Devil's Gate

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.