The Boy Who Glowed in the Dark (The Nadia Tesla Series Book 3)

by Orest Stelmach

  “Bobby said he and this Luo were stopping for supplies.”

  “What kind of supplies?”

  “He didn’t say. But I’m guessing they have some sort of plan. I’m presuming they’re going in on foot. Not driving up to the front door.”

  “The way we are.”

  “We are?” Nadia said.

  “This is the new Russia,” Simmy said. “We’re a civilized country no matter what you Americans believe. We’re a country of businessmen. Businessmen resolve their differences by negotiating. So we’ll negotiate.”

  “Sounds optimistic to me, but I like it.”

  “You have no choice but to like it.”

  “That too. I would like your plan even more if we knew where we are going.”

  “Not to worry. This is the new Russia but some old habits die hard, you know what I mean? Where there is a bribe, there is a way.”

  Two vintage Toyota Land Cruisers idled on the tarmac. Nadia followed Simmy into a truck with one of Simmy’s men. Two others carried the six oversized duffel bags from the plane’s cargo area into the back of the second truck. Based on the strain on the men’s faces, the bags appeared heavy.

  “What’s in the luggage?” Nadia said.

  “The usual overnight stuff, you know.”

  “No. I don’t know. Enlighten me.”

  Simmy stared at his computer. Nadia glanced at it. A map popped up. A serpentine route emboldened in red began at Irkutsk and snaked its way to a large blue area. He hit a key and driving instructions appeared.

  “You know, the usual stuff,” Simmy said. “Pajamas, brandy, toothbrush. And shaving cream. Never forget the shaving cream.”

  “That looks like some heavy shaving cream.”

  Simmy rubbed the whiskers on his beard. “A man likes to be able to clean up well on a moment’s notice. When you rough it to Baikal, you never know how dirty you’re going to get.”

  “You sound like a man who knew where he was going when he packed.”

  “No. I sound like a man who was taking precautions. One of those bags has a ski jacket for you. The sleeves may be a bit long and it may be a bit loose in the waist, but it will keep you warm if we have to spend any time outdoors.”

  “But most negotiations take place indoors, don’t they?”

  Simmy smiled. “Like I said. I’m an optimist by nature. But even an optimist takes precautions. Especially in Siberia.” He checked his watch. “They have an hour and a half to two hours’ head start. But they stopped to shop, and they are approaching by foot. Probably from a considerable distance. That gives us a chance to catch up.” He patted the front seat. “Let’s go, let’s go.”

  The driver gunned the engine.

  They took off toward Lake Baikal and Listvyanka.

  CHAPTER 43

  LIGHT SPILLED FROM the castle onto the ice in the distance. Bobby guessed they were three hundred yards away. Luo had turned off his head light when the castle had come into focus, and Bobby had done the same. The ice in front of them was still black, but now that the castle was in sight they couldn’t risk detection.

  Bobby glided along the ice at a fraction of his top speed. Luo was a decent skater, but he wasn’t seventeen years old or a professional hockey prospect. Bobby could hear him inhaling through his nose and exhaling through his mouth. He could sense the older man’s lungs straining. But he persevered. There was an aura about him, a sense of determination. Much as Bobby knew he shouldn’t trust anyone, he found himself drawn to the man.

  The skating revived Bobby’s body, mind, and soul. He felt most comfortable on the ice. Always had. Perhaps this was a function of his speed. He could separate himself from any human being on ice, in a way he couldn’t at school when he was being bullied or ridiculed. Or maybe it was a function of the ice itself. It was cold, hard, and impenetrable, the way he’d needed to be in Chornobyl and Korosten. The way he’d need to be to rescue Eva.

  Fifty meters away, Bobby and Luo skated to a tree by the side of the lake. They stopped, rested, and looked. The Swallow’s Nest sprang from the top of a hill overlooking Lake Baikal. It was rectangular in shape with four levels. The highest point was a circular tower, built in the shape of a rook. The tower hung above the water on the edge of the cliff. The other three levels of the castle beyond the tower dropped to successively lower depths. Bobby guessed that the lowest floor was at ground level, but that part of the castle was too far inland to see.

  A vibration startled Bobby. Something in his pocket was moving. It vibrated again.

  It was Luo’s phone. Bobby realized he’d never given it back. He glanced at Luo. Another reason to trust him, or to be seduced into doing so.

  “Answer it,” Luo said.

  Bobby took off his gloves, removed the phone from his pocket, and glanced at the screen.

  “It’s a voice mail,” Bobby said.

  “It has to be for you. I didn’t give that number to anyone.”

  Bobby listened to the voice mail. It was from Nadia, confirming she’d received his message and informing him she was in Irkutsk. Bobby gave Luo the details.

  “She’s on her way here with her rich Russian friend,” Bobby said. “And other men. She said to wait until they get here.”

  “You can try calling her,” Luo said. “There’s cell service here for sure. We’re close to Listvyanka. And the billionaires would make sure there were towers. But we’re not waiting. Every minute counts. We can’t be sure Eva will be alive when they get here. And I don’t trust men I don’t know.”

  “But you trust me, right?”

  “I’ve spent some time with you. I know your heart.”

  Bobby tried calling Nadia. He got a signal immediately, but the call rolled to voice mail.

  “She’s on the road from Irkutsk,” Luo said. “Out of signal’s reach.”

  Bobby left a message with his current location.

  Luo pulled a pair of night binoculars from his knapsack.

  “We know the guards will be focused on land,” he said. “After all, the lake is frozen. No boat can gain access. That doesn’t mean they don’t patrol. I’m sure they patrol. But that’s not where they’ll concentrate their resources. We need to watch, wait, and see.”

  They stood in place for what seemed like an eternity. Bobby skated small circles behind Luo to keep his legs warm. Thirty-three minutes later Luo dropped the binoculars to his side.

  “Fifteen minutes,” he said. “A guard walks around and checks the lake side from the deck surrounding the tower every fifteen minutes. In twelve minutes—give or take—the guard will make his way toward the front. He takes stairs down to the third level. It’s a massive structure so once he’s on the other side of the building he’ll be out of earshot. And the wind will be whipping pretty good up on that hill. That will help us with any incidental noises we make, too.”

  “So we’ll have fifteen minutes to skate the last hundred meters, change into shoes, and scale the tower.”

  “No. We’ll have less than fifteen minutes to skate the last hundred meters, change into shoes, and disappear inside the observation tower. And that’s assuming it’s open. I can only see a bit of the third level beyond the tower. There’s a window and room behind it, but if we go down the stairs in that direction we risk being seen.”

  “At this temperature, I doubt someone left a window open.”

  “Probably not. The tower is our best bet. But if it’s locked, we’ll have no choice. We’ll have to look for glass to break. Or pray that some other door is open on a lower level. I’m less worried about entry than I am about the surveillance cameras. The first twenty feet of the cliff can be scaled, but the next thirty are a near-vertical drop, so we’ll be out of sight on the wall. But there are cameras on the observation deck beneath the tower.”

  “How can we disable them?”

  Luo told hi
m his plan. Then he let Bobby take a look through the binoculars. The ascent from the lake to the castle’s foundation was as Luo described. Steep but not vertical. Stunted trees, shrubs, and grasses covered the initial ascent. From there the climb would turn vertical, with the railing around the observation deck adding another four feet. Bobby focused the binoculars on the castle’s observation tower. He found the two cameras pointed at the deck and tried to picture himself racing past them.

  The guard appeared on schedule. He wore a suit and tie and carried a gleaming black rifle over his shoulder. His mouth was moving as though he were speaking to someone. When he shifted to the side, Bobby could see a wireless microphone wrapped around his ear. He peered over the tower and around it. Three minutes after arriving, he sauntered to the other side of the tower, down the stairs to the third level, and out of sight.

  Bobby and Luo raced to the bottom of the castle. The final fifty meters took them less than a minute.

  The lights from the castle were pointed at the lake at a forty-five-degree angle. They cast a glow twenty yards out onto the lake and provided just enough light for Bobby and Luo to be able to see what they were doing.

  They changed into their shoes and their rope-climbing gloves. They left their skates and ski gloves near Bobby’s knapsack close to the ice. They didn’t need the extra weight on their backs, and they wouldn’t need the skates until they retraced their steps with Eva. Once their shoes were secure, they climbed up the cliff to the base of the Swallow’s Nest. Bobby put the principles of hockey to work to negotiate the steep wall. On ice, he was less concerned with where the hockey puck was now, and more focused on where it would be next. On the cliff, he employed the same strategy, looking beyond his next step at all times toward his final destination at the bottom of the tower.

  Still, by the time Bobby ascended at the point where the cliff turned vertical, Luo was already pulling the climbing rope out of his knapsack. The old man had beaten him up the hill. Unlike Bobby, he didn’t need to visualize anything. He knew the optimal path through sheer instincts.

  “You’ve done this before,” Bobby said.

  “Just once or twice.”

  The climbing rope contained knots at eighteen-inch intervals for better footing and reduced slippage. It also contained a grappling hook.

  “Stand to my left,” Luo said. “Five paces away.”

  Bobby traversed the cliff to Luo’s left.

  Luo stepped two feet away from the cliff. It was the farthest he could go without losing his balance. He measured two feet of rope beyond the grapple. He swung the rope to his right side, built momentum, and heaved it high over the cement railing on the deck below the castle tower. The grapple clanged over the handrail. Luo yanked on the rope. The grapple made a scraping sound, and then silence. Luo pulled the rope taut.

  The grapple didn’t budge.

  Bobby channeled all his energies into his ears. Prayed he didn’t hear footsteps because of the noise the grapple had made. Luo stood motionless, too, looking at Bobby. Luo had told him he’d been a soldier. The certainty with which he’d measured the rope, the confidence with which he’d thrown it, the success he had in sticking it on the first try, all left Bobby wondering exactly what he’d done as a soldier. Bobby had heard of Black Berets, Russia’s most elite policemen, the special unit within the FSB. It consisted of the most highly trained operators in the country. Bobby was starting to think Eva’s father was one of those Black Berets. Who else could find a dead girl, throw a boomerang with the precision of a bullet coming out of a rifle in a marksman’s hands, and feel equally at home on land and ice?

  Luo handed Bobby the rope.

  Bobby gripped the rope above one of the knots. Placed his left foot flat against the wall, pushed his body out, and followed with his right foot. Put one hand in front of the other and stepped up. Repeated the process. By the third step he’d developed a cadence. Pull, step, pull, step.

  He raced up the remainder of the cliff. Continued up the castle wall to the top. The observation tower loomed in front of him like a giant chess piece. He grabbed the cement handrail and hoisted himself up and over. Rolled onto the cement floor. Sprinted twenty paces toward the first surveillance camera. Pulled the can of paint from his jacket pocket and sprayed the lens with orange paint. Crept along the wall to the second camera and did the same.

  An old wooden door that looked like it had been borrowed from some medieval castle led inside the tower. It beckoned to him. Eva was somewhere on the other side of that door.

  Bobby lifted the latch and pulled.

  The door opened.

  A surge of hope enveloped him. He considered going inside but reason asserted itself. He closed the door quietly. He would wait for Luo, as was the plan.

  Eva was close.

  Soon he would see her face. Soon she would be with him.

  CHAPTER 44

  LUO COULDN’T BELIEVE his eyes. Adam had scampered up the cliff as though it were even ground. In all his years training and working with the Black Berets, he’d never seen anything like it.

  As soon as Adam jumped over the castle wall, Luo took his turn. In training, he’d timed out as one of the fastest free solo climbers in his class. No harness, no safety rope. He enjoyed the exhilaration of the free solo climb. He’d also stayed in shape and prided himself on having lost no more than a step or two during the twenty-four years that followed. But after watching the kid scale the wall, Luo felt slow and old. In fact, he felt strangely human, as though the boy were a different species.

  It took him two minutes to climb the wall. Adam helped pull him over the guardrail. Luo’s biceps burned and his knees ached.

  A glint shone in Adam’s eyes. “The door’s open,” he said.

  Luo had longed to hear those words, but now that he did they filled him with dread. It was a trap, he thought. He and the boy had been blinded by optimism.

  Why wasn’t a guard stationed at the back full-time? Why hadn’t security seen Adam when he climbed the wall, no matter how quickly he moved? Why hadn’t they sent someone to investigate? Why was the door to the tower open if the owner was holding a hostage inside? At a minimum, an open door increased the risk of suicide, if nothing else.

  But it was too late to change plans now. They were committed.

  They raced to the door. Adam grasped the door handle. Luo tapped him on the shoulder. Motioned for him to wait.

  Luo lifted his left pant leg. Removed the gun from the holster and affixed the sound suppressor from his pant pocket. The boomerang was his favorite weapon, but he wasn’t an idiot. He’d bought the gun at the sporting goods store. Only idiots brought boomerangs to a gunfight.

  Luo nudged Adam aside. He opened the door with his gun raised. Glanced inside.

  A stairway led downward. A light shone through the window of a door twenty-five to thirty steps below. The stairwell was silent.

  They entered the Swallow’s Nest.

  Luo led the way. When they reached the bottom step, they ducked into opposite corners of the door well to avoid being seen. Luo raised his head slowly until his eyes could see through the window. It was the size of a book.

  A hallway awaited them on the other side. Luo glanced in each direction. His line of sight was limited by the size of the window but he didn’t see anyone.

  He glanced at Adam and put a finger to his lips. Adam nodded.

  Luo cracked the door open.

  A drumbeat sounded in the distance. They weren’t real drums. They lacked the percussive echo of the live instrument. No, it was a musical recording. Someone was listening to music in a large interior room, Luo thought, directly across from them. He recalled storming the home of a leader of the Chechen rebels on Lake Kazenoi. It didn’t have a tower like the Swallow’s Nest, but the bedrooms had remarkable views. Rich people were obsessed with views because they made their fortunes in the city. They thought
that by looking at nature they could become one with it, which was absurd.

  The bedrooms with the views were on the opposite side of the hallway, facing the lake. The living room, kitchen, and dining rooms had to be on lower levels.

  Luo pointed at Adam with his index finger, then patted his own hip. Stay close to me, he mouthed.

  Adam nodded again.

  They slipped into the hallway. Wall sconces in the shape of Siberian tigers illuminated their path. The tigers’ eyes glowed orange. The hallway appeared to form a rectangle around the perimeter of the third level.

  Luo edged toward the music. Horns had joined the drums to create an electric sound. There was a Polynesian flavor to the beat. It rose to quick peaks and then relaxed for a moment, only to intensify again. Luo glanced behind him to make sure Adam was following. The kid was hugging the wall, knife in his right hand. Luo doubted the kid had ever sunk metal through flesh. But if Eva’s life were at stake, he didn’t doubt the kid would have the gumption to do it.

  They approached the first bedroom. The strip beneath the door was dark. The lights were off. Luo grasped the door handle, turned it slowly, and burst inside.

  Rich furnishings made of wood and olive fabric filled the room. The bed looked like a glamorous tent, with four polished mahogany posts. It was perfectly made. A wall of glass faced the lake. Expensive-looking artwork filled the walls. Luo caught a glimpse of the bathroom through an open door. Everything was in place. There was no sign of disruption. No evidence of anyone living there.

  They proceeded to the second bedroom. It was similar to the first one, but the furnishings looked sleek and modern, the kind his hockey teammate from Sweden had in his room. Luo closed the door. They continued forward toward the end of the hallway where it turned right to proceed along a perpendicular wall.

  The music grew louder. They were approaching the entrance to the interior room. Based on the source of the sound, the entrance to the music room would be around the corner to the right. Luo raised his gun. Adam followed him to the end of the hallway.