Petrov had heard other rumors about his boss. That Adrik never went out in the daytime. That he brought in young girls every week or so who were never seen again. Sometimes young boys. Virgins, it was whispered, with medical tests to prove their health. Petrov didn’t particularly care about the rumors. He cared that he was paid well for his work and that Adrik obviously had the power to keep other Mafia groups and the government at arm’s distance.
One of the guards challenged a man at the door to the hangar, allowing him in only after an extensive examination of the case he carried and a careful search of the man himself for weapons and explosives. Petrov looked up from the old map showing tunnels running from Lubyanka to the Kremlin and watched the man approach. He was old and walked with a limp. He carried a battered leather satchel that he placed on the table across from Petrov.
“My name is Kokol,” the old man said. “I was called by your benefactor to give you assistance.”
Petrov waited as Kokol opened the satchel and lifted out several bound documents. The covers of each were made of some strange material and the pages between were old and faded, written by hand in a fine script. Petrov stiffened when he saw the swastika stenciled on each cover along with the SS insignia. Kokol saw his reaction.
“I took these from a bunker under the Chancellery in Berlin at the end of the Great Patriotic War.” He indicated the binding material with disgust. “Human skin. From the camps. The pigs.” Kokol flipped open one of the books. “These are medical reports. The SS doctors did much testing, things that you could not do under normal circumstances. They would put naked people into vats of water and lower the temperature, making observations how the body reacted and how long the people took to die. The most extensive testing for hypothermia ever conducted.
“They did other things.” Kokol paused, his old hands resting on the pages. “Blood. That is what your master seeks.”
Petrov frowned at the man’s choice of words.
“Adrik. I knew him in the war.” Kokol waved a hand, indicating his white hair and lined face. “Look at me and look at him. He was the same during the war. He has not aged a day since. Why do you think that is?”
“It is not my business,” Petrov said.
“You work for him,” Kokol countered. “If it is not your business what nature of creature your master is, then what is your business?”
Petrov glanced around, making sure none of his men were within earshot. “What do you mean creature?”
Kokol sighed. “After all that has happened in this past year, with the aliens, one would think people’s minds would be more open.”
“Adrik is—” Petrov began, but Kokol held up a hand interrupting him.
“Adrik is not human.” Kokol said it flatly. “He may look like a man, but he is most certainly not.”
“Who — what is he then?”
Kokol tapped the document in front of him. “He is someone seeking the blood drawn by the SS during the Great Patriotic War. According to this, the SS secretly had their doctors in the camps test the blood of many select prisoners.” “Looking for?”
“A special strain. They did this at the behest of someone who was a very high-ranking member of the Nazi Party, someone in the SS. The specifications were to focus on people with red hair; those with pale skin; those in good health but at an advanced age belied by their appearance. What was collected was sent to Bavaria, to the castle there where the inner circle of the SS met at Wevelsburg.” Kokol turned some pages, uncovering a manifest. “As the war progressed, most of it was transported, along with many other artifacts collected by the SS, to Berlin, to be deposited in the large vault under the Chancellery.”
“If you got the books, who got the blood?” Petrov asked, although he had a very good idea.
“I was army intelligence, NVD. The KGB was there also. There was even a brief firefight between our two units as we fought over the Nazi corpse.” He tapped the book. “This is part of what we got. The gang from Lubyanka got the blood.” “And what did they do with it?”
Kokol nodded toward the schematics spread out over the table. “Put it in one of their holes under Moscow. And from what I understand they continued the search, bringing prisoners down there from Lubyanka and draining them of their blood. It was said you could hear the screams echoing out of the earth all the way into the Kremlin itself.”
Petrov was tired of the old man’s stories. He had a simple mission and wanted to achieve it. He didn’t care why Adrik wanted the blood, any more than he cared why Adrik wanted young girls and boys brought to him in the darkness. But something Kokol had said sparked a curious suspicion in him. “Adrik drinks their blood, doesn’t he?”
“Whose?”
“The children that are brought to him. He has them tested. We thought it was for AIDS and other diseases for sex, but it’s for the cleanliness of the blood. It is how he has lived so long.” Petrov looked at Kokol sharply. “How long has he lived?”
Kokol shrugged. “I do not know and I have no desire to ask. I heard of Adrik when I was a young puppy assigned to the NVD in the thirties. His was a name to inspire fear back then. And even the old dogs who worked there, Stalin’s pit bulls who were part of the Revolution, they had heard of him when they were young puppies. And they, men who had killed millions and laughed, they feared him.”
Petrov considered this. “Do you know where the KGB stored the blood?” Kokol closed the binder with a thud. “There was a man who ran the Alien Archives for the KGB, then the FSB. His name was Lyoncheka.” “‘Was’?”
“He was killed during the recent events.”
“Who replaced him?”
Kokol reached into a pocket and pulled out a slip of paper. “Here is his name, rank, position, and office.”
Petrov took it and read the name. “I think I will visit Comrade Pashenka.” Kokol tapped the binders. “Do you want to read these?”
“I don’t read German and I don’t care,” Petrov said. “I have a job and I will do it.”
“It’s that simple?”
Petrov smiled without humor. “Yes.” He paused. “But leave the books anyway.”
The X–Craft was rolled out of the launch assembly building toward the launching pad. An Ariane 5 rocket waited on the pad, with a crane nearby, ready to lift the X–Craft onto the nose of the rocket. A large red digital clock placed near the pad read: 45:00:00. As the carrier holding the X–Craft exited the doors of the assembly building, the official countdown to launch began and the first second clicked off.
Tian Dao Lin’s power base in Hong Kong had long tentacles, reaching through Beijing and thus to all areas of China. Pethang Ringmo was a small village of fewer than one hundred and the last civilization before one stepped off into the northern shadow of Everest. It was where the Ones Who Wait had launched their assault on the mountain in the attempt to gain Excalibur not long ago and it was where Tai brought Namche to begin their attempt to recover the bodies of that failed assault. They flew into the closest airfield on Tian Dao Lin’s personal jet, and then switched over to a French-made helicopter that was waiting for them — a craft especially designed and modified for high-altitude operations.
It was a frozen place in a frozen land. To the southwest the horizon was filled with mountains that in any other place would each be spectacular, but dwindled next to Everest, From the north, Everest appeared as a triangular peak, the top of which was shrouded, as usual, in clouds.