City of Exiles (9781101607596)

by Nevala-lee, Alec

  “So let’s sum up,” Cornwall said. “Karvonen has killed five people that we know of so far. He may have intelligence contacts ready to help him on his way. And he wouldn’t have been activated so abruptly without a reason.”

  The deputy director looked around the room. “Listen very carefully. I want him found and contained. If he’s planning something else, we can’t let him slip through our hands. Right, then, back to work.”

  With the scrape of chair legs against carpet, the meeting broke up. Wolfe gathered her notes, suddenly drained from operating on less than four hours of sleep. As she headed for the door, however, she noticed that Asthana was eyeing her with amusement. “What is it now?”

  Asthana pointed toward the cubicle farm outside. “Looks like you’ve got a visitor.”

  Wolfe turned to see that Lester Lewis, the pathologist, was seated near her desk. She walked briskly ahead. “I’ve asked him to work with the investigation. I need his professional advice.”

  “I’ll bet you do,” Asthana said. “Watch out, though. I hear that pathologists only want you for your body—”

  Wolfe responded with what she hoped was an icy look. As they neared Lewis, she extended a hand. “Lester. Good to see you.”

  Lewis rose and took her hand in a gentle grip. “Glad to be of service. Though I don’t know how helpful I can really be.”

  As Asthana smiled at them from her desk, Wolfe headed for the spare office she had cadged for the meeting. “I need whatever you can tell me. I’ve looked into some of this already, but it’s hard to know what to believe. More than anything else, I’d like your opinion as a pathologist.”

  Lewis followed her into the tiny room, closing the door behind them. “My opinion? It’s bloody strange. So you’ll understand if I’m unable to give you a definitive answer, or even any answer at all.”

  “Let’s start with the mystery, then,” Wolfe said. “Tell me about the Dyatlov Pass.”

  They took a seat at the table, where Lewis removed a hefty file from his briefcase. When he opened it, she saw that it contained maps, diagrams, and printouts an inch thick, but nothing, she feared, even resembling an answer to the question posed by Morley’s last words.

  “Before we start, there’s something I wanted to say,” Lewis said, sifting through the documents with his fine hands. “In my own experience, a man will talk about all kinds of things before he dies. We don’t know what goes through the mind at such moments. Just for the record, then, we need to consider the possibility that what Morley said was merely a case of dying delirium.”

  “I’m aware of that,” Wolfe said. “But it must have been on his mind for a reason. It isn’t something he would just happen to know.”

  “Not necessarily. What happened at the Dyatlov Pass has received little attention in this part of the world, but it’s one of the most famous unsolved mysteries in the history of Russia, even fifty years after it took place. Someone like Morley could easily have heard of it. So I’m just saying, on the evidence, that there’s no reason to believe that the story was of any special significance.”

  Wolfe nodded, although part of her resisted such an easy explanation. “Duly noted. But let’s go through it from the beginning. I want to make sure that we agree on the basic facts of the case.”

  “All right, then.” Lewis paused, as if uncertain of where to start, then finally turned to the first page in the file. “The incident took place on February 2, 1959. What we now call the Dyatlov Pass lies in the Urals, on the east shoulder of Kholat Syakhl. Mountain of Death, or so I’m told.”

  “I’ve heard that, too,” Wolfe said. “Unfortunately, I took Spanish instead of Mansi.”

  “I’m surprised. I was under the impression that there wasn’t much you didn’t know.” He looked down at the page, missing her sudden blush, and continued. “The incident involved nine hikers. Most were students or graduates of Ural Polytechnic, and all were experienced mountaineers. They were led by a man named Igor Dyatlov, who planned a challenging route. Take a look.”

  Lewis handed her a stack of black-and-white photos. Wolfe examined the snapshots, which showed hikers in parkas and fur hats grinning into the camera. One of the women, not too far from her own age, reminded Wolfe of herself. “Is it all right if I take notes on these?”

  “Go ahead,” Lewis said. He indicated one of the earliest shots, a picture of a second woman carrying skis at a railway station. “After arriving by train, they took a truck north to the last inhabited settlement and started walking along the valley. On the second day, one of the hikers became ill and had to turn back. Once the others reached the edge of the highland zone, they began making their way through the forest. That night, they set up camp on the slope to wait out a severe storm. And that’s where they remained, until they were found by a search party a few weeks later.”

  He spread a second set of photos across the table. These shots were from a different camera, carried by a rescuer at the scene. Lewis pointed to a picture of a collapsed tent. “The tent was the first thing the searchers discovered. It was badly damaged, with a line of footprints leading into the woods, and it seemed to have been cut open from the inside.”

  Lewis showed her another shot of the site. “At the edge of the forest, the searchers found the remains of a fire and the first two bodies. They were in their underwear, without shoes, although the temperature that night would have been twenty degrees below freezing. Three more bodies were found across a distance of several hundred yards. It looked as if they were trying to return to camp but never made it. All had died of hypothermia, and one had a fractured skull.”

  He turned to a photo of a snowy ravine. “It took the searchers two more months to find the last four. They were discovered under twelve feet of snow, in a ravine deep in the woods. One had died of hypothermia, the rest of physical trauma. Two had chest fractures, one had skull damage, but there were no external injuries. And one of the women was missing her tongue.”

  Wolfe felt a passing chill, the same she had felt after first looking into the story. “So what about the theories?”

  “All over the map, as you might expect,” Lewis said. “At first, they thought that the Mansi, the indigenous tribe of the north, had attacked the hikers, but there were no signs of a struggle, and only the victims’ footprints were visible on the ground. The evidence implies that they were forced to leave the tent at night, a few hours after their last meal. They tore the tent open and fled barefoot across the snow. The four in the ravine were dressed warmly, some wearing parts of the others’ clothes, but the rest, as you saw, wore almost nothing.”

  Wolfe studied the photographs. “But it looks like they managed to build a fire.”

  “Yes, although there are strange details about this as well. Traces of skin and tissue were found on the trees, which implied that they broke off wet branches until their hands were raw, even though there was dry kindling nearby. Some take this as evidence that they had gone blind.”

  “Or were acting less than rationally. Could they have been disoriented by the cold?”

  Lewis nodded. “Possibly. Hypothermia can cause confusion, and there’s a symptom called paradoxical undressing, which may account for the condition in which the bodies were found. But now we get to the wilder stories.”

  He turned to the stack of printouts. “One allegation is that traces of radiation were detected on the bodies. Scrap metal was also found nearby, which made some suspect that military testing was taking place in the area. After the bodies were prepared for burial, a few relatives claimed that the victims had strange tans, and that their hair had gone gray. And, inevitably, another group of hikers saw orange lights in the sky that night, in the direction of the pass.”

  Wolfe glanced over the pages. “Could it have been the result of a weapons test?”

  “Nobody knows,” Lewis said. “Which hasn’t stopped
anyone from speculating.”

  Wolfe only continued to look at the pictures. She was about to hand the photos back when her eye was caught by one particular shot, which depicted a line of rescuers with prods in their hands. “You know, this is a probe line. It’s used to explore the scene of an avalanche. If I were in a tent and heard an avalanche start, I’d get out of there as fast as I could and head for the largest tree I could find, outside the runout zone. Which is exactly what these hikers did.”

  Lewis examined the shot. “It’s possible. But as far as I know, there’s no mention of an avalanche in any of the contemporary reports. And there’s still the question of why they didn’t return to the tent after the danger had passed. I can look into it, though, if you like.”

  “Good.” Wolfe glanced at her watch. “Listen, I know you’ve got work to do. Let me walk you out. Thanks so much for this.”

  “My pleasure,” Lewis said, gathering up his files. “And if there’s anything else—”

  “I’ll let you know.” Wolfe steered him toward the main floor, seeing that Asthana, while pretending to work, was watching her out of the corner of one eye. After saying goodbye at the elevator, she went back to her desk, still not sure what Morley had been trying to say.

  A second later, the memory of the hikers in the woods shifted into another image, one that had been on her mind frequently in recent days. Four men had entered the king’s orchard, she recalled, and only one had returned unharmed. And as she thought of this story again now, she saw what she had to do next.

  In her cubicle, Asthana was smiling saucily at her. “I knew that you fancied him.”

  Wolfe decided not to dignify this with a reply. “Listen, can I borrow your car tomorrow?”

  “I’ll need to ask Devon,” Asthana said. “But it should be fine. Why do you need it?”

  “No special reason.” Wolfe turned on her computer, waiting as the screen flickered into life. “There’s just someone I need to see.”

  28

  Karvonen arrived in Brussels shortly before noon. Leaving the newspaper on his seat, he retrieved his bag from the overhead rack and followed the other disembarking passengers to the end of the platform. There was no passport control on this side of the border, so he was able to head directly for the central terminal of the station, which lay down a flight of steps.

  On the level below, set among the gray pillars and steel benches, there was a row of car rental stands. Going to the kiosk of the largest agency, he rented a small Citroën using the international driver’s license and credit card in the name of Dale Stern. From there, he drove to a hotel half a mile from the station, where he booked a room for the night and stopped at the café for lunch.

  As he was about to leave, he saw that another customer had left a newspaper on the table next to his. Glancing down, he noticed that his picture had made the papers in Belgium as well, although this article was on the inside page. It was the same picture that had appeared in the London papers, of his old face, so he was not unduly concerned. All the same, he scooped the paper up from the table as he headed for the door, tossing it into a trash bin as he left.

  By one in the afternoon, he was driving out of the city. Before heading for the main highway, he paused at a couple of shops in the suburbs. At a hardware store, he bought a shovel, a canvas bag, a pair of work gloves, a package of nails and a compass. Going across the street to an electronics shop, he picked up a screwdriver, some wire cutters, a pocket torch battery, and a number of other odds and ends. He also purchased a road map from the rack alongside the cash register.

  Getting into his car, he unfolded the map and studied it for a moment. After locating the village he wanted, he headed south on the highway toward Namur. The day was overcast and chilly. Around him stretched miles of flat, pleasant country, the forest slowly thickening to either side as he neared his destination, which was one hundred and fifty kilometers away.

  A few hours later, just after passing the village whose name he had seen on the map, he saw a narrow track off the side of the road, leading into an area of forest. He slowed almost to a stop, checked that there were no other cars in sight, and turned onto the track, moving deeper into the woods.

  Karvonen drove for another minute, the shadows of branches running their fingers across the hood of the car, and parked at the side of the road. A footpath ran up a hillock, threading its way beneath the trees. He shut off the engine, got out of the car, and took his equipment from the trunk.

  As he did, he listened to the sounds of the forest, hushed but strangely charged in the silence, which reminded him of his own boyhood. Growing up, he had spent hours in the woods behind his house, hunting, fishing, building snares. And as he looked around the forest now, he felt more fully himself than at any time since leaving the barber’s chair in Highgate.

  Slinging the shovel over one shoulder, he headed up the trail. After a few paces, he found himself, as he had expected, at a small forest chapel. It consisted of a wooden cross fitted with a peaked tin roof, like a hat, and a brass figure of Christ no larger than a toy soldier. Around the cross, to protect it from animals, a coop of chicken wire had been raised.

  This chapel, he knew, was the first marker. From here, the road forked, with a narrow trail weaving to either side. Karvonen took the path to the left, counting off sixty paces, until he arrived at a large stone sunk into the ground under an elm tree. He had thought that he might encounter some hikers or picnickers, but evidently the day was too cold and damp.

  Pausing at the stone, he took a reading with his compass, then went another forty paces east. Up ahead, among the other trees, he saw a pair of beeches standing apart, like estranged brothers at a family reunion. This, he knew at once, was the location that his handler had described.

  When he arrived at his destination, Karvonen propped his shovel against the trunk of one of the trees and laid his bag at the base of the other. He removed his coat, folded it up, and set it on the ground. Then he pulled on his work gloves, took the shovel in hand, and began to dig at a spot between the beeches.

  The soil was fairly hard, so it took him a while to break through the surface, but once he was a few inches down, the work became easier. After about a foot, he felt the shovel strike something and heard the soft clink of glass. Reaching down to clear away the soil, he found an empty glass jar and a length of metal pipe, its ends choked with dirt. He set both of these aside, knowing that they had been left there to indicate if the cache had been disturbed.

  After another couple of feet, he hit something else. It was a wooden board. Karvonen knelt by the hole, which by now was substantial, and brushed the loose soil away. Glancing around to make sure he was still alone, he found the edges of the plank with his fingers and pried it up.

  Underneath, there was a metal lid with a handle. Below the handle, there was a lock. A key was conveniently attached to the handle itself with a fine chain, but Karvonen was not tempted to use it. Instead, he cleared away the rest of the dirt, careful not to strike the handle, and considered what lay before him.

  What he had uncovered was one of many weapons caches that Russian intelligence had placed throughout Europe over the past fifty years. These caches were designed to be used by a solitary illegal agent, working alone, to sow destruction behind the lines of an enemy country in case of war. Although the possibility of such hostilities seemed remote these days, the stockpiles had been quietly updated and maintained, with similar caches still in existence in Europe, Israel, and Turkey.

  Karvonen set his hands on the cool metal of the container. The key that hung from the handle was a deliberate provocation. This particular cache, like most of its counterparts, was wired with an explosive device that would destroy both the container and anything nearby if it were opened incorrectly. Disarming it would not be especially difficult, but there was always the possibility that the explosive had become dangerously un
stable in its years underground.

  Rising from the hole, he went back to the beech tree where he had left the canvas bag. Crouching down, he removed the spool of wire and used the wire cutters to snip off two lengths about twelve inches long. After connecting pieces of wire to each of the leads of the pocket torch battery, he opened the package of nails, removed two, and attached one nail each to the exposed ends of the wires. Then he brought this unlikely science project back to the hole, along with the rest of his tools.

  Karvonen leaned down over the cache, then carefully used one of the nails to scratch away the paint at a spot on the body of the box. Keeping the nail in place, he used the other nail to scratch away some paint on the lock fitting, so that both of the contacts were touching metal.

  From inside the box, there was a soft click. Karvonen exhaled. The explosive device had been disarmed, or so he hoped. Still, he remained respectful of the container as he inserted the attached key into the lock, turned it, and took hold of the handle with both hands.

  He had to tug hard at the lid to remove it, but at last it came away with a low hiss, as the rarefied atmosphere inside the container met the air outside. Karvonen lifted off the lid and looked into the cache. There was a small metal casing secured to the inside of the box. He used his screwdriver to remove the four screws holding the casing in place, then took it off.

  Inside was the detonator, attached to an explosive charge by a pair of wires. Karvonen pulled the cutters from his pocket and slid the jaws around the first wire. After a beat, he squeezed the handles and cut the wire in two.

  Nothing happened. He cut the other wire, and like that, he was done. Reaching down, he pulled out the detonator and set it aside. Only then did he take a good look at what was inside the box itself.

  The first thing he pulled out was a green plastic bag that had been closed with a twist tie. He undid the tie and pulled off the bag, revealing a nine-millimeter SIG Sauer pistol. Examining it, he found that it seemed to have suffered no ill effects from its long sojourn underground. The bag, he knew, was polyethylene infused with a corrosion protectant, and the gun itself had been further treated with a rust preventative that he would need to remove.