Yezhov poured all three of them a shot of vodka.
Sam looked at the glasses and said, “None for me…”
Yezhov handed him a shot. “Drink!”
Sam glanced at Demyan, who gestured that it was the easiest way to deal with this. Sam raised the shot up to his lips. It burned for a second and then he downed the entire thing. It tasted like something that should be used on a jet engine and for a moment he wondered if he’d done permanent damage, despite the fact that the two Yezhov men had consumed the same thing and appeared unfazed.
“Another one?” Yezhov asked, filling all three glasses.
“Dad,” Demyan said. “We need to talk about the blueprints.”
“What blueprints?” Yezhov drank all three glasses.
Sam said, “The ones for the secret tunnels you built to the ancient catacombs beneath Boot Lake, in Oymyakon.”
Yezhov paused, carefully studying Sam’s face. “Who are you? I don’t know what you’re talking about. Secret tunnels. I know about no such thing.”
“Dad. We need the blueprints. It’s important. We have to get inside.”
“Inside?” Yezhov’s eyes were now wide. “No one goes inside anymore. Thousands of people once entered those tunnels, but no one’s ever come out again.”
“All the same, we need to find those tunnels.”
Yezhov poured another drink. “What tunnels.”
Sam said, “Sir, we need your help to go back there. The entire world is counting on your help.”
Yezhov shrugged. “And why should I help the world out? It never done nothing for me!”
Demyan downed another shot of vodka and then looked at his father directly in his eyes. “Because we want to kill Leo Botkin.”
Yezhov’s eyes went livid. He no longer appeared disoriented when he spoke. “That I can help you.”
Chapter Sixty-Two
Elise switched on her flashlight and shined its beam at the hidden stairway.
“Do you know where they lead?” she asked the monk.
“Yes.”
“Are you going to tell me?”
“No.”
“All right.” Elise sighed, theatrically, and then commenced her descent.
The stairs descended in a large, square spiral that continued for what appeared to be hundreds of feet. The monk slowly followed her.
At the bottom, the stairs turned into a long tunnel that headed due south.
“We’re going to Sigiriya?” she asked.
The monk nodded. “I told you the Lion’s Rock was always our home.”
The tunnel stretched a little over a mile and opened into a labyrinth of ancient catacombs. Recalling the Master Builder’s proclivity toward symmetry and central power structures, Elise continued to take turns that led her to the very center.
It opened up to a large, rectangular vault.
At the center of which was a sarcophagus fit for a king, or in this case, a queen.
Overlooking the ancient queen’s chamber was a beautiful fresco. The painting looked similar to the ones depicted above the Mirror Wall at Sigiriya and possibly more than a thousand years old. Away from all weather, it was in a much better condition, too.
She studied the painting.
It depicted a beautiful woman, with a high jaw-line, gentle features, silky black hair and intense purple eyes, that were fixed upon the queen’s tomb. In her arms was a baby. There was something familiar about the baby.
Elise stared at it for a while. It evoked memories that were so distant that she couldn’t be sure they were even hers. The baby’s eyes were open.
And they were a deep purple.
Elise turned to the monk. “Is the sarcophagus…”
“Empty?” The monk replied. “Yes.”
She felt her heart race. “Then my mother’s still alive?”
The monk sighed, deeply. “That, I no longer know.”
Chapter Sixty-Three
Sam glanced out the windows to the left. The helicopter circled the large geothermal power station’s cooling tower and the remains of a rocky outcrop at the center of Boot Lake, where the old Stalin-era prison and death camp rose out of the water. The place appeared deserted and according to Anotoly Yezhov, no one had entered or exited the building for more than twenty years.
The helicopter continued north, before dipping its nose and finally settling into a hover just above a field of ice. Anotoly’s eyes were wide. In the hours since Sam had met the man, he had come alive, losing decades of age and returning to the strength and vitality of his youth. Revenge, Sam discovered, was a powerful motivator.
He met the old man’s eye. “Are you certain no one’s going to notice the helicopter?”
“Not at all. The volcanic vault is a quarter of a mile deep. They don’t know and even if they did, they wouldn’t care. I doubt any of them even realize the old ventilation shafts still reach deep into the ancient catacombs below.”
Demyan entered the conversation. “What about lake?”
“You mean the colorful crystals?” Anotoly asked.
Sam asked, “The lake has colorful crystals?”
Anotoly nodded. “Yeah. They’re a type of coral found at the bottom of the Maria Trench. They feed of the geothermal energy and then release UV light. Leo Botkin spent a fortune manned submarines to retrieve them from around the world.”
“Why?” Demyan asked.
“Plants and animals need UV light.”
“Can’t they produce it with electricity?” Sam asked.
“Sure, but it draws enormous amounts. You have to remember the colony was designed to survive long after the world as you and I know it has disappeared. At best, this ice-age will last a century, but it may last millennia. Botkin wanted to set up a fully sustainable environment underground and that included producing natural UV light.”
The helicopter’s rotor blades came to a complete stop.
Sam looked at Anotoly. “You sure you want to come with us?”
“Are you kidding me? I’d rather die than miss it.”
Sam guessed there was a good chance, the man would die today if he did come, so the severity of that statement wasn’t missed on him. Even so, they needed the old man’s knowledge and he certainly wasn’t going to be dismissing any help he could get.
“All right. Good to have you with us.”
“What about a gun?” Anotoly asked.
They were all carrying Heckler and Koch MP5 submachine guns.
Sam smiled politely. He was indebted to the old man for his blueprints of the colony and the ancient catacombs, but he would be damned before he gave a loaded submachine gun to a man with more than a bottle of vodka on board. “I think we’re all out of them.”
“What am I supposed to kill Botkin with?”
“When we get around to it, I lend you my knife,” Demyan said. “More personal that way, don’t you think?”
“Right you are, son.”
Sam opened the helicopter’s sliding door. Using GPS, he located the site of the main ventilation shaft that ran down to the catacombs far below. He cleared away the snow. Below it, ice was thick.
“The thing’s frozen over!” Sam shouted at Antonoly.
“Yeah, I thought that might be the case.”
Tom said, “What good is a ventilation shaft when its frozen shut?”
Antonoly shook his head. “No good. But it was only needed while we were working. By now Botkin will have his ecosystem balanced so an equal amount of oxygen is produced and carbon-dioxide is removed.”