by Robin White
“Four million carats of Siberian rough. All of it gem quality.”
Yuri’s hand shook slightly. “Do you know what that—”
“Half a billion dollars. Volsky didn’t take it.”
“But you know who did?”
“Let’s just say the stones grew wings. You’re an expert when it comes to things like that.”
“You aren’t suggesting I had anything to do with it?”
“No,” said Nowek. “At least, not yet.”
“Not yet? Listen. If I flew four million carats of rough out of Mirny do you think we’d be sitting in a cold, dark office in Irkutsk? Forget it. I’d be sitting on the beach.”
Or under one. “Who could fly them out?”
“Mirny is a forbidden city. Company planes are the only ones allowed in or out.”
“Could Kristall do the entire operation alone?”
“They have the diamonds. They make the rules.”
“You’ve broken rules before.”
“Ransha.” It meant earlier. “White Bird is a completely legal joint stock company. We’re even registered and pay taxes.”
“Really? Where’s Plet?” Plet was Yuri’s original partner. He was well over six feet tall. Short hair, bull neck. Hands like dinner plates. Plet frightened the men Nowek found frightening.
“Plet is conducting negotiations with the power company.”
“Then you should have your lights back soon.” He remembered something Volsky had said on their trip to Moscow. If Russian mines were so rich, how could the cartel afford to turn its back on them? “If Kristall is stealing its own diamonds, why isn’t the cartel stopping them?”
“Simple. They’re going from Mirny and into the cartel’s pockets. Kristall. The cartel. Everyone wins.”
Except for the miners, Moscow, and, soon, Russia.
“I’ll say this,” Yuri went on. “If the cartel made its own deal with Kristall you can forget about getting to the bottom of it. First, they’re in London. Second, they’re everywhere else. Well, maybe not China. As for Mirny, you won’t get anywhere near it.”
“I’m going there tomorrow.”
Yuri whistled. “If they’re letting you in it’s because they want you there. You’d better hope they don’t change their mind.”
It was the very reason he’d demanded some sort of official status from Levin. The piece of paper he carried was from the Chief of Staff of the Presidential Administration. “So you’ve never done any business with Kristall?”
“I tried. I offered to handle their Irkutsk operations. They completely ignored me.”
“What Irkutsk operations?”
“They used to fly equipment here for repair.”
It was the first Nowek had heard of it. “To Irkutsk?”
To which Yuri said, “To Sib-Auto.”
Of course. Sib-Auto made mining machinery, computer analyzers and controls that were state of the art, circa 1976. It was another industrial zombie, the walking dead, in business only because it was willing to accept oil, timber, and as a last resort even rubles for its equipment.
“Kristall flew in broken machines,” said Yuri. “Sib-Auto had a work yard across the airport. I haven’t seen anyone actually working there in a year. It’s a junkyard now.”
Nowek thought, If Kristall flew broken machines to Irkutsk they were breaking more than machines. One of the oldest rules in diamond mining dictated that once a piece of equipment arrived at the mine, it never left. Never. There were too many nooks and crannies to hide something so small, so valuable. “I’d like to see it,” he said.
“There’s nothing there to see but junk.”
“Then it shouldn’t take long.”
Yuri kept a small jeep in the hangar. They drove out into the light and down a line of Aeroflot jets. Most had panels removed, engines stripped, window glass missing.
“These planes all belong to you?” asked Nowek.
“More or less. Your daughter. How is she?”
“In America.”
“Congratulations.”
They bumped across the uneven concrete ramp and headed to the far side of the field. They pulled up to a steel-roofed shed surrounded by a tall fence.
Nowek looked in. Yuri was right. There wasn’t much to see. The yard was filled with disemboweled X-ray diamond sorters spewing colorful electric wires from their ripped bellies. A tall fence topped with electrified wire formed three sides of the yard. The solid, windowless wall of an adjoining building sealed the fourth. “Who owns the building next door?”
“Sovah.” It meant Owl. “They used to make binoculars for the Army. The company privatized. The workers owned all the vouchers. They were going to sell their equipment to the world. It was nice stuff and dirt cheap.”
“What happened?”
“Two guys from Armenia bought up all the vouchers for dollars.” Yuri slapped one hand across the other. “Sold. So what do they do? Invest in the factory? Find new markets? No. They changed the name, bricked over the windows, and fired the workers. That was eleven months ago. It’s been dead ever since.”
It was a typical enough story, one that played itself out across Russia in any one of a thousand dismal variations. Nowek looked at the structure more carefully. Four stories high. A flat roof. There were no windows. They’d all been bricked over. A flag of white steam rose from a rooftop vent.
Yuri’s company couldn’t keep the lights and heat on, so how could a bankrupt company? “What did they change the name to?”
“Golden Autumn.”
Chapter 15
The Kingdom of Dust
Sherbakov shivered in the dark Volga. It was barely eight o’clock, and already there was ten degrees of frost, maybe more. In Moscow, winter was something you could adjust to. Irkutsk was like being shot forward into mid-December and Mirny was a thousand kilometers north. What was that going to be like?
The windshield was fogged over with his breath. He wiped an area clear. The car’s heater worked as well as its engine. Turn either one on and the interior filled with oil smoke. Sherbakov weighed his options. Asphyxiate warm, or breathe clean air and freeze?
Welcome to Siberia.
He blew warm breath into his bare fist. He could feel the cold of Siberia close in around him, layer by layer.
The entry lights at Nowek’s building dimmed, brightened. Sherbakov watched Nowek walk across the frozen, bare ground to an idling Toyota and get in. Its brake lights went out and the car moved away from the curb. The militia jeep followed.
Sherbakov started the Volga and glanced in the rearview mirror. No oil smoke? Either the engine had cured itself, or else it was out of oil. He didn’t care. He turned the heat on full blast, released the brake, and followed the militia jeep’s single red taillight.
A trickle of warmth escaped from the dashboard vents.
The caravan turned left onto the Lystvyanka Road. A two-lane highway that ended on the shores of Lake Baikal, some thirty kilometers distant.
Sherbakov had hardly gotten up to speed when Nowek’s Land Cruiser swerved to the side of the road, heading for a liquor kiosk that was open for business. There was a naked lightbulb burning over its window, dangling from an electric cord. A delivery van was parked beside it, two of its wheels over the curb. The sign on its side said KHLEB, bread.
Sherbakov parked well back, but still close enough to see Nowek’s driver get out. The old man headed for the kiosk, shuffling with a curious, gliding step, as though he might break through a thin crust of ice and sink into deep, deep snow. Or perhaps he was just accustomed to walking in chains. The file said Nowek’s driver was an old strafnik, a gulag survivor. People said once you spent some time behind the wire, you never felt warm again, you never threw away the last crust of bread, and you never felt free. Seeing Chuchin walk, he could believe it.
Chuchin stood in front of the kiosk’s window, his breath steaming in the cold, still air. Was he after more cigarettes? Was it even possible for one person to sm
oke so much?
Then an answer: vodka. Nowek’s driver reached in through the open window, came back with two tall, clear bottles, and shuffled off in the direction of the Toyota. But he kept walking. All the way to the jeep.
Chuchin approached the militia bobyk and clinked the two bottles together like bells.
The window rolled down. “What do you think you’re doing?” Warm breath spilled out in a steamy cloud.
“It’s cold. I brought you a little warm water.” Chuchin wiggled one of the bottles. It was Baikalsk vodka, premium stuff or at least a premium bottle. You never knew.
“Drinking on duty is not permitted.”
“Too bad. I’ll have to give both to your friend from Moscow.”
“Wait.” An arm extended. A gloved hand closed around a bottle. “For later.”
“Sure. We all breathe air and piss water, right?” Chuchin turned to leave.
“Wait.” The second bottle was reeled in. “Fuck Moscow.”
“Fuck Moscow,” Chuchin happily agreed. When he returned to the Land Cruiser, Nowek was gone. So far, he thought, so good.
The bread van grumbled up to the side of the hangar and stopped, its diesel engine clattering like a bucketful of loose change. Nowek got out, rapped on the door. “Thanks.”
A hand hoisted a bottle. Nowek’s fare. “Any time.” The van departed, weaving along the airport road.
Yuri was waiting inside along with the Chechen guard. Instead of his customary Kalashnikov, Mahmet was armed with a pair of heavy cutters and a stout pry bar.
“I made arrangements,” said Yuri. “You’re late.”
“There’s a schedule for burglary?” asked Nowek.
“Absolutely. I’ll show you what I mean on the way over.”
The little open jeep was waiting, engine running, headlights off. Yuri drove right out onto the concrete runway and accelerated. On the far side, the Sib-Auto junkyard was bathed in bright orange-sodium light.
“What about the lights?”
“Watch.”
Nowek wondered what Yuri had in mind, but then the lights went out with an audible pop! Not just the security lights, but every light at the Irkutsk airport. “How did you do it?”
“Plet can be a persuasive negotiator.” Yuri swerved onto a taxi way and rolled up to the chain-link fence. “We have twenty minutes. You think they’re keeping diamonds in there?”
“No,” said Nowek. “But I’m prepared to be surprised.”
“Electric.” Mahmet pointed to the ceramic insulators on top of the fence. It didn’t keep him from attacking the steel links with his cutters. He worked fast, and soon a panel was free.
Nowek crawled through first, then Yuri. Mahmet was last.
They threaded their way along a row of rusted steel cabinets. In the east, undimmed by lights, the stars of Orion rose above the eastern horizon, bright as an airliner’s landing lights.
“What are these things?” asked Yuri. “Computers?”
“X-ray sorters,” said Nowek as he looked at one more carefully. “They use radiation to separate diamonds from ore.”
Yuri stopped. “They’re dangerous?”
“Only when they’re running. Diamonds glow under X-rays. There’s no shielding. Stand close enough and you’ll glow, too.”
Ahead was a solid brick wall with just one door made from steel plate. There were no handles, no obvious locks. Not even a place to insert a key. Apparently it was designed to be opened only from the inside. Mahmet used the pry bar to attack the cement joint around the frame.
The mortar was of poor quality. Chips flew, then whole chunks. The more space the pry bar had to work, the more leverage Mahmet applied. A red brick wiggled like a bad tooth.
Mahmet shifted his attack. Now he used the pointed end as a pick. With each blow, the loose brick was driven farther in. Then, with one last stroke, it toppled through to the room beyond. Mahmet thrust his arm in, feeling around for a latch.
With a solid click, the door swung open.
They left Mahmet behind and walked into the cold, dark space beyond. Yuri switched on a flashlight.
The empty room smelled of cold, dead air and dust. The floor was paved in cracked linoleum tiles. An old felt boot was frozen to sculpture. The ceiling was webbed with pipes and conduits. Three walls were bare brick. One was covered in clear ice.
Yuri’s light lingered on two fur coats hanging from nails. “Someone left in a hurry,” he said.
“A water pipe must have burst,” said Nowek. It reminded him of the scene from Zhivago, the return to the abandoned manor house at Varykino, the walls, the chandeliers, the furniture, an entire lost world preserved in ice. He walked to the ice wall.
The two coats weren’t coats at all, but raw animal pelts. One black, the other silver gray. The gray fur was frosted with big ice crystals like those inside Volsky’s grave.
Yuri joined Nowek. “I thought dogs were getting scarce. A squatter’s been living here. Most probably he sold fur hats down in the bazaar. Some poor guy with a sign, GENUINE SABLE.” Yuri stroked the frozen fur. “Here’s Sable. See how well trained he is? Not even one growl.”
Nowek wondered how the dog skinner came and went. Not through the door we broke through. Even if he’d had a key, there was no lock on the outside. Was the old felt boot his, too? “Hand me the light.” He examined the floor. It was covered with dust, but a large area was disturbed in wide, wild sweeps, as though a child had played with a mop. A darker, grittier path marked where someone had tracked in mud from the double doors leading out to the loading ramp.
“Seen enough?” asked Yuri.
“No. Here.” Nowek handed the light to him and pulled out a handkerchief. He went to the place where the gritty tracks crossed the floor. He got down on his knees, breathed warm air onto the rough, muddy surface to melt the ice bond, then pressed his handkerchief down hard.
“What are you doing?”
“Seeing if Locard’s Law can help us,” said Nowek.
“Who?”
“Edmond Locard. He was a French geologist in the early twentieth century. His law states that whenever two things come into contact, material is always transferred from one to the other. You may not be able to see it, but there’s always something.”
“All I see is dirt.”
“ ’Vast is the kingdom of dirt.’ That’s how Locard’s Law begins.” Nowek carefully folded the handkerchief and put it away. “The police called him in to investigate the murder of a young woman. There was reason to suspect the father, but no proof. Locard found dirt under his fingernails. Just dirt. Under a microscope it became bismuth, iron oxide, magnesium, and zinc.”
“So what?”
“Her face rouge. He was convicted. Let’s go upstairs.”
They followed the path to the back of the big room. Open steel stairs went up to the next level. Nowek began to climb. Eight risers. A landing. The temperature rose a little. He remembered the plume of steam he’d seen coming from the roof. Eight more steps and he came to the next floor.
The flashlight revealed a sizable room with doors leading off to other rooms. Offices, perhaps. A steam pipe ran along the wall, turned and disappeared through the ceiling. Nowek touched it. Hot. A closed steam loop that was still connected to a main might be warm. Only one that was still circulating could be hot.
Nowek looked into the first office. Empty. The others were the same. One was missing a window, and it was cold as a meat locker. He shut the door.
“The water leak must be upstairs,” Yuri said.
“Let’s keep looking.” Nowek went back to the stairs and started to climb. Free water trickled down the bricks. The air was wet and heavy with sulfur, like rotted eggs. It reminded Nowek of something he’d smelled up in the oil fields. A drill pipe penetrated the permafrost and struck a lens of water bubbling with the dissolved gasses of decomposing plant material. A toxic, sulfuric champagne came roaring up from the hole, sending everyone running, cloths over their mouths.
He opened it and heard the hiss of escaping steam. The flashlight beam lanced through a fog of it. The floor was sheeted with water, gray with bird droppings. There was a small sound, a shuffling of papers. He swung the light and caught a startled pigeon. The bird had found a warm place to roost. How did it get in? He pointed the light up.
A glass skylight was partly open. Not much, but enough for a bird to enter, for steam to escape. Nowek followed the pipe to where scalding-hot vapor billowed, and found the second felt boot.
“Fuck,” said Yuri.
The steam pipe was suspended from the ceiling by wire anchors. A section had ripped loose and snapped under the weight of a man. Steam blasted him squarely in the face.
The dead man wore long underwear, a dirty white shirt pulled up at the waist, plastered to his skin by steam. He dangled from the pipe by one arm, his hand shackled to it by steel wire.
Yuri said, “Leave it. Mahmet will take care of things.”
Nowek didn’t move. He let the light follow the pipe to the skylight, then back. In geology, getting the rock sequence right was key to understanding the bigger picture. From a well-chosen outcrop, vast forces, collisions, entire continents, could be deduced. Nowek put this sequence together layer by layer.
There’d been a struggle downstairs. The skinner had lost a boot. They’d tied his hands with wire, dragged him here, hooked him to a pipe, and left him to die. Somehow he’d managed to pull one hand free. He’d worked his way along the pipe to the skylight. Somehow, he’d managed to open it a crack. What for? To cry out and be heard, to be rescued? Screaming himself hoarse, his arms growing weaker, weaker, he must have known there was no time left for hope. He must have decided to try something else. Something desperate.
He’d struggled back to the middle of the span, hoping the pipe would break, that the wire around his wrist would slide off the broken end and he would fall to the floor. Maybe it would yank his arm from its socket, but he’d live.
It almost worked. The pipe pulled free and snapped. But in the wrong place. A poor connection, a bad weld. Who knew why the pipe broke where it did? Instead of dropping him to the floor, he slid forward against the final fitting. The wire wedged tight. An instant later, steam exploded in his face. He’d thrown his free hand up to protect his eyes. How long could bare flesh stand it? Long enough to cook his palm bright red. When it finally dropped, the steam struck him again.
