The Inner Circle

BOOK ONE

“THE INNER CIRCLE”

PREFACE

“TUNGUSKA”

The blustering winds awakened Arkadei Andreyovich just before the break of dawn, the shrill howling having no effect on the woman lying next to him. The screeching noise tore through the teepee's thick fabric, leaving Arkadei to wonder how anybody could ever get a peaceful night of sleep. The wind was just one of many conditions that he had never quite gotten used to since he stumbled upon this nomadic tribe nearly three years earlier.

More than anything else, Arkadei wanted to allow the warmth of the bear skin blanket to take him back to sleep, but he knew there was work to be done. He stood up from the hard ground and quickly got dressed, shivering until he pulled on his ill-fitting army uniform and thick parka. He picked up a few twigs from a wood pile and put them on the dying fire, which brought it back to life and raised the temperature in the teepee to barely above freezing.

A few feet next to the fire was a small, square-shaped box made out of twigs and covered by thick tree bark. Inside this box was yet another thick blanket, this one made from the skin of a white hare, an animal that Arkadei himself had hunted. A tiny bundle of flesh was wrapped tightly in this fur, as Arkadei's son slept soundly, having already adjusted to the harsh weather conditions in a few short months of life. This made Arkadei proud, as his son was already showing signs of toughness and strength at such a young age. Arkadei's own life had become much harder the past few years, but he now felt more blessed than he ever thought possible.

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Three years ago, Arkadei Andreyovich thought he was going to die.

At the tender age of 18, Arkadei had been soldier in the Russian Army, having fought in numerous battles during the Russo-Japanese War. Becoming a soldier was natural for him, as the poverty throughout Russia at this time guaranteed a difficult life for Arkadei, one that would likely find him struggling just to find food to eat on a daily basis. While killing people did not appeal to him – as it did to many of his fellow comrades – he found that the Army's one guaranteed meal per day was more than enough to procure his services in defending the Motherland. Besides, Arkadei had already been very proficient with a gun, as his father had taken him hunting quite often before his death, a few weeks before Arkadei turned 13 years old.

Army life had not been easy. Long marches in freezing weather made life unbearable at times, but harsh conditions were just something with which he'd learned to deal. He handled everything as well as any good Russian soldier would, at least until the day his commanding officer ordered him to slaughter a dozen unarmed Japanese soldiers they had taken hostage after one particular battle. Arkadei never had a problem with 'kill or be killed’ – it was just a part of war – but his conscience would not allow him to murder defenseless men, even if they were the enemy. His insubordination nearly cost him his life right on the spot, but his commanding officer decided that Arkadei could join the Japanese instead. He was to go to the dreaded Siberian mines, where prisoners and traitors were sent to work in treacherous conditions and die slowly over the course of several weeks, a few months if they were strong enough to last.

The train ride to Siberia was the longest two weeks of Arkadei's life. He had been branded a traitor, and this meant his captors showed more ill-will and offered worse beatings to him than any of the Japanese hostages. When he wasn't being beaten and tortured by his 'fellow Comrades,' the Japanese hostages, who didn’t understand that Arkadei was in this position because he refused to kill them, beat him even worse. It had been a miracle he was able to survive the train ride and yet once he got to the Siberian mine, he wished death had come sooner.

He was forced to work twenty hours at a time, and the hundreds of prisoners often had to fight for a few pieces of old, stale bread. When Arkadei tired and his work production slowed, his captors would beat him mercilessly, adding to the many bruises and broken bones he’d suffered during the journey there. After a few weeks, Arkadei had felt himself quickly fading away to nothing, as if he’d been a prisoner for fifteen years rather than fifteen days. He’d been on the verge of simply giving in to death until he dreamed one night about an angel watching over him. The vision was so clear that Arkadei woke the next day with a new tenacity he hadn't had for a long time.

Knowing that he would soon die if he continued working himself to death, Arkadei decided that this angel was telling him to make his last stand. He now felt comfortable enough with his life that the thought of dying no longer frightened him. So after working for a few hours that morning, he sat down and prayed that God would give him any sort of chance to make it out alive. If Arkadei had not been a religious man up to this point in his life, it only took a few minutes for him to realize that the power of prayer had quickly showed mercy upon him. An armed patrol guard walked into Arkadei’s area and found him on his knees, apparently resting.

"Get back to work, traitor, or you will pay," the guard yelled at him.

If this had happened the day before, Arkadei would have gotten right back to work, making sure not to anger the much larger guard. But on this day, things were different. Arkadei did not even bother to respond, as he just sat on the ground and watched the guard aim a rifle directly at his head. Without another warning, the guard took a step forward and swung his weapon towards Arkadei's face. With a quickness that could have been given only by the grace of God, Arkadei slipped away from the blow and kicked the guard in the side of the knee. He could feel bone breaking as the guard dropped to the ground, his knee at an angle that no knee should ever be. The guard was stunned, and did not realize what had happened until he was on the ground, staring at his suddenly misshapen leg, unable to decide whether to shoot Arkadei or scream. But in another lightning quick move, Arkadei did not allow him either. He was quickly on top of the man, grabbing the guard's head and violently twisting until he heard the sound of popping neck bones.

Adrenaline flowed through his body, but he calmly stripped the man of his army uniform and heavy parka. When he clothed himself in the guard's uniform, Arkadei wondered if anyone would notice how poorly the clothes fit him. He dragged the body into an abandoned mine, making sure not to be spotted by other guards – who would kill him on site – or other Japanese prisoners, who would not hesitate to turn him in, if only to see one more Russian killed. But Arkadei realized that his angel must have really watched over him that day, as escaped the mine without another altercation. He'd passed numerous other guards on the way out, but with the hood of his parka pulled over his head, he was unrecognizable. He realized that the guards stationed at the mine were being punished nearly as much as the prisoners, as every guard he passed seemed miserable and would not even offer a grunt of acknowledgment.

When Arkadei emerged from the mines, his heart was beating quickly and he felt his body sweating profusely from tension inside the heavy parka. He had done the impossible with relative ease, but there had been no time for celebration. The Siberian landscape was completely white and flat, and Arkadei could see nothing at all in every direction he looked. Because he thought escaping the mines would be impossible, he hadn’t spent any time coming up with a plan for what he would do once he reached the outside world. And with the discovery of the dead guard possible at any moment, he could not hang around and try to figure things out.

After wandering around for a few minutes, Arkadei soon found the railroad tracks of the Trans-Siberian railroad – which had been completed only one year earlier – and decided that following them was his best course of action. He did not know how often trains passed through this desolate area, but if one did, maybe he would be able to get on board and travel to wherever it went. After all, he was dressed like a soldier and would be able to come up with some kind of story about being stranded. He quickly ran along the railroad, trying to put as much distance as possible between himself and the mine.

The events of the next few days in Arkadei's life passed by in a fog, all blending together in a mass of delusional memories. Arkadei grew up in Russia his whole life and survived many long, frigid winters, and had always considered himself to be quite adept at dealing with cold weather. Walking a few hours in Siberia, though, made the temperatures in his home city of Moscow seem like a warm day in India. The temperature had to be well below zero degrees and the wind made it feel twice as cold. Even under the thick parka, Arkadei had trouble functioning in the extreme cold. Every breath he took felt like sharp icicles stabbing his lungs. He tried to run to keep his body warmth up, but the thick snow made any movement quicker than a trudge an impossibility.

Arkadei's mind soon began playing tricks on him as well. Every few minutes he would stop and listen, hoping and praying that the wailing wind was really the sound of an approaching train whistle. The completion of the Trans-Siberian railroad had been a major event in Russia, but now that Arkadei was walking along it, he realized that the number of trains using it had to be very small. For two days, Arkadei's sheer will and hope for a passing train was all that had kept him walking.

But for two days, he saw nothing.

As the sun began to rise on the third day, Arkadei finally stopped. His body could take no more and his legs and mind screamed equally as loud for him to stop and accept the inevitable. He laid down on the ground, curling up in a ball in his final attempt to maintain as much body warmth as possible. Then he closed his eyes.

I wonder how long it will take for my body to disappear under the snow.
This was the last thought that went through his mind before blackness fell.

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The next time he opened his eyes, he expected to see God. Instead, he saw a woman who looked very much like the angel from his dreams. When she saw Arkadei looking up at her, she explained where he was. Her Russian dialect was different from Arkadei's, but they were still able to communicate well enough to understand what was being said. Arkadei instantly fell in love with his angel, a girl who he would later learn was also 18 years old.

Arkadei learned that he had been found by the two best hunters from this tribe of nomads. The hunters had been very surprised to find a body lying in the middle of nowhere when they were out on their morning hunt. They'd dragged him back to camp and dropped him off at the teepee of the tribe's leader, who immediately brought Arkadei in to care for him. The leader left him in the care of his eldest daughter, the angel. While she took care of him, the tribe leader conversed with the other tribe elders, who agreed that having another young, strong body around would be exactly what was needed. The tribe consisted of only 30 people and the previous generation had only produced two males, who’d grown up to be the two hunters. These two hunters did the best they could, but a keen sense of hunting skill had avoided both of them their entire lives. This led to a limited amount of food to be distributed amongst the tribe, which in turn left the group as a whole in a generally poor state of health.

As Arkadei had been nursed back to health, the tribe leader tried to show him every comfort possible. He explained to Arkadei that the tribe hoped he would stay, especially after the way he performed the first few times he went out to find food with the other two hunters. Arkadei showed a great amount of skill with the tribe's primitive weapons – especially the bow and arrow, something else his father taught him to use as a youngster – and quickly proved himself to be most valuable to the tribe. In turn, the tribe built him the finest teepee to tempt him to stay with them, but little did they know that Arkadei never had any intention of leaving. His feelings for the tribe leader's daughter had grown deeper, and for the first time in his life, Arkadei understood what love meant.