by Darcy Fray
He brushed the rapidly accumulating snow from his overcoat and hat before stepping into the building. He climbed the stairs leading up to the cafe, where he was greeted by a hostess who took his hat and coat. She escorted him to a small secluded corner table where he took a seat. A glance around the room revealed a pleasant interior reminiscent of pre-Revolutionary Saint Petersburg: rich burgundy walls, heavy cream-colored drapery and ornate table lamps with green upholstered lampshades. He glanced at the menu, which seemed to have a thousand choices, not usually a good sign for fine dining. He erred on the side of caution and ordered cabbage soup with an Earl Grey tea, both of which arrived in a timely manner.
As Gordon sipped his tea, he casually observed an older Russian gentleman staring at him from a nearby table. He thought nothing of it, but noticed an English newspaper sitting atop an adjacent table next to the man.
“Excuse me sir, is that your paper?”
“No, please take,” the old man replied in broken English. “You American?”
Gordon leaned over and grabbed the paper, the Times of London. He hadn’t read a newspaper in over a week and was curious what might be happening in the outside world. Besides, he always felt as if every person in a restaurant was eying him with pity when he dined alone, and holding a book or newspaper seemed to diffuse their unwanted attention.
“Yes, I am American.”
“Would you like to join me...here?” the older gentleman asked, pointing to the chair next to him.
Awkward. Gordon was incapable of turning down such offers. His mind screamed “no,” but the echo of his mother’s voice in the back of his mind answered “yes” on his behalf.
“Sure,” Gordon replied, and with his teacup and soup bowl he made his way over to the gentleman’s table.
“My name is Jurek Novokov.”
“Gordon. Dr. Gordon B. Gray.” The two men shook hands as Gordon settled in opposite Jurek.
“I knew you were here to business.” Jurek’s English was broken and heavily accented.
“How’s that?” Gordon inquired, curiosity piqued.
“Young man here alone, in the middle of winter, all the way from America. No vacation time. You bring a girl here to love this city, no?” Jurek stroked his full gray beard, which seemed to further legitimize his wise insight.
Gordon laughed. “You got me. Yes, I’m here for a physics conference at the Expo.”
“Physics?” Jurek inquired with genuine surprise.
“Yes, I’m a physicist. I was a professor at Caltech University in California, but now I’m doing some research for a book on a Russian physicist.” Conversation never really flowed with Gordon, it was always too much or too little. He envied people like his mother, who always seemed to know exactly the right thing to say at the right time.
“What physicist?” Jurek inquired with a sense of urgency.
“Dr. Dmitry Zolkin.”
Jurek’s face went ghost white as his forehead dropped to the table.
“Are you okay, Mr. Novokov?” Gordon placed a concerned hand on the side of Jurek’s arm, a forced gesture learned over time. The need for other humans to touch mystified him. He would opt for a salute over a hug, any day.
Jurek picked his head up off the table and stared at Gordon in disbelief.
“I am cousin of Dmitry.”
Gordon was dumbfounded. First he had acted on a fleeting instinct to walk in the snow, which led him to an impromptu layover at the Literaturnaya Cafe, which, in turn, led him directly to Jurek. It brought to mind something Einstein had said during his close friend Michele Besso’s funeral: “Now Besso has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
Physicists with psychological or spiritual leanings had long written about synchronicity as a valid experimental concept for exploring the connection between quantum and classical physics. It was all a little new-agey for Gordon, but this experience certainly warranted giving synchronicity a second look.
Gordon soon discovered that Jurek was a jeweler. In fact, he had designed Sarah’s engagement ring for Dmitry. Jurek and the rest of the family had been through what he described as “pure hell” for the past six months...interrogations, accusations, spurious rumors and threats. He recounted that nothing had seemed out of the norm before Dmitry’s disappearance. In fact, he and Sarah were as happy as any two people could be.
Gordon steered their conversation to Dmitry’s Dusha research. Jurek seemed to know very little about it. He mentioned that the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (the FSB, formerly known as the KGB) had pressed him and other family members for details on that very subject, but no one had any knowledge of it. After another two and a half cups of tea, Gordon had completely won Jurek’s trust -- so much so that he offered to let Gordon have a look around Dmitry and Sarah’s apartment, for which he possessed a key. They planned to meet at the residence later that evening.
•••
Pasadena, CA - Caltech
The phone rang and rang and rang. How was it possible her father could be so bad at answering the phone? Harper hung on, fully knowing that eventually he would pick up. It happened on the eighth ring.
“Hello?” Fletcher answered the phone with the presupposition that the person on the other line would either be delivering bad news or trying to sell him something he didn’t need. He held the handset at a distance from his ear, which suggested he thought it might be carrying a highly contagious virus or lethal radiation leak.
“Dad.”
“Hey, darlin’, everything okay?” His tone instantly lightened upon hearing Harper’s voice.
“Yeah, yeah...I just wanted to tell you about the pyramid. I had Kumar take a look at it this morning and he ran it through the x-ray machine in the lab.”
“And?”
“And it didn’t show up. Nothing.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean it is one hundred percent radiolucent. There’s nothing on the x-ray. Nada. Zilch. Zip.”
“Did he have any idea what it might be?”
“Well, he mentioned a nano-based coating, but then when he x-rayed it, he was completely baffled. He asked to hang on to it, but I declined. Politely.”
“That’s my girl. Do you have any boyfriends in the nano department?”
“That’s funny, Dad. No, I don’t. Even if I did, I’d keep it under wraps. The advanced tech behind this thing would set off all sorts of alarms. I’m guessing there aren’t too many substances of this density that go undetected by x-ray. A terrorist’s holy grail.”
“Indeed. Let me put the word out, perhaps we have a nano expert in our midst. Good work, love.”
“Okay, Dad. Gotta go, don’t wait for dinner -- I’ll be late.”
Fletcher set the phone back down in the charger and turned to his computer.
Veritas 22.
Fletcher had little contact with him since the article about Sarah. He didn’t actually know his real name, or if he actually was a he, but he knew that Veritas 22 had an impressive breadth of scientific knowledge and access to cooperative high-level scientists. The Veritas article was one of the only investigative pieces on the unexplained disappearance of microbiologists to be published, and it had won Veritas a healthy network of silent support within the science community.
During her junior year at North Hollywood High, Harper had designed a brilliant P2P-like covert communication system called Blacknet, which greatly simplified communication among Veritas members. Only trusted Veritas contributors had access to the actual interface, yet Blacknet was still connected to a global network of Veritas “friends,” who allowed a portion of their bandwidth and hard drives to be used for encrypted data storage, making it nearly impossible to infiltrate and trace data.
The Veritas Blacknet interface was bare bones, black screen with a blinking green cursor
. Fletcher began typing:
t<
f<
m<< have a small object from dust, wv that is highly unusual, dense and 100% radiolucent. need a nano expert to examine.>>
The Blacknet syntax was easy to master, even for someone like Fletcher, who had a strong aversion to computers and sitting behind desks. It basically consisted of four characters and an opening tag (<<) and a closing tag (>>). The four characters were t, f, m, and a, which respectively signified to, from, message, and attachment.
Fletcher sat and stared at the blinking cursor, awaiting a response. Impatient, he reached for a classic style Rubik’s cube from the desk and began twisting and turning the maddening puzzle. He managed to solve the red side and decided to tackle blue. Over the course of the next ten painful minutes, he managed to complete blue, but completely destroyed the red side in the process. How does Harper solve this entire thing in under thirty seconds?
He Googled the world record for solving the cube and the result made his jaw drop: Luke Judd from Australia -- 5.26 seconds! To make matters worse, he looked like he was fourteen years old. Bloody ridiculous. Frustrated and completely disillusioned, he proceeded to disassemble the entire cube and reassemble it with all of the sides intact. There’s more than one way to skin a cat. Take that, Luke Judd.
His computer beeped. There was a message awaiting him:
t<< veritas 103>>
f<
M<
Every time he received a communique via Blacknet he felt a little more like James Bond. He had the looks, accent and charm; he was just missing the Aston Martin DB5 in the driveway...and the Bond girl.
•••
Saint Petersburg, Russia - Zolkin Residence
Gordon stood outside Dmitry and Sarah’s Imperial style apartment building, admiring its grandiose profusion of columns, windows and pilasters. Even apartments look like palaces in this city, Gordon thought, as he shuffled his legs back and forth in a vain attempt to stay warm. The saddle shoes had proven to be a bad choice. The snow continued to fall and his feet were damp and half frozen.
“Gordon, I see you are a timely man, like me. Shall we?” Gordon looked up to find Jurek motioning toward the front door of the beautifully appointed front entrance. They entered the building.
A grand marble staircase accented by a burgundy carpet runner and a gilded railing welcomed them as they passed through the front door. Above, an ornate Rococo-style chandelier swayed gently in a rogue winter draft, casting an eerie shifting pool of light.
Gordon felt something rub against the back of his legs, catching him off guard. He jumped, sending a frightened black cat scurrying past him up the stairs.
“No worry, just cat,” Jurek chuckled, clearly amused by Gordon’s skittishness.
“Black cat,” Gordon whispered to himself, suddenly feeling like the naive horror film victim who ignored all the obvious signs that he was about to meet a gruesome death.
“Up to next,” Jurek commanded.
As they ascended the staircase, a shiver ran up Gordon’s spine. It must be forty degrees in this place. Suddenly, he missed Los Angeles, his Caltech job, his warm office, swaying palm trees, sunny days and In-N-Out Burger.
Gordon followed closely behind Jurek as they weaved through the building’s immense corridors. They reached apartment 314. Jurek pulled a key from the pocket of his double-breasted wool pea coat. As he inserted the key in the lock, an elderly neighbor nosily peeked out from behind her door.
“Shoo.” Jurek curtly dismissed her as if she was a mere nettlesome mutt. She resigned with a bothered face and slammed the door. “Old bag,” Jurek muttered as he and Gordon entered.
The apartment was both pitch black and ice cold. Jurek blindly reached for the side table drawer just to the left of the entrance. He fumbled around for a moment before extracting a matchbook and a long white dinner candle. He lit the candle as he approached the large dining table that rested before them and proceeded to light the six-pillared candelabra centerpiece, which cast just enough light to make the room navigable.
Gordon’s eyes quickly adjusted to the dim glow that revealed a large and richly decorated living space with fifteen-foot ceilings, ornate crown molding and a large window with a breath-taking night view of St. Isaac’s Square and the golden-domed cathedral beyond.
“No electricity. I pay for apartment rent while Dmitry is gone, but no utilities. Dmitry will owe me too much when he returns! Follow me.” Jurek picked up the candelabra and led Gordon down the hallway.
They entered the first door on their right. Yikes. Clearly, the room had once functioned as an office, but was now in a complete state of disarray with papers, books, photos and cables scattered about on the floor. A vintage Smith Corona typewriter rested on one of the desks and a computer monitor on the other. Cables dangled from the back of the monitor, a clear indication that someone had, not so delicately, removed the PC that was once attached.
“FSB are not so good at cleaning up,” Jurek remarked.
“Looks like they got what they wanted.”
“Just about, but not quite.”
Jurek walked over to a waist-high wooden bookcase sitting beneath the window. All its books had been thrown from the shelves and lay in disarray on the floor. Jurek reached under the bottom of the right side of the case and slid the entire outer veneer up and out, revealing a hidden cavity. The workmanship was absolutely flawless, with no indication of a seam. The cavity was very narrow, but deep enough to hide one black leather journal. Jurek picked it up and handed it to Gordon.
“Here, you read. Physics. I make case for Dmitry, you like?”
“You are a true craftsman, Jurek.”
“There’s good market for items like this in Russia, where found secrets serve as death sentences. I am first a businessman and two, I am an artist.” Jurek smiled. “Read, go on.” Jurek held the candelabra over the journal and gestured for Gordon to open it. Gordon took a cursory look. From what he could decipher, it was the Dusha research...written in Russian.
“You understand book? Everyone in family look. No one understand.”
“Yes, it’s very important physics research. I will need to have it translated. Why did you risk leaving it here?”
“FSB search here twice. They never find. I hide in my home, they might find, no?”
“I see. May I take this with me?”
“Will help you find Dmitry?”
“I believe it will.”
“You keep, my friend.” Jurek grabbed Gordon’s arms and stared directly into his eyes. “Bring home Dmitry and Sarah. Please.”
“I will do my best, Jurek. Thank you for entrusting me with --”
A loud bang on the front door stopped Gordon mid-sentence. Jurek instinctively lifted his index finger to his lips, shushing Gordon. He blew out the six candles in one long exhalation, while Gordon hastily jammed the journal down the front waistband of his trousers. They froze in place.
Gordon felt as though his heart might break through his chest wall with each resounding beat. He was sure it could be heard all the way out in the hallway. Perhaps he was destined to play the naive victim after all?
They hung suspended on the cusp of discovery. A second loud bang caught Gordon by surprise. He stepped back, tripped over a cable on the floor, barely catching himself by grabbing the typewriter, which tottered perilously over the edge of the desk. Jurek reflexively dropped the candelabra, took hold of Gordon and steadied the typewriter in one seamless motion. Surely, Gordon had given them away. They awaited a response.
A woman shouted something in Russian. A wave of anxiety washed over Gordon. He looked to Jurek for his next cue. Jurek smiled, took a deep breath and put his hand to his heart.
“Breathe, my friend. It is a drunk husband stumbling in the hallway and an angry wife. In Russia,
we call that happily married.”
Gordon laughed out loud. He was certain he had never felt such relief in his life.
“We leave while our luck is still good, yes?”
Gordon nodded in agreement, and the two men departed in silence.
CHAPTER TEN
The Past Returns
Seven Months Earlier - Undisclosed Location
DMITRY RUBBED HIS bleary eyes as he awoke in the shadowy room. Everything was a blur. He held his shapeless hand in front of his face and watched it sharpen as his focus slowly returned. His nails were filthy. He picked at them as he surveyed his surroundings from atop a squalid paper-thin mattress on a rusty steel-spring cot.
At 20’ by 20’, the cheerless room was palatial compared to his previous holding cell. A small barred window let in just enough light to fight back the shadows. The colorless cement floor and walls echoed the chill that penetrated his tired bones. A squat toilet was provided in the corner opposite him, next to a reinforced door which allowed the sole means of entrance and exit for the cell. A small drain rested in the center of the floor, above which a heavy chain hung down from the ceiling. Though he longed for water, he prayed he had seen the last of the fire hose.
He assessed his physical condition. His mouth was so dry that his gluey tongue felt like an unwelcome foreign object in his mouth. He attempted to sit upright, but his emaciated musculature wasn’t equal to the task. He glanced down at his weakened body. Soiled, torn clothing hung from his skeletal frame.
A paralyzing thirst and hunger crippled him, driving his thoughts to the edge of madness. If given the ultimatum, he would willingly opt to kill a man for a glass of water or morsel of food. This primal sense of self-preservation pushed any consideration of Sarah’s whereabouts and well-being far from his mind.
“Help.” What felt like a roar to him left his lips as a mere whisper. Dmitry made a second attempt to push himself upright. He made it halfway before losing his grip on the side of the cot and he came crashing down on the unforgiving floor. The cement was ice cold on his back and stole his breath from him. Dmitry waved his arms back and forth trying to draw the attention of whomever might be observing him.
