Ilyitch watched as the general’s taxi cruised up, and the passenger door opened. Ilyitch imagined her surprise, perhaps even her smile as she greeted him, and yes, accepted his ride.
She slid into the cab without hesitation. Ilyitch shook his head, his chest only slightly tight, knowing she had just, with a sigh of relief, embraced the devil.
A feeling he understood.
Chapter 3
Kat sat on the day train, the hard wooden bench scraping away the last vestiges of her composure with every rhythmic jerk. She felt as if she’d been beaten like one of those floor rugs she’d seen some old babushka attack as they’d rolled through the last village. Still, her hard knot of terror in her chest eased with each passing kilometer. Who knew that angels dressed in black trench coats and spoke with an accent? God had sure been working overtime this morning. The Almighty must have activated a small battalion of unseen holy soldiers to yank her out of the grip of the customs officials.
Don’t smile, and don’t carry brass keys in your pocket. Any travel book worth its salt would have included that, along with a list of pointers as to how to escape the clutches of the local militia.
Then again, who knew that angels came dressed not only in six-foot-four black, but in the garb of a friendly professor.
“Stopped shaking yet?” Professor Taynov turned around from the seat in front of her and smiled, the spidering lines around his eyes adding years to his youthful aura. Indeed, the history professor from Prague University, as he introduced himself moments after scooping her into his taxi, mocked the definition of middle aged, despite his graying hair. He had wide, strong hands, and his shoulders and arms filled out his trench coat. Even his energy, as they fast-walked through the Moscow train terminal, hinted at youthfulness. It wasn’t just the hair tint and wrinkles, however, that stretched his age… it was his eyes, as if they’d been plucked out of a battle weary soldier and transplanted into his wide, chiseled face and youthful body. Eyes that looked right through her and made her shiver.
Of course it was only a guess. She’d only known the man for four hours. But after conducting home studies and interviewing prospective adoptive parents for the past five years, she measured herself a pretty good judge of character. The fact that he’d also stopped his taxi and marched back into baggage claim to rescue her suitcase only confirmed the fact the man resembled a bona fide angel.
“Yes, I’m doing much better, thanks to you,” she answered. She tightened her ankles around her suitcase, wishing she’d packed as light as the other travelers around her. She already felt like some sort of pampered movie star, attracting attention as she wrestled the bag onto the train. “Why did you intervene?”
Professor Taynov gave her a look of surprise. “Because you looked like you needed rescuing. Besides, I know that a woman with such a beautiful smile can’t be a danger to Mother Russia.” He winked, and Kat’s eyes widened.
“Thank you,” she stammered, wondering suddenly about his motives. Was the man really traveling to Pskov on happenstance, or had she suddenly found an admirer expecting more gratitude repayment than she would produce? She rubbed her arms and stared out the window, wishing again her grandfather had consented to travel with her. Of course this joint-jarring rhythm would play havoc on his eighty-year-old bones
She curled her hands around the backpack on her lap and instinctively checked for the brass key in the front pocket. Her heartbeat still jumped every time she glimpsed someone in black entering her airspace—a painful regularity in Russia. She kept conjuring up a posse of the FSB regulars like the ones she had encountered at the airport. She hoped the man who’d freed her had also talked the passport officials into a full pardon. Who did they think she was, anyway? James Bond’s latest hottie?
The fact that she’d purchased her ticket and made it onto the train without incident only confirmed the hope that she’d been cleared. The Militia regular—the one with the bone-piercing blue eyes who had nabbed her and dragged her back to the bowels of customs—must have been some sort of renegade with a vendetta against naïve Americans. A travesty one of his superiors quickly rectified.
Only, she wasn’t quite so naïve anymore, thank you very much.
The agony of the eight-hour ride loomed out into eternity, and the fact that her body was still ticking on New York time made the clack of the train beat inside her head like a gong. With God’s providence, she would arrive in time to grab a cab and trek out to the monastery, inconveniently located some thirty kilometers from Pskov according to her now well-creased map. If it weren’t for curiosity pressing her on like an overseer, she’d make a beeline for the Intourist hotel where, given they showed record of her Internet reservation, she would collapse. She felt like a kid Christmas morning, sleep-deprived but wide-eyed at the pile of presents, hoping one was for her.
She rubbed her eyes until she saw stars, hoping to dissolve a film of fatigue. She would pay about a million rubles for a shot of hot cocoa and a bag of M&M’s to put a kick into her adrenaline. Her energy level had taken a nose-dive, jet lag crashing over her after the initial high she’d gotten from being yanked free of the militia’s clutches.
It didn’t help her altered brain cells that she been sucked back in time. The passenger train looked like something from her childhood history book. The wooden seat under her couldn’t be more than a century new. And the smell… what was that?
She craned her head around and spied a woman wrapped in a wool headscarf as if it were January in Iceland and holding a mangy brown poodle. The dog’s hair was parted around his eyes and he blinked at Kat as if dazed by his own odor.
Across the aisle, a weary looking blonde holding a child in a snowsuit leaned her head against the grimy window. Her eyes were closed. Kat’s heart turned in pity at the fist-sized hole in the woman’s tights, just below her knees, and the string that bound her shoe heels to her shapeless loafer.
“So, why are you heading to Pskov?” Professor Taynov’s grin seemed genuine. Kat scrambled through a haze of fatigue to sound coherent.
“I’m trying to find some relatives.” Her dream sounded simpler when she put words to it. “I’m trying to find out who I am” seemed so… desperate.
He raised his black eyebrows. “You’re Russian?”
“Partly. My Grandmother was from Russia.”
“So you’ve come back to the Motherland to find your roots.” He shook his head. “Good luck. Russia’s such a mess right now, you’d be lucky to find the sun in the sky on a cloudless day.”
“I have some clues.” Kat tried not to let his words dent her enthusiasm. “I got a letter, from a monastery outside Pskov. From a monk”
“Really?” Professor Taynov reached out his hand. “Can I see it?”
Kat blushed. “Actually, there was no note, just the key.”
“The one that set off the siren?”
She nodded, unzipped the backpack pocket and handed it over. Professor Taynov examined it like an archeologist. “Looks old. Maybe a hundred years. Look at the cut—hand done. No lathe formed this key.”
“What do you think it opens?”
He handed it back. “A door, perhaps, or maybe a chest?”
She shrugged. “I’m hoping the monastery has some answers.” She went to slip it into her bag, then stopped. This and the picture were the only clues she had. Digging into her backpack, she unearthed a pack of shoestrings and pulled out a single lace.
“What are you doing?” The Professor’s brow furrowed. The look sent a chill up her spine.