The Boy From Reactor 4 (15 page)

The monks disappeared inside the entrance. Nadia stopped beside the wooden door to the church and checked her watch.

It was 1:13. She was thirteen minutes late. She’d underestimated the Lavra’s sprawl. The street along the edge of the Lavra teemed with tourists, visitors, and vendors selling food and souvenirs.

At 1:26, three boys ran up to her. They barely came up to her waist, with gaunt, dirt-smeared cheeks and tousled hair. Their eyes were lively, appraising her and her purse.

Homeless children. Nadia had read about them. Abandoned or orphaned, with nowhere to go, no socialist state to take care of them. The shortest of the three stepped forward. “Are you Nadia Tesla?”

“Yes.”

He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. “A lady told us to give this to you.”

“She did?” Nadia looked around. “Where? What lady?”

The boy’s tongue flicked out of the corner of his lips, as though he were contemplating mischief. “She told us you’d give us ten hryvnia.”

Ten hryvnia was a little more than a dollar. Nadia twisted her body away from them, cracked her purse open, and pulled out two hundred hryvnia. The boy’s eyes lit up as though he’d found the biggest sucker in Kyiv. He extended the paper with his left hand and reached out for the money with his right. Nadia did the opposite. Each of them held on to both for two beats and stared at each other. The boy snatched the money and released the paper. He took off with his friends toward the river beyond the lavra.

Nadia unfolded the paper. An unsteady hand had scribbled a note:

Go into the Far Caves. Head for the Church of the Annunciation. Bear left for the Church of the Nativity. Meet me past Saint Sisoi but before Prince Feodor. Beside the body of Saint Damian.

Nadia considered the implications of Clementine’s instructions. Perhaps her uncle had buried the money in the tomb of a saint that bore his name, and Clementine was empowered to show her the exact location. Maybe hiding the money in plain sight was the best solution, especially for a man who was surrounded by scavengers and thieves. The tombs were there for any tourist to see, but they would never be moved, not after Khrushchev’s experience. How hard was it to hide $10 million in a tomb? Not too hard if the money was in bearer bonds.

Nadia started toward the entrance to the Far Caves.

“Wait,” a rawboned babushka said, beside her souvenir stand. “Don’t go in there.” She patted her head, which was wrapped in a floral scarf. “Women must cover themselves before going in the caves.”

A tour group of thirty to forty people was making its way down the fortification wall toward the same entrance. All the women wore shawls on their heads.

Nadia bought a scarf with a bright floral pattern on one side and a plain black one on the other. The babushka said the dark side would come in handy in the unfortunate event of a funeral. She wrapped it around Nadia’s head with the floral side on the exterior so that other people could see her better. Nadia also bought a cheap lighter at the babushka’s suggestion, to use with the beeswax candle she bought as a donation to the monastery. She stored both in her purse and went into the church.

The plunge down the initial stairway to the caves reminded Nadia of an entry to a medieval wine cellar. Light from the doorway faded as she descended narrow steps. Her shoulders brushed the whitewashed walls on either side.

The staircase turned right at the bottom and deposited her into a twisting, equally narrow tunnel. Candles illuminated the path from bronze sconces along the white walls. The stone tiles beneath her feet pitched downward. Looking forward, she could see that the concave ceiling resembled the top of a keyhole. It
created the illusion that she had entered a portal that was leading her to the center of the earth.

Muffled voices echoed around her. The street curved into an elongated S. The voices ahead grew louder until they were audible whispers. A sharp turn, and the street came to a fork. Nadia glanced at her crude black-and-white map. She veered left toward the voices, sniffing incense in the air. An opening in the wall revealed itself on the left.

Nadia looked in. An Asian couple stood with candles beside the body of a saint named Joseph. A maroon shroud covered his remains in an old wooden coffin. The man leaned forward and kissed the shroud atop the body.

Nadia moved on past three more cells containing bodies of the saints and found the Church of the Annunciation. Shimmering gold icons of Saint Mary and Saint Joseph hung against a turquoise wall painted with a gold cross. An African family of three admired an altar covered in green velvet, the little girl clinging to her mother’s knees.

As Nadia continued past the church, she idly scratched an itch on her brow. Her fingers left a wet spot on her forehead.

The monastery’s floor fell to a depth of 775 feet. That was one-sixth of a mile. The floor seemed to pitch downward forever. Nadia cursed herself for thinking in terms of miles while underground. It was not conducive to sanity. Another interminable S-shaped hike revealed the Church of the Nativity. More gilded iconostasis. The church was empty. Nadia checked her diagram. Another city block and she would be there.

As she marched onward, the air thinned out. Her lungs stretched for oxygen. Sconces and candles grew scarce. Light faded.

Nadia stopped, removed the beeswax candle from her purse, and lit it. Continued forward. Heard whispers up ahead.

There. A coffin.

Nadia raised her candle to the placard on the wall.

A bare skull greeted her with gleaming ivory teeth.

Nadia jumped back. Someone had placed it in a recessed opening in the wall. She took a deep breath and shone her light again to read the name on the wall.

Saint Sisoi.

She checked her diagram. Prince Feodor was the next saint listed. Only prominent saints were listed. Clementine said Saint Damian was after Sisoi and before Prince Feodor.

He was next.

The street became a straightaway. The whispers grew louder. They came from a hole in the wall up ahead. Was that Saint Damian’s crypt? Had Clementine brought her uncle with her? Was it she who was whispering to him?

Nadia heard loud, muffled voices behind her. A commotion of some kind.

She crept forward. The hole in the wall was a room. She slid to the edge of the room and peered around the corner inside.

Six figures in black cloaks stood chanting quietly in a refectory, a small room with beds carved in the walls. They were the monks she’d followed down the fortification wall to the monastery.

Nadia forged ahead. A candlestick shone in the distance. She took a deep breath and marched toward it.

A tall, angular figure bent over a coffin in the wall. He straightened and turned to Nadia.

The light of their candles became one. Nadia gazed at the person.

He was an old man with a gigantic crooked nose, dressed in green overalls. An ID hung around his neck. He held a clipboard in his hands. The word
Official
was emblazoned above
Pecherska Lavra
on the ID. He was a curator of some sort.

Nadia looked at the coffin. “Is this Saint Damian?” she whispered.

The man frowned. “Saint Damian?” He nodded at the sign on the wall. “This is the body of Prince Feodor.”

Nadia read the sign. “Where is the body of Saint Damian? Is it up ahead?”

The man’s frown deepened. “There is no Saint Damian.”

Nadia lost her breath. “There is no Saint Damian?”

“No, there isn’t. And there is no ‘up ahead.’”

The curator picked up the candle and extended his arm beyond the coffin. The tunnel ended. There was a wall dead ahead.

“Some of the caves collapsed through the years,” he said. “This is the farthest point west. This…is the end.”

Light flashed behind Nadia. Human voices. Women chattering, thinking they were whispering when everyone could hear them.

The curator sighed. “Tour group.”

Nadia remembered the group of thirty to forty people.

“We’re totally screwed,” he said. “We’re behind them now. There’s no way for anyone to pass. They have to stop and turn in line. It’s going to take hours for us to get out of here.”

By the glow of lantern flashlights, Nadia saw people round the corner.

Clementine Seelick was not waiting for her. Instead, she’d sent Nadia to the bowels of Kyiv. Now she was eight hundred feet beneath the face of the earth, trapped behind a tour group—being led by Misha Markov and Brad Specter.

CHAPTER 28

K
IRILO STOOPED AND
squinted over Misha’s shoulder as they squeezed through the tunnel. This was ridiculous. All three of them would be hunchbacks by the time they got out.

He had known it would be like this when he insisted on going along with the two Americans, but what choice did he have? The other American, Specter, had done his college dissertation on the caves and said he knew them well. The Upper Lavra connected with the Lower Lavra. A knowledgeable man knew half a dozen exits. Hell, some thought the tunnels went all the way to Moscow.

He’d be damned if the
moscal
and his man were going to get away with the clue to the money or whatever it was they were certain was so valuable before he got paid.

They approached a doorway. Misha raised his fist in the air for Kirilo and Specter to slow down. The tour group they’d passed at the Church of Nativity dawdled behind them. Kirilo could smell the perfume of the woman who’d screamed when he’d shoved her aside so they could get past her, some sort of rose-infused rat piss.

“You’re sure she’s here,” Kirilo whispered to Specter.

“I’m sure,” Specter said. “She lost two of my people and thinks she’s alone. Whoever she was trying to meet at Yaroslaviv Val used kids to deliver a note. That person must be here.”

“He’s the one we want,” Misha said.

“What will you do with the Tesla woman?” Kirilo said.

“The Varangian Caves,” Specter said. “In the eastern end of the Lower Lavra. Where the Vikings used to bury their loot in the tenth century. There are no bodies there. No one will ever find her.”

Specter turned the corner and burst through the doorway. Misha and Kirilo followed him inside the small room.

Seven monks in black cloaks stood chanting with their heads bowed. They didn’t look up, as though used to idiot tourists interrupting them. Specter shined the light around the room. Nothing. He looked at Misha, who nodded toward the door.

Kirilo backpedaled, and the other two men came out with them. This was not good. Ukrainians knew better than to mess around with the bodies of the saints or the monks who protected them. They were asking for trouble. He began to wonder if the money was worth tempting God himself.

A single candlelight illuminated a coffin in the distance. Specter shined the light farther down the tunnel. A tall, angular man shielded his eyes. Misha pulled a garrote out of his pocket. The three of them advanced quickly. They were upon him in thirty seconds.

“Who are you?” Kirilo said.

The man raised the badge around his neck while still shielding his eyes. “Lavra official.”

“Where are the others?” Misha said in Russian.

“What others?”

Kirilo measured him. “Do you think your body would fit in this tomb if I folded it in three?”

The man hesitated for a second. “One woman. Alone. She went back that way.”

“What way?” Specter said.

The man pointed over their shoulder. “This is the end of the caves. She went back in the direction you were coming from.”

Kirilo turned and shuffled back toward the refectory as quickly as the tight confines allowed him. When they got there, the tour group was five paces away. The monks were still chanting.

Misha shined the light from floor to ceiling on all the walls. There was no sign of the woman.

“Wait,” Kirilo said. “Shine the light again.”

Misha aimed the beam at the men cloaked in black.

“There were seven monks a minute ago,” Kirilo said. “Now there are only six.”

CHAPTER 29

A
BLAST OF
rose perfume hit Nadia as she came upon a woman with a permanent scowl etched on her face. Behind her, a seemingly endless line of tourists shuffled down the tunnel.