Текст книги "The Romanov Cross"
Автор книги: Robert Masello
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Текущая страница: 34 (всего у книги 35 страниц)
Then he surveyed the corpse, deciding on the best area from which to draw the sample. The hair could provide some DNA, especially if he made sure to capture the follicle, too – the shaft would provide only mitochondrial evidence – but it was terribly degraded and might not do the job. Her bony wrist, on the other hand, lay perfectly exposed, and if he could suction up some petrified skin and blood cells from a vein, he would get the richest and most viable sample possible.
Laying his own flashlight on the opposite arm of the chair, he reminded Kozak to remain at a distance, “But try holding up the candelabra. I need all the light I can get.”
Kozak raised the candles, and in their flickering glow, Slater located the vein – a barely perceptible blue line under the mottled brown skin – and took an empty syringe out of his kit. To get a better angle, he turned the hand slightly – it moved more easily than he expected – drew back the plunger, and touched its tip to the skin.
Then he depressed the plunger.
And the hand flinched.
Slater recoiled, leaving the syringe stuck.
Even Kozak must have seen what had just happened. “Mother of God,” he intoned.
Slater stepped back, first in astonishment, and then in horror.
The woman’s eyes opened – they were a pale gray – and she looked at him as if she were still asleep – asleep and unwilling to wake up. She stirred in the chair, like a dreamer merely turning in bed, and her boot inched the lantern off the dais, where it shattered on the floor. Rivulets of kerosene ran in all directions, soaking the fallen canopy.
“Mother of God,” Kozak said again, stumbling backwards, the candelabra shaking in his hand. A lighted candle, toppling from its perch, dropped to the floor.
There was a crackling sound, as the flame caught the kerosene and raced across the floor of the sacristy.
Slater could not believe his own eyes.
The old woman herself looked bewildered, but oddly unafraid. Nor did she move to avoid the erupting flame.
“We have to get out!” Kozak shouted, and Slater could hear him fumbling with the crossbar that secured the bishop’s door.
The fire grazed the edge of the canopy, and the dry old fabric went up like a torch. The licking flames snagged the hem of the altar cloths and they, too, ignited, engulfing the sacrarium like a ring of sacred fire. The rubies glowed like coals, the diamonds blazed, the bowl itself blackened and cracked, spilling the gems all over the altar.
“Come on!” Kozak shouted, as Slater heard the crossbar thump onto the floor. The tar was heating up, melting.
But he couldn’t leave the old woman – whoever she was – to die here.
“Now!” the professor shouted, throwing open the bishop’s door. A gust of icy wind roared into the room, as if it had been eagerly awaiting its chance, and before Slater could make a move, the whole sacristy was suddenly aswirl with fire and ash, smoke and snow. The old woman never budged from the dais, and Slater could swear that she even opened her arms to the maelstrom, as if she were welcoming a long-lost lover. He even thought that he heard her calling out a name—“Sergei!”—again and again.
The kerosene around her feet sent tendrils of flame shooting up her body. As her hair exploded in a crackling corona of fire, Slater felt Kozak’s heavy hand on his collar, dragging him out of the church.
Outside, Kozak rolled him onto the ground; he hadn’t even noticed that his pants were smoldering and his boots were sticky with hot tar. Groves appeared and patted him down with handfuls of snow, all the while pushing and pulling them both away from the mounting inferno.
“What’s going on?” a guard shouted, running toward the billowing smoke. It was Rudy, with a rifle that he quickly turned away when he saw who it was. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Rudy looked into the sacristy, just as Slater did, but it was like looking into the belly of a blast furnace. The flames were white-hot now, hissing and spitting, and they had soared up into the onion dome, its holes and cracks making it glow like the candle flame it was meant to represent. The whole church began to collapse in on itself with a thunderous clatter and crash, throwing sparks and streamers of fire into the night. Carried on the wind, they landed on the wooden cover of the old well, the roof beams of the neighboring cabins, the old blacksmith stall.
Coast Guardsmen and men from the work crews were tumbling out of their Quonset huts, pulling on parkas and boots and gloves, shouting and running helter-skelter across the grounds of the colony.
First one structure caught fire, then another, until it was as if the whole stockade was forming a ring of orange flame. Slater and Kozak and Groves scrambled down the hill toward the main gates, colliding with Colonel Waggoner, his coat open, his boots unclasped, his hair wild. He took them all in for a second, but it was enough for Slater to know that he’d figured out who was responsible. Slater’s pants were scorched black and flapping around his legs.
“We’ve got a hose going, Colonel!” a Coast Guardsman hollered to him, but Waggoner looked around at the looming wall of flame and waved the man toward the gates.
“Just get out! Get out now!” He stumbled up the hill a few yards, but the smoke was getting thicker by the minute. “Evacuate!” he shouted to anyone who could still hear him. “Evacuate the colony!”
With the sergeant plowing a path for them, Slater and Kozak joined the others jostling toward the main gates, and by the time they reached the safety of the cliffs and turned around, breathless, to see, the colony was nothing but an immense bonfire, teased by the treacherous winds off the Bering Sea and filling the sky with a cloud of smoke and cinders. Slater could feel the ash settling on his bare head and shoulders.
The church had long since fallen off its foundation, and there was nothing left of it to be seen. Somewhere under the towering pile of burning debris lay the Romanov jewels – and their last rightful owner … the Grand Duchess Anastasia. Of that, Slater was now sure, though no one else but Professor Kozak would ever know, or ever believe, it.
Nor would he ever tell anyone – not even Nika. It was better if the ground was considered barren and sere, better if the last of the Romanovs was allowed to rest in peace, free from ghouls and treasure-hunters like Harley and Charlie Vane. She had waited a very long time for this, and whatever spell had kept her here on this lonely island, long beyond any ordinary human span, Slater hoped that it, too, had been extinguished at last.
Let the bulldozers and the organophosphates, the concrete and the impermeable seal, come, and let the colony be buried forever. Let Anastasia’s grave remain unmarked, undisturbed, unknown.
But not unmourned. From all over the island, the wind carried the baleful howl of the black wolves … a keening that lasted all through the night.
The fire burned until the next morning, and it was only then – though it was still dark out – that the colonel pulled together an exploratory crew to venture back into the smoky grounds and assess the situation.
When Slater volunteered to lead the team, Waggoner glared at him, and spitting his words out like bullets, said, “I should never have let you back on the island.”
And for once, Slater thought he had a point.
Chapter 69
The helicopter didn’t even cut its engines. It simply touched its runners to the ice of the hockey rink, and as soon as the hatch was opened, Slater, Kozak, and Sergeant Groves were virtually ejected from the cabin, along with their backpacks and gear. The professor’s GPR was rolled out of the cargo bay, and a moment later, the propellers, which had never stopped turning, lifted the craft back into the night sky. Slater watched as it headed back toward the devastation on St. Peter’s Island, his heart filled with a sense of deep regret – nothing in his life had ever gone so terribly wrong – mingled with an undeniable relief.
It wasn’t his problem anymore.
The debriefing he had been scheduled to undergo that morning had been canceled due to the conflagration, and Colonel Waggoner had asked him only one question.
“Was the fire deliberate, or accidental, Dr. Slater?”
“Accidental,” Slater replied. What use was there in denying it?
The colonel, whose hands were full as it was, told him he could keep his notes and records, and file a full report from Port Orlov, “or anywhere else you go. Personally, I don’t ever want to lay eyes on you again, and trust me on this, they feel the same way at the AFIP offices in Washington.”
Indeed, he’d been right about that. Frank had made one last call to Dr. Levinson, who’d listened coldly as he gave her an edited account of what had happened at the site – omitting any mention of the gems or, God forbid, their owner – and when he’d stopped to take a breath, she had informed him that Rebekah Vane had also succumbed to the Spanish flu, while being treated at the biohazard facility in Juneau.
“I thought she had been stabilized,” he mumbled.
“So did I,” Dr. Levinson said. “We were both wrong.”
He could hear the disappointment, and even dismissal, in her voice.
“Have there been any other breaches,” he asked, dreading the answer, “or casualties?”
“Not so far. We think we got there in time and established a suitable quarantine zone.” There was a pause on the line. “Needless to say, your report will be classified top secret. You, and the remaining members of your team, are under a strict information embargo.”
“Understood.”
“Is it, Dr. Slater? Because nothing else on this mission seems to have been.”
He took the shot. He deserved it.
“I’ll look for your report in one week. And oh,” she said, icily, before abruptly hanging up, “don’t expect any references.”
If it hadn’t been so painful, he might have laughed. But given what his plans were now, he doubted that he would need any.
“So what do you say?” Groves asked him. “Should we drop off our stuff at the community center and head into town for some grub?”
Slater nodded and the three of them trooped wearily off the ice.
Inside the center, they found Geordie holding down the fort all by himself.
“Yeah, I figured that chopper might be bringing you guys back,” he said. “But if you’re looking for the mayor, she’s already at the celebration.”
“What celebration?” Kozak asked.
Even Slater had forgotten that it was scheduled for tonight.
“The rededication of the totem pole,” Geordie said, as if it were world news. “You remember how it was crooked? Some people in town, and some of the stores, have gotten together to have it fixed up again.”
“How come you’re not there then?” Groves asked, and Geordie glanced at the clock on the wall. “City hall officially remains open until six P.M. I’ve got almost a half hour to go.”
The men shared a chuckle, and Slater said, “I admire your work ethic, but if everybody’s at the party, who’s gonna call?”
Geordie mulled it over for a second or two, then grabbing his coat from a chair, said, “Come on – you don’t want to miss this!”
On the way, they passed the Arctic Circle Gun Shoppe, and stopping for a moment to look down the alley, Slater could see Harley Vane’s old trailer. No lavender light was shining through the blinds anymore, and a FOR RENT sign was hanging forlornly from the door handle. What a lot of trouble had come up in his nets that night, Slater thought, and what a lot of lives, including Harley’s own, had been lost as a result.
Front Street was lighted up from stem to stern, and the Yardarm was doing a land-office business. Although the totem pole itself was shrouded in a canvas sail prior to its unveiling, it did appear to be standing erect.
“I wish they had let me do a ground study first,” Kozak muttered, as Groves peeled off toward the busy bar. “If it is not done properly, it will tilt again.”
A flatbed truck was parked between the pole and the harbor docks, and two huge speakers in its bed were blaring the Black-Eyed Peas. Maybe a hundred people were milling around, rubbing their hands together over blazing trash cans, guzzling beer from ice-cold cans or hot cider from steaming mugs, laughing and shouting at each other over the music. A few were dancing to try to keep warm.
Lifting the earmuff on one side of Geordie’s hat, Slater leaned close and said, “Where’s Nika?” and Geordie turned around, pointing at the harbormaster’s shack.
Behind one of its lighted windows, he could see her now, head down, reading something. He approached the shack and stopped just outside. The walls were plastered with charts and flyers, fishing nets and rods hung from the rafters.
Nika was jotting down notes in the margin of a wrinkled sheet of paper and did not see him at the window. For a moment, he simply savored the chance to observe her unnoticed. The last time he had seen her she was being wheeled out to the ambulance for the ride back to Port Orlov, and though she was not as wan as she had been, she still appeared paler than usual. Her black hair had been plaited into two pigtails, and perhaps in honor of the occasion, she had adorned them with tightly tied ribbons and colorful beads. She looked, he thought, as natural, and as naturally beautiful, as one of her ancestors.
And then she looked up, as if sensing he was there. Squinting into the darkness, she raised a hand, and Slater went around to the door.
By the time he got it open, she was already in his arms. He kicked it closed, and they simply stood there, cradling each other in their arms, wordlessly. And if Slater had still had any doubts at all, if he had any lingering reservations about the decision he had already made but not yet shared, they melted away in the heat of their embrace.
Before he could find the right words, Nika, with her face still pressed against his chest, said, “I was working on what to say.”
“About the totem pole?”
“I can’t forget to mention any of the donors who helped to raise the money or do the work.”
It was as if their hearts were so full of more important things, they could only address a more immediate and inconsequential topic.
“I’m sure you’ll do fine,” he said.
“Public speaking is not my favorite activity.”
“You’ll be a smash.”
He hugged her more tightly in encouragement, then they separated enough that he could look down into the dark pools of her eyes. It was a sight he knew he would never tire of.
“I’ve been doing some thinking,” he said, his voice faltering; already, he regretted that he hadn’t come up with some better opening.
“About?”
“About what I’m going to do now that I’m no longer working for the AFIP. I was thinking that—”
There was a banging on the door and a snowball hit the window as a bunch of teenage boys, horsing around outside, hollered, “Get a room, Mayor!” and “So when do we get to see the totem pole?”
Nika, laughing in embarrassment, pulled away. Glancing at her watch, she shouted, “It’s not time yet. It’s officially scheduled for six P.M.”
“Looked like it was the right time to me!” one of them hooted outside the window, as the others, dispersing into the night, guffawed.
Slater tried to regroup, but Nika had returned to the table where she had left her speech and was looking it over one last time. Making one final addition – Growdon’s Lumberyard and Mill – she folded the paper into the pocket of her coat. “Oh, I almost forgot I had this on me,” she said, pulling out an opaque plastic baggie labeled Nome Regional Health Center. “The orderly gave it to me on the way out.”
Slater took the bag and unzipped it.
“I found it on the bridge, and they gave it back to me along with my other personal belongings.”
Slater could hardly believe what he was seeing. A Russian Orthodox cross, made of silver, and studded with emeralds.
“It must have been Charlie’s, or maybe it belonged to his wife.”
Slater knew better.
“But now Charlie’s dead,” Nika said. “And Harley, too.”
Slater knew that a memorial service for the Vane boys was scheduled for the following Sunday, but he wondered just how many mourners would turn up.
“I guess we should just give it to his wife,” she concluded.
“Rebekah didn’t make it, either,” Slater said. “She died from the flu, at the treatment center in Juneau.”
Nika hadn’t known that, and the news rocked her for a moment. “What’s to become of Bathsheba?”
“Last I heard, she was heading back to the cult in New England. Apparently, the lost lamb is still prized there.”
Nika nodded, looking relieved. But then, studying the cross again, she said, “So what do we do with this then? It looks awfully valuable.”
It was a terrible breach of medical protocols, Slater thought, for the cross to have been returned at all – under normal circumstances, he would have raised hell over it – but in this one instance, it was a godsend. The worst mistake he could make at this point would be to make its existence known, or to release it to anyone else, ever again. Turning it over, he saw that there was an inscription on the back, in Russian of course, and even as he wondered what it said, he slipped the cross into the pocket of his own parka and said, “I’ll take care of it.”
“Come on, Mayor – we’re freezing our asses off out here!” one of the teenagers shouted from the pier.
Nika said, “Maybe we should get this over with.”
Slater opened the door, and they walked toward the commotion around the totem pole, which was still veiled in its tattered sail.
Calling out to a couple of the partiers, she asked them to swing their trucks and cars around, and aim their headlights at the pole. Then she climbed up into the back of the flatbed, disconnected the speakers from the long, trailing power cords, and plugged in a microphone instead. The music abruptly stopped, and the crowd grew quiet as the vehicles pointed their lights at the pole. The only sounds were the crackling of the fires in the trash cans and the rustle of the wind, the never-ending wind, blowing off the sea. The night was clear.
Standing in the bed of the truck, mike in hand, Nika welcomed them all, first in English, then in the Inuit’s native tongue. There was a lot of happy nodding in the crowd, especially among the older people, at the sound of their own, almost forgotten language being spoken. It wasn’t hard for Slater to see how this vibrant young woman could also have become their tribal elder.
“Before I get to the reason we’re all here tonight, I want to take this opportunity to answer a few of the important questions that have been coming into the community center all day,” she said.
“Yeah, what burned last night?” a kid in a down parka called out. “I heard it was St. Peter’s? I can still smell the smoke.”
“Yes, there was a fire in the old colony. But I have been informed,” she said, nodding toward Slater, who was standing close to the truck, “that it has been entirely contained, and the Coast Guard will be overseeing the island from now on.”
“That’s still our land,” an older Inuit man complained. “It’s ours, by treaty.”
“They can have it,” another one answered him. “The damn place has been cursed for a hundred years.”
Nika held up a hand, and said, “It’s still ours. But for the time being, it’s off-limits.”
Slater knew that it would stay that way – strictly off-limits – forever.
“And what was the deal with that quarantine?” a white guy in a Green Bay Packers hat asked. “That’s bullshit, the government telling me where I can, and can’t, go. I couldn’t get to my ice-fishing shack.”
There was a lot of muttering and nodding heads, and Slater heard two or three people saying something about conspiracies.
“That was an emergency measure,” she said, and here she spoke carefully, following the script that she and Slater had rehearsed in Nome. “I can tell you now that there was the remote chance of a communicable disease reaching Port Orlov, and to be on the safe side we had to cordon off the immediate area. There is no threat now, however. None whatsoever.”
“And what really happened to the Vanes?” the Packers fan asked. “Charlie Vane still owes me a hundred bucks for a snowblower.”
“As I reported in the community newsletter,” Nika patiently explained, “Charlie and Harley Vane died in a car crash on the Heron River Bridge. We’re planning to hold a memorial service next Sunday.”
“That won’t get me my hundred bucks back.”
Nika, wisely, let that one pass, and just when Slater thought the whole event was going to devolve into a Tea Party rally, she asked everyone to gather around the foot of the totem pole for the unveiling.
“For too long now,” she said, “we have all been living with a disgrace in the center of our town. And as your mayor, I take a lot of the blame for that. This totem pole was built, by some of our Native American ancestors, two hundred years ago, and it was bequeathed to their descendants. It’s more than just some stately souvenir. It represents the Inuit people – their history, their legends, their spirits. It was meant to remind us of our heritage, and at the same time to watch over us in the present day.”
She allowed her words to sink in before continuing.
“But we have not watched over it. We’ve allowed the paint to fade. We’ve let the wood crack. We’ve let it almost fall over.”
The Inuit in the throng looked distinctly uncomfortable at this reminder of their own neglect, and even the nonnatives looked vaguely embarrassed, too.
“It’s the symbol of Alaska, and as such it should always stand tall. The way that all Alaskans, whatever their background, and wherever they came from, do.”
This was one sentiment that could be counted on to meet with general approval, which it did.
“And that’s why we have come together tonight, all the people of Port Orlov, to set things straight – in every way.” Referring to the paper in her hand, she read off the list of donors and citizens and businesses that had contributed money, time, and labor to fixing the totem pole. The hardware store had contributed the paint and cement, the Growdon Lumberyard had worked to restore the wood, a local contractor had supervised the construction of the new base. Many others had chipped in five or ten dollars to the cost. And the Yardarm had provided free drinks for the celebration. “But only one beer per customer,” Nika warned everyone, with a smile.
There was a smattering of applause when she was done with the list, and as Nika nodded at her nephew Geordie, he stepped forward and took hold of the rope that held the covering in place.
“And so, with no further ado and before we all freeze to death, let’s take a look at what we can do when we all pull together. Geordie, let ’er rip.”
Geordie gave a sharp tug on the rope, but, anticlimactically, there seemed to be a snag. Changing position and wrapping the rope around his wrist, he tugged again, and this time the old sail neatly unfurled from the top of the pole, rustling and pooling around the base. The freshly painted faces of the otters and bears, foxes and wolves, gleamed in the light of the arc lamps; their teeth were now white and shining, their fur a rich brown or inky black, their eyes a deep, metallic blue.
At first there was an appreciative silence from the crowd, then the Packers fan tossed his hat in the air, and hollered out the state motto, “North to the Future!” Everyone laughed and started to applaud, and even Slater felt himself caught up in the general exultation.
Kozak sidled up to him, his free beer in hand, and said, “I will still do a ground study before I leave. No charge.”
Slater nodded in thanks.
“But it is quite beautiful now,” the professor acknowledged.
Sergeant Groves, standing a few yards off, gave it two thumbs-up.
Nika put the mike away, ducked down behind the speakers, and plugged in the CD player.
But it wasn’t the Black-Eyed Peas she was playing anymore.
Now it was a native song, a rhythmic chant, accompanied by a low, steady drumbeat. A respectful silence fell over the town square, and some of the older Inuit people instinctively lowered their heads. With eyes closed and arms held akimbo, they began to gently sway and stomp their boots in the snow. The area around the base of the totem pole cleared away, as the elders, and a few of the younger Native Americans, too, started to dance in a slow circle around it. The old women moved like hawks soaring on the wind, arms spread wide, while the men lumbered like bears on the ice. Everyone else made way, watching this ancient ritual unfold in the shadow of the pole, feeling the power, the majesty, and the unspoken sadness, of the dance. It was a nearly forgotten vestige of a world long gone, a world that had started to slip away on the very day the first Russian explorers sailed into these waters in the eighteenth century.
Nika, too, was absorbed in the music and the dance, her shoulders undulating as she stood between the speakers, her eyes closed in mystic communion. It was this ineffable connection that had brought her back to Port Orlov, and it was this same connection that would make it impossible for her to leave. She had come back to rescue her people, to save their culture from extinction, and Frank, watching her now, knew that she would never give that up … even for him.
Just as he knew it would be wrong of him ever to ask it.
The spell cast by the music was interrupted by a crackling burst of static, and the lights in the storefronts suddenly dimmed, then shut down altogether. The speakers on the flatbed sputtered and fizzled, and the streetlamps along Front Street blinked out one by one.
Slater could guess what was happening.
The dancers, like everyone else, stopped and looked up at the omen revealing itself in the sky. The tribal elders hummed and chanted in place, their upturned faces growing wet with tears.
A gigantic ribbon of green light, smooth and shiny as satin, was slowly unspooling … then rippling wider, like a curtain spreading itself open across a blackened stage. It was only the second time Slater had seen the aurora borealis, but he could not have conceived of a more portentous time for it.
Nika, looking delighted, jumped down from the bed of the truck and grabbed his hand.
“Don’t tell me you planned this,” he said, and she laughed.
“I wish I could take credit,” she replied, “but I’m only the mayor, not God.”
Most of the crowd stayed right where they were, but some drifted off toward the shoreline to watch the lights over the water.
Nika, like a kid at a carnival, dragged Frank toward the harbormaster’s shack, then out onto the pier. At the very end, they stood alone with the sky shimmering above them. Slater wrapped his arms around her, and she leaned back into his embrace. Together, they gazed up at the spectacle unfolding in the night, the green now joined by a flickering orange flame that spiraled like a staircase up into the heavens. Even the air seemed to crackle with the electrical energy.
“The spirits are rising,” Nika said, her dark eyes shining in the orange glow.
Across the black waters, Slater could swear that he heard the wolves on St. Peter’s Island baying at the sky.
“They’re going home.”
And he believed it. The lights were like a celestial staircase, and he could envision the old woman – Anastasia, Grand Duchess of All the Russias – climbing the steps at long last.
He could see other things, too. He could see himself remaining in this place, with Nika forever at his side, and running the medical clinic that the town so desperately needed. For too long, he had tried to save the world. Now he would concentrate on saving just this tiny, much-overlooked part of it.
When the lights went out, snuffed like a candle, and Nika turned her head in the darkness, he bent down and kissed her. All the words he’d meant to say evaporated, all his questions were answered. There was no need to speak at all.
And even the wolves, he noted, had gone silent. Apart from the cry of a hawk, soaring overhead but impossible to discern in the night sky, there was nothing but the empty and incessant howling of the wind.
Still holding his hand, Nika started back down the pier, but Slater stopped a few seconds later and said, “I just have one thing to do.”
Nika, though curious, stayed where she was as he reached into his pocket for the emerald cross and returned to the end of the dock.
The hawk, still crying, swooped past the dock, some wriggling prey clutched in its talons.
Nika saw him raise his arm, and heard a distant splash, and when he came back to her, she didn’t ask him what he’d done. She didn’t have to.
The lights in town flickered back on, and arm in arm, they walked toward home together … as the hawk settled into its perch atop the Yardarm. There, it went about devouring its hard-won meal – a tiny white mouse, with an orange stain on its back and tail.
