“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.
The killer lunged again. The tip of his weapon dug into the wall, catching the sleeve of Mike’s jacket and pinning him in place, just as his foot caught Mike directly in the gut.
“Coop!” he called out from the darkened pit. “Hang tough. Catch this and you’re out of here.”
Mike pitched something out of the hole. In the few seconds the object was airborne, I realized it had to be the Glock. He couldn’t loosen his arm sleeve from the bullhook to take aim, but he had flipped the light pistol up over his head in my direction. Mike knew he was no match for Zukov’s killer instincts, and ridding himself of the deadly weapon would eliminate giving it up to the skilled fighter.
There was no way for me to grab the Glock as it sailed over my head like a small missile. It must have landed on nearby rocks, clattering against them as it dropped.
“Run, Coop!” he shouted at me again.
“No, Mike. No. I’m not going,” I said, trying to keep my voice strong. “You’re trapped.”
It sounded as though Zukov had kicked again. There was a loud thud and an ungodly sound from Mike’s throat.
“Get the gun and shoot this bastard, will you?”
“Are you pinned to the wall?”
“No more,” he said, sounding weak and exhausted. He must have ripped his jacket loose from the point of the bullhook. “Beat it.”
Then I heard the resurgence of Chat Grant’s desperate sobs, and the beginnings of a fistfight between Mike and Zukov. I knew I had no choice but to find the loaded gun and use it.
FIFTY-THREE
I beamed the flashlight down the slope behind me.
There was a dense tangle of brush and shrubs, and about ten feet beyond that, something flat that looked like a granite step. It was the only visible surface that would have produced the noise made when the gun fell to the ground.
The grunts and pounding sounds of Mike and Zukov hitting each other propelled me toward the large stone even faster. When I reached it, stood on it, and looked down, I could see it was just the top piece in a staircase of at least fifteen steps. They were dug deep into the ground, most of the lower ones covered by rotting wooden beams that framed the sides.
Now all was silent again. There was no noise coming from the old foundation and I got no answer when I called Mike’s name.
I took a few steps in, then hesitated, staring into the blackness beneath me and smelling the dank odor from within the belly of this obsolete seaside structure. Even a quick glance showed it to be more formally crafted than the old laundry building that was simply scooped out of the Penikese dirt. It must have been the remains of the mansion that my brothers had explored as kids.
I looked back over my shoulder. Of course the pit had gone quiet. Fyodor Zukov’s body was outlined against the low-hanging clouds. He had grabbed on to the strip of blue aerial silk that he’d hung between the boulder and the concrete slab from down below with his long fingers, and he was climbing out of his lair, swinging himself up with all the grace and agility of his craft, in order to come in search of Mike’s gun — and me.
“Are you there, Coop?” Mike’s voice sounded a million miles away now that the killer was poised in midair between the two of us.
I didn’t want to answer or give my position away, so I turned off the flashlight and stuffed it into my pants pocket. Maybe Zukov hadn’t seen me yet. I had already committed myself to take the steps down — most reluctantly — padding farther along in my soft moccasins, hoping not to kick any loose rocks or debris in my path.
“That’s how they punished us, Detective. Two or three nights in solitary—‘in the hole,’ as they liked to call it. Bracing winter air. Builds character, is what they told us,” Zukov said. “I played with the snakes, actually. I found them nicer to be with than most people.”
And as cold-blooded as the young delinquent too. I was halfway down the steps, feeling ahead of me with one foot for any sign of the gun.
“You tend to those wounds. I’ve got to find your friend, haven’t I?”
I froze in place. What had he done to Mike? I could barely breathe as panic seized my chest and fogged my thinking.
