fear.”
Giles looked up at the boy on top of the human tower and the boy was staring back at him. The boy pointed at Giles, and all eyes turned to look, including the old man with the cane. Giles cleared his throat and spoke in Russian. “I am seeking a man named Giorgi Zhordania.”
A squat, muscular man about forty years old with thick black hair and heavy eyebrows stepped out of the shadows. He motioned for the boy to climb down, then walked over to Giles, staring at the multiple scars on his face and neck. “I am Giorgi Zhordania,” he said. “Who are you?”
Giles hesitated. “My name is Giles Xuereb.”
The man looked Giles over once more. “Have we met before?”
“No. Never.”
The man’s eyes were coal black, and he stared at Giles without smiling. “What is your purpose? Why do you seek me out?”
The courtyard fell completely silent. Not one person moved or made a sound. Then the old man rose out of his chair and made his way over to Giles, tapping his cane on the ground along the way. He gazed up and into Giles’s eyes, then smiled. “He does not seek you, Giorgi. He seeks me … and he needs no purpose for being here. He is welcome for any reason and for any length of time.” The old man took hold of Giles’s hand. “You are the son of Manoel Xuereb, no?”
“Yes,” Giles said, covering the old man’s hand with both of his. “Yes, I am, sir.”
“Everything?” I asked.
“Well,” she said, hesitating. “Most of it.”
That same evening, Cardinal informed all of us about Blaine Harrington and his obsessions, one of which was his pursuit of a new weapon to use against the Soviets; a human weapon with superhuman powers. After his sadistic study of Zuriaa, then seeing Opari and witnessing a little of what she could do, he was now convinced the Meq and whatever is in our blood could be that weapon. Cardinal also told us what Valery looked like, but very little else. He said Valery had only been seen rarely since 1945, and with a network of agents who were equally invisible, he was impossible to track or predict. The CIA and Army Intelligence had not yet been able to “turn” anyone who had ever worked for him or with him. All Soviet agents denied his existence. When Cardinal finished his briefing, he asked if we needed anything. Geaxi asked if he might assist two of us in entering Russia secretly somewhere near the Sukhoy Kurdzhips River. He said it could be arranged through Kerem and his Black Sea contacts. Cardinal then told Mowsel he would examine him the next day and we ended the late night with Mowsel and Cardinal discussing various ocular trauma and the advances in modern ophthalmology.
It cost us $3500 plus the cost of fuel, but two nights later Geaxi and I were on board a Russian-built Mi-1 helicopter piloted by a Turkish smuggler named Babesh. We flew through the night, refuelling twice along the north coast of Turkey, then making the long hop across open water at an altitude of no more than fifty feet, finally landing outside the small coastal town of Tuapse. Babesh never turned the engine off and left as soon as Geaxi and I were clear of the rotor blades. It was not a pleasant trip, yet dawn was breaking, we were safe, we were in Russia, and we were not far from Zuratumi.
Geaxi said, “Do you feel like a spy, young Zezen?”
“No. I feel more like a criminal.”
“Even better,” she said with a laugh.
The air was warm and humid, and we walked south at a quick pace for nearly three hours. Geaxi seemed to know exactly where she was going. She told me she had spent some time in the region two hundred years earlier and even though many of the roads were now paved, they were the same roads leading to the same places. By late morning we had reached an intersection about thirty miles north of Sochi. Geaxi paused and looked around. An old school bus was parked off to one side. It was painted in stripes of at least six different colors, which were all fading and chipped. On both sides in bold Russian letters were the words THE GREAT ZHORDANIAS. As we approached, the doors of the bus opened and a tall, badly scarred, white-haired man in his early seventies stepped out. It was Giles Xuereb. Speaking Maltese to Geaxi, he said, “I was beginning to worry.”
Geaxi shrugged, then adjusted her beret and smiled. Also speaking Maltese, she replied, “Not to worry, old friend. After all, the show must go on.”
Giles looked down at me. A moment or two passed.
“Hello, Giles,” I said.
“Zianno … an unexpected pleasure. How long has it been?”
“Thirty-two years.”
“Yes … yes,” he said, pausing and glancing back at the school bus and the faces of a dozen Zhordanias staring out the windows.
“It is good to see you again, Giles. It is good to see you alive,” I added, both of us knowing I was referring to the Fleur-du-Mal.
He put his index finger to his lips. “Shhh,” he whispered, then laughed out loud. He turned and gazed down the road to the south. Traffic was sparse, as it had been all morning. “Come with us. You must be hungry following such a long journey. We will find something decent to eat in town. After that,” he said, winking at both Geaxi and me, “we have a show to do.”
On the drive into Sochi, Giles introduced Geaxi and me to the Zhordanias, one by one. The youngest among them was twelve years old, a wide-eyed boy named Noe, and the oldest was in his mid-forties. His name was Giorgi, and thirty-two years earlier he had been the boy Giles first saw tumbling through the air upon his arrival in Zuratumi. Now Giorgi was the leader of their troupe and the anchor of the flying four-tiered human pyramid, the highlight of their act and the feat for which they were famous. When Giorgi was told that I was American, he became very excited and insisted I sit next to him. “We will talk,” he said, “and Giorgi will grow his English.”
We stopped for a wonderful two-hour meal at a restaurant called the Black Magnolia. Giles ordered
