by Dan Latus
They discussed the process of discovery for a while. Then George said, ‘Where is this damned cave that Yugov wants so very badly?’
‘In Ukraine,’ Sam said, ‘western Ukraine.’
‘Not the east, where all the fighting has been going on?’
She shook her head. ‘If it was there, Yugov wouldn’t have had a problem reaching it. The Russians control that area now.’
‘Well,’ George said thoughtfully, ‘anyone got a map handy?’
Chapter Thirty-Three
John brought out The Times Atlas of the World initially. He opened it to a page showing Ukraine, as well as a big chunk of Russia and a few other countries as well.
‘Here,’ Sam said, pointing to a spot just north of Moldova, one of the countries bordering Ukraine.
‘Close to the Carpathian mountains,’ George said, poring over the map.
‘Not that close,’ John said with a frown. ‘It’s probably thirty miles away.’
‘It is in the Dniester valley,’ Sam confirmed.
‘Not my backyard,’ George said thoughtfully. ‘The Dniester? That’s the river that runs down through Ukraine and Moldova to the Black Sea, right?’
‘Yes,’ Sam said. ‘On the way, it separates Transnistria from most of Moldova.’
‘This little itty, bitty strip of land east of the river that wants to be forever part of the Soviet Union?’ George mused. ‘I heard about that territory.’
‘They are Russian-speakers there,’ Sam said. ‘Like in eastern Ukraine.’
‘Yeah.’
George was thinking. Transnistria was somewhere else Jack Olsson had been asked to poke his nose into, in the hope they could get the Russian nationalists there to rally to the dollar. Fat chance! Forget it. Those guys were still Stalin’s children.
‘I heard something about an arms dump in that area,’ John contributed, still focussed on the Dniester valley. ‘But not from you, Sam!’
‘What good would it have done if I had told you?’ Sam protested. ‘My father told me I was the only other person with the key. I wanted to keep it that way. From what he told me, I wanted the cave to be forgotten – forever!’
‘Children, children!’ George said mildly. ‘Let’s not squabble, please.’
John clamped his lips firmly together for a moment. Sam and George were both right, but that didn’t stop him feeling pissed off about the whole damned thing. No secrets, they had promised each other!
Still, he reminded himself, they were in a hole. Best to stop digging. Sam had only done what she thought was right. He should be supporting her. Maybe this was a secret she had been safeguarding him from.
‘Down there,’ he said, making an effort, ‘it’s karst country. Limestone. I know about that sort of landscape from my time in what used to be Yugoslavia.’
‘Yeah? You and me both,’ George said with a wry chuckle. ‘You have been around, young man.’
‘I never went to the Dniester valley, though,’ John added. ‘Viktor can’t have trusted me enough. But I’ve heard it’s a pretty special area.’ He gave a thoughtful frown. ‘Caves. Lots of caves.’
‘Including the Gypsum Giants,’ Sam said.
‘What the hell are they?’ George wanted to know.
‘Caves that have been hollowed out of the gypsum rock over many millions of years. I don’t know,’ Sam said with a shrug, ‘but some people say they are the biggest caves in the world. The biggest gypsum caves, at least. In the war against the fascists—’
‘The what?’ George interrupted.
‘World War Two,’ John said quickly. ‘That’s what some people out there still call it.’
‘Thank you, John!’ Sam said with a wry smile. ‘In World War Two, there were Jewish refugees who lived in the caves there, and escaped the holocaust.’
‘What?’ George said. ‘Lived there for four years?’
‘Yes!’ she responded quickly. ‘There have been people living in some of those caves for half a million years. At least, so the archaeologists say.’
‘Rather them than me,’ George said, shaking his head. ‘Cold and damp, caves. And dark. So that’s where your daddy hid his Kalashnikovs?’
‘More than that, I think.’
‘Oh?’
Sam shrugged. ‘Almost anything you can think of that has a military use. And some things, I believe, it is better not to know about.’
‘Like what?’ George said fast.
‘Like I said, it is better you don’t know. Better for you, better for us and better for the rest of the world.’
George looked up at John, who shrugged and said, ‘Don’t ask me! I don’t know. But if Sam believes that, we should listen to her.’
George didn’t press them. ‘You got a larger scale map of the area?’ he asked instead.
‘Somewhere,’ John said. ‘I’ll see if I can find it.’
From the large scale map they could see that the land north of the Dniester was pretty level and low-lying, while the southern bank of the river was where the hill country started.
‘These cliffs,’ Sam said, pointing to the south side of the river, ‘are made of limestone. They are full of holes and passages – and caves, of course.’
‘I know a bit about karst country,’ George said. ‘We have some in the States, down in Tennessee and a few other places. And like John, here, I was in Yugoslavia for a while, where the Serbs hid their whole damn army in caves.
‘What happens is the rainwater penetrates the surface of the rock, erodes away at it through cracks and faults, and forms caverns. Some of those things can go a long way underground.’
‘Exactly,’ Sam said. ‘The Gypsum Giants have been explored for hundreds of kilometres, but even now no-one knows how far they go.’
‘Far and deep,’ George said, nodding. ‘Easy to get lost in them suckers, and easy to hide stuff away. Were you ever in your daddy’s cave?’
‘Once. He wanted to show me where it was. Once was enough.’
She broke off and shuddered at the memory.
‘Viktor wasn’t the only one who was storing weapons underground,’ John said suddenly, remembering. ‘When the trouble got going in eastern Ukraine the other year, it turned out the Red Army had left behind an arms dump in an old salt mine near Slavyansk. There were 3,000,000 firearms in that one. Local people blockaded it for a while, to try to stop anyone using the weapons.’
‘I remember reading about that,’ George said. ‘But the separatists probably got it all in the end. The question for us, though, is who was Viktor Sirko storing arms for – the Government in Kiev, or the Rebs? He sure didn’t need them for himself.’
They sat in silence for a few moments, pondering the implications of that question.
‘And what does Yugov want with them?’ John mused.
‘Oh, that’s easy,’ George said. ‘He’ll just sell them to the highest bidder, if he can get his hands on them.’
He turned to Sam and said, ‘How safe is that key? Where do you keep it?’
She shrugged. ‘In my head.’
‘So it’s not a physical key?’
She shook her head. ‘It’s a set of numbers for a keypad. It took me many months to learn them, and I have never forgotten them.’
George sighed heavily and said, ‘So you really are important to Yugov. You are the key, literally.’
There was another, more protracted silence. Then John said, ‘So when are we going?’
Chapter Thirty-Four
‘John!’ Sam cried, scandalized. ‘You can’t possibly go there. And I can’t, either.’
‘Think about it,’ he said evenly. ‘How will we ever get Yugov off our backs? As long as that secret arms dump exists, you’ll be in danger. He knows you have the key. He knows you know where the cave is. He knows where we live! Work it out.’
Sam pushed her chair back, sprang to her feet and rushed out of the room.
John and George sat in silence, not looking at each other.
‘Go to
her,’ George said eventually. ‘Go to your wife and son. They need you.’
‘We have an agreement. One of us stays with you at all times. Remember?’
George shook his head. ‘It doesn’t matter now. Besides, I need to make a phone call to Washington.’
John stared at him.
‘I may tell you about it later,’ George said with a wry smile. ‘But you no longer have anything to worry about from me. I can tell you that much.’
John nodded and got up to go and find Sam.
George knew he was taking a gamble, but he’d decided. He was going for it. He’d watched the Taits for a while, unbeknown to them, and he had seen how they lived. They lived well, modestly and hard-working, but well. He liked that. He liked them. It wouldn’t be him that made Sam a widow, and young Kyle a fatherless little boy.
Also, he was inclined to believe John Tait about the sad business back in Slovakia all those years ago. The man could well have been a killer back then. Probably was, in fact. But he wasn’t now. More important, he didn’t believe Tait had killed Jack Olsson.
The story John had told had been simple, unrehearsed and wholly credible. It was not hard to imagine how stressed he had been in his desperate flight from Lviv. His friends and colleagues, his boss even, had all been murdered by Yugov’s marauders. He himself had escaped by the skin of his teeth, warned by the woman who was now his wife.
He had somehow managed to get out, but had been able to carry nothing with him. Falling back on his wits and mental strength, he had escaped. Then had come the extraordinary discovery of Jack Olsson, and all that cash.
George shook his head. Pure coincidence? Well, it was hard to come to any other conclusion. Tait’s one concern had been to evade whatever pursuit was after him. Virtually penniless, and exhausted, he had done the best he could and crossed the border. Even then, though, he wouldn’t have felt safe. Russians, especially the likes of Yugov, never had been great respecters of borders.
Even if he had encountered Jack Olsson while Jack was still alive, he would have had no reason to shoot him, and even less to imagine he was carrying $10,000,000. Much more likely was that someone else had known who Jack was, and what he was carrying.
So he was satisfied with the Taits. Now he had something to do with them, something in which they had a shared interest. First, though, he needed to talk to Ted, back in DC. Tait was right. Somebody back there probably had leaked the information that had brought both himself and Yugov to this little town. Ted needed to know that. Ted needed to find the culprit.
Right now, though, there was something else that needed looking into. Ted could wait a little while.
When George stepped outside, the weather had changed, changed for the better. The rain and the wind had died away, the dank humid conditions had dispersed. In the late afternoon the sky was clear and he felt that soon there would be frost. That suited him fine. Cold, clean air was what he liked best. Visibility was better then, too.
He headed down the garden, checking the ground as he went. There were all sorts of footprints after the previous night’s heavy rain but he wasn’t looking for them. Something else was on his mind. He was thinking blood. But he didn’t find any.
At the foot of the garden he stood by the gate for a few moments, looking around. There was woodland beyond the stone wall that marked the boundary of the Tait property, but the leading edge was a good fifty yards away, and uphill. Too far, and too hard to get there.
Where would a badly injured man head for, assuming he was capable of moving at all?
The Tait property was separated from its neighbour on one side by a rampant, wild hedge of hawthorn, bramble and occasional small trees that had developed from the seeds left by bird droppings. George walked the length of it, peering into the shadows at the base of the hedge. Nothing. He saw nothing out of the ordinary at all.
It was always possible that the man had recovered and departed, or that someone had come and collected him, but he didn’t think so somehow. He had seen one of the man’s colleagues drop back to check on him, and then give it up and join the chase after Tait. The man had been too badly injured. That was George’s conclusion at the time. He still thought it was right.
The other side of the Tait property was marked by a continuation of the stone wall that ran along the foot of the garden. George walked the length of that, too, again without finding anything. Perhaps he was wrong? He still didn’t think so.
He hoisted himself up on to the wall and peered at the rough grass dotted with gorse on the other side. Plenty of cover, if you could get that far. Out of the question, though, for a badly injured man. In that condition, the wall would be an insurmountable obstacle.
Then he heard a groan that proved him wrong. Glancing sideways, he saw a figure sprawled in the shadow of the wall, not ten yards away. Quickly, he climbed over the wall and approached the figure cautiously, pistol in hand. The man was seated with his back leaning against the wall. George could see his eyes watching his approach.
George stopped and peered down at him. He was in a bad way. That much was obvious. In need of intensive care, but probably beyond it anyway. There was no spilled blood visible. George guessed he had at least a fractured skull. How the hell had he got over the wall? Russians, he thought with a sigh.
‘Speak English?’ he asked quietly.
‘Nyet. Hospital!’
So he did. He spoke at least some of the language.
‘You hurting?’
‘Bad, bad. Hurt bad.’
George nodded sympathetically. ‘Your colleagues left you here, huh?’
There was no response. The man closed his eyes.
‘They are dead. You know that? Those guys that were with you? I shot them.’
The eyes opened again. Stared right back. George nodded, confirming it.
‘What about the others?’ he asked. ‘Will they come for you? Yugov, perhaps?’
It didn’t seem like he was going to get an answer. Then the man’s lips muttered something.
‘Say again?’ George said, leaning closer.
‘Hospital – please!’
‘In a minute. Where’s Yugov? Is he coming back for you? Won’t he take you?’
‘Yugov gone. No come back.’
‘Gone? Where?’
‘Back to Ukraine. Hospital – now!’
‘In a minute, old son. You just hang on there.’
Gone? Could that be true? If it was, what did it mean?
It seemed to mean Yugov had decided he didn’t need to wait any longer. He must have believed his men would catch up with Tait and Sirko’s daughter. Was that it? Or had he decided he didn’t need them any more? Had he got what he wanted some other way?
‘What about the cave?’ George asked gently. ‘Doesn’t he need to know where it is?’
‘He knows. Now he knows.’
‘How? Who told him?’
‘Hospital,’ the man implored again.
George thought fast. This changed things. He was sure it was true, as well. Yugov would surely have stayed otherwise.
‘So Yugov knows everything? He knows where the cave is, and he has the key?’
‘No key, not yet. Just where the cave is. Hospital!’
George patted him on the shoulder. ‘I’m going to help you now,’ he said. ‘Don’t you worry, comrade.’
The eyes closed gratefully.
As he straightened up, George brought the pistol swiftly round from his side and shot the man in the back of the head. One shot. It sounded loud, so loud that a flock of rooks sprawled out of their roost in the neighbouring trees, filling the air with the sound of their alarm.
Chapter Thirty-Five
George let himself back into the kitchen, where John was sitting at the table with another mug of coffee.
‘Help yourself,’ John said, nodding towards the kettle.
‘Thanks. I will. Sam OK?’
‘Yeah. She’s worried, that’s all.’
John nodded, an
d waited until George had made himself some coffee and sat down with it before saying, ‘Was that noise what I thought it was?’
‘Nothing to be done for him, and we have to get a move on.’ George shrugged and stirred his coffee. ‘Yugov has left. And he knows where the cave is.’
‘How did that happen? More information leaked?’
‘It sounds like it,’ George said wearily. ‘But I don’t know. All I know is we’ve got to get there fast, if we’re going to stop him.’
‘That’s a big ask, George. Why us?’
‘Because we know what’s going on. Can you imagine how long it would take to persuade the “proper authorities” to do something – even if they could?’
‘But you think we can do something?’
‘We can try.’
‘Yeah. We can try,’ John said wearily. ‘But if Yugov knows where the cave is, it’s a different proposition now.’
‘We’ll get help,’ George said brusquely. ‘From somewhere, we’ll get help. But we need to get there fast if we’re going to stop him.’
John nodded. ‘What did you say that noise was again?’
‘I didn’t. But between you and me, it would be better if Sam and Kyle don’t look over that garden wall, out there, for a while. I’ve phoned for body removal this time,’ he added.’
‘The guy I hit?’
George nodded.
‘I see. I’m surprised he was still there.’
‘He was too badly injured for Yugov to attempt to recover him, and it would have been too dangerous to tell anyone about him. So they left him to get on with it.’
‘They just dumped him over the wall?’
‘Who knows?’
John reflected a moment, and then said, ‘He told you all this?’
‘Some of it. He told me what he knew. And now we know we gotta get moving.’
‘So we’re going to Ukraine. When – tomorrow?’
‘Tomorrow, John. You’d better tell Sam.’
John winced. ‘She’s not going to like it.’
‘Even so. We need the location of the cave and the key, and she can’t go herself. You know that.’
It was true. Her passport was no longer valid. His own would expire soon, too. Then there was Kyle to consider. One of them had to stay for that reason alone.
