Walking to the back of the mostly empty tram, Mikhel followed the directions they’d sent along with the pocketwatch. He took a seat in the second to last row and held tight to the leather case in his lap.
At the next stop, he waited for them to appear. An old woman with a silk shawl boarded. She sat up front.
For nearly an hour, it stayed the same. Local Belgians coming on, getting off, as the tram grumbled past groves of chestnut trees and into the suburban countryside.
At their next stop—nearly at Waterloo—the old woman with the shawl got up and left the tram. As they started moving again, Mikhel looked around. He was the only passenger left.
“Kak dela?” a voice asked behind him in perfect Russian. “How are you?”
Mikhel jumped, nearly dropping the hold-all. Sitting behind him—how the hell’d they get behind him?—were two men in gray and black wool coats and matching dark hats.
“Vy gavareeteh pa anglisky?” Mikhel asked as he turned anxiously in his seat. “Do you speak English?”
“Odin jazyk nedostato˘cno,” replied the one with the thick glasses. “One language is never enough.”
Mikhel nodded. Their Russian was flawless. The Americans were not as uneducated as the empire always said.
Looking toward the front of the tram, Mikhel saw that the collector was now seated and facing front. Neither he nor the tram driver bothered looking back.
“They’re with you, too, aren’t they?” Mikhel asked in Russian.
Thick Glasses stayed silent.
Mikhel shifted in his seat. Not uneducated at all.
“Sounds like you had quite an adventure,” Thick Glasses began. “And to be the only one to walk away from it—you must be quite an expert fighter, huh?”
Staring out at the blur of sycamore trees, Mikhel could still feel the burn of Swedish snow in his boots. The dogs had reacted first, barking and pressing against their restraints. Outside the cave, Mikhel didn’t move. He panicked, just standing there, frozen as the snow, as the fighting began.
At first the screaming was all in Russian. But there was French . . . German, too. And then, above all else, a foreign tongue—one he still didn’t recognize.
Mikhel wanted to help. He wanted to rush in the cave and save them. But when the gunshots started . . . The snow was so cold in his boots. All he had to do was move. But all he did was stand there. Stand there until the screaming stopped.
“I got lucky,” he whispered to Thick Glasses.
“I didn’t think you Jews believed in luck,” the man in the gray coat shot back with an extra dollop of sarcasm.
Mikhel’s eyes narrowed at the man’s small nose and burning blue eyes. Clearly, they had anti-Semites in America, too.
“I still don’t know who they were,” Mikhel said. “The ones who killed my unit.”
The two men in hats exchanged a glance. The one with the small nose shook his head. But Thick Glasses ignored him.
“They’re known as the Thule Society,” he began. “The group you encountered was what’s known as Thule Leadership. That’s their symbol,” he added, pointing to the small brand—the knife and the quarter-moon—burnt into the front flap of the leather hold-all.
“And that language they were speaking . . . What was it?” Mikhel asked.
Again, there was a pause. “It’s an incantation.”
“Y’mean like religion?”
“No, Mikhel. Like magic.”
Mikhel sat with this a moment. Back in Sweden, when the shooting and the screaming and the fighting had stopped, Mikhel had released one of the dogs, which sprinted straight for the mouth of the cave. But Mikhel didn’t go in himself until the dog returned safely.
It was then, slowly, that he finally made his way inside. He saw the carvings along the cave walls . . . the odd symbols and stick figures. The deeper he went, the more bodies he found. Not everyone was dead. At least three or four were still breathing, still crawling to get out. But all the blood . . . from the fight . . . There was so much shooting. They weren’t breathing for long.
For the second time at the cave, Mikhel wanted to run. He tried to run and leave. But again, he couldn’t. Instead, he stood there, seized by the carnage as he re-created the scene inside. It was there—at the far end of the cave, where Abram and Mendel lay facedown—where the ambush happened. Where his friends fought back. And where he spotted, way in the back, the small flickers of flame from a knocked-over torch.
As the cave’s only light source, it was impossible to miss. But as he got closer . . . the smell . . . It wasn’t wood that was burning. No, it was like burnt tires, but sweeter. Like leather.
Like a tanned leather hold-all being licked by flames.
Mikhel still didn’t know what possessed him to pull it out.
“But you brought the totems?” Thick Glasses asked.
“Only if you brought my paperwork,” Mikhel replied, still clutching the hold-all as he pretended to stare out at the sycamore trees.
It was cold outside. But not as cold as Sweden.
From the inside pocket of his coat, Thick Glasses handed over a folded pale envelope that was closed with a string tie. Mikhel opened it and examined the contents. The Secret Service were men of their word.
“The ship is called the Statendam. It leaves from Rotterdam,” Thick Glasses explained.
“Where?”
“In the Netherlands. Don’t fret—we’ll have a broad carriage take you. The ship will get you to New York. From there, we’ve selected a place called Cleveland, Ohio.”
“You’ll like it,” the other man said with a grin. “Best Jewish city in America.”
“What about my family?”
“All the paperwork is inside. Your wife, daughters . . . They’ll join you soon. New lives for all,” Thick Glasses promised.
“And in return?” Mikhel asked.
“If we need you, we know you’re there,” Thick Glasses said. “In today’s world, we need a few Russians we can count on.” Once again staring at the leather hold-all, he added, “Now about the totems . . .”
No question, the Americans were smart. Mikhel put the case on the floor and slid it backward under the seat.
The tram began to slow down as it pulled into the next station.
“Agent Westman, this is your stop,” the tram driver called from the front.
But neither agent moved, both still rummaging through the items in the hold-all.
“Mikhel, I see four items here,” Thick Glasses said, looking up.
“That’s correct,” Mikhel replied.
“Your message said there were five,” the other man insisted. “Five totems.”
Mikhel stared at him calmly, taking in the man’s burning blue eyes. The tram bucked to a stop. “No,” he said. “There were only four.”
No question, the Americans were smart. But that didn’t mean Mikhel Segalovich was stupid.
“Sirs, you need to leave,” the tram driver insisted. “Your transport is waiting.”
The two men stood from their seats and headed for the front.
“Have a good life, Mitchell,” Thick Glasses called out as he carried the hold-all. Reading the confusion on Mikhel’s face, he added, “Only way to start a new life is with a new name. An American name. Mitchell Siegel.”
“Mitchell Siegel,” Mikhel repeated, saying it aloud. “It sounds . . . silly.”
“You’ll get used to it,” Thick Glasses replied in English as he stepped off the tram. “Good-bye, Mitchell. See you in the land of opportunity.”
Today
Miami, Florida