Seven Months Earlier - Saint Petersburg, Russia - The Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood
DR. DMITRY ZOLKIN was late...again. He furiously pedaled his painstakingly refurbished WWII-era Russian military folding bike down Nevsky Prospect, Saint Petersburg’s main avenue. He crossed the bridge over the Griboyedov Canal. The view never ceased to take his breath away. The macabrely-name Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood had been built in memory of Tsar Alexander II on the exact site of his assassination. Featuring a medieval Russian style of architecture, distinguished by brightly colored mosaics and multiple onion domes, it was a marvelous sight to behold and always brought Dmitry back to that day in 1979.
In the spring of 1979, Dmitry and his beloved English rose, Sarah Appleton, made their first trip together to Russia, then part of the Soviet Union. Born and raised in Saint Petersburg, Dmitry wished to share his love for the city that his revered Pushkin described as “the grace and wonder of the northern lands.” Located in the delta of the Neva River and spanning many islands, Saint Petersburg’s waterways and magnificent architecture completely enraptured Sarah, who felt as though she had stepped into a postcard sent from the distant past.
On May 7, 1979, Dmitry awoke at the early hour of 7:34 a.m., left a note instructing Sarah where and when she should meet him, and made his way to the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood. Earlier that winter, he had arranged for his cousin, a jewelry artisan, to craft an engagement ring for Sarah. Dmitry had spent many hours in his physics lab at Oxford drawing and tearing up designs, before deciding upon the unlikely combination of a river anchor embossed with an English rose. The river anchor represented his home and the English rose, his heart, Sarah. The previous day, he had picked up the ring from his cousin’s shop on Nevsky Prospect. The workmanship was spectacular. The river anchor wrapped delicately around the entire circumference of the ring, and the English rose was inset with a resplendent raspberry-red alexandrite stone, a precious Russian gem named after Alexander II himself.
Dmitry arrived at the church at nine o’clock, after picking up four dozen red roses from a greenhouse on the outskirts of town. In May of ’79, the Church was not yet open to the public and was still under the control of Saint Isaac’s Cathedral, a highly profitable museum. After a generous donation from Dmitry’s well-heeled uncle, Viktor Zolkin, the administrators of the church agreed to grant access to Dmitry for exactly one hour, from nine to ten a.m. on the seventh of May.
A riot of color, the interior of the Church harbored seven thousand square meters of Italian marble and more than twenty different Russian minerals, and was adorned with extravagant mosaics based on paintings by Nikolai Bruni, Mikhail Nesterov, Viktor Vasnetsov and Andrei Ryabushkin. That morning, the gilded chandeliers cast a soft glow, augmented by the morning light that streamed in through the large cathedral windows. Surely, this was Heaven on Earth.
Dmitry laid down each rose with care, creating a floral path for his beautiful Sarah to follow.
He glanced down at his antique leather-banded Poljot wristwatch. It was 9:18 a.m. On the note he left for Sarah, he had requested that she open the front door to the Cathedral at exactly 9:20 a.m. The next two minutes seemed to stretch interminably and no matter how hard Dmitry tried, he could not tame his racing heart. It felt as though a thousand wild mustangs were galloping across his very soul.
One minute passed. He watched each second tick by on the watch’s second hand as if it were a decade...56, 57, 58, 59...9:20 a.m. He looked to the door. Silence. His heart skipped a beat and an uncomfortably large lump formed in his throat. Sarah was always early to everything. She prided herself on her punctuality.
Dmitry slowly walked the entire length of his rose pathway to the door, with each step echoing his growing fears. 9:25 a.m. Had she missed the note? Were the directions incorrect? Had she gone to the wrong church? Was she dead in a car accident? Had she fallen in to the Neva River? Had she changed her mind about him? The last question reverberated loudly, spawning a thousand others. He had always thought that she was far too good for him anyway. He reached for the door handle, forcefully pulling it inward. Much to the surprise of both, Sarah flew by him, landing on the stone floor a few feet away.
“My love!” Dmitry exclaimed, overcome by both shock and joyful relief.
Sarah lay on the floor crying, writhing in pain as she grabbed her ankle, which was already bruised and badly swollen. Dmitry rushed to her side and helped her to her feet. Between sobs, she explained, “I’m so sorry, Dmitry...I fell and sprained...my ankle halfway here...and then I realized...I didn’t have any money for a taxi...and I hobbled the rest of the way.”
Dmitry had planned an elaborate proposal, but the moment had proven itself far too powerful to be governed by such scripts. He opened the handcrafted wooden ring box, which beautifully presented the ring. He dropped to one knee and blurted out, “Sarah Leigh Appleton, would you do me the honor of marrying me?”
“Yes, yes, yes!” They fell into each other’s arms, sobbing with joy.
After that day, they made a vow to return to the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood every year on their anniversary at 9:20 a.m...and this year, Dmitry was late.
He approached the iron railing that encircled the Church and locked his bike to it. He looked down at his watch: 9:28 a.m. He had just returned from a Nano conference in Moscow that morning and was eagerly anticipating his reunion with Sarah. Fortunately, after thirty-six years of marriage, she had grown to accept Dmitry’s habitual tardiness, even on their special day. He pushed through a crowd of tourists milling about at the arched doorway and entered the Church. Hundreds more sightseers crowded the interior. The Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood had re-opened to the public in 1997 as a museum of mosaics, attracting thousands of visitors a year. Sarah always waited for him at the exact spot he had proposed to her. Always. But this year, she was nowhere to be seen. That same gut-wrenching feeling he experienced thirty-six years earlier grabbed him by surprise. Had she finally come to her senses after all these years?
He lost consciousness as a razor sharp chest pain dropped him to his knees.
•••
A life steeped in academia had programmed Gordon to find safety and comfort sitting behind old desks, so that’s exactly what he did. It had been a long day with mixed results and he felt as though he needed to pedantically clarify it all. He selected a freshly sharpened pencil from his old “World’s Greatest Physics Teacher” mug, which had magically appeared in his tent earlier that day, along with the remainder of his personal effects from his Caltech office.
The mug’s bold proclamation had never rung true to him. He knew in his heart that he was far too impatient and distracted to ever truly be the world’s greatest teacher of anything. Perhaps this was where he really belonged, beholden only to himself and the U.S. Army. He smiled. No matter how hard one tries to break the mold, the apple really doesn’t fall that far from the tree.
He jotted down a few thoughts on the day:
- Conduit/Object - why has everything with a pulse, within one square mile of the trailer, been dematerialized, except for Caden? Optic nerve?
- Why a pyramid? Mathematical mysticism?
- Zolkin - not the type.
Not surprisingly, Gordon had already absorbed a healthy portion of the Zolkin reference material. There was no mistaking the man’s romantic spirit. The attack just didn’t compute, and to further complicate matters, Wilkinson had informed Gordon that the ongoing investigation into Zolkin’s whereabouts was proceeding slowly. The Russians were tight-lipped.
He knew what had to be done.
•••
Wilkinson was in the midst of his usual evening routine, two fingers of a fine malt scotch accompanied by the revolving vinyl on his Victor Victrola phonograph. Tonight, he was enjoying Krzysztof Penderecki’s Symphony No. 2, composed as recently as 1979, but steeped in the romanticism of Bruckner. He took a seat and allowed his eyes to close for a moment.
“Lieutenant General Wilkinson?” a voice inquired, from just outside the tent’s entrance.
Wilkinson’s eyes snapped to attention. He rose from his desk, smoothing the front of his uniform. “Enter.”
Captain Keith Dillon stepped inside the tent, carrying a U.S. Army issued laptop. “May I?” Captain Dillon extended the laptop toward the Wilkinson’s desk.
“Certainly,” Wilkinson responded as he cleared a space for it.
“There’s something I think you should see, sir.” He navigated to the WorldOrderUnderground.com webpage, as Wilkinson looked on over his shoulder.
“What in the Sam Hill is that?” The homepage of WorldOrderUnderground.com had fully loaded, revealing a visual cacophony of unnavigable menus, flashing banners and ads.
“It’s One World Underground dot com, sir.”
“And why do I care?”
“Because of this, sir.” Captain Dillon loaded the page with Fletcher’s photos accompanied by the anthrax cover story article. Wilkinson examined the images and gave each and every word his full attention.
“You have got to be shitting me,” Wilkinson said, slamming the lid of the laptop case down.
“No, sir. I’m not.”
“What do you know about it?”
“Well, sir, it’s a popular conspiracy website run by internet radio talk show host Bob Billings. He’s already been brought in and he’s cooperating. However, it seems that the unidentified individual who provided the content cleverly used a modified form of peer-to-peer sharing to transfer the material, making this very difficult to trace, if not impossible.”
Wilkinson felt his anger rise from the pit of his gut. “I want a full accounting of every single person who has set foot within twenty miles of this godforsaken hellhole for the past week. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Dismissed.”
Captain Dillon turned about-face, before abruptly exiting the tent.
The romantic strains of Penderecki’s Symphony No. 2 did little to pacify Wilkinson’s swelling fury. He lifted his glass from the desk and hurled it against the forgiving tent wall.
•••
Burbank, CA - Bob Hope International Airport
Fletcher Crisp deplaned on the tarmac of Bob Hope International Airport in Burbank, California, where the unseasonably warm night embraced him like an old familiar friend. After a short stroll down the length of Terminal 1, he stepped out onto the bustling sidewalk and immediately spotted the black Prius. Behind the wheel sat Los Angeles native Harper Crisp, also known as Veritas 213. Harper, twenty-four, was a recent Ph.D. graduate of MIT’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. History dictated that she should be up in Silicon Valley pulling down six figures, plus healthy stock options and bonuses. Instead, she was here in Burbank picking up her father.
Fletcher landed in the passenger’s seat and leaned in to plant a big kiss on Harper’s cheek. “You’re a sight for sore eyes, love.”
She immediately noticed his bandaged hand. “What happened?”
Growing up in a single-parent home, Harper often assumed a mothering role. She was fully aware of the lengths her father would extend himself to uncover the truth, and that was part of the reason she decided to take the assistant professorship in computer science at Caltech. She could live at home, save up some money and keep an eye on her dad.
“Laceration by pyramid.”
“Seriously, Dad.”
“Oh, I’m quite serious, love.” Fletcher withdrew the pyramid from the bag, placed it on his open palm and extended it toward her.
“What is that?” The car swerved into the oncoming lane as the mysterious object held Harper’s gaze.
“Eyes on the road,” he commanded, grabbing the steering wheel to correct their path.
“Well?”
“That, I’m afraid I don’t know. But I do happen to know this girl who works at a certain university where they will be able to find out. I wish I could remember her name...kind of cute if you can get past her footballers’ eyes and knobby knees.”
“Very funny,” Harper replied, throwing an elbow his way. In actuality, Harper was a beauty, though she tried her best to hide it with boyish haircuts, facial piercings and numerous literary and scientific tattoos. “Where did you get it?”
“Gift shop at the airport. Do you like it?” Fletcher never missed an opportunity to put a smile on his daughter’s face. She was his world.
“Ha, ha, Dad. Really.”
“I found it in the midst of putting out a forest fire on a crest just above the site of the disappearance. True story. Have no idea what it is, but I just have a gut feeling about it. Any ideas?”
She stole a quick second look. “If it doesn’t have a processor of some sort inside it, I’m afraid I won’t be of much help. There’s a guy in the physics department who’d take a look at it for us, though. I think he fancies me.”
“Shame about his poor eyesight,” Fletcher retorted, before spitting a spent sunflower seed shell out onto the passing pavement.
“And to think I actually missed you.”
•••
The pre-dawn light colored the still slumbering horizon an ominous red. Lieutenant General John Wilkinson and Gordon sat side by side in the back of the fully-outfitted black Cadillac Escalade as it sped down southbound Route 52. Wilkinson pressed a button, raising a thick soundproof privacy window that secluded them from the uniformed driver.
“Gordon, you do realize you don’t need to do this, right?” Wilkinson’s voice softened.
“Yes, John. I gave up on trying to impress generals long ago,” Gordon responded coolly. “I’ve lectured on six of the seven continents and because of that I’m welcome in Iran, China, Russia, you name it... And according to you, my status is ‘officially unofficial.’ Nobody knows I’m working with the U.S. Army, correct?”
“That’s correct, but--“
“But what? There are physics conferences going on in every country, on any given day. It’s a perfect cover. You and I both know it. And even if you did send in someone else to find Zolkin, you’re still going to need me there to ask all the right questions. It just makes sense.”
“Your father would kill me with his bare hands if anything were to happen to you.”
“Well, lucky for you he’s dead,” Gordon replied. He terminated the conversation by pressing the button that lowered the privacy glass.
For the remainder of the journey the two men stared ahead in silence, both wary of the emotion that any further discussion might bring.