Pulse ringing in his ears, Sokolov looked around to see that he was alone and proceeded down the passage. He walked silently, the only audible noises being the hum of the lamps and ventilation, as well as vibrations coming from a remote power plant that provided the electricity.
Sokolov had no time to admire the engineering, but it was evident that this facility had been built recently, decades later than the ruins above it.
Metallic doors with porthole windows were located on either side of the corridor. Each was marked with an unintelligible sign. Lacking their own alphabet, the Kazakhs had adapted Cyrillic, so Sokolov couldn’t understand the words even though he could read them.
It was all irrelevant. The corridor ended in a pair of wide sliding doors which bore no lettering.
But there was light spilling through the portholes.
14
Asiyah had never suffered so much pain.
She was lying bound and gagged on the floor and Timur Kasymov was giving her a savage beating. His lacquered shoes kicked all over her body. Her arms, legs and back numbed.
The strength of the blows ebbed away until Kasymov drove a foot in her stomach and delivered a final strike to her head. A swell of nausea picked her up and fireworks exploded in her brain.
Kasymov stepped back, panting with exertion and rage.
“I gave you life. And how did you repay me? You betrayed me! After all that I’ve done for you.”
The gag stifled her cries. She squirmed, but the plastic restraints dug into her wrists.
“You couldn’t do anything right,” he continued. “You destroyed my dream. Did you come back to ask forgiveness? No, you’ve done everything to stand in my way. Even now, you can’t die properly.”
Standing over her, Kasymov spat in her face.
“I own you. I can do whatever I please. But I have no use of you. You’re not my daughter. You’re a worthless little whore. I banished your new masters from my land, and I’ll get rid of you.”
Then he took out his handgun and pulled the slide, chambering a round.
“There is no other way to rectify you.”
She looked past the gun barrel. She didn’t want it to be the last image of her life.
She wouldn’t hear the shot when it came, nor would she feel anything.
Her vision floated.
The seconds stretched infinitely as she waited for it all to end.
But she knew she had already died because what she saw the next instant was impossible.
A burst of white light flashed in her eyes, and emerging from it was Eugene Sokolov.
Then her mind plunged into the black abyss.
15
Sokolov pressed a switch and the doors parted.
He was awestruck with the scene appearing before him.
In the bright lighting, the amber panels gave off a dazzle. Covering the surface from floor to ceiling and wall to wall, the ornate mosaic glowed in honey-colored shades of orange and yellow, accentuated by golden cornices, frames and chandeliers that lit it.
It was the Amber Room.
But Sokolov was jolted by a different sight.
Asiyah was lying motionless on the floor.
Next to her, Timur Kasymov dropped to his knees, hands held behind his back.
“Thank God!” Kasymov cried. “Please save us from these monsters! They kidnapped me and my daughter and held us captive here! You must—”
In mid-sentence, Kasymov whipped out his gun and fired at Sokolov.
The bullet missed. Sokolov’s AK blasted, hitting Kasymov in the shoulder, blood spraying down the silk shirt. Kasymov crashed down with a throaty grunt.
Holding the Kazakh President at gunpoint, Sokolov hurriedly came over to Asiyah and checked her pulse.
She was unconscious.
He took out the gag and cut the plastic straps fastened around her hands and feet.
He took her in his arms, overwhelmed for an instant by the chamber around him.
Taking a closer look at the wall surfaces, Sokolov realized that the panels held more golden ornament than the actual amber. The room itself was much smaller than the palatial original, the frescoed stucco ceiling suspended lower, the walls too narrow. The installed sections of amber had deformed, irregular contours complemented with decorative filler. The bits of amber fitted together had been misshaped by the decades of extreme heat. A few patches had discolored turning brown or white.
Although authentic, the amber mosaic had recreated the Room as a hideous copy of itself. A decomposed corpse that had been exhumed, dressed in rich clothes and jewelry and a pretense of being alive.
But once dead, it could not be reborn. The remains of a three-hundred-year-old relic could not be brought back to its glory.
Soft and brittle, the fossilized resin that was amber would eventually crumble into dust.
The Amber Room had not escaped the curse of the Aral after all.
As he carried Asiyah out of the Amber Room, he cast a final glance at her father.
Kasymov groaned. His shoulder shattered, the wound bleeding, he was prostrate with shock, helpless. His arm was useless and the agony rendered him unable to twitch a muscle. Life was draining from him quickly, a red pool of blood spreading from the ruptured subclavian artery.
“Help…me…”
Kasymov gaped, croaking through the torment of each breath he took.
Could anything be done to ease his suffering?
Sokolov decided it would be best to leave the President alone with his treasure.
16
Carrying Asiyah in his arms, Sokolov emerged from the headquarters building. Outside, the weather had calmed. There was a stillness in the crystal-blue sky, without the slightest motion of the wind. Only a tinge of salt in the air remained from the dust storm.
He rounded the corner cautiously and saw a BMD driving down Lenin Avenue, the Alpha troops riding mounted atop the vehicle’s roof.
Spotting Sokolov, Grishin ordered the driver to stop and hopped down from the BMD.
“What the hell’s going on, Sokolov? I thought you got lost in that storm, but all of a sudden we had to eliminate a bunch of enemy troops running to the airfield from this dump of a town. I knew you were up to something. What’s up with the girl? Care to explain yourself, Major?”
“There’s nothing for me to explain, Colonel. But now that you’re here, I wouldn’t mind a hand.”
Grishin smirked but let the matter go.
Together with his Alpha troops, he helped Sokolov ease Asiyah into the compartment through a hatch.
Sokolov followed Grishin inside the vehicle to hold her safely as the BMD drove back to the airfield.
On the horizon, the evening sun hung above the gray rim of the Aral desert, setting the entire sky in a fiery tint that blazed with all hues of amber.
EPILOGUE
1
Completing the one-hundered-man Kumite, Sokolov had endured an ordeal of incessant full-contact fighting. It still lasted all day even though it took Sokolov less than two minutes to defeat an opponent. Each new competitor stepping up to spar against him was fresh, while Sokolov had no chance to recover, his stamina sapping with each bout. A single loss for Sokolov would have immediately ended the test in failure.
By the time he had won the hundredth round, four hours and four minutes since the start of the challenge, Sokolov could barely stand on his feet. All of his fingers had been broken by continuous punching, his body bruised and battered. Physically, he was devastated. But mentally, he was overcome with the kind of euphoria that nothing could ever match. The ruthless Kumite was a test for the mind as much as the body. Going past the limits of human ability, no one could cross the 100-man mark without extraordinary power of will and dogged determination. Only a select few had the attributes to succeed, and he earned his place in that bracket.