“Junie Peters,” she replied as she shook his hand, wondering why he wanted to talk with her. “The man who owned the ship was killed?”
“And in a most peculiar fashion,” the inspector told her. “He was injected with oil. But it wasn’t actually oil … which is why I am here. And pleased to speak with you.”
Junie stared at him. “It wasn’t oil?”
He shook his head gravely. “It was oil, and yet it wasn’t. Our forensics laboratory tested it, and determined that it was indeed oil, but it wasn’t aged. It was … new.”
“New?”
“As if it had just been created; as if the process had happened only days or weeks ago, instead of millions of years.”
Junie had to pull up her hood again; the wind had tugged it back. “How strange. I’ve never heard of new oil.”
“Neither has anyone else I’ve spoken with. And so I came here … I thought perhaps there might be some residue left on this site that we could analyze to see if it was the same substance. Since it evaporated so quickly, it can’t be the same oil we live on. When you were ill … .it’s my understanding that the illness came when you visited this locale.”
“Yes … when I came here alone and found that the oil was gone. I … passed out.” The vague image of the man in her hospital room swam abruptly into her memory. Perhaps … .“He told me … he apologized and said I wasn’t supposed to be around. No one was supposed to get hurt.”
The inspector didn’t seem confused with her staggering language; he didn’t seem impatient. He waited while Junie searched for what she wanted to say … what hung in the back of her mind.
“I think … I think there was a man who visited me at the hospital. Who caused me to get better. He put something in my nose that I inhaled … .like a nebulizer … .and then he left. But he said they didn’t mean to harm me, and that I would be well then.”
Al-Jubeir pulled a folded paper from his pocket. “Was this the man you saw?”
-34-
July 11, 2007
Siberia
Marina didn’t know how long she was left in her room before the door finally slid open.
She remained seated in the large chair across from the entrance. Her father walked in.
“What’s going on? Where’s Gabe?” she demanded. And then she stopped, her words dying in her throat.
A second man walked in. Her father.
Marina gripped the arms of her chair and in her shock turned to look at the first man. The bald one.
“More lies, Dad?” she snapped.
How could she have mistaken the handsome, healthy man for her father? When they stood next to each other, it was so obvious they bore only the faintest resemblance. Dad, frail and slightly hunched, with sallow skin that hugged gaunt cheekbones … thick, messy hair that needed a trim … brows just as dark as the other’s, but scraggly and wiry like spider legs.
And the other man … handsome, confident, almost youthful.
“Lies?” the man repeated.
Marina glared at him, yet an uneasy feeling settled in her stomach. This man was not the easily manipulated persona of her father. “You must be brothers. Related somehow. That’s one.”
“Viktor, you never told Marina that you had a brother? A twin?” False surprise cloaked his words.
“Twins? So you are my uncle.”
“Roman.”
“Marina … .” Her father’s voice was thready, pleading. “I warned you to stay away.”
“An email? You sent me an email!” Now Marina stood; but she kept her voice steady and calm, though it threatened to crack. “If you had told me anything over the years, it might have prepared me to find out that our family hadn’t died out, and that it’s still alive and that I have an uncle … and perhaps other relatives. Now I need to know what you tried to warn me about. What is this place and what are you involved in? And how did I get here?”
“These are your roots, my dear,” Roman told her. An easiness, and a level of pride played in his words. “You have finally come home. I only wish we’d been able to bring you here in a more pleasant manner.”
“You call kidnapping me and throwing me in the back of a truck pleasant? Breaking into my house with a gun?” Marina was much shorter than Roman, but she didn’t let him intimidate her. She faced him, hands on hips, and called him on the carpet. What did she have to lose?
“A gun?” Roman’s face showed its first authentic emotion since he walked into the room. “We don’t use guns. Violence of that nature is forbidden.”
“Why did you want me here? Why kidnap me? Or was it a way to manage my father?” As if it was going to be difficult to manage him. The man was a mere shell; standing next to his twin, Dad appeared even more frail and pathetic. She couldn’t imagine they needed her presence in order to influence him.
And she’d risked her life to come here. For him. Her skin crawled when she realized what a non-person he was. The vacancy that came and went from his eyes made her cold.
“You needed to be here because you are a Skaladeska. You are of our blood and we wanted to make sure you remained safe.”
“Safe from what?”
Roman looked at her, searched her face, steepling his fingers. “We are about to implement an operation that will capture the attention of the world, and garner its respect.”
“For what purpose? To let them know the Skalas live and breathe?”
“That and more.” He gestured to her chair. “Sit, please, my dear. There is no sense in stalking about the room when you can be comfortable. You aren’t going anywhere.”
She’d known that, of course, but hearing the words spoken so clearly was a blow. “Where’s Gabe? What have you done with him?” She sounded like a deranged heroine from a gothic movie, but she didn’t care if her words were panicked and clichéd.
“Gabe? So that is his name. He wasn’t quite as forthcoming with that information as I would have liked.” Roman smiled, his handsome face turning cold.
“You hurt him.”
“Yes, of course.”
“Am I to be tortured next, then?” she asked, standing again, pushing herself nose to nose with her uncle. Her uncle.
Roman laughed and turned to take her vacated seat. “Since you don’t wish to sit … .Of course you won’t be tortured. You are one of us. You are an important piece in this whole puzzle, so you will be nothing but honored.”
She didn’t believe him. “Where is he? If I’m to be honored, I demand that you allow me to see him.”
“Is he your lover, then?” Roman asked idly.
“No. And even if he was, it’s irrelevant. The man has done no harm—“
“I beg to differ, Marina.” Roman stood, towering over her. Anger burned in his face. “He brought you here, or you brought him here; it makes no matter. You are welcome, he is not. We do not allow outsiders unless they become part of our clan.”
“So you’re going to kill him?”
“Would it matter to you?”
“What a ridiculous question.”
“That may be so, but your relationship with him does matter. It is in my interest to know how the last member of our line is procreating or continuing it.”
Marina felt as if she’d been slapped. “What?”
Her father spoke for the first time. “Marina, it is important for us—Roman and myself—to know who will father your children and when that will happen.”
“It won’t happen. I can’t get pregnant. So you can release me—us—now and let us on our way.”
The two men stared at her, then Roman spoke, gently. “I am sorry for that, Marina. I see that it pains you.”
“I have accepted it.” She turned away, angry that her eyes had begun to fill. “Now that we’ve cleared that up, you can take me to Gabe.”
Roman sighed. “Marina, there are other issues to consider. I—“ He stopped suddenly and pulled a small device from a deep pocket. It resembled a cell phone, and Marina watched as he used his fingertips to pad through something on a small screen. Then he flipped it closed and looked up at her. “I apologize; we will have to finish this discussion at a later time. Victor, you will accompany me.”
Before Marina could react, Roman reached out his hand and smoothed it over her jaw in a sort of caress. “You will be well cared for. If you need anything, you’ve only to push that button.” He gestured to a small, oval indentation in the wall. She wouldn’t have known it to be anything more than an unusual decoration, but when she touched it, a soft whirring opened a panel in the wall displaying a computer screen.
When she looked back, the two men were gone; and she was suddenly alone with a menu-driven computer screen offering television, movies, games, food selections.
Guys and Dolls or Ms. Pac-Man?
-35-
Marina spent the better part of the next several hours exploring her room; or, rather, her suite of rooms; while she tried to come to terms with what she’d learned about the family she thought had died off decades ago.
She’d come to the uncomfortable conclusion that they were, indeed, in Siberia. Somehow that egg-shaped transport had brought her and Gabe thousands of miles in little more than three hours.
Her accommodations were as comfortable as any hotel she’d stayed in. The walls were the same white of the hallways and the other rooms she’d seen; they curved into the floor and ceiling in gentle arcs. Perhaps it was because of her caving experience, but it all reminded her of elongated tunnels and cave chambers.
There was one entrance to the rooms, and the rooms themselves consisted of a main area with a sofa that she figured out slid into a flat bed after messing with a panel of buttons, and a separate room that offered a toilet, shower, sink, and tub.
A hotel room and nothing more.
A prison.