by Greig Beck
The holstered gun was at his back, within easy reach. They could simply come for payback for the twins. And if that was the case, he bet it’d be a single shooter from the tree line. Carter let his eyes run along the line of dark pine, spruce and birch—they were thick and at this time of the day, there were too many shadows for him to see in even a few feet.
However, Carter suspected they’d more than likely come to try and get Sara to countersign the deal they had forced Marcus into. Even though the bratva were experts at breaking the law or working around it, it was much simpler if they could operate within its framework. After all, death and bloodshed was messy and bad for business. And when it came to the mafia in any country, business always came first. At least to begin with.
He hoped they would come, as he wanted to see their faces—all of them. Get to know how they looked, talked, and moved; the best hunters, man and animal, got to know their quarry.
The ex-Special Forces soldier looked slowly over the compound—everyone was still asleep and it was quiet as a tomb. The ground was a little muddy after some rain overnight, and as he looked over the soil, he saw the tracks.
Carter frowned and craned forward—he’d been hunting many times and also been involved in tracking in Special Forces. He knew animal tracks—mammal, bird, and reptile—but these he didn’t recognize at all. They were about two feet width between the footprints, if that’s what they even were.
He saw that they entered the compound from the high tree line, meandered about, and then exited close to where they came in.
The tracks weren’t deep so whatever it was can’t have been large. Must be a fox, he thought, or something like a badger; he made a mental note to ask Yuri later on.
Carter sucked in another deep breath and bit it off. The cold stung his throat and lungs, and he had to work to stifle a cough. They all had a lot to try and accomplish today. Sara would be beginning her work in the lab, getting the facilities in shape. And he and Yuri were heading out on the lake to the chosen pen sites. It was warming now, and the ice was breaking up and showing a lot of open water. There were many weeks of work ahead, and it all had to be completed before the cold came back.
Thankfully, Marcus had left detailed notes, a project plan with critical path areas identified, as Sara called it, which was literally a blueprint for them all to follow. The guy had been a genius, and it made Carter feel both proud and angry all over again.
They’d hire a local marine biologist to assist Sara with the scientific lab work now that Marcus’ expertise was lost, but for the mundane and mechanical side of running the place, Carter and Yuri could take up most of the slack, and the kid, Nikolay, was as smart as a whip, so he’d also come under Sara’s wing.
Carter ambled down toward the water where he met Yuri at the wharf. The Russian had a large, thick Russian cigarette jammed in the side of his mouth and waved as Carter jumped down onto the deck.
“A little cold, yes?”
“A little cold, very yes,” Carter agreed.
“You know, some Russians go swimming in lake this time of year.” He grinned.
“They would be the insane ones,” Carter shot back.
Yuri pointed to the bollards and went to the small wheelhouse as Carter set to untying the ropes and casting off. With a cough and a growl, the boat pulled away.
There were several sites they had chosen. Each was about half a mile from the other sites, to ensure good geographical separation. If any one of the pens became infected by some sort of fungal or bacterial outbreak, then hopefully the other pens would be far enough away that they wouldn’t be contaminated.
Carter stood at the stern, watching as the mill vanished in the distance. He felt nervous every time he left Sara alone—she was capable and smart, and now was armed, but the local mafia had added a new complexity that she wasn’t trained to deal with.
But he was. He turned. “Yuri.”
“Mmm?” The man sucked on his cigarette one last time and flicked it over the side into the pristine waters.
“I need a little more hardware.” Carter walked toward the wheelhouse. “Something a little more… persuasive.”
Yuri chuckled. “Oh, I see.” He looked over his shoulder. “I don’t suppose that it is a good fountain pen so you can write a strong letter to Moscow bureaucrats.”
Carter chuckled. “Not this time. I need a snow uniform—extra large.”
Yuri groaned.
“And a sniper rifle. I’ll give you the specifications.” Carter waited.
Yuri slowly shook his head. “You want to start a war… here, in Russia? You’ll get yourself and maybe us all killed, Mr. Carter Stenson.”
“Marcus was the man of peace. And look what that got him,” Carter said. “My objective is to stop anything happening before it starts.” He stepped in closer to Yuri. “I truly hope nothing starts. But if it does…”
“You will finish it.” Yuri wouldn’t look at him. “I don’t like it.”
“Some people play by different rules. Brutal and bloody ones. To have any chance of winning, sometimes you need to play by the same ones,” Carter said evenly.
Yuri sighed. “Snow uniform, no problem; rifle, harder. You have specs, you say?”
“Yes,” Carter said. “Same as before, money no problem, but to be untraceable and no questions asked.”
Yuri scoffed. “You will make local black marketer very rich man. I see what I can do.” He turned, his brow creased. “Last thing, da?”
Carter smiled. “Sure, for today.”
Yuri snorted. “And last thing from me. You have no proof that bratva had anything to do with Marcus’ disappearance. For now, law on their side. Remember that.”
Carter ignored him.
In a few more hours, the sun was fully up and warming the water’s surface. Vapor seemed to rise from it, and it was glass-smooth except for the occasional block of bobbing ice, most no larger than bowling balls that thumped against the bow as Yuri cut the water.
After another half-hour, Yuri slowed as he scanned the shoreline, looking for landmarks. And then he cut the engine.
“Site number one.”
Carter nodded and lifted a red buoy with a pole and flag attached. It had hundreds of feet of rope attached to a small hook anchor and he pushed it all over the side. The anchor sank quickly, taking the rope with it, and in another few seconds, the buoy bobbed down as it struck bottom and then came back to the surface.
Carter then lifted one of the Perspex capsules that contained a small camera. It also had fins on each side that moved up and down for maneuverability, as well as a tiny propeller.
Yuri had his laptop open in the wheelhouse, punched a few keys, and sharpened the resolution. “Online and transmitting,” he said over his shoulder.
“Dropping camera… now.” Carter put it over the side, and the small propeller whizzed to life, the side fins angled to take the camera down.
Carter joined Yuri in the wheelhouse. “What are we looking for?”
“Snags,” Yuri said. “Sunken logs, old shipwrecks, monsters of the lake.” He turned and winked. “Basically, I look at the bottom surface to ensure it is fairly uniform so nets stay in place and remain anchored.”
Yuri guided the camera capsule lower. “The sturgeon are bottom feeders, so if the lake is uneven on the bottom, the nest won’t sit flat, and the fish get out.”
“Or something gets in,” Carter added.
“Correct; maybe local sturgeon that might be sick.” He guided the small camera deeper. “Now at 50 feet. This lake is a rift lake, meaning it is basically a giant tear in Siberia. It can fall away very sharply, and so we cannot place nets on a cliff edge.”
“Makes sense,” Carter replied.
At 120 feet, Yuri leveled the camera off. “Here we are.”
On the screen, there was an endless plain of brown mud. The occasional tree trunk stood upright on the bottom with hanging weed from its branches that made them look like the tattered masts from ol
d schooners permanently frozen in time.
The water at this depth was crystal clear and as long as they avoided stirring up the silt on the bottom, they’d have excellent vision.
“Looking good,” Yuri said.
They patrolled the lake depths for another 15 minutes, doing wider and wider loops, and then finally scouted the full perimeter. In an hour, they had nearly completed their task when down deep the camera suddenly became buffeted as if it was in a washing machine.
Then the silt exploded around the camera, and Carter had to dive for the tether and hang on as the small Perspex capsule tumbled and jerked in the water.
“What the hell is going on?” Carter yelled.
“I think… something… went by us.” Yuri furiously worked the controls for another few minutes before he managed to get the camera out of the agitation zone.
“Is okay now.” He shook his head. “Must have been big sturgeon.”
“Let’s confirm that,” Carter said. “Bring her back around for another look.”
Yuri nodded and turned the small camera about. He headed back into the clouds of debris. Most of the heavy particle matter was settling, but some of the finer silt remained suspended like gossamer veils in the deep water. Visibility was now down to about six feet.
“Around here,” Yuri said, making the small capsule hover for a moment. He turned it 360 degrees. “Nothing I can see.”
“Look down,” Carter said. “Point it downward, at the lake bottom.”
Yuri tilted the camera capsule.
“There… what’s that?” Carter squinted at the image on the small screen.
“I don’t know.” Yuri carefully eased the camera a little closer to the muddy bottom, trying to avoid the tiny propellers stirring up more silt.
“Strange,” Yuri whispered.
Cut into the silt, there looked as if something had been dragged over the bottom.
“Like tracks maybe?” the Russian asked.
“Could a big sturgeon do that?” Carter asked.
Yuri frowned. “Much too big and deep in mud; sturgeon glide.” He held his hand out flat and moved it in an approximation of one of the large fish.
“Follow them,” Carter said.
Yuri rotated the capsule and it traced the strange markings along the lakebed. Minutes ticked by and the strange tracks continued on. Even from the small screen, they could see the bottom was angling steeply downward the further they went.
“200 feet,” Yuri said. “Maybe we dislodged something, and it rolled. Must be that.”
“Yeah, right.” Carter scoffed and noticed that Yuri was perspiring heavily.
“You saw that water agitation. It was something moving in a way that wasn’t like a uniform rolling or sliding.” Carter straightened as the camera came to an underwater cliff.
Yuri hovered the camera at the precipice. The darkness beyond was absolute, as the tiny dot of light in a Perspex box hovered in the water.
“We are at 250 feet. The camera cannot go much lower.” He sighed.
Carter leaned forward and stared into the abyssal blackness. “How deep do you think it goes here?” Carter asked.
Yuri shrugged. “It is very deep, and in some places, the lake is over a mile deep, but I don’t think it is that here.”
The tracks or marks went over the edge and vanished.
“So, you’re sticking with something sliding or rolling along the lake bottom, is that right?” Carter half-turned.
“What else could it be?” Yuri muttered. “Nothing that big lives in the lake. Nothing that’s ever been seen.” He faced Carter. “Once after heavy rain, a huge log was washed further in. It was already waterlogged, but it retained neutral buoyancy. When I took divers down, it loomed out of the dark, hanging mid-water. Scared them, very bad. At first, my divers thought it was a whale. Or something else.”
Carter just stared at his worried expression for a moment, until something splashed on the surface a few dozen feet out from the rail of the boat and both men spun toward it. On the lake’s surface, bubbles popped and ripples were spreading outward as it returned to calm.
“I think we should go. This might not be a good site for the fish after all,” Yuri said just above a whisper.
“Why?” Carter turned to him. “Listen, big guy, I hope you’re not going to get all jumpy and superstitious on me now, are you?”
Yuri just stared at him. “Did you know there is a place on Lake Baikal that is known as the Devil’s Crater? For centuries, vessels have been disappearing there without a trace. Did you know this?”
Carter shook his head and waited as the man obviously had more to say.
Yuri went on. “Yes, is true. As recently as 2011, a boat called the Yamaha left the village of Buryatia in the Kabansk region. The conditions were calm, the crew was experienced, everything good, but it didn’t matter. Contact with the vessel was lost shortly after their departure when they say a thick fog rose up from out of the lake itself and enveloped them. When the fog finally burned off, the Yamaha was gone.”
“And?” Carter waited.
“And, all the crew had mobile phones and they were well within range of cellular services, but none of the crew could be reached. It was if they were completely outside of the network. After the fog lifted, many search-and-rescue operations were undertaken but all trace of the Yamaha had vanished.”
“The Devil’s Crater, huh?” Carter folded his arms.
“Yes, Mr. Stenson. It was as if the Yamaha was swallowed by the lake itself, and locals believe that the area occasionally produces horrific, sudden whirlpools that appear like a crater upon the water’s surface, hence the name, Devil’s Crater. It sucks in anything unfortunate enough to be caught in one of those vortexes, and be dragged all the way down to hell.”
Yuri stopped talking, and his face looked drained of color.
“O-oookay.” Carter could see the Russian was rattled and really believed the supernatural aspects of the tale. “Thank you for the story, Yuri, but I gotta tell you that every damn lake, sea, or large body of water in the world has tales of things from the deep or unexplained events. If we believed them all, we’d never leave dry land.”
Carter had enough of local scaremongering, and he knew that if the legends were really let off their leash, then every bump, splash, or moan in the night would consume everything they did.
“Mr. Stenson, superstition has nothing to do with it. All I wish to say is that the lake should be respected.” Yuri regained his composure.
“And that we will do,” Carter agreed.
“And I still think we should not use this site for a fish pen anymore.” The camera bobbed back to the surface and Yuri turned back to the wheelhouse. “You grab camera, and we go to second site.”
Carter groaned and retrieved the boat hook. He knew that science and physical evidence would provide pushback against the myths, but that these legends became ingrained superstition and part of a culture’s folklore the more they were allowed to exist.
He reached over to grab the camera box. For now, he’d play along, he thought and lifted it from the water.
Carter looked at his hands. “What’s this crap?” They were covered in slime.
“Huh?” Yuri turned, cigarette now dangling from his lip.
Carter lifted his hand to his nose and recoiled. “Jesus. Smells like shit.”
Yuri came and grabbed his wrist, and squinted at the clear mucous-like slime on his fingers. “Never seen it before.” He dragged Carter’s hand closer to his face and sniffed. He grunted and released the hand and shrugged. “Smells like something dead. Maybe some sort of algae from lake bottom.”
Carter looked around and saw an old coffee mug of Yuri’s, grabbed it, and scraped some of the mucous off the camera and into the mug. He then tied a rag over the top.
“We’ll see what Sara thinks it is.” He grabbed another rag to wipe his hands and also the camera casing. “Yech.” He tossed the rag to the corner. “Let’s get to t
he other sites and finish our work.”
CHAPTER 18
Sara frowned as she changed magnification on the microscope, enlarging the spectrum and moving the slide a little.
“Interesting.”
She sat back for a moment and folded her arms. The sample that Carter had brought her from the lake didn’t really make sense. The viscous material was made up of a form of mammalian tissue—epithelium—one of the four basic types of animal tissue, along with connective tissue, muscle, and nerve tissue.
She looked across to one of the other lab rooms separated by glass partitions. Nikolay worked on one of the sturgeon incubation tanks; though she faced him, her gaze was turned inward as her mind ran on.
The baffling thing was the tissue sample wasn’t from a single animal. The cells indicated several animal types, human being just one of them.
She knew that the epithelial layers contain no blood vessels, so they must receive nourishment via diffusion of substances from the underlying connective tissue—they basically absorbed nutrition from the base animal. So what were they doing all mashed together over a hundred feet down in a Siberian lake?
All she could think of was that after big storms, dead animal carcasses sunk to the bottom. Then the currents and lake tides moved them into eddies, crevices, and depressions where they all rotted down together, creating a biological soup.
“It’s a theory,” she mused.
At her side, her computer light blinked on, informing of a successful Internet connection.
“Hallelujah, welcome to the modern world.”
She rolled her chair across the floor. In an area of crap communications, when a link was finally established, it was not to be wasted.
She first did a quick search in her medical journals for the form of liquefied epithelium tissue and found nothing. Then she tried biology forums, and even lakebed precedents, but again there was nothing.
Has to be an aberration unique to Baikal, she thought. She sat thinking about the material for a while longer before deciding to log it, but let it go, as there were several things that she had wanted to delve into about the area while she had the opportunity.
