Текст книги "The Romanov Cross"
Автор книги: Robert Masello
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Chapter 19
During the funeral service, Slater had received a running commentary, under her breath, from Nika. As one mourner after another took the podium, she told him who it was, how he or she was connected to the Neptunetragedy, how long the family had been working in these Alaskan waters. They were a hardy lot, and Slater felt the anguish of their loss. In a place like this, there wasn’t much to hold on to, and they had all just suffered a devastating blow.
But of all the people present, he had to admit that the most riveting bunch were the Vanes – Charlie wheeling in like a dignitary waiting for his ovation, attended to by the two whey-faced women in the long dresses. Harley scuffling along behind, like a kid about to perform at a recital for which he hadn’t practiced. Even seated in the pews, they seemed to create an air of turbulence around them, and he noticed that after Harley had made his remarks, and the service had concluded, none of the other congregants seemed all that anxious to hang out with them.
“Not the most popular kids at school, are they?” Slater said, as he and Nika made their way next door to the rec center and the refreshments. There was a wide, empty circle around the two women. Slater had never seen a pair of sisters who gave off a more witchy vibe.
“Most folks in Port Orlov know enough not to get mixed up with them.”
Already loaded down with donuts and coffee, Eddie and Russell made their way back outside again.
“With some exceptions,” she added.
Slater himself was an object of some interest, he could tell. Everyone in town had seen the Sikorsky by now, and although the mayor herself had backed up his story—“it’s a routine training mission for the Coast Guard,” he had heard her tell three people already – he was sure that there were other rumors circulating, too. It wouldn’t be a small town if there weren’t.
But as long as the rumors didn’t involve the Spanish flu, he was okay with it.
On the way out, he saw a blue van with what looked like a confab going on inside, among the Vane boys and Eddie and Russell. He wondered if he should post a sentry on the chopper that night or risk having its hubcaps stolen. He’d already been stuck in Port Orlov longer than he’d intended, but bad weather in the Midwest had grounded Eva Lantos’s plane, and military red tape had tied up some of the equipment scheduled for arrival on the second chopper. Murphy’s Law in action. Slater knew that every mission encountered problems like these – especially one like this, organized virtually on the fly – but it didn’t make it any easier to take. Patience had never been among his virtues.
When he got back to the community center, where he’d been bunking with Professor Kozak and the two Coast Guard pilots, he went straight to Nika’s office, where he’d set up his own little command post on a corner of her desk and the top of her file cabinet. It was the most secure office on the premises, and she’d been very accommodating, but he still felt a bit guilty about usurping so much of her space. She’d even given him the spare key.
“Don’t lose it,” she said. “The town locksmith is drunk most of the time, and it’s not easy to get another one made.”
With Nika off making official condolence calls, and Kozak exploring the local terrain, he sat down in Nika’s chair – instead of the stool he’d brought in for himself – and got to work, checking logistics, firing off email queries, figuring out how this assignment could be completed in the shortest amount of time and with the minimum amount of public scrutiny. The weather reports weren’t good – a storm was brewing – and he wanted to beat it to St. Peter’s Island, at least in time to get a few of the necessary structures set up. He didn’t much relish the idea of erecting lighting poles in the teeth of gale-force winds.
For a couple of hours, he managed to lose himself in his work, even phoning Sergeant Groves – and plainly waking him up – to go over the latest alterations to the plan.
“So what’s your ETA now?” he asked, and Groves, audibly yawning, said, “We should be able to load everything onto the second Sikorsky – including the good Dr. Lantos – by Thursday morning.”
It was only Tuesday night now, and Slater had to bite his lip in frustration.
“What time do you want to rendezvous on the island?” Groves asked.
“We’re not going to,” Slater said, having given it much thought since his aerial reconnaissance. “The colony’s on top of the plateau, but it’s hemmed in by trees and the remaining wooden structures. The graveyard is in an even trickier spot. There’s no room for two helicopters to off-load at the same time.”
“How’s the beach? We could use that, right?”
Again, Slater had to nix the idea. “The beach can handle no more than a Zodiac. It’s too narrow and sloped, and the only way up to the plateau, a considerable distance, is a staircase cut into the stone. I wouldn’t try to carry a kitten up those steps, much less a centrifuge.”
“So you’ll go first?”
“Yes, and you can follow. We’ll leave a two-hour window for the initial cargo deployment, and start at eleven A.M. on Thursday. It won’t be light enough earlier.”
They were discussing a myriad of other details – the order in which the hazard tents would be erected, the grid of the ground ramps and location of the generator shacks – when Slater picked up the aroma of stew and heard a furtive knock on the door.
“Come in,” he said, holding the phone to his shoulder, and looked up to see Nika holding a Crock-Pot between two pot holders.
“The Yardarm is doing their version of chicken Kiev tonight,” she said. “Trust me, you’re better off with my home cooking.”
Slater was embarrassed to be caught so much in possession of her office and started to rise from her chair.
“Finish your call,” she said, “and meet me in the gym.”
“Sounds like you’ve made a friend,” Sergeant Groves said with a laugh before they hung up. “Now don’t blow it.”
Slater straightened up his papers and tried to leave her desk the way he’d found it, then went down the hall to the community center’s gymnasium, where Nika had set up a card table underneath the scoreboard with a bottle of wine, the pot of stew, and a couple of place settings. It was about the least picturesque spot Slater could ever have imagined, which was why he found it puzzling that it felt so cozy and romantic. He instinctively tucked his shirt into his pants to straighten it out and ran a hand over his hair. Maybe he did need to get out more, as Sergeant Groves had often kidded him. “You’re divorced,” Groves had told him the last time they’d had a drink in a D.C. bar. “You’re not dead.”
“You really didn’t have to do this,” Slater said, taking a seat on the folding chair across from Nika.
“Inuit hospitality,” she said, dishing out the stew. “We’d be disgraced if we didn’t do something for a guest who had come so far.”
Slater opened the wine bottle and filled their glasses. He raised his glass in a toast to his host, then found himself tongue-tied. “To … a successful mission,” he said, and Nika smiled. Clinking her glass against his, she said, “To a successful mission.”
“And a terrific meal,” Slater said, trying to recover. “Smells great.” He draped his napkin in his lap. “Thanks so much.”
The conversation went in stops and starts. Slater, who could talk about disease vectors until the cows came home, had never been good at this small talk; his wife Martha had always been the one to carry the day. Between bites of the reindeer stew, he asked Nika about her life and her background, and she was happy to oblige. It even turned out that they had some friends in common on the faculty of Berkeley, where she’d received her master’s in anthropology before coming back to serve the people of Port Orlov.
“I wanted to preserve and record a way of life – the native traditions and customs,” she said, “before they disappeared altogether.”
“It can’t be easy to keep them going in the age of the Internet and the cell phone and the video game.”
“No, it’s not,” she conceded. “But there’s a lot to be said for that ancient culture. It sustained my people through centuries in the harshest climate on earth.”
As they talked, Slater discovered that she had an extensive knowledge of, and even deeper reverence for, the spiritual beliefs and legends of the native Alaskans. It was like receiving a free and fascinating tutorial … and from a teacher, he had to admit, who was a lot better-looking than anyone he remembered from his own school days. She was dressed in just a pair of jeans and a white cable-knit sweater, with her long black hair swept back on both sides of her head and held by an amber barrette, but she might as well have been dressed to the nines. If it weren’t for the scoreboard above the table, which revealed that Port Orlov had lost its last basketball game to a Visiting Team by twelve points, he could have sworn they were in some intimate little bistro in the Lower 48.
He wasn’t even aware of when, or how, she had deftly turned the conversation back to him, but he found himself explaining how he’d been drawn into epidemiology, then about what had happened in Afghanistan to derail his Army career.
“And yet they’ve entrusted you with this very sensitive assignment,” she said, refilling his glass. “They must still have a very high opinion of you.”
“I work cheap,” he said, to deflect the compliment.
But Nika, in her own subtle way, wouldn’t let it go, asking question after question about how the mission was going to proceed, in what steps and over what period of time. Normally, Slater would have been much more circumspect about sharing any of this information, but after she had been so open with him, and considering the fact that she had been so cooperative so far, in everything from sharing her office to letting the chopper remain parked in the middle of the town’s hockey rink, he would have felt churlish for holding back. It was only when she asked what time they would be leaving for the island that he heard a distant alarm bell. What did she mean by “they”?
“The team,” he said, “will be lifting off late Thursday morning.”
“Do I need to bring anything in particular along?” she asked innocently, as she produced two cherry tarts from a hamper beneath the table. “Sorry, I should have brought ice cream to top them off.”
“No, the teamhas everything it needs,” he emphasized.
“Okay, no problem,” she said, sticking an upright spoon into his tart for him. “I’ve got the best sleeping bag in the world and I’m used to bunking down anywhere.”
“Where are you talking about?” Slater said, ignoring the spoon and tart.
“On St. Peter’s Island,” she replied. “You didn’t think I was going to let you go without me, did you?”
“Actually,” he said, starting to feel played, “I did. This is a highly classified and possibly dangerous mission, and only authorized personnel – all of whom I have carefully handpicked – are going over there.”
Nika dabbed at her lips with her napkin, and said, “I had the tarts in a bun warmer. You should eat yours before it gets cold.”
“I’m afraid there can be no exceptions.”
“I agree,” she said. “Authorized personnel only. And as the mayor of Port Orlov, in addition to its duly appointed tribal elder, I have to point out to you that the island is encompassed by the Northwest Territories Native Americans Act of 1986, and as such it is within our rights and prerogatives to decide who and when and how any incursions are made there.”
Slater sat so far back in his chair it almost toppled over onto the gym floor.
“Now I’m not saying that official permission has been denied,” she said, taking another spoonful of her tart, “but I’m not saying it’s been granted yet, either.”
She looked up at Slater, her black eyes shining, an inquisitive smile on her lips. “If I do say so myself, this is one hell of a tart.”
And Slater, who had been up against some pretty formidable adversaries in his day, could only marvel at her aplomb. He’d never been snookered so smoothly, or so deliciously, in his life. Her veiled threat to delay the mission could be easily overruled by Dr. Levinson at the AFIP, but the paperwork and bureaucracy involved would tie him up on the ground for several days at least.
“Yep,” she said, nodding over her dessert, “a little vanilla ice cream and this would have been perfect.”
He had just acquired, like it or not, his own Sacajawea.
Chapter 20
“Goddammit,” Harley muttered, “watch where you’re throwing that rope.”
“I didn’t see you there,” Russell said.
“And keep your voice down!”
“You keep yours down!” Russell shot back.
This expedition, Harley thought, was not getting off to the best start. First, they’d had to jimmy the fuel pump at the dock in order to gas up the boat.
And then, of course, there’d been that little “incident” in McDaniel’s storage shed. When Harley had dared to poke his head back inside the next day, all he’d found by the wall was a pile of old rags and some wooden planks. He’d put the whole thing down to a hallucination, brought on by the stress from making that speech in the church, but he still hadn’t managed to completely persuade himself. For now, he just put it out of his mind and resolved to say nothing about it to Eddie or Russell. They’d simply chalk it up to his being stoned on something … and want their share of whatever he’d been stoned on.
“What are you two making all this racket about?” Eddie said, coming up from the hold. “I thought we were supposed to keep quiet.”
It was a freezing night on the docks of Port Orlov, and the chance of anyone else’s being out, much less dumb enough to be setting sail, was pretty slight, but Harley had made it clear from the start that they should go about their business in the utmost secrecy. He hadn’t even breathed a word of it to Angie, though that might have had more to do with the way she’d exchanged looks with that Coast Guardsman at the Yardarm than it did with his discretion. He was still ticked off and jealous.
“Let’s shove off already,” Harley said, “before the weather gets here.” The next few days – if days were what you could call the murky gray episodes that separated the long stretches of darkness – were supposed to be stormy. But if you waited around for good weather in Alaska, as any local could tell you, you’d be waiting around forever.
The boat, called the Kodiak, belonged to Eddie’s uncle, who was usually too lazy to take it out. It was nearly thirty years old and it wasn’t much to look at, but since it had originally been built as a Navy launch, it had a very stiff hull, and a heavy steel rudder shoe that could withstand any kinds of trouble – rocks, logs, grounding – that the Bering Strait could throw at it. As on most Alaskan fishing ships, the cabin windows were Lexan and mounted to the outside, so that even the worst waves couldn’t blow them out. In his cups one night, Eddie’s uncle had bragged that it could withstand a complete swamping for twelve hours without sinking. How he would know such a thing had puzzled Harley – had they swamped it to find out? – but he didn’t ask then, and he didn’t care to find out now.
In the cabin, he let Eddie hang on to the wheel – after all, it was his uncle’s boat – while Russell slouched in the corner with a beer.
“Keep it at half throttle till we’re well away,” Harley said, “then head northwest.”
“I know where St. Pete’s is,” Eddie sneered.
“And you,” Harley said to Russell, “get your ass out on deck and look for bergs.”
“Why don’t you get out there and freeze your own ass off?”
Harley could have removed the gun that was strapped under his anorak and made his point that way, but he didn’t want to make things any worse than they were, and he didn’t want to resort to any extreme measures until he had to. Russell defiantly took another long slug from the beer can, and it occurred to Harley that having him out on deck as lookout was a bad idea, anyway. He’d probably fall off the boat.
“Fuck it,” he said, “I’ll do it myself.” Addressing Eddie, he said, “Take us around the west cliffs, then to the leeward side for a berth.”
“Aye, aye, Captain Bligh.”
Harley slipped a pair of binoculars around his neck, put up the hood on his coat, and tightened the Velcro clasps at the sleeves, then stepped out on the slippery, ice-rimed deck. He hadn’t been out at sea since the wreck of the Neptune, and he found there was a new sense of anxiety in him. It shouldn’t have come as a shock. But now, when he looked around him at the rolling black waters, all he could think of was the night he’d been sure he would be swallowed up in them and lost forever. He thought about how close he’d come to winding up as just another one of those names inscribed on the plaque in the Lutheran church. His hands clenched the railings now, the same way they had clenched the top of that coffin. At first, he had kept the lid propped up in his trailer, next to the snake tank, like a trophy. But then it had spooked him, and he had stashed it under the bed.
Which only made things worse.
Finally, in desperation, he’d stuck it in the crawl space under the trailer where there was a bunch of other old timbers. He’d have just heaved the damn thing back into the sea if it weren’t for the fact that he was convinced it would be worth something, to someone, someday. When that Dr. Slater had told him he should return it to the island, he’d actually given it some serious thought; the main reason he couldn’t do it now was because it might give that asshole some satisfaction if he did.
The moon was out, which was a lucky thing, since the strait was choppy that night and huge chunks of ice were grinding and rolling through the channel. Off in the distance, the two black slabs of Big and Little Diomede lay like watchdogs at the gateway to Siberia. There wasn’t another boat in sight, but the sky was speckled with stars as sharp and bright as needles. Looking up, Harley’s eyes filled with tears, not because he was overwhelmed with emotion but because the wind was so cold and so relentless. He wiped them away with the back of one glove, but they sprang right back. He made his way to the bow and took hold of the search lamp there. The boat rose and fell on the swells, spray flying up and freezing on his lips and cheeks. He spread his legs on the deck to keep his balance and peered into the blackness, following the beam of the light.
Were there other coffins out there, carrying their awful cargo up and down the waves, bumping up against the ice floes? If there were, he prayed he wouldn’t see them. He’d had enough trouble since finding the first one.
“Coming up on the starboard side,” Eddie announced over the bullhorn, as if he was some tour guide. “Welcome to St. Peter’s Island.”
Shit. Harley wanted to brain him for making so much noise. The whole idea had been to stay under the radar. What if the Coast Guard was already lying low in some cove?
He waved up at the wheelhouse, gesturing for Eddie to keep it down, and after a quick scan of the waters ahead, turned off the bow light. They were just beyond the breakers, and if Eddie didn’t do something stupid – which was always a possibility – they’d be okay.
The Kodiakplowed ahead, while Harley removed the lens cap from the binoculars, and swept them over the island. The beach, as usual, was shrouded in spray and mist, but in the moonlight, he could just make out a ladder of steps, carved into the side of the rugged cliffs and leading all the way up to a jagged promontory. He’d sailed past this island many times in the Neptune Iand the Neptune II, always giving it a wide berth, but tonight their course was taking them closer to the shore than ever before. As the Kodiakrounded the island, with no sign of the Coast Guard, the Navy, or one of those damn choppers anywhere in sight, Harley put the bow light on again and caught the great glistening back of a killer whale, just rising from the waves, its blowhole spouting like a geyser. It took several seconds before the whale submerged again – time enough for Harley to reflect on the guts those old Inuit hunters must have had to take on a creature of that size and power in nothing but flimsy kayaks, with a handful of harpoons. He’d have been afraid to take it on with an Uzi. It was hard to believe that the natives he knew now – those guys like fat Geordie Ayakuk who hugged a desk in the community center, or the old rummies that hung around the Yardarm cadging drinks – could possibly be their descendants. Man, what the fuck had happened to them?
A cloud passed before the moon, a sign of the storms that were undoubtedly on their way, and Harley turned the searchlight toward the island, looking for some safe – and secluded – harbor. But even on this side, rocks jutted up from the sea, and white water foamed over the hidden reefs. People who didn’t know anything about sailing always thought that the closer you were to shore, the safer you were. But Harley knew that they were dead wrong. The open sea gave you room to maneuver, time to think, and if you’d read your charts right, the chances that there was something deadly lurking right under your hull were pretty slim.
No, the worst disasters happened as you approached the shore, especially if that shore was as dangerous a destination as St. Peter’s Island. In addition to the boat Harley had already lost to these waters, he knew of at least a dozen others that had been driven too close to this coastline by snowstorms and rogue waves and overpowering winds; he had seen sudden riptides grip a boat and completely take control of it, dragging it helplessly in whatever direction it wished, before dashing it against a picket of jagged rocks. You could run the engine all you wanted, you could put on every sail you had, but if the Bering Sea wanted a piece of your ass, it was going to get it.
Up in the wheelhouse, he could see Eddie and Russell hunched over the wheel. Each of them was holding a beer can now and laughing uproariously at something. Christ, if only he had anybody he could actually rely on. He’d needed some help on this gig, and in some ways these two were the obvious candidates. Since getting out of the Spring Creek penitentiary, Russell had been working part-time for the refinery – and was always short of beer money – and Eddie lived off the dough every resident got each year from the Permanent Fund, courtesy of the big oil companies that operated in Alaska. When needed, he supplemented his income with plumbing or selling pot.
More to the point, neither of them would be missed for a few days.
But the Kodiakwas getting perilously close to shore now, and Harley figured he could no longer leave Eddie at the wheel – not if he wanted to keep the boat in one piece.
Sweeping the searchlight back and forth across the cliffs, he saw flocks of kittiwakes startled into flight, and steep, impregnable walls slick with ice. A ripple of white foam indicated an underwater reef off the port side. The boat was halfway around the island from the Russian colony, and there was no sign of another beach. An inlet or cove was the best he could hope for; they’d have to drop anchor and use the Kodiak’s skiff to go ashore.
Fixing the searchlight in place, he went back up to the bridge, and the minute he came through the door, the wind howling at his back, Eddie and Russell, looking vaguely guilty, stopped laughing.
“What was so funny?”
“Nothing,” Eddie said.
Harley figured that the joke had been at his expense. Eddie stifled another laugh, and now Harley knew for sure – and he saw red.
“Lighten up,” Russell said, a bit blearily. “Have a beer.” He held out a can and Harley smacked it out of his hand so hard that the can hit the binnacle and cracked the anemometer screen.
“Fuck,” Eddie shouted. “My uncle’s going to see that!”
Russell’s shoulders hunched, and his fists clenched. Eddie saw it, too, and leapt between them, his arms outstretched.
“Hey, guys, chill out. Come on now, come on. We’re all friends here.”
“Are we?” Harley said, glaring first at one, then the other. “Because if we’re such good friends, we’re gonna have to get something straight. This is my gig, and I don’t want a couple of drunken stoners fucking it up.”
The beer can was rolling around the floor of the wheelhouse, spraying foam through a dent. The wheel, unattended, was turning slowly.
“Who said I’m drunk?” Russell challenged him, weaving on his feet.
Harley smiled, acting like it was all okay now, then spun around, throwing out one leg in a classic martial-arts move that caught Russell behind his knees and dumped his ass on the floor. He landed with a thump that jolted the whole cabin, then he lay there, propped up against the chart table, stunned.
“What the fuck?” Eddie said. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“And you,” Harley said, “get out on deck and keep watch.” Harley moved to take control of the wheel, but Eddie grabbed it again, refusing to budge.
“It’s my uncle’s boat.”
Harley shoved him, and Eddie stumbled into Russell, who was just getting to his feet. They both went down, and Harley whipped around, the gun out of his belt now. Eddie put out both of his hands, and said, “Whoa there, pardner! Put that away before somebody gets hurt.”
Harley waited a few seconds, just to make sure Russell wasn’t planning on anything further.
Russell opened his own hands, as if to show he had no weapon and no bad intentions. “Jesus, Harley. Get a grip.”
Harley was just putting the gun back in his belt when the boat lurched, and they heard a grinding noise like a tin can scraping on cement. Harley turned and saw that the loose wheel had spun again, and through the window of the bridge he saw that the bow was pointing straight toward the cliffs, no more than forty yards away. But the boat wasn’t moving, and unless he was sorely mistaken, they had just run aground on one of the many reefs he might have seen coming if he hadn’t been so distracted.
“Goddamn!” Eddie shouted, leaping to his feet and going for the throttle. Before Harley could stop him, he had thrown the boat into reverse, and the grinding had come again, even louder this time … but the Kodiakstill didn’t move.
“Goddamn, goddamn, goddamn!” Eddie hollered, stamping his feet as he went in circles around the cramped space in the bridge. The boat was jammed on a reef, teetering this way and that like a car perched atop a snowbank. “You arebad luck!” he shouted, pointing a finger at Harley. “You are such bad luck, man!”
Even Harley was temporarily at a loss. Washe bad luck?
Eddie was just about to try the throttle again when Harley stopped him. “You’ll rip its guts out,” he said.
“What else can we do?”
“We can wait,” Harley said. “Maybe the tide will give us a boost. Russell, go below and see if we’re taking on water.”
For once, Russell took an order and stumbled down to the hold.
Eddie, fuming, glared at Harley, who turned around and stared at the small portion of the island illuminated by the bow light. At water level, he saw a bunch of tide pools, frothing white, then disappearing, and above them a jumble of rocks, piled halfway up the side of the cliff. That much was a lucky break. The rocks looked climbable, and the remaining slope was pockmarked with caves and crevices and ledges.
“They told me not to do this,” Eddie muttered, shaking his head. “They told me not to go to sea with a Vane.”
“Who told you what? You were supposed to keep your mouth shut about this. Who did you tell?”
“Nobody,” Eddie said, retreating. “I didn’t tell anybody. It’s just something everybody says, down at the docks.”
Harley couldn’t be too surprised. His family had lost two boats already, Charlie was in a wheelchair, and for all he knew they’d just beached a third.
Russell, panting, appeared in the hatchway. “It’s not too bad. The hull’s holding.”
“For how long?” Eddie said in a panic.
“Your uncle always said she could be swamped for twelve hours without sinking,” Harley said.
“Swamped? Didn’t you hear what Russell just said? She’s holding. Man, don’t put your family curse on it. Let’s just get out of here.”
“That’s exactly what we’re notgoing to do,” Harley said. “We’re going to drop anchor, with enough slack to let the boat drift off the rocks with the next tide.”
“And do what until then?” Eddie shot back. “Sit here and wait?”
“No. We’re going onto the island, and get started. How else are you gonna buy your uncle a new anemometer?” Zipping up his coat, Harley said, “Get your gear together, both of you. I’ll get the skiff ready.”
Out on deck, he walked the length of the ship but didn’t see much damage except to the paint. Provided she didn’t spring a leak, she would stay where she was until the currents, and some clever engine maneuvers, freed her again. He dropped anchor and watched as the chain played out for no more than a few seconds. Stepping to the bow, he maneuvered the light around, picking out the best route through the rocks and tide pools. It wasn’t going to be easy to get the skiff through unscathed, but he could do it, even with the deadweight of Russell and Eddie on board. It was only as he flicked off the searchlight, in order to see the wet walls of the cliff without the reflection glaring off them, that he glimpsed on the ridgeline what looked like a yellow light, gently swinging. He blinked, thinking it was just an aftereffect of the bright bow light going off, like a strobe, but when he looked again, the yellow glow, more like a lantern suspended in midair, was still there.
