“Frost heaval.”
“The coffins have been shifting in the ground?”
Kozak nodded. “The closer to the cliff they are, the more movement there has been.”
Movement meant damage, and damage meant any number of things might have transpired in the Alaskan soil, from leakage to contamination to — and this he could only hope for — disintegration and harmless dissipation.
“What are the ground temps?” Slater asked, and Kozak punched a few buttons on the computer, bringing up a separate graph on the screen. “At a depth of one meter or so, where most of the coffins are, it’s between minus four and minus ten degrees Celsius.”
“Is that good or bad?” Nika asked.
“At the AFIP,” Slater replied, “we keep our specimens, for safety’s sake, at minus seventy Celsius.”
But this then would have to be the grave with which their project began. It was closest to ground zero, as it were, and as a result the condition of the cadaver in the casket lost at sea would be most closely replicated in this one. In any epidemiological mission, it was critical to work from the most hazardous location first, then proceed outward from there to see where, and how far, some contagion or contaminant might have spread. Slater motioned to Groves and told him the excavation work should begin right here, and Groves twisted a wire pennant around the top of the cross at the top of the grave, then stuck another into the snow at the foot of the grave.
“And make sure you keep the soil as intact as possible, so that we can lay it back neatly over the grave when we’re done.”
Groves made a note of it, as Nika nodded approvingly.
“We want to leave no sign of any desecration behind us when we’re done.”
“And the sooner you all go,” Kozak piped up, waving his hands, “the easier it will be for me to finish my own work here. So, scat — I must make my grid now, and you are all in the way.”
Slater knew what it was like to have a bunch of onlookers hanging around when you wanted to concentrate on a serious task at hand, so he ushered Nika and the sergeant back toward the gateposts as Kozak focused on his GPR. If this first exhumation was going to go off without a hitch tomorrow, there were things he needed to do back at the colony today. Kozak was barely aware of their leaving. And though he jiggled the monitor to see if he could remove the squiggly lines that were spoiling the topographic map, they kept coming right back, as did the occasional impression of a hard, probably metallic, object as he rolled the GPR chassis over each individual gravesite. A strong blast of cold wind swept in from the sea, bending the boughs of the dark trees that bordered the barren graveyard, and he pressed the earflaps of his hat closer against his head. It was the same kind of hat he’d worn as a boy, growing up in the Soviet Union. And now, on this strange island, he was revisited by that same crushing sadness that he remembered enveloping him even back then.
That was one reason he had just shooed them all away. When this depression fell, he needed to be alone with it … and it fell upon him often in climes like these. He was carried back in time, to a throng of mourners, gathered at an impressive state funeral in Moscow, when he was just a boy. Wrapped in their heavy black coats and fur hats, they had stood impassively as the wind had battered their faces and brought tears to their eyes. Of course, given the reputation for steely rectitude of the dignitary whose funeral it was — a man whom everyone feared and no one much liked — a sharp wind was the only way any of them would have been inclined to shed a tear.
As young Vassily had looked on, the Russian Orthodox priest, in his long black cassock and purple chimney-pot hat — the kamilavka—had overseen the perebor, or tolling of the bells. First, a small bell had been struck once, and then, in succession, slightly larger bells were rung, each one symbolizing the progress of the soul from cradle to grave — or so his mother had leaned down to whisper in his ear. At the end, all the bells were struck together, signifying the end of earthly existence. The coffin, sealed with four nails in memory of the four nails that had crucified Christ, was lowered into the grave, with the head facing east to await the Resurrection. The priest poured the ashes from a censer into the open pit, and after each of the stony-faced mourners had tossed in a shovelful of dirt and drifted off down the snowy pathways of the cemetery, Vassily had found himself alone there, with only his widowed mother. He had leaned back against her and she had folded her arms over him as they watched the gravediggers, impatient to finish the job, emerge from the cover of the trees to fill up the rest of his father’s grave.
Chapter 29
“So, where did you say you got this?” Voynovich asked, while leaning back on his stool. He’d gotten even fatter, if that was possible, since Charlie Vane had last come into the Gold Mine to fence some other items.
“I already told you,” Charlie said. “It was a gift from God.”
“Yeah, right. I’ve heard your show. You and God are good buds now.”
Charlie knew that nobody believed that his conversion to Christ was the real thing, but so what? There would always be unbelievers and naysayers. Jesus himself had to deal with Doubting Thomas. But he’d driven here, all the way to Nome, because Voynovich was the only person he could think of who could give him a decent appraisal of the emerald cross — and tell him what the damn writing said on the other side.
Voynovich studied the cross under his loupe one more time. “I can’t be completely sure until I take them out,” he said, “but these stones could just be glass.”
“They’re emeralds,” Charlie said, “so don’t give me any of your bullshit.” Just because he was a man of God now, it didn’t mean he’d become a sucker. “And the cross is silver.”
“Yeah, I’ll give you that much.”
It was only four in the afternoon, but it was dark out, and in deference to the delicacy of their negotiations, Voynovich had lowered the front blinds of the pawnshop and flipped the sign to CLOSED. The place hadn’t changed much over the years — the same old moose head hung on the wall, the dusty cabinets displayed a seemingly unchanged array of Inuit scrimshaw, old mining tools, and “rare” coins in sealed plastic sleeves. The fluorescent lights still sputtered and fizzed.
“It’s definitely an old piece,” Voynovich conceded.
“How old?”
“Best guess? Judging from the condition, at least a hundred years. Of course, if I knew more about how and where you found it — it’s why I asked — I’d probably be able to tell you a whole lot more.” He shrugged his shoulders under his baggy corduroy shirt and shook a fresh cigarette out of the packet lying on the counter.
“How about the writing on the back?” Charlie asked, shifting in his wheelchair. He was still sore from his long drive from Port Orlov. “What’s it say?”
Voynovich turned it over and tried peering at it through the bottom of his gold bifocals, then gave up. “Gotta get the magnifying glass out of the back,” he said, sliding off the stool, and heading for the rear of the shop. A trail of smoke wafted into the air behind him.
The trouble with dealing with crooks, Charlie reflected, was that they never stopped being crooks. Not emeralds? What a load. Voynovich was probably hoping to buy the thing outright from him for a couple of hundred bucks, act like he was doing Charlie a favor the whole time, then turn around and sell it for thousands through his own guys down in Tacoma. Well, Charlie hadn’t come all this way for a couple hundred bucks, and he sure didn’t want to have to tell Rebekah that that was all he got. While she was supposed to be the subservient wife — that’s what the Bible decreed — she had a tongue on her that could cut like a knife.