The Serpent's Curse (18 page)

Greywolf, Republic of Karelia, Northwest Russia

W
hen her silver Range Rover stopped three hundred kilometers northeast of Saint Petersburg, Galina Krause's stomach twisted like a cloth being wrung out.

In one sense, Greywolf, the secret sixteenth-century fortress of Duke Vasily III, seemed like any private lair built outside any city the size of Saint Petersburg: a summertime resort used by those in favor with the current political regime.

Except that in 1515, there
was
no Saint Petersburg, and Greywolf was hundreds of miles from any shadow of civilized life. It was constructed in a time of blood law, betrayal, and murder, the menacing fortress of a powerful and quite paranoid ruler.

Vasily III had built the blocklike main structure using an army of slave labor—who he'd then had slain because they knew far too much. Greywolf—or
Seriyvolk
—was, in fact, where Vasily and Albrecht had cemented their mysterious and violent alliance. The building was born, existed, and aged nearly two centuries before Saint Petersburg existed. By that time, Greywolf was already buried deep in the wolf-ridden wastelands, far from the prying eyes of any human being, let alone an intrigue-besotted royal court.

To Galina Krause, Greywolf represented the deepest circle of torment she had ever endured in her young life.

“Open the doors,” she said.

Ebner tore himself from his heated seat in the Range Rover, slogged past the burned-out husk of the east wing, whose beams had been blackened four years earlier by a violent inferno, and trod up the wide stairs to unlock and unbolt the heavy front doors.

Glancing up at the fortified tower that protruded from the castle's heart like the hilt of a dagger, Galina ascended the steps behind him. He shifted aside. She entered, intent on ignoring the shadow passing over her, although—inauspiciously—the Madrid coffin followed her in.

Two faceless men from the Red Brotherhood rolled the box through room after spacious room and into a windowless chamber in the center of the ground floor. From there they moved into an elevator installed in Stalin's time. A half minute later, they reached the summit of the tower, and the box was wheeled out. The room was a broad, circular, and high-ceilinged laboratory with a gallery running around the upper level. Save for a very large object in wraps, the room was bare.

“Galina,” Ebner began, “there is still time to rethink—”

“We have different concepts of time, Ebner. Remove the cover.”

He sighed and walked to the center of the room. He tugged at the heavy black cloth. It fell away from a construction of gears and rods and barrels that vaguely resembled an alien weapon.

Kronos I.

Despite the airy promises of the Copernicus Room, or the chance of overtaking the Kaplans in their freakishly successful run for the relics, to Galina it was Kronos I that held out the most hope.

“Miss Krause . . .” Ebner cleared his throat. “This prototype was a failure. Built before I could conduct the necessary and exhaustive tests. Built, Galina, you must recall, in the horrifying days of your recovery four years ago. The poor creatures we sent God-knows-where never had a chance of survival. Kronos One was born of impatience, constructed years before I could assemble the data needed to—”

“You built it.”

He paused. “I did. I did build it. I built Kronos to your specifications. And the concept was brilliant. To mimic the Copernicus astrolabe in such a manner, with such inconceivable detail, was a lofty goal. But after four years of improvements, even Kronos Three, our most effective model, is fatally flawed. Our goal of a faultless time journey has proved unattainable. Heaven knows how you ever conceived of something so devilishly . . . magnificent, particularly in your weakened state. But your—our—ideas were frighteningly incomplete.”

“Helmut Bern will complete them.”

“Galina, please—”

She raised her hand with such suddenness it must have taken his breath away. He coughed and stifled himself.

She approached the ten-foot spoked wheel of platinum. The barrel protruding from its center was winged with a series of angled flanges, large at the body of the gun and narrowing to a point at the tip. There was no helical coil of superconducting fiber, which they had implemented on later models, and little finesse to the targeting mechanism.

On the other hand, no machine, not even Kronos III, had ever attempted to send a living thing back half a millennium. Their only real success, the botched Somosierra test, had been a mere two hundred years. Kronos I, unlike any subsequent version of the machine, contained a seat of sorts, a kind of cage, which held the passenger, though the controls were set wisely out of reach.

“Kronos One was both crude and audacious,” Galina said softly, running her fingers along the machine's razor-sharp angles. “And therein lies its beauty, Ebner. Open the coffin.”

With an even sadder breath, Ebner undid the four latches around the perimeter of the death box. His face grimacing like a weightlifter's, he lifted the upper half of the lid to reveal the blindfolded, unmoving body of Sara Kaplan.

Her unkempt brown hair had twisted across her face during the flight from Madrid. Her clothes, a summer-weight linen camping suit, were wrinkled, stained, sunken. Her face was pale white but bore a surprising rosy tinge in its cheeks.

Galina turned to the two silent men. “Move her into the cage.”

The two men undid the restraints and removed Sara from the coffin. They carried her dead weight to Kronos I and inserted her in the cage's reclining seat. They closed the cage door and chained and bolted it shut.

“Leave us,” Galina said to the men. They bowed wordlessly and left.

She untied the woman's blindfold, then removed a small black case from her belt. From it she withdrew a syringe and a bottle of clear liquid. She tapped the syringe's glass barrel. Pressing her thumb on the plunger, she watched the needle release a tiny bubble of air, then a narrow fountain of the liquid.

How often Galina had seen the same thing done by doctors over the last four years. First here in Greywolf, then in Argentina, then in Sydney, Oslo, Myanmar, and most recently Budapest. A seemingly endless series of injections, endured for but one end.

She sank the needle into the woman's arm.

I know exactly how this feels, my dear. The cold pinch. The pressure on the skin. The heat in your arm as the chemical swims into your bloodstream.

The body in the cage jerked violently, ripping its worn camping suit. Her legs stiffened against the iron bars, her head convulsed, the jaws ground each other, her eyes shuddered open, and she screamed, her first words for days.

“You insane crazy
freak
—”

Sara Kaplan screamed and screamed, then coughed and gagged until her lungs gave out and her head fell back.

“Perhaps I am such a thing,” Galina said, stroking the scar on her neck. “On the other hand, you are, thus far, unhurt. You will remain alive as long as you help us locate some stolen property.”

“In your dreams, witch—”

“You will help us,” Galina repeated in a dry, unemotional tone. “Or not only you, but Roald Kaplan and your two sons will die. Then we shall simply close this house and walk away. No one will think to look for you here. No one comes to Greywolf.”

“Except maniacs like you,” Sara gasped, looking around at the cage and the machine. “Did you invent this nightmare? Is this, like, the inside of your sick head?”

“You, my dear, are ransom,” Galina said, suddenly smiling. “And your future is controlled by this nightmare. Think of Darrell and of Wade. Think of your husband. Soon, your family will discover that you can be saved in only one way. By giving me the Copernicus relics.”

“I have no idea what you're talking about.”

“If they do not give them to me, well . . .”

Sara started yelling at the top of her lungs.

“Shall I?” Ebner asked.

With a nod from her, Ebner roughly gagged Sara with a cloth soaked with sedatives. He strapped the gag to her face with a band stretching around her head and retied her blindfold. He retested the cage's locks and bolts and stepped away.

Helmut Bern entered the chamber, dusting snow from the shoulders of his Prada overcoat and gawking like an idiot. “What
is
this place? It looks like the set of a Frankenstein movie. . . .” He trailed off when he saw the machine. Puzzled, he looked to Ebner, then to Galina, then back at the machine. “There's a woman in that thing.”

“Which is no concern of yours,” Galina said impassively. “Bern, I want you to reprogram Kronos with what you discovered in Madrid. You will also incorporate at the moment of transport a particle injection into its passenger.”

“A
particle
injection?” Bern said. “What sort of particle?”

“A radioisotope,” she said. “For tracking purposes.”

“But that will poison the passen . . .
her
. It will poison
her
.”

“Once more, this does not concern you. Finally, I wish you to decrypt the Magister's Cádiz code and enter its coordinates into the computer. You have until”—she glanced at her phone—“the end of the day on Sunday. Let us say midnight.”

“Midnight on Sunday?” Bern said. “That's barely two days!”

Galina leaned over to a clockwork mechanism that was mounted outside the cage near the spoked wheel. She touched a number of minute levers sequentially, and the sound of clicking began. “The timer is set at fifty-six hours, eleven minutes, twenty-two seconds . . . twenty-one . . . twenty. . . . No delay, Bern.”

“But, how can I work with such a deadline?” he said, his voice gaining pitch with each word. “Miss Krause, please. I will certainly labor as hard as I can, but by midnight Sunday? What the devil will happen then?”

“Kronos will do what it was meant to do.”

“With unfinished programming?” Bern's voice was at toddler pitch now. “What if I need ten minutes more? Three seconds more?”

“I have an appointment in Istanbul Monday morning that cannot be missed. No delay, Bern. Please do not make me say this a third time.” Galina turned away from the incredulous expression on his face, her lips warming into a smile as Bartolo Cassa entered the chamber, pushing in a second coffin.

“Ah, the Italian shipment,” she said.

“Leave it against the wall,” Ebner said sharply. “Is there anything else?”

“A message from the Copernicus Room,” Cassa said. “They have just traced the Prague courier's contact in Italy, the agent who was to pass a message to Boris Rubashov tomorrow night, and where.” He handed Galina his phone.

On it was a single image.

She felt a shiver run up her spine to the base of her skull. “Is this all? No other word?”

“None.”

Ebner stole a look at the image, then lifted his eyes to her. “I shall join you—”

“We shall both,” Cassa said.

“No. See that Bern does not leave the machine. I will return by Sunday at dawn.” She breathed in the frigid air of the tower, then moved to the elevator, managing only in the final seconds to shake off her sense of imminent doom.

“Der Hölle Rache,”
she sang,
“kocht in meinem Herzen!”

Sergiev Posad

W
ade felt his guard go up the instant a tall bearded man in a stiff black hat and long robe strode over the monastery's cobblestone court toward them. The Teutonic Knights began as a religious order. He knew enough of their history, and Boris's story, to be cautious.

“Ah, English,” the young man said with very little accent. “I can tell by your clothing. Welcome.”

“American,” Roald said pleasantly. “But you're right. We just arrived from London, where we bought these winter coats.”

“So, I am a detective,” the man said with a bright laugh. “I am Brother Semyon. You wish a tour of Trinity Saint Sergius monastery? The last of today's English-language tours will begin in approximately fifteen minutes. I will deliver it myself.” He spoke English easily and well. He handed them a map, which Darrell took.

“Perfect. And are the old fifteenth- and sixteenth-century monks' cells on the tour?” Wade asked, trying to sound as casual as his father.

“We read online that you still have some of the old monks' cells here,” Lily added. “We'd love to see them if we could.”

The young monk's smile began to fade. He looked them over, studying their faces methodically, lingering on Wade's the longest, as if his brain were doing a quick calculation. “Unfortunately not . . . ,” he said.

A man in civilian clothes strode across the cobblestones toward them. The young monk turned. “One moment, please,” he said softly to Roald. He went directly to the approaching man and stopped him with a raised hand. They spoke quietly to each other while the second man glanced over the monk's shoulder at them.