“I’m going to try and contact a nearby airport and see if we can land there. We can get something to eat and clean up and maybe rest.”

“I’ll let Bergstrom know where we are so we can get these guys into custody.”

“Yes. But I want to get some info from them if we can, because I think we ought to finish the flight and go to wherever they were taking us. It’s the only way to find out what’s going on.”

“What about your career?” Admittedly, he had to work to keep the sarcasm from his voice. Hard.

-26-

July 10, 2007

Siberia

Victor Alexander never expected that he would step foot in the world of the Skaladeskas again.

But Roman had called him home. Insisted that he rejoin the family. The ideal time was at hand, he’d said. The ideal time.

An event that Victor had not expected to occur during his lifetime.

And since he’d arrived, he’d been treated like an honored prisoner. Not a guest. Not the welcomed prodigal son of the Bible’s New Testament. But as a hostage. A prisoner of sorts.

Yet, his conscience told him, deep in the recesses of his mind, do you deserve anything different? If his father knew the truth, he’d as likely order him banished into the wilds of the rough mountains to meet his fate at the paws of the wolves and mountain lions, or have him executed.

It was only by Roman’s grace that Victor remained alive. Roman had had use for him over the years; the decades. But Victor greatly feared that his summons home portended the end of his usefulness. The thought nauseated him.

It had been the method of his travel that gave the first indication that all was not as simple as it appeared; when he was ushered from what had been a neutral meeting place into a waiting car.

It wasn’t that the rooms (there were three of them in his suite) were uncomfortable or lacking in anything … no, Roman would not go so far as to keep his prisoner in physical discomfort. His style of manipulation was much more subtle. And there was always the chance that Lev might learn of his presence; perhaps be willing, at his late age, to listen to Victor’s story. Perhaps he would forgive him.

No. He would never forgive him. Lev had loved Irina almost more than Gaia herself. Perhaps more.

Victor swallowed the bile that burned his throat. He would not think of it.

He forced himself to look around the room again, as if there might be something he’d missed noticing over the last fifteen days.

There was plenty of space, plenty of entertainment options including a slew of Broadway musical DVDs, food, even women sent to him for massages or anything else he might wish. It was the women and the DVD selection that had Roman’s fingerprints all over them.

Amazing how Roman disdained the Out-World, yet embraced certain aspects of its culture. Just one of the amazing inconsistencies in his younger brother that others failed to see.

He’d been in his suite of rooms for nearly two weeks and hadn’t heard from Roman at all.

The only people Victor had seen was a maid, who came to clean every other day, and the women who brought in food twice daily and offered massages and more.

One thing that was lacking in his accommodations was a replacement for the bottle of Stolichnya he’d found and finished off by the second night. The bottle had been replenished four times since, but not since he finished that fifth one more than three days ago. The trembling of his fingers told him that his body missed it as much as his psyche did.

What bothered him most was that he wasn’t exactly sure where he was. Was Roman even here? Could Victor possibly be in Siberia?

He’d left his home in the northernmost part of Michigan via the small submarine late in the evening. He’d traveled under the lake to the Canadian shore, and three hours after leaving home, he beached in a thick forest along the Canadian side. The spot was a rendezvous site where someone was to escort him back to Siberia and the Skaladeskas. Having been gone for more than thirty years, and well aware of Roman’s penchant for technology and secrecy, Victor knew he would never find the place himself.

No one could, unless they were Skaladeska. Roman had made certain of that. Even with their fancy radar and the satellite scopes, the Out-World couldn’t locate them.

His wariness had not been ill-founded; once he met Bran and his companion, they pulled guns and urged him into a car. The fact that they carried firearms shocked Victor; for that couldn’t be on Roman’s order. Unless he’d somehow overcome his deep-seated fear of guns; or unless he permitted his men to use them outside of the Skaladeska world.

They drove for well over an hour, then they flew in a small plane for another four or five hours and landed in a remote area of northern Canada. Surely they were well into the Arctic Circle, but he couldn’t be certain.

Victor had been taken deep into a cave and escorted onto a small, egg-like vehicle that fit perfectly in a cylindrical tunnel that ran underground.

He’d fallen asleep and awakened several hours later to be escorted once again out of the train and into these scalding white rooms that had been his home and prison for the last fifteen days.

Surely he wasn’t in Siberia.

* * *

“They’ve what?” Roman did not succeed in keeping the shock from his voice.

“We believe the plane might have landed … crashed, perhaps, or made an emergency landing. We’re not able to raise them through normal communications.” Shyna looked at him as if waiting for the ax to fall.

And well it should, but not on her.

“Is it possible … no, I’ll not even consider that. Give it another five hours, and if we haven’t been able to raise them on satellite radio, I authorize you to send someone up there to investigate.”

“Of course.” She gave a formal nod and turned, hurrying out of the room as if to escape before he changed his mind and lowered that ax.

Roman’s control was leaking.

First, the oil spill from the Crimson Shell and the necessary steps that had required.

And somehow papers with the sacred symbol had been released at the test site. Next the reports from Stateside that one of the boxes and drills was missing. Lev wasn’t aware of that fault yet, and Roman prayed to Gaia that he wouldn’t learn of it. He couldn’t afford for him to find out.

And now … .Bran and George, missing somewhere in Canada with Marina Alexander and a man named MacNeil.

The only thing that could make the situation more dangerous would be news of Fridkov being identified or apprehended. If that happened … no, no. Fridkov was too good.

Nearly as good as Roman himself.

But now Roman could put it off no longer.

-27-

July 10, 2007

Langley, Virginia

Helen Darrow’s heels clicked like a countdown as she approached Colin’s office. He could hear her drumming down the hallway, in time for the urgent meeting she’d called only thirty minutes earlier. She’d been en route in a helo, insisting that he clear his calendar for an update on the earthquake investigation. He’d had no qualms about obliging.

“Come on in,” he said unnecessarily, rising as she opened the door ahead of his assistant. Carol Mueller, his iron-haired and iron-fisted admin, probably wouldn’t like being left in the dust.

But Helen Darrow, it appeared, cared little for niceties. A fact which was neatly confirmed by her first words.

“I need to know what your team’s got, Colin,” Darrow announced as she hurried in past him in a gust of some kind of perfume, towing a box on a luggage cart. She slid the strap from her briefcase from her shoulder and let it gently thud to the floor. Her heels clicked purposefully, annoying at this close range, as she walked back to the door and closed it. “We’ve got evidence that the Skaladeskas caused those earthquakes, and I need to figure out how to nail them. You’re the only person who knows anything about these people, so I hope you have some updates for me.”

Colin could have been offended or irked by her presumptive attitude; but sharp women didn’t threaten him. He knew his job and did it well.

Even when he went out on a limb like he had with this one. Thank God that limb had begun to sprout some leaves.

“So far our best connection is between the Skalas and a murder suspect in Riyadh. And as soon as I reach Marina Alexander, who is with my officer investigating the Skaladeskas, I’ll see if she can identify the composite of the murder suspect. That might be a connection, as we know her home was broken into by a man who left a card identifying himself as a Skaladeska.”

“When did you learn this? What kind of murder?”

“Only hours ago. In Riyadh, a Saudi oil baron was found murdered. He’d been injected with a kind of oil.” Colin explained about Hamid al-Jubeir’s phone call and the murder of Israt Medivir.

“Injected? Barbara Melton was injected with her own chemicals—she was the CEO of AvaChem. Same M.O. There’s a connection with the symbol?”

“They were both injected with a poison of sorts.” This was it. The connection they needed. Things were starting to look up.

“The Skaladeskas … based on what your initial report said, thank you by the way, they’re earth worshippers,” Helen said slowly, putting into words the same thoughts that had gelled in his mind. Her heels clacked again as she stalked over to the box on the table. “Oil and chemicals … injected. AvaChem was known for its environmental violations … Chemicals … there’s a connection … the Skaladeskas would see those chemicals as a poison to their beloved earth. They killed their victims in the same manner in which they believe we’re killing Gaia. And they’re creating natural events for large-scale destruction. Earthquakes.”

They stared at each other, each mind nipping along to assimilate this possibility.

And who could say, Bergstrom considered, that the Skaladeskas were completely out of line in their beliefs? That the earth wasn’t being destroyed, little by little, day after day, policy after policy?

Global warming. Waste and usage of natural resources. The pollution of the ground, water, and air. Deforestation.