The Kremlin Phoenix (25 page)

“I thought you said the phones
are bugged.”

“Ours are,” she agreed, then hurried
to a row of public telephones near the station’s entrance.

“Who are you ringing?” Craig
asked.

“Alexander’s sister-in-law. I’ll
get her to relay a message through her husband.” When a woman answered, she
said, “Tanya, it’s Valentina. I need you to give Dim a message for Alexander .
. . Tell Alexander I’m OK. I’m with Pavlya and our foreign friend. We’re
helping with his family problem. We should be finished in a day or two. I’ll
call Alexander then . . . Yes, that’s right . . . I know, I just saw it in the
newspaper. It’s terrible! . . . Tanya, it’s very important Dim doesn’t use the
phones. He’ll have to speak with Alexander in person . . . Yes, thanks.” When
she hung up, Valentina said, “Dmitri will get the message to Alexander in the
next twenty four hours.”

Tupitsyn signaled he had the
keys, so they followed him outside to the carpark. Tupitsyn took the wheel, removing
the handcuffs to the brief case and placing it on the passenger seat beside him.
He ordered the others to sit in the rear, then drove north through the city for
a few minutes. Presently, he pulled in to a hardware store and parked.

He turned to Valentina. “Go
inside and buy a pair of bolt cutters, a pick axe and a shovel.”

Valentina gave him a curious
look, but did as she was told. Fenenko went with her, leaving Craig and
Tupitsyn sitting alone in the car.

“Will this take long?” Craig asked,
attempting to make small talk.

Tupitsyn glanced at him in the
rear vision mirror. “This is Siberia. Everywhere is far.”

“Won’t they notice you’re gone?”

“I have taken leave. By the time
they realize I’m not coming back, it will be too late.”

A few minutes later, Valentina
and Fenenko returned with the three items they’d been ordered to purchase, then
Tupitsyn drove them north, out of the city on a surprisingly modern divided-lane
freeway. An hour later, the freeway had become a single two lane road that
became less well maintained the further north they went. They passed a few cars
and trucks heading in the opposite direction, and occasionally on long flat stretches
of road, Craig noticed a refrigeration truck a few kilometers behind, always at
the same distance, never drawing closer or falling too far behind.

After a few hours, Craig began to
doze, forgetting all about the white truck.

* * * *

A few hours later, Craig tapped
Tupitsyn on the shoulder. “Stop.”

Tupitsyn glanced at him over his
shoulder. “Why?”

“Call of nature,” Craig said.

“I need to stretch,” Valentina
added.

Tupitsyn scowled and reluctantly pulled
over to the side of the road. Craig climbed out and walked back along the road a
short distance looking for a suitable piece of forest. Just as he was about to slip
into the privacy of the forest, the white refrigeration truck emerged onto
their stretch of road about half a kilometer away. It slowed and pulled off the
road as he stepped into the forest to relieve himself.

Behind him, Valentina stood at
the rear of the van and did a few simple exercises to relieve cramped muscles.
A few minutes later, Craig strolled back to Valentina.

“What’s wrong with that Tupitsyn
guy,” Craig said, “He just won’t shut up.”

Valentina looked at him
strangely, then realized he was joking. “Yes, he is a great conversationalist.”
She glanced back at the minivan, where Fenenko and Tupitsyn were leaning
towards each other, lips moving, engaged in conversation. After a moment, Tupitsyn
saw she was watching, then both he and Fenenko fell silent. Valentina turned
away uncomfortably, wondering if there was more between them than either had
let on.

Craig noticed the refrigeration
truck was still parked in the distance. “I saw a big white truck like that following
us a while back. I wonder if it’s the same one?”

“There are many vehicles like
that out here.”

“Guess I’m just jumpy.” He started
toward the minivan.

“You’re not armed, are you?”

“No,” Craig stopped, turning back
to her curiously.

“Can you use a gun?”

“Badly. Remember, I’m the mergers
and acquisitions guy.”

“Tupitsyn is armed. So is
Fenenko.”

“You’ve got him out gunned, two
to one.” Craig saw the doubt on her face. “Right?”

“Yeah, we do,” she said with more
confidence than she felt. She tried to remember how long Fenenko had been
working with them. Almost a year? Who had vouched for him? She couldn’t
remember. “Just be careful,” she added, then they climbed back aboard the minivan.

* * * *

They reached the southern shore of the
Yenisei River in the early afternoon, drove on past several small villages into
thick forest until the satnav told them to turn onto a dirt road. After a short
drive through dense woodland, they came upon a rusting three meter high chain
link fence, and an old gate with a rotting wooden sign affixed to it. A fading
hammer and sickle symbol was painted on the sign alongside Cyrillic characters.

Craig gave Valentina a questioning
look.

“It says, ‘Restricted Military Access!
Keep out.’”

Inside the fence was an abandoned
wooden guard post, which had not been maintained for many years. Mounted on
stanchions every ten meters were spot lights, some pointed in toward the
facility, others aimed out into the trees. Guard towers, partly consumed by the
forest and unmanned for many years, remained recognizable.

Fenenko took the bolt cutters and
cut the chain securing the old gate. He returned to the minivan, then Tupitsyn
drove them along a heavily overgrown track.

“What is this place?” Craig
asked.

“Proof,” Tupitsyn said. “Camp 497.
It has no other designation. During the days of the Union, to enter here unauthorized
was an automatic death sentence.”

“And now?” Valentina asked.

Tupitsyn shrugged. “Depends who
catches you.”

The minivan bumped along the dirt
road for a kilometer before the forest abruptly ended. To the left, an exercise
area overgrown with long grass stretched from the road to four old wooden
barracks. To the right, two crumbling basketball courts with rusted hoops stood
alongside a crude baseball diamond. Hypnotized by the barracks complex,
wondering if this really was where his father had spent his last days, Craig didn’t
notice what they approached on the right.

Tupitsyn parked, handcuffed the
brief case to his wrist and got out. He pulled the van’s side door open. “Bring
the pickaxe and shovel.”

Fenenko and Craig picked up the
tools and followed Tupitsyn to a rectangular plot of land bordered by a few
trees. The grass was overgrown, but the neat rows of small concrete squares in
the ground unmistakably marked the graves of more than forty men. On each
concrete slab, a five digit number was imprinted in the concrete. No names, no
crosses, no Stars of David, just numbers.

“So many?” Craig said,
astonished.

“Welcome to the American Gulag,”
Tupitsyn said bleakly. He walked past the tombstone, reading the numbers
carefully. When he found the number he was looking for he pointed to the ground.
“Dig here.”

The last resting place of Colonel
Jack Balard was located in the back row, furthest from the road, indicating Craig’s
father had been one of the last to die.

“Fenenko, use the pick,” Tupitsyn
said, “Balard, you shovel.”

“And what will you do?” Craig
asked.

“You are the one who wants proof,
not me,” Tupitsyn replied imperiously, clearly with no intention of sharing in
the manual labor.

Fenenko was puzzled why Tupitsyn
should be so specific as to the division of duties, but he did as he was
ordered. Almost from the first stroke, he realized why he had the pick axe –
the soil had recently been disturbed. If Craig was breaking ground, he might
have realized this was not soil that had been frozen and untouched for years. Craig
shoveled when it was his turn, distracted by the thought that his father had
died in a frozen prison far from home, and that he was now desecrating his grave.

When the hole was barely three
feet deep, Fenenko’s axe thudded into a solid surface. “There’s something
here!”

Craig shoveled lumps of soil
clear, then brushed aside the remaining dirt to reveal a form wrapped in a
decaying canvas bag. Once the bag had been a heavy coarse material, now it was
paper thin.

“Do you want me to open it?” Fenenko
asked.

“No!” Craig snapped. “I’ll do
it.” He tore the flimsy material apart with his hands, revealing a skeleton
whose flesh had long since decomposed. The prison garb the skeleton wore had rotted
to rags, leaving nothing with which to identify the body.

“There is your proof,” Tupitsyn
declared. “Now give me my money?”

Craig ignored him as he delicately
examined the skeleton. He considered taking the skull for dental records, but
decided that would be too much of a violation. He searched for some form of
identification, peeling back rags and lightly blowing away dirt. Sitting on the
rib cage in plain view, right where he was bound to find them, was a set of dog
tags. Craig retrieved them, finding his father’s name clearly imprinted on
them.

“It’s him,” he whispered as he
felt a terrible ache grow in his heart.

“I’m sorry,” Valentina said
sadly.

“Hurry,” Tupitsyn said with
growing impatience. “If we are found here, none of us will ever leave Siberia.”

Craig ignored him, and continued
searching for papers or photographs, for anything that would confirm the skeleton’s
identity, but found nothing.

“What are you waiting for?” Tupitsyn
demanded.

Craig nodded slowly as he blinked
back a tear. He stood, about to climb out of the shallow grave, when a glint of
silver caught his eye. He reached down between the ribs to retrieve the
metallic item from inside the skeleton’s rib cage. It was a small silver pin,
engraved with a shield and thunder bolt, and the words ‘
Libertas vel mors
’.
Craig blew the remaining dirt off it, then polished it against his arm.

“It’s an air force insignia,”
Craig said, unable to take his eyes off the unfamiliar motto.

Tupitsyn watched Craig suspiciously,
keeping his hand within easy reach of the gun holstered under his arm.

Libertas vel mors?
Craig wondered, masking his confusion. He sensed Tupitsyn’s eyes on
him, and said, “It must have been his.”

“Satisfied?” Tupitsyn demanded.

Craig nodded, and pocketed the
wings and the dog tags. Tupitsyn relaxed and slowly moved his hand away from
his gun

“Take me to a phone. You can have
your money.” Craig said, turning to Valentina, giving her a warning look the
others didn’t see. “And you can have yours. I want to go home.”

* * * *

It was past sunset when the minivan
drove into the small city of Lesosibirsk, west of the graveyard. They hired
rooms in a small hotel, then paid the proprietor to let them use his office in
private. Tupitsyn placed a piece of paper with a string of numbers on it in
front of Craig. “That is my bank account. Transfer my ten million American
dollars to it.”

Craig glanced at the piece of
paper. “I want to see the file first.”

Tupitsyn held up his brief case. “It
is here.”

“I want to review it.”

“That was not the agreement!” Tupitsyn
bristled. “I have given you proof–”

“Yes, but I still want to see
what I’m paying for. Once I’ve studied the file, I will make the transfer. Not
before.”

“You expect me to trust you? Three
of you, one of me. I don’t think so!”

“That’s the deal,” Craig said
flatly. “I won’t cheat you, but I won’t let you cheat me either. If the file
checks out, I’ll make it twenty million.”

Tupitsyn stared at Craig angrily,
then cursed silently under his breath. He put the brief case on the table,
removed the handcuffs and carefully worked the combination lock. When he opened
the case, Craig removed the aging KGB document and settled into the chair
behind the desk.

“How long will this take?”
Tupitsyn demanded.

“Make yourself comfortable, I’ll
be a while. Valentina, will you translate for me?”

Tupitsyn’s anger rose, but he
said nothing.

Craig looked at the first page of
Cyrillic characters, then turned to Valentina, “What does it say?”

* * * *

Three hours later, Craig was barely
halfway through the file, and was deliberately proceeding as slowly as possible.
Most of the documents were routine reports on interrogations, prisoner
movements, medical checks and notes by observers. From the file, Craig came to
believe his father had been broken and had divulged all that he knew of stealth
technology. What the file did not reveal was how Colonel Balard understated the
technology’s operational parameters. He’d quickly come to realize his
interrogators had been lying. They had no other prisoners validating what he
was saying, or his small deceptions would have been discovered. So he lied,
subtly and cleverly, through months of interrogations without discovery.