13

JACK AND ESPY WERE ON DECK to watch the approach into Saint Petersburg. The cerulean sea of the Gulf of Finland was dotted with the remains of the season’s ice, but as the wind swept across the deck, Jack felt as if it were the middle of winter. Next to him, Espy shivered, and he put his arm around her and pulled her close.

Ahead of them was a recently completed lock, threading a new needle between Kotlin Island and the mainland. Beyond the lock was Neva Bay, the far end of which was their destination. From two miles offshore, all Jack could see of the land was a green strip that faded into patches of lighter green and brown in the distance. Yet as they neared the city, things began to take shape.

Saint Petersburg looked as if it were borne from the sea, as if its buildings were lifted from beneath the waves and set upon some sunken foundation. Indeed the city was beset by water, the Neva River bisecting the Russian metropolis, predestining the city to subsist on shipping and trade from its very inception.

They were still a ways out, so he couldn’t see the city in much detail, but he could discern the solid wall of buildings lining the shoreline like a medieval sea wall, the taller buildings rising beyond like spires.

Their port of call was Lomonosov, outside the city proper. It was one of the largest cargo ports in Saint Petersburg—industrial enough to allow them a decent chance of going ashore amid the chaos that was a massive international trade hub.

He felt the ship begin to turn beneath his feet and he shifted his weight to compensate. To starboard he saw the greens and browns give way to gray as the ship neared Lomonosov. He could see the constant motion along the docks: ships, people, and equipment moving in organized bedlam, like the frenzied scurry of ants.

He and Espy moved to the rail, feeling the salt spray as the ship pitched forward. Before long, Jack saw a smaller boat approaching, and he could feel the cargo ship slowing until the boat came alongside. The crew dropped a ladder down as the boat tied off, and from his spot at the rail Jack watched a man climb the ladder and come aboard. The harbor pilot headed for the bridge, and not long after, the ship surged forward. Under the harbor pilot’s guide, the 50,000-ton vessel approached a wharf, losing speed as it closed the distance. Soon the cargo ship had stopped, and crewmen above and dockworkers below busied themselves tying off the massive vessel.

The two passengers did their best to stay out of the way, remaining on deck until the captain approached them. Jack hadn’t seen the woman much during the voyage, which had made him a bit uncomfortable. It was hard to know for sure, to figure out if she was the sort who would accept a sum of cash to carry two strangers between countries, or if she would pocket the money and turn the undocumented travelers over to the port authority.

She was a small woman, yet there was a hardness to her. Jack guessed her age to be around sixty, but he also knew that years of work on the ocean could weather a person beyond her years.

“We’ll get a visit from customs in a few minutes,” she said. Her English was good, if heavily accented. Espy, who’d heard her bark orders to her crew, said she was Ukrainian. “That can take anywhere from ten minutes to a few hours, depending on what kind of mood they’re in.”

She stopped speaking and watched as two crewmembers passed by with a dolly. Once they were out of earshot, she turned back to her passengers.

“You can wait in my cabin until they’re done. After that, we’ll find a way to off-load you with the rest of the cargo.”

Her piece said, she turned and walked off, leaving Jack to wonder if the offer of her cabin was the act of a captain trying to hide something from prying eyes or a way for her to find them when she served them up on a platter. When he shared a look with Espy, her expression told him she was wondering the same thing.

He led the way belowdecks, locating the captain’s cabin from a quick tour soon after boarding. Once inside, Espy shook off her heavy jacket and collapsed into a chair. Jack did the same. But as he thought more about what was happening above deck, he found he couldn’t relax.

He’d considered flying into Saint Petersburg, but since the Priests of Osiris had been able to track them to and around England, he’d become leery about traveling in any way that could be tracked. The flip side of traveling as smuggled cargo was the uncertainty that they would reach their destination. He and Espy had argued about it, but in the end she’d come to agree with him. It was because of her initial opposition to the arrangement, though, that he wouldn’t share his current misgivings with her.

As luck would have it, they didn’t have to wait long. Perhaps ten minutes after entering the cabin, the captain opened the door.

“They’re checking us against the manifest now,” she said.

She advanced into the room and closed the door. Once it was shut, she turned to her two charges, regarding them with the kind of stare that was absent even a trace of self-consciousness. She had the eyes of a woman who’d spent a lifetime at sea, forever trying to find something out among the waves.

“One of the things you learn in a job like mine is not to ask too many questions,” the captain said. “But I think I’d feel bad if I didn’t try to convince you not to do whatever it is you’re about to do.”

Jack wasn’t sure what he was expecting the woman to say, but that wasn’t it. “What, exactly, do you think we’re going to do?”

She was shaking her head before he finished. “I don’t know. And I don’t think it really matters. What does is that I can tell by looking at the two of you that you’re not prepared to be here—not without papers. Or proper clothes.”

She said this last to Espy, and Jack looked over at his wife, expecting to see offense. Instead she gave a warm smile and began to speak, addressing the woman in near flawless Ukrainian.

The reaction Espy’s words provoked from the captain was immediate, and for the next several minutes the two women were engaged in animated conversation. Jack had no idea what they were talking about, only that their Ukrainian captain appeared engaged, once looking in Jack’s direction and laughing. He simply smiled back and allowed his wife to do her thing.

Eventually the captain glanced at her watch, and what she saw there was enough to cause her to put on her captain face again. Her last few words sounded gruffer than the previous, and then she nodded and left them alone again in her cabin.

Jack allowed the resulting silence to linger, waiting for Esperanza to fill him in, but she seemed content to wait for whatever came next.

“I assume the two of you have worked out a shopping excursion of some kind once this business is over with?” he prodded.

“Yulia is a dear,” Espy said. “She talked about all sorts of places we need to visit in Saint Petersburg.”

“Yulia?”

“I know,” Espy said. “I’m not sure she looks like a Yulia.”

Jack answered with a smirk. “So I’m guessing she’s not going to turn us in?”

Espy shrugged. “I have no idea. I think she thinks we’re spies, so there’s really no telling what she’ll do.”

“She thinks we’re spies?”

“Maybe it was the whole South American woman who just happens to speak fluent Ukrainian that did it.”

“Of course it was.”

Not long afterward, the door opened again, revealing Captain Yulia. Jack was relieved to find her standing there alone, rather than with others with drawn guns. She held two coats that looked like the ones worn by her crew—thin, gray, and waterproof. She extended the coats and waited without a word while they shrugged them on. Then she led them topside. The deck looked different, several piles of lashed cargo now gone. There was also significantly less activity, and nowhere near the number of crewmen.

Yulia led them to a set of stairs that had been rolled up to the deck. Jack looked down at the dock, not seeing a single person below. Some people in orange vests were moving around farther down the dock, none of them seeming to pay attention to the cargo ship. Yulia’s was just one of almost a dozen docked there, with one ship heading back out into the bay even as Jack watched, and what looked like two more in line to come in.

Before they descended the stairs, Yulia reached out a hand to Espy. She placed something in Espy’s hand and then took a step back. The Ukrainian captain nodded, regarding them for a short time before turning and walking back to whatever work awaited her.

When she was gone, Espy turned to Jack and opened her hand, revealing a roll of euros, about the size of the one Jack had handed over to secure their passage.

“So I’m guessing she’s not going to turn us in,” he said.

Espy gave him a disapproving look before slipping the money into her pocket and starting down the stairs. Jack smiled at her back and followed.