15
Moscow, Russia, June 21
KATARINA LUSKAYA
CLIMBED THE STEPS fronting the Science Ministry’s building after
returning from lunch in one of Moscow’s magnificent parks. On a
sunny June day, it was 82 degrees, not very humid at all, and
absolutely beautiful in the great city.
It seemed hard to
believe that in three months the first snows would be falling, and,
six weeks after that, it would be twenty below and dangerous to
walk around outside.
Savor it while you can, she told
herself.
Fit and athletic,
Katarina had a warm smile but a relatively plain look about her.
Her short mahogany hair was cut in an attractive style that angled
along her chin line. At times, her bangs fell across her face,
hiding her eyes. She was not the kind of woman who would stir up
attention by walking into a room, but after being there for a while
she might have a crowd around her, drawn to her energy and laughter
and spirit over the perhaps more superficial charms of
others.
Thirty-one years old,
Katarina had just recently completed her doctorate in advanced
energy systems and was now a full-fledged member of the Science
Directorate. Her unit was charged with figuring out what Russia
should do if it ever ran out of oil and natural gas. Current
estimates had that occurring in fifty to a hundred years, so every
member of the team knew their work was not exactly aimed at a
pressing need.
In a way, that made
it better. No one bothered them, no one interfered. They were one
of the few groups in the Science Directorate allowed to practice
unadulterated research, done for no other reason than for the sake
of the science itself.
Katarina enjoyed
that. She did not build weapons. She did not pollute the sky or the
water or the land. She did not work for a corporation that would
take what she had done, earn billions from it, and give little
back.
There was freedom in
such a setup, a sense of purity. And yet, if she were honest, she
felt restless more often than not. Enough so that on such a
gorgeous day, she didn’t relish going back to work.
That feeling
multiplied the instant she reached her office.
She stepped inside to
find a pair of men in dark suits waiting. One, with a broad face,
flattened nose, and a sharply defined case of five o’clock shadow,
lingered by the far wall. He stood like a statue, with his hands
clasped in front of him. The other man, bald and squat, sat at her
desk.
“Sit down,” the Bald
Man said.
“Who are you?” she
asked. “What are you doing in my—”
“We are from the
State,” the Bald Man said ominously.
That was never a good thing to hear.
Reluctantly, Katarina
sat across from him, finding it odd to be on this side of her own
desk.
“You are Katarina
Luskaya,” the Bald Man said, and then pointed to the flat-nosed man
standing by the wall. “He is Major Sergei Komarov.”
Katarina waited, but
the Bald Man didn’t give his own name. A disconnected fear began to
grow inside her. Even in today’s Russia, a visit from the State
could go very badly.
And yet, try as she
might, Katarina could think of no reason for the government to be
offended with her. She wasn’t political in any real way. She wasn’t
a criminal. She did her job and paid her taxes. Years prior, she
had even waved the Russian banner as a skater at the Winter
Olympics. And while she hadn’t won, she had performed admirably,
finishing fourth, even with a partially torn ligament in her
knee.
“What do you want?”
she said. “I’ve done nothing wrong.”
“Your brother was a
paratrooper,” the Bald Man said, ignoring her
question.
“Yes,” she said. “He
died two years ago.”
“Unfortunate,” she
was told. “He was a loyal soldier. He did what his country asked
him to do.”
She noticed the words
came respectfully.
The man leaned
forward, steepling his fingers together and looking into her eyes.
“We know that you are loyal also,” he said. “And we want you to do
something for your country.”
His first statement
eased her fears a little while the second raised them back up. “I’m
just a scientist, and I’m junior here. What can I possibly do
besides my work?”
“Something that your
background, athleticism, and small amount of fame will be an asset
in performing.”
The Bald Man slid a
folder across the desk. It rested in front of her, but Katarina
kept her hands to the side.
“You are a scuba
diver,” the Bald Man said. “In the Black Sea, every
summer.”
This was true. It was
a hobby. “Yes,” she said.
“Then you will do
fine,” he said. He nodded toward the folder. “Open
it.”
She looked inside.
She saw photos of a group of islands, some ships, and a few news
clippings. She realized she was looking at a collection of
information on the strange discovery in the Azores. Her group had
already been talking about it.
“We want you to go
there,” the Bald Man said.
She pictured the
beaches, the sun, the simple pleasures of an island vacation.
Suddenly, working for the State didn’t sound
so bad.
“You want me to
investigate this discovery?”
“Yes,” he said
unconvincingly. “At least, you should appear to be doing
that.”
Her nerves returned.
“What am I really to be doing?”
“Look at the final
page.”
Katarina leafed
through the loose papers and found the last one. On it, she saw
several black-and-white photos. One was of a weather-beaten older
man. The photo itself looked ancient, like one she had of her
grandmother, the color slightly off, the clothing poorly
constructed and course. A second photo showed two stainless steel
trunks. The third showed a propeller-driven aircraft. She noticed
the distinctive triple tail.
“The man is Vladimir
Tarasov,” the Bald Man said. “He was once a soldier in the Red
Army. He fought against the Tsar and in the Great Struggle, but he
betrayed us in 1951.”
“What did he do?” she
asked. In the photo, he looked like a broken-down farmer who’d
spent too many years in the field. He seemed harmless.
“He tried to defect,
taking with him property that belonged to the peoples of the Soviet
Union. Properties that now rightly belong to Russia.”
“What kind of
property?” she asked, and then, based on the cold stares she
received, immediately wished she hadn’t.
The Bald Man pursed
his lips, but to her surprise he then spoke. “Of course you know
the story of Anastasia Nikolayevna,” he said.
“Anastasia?” she
asked. “The daughter of Tsar Nicholas?”
“Yes,” the Bald Man
said. “When Nicholas II was killed for his crimes against the
people, the entire family shared his fate; his wife; his son,
Alexei; his daughters, Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and also Anastasia.
Four others died with them.”
Katarina felt as if
she were in a dream.
“For a century, there
have been those who claim that Anastasia survived,” he
said.
She knew this. It
would have been hard not to. “I remember hearing about a woman who
claimed to be her years ago.”
“Yes,” the Bald Man
said dismissively. “Some German woman suffering delusion or
outright madness. But she has not been alone, there have been
dozens of claims. Perhaps because of what really happened during
the executions.”
The Bald Man’s
statement begged a question that Katarina would not ask: What did
happen?
The Bald Man
continued to explain anyway. “At the time, those who had carried
out the orders were afraid the Romanov supporters would find out
before they had a chance to solidify power. So stories were
circulated that the Tsar’s family had been moved to a safer
location to keep them from the mobs that were forming. Orders were
given to bury the dead in separate locations so that no one would
suspect what had occurred. The bodies of Anastasia and her brother
Alexei were taken away. Their remains were recently discovered and
their identities confirmed by DNA evidence.”
“But what does this
have to do with an American plane in the middle of the
ocean?”
“At the time of their
executions, the Romanovs were still under the delusion they could
bribe their way to freedom. They were moved into a room, lined up,
and shot at point-blank range. Incredibly, some of them survived
the initial volley, and even a second round of
shooting.”
Katarina knew this
part of the story. “They had jewels sewn into their clothes, along
with small plates of melted gold,” she said.
Major Komarov leaned
forward and added, “A very expensive bulletproof
vest.”
“Da,” the Bald Man said. “They were eventually
killed with shots to the head and bayonets, but naturally the
guards were in shock. No one knew where this treasure had come from
since it was believed all the Tsar’s wealth had been confiscated. A
search was begun, and a manservant who was allowed to live led the
soldiers to trunks filled with jewels and coin. But before these
items reached the Bolsheviks, they vanished. Thirty years later, a
defector who had been one of those soldiers dug them up from a
hiding place and tried to take them to America.”
Now she understood.
“Tarasov.”
The Bald Man nodded.
“The Americans would have been happy to take him, but they would
not do it officially unless he could make it to America,” he said.
“They sent a man named Hudson Wallace, a freelance agent of theirs,
to pick him up. The aircraft was his. Tarasov boarded it in
Sarajevo and was flown out overnight.”
“What does this have
to do with the discovery in the Azores?”
The Bald Man grinned,
and his round face wrinkled like a hound dog’s. “Wallace could not
fly from Sarajevo to the United States in a single leg,” he said.
“He didn’t have the range.”
“He went to the
Azores,” she said.
“While most of our
agents foolishly watched the skies over Paris, Madrid, and London,
one of my more prescient forerunners guessed that Wallace would
choose a less obvious location to refuel. Somewhere friendly and
out of the way. He sent a message to our agents in Santa Maria.
Hudson’s big silver plane landed several hours later. When Wallace
and Tarasov tried to escape, our agents shot them, killing Tarasov.
Unfortunately, the American managed to reach his aircraft and fly
away, out into a storm.”
“Unfortunate,” Major
Komarov added.
“Very,” the Bald Man
agreed.
“Wallace didn’t make
it to the United States,” he continued. “Or Newfoundland or Canada.
He lasted precisely nine minutes before radioing a ‘Mayday’ and
then crashing into the Atlantic. Miraculously, he survived. He was
rescued a week later by Portuguese fishermen, and he told a strange
story about electromagnetic interference, all his instruments
failing, and a sudden loss of electrical power. A story we,
naturally, did not believe.”
“You don’t think he
crashed?”
The man across from
her smiled, no doubt pleased by her curiosity.
“For years we thought
it was a lie,” he said. “Either his lie or the CIA’s. The United
States did not look for the plane, and our own search turned up
nothing. It seemed a good cover story to brush the entire situation
under the rug. But now we feel differently.”
She cocked her head
to the side.
“Look at the bottom
photo, Ms. Luskaya.”
She turned her
attention back to the page. She saw a murky, somewhat blurred
image. For a moment she couldn’t figure out what she was looking
at. And then it hit her: three metallic fins sticking up out of the
sediment. Connected to them she saw what had to be the fuselage of
a plane.
“That is Hudson
Wallace’s plane,” the Bald Man from the State informed her. “It
appears to be mostly intact.”
“Amazing,” she said,
looking up.
“Quite,” he replied.
“And we want you to go there. You will pretend you’ve come to study
the strange magnetism these Americans claim to have found. And when
you get the chance, investigate this aircraft. If the trunks are
still inside—or you can locate them nearby—then you are to recover
them and bring them back home to Russia.”
In a weird way it was
flattering. Her country needed her for a mission of some sort. But
why did they need her?
“May I ask why you
don’t send a professional agent?”
“You are a known
member of the scientific establishment,” the Bald Man said. “You
have been overseas many times before, your activities have always
been legitimate. By sending you instead of an agent with a cover,
we vastly reduce the possibility of suspicions being
raised.”
“What if I don’t want
to go?” she asked cautiously.
The Bald Man narrowed
his gaze and stared at her. Over her shoulder, she felt the
presence of Major Komarov just as strongly. It no longer felt as if
they were asking. That shouldn’t have been a surprise. The State
rarely made requests.
“We can be barbarians
at times, Ms. Luskaya,” the Bald Man said. “But in this case there
is no need. You want to go. You want to test yourself. I can see it
in your eyes.”
She looked down at
the photos once more. A strange mix of fear and excitement coursed
through her. The feeling was so similar to the adrenaline rush
she’d felt before competitions that it scared her. She was quite
sure saying no was not an option, but it didn’t
matter.
The Bald Man from the
State was right: She wanted to go.