“Then I’ll bring your check,” the waitress responded.
Hoffmeyer carefully examined each person gathering in the street below. When the group turned and began moving up the block toward the Admiralty, the pre-Bolshevik naval headquarters building, he glanced away for a brief moment but suddenly turned back as another figure appeared in his peripheral vision. It was a young man, dark haired, wearing a navy parka. He went in the opposite direction of the tourists, walking at a hurried pace into the flow of pedestrians. His height and hair color were right, and his gait also looked familiar. As the man glanced up the street before crossing, his watcher scrutinized his features.
“Wait…” Hoffmeyer thought aloud. “Wait. Yes, that’s him!”
Quickly throwing a five Euro bill down to cover the check, he grabbed his overcoat and made his way to the door. In his dash outside, he nearly knocked over a tall, elegantly dressed woman. She was still shouting at him as he sprinted away to catch up with his quarry. Dawkins had headed down the street in the direction of the museum. Trying to pick him out of the crowd, Hoffmeyer nearly overran him before he realized it. Slowing his pace, he followed a few steps behind and confirmed that his initial suspicion was correct. Each step and turn put them closer to the museum. Dawkins was going to meet Baranov. Hoffmeyer was convinced now that the two were obviously in league together. All he had to do was catch the little weasel in the act and bust him. Hoffmeyer would soon be back in his benefactor’s good graces.
By the time they reached the front entrance to the museum, the crowd had thinned to the point that Hoffmeyer feared he would be spotted. Further slowing his pace, he watched from a distance as Dawkins approached the building which was surrounded by a tall wrought iron fence. The younger man looked indecisive for a moment but then suddenly turned down a sidewalk which went down the right side of the building. Hoffmeyer followed him and watched with curiosity as Dawkins unexpectedly darted behind what appeared to be a utility building across the sidewalk from the eastern wing of the museum. The first thing that popped into Hoffmeyer’s mind was that he’d been spotted, but the more he thought about it, the less it made sense. Even if Dawkins knew he’d been found out, subterfuge and denial would be his only recourse. So what was he up to?
Hoffmeyer walked slowly toward the small building and crept at a snail’s pace as he followed the younger man’s path. When he stood at the back corner of the structure, he peered around and immediately found Dawkins. It appeared that his young PhD was trying to pick the door lock.
“Uh hum,” Hoffmeyer cleared his throat loudly.
Dawkins shuttered, dropping the pick as he swung around. “Dr. Hoffmeyer?” he said with more confusion than surprise. “What are you doing here?”
Hoffmeyer smiled menacingly. “I could ask you the same question. Unless you’ve gained employment here… which I doubt, I can only assume you are making an unlawful entry. Now why doesn’t that surprise me?”
“Baranov’s trying to screw us. I’m convinced of it. Earlier today I was waiting for him here in the parking lot, and he came out and got into a black BMW with some tall goons. I couldn’t tell what was going on because of the tinted windows, but they sat there for about fifteen minutes until Baranov finally got out and left in his car. Since Baranov’s secretary no longer answers my calls, I had a lady friend back in New York phone her, pretending to be an administrative assistant for a potential customer. The secretary took her number and said that Baranov would return her call when he got back to the office later this afternoon. If I had to guess, I’d say that he and those goons are close to a deal and that the exchange will take place tonight. When Baranov got out of their car, I saw him nod and say something that sounded like a number. I thought at first it was a price, but I looked up in my phrasebook. It meant 9:00 pm.”
“That really doesn’t make sense,” Hoffmeyer said. Caught up in Dawkins’ detective work, he had momentarily forgotten about busting his short-lived protégé. “Surely he’ll try to play us to get the price up.”
Dawkins shook his head, a grim expression overtaking him. “I saw the look on his face. They’re offering him something we can’t match.”
“Which is?” Hoffmeyer quizzed.
“His life,” Dawkins stated harshly.
Hoffmeyer took in the words and nodded succinctly. “What do you plan to do?” he asked.
“I’m going to wait out the rest of the day here. At least that gets me inside the fence. When the place shuts down for the day, I’ll find a way into the building. If I can get to Baranov before the goons do, I’ll simply take what belongs to Mr. Holtz and be gone.”
“How’d you know it was Baranov who got into the car?” Hoffmeyer asked in an accusative tone. “You haven’t actually met him, have you?”
Dawkins reached into his jacket pocket, removed a rolled black and white photo, and handed it to Hoffmeyer. “Official staff portrait. I lifted it from the faculty wall before being thrown out yesterday.”
Hoffmeyer glanced at it briefly and handed it back, shaking his head at the young man’s casual attitude about criminal mischief. “Lovely,” he said with a sigh.
22
Despite the scant amount of sleep either of them had gotten, Katie roused Jake in the early hours and they headed out into the city before the older ladies had awoke. The morning air was crisp, not unlike the night before, but for Jake it was much less threatening. The weight of his worries had been lifted in finding that Katie was safe. He was also relieved to discover that his leg was much better, especially since Katie appeared to be no stranger to exercise. For the most part, he had kept pace with her, but his energy was starting to wear thin.
“Are we in a hurry?” he asked.
“Oops,” she replied, coming to a stop. “Sorry about that. This is my normal jogging route. I guess I have that set in my mind. I didn’t think about your leg. Are you OK?”
“My leg’s much better, but my stomach thinks I’ve abandoned it. Don’t suppose this outing ends with breakfast?”
“You’re in luck,” she said. “We’re here.”
As they crossed the street and walked toward an ochre façade with two café tables outside, Jake was suddenly struck by a pleasant aroma.
“Something smells good.”
“Blinis,” she smiled, “the Russian version of pancakes. Have you ever had them?”
“No,” Jake answered. “I’ve never tried them.”
“They’re thin,” she said, pressing the palms of her hands together. “Kind of like a crepe. They make the best ones here, especially the ones with mushroom sauce.”
“You’ve sold me,” he said opening the door. “And I’ll go ahead and apologize in advance. My appetite has finally returned in force. The next few minutes may shock you.”
Katie laughed. “You may be the one surprised.”
As they sat down, Jake took in the surroundings. The architecture of the restaurant was sort of Moroccan. There were few sharp edges connecting the interior walls which were covered with white stucco. The arched doorways opened into a tall ceiling that vaulted to form two domes over the dining area. In the corners were tropical plants which gave the impression of a much warmer climate. The room was also compact in a comfortable way, seating about twenty people.
“You’re going to love this!” Katie assured him.
When the waitress came, she conversed briefly with her in Russian and then ordered for them.
“I’ve been thinking about our conversation last night,” Katie said after the lady had taken their order. “It sounds like you do a lot of traveling. Do you ever get tired of being on the go all the time?”
“Sometimes. I’m rarely in one place for more than a couple of months. The challenges are always unique, the work is interesting, and…”
“You get to rescue damsels in distress,” Katie finished with a smile.
“That,” he smiled back, “is a first, well…technically speaking.”
“Technically?”
; “I once rescued an Indian family’s goat from their rooftop above a swollen river in Chennai. They loved her like a family member and I was the local hero for a day, but in the end, it was just a goat.”
Katie laughed with delight at his story.
“Tell me more about you,” he said. “I dominated the conversation last night trying to sell you on my Prince Charming credentials. Now that you know about the goat and all, I have little else to share.”
Katie squeezed his hand in a playful way. Her touch was warm. “I’m afraid I’m to blame for that,” she replied. “I must have asked a hundred questions. My life has not been as colorful as yours.”
Jake smiled at her assessment as he added, “But then I’ve never found a lost spacecraft in the desert where it shouldn’t have been there in the first place. And although I’ve had a few run-ins with goons, fortunately none of them were carrying AK-47s. Something tells me there’s more to you than Little Miss Biologist from St. Petersburg. Do you mind telling me more, especially about your grandfather?”
Katie took a quick survey of the room and scooted closer. “You know about Dmitri?”
Jake reached into his jacket pocket, removed the tattered journal, and handed it to Katie. “I assume this belongs to you,” he said. “I forgot to give it to you last night.”
“Thank you,” she gasped, holding the book against her chest. “Did you find it in the capsule?”
“It had fallen behind one of the seats.”
“Did you get the film?” she asked with excitement.
“No,” Jake shook his head. “We found the camera, but someone had removed the film. Do you mind telling me what was on it?”
“I honestly don’t know. That’s why I went to Mongolia. The film holds the key to my grandfather’s disappearance.”
“What little we’ve translated from his journal is pretty intriguing.”
“I would love to have known him,” she said enthusiastically. “Baba describes him as a dashing, well-traveled adventurer. When they met, she was eighteen years old and he was thirty six. For a girl who had never ventured more than twenty kilometers from her home near Tomsk, his stories of adventure were a breath of excitement for her. Baba still loves to retell his stories as if they were her own.”
“Did she take part in any of his adventures?”
“Oh yes,” Katie nodded. “Did Baba tell you that she’d traveled with him to New York just after they were married?”
Jake shook his head. “You arrived just after me. I didn’t get to talk with her other than to introduce myself.”
“She’ll get around to it. Baba always tells that story to anyone she meets from America. It’s one of her favorite memories.” Katie’s eyes began to fill with tears. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I guess her stories have now become mine as well. Baba is so wonderful and now I’ve messed everything up.”
“I’m not going to leave until both of you are safe,” Jake said sincerely. His voice was strong and reassuring. “And that includes taking you with me if that’s what it takes. You can trust me.”
“I know,” she smiled, wiping away a tear from her cheek. “I’m so thankful you’re here.”
Jake was silent for a moment, almost embarrassed by her appreciation. Then he turned the conversation to the mystery they were now pursuing together. “Would you tell me how all this started?”
“My grandfather was a scientist,” she began, “and a meticulous record keeper. One day I was rummaging through an old trunk and accidentally came across the journal that you found in the capsule. Baba had intended to keep all of Dmitri’s writings from me.”
“Why is that?”
“She thinks they’re responsible for my grandfather’s disappearance.”
Jake nodded as he recalled the conversation that he’d had with Stefan. Stefan, however, had used the word death, not disappearance. “From what little I know from the journal,” Jake said, “your grandfather found something that he thought would change the world. Is someone trying to steal it?”
“No,” Katie shook her head. “Someone is trying to destroy it.”
Jake looked puzzled.
“Because of how it relates to the Bible,” she explained.
“Your grandfather wrote about it being profoundly important to the Christian message. Do you know what he found?”
“Not exactly,” she sighed, “although I know it had something to do with some frozen animal tissue that he found in a cave. Are you familiar with DNA cloning efforts where researchers are trying to bring back extinct species?”
“The company I work for has conducted two explorations in the Russian tundra to bring back frozen wooly mammoth tissue for that purpose. I took part in one of them a couple of years ago.”
“My major professor at the Academy here was one of the pioneers in genetics research. He did some of the first recombinant DNA work in Russia.”
“You mean splicing fragments of DNA together?” Jake asked. “It’s like putting together an immense jigsaw puzzle.”
“Exactly. That technology is critical for working with extinct species since the DNA is usually badly degraded. My professor did his graduate work at the Soviet Academy of Sciences in Novosibirsk before moving here. He was working on x-ray diffraction, a sort of super microscope for looking at chemical structures at the molecular level. Before that, researchers like Watson and Crick who first accurately described the structure of DNA were limited to visual microscopic instruments, which couldn’t actually see the molecule in enough detail to determine its shape. With x-ray diffraction, you can actually observe the double helical shape of the DNA molecule.”
“I’m somewhat familiar with the process,” Jake said. “You can determine how the DNA molecule is chemically linked.”
“Normally that’s true. But with extinct DNA, the base pairs are so broken that you can’t figure out how to put the puzzle back together again. However, the tissue sample that my grandfather brought back with him from Asia ended up being in decent shape. Did you read that part of his journal?”
Jake shook his head. “No, I didn’t get that far.”
“I have no idea what kind of animal it was,” Katie continued, “maybe some camel-like mammal. There was a crude drawing. His journal describes in great detail how he packed it in ice and waited until the winter months to transport it back to Russia to be analyzed. He had heard about Professor Kozlov’s work.”
“So your professor was involved in the analysis?”
“Yes. I found a letter from Professor Kozlov to my grandfather. He was acknowledging that work had begun on the sample and that he should have some results within a couple of months. That letter was dated April 1964.”
“When the Gemini capsule was launched.”
Katie nodded. “It was also when Dmitri disappeared. I suspect he never saw the letter. Baba must have opened it. I found it in a drawer in her bedroom.”
“How did you come to study under this same professor?”
“I’ve known him for a long time. After Baba and I moved back here from Southern Russia, we used to go over to their house for dinner. His daughter and I have become close friends. I had asked Baba once how she knew him. She said that he had been a friend of my grandfather. Professor Kozlov was the one who got me interested in biology.”
“So was this animal tissue the significant find that Dmitri wrote about?”
Katie hesitated for a moment. “It would seem so, but I wouldn’t guarantee it. There is obviously more to the puzzle. From what I’ve been able to piece together, he must have found the remains somewhere in Eastern China or Tibet. He had been living there since his escape from communist Russia.”
“We translated the stuff about the German expedition to Tibet,” Jake added.
“He was afraid,” Katie explained, “that either the Nazis or the communists would discover his work. Dmitri knew that both of them would destroy whatever he’d found. Both groups had a vested interest in quieting the Christian message.”
“Dmitri went back to the Soviet Union to strengthen the underground church. For his efforts, the communists put him in prison. After he got out, he met my grandmother, married, and they moved to the Russian border with China so that he could continue his work. You know from our conversation last night that Baba eventually ran an orphanage there and adopted me after the orphanage closed.”
“Your grandparents were living there when he disappeared?”
Katie nodded. “She stayed for a long time after that. The orphanage needed her, and she always hoped he would return.”
“Have you discussed any of this with your professor?”
“I intend to if I can ever get safely back to his house. I’m borrowing his daughter’s car right now. Last night, I tried to return it, but there was a suspicious looking car parked across the street. I drove by a couple of times and it was still there. I’m guessing the guy stayed all night.”
“What about the professor’s office?”
“I went back to the museum where he and I work. We’re actually employed by the Academy of Sciences, but our lab is located in the Ethnography Museum building. That’s when I discovered that Sergei Baranov, an assistant curator, was involved in all of this. He was talking with some goon about a roll of film. It has to be the film from the space capsule. By the way, the goon was one of the men who attacked us in the desert.”
“So this curator was responsible for the attack.”
“He must have had me followed.” Katie shrugged. “The guy is a total creep.”
“And all they took was the film,” Jake said. “Why? And how did they know to look for it? How did you know to look for it for that matter?”
The Genesis Conspiracy Page 11