Sokolov had never experienced claustrophobia, but the overturned walls closed in on him, warping, making him feel sick.
“Where’s the bedroom?”
“Let me think… The master bedroom is now bottom, far left. The VIP room is starboard, so it should be above the dining hall.”
He visualized the Olympia’s layout in his mind. Each of the two large cabins were accessible either from the open deck, or the anteroom adjacent to the dining hall. With the yacht lying propped on her port side, the outside door to the master bedroom would be blocked.
“And hurry up, Gene.”
The luminous dial of Sokolov’s Breitling confirmed the caution. To avoid decompression, he had only twenty minutes of bottom time at his disposal.
He finned toward the anteroom and looked around. Realigned, one doorframe was now at his feet, the other over his head. The two flimsy doors had been yanked open, hanging on their hinges. Left and right had become top and bottom.
Sokolov grabbed the edges of the frame above him and pulled himself up, into the open space.
His dive light met with the President of the Russian Federation, Nikolai Alexandrov.
Ex-President. Deceased.
Alexandrov was lying on the now-horizontal bulkhead, eyes bulging out, as if in disbelief at his predicament.
The faithful Gnome followed Sokolov inside, and trained its lights on the President’s corpse. The bacteria in his stomach had not yet filled the body with gases to make it float.
“Are you recording this?” Sokolov asked Netto.
“Yes,” Netto replied, needing a moment to find his voice.
Sokolov found no reason to linger on the grisly sight.
He eased down into the master bedroom. There he saw the First Lady, her body pressed down by debris.
Sokolov drew closer. The First Lady looked like a battered mannequin. Rigor mortis had stiffened her face into a waxen mask. Under her greenish skin, capillaries streaked in bright petechial webs. Sokolov forced himself to reach out and touch it. Even behind the gloves, his fingers pricked with repulsion as he lifted her eyelids.
Her eyeballs were black.
Two glass spheres about to burst with blood.
“I need a close-up here,” Sokolov instructed.
The Gnome moved in a position to zoom in on the body.
“I’ve never seen anything like it. Is this normal?”
“I don’t think so.”
Although conjuctivial hemorrhaging could be attributed to asphyxiation, what he saw wasn’t typical. Also, the patterns on the skin seemed chaotic, too inconsistent, too pronounced for livor mortis. Sokolov’s hunch told him that she may have been killed by the unknown agent. The President’s eyes and skin showed no such extreme signs. Sokolov was hardly an expert to make an accurate diagnosis, especially in the given circumstances.
“Gene, time’s nearly up. You have to head back now.”
Sokolov’s own schedule confirmed Netto’s words. Besides, he did not want to disturb the crime scene any further. He had already broken too many regulations. But he couldn’t leave just yet. The mission of his team was to uncover the causes of the mystifying deaths. Unless he broke one more rule, they would lose a vital clue once the wreck was secured by the military.
He unsheathed the knife strapped to his shin.
Originally designed as a heavy dive knife, the Katran had a double-edged blade with serrated teeth on one side, which made it useful for survival and combat.
Bringing it to the head of the dead woman, Sokolov moved the seven-inch blade with delicacy.
He picked a lock of the First Lady’s hair and sawed it off.
Pocketing the hair sample, he swam back, in the direction of the exit.
12
Halfway up, Sokolov performed his first safety stop. His hand following the umbilical cable, he craned up to peer through the gloom. Above, he could see the sunrays playing on the other side of the water. Consulting his Breitling, he made one-minute stops every ten feet. At fifteen feet remaining, he raised his body at a minimal rate of ascent, clearing the nitrogen out.
Bobbing in the swells as he broke the surface, he spit out the regulator to taste the saline air. Still holding the umbilical cable he pulled himself to the opening in the Beriev’s side. When he was within reach, Mischenko hauled him in. He sploshed on the hard floor, water dripping.
After Mischenko helped remove his gear, Sokolov rose to his feet, unzipping the dry suit.
“Any word from Zubov?”
“He radioed in to say he’s bringing an interesting find.”
Sokolov changed back into his EMERCOM uniform, remembering to extract the damp wad of hair from the Velcro pocket and seal it in an evidence container for subsequent lab tests.
He joined Netto who guided the Gnome around the wreck to document the destruction, finding the bodies of the crew. Those who did not die as a result of the explosion shared the horrific appearance of the First Lady.
Sokolov was the first to pick up the faint hum of the outboard motor. With the sun fully up, they could see the Orion’s orange hull riding the waves, Zubov piloting carefully.
Zubov wasn’t alone.
Lying prone in the Orion, strapped to a stretcher, was a dark-haired woman, the top of her hospital gown visible over the covers that protected her from the spray. She was unconscious.
As Mischenko and Netto pulled the boat’s mooring line, Zubov and Sokolov transferred the stretcher inside the plane, and carried her into the medical section of the Beriev. Securing the stretcher atop a fixed gurney, Sokolov placed an oxygen mask over her nose and lips.
Under the glare of the lights, he studied her, looking for signs of trauma instead of admiring her beauty. Her skin displayed no bruises or other marks. No bones seemed to be broken. Sokolov’s biggest concern was her loss of consciousness, which could indicate a severe head injury. With relief, he noted that her breathing was even, her head and face showed no swelling, and there were no fluids discharging from her nose or ears. His fingers explored her neck for stiffness or damage to the vertebrae. There was no threat to her life, unless her internal organs had been damaged. Even though the amphibious jet was fitted with complete ambulance equipment, she needed to be diagnosed more thoroughly. Another reason to hurry back to base.
After his teammates pulled the Orion inside the Beriev’s hold, they gathered around Sokolov, staring at the young woman on the gurney.
“What’s wrong with her?” Netto asked Sokolov in a low voice.
“She’s reasonably fine,” Zubov replied in his stead. “She woke up screaming, so the doctors had to sedate her.”
All eyes turned on him.
“So she is your interesting find,” Mischenko said. “How did you manage to get her?”
“She has no ID, and no record of ever being there… She was a burden that the medics were glad to get off their shoulders. I actually did them a favour, sparing the paperwork, the explanations, and the risk of her dying on their hands if her condition deteriorated.”
“What I’d rather like to hear,” said Sokolov, “is why you brought her.”
“I’ll tell you why. I saw a couple of people at the morgue who looked like their blood boiled inside them. Chemical blood tests showed no toxic compounds. It’s not poisoning, and it’s not a virus.”
“The Gnome couldn’t find anything in the seawater, either,” Netto said. “What could the sickness be, then? Some sort of hypersensitive allergic reaction?”