One of the guards challenged a man at the door to the hangar, allowing him in only after an extensive examination of the case he carried and a careful search of the man himself for weapons and explosives. Petrov looked up from the old map showing tunnels running from Lubyanka to the Kremlin and watched the man approach. He was old and walked with a limp. He carried a battered leather satchel that he placed on the table across from Petrov.
“My name is Kokol,” the old man said. “I was called by your benefactor to give you assistance.”
Petrov waited as Kokol opened the satchel and lifted out several bound documents. The covers of each were made of some strange material and the pages between were old and faded, written by hand in a fine script. Petrov stiffened when he saw the swastika stenciled on each cover along with the SS insignia. Kokol saw his reaction.
“I took these from a bunker under the Chancellery in Berlin at the end of the Great Patriotic War.” He indicated the binding material with disgust. “Human skin. From the camps. The pigs.” Kokol flipped open one of the books. “These are medical reports. The SS doctors did much testing, things that you could not do under normal circumstances. They would put naked people into vats of water and lower the temperature, making observations how the body reacted and how long the people took to die. The most extensive testing for hypothermia ever conducted.
“They did other things.” Kokol paused, his old hands resting on the pages. “Blood. That is what your master seeks.”
Petrov frowned at the man’s choice of words.
“Adrik. I knew him in the war.” Kokol waved a hand, indicating his white hair and lined face. “Look at me and look at him. He was the same during the war. He has not aged a day since. Why do you think that is?”
“It is not my business,” Petrov said.
“You work for him,” Kokol countered. “If it is not your business what nature of creature your master is, then what is your business?”
Petrov glanced around, making sure none of his men were within earshot. “What do you mean creature?”
Kokol sighed. “After all that has happened in this past year, with the aliens, one would think people’s minds would be more open.”
“Adrik is—” Petrov began, but Kokol held up a hand interrupting him.
“Adrik is not human.” Kokol said it flatly. “He may look like a man, but he is most certainly not.”
“Who — what is he then?”
Kokol tapped the document in front of him. “He is someone seeking the blood drawn by the SS during the Great Patriotic War. According to this, the SS secretly had their doctors in the camps test the blood of many select prisoners.” “Looking for?”
“A special strain. They did this at the behest of someone who was a very high-ranking member of the Nazi Party, someone in the SS. The specifications were to focus on people with red hair; those with pale skin; those in good health but at an advanced age belied by their appearance. What was collected was sent to Bavaria, to the castle there where the inner circle of the SS met at Wevelsburg.” Kokol turned some pages, uncovering a manifest. “As the war progressed, most of it was transported, along with many other artifacts collected by the SS, to Berlin, to be deposited in the large vault under the Chancellery.”
“If you got the books, who got the blood?” Petrov asked, although he had a very good idea.
“I was army intelligence, NVD. The KGB was there also. There was even a brief firefight between our two units as we fought over the Nazi corpse.” He tapped the book. “This is part of what we got. The gang from Lubyanka got the blood.” “And what did they do with it?”
Kokol nodded toward the schematics spread out over the table. “Put it in one of their holes under Moscow. And from what I understand they continued the search, bringing prisoners down there from Lubyanka and draining them of their blood. It was said you could hear the screams echoing out of the earth all the way into the Kremlin itself.”
Petrov was tired of the old man’s stories. He had a simple mission and wanted to achieve it. He didn’t care why Adrik wanted the blood, any more than he cared why Adrik wanted young girls and boys brought to him in the darkness. But something Kokol had said sparked a curious suspicion in him. “Adrik drinks their blood, doesn’t he?”
“Whose?”
“The children that are brought to him. He has them tested. We thought it was for AIDS and other diseases for sex, but it’s for the cleanliness of the blood. It is how he has lived so long.” Petrov looked at Kokol sharply. “How long has he lived?”
Kokol shrugged. “I do not know and I have no desire to ask. I heard of Adrik when I was a young puppy assigned to the NVD in the thirties. His was a name to inspire fear back then. And even the old dogs who worked there, Stalin’s pit bulls who were part of the Revolution, they had heard of him when they were young puppies. And they, men who had killed millions and laughed, they feared him.”
Petrov considered this. “Do you know where the KGB stored the blood?” Kokol closed the binder with a thud. “There was a man who ran the Alien Archives for the KGB, then the FSB. His name was Lyoncheka.” “‘Was’?”
“He was killed during the recent events.”
“Who replaced him?”
Kokol reached into a pocket and pulled out a slip of paper. “Here is his name, rank, position, and office.”
Petrov took it and read the name. “I think I will visit Comrade Pashenka.” Kokol tapped the binders. “Do you want to read these?”
“I don’t read German and I don’t care,” Petrov said. “I have a job and I will do it.”
“It’s that simple?”
Petrov smiled without humor. “Yes.” He paused. “But leave the books anyway.”
Kouros
The X–Craft was rolled out of the launch assembly building toward the launching pad. An Ariane 5 rocket waited on the pad, with a crane nearby, ready to lift the X–Craft onto the nose of the rocket. A large red digital clock placed near the pad read: 45:00:00. As the carrier holding the X–Craft exited the doors of the assembly building, the official countdown to launch began and the first second clicked off.
Tibet
Tian Dao Lin’s power base in Hong Kong had long tentacles, reaching through Beijing and thus to all areas of China. Pethang Ringmo was a small village of fewer than one hundred and the last civilization before one stepped off into the northern shadow of Everest. It was where the Ones Who Wait had launched their assault on the mountain in the attempt to gain Excalibur not long ago and it was where Tai brought Namche to begin their attempt to recover the bodies of that failed assault. They flew into the closest airfield on Tian Dao Lin’s personal jet, and then switched over to a French-made helicopter that was waiting for them — a craft especially designed and modified for high-altitude operations.
It was a frozen place in a frozen land. To the southwest the horizon was filled with mountains that in any other place would each be spectacular, but dwindled next to Everest, From the north, Everest appeared as a triangular peak, the top of which was shrouded, as usual, in clouds.
Namche stood for several moments staring at the mountain, then he said a silent prayer. His companion had not uttered a single word during their trip. Namche was used to tourists who babbled and asked uncountable questions.
“Everest,” Namche said, not sure if the man even knew which of the peaks was their goal, given they were eighty miles away and the very top was cloud-covered. “Changtse there to the right along with Lho La. To the left, Nuptse. All over 7,500 meters in altitude.”
Tai remained silent.
“I have never climbed from the north,” Namche said, getting that worry out in the open. “Always the south. The north is more difficult, more technical. The path we must take is even the more difficult of the two northern routes. Most take the West Ridge, via the Rongbuk Glacier. We will be taking the East Ridge. Very steep. Very dangerous.”
Tai broke his long silence. “How soon can we leave?”
“Dawn.
”
“And then how long?”
“To the first spot? Six hours. If the helicopter can get us as high as our employer says it can. The second — it would be very difficult to make it and back down before dark. We would most likely have to camp on the mountain and try the following morning.”
“We shall see.”
The Skeleton Coast
Nosferatu had not left the Haven in many years. He had spent the time plotting and preparing but now it was time for action. He’d pushed the others and now he had to push himself. He did not want to leave. Since the beginning, little good had come to him when he’d traveled out into the world.
He took one last trip down to the vault where Nekhbet lay. He put his hand on the front of the tube, in a place where the acid from his skin over the millennia had worn the imprint of his fingers and palm. “Soon. Very soon, my love. We will be together.” He left the crypt and went up an elevator to where a helicopter waited on the cliff top.
CHAPTER 15
Moscow
It had taken three phone calls for Petrov to get all the information he needed on Pashenka. Within an hour Petrov had managed to assemble a dossier complete with photos on the man. He was high-level FSB who made more money selling information to the Mafia than he did from the government. He’d even had dealings with some of Adrik’s organization at midlevel.
The Mafia connection meant that Petrov could most likely get the information he needed from the FSB official with a bagful of money. However, while that would be the easiest way, Petrov decided not to take that path. Everything he had learned so far had gotten his mind working and he knew he was on the trail of something more valuable than cash.
Petrov was seated in a panel van across Lubyanka Square from the FSB headquarters, waiting. According to his informants, Pashenka left work every day exactly at 1600 hours, crossed the square and went to a trendy bar next door to the Mir store. Such predictability indicated that Pashenka had long ago lost his tradecraft, something Petrov kept in mind as he watched the man exit the front doors of Lubyanka at 1602 and head across the square.
Pashenka wore an expensive suit, far beyond the means of even a high-level FSB official. The clothes, however, did little to hide the thuglike body they covered. The FSB man was built like a slab of beef, large, but softening around the edges. His face was red, indicative of heavy drinking, but the eyes were those of a man who enjoyed wielding power and inflicting pain.
“Go,” Petrov said, the mike wrapped around his throat transmitting the sound to the driver in the front of the bulletproof van. There were two other men in the rear of the van with Petrov, his most trusted subordinates, both dressed in black fatigues, with body armor covering their backs and chests. They pulled black balaclavas down over their faces as the van moved across the square on an intercept course with the FSB agent.
Petrov leaned back in a captain’s chair that was bolted to the floor, a pistol held loosely in one hand. They had done this many times and he anticipated no trouble, but it never hurt to be ready. The van slid next to Pashenka, the driver tapping the brakes lightly to slow it to about five miles an hour, slightly faster than walking pace, as the two men across from Petrov slid the side door open. One jabbed Pashenka with an upgraded cattle prod, sending an incapacitating jolt of electricity through the FSB man’s body, while the other looped a length of thick rope over Pashenka’s head, then jerked it tight as it settled just below his shoulders.
Both men hauled on the rope, lifting the flopping body off the cobblestones of the square and into the van in less than two seconds, sliding the door shut. The driver accelerated and they were moving along an alley off the square within ten seconds. Behind them a small cluster of pedestrians stared at the escaping van in shock, but by the time an alarm was raised, it was long gone.
Petrov looked down at Pashenka as one of his assistants took a syringe and injected the FSB man with a very strong muscle relaxant that guaranteed the captive would be conscious but incapable of any action stronger than breathing, talking, shaking his head, and wincing with pain for several hours.
Pashenka blinked his eyes as the effect of the electric prod wore off and he tried to focus on his immediate surroundings. By the time they pulled into the warehouse that Petrov was working out of, Pashenka was fully conscious but the drug was also fully functional and he was unable to move his limbs.
“I am a senior member of the FSB,” Pashenka sputtered. “You have made a very large mistake.”
“If you answer the questions I pose truthfully, I will let you live,” Petrov said. “One lie, no matter how small, and you will never be seen again.”
He gestured to his subordinates and they grabbed the FSB agent, dragging him to a heavy wooden chair bolted to the floor. They threw Pashenka into it and secured him with leather straps around his chest, legs, and arms.
Pashenka’s eyes shifted, moving about the warehouse, taking in the armed guards and their top-of-the-line equipment. “Who do you work for?”
Petrov shook his head. “I said I would be asking you questions, not the other way around.”
“The FSB will be looking for me. I am due at a meeting in—”
Petrov rolled a stool to a spot five feet in front of Pashenka and sat on it. “The FSB will miss you, but they have no idea where you are, and frankly, let us accept that they will not search that hard for you. Your only option if you want to live is to answer my questions.”
“What do you want to know?” “What do you know of Adrik?”
Pashenka’s red skin went pale. He began shaking his head ever so slightly, a movement Petrov mimicked. Pashenka stopped shaking his head and swallowed hard before answering. “Adrik is a very dangerous man. I have never seen him, but that is what I have heard. He runs many businesses and is also connected with organized crime.”
“I can read the newspaper and know that,” Petrov said. “I want to know what the classified FSB file on him says.”
“That file was most likely destroyed.” “Why?”
“It was at Section IV.”
Petrov had never heard of that agency and he had worked countless missions in concert with the KGB and FSB during his time in the service. “What is Section IV?”
“You mean what was Section IV,” Pashenka said. “It was the branch of KGB, then FSB, that dealt with the alien issue.”
Petrov felt a surge of excitement. He’d known this was big. “You said ‘was.’ What happened to Section IV?”
“Its headquarters were in a large underground bunker on Novata Zemlya. It was attacked and severely damaged recently by one of the alien factions during the war.”
“Why would Adrik’s file be with Section IV?”
“It was suspected he was one of the Ones Who Wait. Half-human, half-Airlia clones who worked for Artad.”
Petrov thought of the dark office in which he always met his boss. The white skin. The rumors. “You use the past tense — so he isn’t?”
“No. He’s something different.” “What?”
“An Undead.”
Petrov leaned forward. “And what is that exactly?”
“We don’t know,” Pashenka admitted. “All we know is he has been alive for a very long time thanks to access to some aspect of the alien technology or biological or chemical material of the aliens. Some say he actually is part Airlia. His file dates from the very beginning of Stalin’s secret police — and there were notes in there that predate that, from the time of the tsars. There is even one report that speculates that he was a tsar — Ivan the Terrible, no less. The fact is that no one knows how old he is or who he has been over the years.”
Petrov abruptly switched the subject. “The tunnels under Moscow. I was told you know much about them.”
Pashenka blinked. “The archives are my responsibility and they lie under the city.”
“Is there a place in the archives where blood is stored? Blood taken from the Germans at the end of the Great War.”
Pashenka hesi
tated. Petrov pulled back the hammer on his pistol, the sound echoing across the hangar. “Yes,” Pashenka said. “There is a room where blood is stored.”
“You will take me there this evening.”
Mount Everest
“I have never seen anything like this.” The words were barely audible, ripped from Namche’s mouth by the brutal wind and dashed apart over the deep gorge to their right. As soon as he finished speaking, Namche slipped the full face mask back on, leaving not a single speck of his skin exposed to the elements. He could tell Tai was laboring in the thin air. The Chinese was half-doubled over, staring down at the climbing garments frozen into the ridgeline. The fact that there was no sign of the body inside the garments had been the cause of Namche’s comment.
Namche had seen many bodies on the mountain. It was virtually impossible to bring one back down, so the over two hundred who had died in the past century trying to reach the summit all lay where they had fallen, or, at best, covered with a cairn of rocks piled on by their climbing companions. The freezing temperatures preserved the dead, but here there was no sign of whoever had worn the clothes.
Namche looked up to the southwest, toward Everest. A plume of snow blew off the peak, but it wasn’t bad, perhaps winds of twenty to thirty miles an hour. Strong anywhere but there. They’d choppered up to 17,000 feet at first light. The helicopter had labored in the thin air, but it had gotten them a good way toward this spot.
Tai stood and followed Namche’s gaze upward. “We must go to the other two.” “And if they are the same as this?”
“Then we have failed.”
Namche frowned. “I do not think you will be able to go any higher.”
Tai reached inside his jacket and pulled out the carved flask. He unscrewed the lid, pulled aside his mark, and drank deeply, draining it. Namche was shocked to see the blood around his lips as Tai pulled the flask away. Tai blinked several times and his chest heaved for a few moments, then he nodded. “I can make it to the bodies.”
Besides his conditioning, the other thing that concerned Namche was the bulky pack on Tai’s back. He didn’t know what was in it, but it was large with a six-foot-long piece of eight-inch-thick PVC pipe secure on either side, not making for easy climbing. The pipe had already become entangled in the safety line several times.
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