John Schettler - 9 Days Falling, Volume I

Troyak was looking from one man to another, clearly confused. Fedorov seemed to know this man, at least he knew his name easily enough. But what was all this talk of the Okhrana and June of 1908?

There came a rumbling sound again, as though from far away, just as before. They all turned to look at the still open doorway. Fedorov sat up, his energy returned, his mind finally clear again. There was a stiff urgency to his movements, particularly when they heard the sound again, saw the amber glow in the outer hall.

“My god…” He stood up, the other men looking at him as though he had lost his mind. But Fedorov had heard more than enough. He cleared his throat, speaking firmly.

“Listen to me, Mironov. You must go back down stairs at once! Go by the same way you came—this instant! Do not worry. I have told you we have nothing to do with the Okhrana. We are merely soldiers on the long road west. That is all.”

He gestured to Mironov, beckoning him to come with him, and when Troyak stood up he said, “Don’t worry Sergeant, I’ll handle this.”

“You mean I am free to go?”

“Yes, just follow me.” Fedorov reassured him.

Mironov looked at Troyak and Zykov, frowning, then followed Fedorov out the door. Troyak was up behind him, keeping a close eye on the young man. Fedorov was waiting on the upper landing of the back stairway.

“This way, Mironov. Quickly!”

There came a rumble of thunder again. Mironov was at Fedorov’s side. Looking him in the eye as though he were staring into the face of fate itself.

“You must go by the way you came, and quickly now, while you see that light.” Fedorov gestured to the amber glow from below. “And Mironov—never come up this stairway again. Understand? Get as far away from here as you can.”

Fedorov had an anguished look on his face, as if he had something more he needed to say, a tormented expression that held Mironov fixated for a time, their eyes and souls locked together in some bizarre twist of time and fate.

I must not say another word, thought Fedorov. But then a thought came to him like a thunderclap! What if this was the moment—the vital single moment that could change everything? What if Orlov’s leap from that helicopter was meant for one thing only—to bring Fedorov after him, and here to this very place, face to face with this defiant young man, Sergei Mironovich Kostrikov. He reached out as Mironov turned to go down the stairs, taking hold of the man’s arm to delay him.

Then Fedorov leaned forward, close to the young man’s ear and whispered something, his eyes vast and serious, his face like that of a man who was seeing a phantom from another world. He finished, then released Mironov’s arm.

“Go with god,” he said quietly. “Go and live, Mironov. Live!”

A light of uncertainty and bewilderment danced in Mironov’s eyes, then the urgency of the moment compelled him to move, and he stepped quickly down the narrow stairs.

“Zykov!” Fedorov gestured. “Wait here. But do not go down these steps under any circumstances. Understood?” Then he was off at a run, down the hall to the main stairway and, seeing him go, Troyak followed quickly behind. They rushed down the main stairs, rounding the corner and emerging in the front reception area, lit by a single bare bulb on the ceiling above which guttered off and on. To his great relief Fedorov saw the portrait of the old man, Ilyana’s grandfather, hanging on the wall. He rushed past the desk and into the dining hall, finding the room dark and silent, the embers of the fire low on the hearth and Ilyana sitting there on a low stool, her robe pulled tight against the midnight chill. Her eyes met Fedorov’s, then drifted fearfully to the shadowed alcove that led to the back stairway. The thin high call of a train whistle sounded from the distant rail yard, stark and cold against the night.

“Did a man just come down these stairs?” he asked in a low voice, a knowing look in his eye.

The woman looked at the alcove leading to the back stairway, eyes wide and tinged by the last light of the embers. She slowly shook her head in the negative as Troyak came up behind him, looking at him with obvious concern on his face. Fedorov turned, his breath finally stilled.

“Are you alright, sir?”

“Have Zykov bring the equipment, Sergeant. But tell him to use the main stairway— not the back stairs—understood? We had better get to the rail yard or we’ll miss our train.”

Troyak gave the order through his jacket comm-link system as they walked across the dining hall to leave. Fedorov gave one last look over his shoulder and met Ilyana’s eyes.

He smiled.

Ben Flackpeered through the Plexiglas, and didn’t like what he was seeing. Dawn was breaking in the Caspian Region, and it was not to be a quiet day. Off in the distance, obscured by the morning haze over the water, it was clear that a whole lot of trouble was heading his way. He had been on the phone for the last hour, first with Wade Hanson of Crowley & Company, yammering that one of their three Invader class tugs, the Galveston , had been boarded while operating inshore. The other two beat a hasty retreat for the deeper waters and the open sea, narrowly evading the Kazakh militias. Thank god the American Salvor class boat got out safely after the rig was finally set and in place on the silted bottom five kilometers off the coast. But Galveston was officially his problem now, on top of fifteen other problems that would stretch from here all the way back to Bollinger Canyon in sunny California.

The Chevron brass there did not like the news this morning either, and they let him know about it in no uncertain terms. He had been on the phone with some middle tier pencil pusher turned weather man. “The whole Gulf is shut down for Hurricane Victor, Flack,” the man had lectured him.

“This damn thing made direct hit on Houston. All the refineries are off line, you understand? We lost Conoco Phillips, Valero, Exxon/Mobil, Deer Park, Premcor, Marathon Ashland—the works. BP lost Thunder Horse and Mad Dog is off line too. Now we’ve got to make sure production stays up out there, right? We need crude in tankers heading our way, and soon. You need to clean that mess up there and get flows back up to speed ASAP. Bunker as much oil as you can in Baku for a credit on the other end of the Supsa line, got that? We’re looking for any loose tanker traffic we can get our hands on. I expect we’ll have something for you soon—negotiating with some conveyance carriers now. You just get on top of this business and see to things. You completed that rig set last night, right? ”

Yes he had finished the set, and yes things looked manageable, but no he didn’t think there was adequate security in the region, and yes it really did seem like this latest flare-up was going to be worse than the last, and no he didn’t know where his numbers would be just yet, but yes he’s have readings as soon as he heard from the pump stations on the coast and yes they had enough in the line to start bunkering at Baku if a carrier could be found in the Black Sea, but no he couldn’t guarantee the flow pressure just yet, and on and on it went.

So Galveston Island got slammed. The thin barrier island near Houston was now under water. Ironically, he had his own little Galveston here to worry about. How was he going to get that damnable tug back? If the raiders parted that sucker out to the Chinese, the insurance tab would be charged to his operation. Was the crew safe? Real violence against Western oil men had been rare in the region but, after that ominous news feed the rebels put out the night before, all bets were off. He would no doubt have to bargain for the crew’s release, and he wasn’t sure he had much to bet in that game.