16

THE SKY OVER SAINT PETERSBURG was a slate gray the next morning, a leaden overlay that met a city of similar color at a point in the distance. Old weather-beaten buildings rose up on each side of the street, everything gray, even the snow that formed a dingy blanket over streets and buildings.

Jack and Espy followed a broken, uneven sidewalk as they walked back to the hotel from the tiny café where they’d found breakfast, their collective mood standing in stark contrast to their somber surroundings. Despite the number of times it had happened over the years, Jack was always surprised when he succeeded in discovering something hidden from the rest of the world for an untold number of years. It left him with a sense of exhilaration, a rekindled fire that more than balanced the struggles he’d faced along the way. There always came a time when there were additional hurdles to cross, plans to make, but for a little while he could enjoy the feeling of having done something near impossible.

He and Espy had said little since leaving the café. Suddenly Jack realized how tired he was. He looked over at Espy and saw the same weariness on her face. Like him, she desperately missed the boys.

They traversed another block before Jack first recognized that something was wrong. As he and Espy walked down the street, joining the streams of people that gave the city life, he began to grow uneasy. He couldn’t explain why exactly, but he felt an urge to look over his shoulder. He had the feeling they were being watched.

“What’s wrong?” Espy asked.

Jack forced a smile. “Nothing. I’m just a little anxious, that’s all.”

Around them, the people they passed gave every indication of being oblivious to what he was sensing. They were walking a street lined with small storefronts, eateries, clothing stores, coffee shops, and bookstores—all packed tightly together. It was the sort of area where a pair of foreigners could lose themselves.

Jack put a hand on the small of Espy’s back and smiled. “Let’s go into one of the stores up ahead,” he said. “Just as casual as we can.”

“Okay,” Espy said, looking a bit worried.

Jack searched for the right place, something with a narrow door, a dark interior. Then he spotted it, a bookstore, just ahead. They slipped inside the small shop, which was so crammed with used books that the two of them could barely walk side by side. So Jack and Espy switched to single file and moved toward the back, where they found a more open area.

There was no proprietor in sight. Jack used the opportunity to pause and take stock of their situation. He looked back up the main aisle, past the stacks of old, musty books. Through the dirt-glazed window facing the street, he saw people passing in both directions. He didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

“What’s going on?” Espy asked, her eyes also on the window.

“I’m not sure.” Just when he was starting to wonder if he was losing his mind, a man in a dark coat walked by, and there was something about the way he glanced into the store as he passed that sent a shiver up Jack’s spine. Then the man was gone, continuing down the sidewalk, out of Jack’s line of sight. Jack’s hand moved to the gun behind his back, but he didn’t pull it out.

“We’re being followed,” he said.

“Are you certain?” Espy asked.

Jack nodded and looked around the store, now wondering if entering it had been a wise move after all. In such a small establishment, hardly fifteen feet from wall to wall, there were few places to hide. He looked toward the back. Several more stacks of books occupied the space between where they stood and a doorway that led into a back room.

“Let’s go,” he said. “Follow me.”

He started for the back, negotiating his way around bookcases and customers browsing in the tight space. When he reached the doorway, he peeked into the back and found a storage room—more books stretched floor to ceiling, the arrangement even more haphazard than the layout on the sales floor. But what he didn’t see was the proprietor, which was starting to puzzle him. He began to wonder if whoever ran the place was not around but had stepped out for some reason.

At the other end of the back room was a metal door, probably leading to the outside. Espy moved first, reaching the door and giving it a push. Jack followed, and soon they were outside, the chill breeze feeling welcome after the mustiness of the bookstore. They were standing in an alley between multistory buildings. There was a smell like rotten food.

Jack and Espy hurried down the alley. Before they reached the end of it, Jack spotted a cut-through that led to a street parallel to the one they’d been walking on prior to ducking into the bookstore. He got Espy’s attention and took the cut-through, emerging onto a street that looked like a twin of the other.

Jack started off in the opposite of their original direction. After traveling a block, he no longer had the impression they were being followed and so he slowed, not wanting to draw attention to themselves.

“Do you think it’s McKeller?” Espy asked.

Jack considered the question. He was inclined to think their tail was courtesy of the organization whose secrets Jack was unearthing. They had already displayed a propensity for finding Jack and Espy, no matter how carefully they tried to cover their tracks. But McKeller had also demonstrated an ability to have people in place. The man had proven his resourcefulness, and Jack didn’t doubt his motivation. But what swayed Jack, what made him lean toward his older enemy, was the evidence that pointed to a substantial presence here in Saint Petersburg.

“I don’t think so,” he said.

Espy was quiet for a time. Jack knew what she was thinking, because he suspected he was in the same place. The fact that the Priests of Osiris had a man on them had to mean they already knew what Jack and Espy had discovered. The moment Jack and Espy opened the door in Trubetskoy seven, they’d probably signed their death warrants. Up to that point, everything Jack knew about the organization was conjecture and hearsay. Now, having seen for himself the underground cavern, he had proof not so easily rebutted.

As he considered the gravity of their situation, Jack wondered how much the current leadership of the Priests of Osiris knew about their own history. Nothing in the cavern had given Jack the impression it had seen use in a very long time. The fact that the book was there seemed to imply the place had been abandoned. Jack wondered if, in discovering the book, he and Espy had found something lost even to its original owners.

“When we decided to come for the bones, we knew we’d be putting ourselves in danger,” Jack said. He caught Espy’s eye and smiled. “So I guess we’re right on schedule.”

Espy shook her head. “What’s the point of finding the bones for the sake of the boys if we end up dead and they become orphans?”

“Well, a lot of people have wanted me dead over the years, and I’m still here. So they’ll have to get in line.”

Even as he said it, he could see that he wasn’t helping matters. Instead of saying anything else, he simply stopped walking so he could regain his bearings.

The hotel was back in the other direction, though Jack wasn’t certain they could go back there. If the Priests of Osiris had someone following them, it was likely they knew where Jack and Espy were staying. The problem was, most of their belongings were at the hotel. What little money they had, Jack had on him, as well as their passports and one of the guns. But their clothes and research were at the hotel. Espy was carrying the Chambers notebook, along with the book they’d brought with them from the cavern.

Jack ran a hand through his hair, absently looking at a street sign he couldn’t read. He’d started to turn to Espy when his peripheral vision caught something coming from his left, something moving a good deal faster than any of the vehicles or pedestrians around them. Jack hardly had time to twist his neck before he heard the squeal of tires. Acting on instinct, he spun around on his bad knee and lunged at Espy. He hit her hard, his shoulder in her ribs, coming down on top of her. He felt a rush of air behind him and heard the screeching of brakes. Someone started to scream, but the sound was suddenly drowned out by the crunch of metal on metal.

The pain in his knee was overwhelming. It was all he could do to keep from crying out. Beneath him, Espy was struggling. Despite the pain, Jack had to move. He rolled off his wife, the motion sending fresh jolts of agony through his leg. He blinked twice to clear his vision and to bear witness to how close he and Espy had come to being in the path of the car—a car that had come to an abrupt halt against the steel base of a streetlamp. The front of the car was crushed, its windshield shattered. He couldn’t see the driver. People were approaching the car. He saw a few moving toward him.

Jack turned to Espy. She was pushing herself to a sitting position while trying to come to terms with what had just happened.

“We have to go,” Jack said.

She didn’t speak, but after glancing at the crumpled car, she nodded and rose to her feet. Her nose was bleeding, yet she didn’t seem to realize it. She grimaced and touched her nose, pulling back fingers covered in blood.

Following his wife’s lead, Jack tried to stand. But the pain was too much and his knee buckled when he went to put weight on it. He fell back onto the pavement. Espy rushed to help, supporting him as he attempted again to stand. With his arm around Espy’s shoulders, Jack rocked onto his leg, testing the knee. He could feel it start to give way.

“I can’t walk on it,” he said.

“Then we’ll have to see how fast you can hop.”

She took hold of the hand Jack had on her shoulder, then tightened her hold around his waist. Jack leaned into her. Just before they started off, he chanced a look back and saw a man struggling to get out of the wrecked car. He was fumbling with the door handle, but it wouldn’t open. He looked up, meeting Jack’s eyes.

“Oh no,” Espy said.

Jack expected to see her looking at the man inside the car. Instead she was looking somewhere else. He followed her line of vision but didn’t notice anything right away. Then he saw it, the leg just visible under the front of the car. There was a woman’s shoe. Jack saw blood. There was no movement under the car, no sounds. The woman couldn’t have survived. A few good Samaritans were at the front of the car, peering underneath it.

“We have to go,” Jack repeated.

Espy hesitated for just a second before walking back the way they’d come. She was carrying a lot of Jack’s weight, and try as he might, he couldn’t put more than the slightest pressure on his leg. The going was slow. They made it half a block before a gunshot cut through the city noise. Jack glanced back at the car wreck.

The man in the car had shot out one of the side windows. He reached a hand through and opened the car door from the outside. Jack noticed the crowd had taken cover, and the streets were now quiet. He didn’t see a soul but for a couple of people on the other side of the intersection, running in the other direction. Beyond that, everyone had either ducked into nearby businesses or dived behind parked cars or other large objects.

Espy was trying to move them along, but Jack knew they wouldn’t be able to outrun the shooter once he’d climbed out of the car.

“We need to hide somewhere,” he said between pained breaths. He frantically looked around, searching for a place in which they could disappear, something like the bookstore.

Espy saw it first. Farther down the street, the storefronts had sunken entrances, three or four steps below street level. On their left was one such storefront, also having the benefit of two low cement walls lining the steps to its entrance. Above the store hung a green sign with the number 24 on it. When they reached it, Espy lowered Jack none too gently down the steps, then quickly followed. Just as Espy stepped within the cement walls, a shot rang out, followed by an impact with the cement barrier.

The door of the business was open, and Jack motioned for Espy to enter. When she stooped to help him up, he waved her off.

“Go on,” he said. “I’ll be right behind you.”

“Not on your life,” she said, trying to slip her arm around his waist again. “I’m not leaving you here.”

While she struggled to find a hold, he reached around and pulled out the gun. When Espy saw it, she paused.

“We can’t get away with me weighing you down,” he said. “I’m not asking you to leave without me. I’m just asking you to wait inside.”

Right then, a woman Jack assumed was the store’s owner came to the door. She scowled at Jack and Espy as if they were loitering in front of her place of business. It looked as though she was about to come out and shoo them away when she saw the gun and then jumped away from the door. Her secondary reaction, though, was almost as quick. She was reaching to lock the door when Esperanza leaped for the handle, pushing the door open before the storeowner could slide the bolt.

The storeowner began to scream. Espy tried to communicate to the woman that they weren’t a threat, but the owner only screamed louder as she turned and ran for safety deeper into the store.

Espy looked at Jack, shrugged, then started after the frightened woman. Once she was gone, Jack shifted position, putting his back against the wall, facing the direction of the man shooting at them. It didn’t take long before he appeared, his head coming into view first. He was in a full run, only slowing to negotiate the turn into the store. But when he saw Jack, he stumbled.

Jack had a clear shot. The other man was at the top of the stairs, just a few feet away. Jack looked up at him, the gun in his hand steady. The shooter’s own weapon was held low, pointing at the pavement.

He wasn’t the same man who’d walked by the bookstore. He was much younger. His eyes—wide with exertion and surprise—were the same gray as the Saint Petersburg sky.

There was a frozen moment during which neither man moved. Jack was the first to speak.

“If you put the gun down and walk away, I won’t have to shoot you.”

The man didn’t budge. “You won’t get out of Saint Petersburg,” the man said, his accent thick.

“That may be so, but unless you put that gun down, you’re not going to make it off this street.”

Jack saw calculation in the other man’s eyes. He was wondering if he could get his gun up before Jack could fire off a shot. He was also probably wondering how long he had before the police showed up in response to the accident, and to investigate reports of a man running down the street with a gun.

It happened so fast that Jack almost missed the man’s gun rising up. And as he watched the muzzle swing toward him, it seemed like forever before Jack could bring his own finger to pull the trigger. In the confined space, the roar was deafening, and Jack couldn’t tell if it was coming from his own gun or the other man’s. There was a shower of dust as the cement next to Jack’s head was blown apart. He didn’t even have time to close his eyes.

When it was over, the man was lying on the sidewalk, clutching his leg.

Using the cement wall as leverage, Jack tried to stand while still keeping the gun trained on the fallen man. He was moving, one hand holding the place where his knee used to be. The man writhed on the pavement, his injured leg bleeding profusely. He shouted in what Jack could only assume was Russian. His gun lay on the sidewalk next to him.

As Jack struggled to work his way up to the next step, the man opened his eyes.

“I don’t want to kill you,” Jack told him. It wasn’t just a platitude. Despite all that had happened, Jack had no desire to kill this man, which was why he’d aimed low.

With a snarl the man turned to look for his gun. Seeing where it lay, he reached for it, his fingers brushing the grip.

Jack pushed away from the wall, throwing himself up the two steps that separated him from the other man. He didn’t quite make it. Instead of landing on top of him, the best Jack could do was to bring an arm down on the ruined leg. It was enough to make him stop reaching for the gun. The man convulsed and released a scream and then rolled into Jack. Interlocked, they tumbled down the stairs. During the fall, Jack dropped his gun. He heard it clatter on the steps.

When they reached the bottom, the man was on top of Jack. Jack’s gun was only a couple of feet away. The man strained to grab it. Jack tried to struggle out from under the man, using his free hand to pull back the man’s reaching arm, to grasp his shirtsleeve.

But the man whipped his head around and brought his forehead down hard on Jack’s. The blow took away Jack’s sight momentarily, and he released the man’s arm. Jack felt the weight on him shift. His vision cleared in time to see the gun coming around, the man’s grip sure. He almost had the gun to Jack’s temple when the man jerked backward, lost his balance, and collapsed to the pavement, again clutching his leg. Jack saw a startled look on his face.

Only then did Jack hear the yelling and cursing in Spanish. He looked to his left, where he saw Espy standing above him. Her face was contorted in anger. She stepped over Jack, went to the downed man, and brought a knee down on his chest. The man brought his arms up to protect his face from the blows she rained down on him. He tried to crawl away, groping around for the gun he’d dropped.

Espy, though, slapped away the man’s hand and snatched up the weapon. Breathing heavily, she pressed it against his head. “Is this what you want?” she spat. “Is this what you’re looking for?”

Instantly the man stopped his struggling. Once he was subdued, Espy looked over at Jack. “Are you okay?” she asked.

Jack was anything but okay, but he nodded all the same. He pushed himself to a sitting position. Espy turned her attention back to the man pinned beneath her.

“Who sent you?” she shouted. Despite the gun pointed at him, the man’s only response was to glare up at her. She leaned in closer, her face only inches away from his. “Last week my sons were taken from me. Since then I’ve been chased through four countries, I’ve been shot at, and I haven’t been able to take even one bath. And this one”—she gestured to Jack—“made me desecrate a grave. So if you think I’m not willing to shoot you, I urge you to think again.”

When she finished, Espy didn’t pull back. She kept her face close, eyes boring into his, until a flicker of doubt crossed the man’s face. At that, Espy pushed the gun harder into his temple.

The man swallowed. “Her name is Olivia Chambers,” he said, casting a glance in Jack’s direction.

“Olivia Chambers?” Espy said, looking shocked.

Jack was just as surprised as his wife. “Why does she want us dead?”

The man shook his head. “She didn’t tell me. She never does.” He winced in pain. “Please . . . I need a doctor.”

Espy turned to Jack. “What do we do with him?”

He was pondering their dilemma when he saw movement to his right. The storeowner had gathered the courage to come to the door. She was holding a cell phone.

“Excuse me,” Jack said. The woman’s eyes moved from Espy and the man lying on the ground to Jack. “Would you happen to have any rope?”

Her expression didn’t change—not until Espy, with the gun still pressed to the other man’s head, translated. Afterward, the storeowner gave a nod and disappeared into her store.