A year later a pair of tanks appeared on the outskirts of the village, along with two companies of Red Army soldiers. A squad of soldiers had been ambushed nearby the night before, the commander told Bondaruk and the villagers. Eight men, their throats slit and their clothes, weapons, and personal belongings stripped from them. The village elders had five minutes to produce those responsible, lest the entire community be held responsible.
Bondaruk had heard stories about Turkmen resistance fighters in the countryside being aided by Iranian commandos but to his knowledge none of the villagers were involved. Unable to produce the guilty parties, the village chieftain pleaded with the Soviet commander for mercy and was shot for his trouble. Over the next hour the tanks rained shells down on the village until it was in ruins and burning. In the commotion, Bondaruk was separated from his family and he and a handful of boys and men retreated higher into the mountains, far enough away to be safe from the soldiers, but close enough that they could watch through the night as their home was razed to the ground. The next day they returned to the village and began looking for survivors. More dead than alive were found, including Bondaruk’s family, who had taken shelter in the mosque only to have it collapse and crush them alive.
Something inside him changed, as though God had pulled a dark curtain on his old life. He gathered up the strongest and most eager villagers, men and women alike, and they all took to the mountains as partisans.
Within six months Bondaruk had risen not only to a position of leadership among his fighters, but also to that of a legend among the rural Turkmen people. Bondaruk’s fighters would strike in the night, ambushing Soviet patrols and convoys, then disappear back into the Kopet Dag like ghosts. Within a year of his village’s destruction, Bondaruk had a bounty on his head. He’d come to the attention of the Soviet leadership in Moscow, which was now embroiled in not only a tense standoff with Iran and a full-blown war in Afghanistan but also a guerrilla conflict in Turkmenistan.
Shortly after his twenty-first birthday Bondaruk received word that Iranian intelligence operatives had put out the word that his Kopet Dag fighters had an ally in Tehran, if only he would sit down and listen, which he did in a small café outside Ashgabat.
The man Bondaruk met turned out to be a colonel in the elite Iranian paramilitary organization known as the Pasdaran, or the Guardians of the Revolution. The colonel offered Bondaruk and his fighters weapons, ammunition, training, and essential supplies for his war against the Soviets. Wary, Bondaruk had probed for a loophole in the deal—that one condition that would simply change the heel on their necks from that of the Soviets to the Iranians. There was no condition, he was assured. We are of common ancestry and faith and cause. What more of a bond did they need? Bondaruk accepted the offer and over the next five years Bondaruk and his fighters, under the guidance of the Iranian colonel, slowly wore down the Soviet occupiers.
As satisfying as that was for Bondaruk, it was his relationship with the colonel that had the most effect on him. The colonel, it seemed, had been a teacher of Persian history before he’d been called to serve the revolution. The Persian Empire, he explained, stretched back nearly three thousand years and at its height had encompassed the Caspian and Black Sea basins, Greece, North Africa, and much of the Middle East. In fact, Bondaruk was told, Xerxes I, Xerxes the Great, who had invaded Greece and crushed the Spartans at the Battle of Thermopylae, was born in the very same mountains Bondaruk called home and was said to have fathered dozens of children in the Kopet Dag.
This was a thought that was never far from Bondaruk’s mind as he and his guerrillas continued to harass the Soviets until finally, in 1990, over a decade after they’d entered the Kopet Dag, the Red Army withdrew from the border. Shortly after that the Soviet Union collapsed.
With the fight over and no inclination to go back to being an ordinary shepherd, Bondaruk, aided by his Iranian colonel friend, moved to Sevastopol, which had, with the collapse of the Soviet empire, become the Wild West of the Black Sea Basin. Once there, his natural leadership ability and comfort with brutality and swift violence secured him a place first in the Ukrainian black market and then in the Ukrainian Krasnaya Mafiya, or Red Mafia. By the time he was thirty-five, Hadeon Bondaruk was in control of virtually every organized criminal enterprise in Ukraine and a millionaire many times over.
With his position and power and wealth secure, Bondaruk turned his attention to an idea that had been lingering in the back of his mind for many years: Had Xerxes the Great truly been born and raised in the Kopet Dag Mountains, in his very homeland? Had he and Xerxes, as boys separated by centuries, walked the same paths and marveled at the same mountain vistas? Could he himself be descended from Persian royalty?
The answer did not come easily, taking five years, millions of dollars, and a dedicated staff of historians, archaeologists, and genealogists, but by the time he turned forty Hadeon Bondaruk was sure of it: He was, in fact, a direct blood descendant of Xerxes I, ruler of the Persian Achaemenid Empire.
From there Bondaruk’s curiosity quickly grew into an obsession with everything Persian; he used the full force of his wealth and influence to assemble a collection of Persian artifacts, from the drinking cup used at the wedding celebration of Cyaxares to a stone dais used for Zoroastrian rituals during the Sassanid Dynasty to the jewel-encrusted gerron shield carried by Xerxes himself at Thermopylae.
And his collection was nearly complete. Save one glaring omission, he reminded himself. His personal museum, which lay in the bowels of his mansion, was a marvel he shared with no one, partially because no one was worthy of its glory, but mostly because it was not yet complete.
Yet, he now thought. Soon he would remedy the issue.
As if on cue the door to his study opened and his valet entered. “Pardon me, sir.”
Bondaruk turned. “What is it?”
“A call for you. Mr. Arkhipov.”
“Send it through.”
The valet left, gently closing the door behind him. A few moments later the phone on Bondaruk’s desk trilled. He picked it up. “Tell me you are calling me with good news, Grigoriy.”
“I am, sir. According to my sources, the man runs an antique shop in the area. The website where he posted the picture is a well-established forum for antique dealers and treasure hunters.”
“And has anyone shown any interest in the shard?”
“Some, but nothing serious. So far the consensus is that it’s simply a broken piece of bottle, nothing more.”
“Good. Where are you?”
“New York, waiting to board my flight.”
At this Bondaruk smiled. “Always taking the initiative. I like that.”
“It’s why you pay me,” the Russian answered.
“And if you manage to secure this piece there’ll be a bonus in it for you. How do you plan to approach the man, this antique dealer?”
The Russian paused for a moment and Bondaruk could almost see that familiar cruel smile curling Arkhipov’s lips.
“I find the direct approach is always best, don’t you?”
Arkhipov knew about directness and results, Bondaruk thought. The former Russian Spetsnaz was smart, ruthless, and relentless. In his twelve years in Bondaruk’s employ, Arkhipov had never failed in a mission, no matter how dirty.
“I do,” Bondaruk replied. “I’ll leave you to it, then. Just take care that you’re discreet.”
“I always am.”
Which was true. Many, many of Bondaruk’s enemies had, as far as the authorities could determine, simply vanished from the face of the earth.