FIFTY-TWO
“GET out of here, Coop!” Mike yelled to me. I assumed that he hadn’t gotten to his feet immediately to take on Zukov because he’d hurt his leg — maybe the ankle that had been so badly injured a year ago. “Get as far away as you can till the Coast Guard arrives.”
“They’ll be too late,” Zukov said. “Whenever it is they get here, they’ll be late.”
I was way too tired to think clearly. Running wasn’t an option. I didn’t know whether to stay where I was until the crazed killer decided which of his victims to go for first, or to lower myself into the old foundation and try to find Mike’s gun.
“You must be one of the detectives, aren’t you?” he said to Mike. “I have to hand it to you. I never thought you’d find us on Penikese. I figured I’d have some time to get to know Reverend Grant more intimately.”
Fyodor Zukov had indeed confused Faith Grant with her sister, whom she so closely resembled. Chastity may have been the black sheep of her hometown, but when she showed up at the Christmas performance of Ursula Hewitt’s play — surrounded by the other ordained women — he made the mistake of targeting her. Her changed appearance from the December evening when she had gone goth — and now the striking resemblance between the sisters with Chat’s natural hair color and style restored — had caused Zukov to kidnap the wrong sibling.
“She’s not a minister,” I said, trying to keep an eye on Zukov while using the light to look for Mike’s gun.
“You know, Ms. Cooper, she’s told me that over and over. But I’ve done my research well. I’ve been to the seminary and I’ve talked to her friends, and I don’t think I’ve made a mistake. She has offended God and she must be silenced for that.”
Now Zukov was using the long, pointed end of the bullhook to poke around for the Glock too. I could see that Mike was spread out on his belly, inching himself forward like a reptile. He must have had some sense where the pistol had landed.
“Stay as calm as you can, Chat,” I said. “Every police department in the northeast knows you’re here. Faith sent us to find you, and we’re going to get you out of here.”
“Don’t play games with me!” Zukov shouted, waving the bullhook wildly overhead. “I know who this woman is.”
I could hear her racked sobs from beneath the silk ties that covered Chat’s mouth.
“The Reverend Grant — the minister — is at her seminary in New York. Don’t make this any worse for yourself, Fyodor. You can let—”
“They’re not ministers,” he said, watching Mike carefully but yelling in my direction, as though the wind carried his message across the seas. He looked every bit the madman as he preached to me. “None of these foolish women are ministers. They should all be silenced by the church. Silenced by me, before I die.”
“The woman you’re holding is not—”
“Priests and ministers are linked to the person of the incarnate Christ. The Father begets the Son.” Fyodor Zukov was raving now. “The priest presides at the altar and says what Christ said, does what Christ did. In that moment and in that ministry, he is Christ. And Jesus Christ was a man.”
Mike was using the distraction of this maniacal sermon to edge himself forward.
“Tell her the truth, Ms. Cooper,” Zukov said, switching gears to a soft whisper of a voice. “No one will find any of us here. Not in time.”
Somehow, while he’d been ranting, Zukov caught Mike’s movement, and swung suddenly around, kicking his right leg up in a wide arc that took dead aim at Mike’s head.
I screamed and Mike ducked, but the martial-arts training combined with the grace and balance of Zukov’s circus artistry was in full display.
“How’s your sambo?” Mike called out, taunting the devil himself.
It looked like Zukov was waiting for Mike to lead him to the gun before he struck a deadly blow with the sharp point of the bullhook.
“I fight for Christ, Detective. That’s why you’ll be so easy to kill.”
“If you thought the Reverend Portland would be your decoy, Fyodor,” I said, hoping to get his attention, “you were wrong.”
He looked away from Mike and up at me, surprised that we knew as much as we did.
“It’s Oksana who told us about you,” I said, starting to walk around the base of the foundation. I wanted to know how Fyodor thought he would get himself out of this deep hole. “Oksana who told us about your time at Penikese.”
“Oksana would never give me up!” he shouted.
I had sidetracked him completely from his two captives. He was enraged by his sister’s betrayal, baying at me as I continued to prowl above him.
Three-quarters of the way around the rectangular ditch I came upon his solution. Zukov had tied a strip of aerial silk — a bright blue length of fabric, the color of the piece that had been found on Naomi’s body — to the base of a huge boulder a few feet away from the hole. He had secured the other end of it to a corner of one of the cement blocks. He would be able to lift himself out with very little effort, after he disposed of Chastity Grant.
“How else do you think we knew about Penikese?” I asked, stepping over the silk and continuing to stalk the perimeter. “How else would we know you’d been banished here, sent away to school instead of jail?”
Zukov was following my movements, ready to take out his unhappiness about Oksana on me, or whoever was closest to him. It gave Mike the chance to continue his crawl. It allowed me time to think about what action to take.
“Doesn’t matter that you can’t call her from here. She’s in jail. She was locked up as an accessory to murder tonight.”
“You’re lying!” he screamed at me.
“I don’t have any reason to lie, Fyodor. Oksana was arrested when the train stopped in Providence. Would you have silenced her too? Is that your plan? To silence anyone who has offended you?”
“I’d never hurt Oksana. Those who need to be silenced are the ones who offend God!” he yelled at the top of his lungs.
“Pariahs and outcasts, is that it?”
Mike was sitting up now, his back against the wall. I guessed he was close to his gun, ready to take on Zukov, although ten feet of darkness separated them and I knew he couldn’t see a human target clearly in the blackness of the hole.
“And lepers, right?” Mike added.
Zukov spun on a dime. He was ready to charge at Mike.
“Don’t you know doctors can treat your condition?” I called out to him. “The doctors at Bellevue can help you. You don’t have to die, Fyodor.”
He turned again to look at me, wondering, I thought, whether I was worth chasing down.
Now it was Mike speaking. “The Gospel According to Mark. ‘And there came a leper to him, beseeching him, and kneeling down to him, and saying unto him, If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.’ ”
Fyodor Zukov seemed transfixed as Mike recited text from the gospel.
“‘And Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth his hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I will; be thou clean. And as soon as he had spoken, immediately the leprosy departed from him, and he was cleansed.’ ”
“Don’t mock me, Detective. It’s too late for that too. Don’t you dare mock me.”
Zukov extended his arm with the bullhook, aiming for Mike’s head. But Mike dodged the sharp tip and came up with the gun in his right hand. He fired once and I heard the bullet ricochet off the wall.
Zukov laughed and readied his weapon, like a javelin, for another charge at Mike, who had braced himself against the foundation as he tried to get to his feet.