it over and see what you can do. Take this, too.” Tanner handed him the Motorola.

  “And do what?”

  “We can’t be sure until we try, but aside from a missing battery, the phone might be salvageable. If we can jury-rig the transformer to regulate the power, we might be able to put out a signal.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  Once they were gone, Tanner knelt beside Soong’s bunk. He put his hands on Soong’s shoulders. “I’m so sorry, Han. I wish to God it weren’t true.”

  “As am I,” Soong whispered. “I can’t believe it, Briggs. They did something to her. She wouldn’t say those things otherwise.” He hesitated. “But that only explains part of it, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “After I told her about my plans, she went to the Guoanbu on her own. Oh, God …”

  Soong broke down in tears. Tanner embraced him. “We can’t take her with us, can we?”

  Tanner shook his head. “No. Han, this invasion your government is planning—do you know how to stop it? Can you tell my people?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “How? You’ve been in prison since—”

  “Night Wall was originally mine; they changed very little of it. I know because for the last decade Xiang has been picking my brain … bragging as ‘his’ plan progressed. It makes him feel superior, I think. Have they already started, do you know?”