Deep Past

by Eugene Linden

  Sergei made his way to the foreman and, after checking the crate, gave the man further instructions for delivery. Then he headed back to his pickup. Once he got in his car, it came to him why the Kazakh’s face had seemed familiar. It was the meek janitor he had come upon several weeks earlier in his workspace.

  47

  Claire awoke the next morning to an insistent knocking on her door. It was Rob, and he looked grim. “My office ASAP.”

  After throwing on some clothes, she headed right over. The grounds were alive with activity. It looked like offices were being packed and trucks were ferrying high-tech equipment and files. Diesel fumes made it difficult to breathe. Moving among the workers were tough-looking security types in black uniforms. They were carrying sidearms. One of them was wrestling a worker to the ground. Once he’d subdued the man, the guard pulled out a laptop the man had stowed under his shirt.

  She was already thoroughly alarmed when she got to Rob’s office. Sergei was already seated, as was Hayden. No one was smiling. Sergei looked utterly deflated. Remembering their evening together, Claire couldn’t help smiling at him and was upset that he didn’t smile back.

  Something big had happened. She gestured out the window. “What’s going on?”

  Rob spoke. “Remember how the Ukraine civil war started? Ethnic Russian uprising in Crimea? Well, it looks like that was a trial run. Tell her, Sergei.”

  Sergei turned wearily. “Here’s a crash course in Kazakh history. It’s been dominated by Russia for two hundred years. In 1959, there were more Russians than Kazakhs here, then a bunch left after independence in 1991. Now the population is about sixty-three percent Kazakh and twenty-four percent Russian.” He paused a bit. “Except here.”

  “What do you mean here?”

  “This district, North Kazakhstan, is nearly half Russian, and only a bit more than a third Kazakh. The capitol, Petropavl, is on the Russian border, and …” Sergei looked ashamed.

  “… and what, Sergei?” prompted Rob, coldly.

  “And, I guess, this morning, North Kazakhstan decided that it missed the good old days of being part of Russia. The entire regional government declared the district’s independence from Kazakhstan and its allegiance to Russia. They arrested the ethnic Kazakh federal officials and replaced the Kazakh leadership in the military with Russians. So far, it’s been largely bloodless—so far …”

  Rob looked sharply at Sergei. “That was just a guess, Sergei?”

  Hayden stepped in. “Easy, Rob. Sergei tried to warn us.”

  “When?”

  Claire knew exactly when and how. “The phospherite?” As she said this, she thought of the oligarch’s visit. All of this was connected.

  Hayden nodded.

  Rob softened his tone. “What did you know, Sergei?”

  “I didn’t know anything. I just put two and two together when Primorskichem asked me to let them know of any major phosphorous deposits in the area.”

  “So why didn’t you just tell us?”

  Sergei looked miserable. “I couldn’t.”

  “What do they have on you?”

  Claire listened intently. She had been hoping that Sergei would tell her more about that bizarre visit from the oligarch, but Sergei clearly did not want to talk about it.

  Sergei shook his head. “I have to fix this on my own.”

  Hayden took charge. “We’ll discuss that later. Rob’s got to get back to his men. Here’s what I think will happen. The president is sure to respond to the Russians, and this is the prize of the region.” Hayden thought back to his conversation with Bezanov. “I think the uprising is all about this concession. Ripley’s gotten the OK to evacuate all but a skeleton staff until things get sorted out.” He turned to Claire. “Pack the objects and the documentation, and have your team ready in an hour. Your guys are getting on that transport plane sitting on the runway—my plane’s in Astana and can’t land on this runway.”

  “What about Rob and Sergei?”

  “I’ve got to stay to keep an eye on things.”

  Sergei added, “Since it’s Russians, I can be helpful.”

  “What about Sauat?”

  Sergei spoke up. “I’ll protect him until it’s safe for his father to get him.”

  Looking toward Sergei, Claire felt torn. “I should stay, too. Sauat’s my responsibility.”

  Hayden cut her off. “Don’t even think about it. You need to be with your team and those objects. Understood? And I can’t leave foreigners here who both sides might want to use as bargaining chips.”

  Rob could see that Claire was getting ready to argue. “Claire,” he said quietly, “at Transteppe, Mr. Hayden’s word is final. Besides”—he looked somewhat sharply at Sergei—“Sauat will be in good hands—Sergei speaks Russian.”

  Claire held up her palms in surrender. “OK.”

  She and Sergei started for the door, when she remembered. “Mr. Hayden.”

  “Fletch. I’m only Mr. Hayden when I’m giving orders.”

  “Fletch then. There’s a scientist from my old dig, Benoit Richard, who was going to join the team. Is there room for him on the plane?”

  Hayden nodded toward Rob, who got on the radio to Ripley. “One more for the plane?” He gave Claire a thumbs-up.

  48

  Sergei’s men were already putting foam in the carrying cases by the time Claire had weaved her way through the trucks, dust, and diesel fumes to the warehouse.

  She held up her hand before anyone could speak. “Things are going kablooey in Kazakhstan and we’re getting out of Dodge,” said Claire, thinking that her mother couldn’t have done better in the mixed-metaphor department. “I’ll explain when we’re on the plane. Sergei’s men will help you pack laptops and backup drives. You two,” she said, pointing to Francisco and Katie, “pack the bones and the jadeite. Just you, no one else, and try to do it out of sight, or, if that’s impossible, look casual, like you’re just packing rock samples.” Claire looked at the jadeite and was delighted that they had not progressed in cleaning the rock. Covered with sedimentary crust, it looked like an ordinary sample. “Once packed,” she continued, “the stuff has to be in sight of one of us every second until they are on the plane—chain of custody is absolutely critical. Once this is done, race to your rooms and grab what you can in five minutes. We’re either coming back, or the stuff will be sent on. We’ve got”—she looked at her watch—“fifty minutes.”

  Operating amid chaos was familiar territory for Katie, and she jumped into action. She suggested to Claire that they keep thumb drives with critical data on them in case the laptops got damaged or lost. Francisco didn’t do hurrying, but he seemed to recognize that speed was of the essence, and he divided his time between securing files and supervising the packing.

  He yelled over to Claire, “How should these cases be marked?”

  Here we go again, thought Claire. Yet again they were moving priceless objects with a cavalier disregard for paperwork and protocol. This time, however, she had no compunctions. Leaving them in what might become a war zone was impossible. She thought for just a second. “Mark them ‘Samples for Further Analysis’ along with the legend for the sector they came from. And put ‘one’ for the yam, ‘two’ for the cranium, and ‘three’ for the new array.”

  Claire still felt uneasy. She remembered that when American presidents traveled by helicopter, two identical marine helicopters would fly so that potential attackers wouldn’t know which one carried the president. “Just to be safe, in case someone comes snooping around, let’s also prepare three identical boxes, packed with equal care, but carrying rocks. Just make sure the real samples get on the plane.”

  Katie wandered by and packed a bunch of laptops and printouts. As she walked by, she looked over her shoulder. “So! Where are we going?”

  Claire had to laugh. She didn’t know. She shrugged. “I think we’ll both find out on the plane.”

  Claire saw the two Kazakhs sitting at their workstations, watching th
e frenzy of activity with a mixture of wonderment and anxiety. Sauat was hovering nearby. She went over to him.

  “You stick with Sergei. OK?”

  “Yes, I will. Are you coming back?”

  “Of course! I’ll be back as soon as I can.” She gave Sauat a big hug. “Oh, and Sauat? I’m putting you in charge of Lawrence, OK?”

  Sauat smiled weakly. “I will make sure he is fed and safe.”

  “When your father comes to get you, can you take Lawrence with you?”

  Sauat nodded.

  She turned to Karil and Kamila. “Rob can get you both to Astana. Have you talked with Dr. Tabiliev?”

  Karil looked at Kamila and then said, “Yes, we spoke with him. If it’s OK, we’d like to stay. Dr. Tabiliev says that soldiers are moving everywhere in the cities, and people are …” He looked confused for a second. “Settling scores, attacking each other?” Claire nodded. “And it might be safer to stay here. He says that both sides want these mines in working condition.”

  Claire felt a pang of guilt. If they could stay, shouldn’t she be there with them? But she knew that she had to get the objects somewhere safe. She could envision thugs walking through the warehouse, taking what looked interesting and smashing everything else. Or, worse, she could picture a more disciplined force, doing a systematic inventory of the warehouse. Either way, the finds would get destroyed or disappear.

  ¬

  A thoroughly alarmed Benoit showed up just as they were preparing to move the boxes to the transport plane. He’d made the trip in under an hour—quite possibly a new speed record given the roads. He said the road was absolutely empty coming in this direction, though he’d had to dodge a number of vehicles racing in the other way as furloughed workers left the concession.

  49

  Claire was in her room, throwing clothes and notebooks into a rolling duffel, when she got a call from Rob. “Get packed, but then stand by—transport plane’s not going anywhere until we figure a safe path out of here.”

  They had gotten reports that the insurgents had surface-to-air missiles, and no one wanted to risk a repeat of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17, which was downed during the civil war in Ukraine. Rob turned away from the phone for a second and then said to come over to his office.

  There was less chaos now, but somehow the mood was more ominous. The black-uniformed guards were everywhere, and many now kept one hand on their holstered sidearms. She passed a few workers huddled in conversation who looked at her with hostility as she passed. A couple of men nudged each other and pointed at her. She quickened her pace.

  The civil war was outside the fence, how far away she did not know, but it had cracked the veneer of normalcy, and the evil ether of war flowed through, creeping over the concession like swamp gas. The comforting sense that tomorrow would be like today was gone. The future was now an abyss for Kazakhs.

  She could see a cluster of men in the distance. One was delivering a speech. He wore a white cap, headwear that had recently come into vogue among Islamic extremists. Claire wondered whether the Russians who thought up the current action had considered whether radicals might also see the chaos as an opportunity. Then she thought of Sergei, who always seemed to be two steps ahead. Russia was populated with Sergeis—chess players, mathematicians, conspiracy theorists, men and women who saw machinations everywhere, probably because in their lives, machinations were everywhere. She remembered that Russians—Christians—dominated Petropavl, while Muslims were dominant in the rest of the country. Of course, the rebels knew that Islamic extremists might see an opportunity in the civil unrest. They were probably counting on it. The sound of the angry harangue resolved any doubts about whether she and the team should stay. They had to get out—and fast.

  Something else caught her attention. Behind the man in the white hat stood another man, calmly surveying the crowd and surroundings. It was the janitor that they had encountered in the off-limits workspace, but now he looked anything but meek.

  Claire called Sergei. “Make sure the team stays in the warehouse. No wandering around outside—especially Katie.”

  Sergei understood. “Got it.”

  They paused for a moment, both realizing that this might well be the last time they speak to each other.

  A convoy of buses and trucks gunned its motors and began moving toward the gate, presumably destined for Astana. She wondered how long it would be before border posts popped up as the breakaway republic and the regime grappled with territorial claims.

  After walking past the commissary and checking to see whether anyone was following her, she abruptly stopped. All clear. She turned around and went to the side door. Everyone had cleared out. Lawrence was curled up in a corner. He clearly didn’t like the hubbub. Claire remembered reading something George Orwell had written about the Spanish Civil War. When the bombing started, the cats got as far away from humans—and their bombs and guns—as possible, while the dogs, wanting reassurance, followed their owners everywhere.

  Lawrence got up and came over to be petted. “Might be time for you to try your hand at being a desert cat,” she said as she lightly scratched his head. Lawrence clearly missed the point Claire was making, as he started purring mightily. “For God’s sake, Lawrence,” she said, “now’s not a good time to start acting like a dog.”

  She was almost at Rob’s office when she got a call from Katie, who said one word—“Trouble.” Claire raced back to the warehouse. On her way, she noticed that some of the workers were chanting and the crowd was even more agitated. Things were rapidly deteriorating.

  She texted Rob, telling him that something was up at the warehouse. When she got there, Katie intercepted her and shot her eyes over to Claire’s left. There she saw Azamat Suleimenov, the liaison to the mining ministry, in animated conversation with Karil. To her alarm, they were standing next to the six sample cases, three of which carried the artifacts, the other three mere rocks. They were about to be loaded onto a motorized trolley, but Azamat was blocking the path. Kiril looked both angry and apprehensive.

  “What seems to be the problem?” said Claire more calmly than she felt, as she knew exactly why Suleimenov had showed up.

  “I am here to make sure that nothing relating to Kazakhstan’s great heritage leaves the country. Moreover, I will take possession of any such artifacts and deliver them for safekeeping to Astana.”

  Claire smiled. “Oh, you’re talking about the array? I can assure you those bones already are in a very safe place.”

  This brought him up short. He kept looking suspiciously at the packing crates.

  “How can you be sure?”

  “Because we delivered our priceless find to your president as a gift over a week ago. Didn’t the presidency inform you?” Claire pretended to think a second. “No? My guess is that they didn’t think the issue was material for the mining liaison.” She hated having to use this bit of synecdoche and felt unclean because she was getting so good at this stuff.

  Still, it worked. The mention of the president had the desired effect on Suleimenov, but he still didn’t want to let go. “So if our beloved president has everything, you won’t mind opening up a crate?”

  She noticed that Sergei was walking toward her with something in his hand.

  “Actually, I mind,” Sergei said as he stepped in. “I’m sure your president wants us to continue our analysis while work is suspended here, and we need those samples at our research lab in Canada to do that. The transport plane is leaving any minute.”

  Claire noticed that Rob had entered the back of the warehouse, accompanied by one of the black-uniformed security team. He was wearing a holster and had his hand on the butt of a pistol. Suleimenov hadn’t noticed his presence.

  Maybe it was because Claire and Sergei seemed to think the crates significant, or maybe because Suleimenov had some sixth sense for opportunity, but he wasn’t going to let go. “So, in that case, maybe you should open a crate quickly.”

  The crates were numbered one thr
ough six. “OK,” said Sergei, and Claire watched in horror as Sergei moved toward the crate with the cranium, holding a claw hammer. What the fuck was he doing?

  Just as he was about to wedge it under the top of the crate, Suleimenov grabbed his arm. “No, open this one,” he said, pointing to one of the three containing ordinary rocks.

  She hadn’t told Rob about her ruse with the dummy crates. She noticed that his grip tightened on the pistol, but she couldn’t warn him.

  Sergei pried up the top. Suleimenov poked around the rocks, and then sighed with exasperation. “OK, go,” he said, and wheeled and strode toward the door of the warehouse where his driver and vehicle were waiting outside.

  She noticed that her hands were trembling—was that what Suleimenov saw? She looked over at Rob, who cocked a finger at her and then headed out the door. She turned to Sergei.

  “What if he hadn’t grabbed your arm?”

  “Big mess! But you saw Rob? Suleimenov wasn’t going to get those crates.”

  As things turned out, it didn’t matter.

  50

  After making sure that the crates were en route to the transport plane, Claire headed back over to Rob’s office. Hayden was on the phone, and Rob was talking rapid-fire on the radio. As soon as Hayden hung up, he invited Claire to sit. He looked remarkably untroubled.

  “This must be my tenth coup … uprising … civil war … expropriation,” he began without preamble. “Unfortunately, minerals and precious metals can’t anticipate future political stability when they decide where to deposit themselves underground.”

  “Well, as you might imagine, this uprising is of particular interest to me.”

  Hayden gave a short laugh. “Understood. I’ve been on the phone with our intelligence guys, and there’s good news and bad news on that score. The good news is that the rebels look disciplined, and they are clearly taking orders from Moscow.”