Panthera Spelaea

I woke when the door opened to the small room. Opening an eye, I recognized Vasili, Alexandra’s driver, and our overwatch sniper with the big-ass gun. “You awake?”

“Yeah,” I said as I sat up. It had been a few hours, and my Cave Lion healing had me fully recovered. You couldn’t even see the scars. “What is going on?”

He tossed a bag onto the chair next to the bed. “It’s after nightfall, and we have work to do,” he told me. “Zach is sixteen kilometers east of us, and we need to bring him in before someone shoots him.”

The first shift could freak you out, and we didn’t need him spotted. “Cool. Is Edward coming along?”

“No. Edward and Alexandra were helicoptered to Moscow by the Federal Police a few hours ago. This little battle set off a shitshow, I’ll tell you.”

I dumped the contents of the bag on the bed; it was the clothes I’d left in his car. I started dressing. “I’ve been kind of out of it, so what happened?”

“While they were carrying you to the safe room after the battle, I made my way down the hill to the bolt-hole entrance.”

“Bolthole?”

“Yeah. The Abrahmovs were so paranoid about kidnappings and attacks that they built this safe room deep underground. The emergency entrance from the top is in the Master Bedroom, and it’s well-hidden. That’s how Alexandra got down here when the attack began. We are ten meters underground, and Mikhail had this room excavated out of solid bedrock. You could ride out an airstrike or wait out a threat for weeks on end. He built it to hold a dozen people for a month in case of nuclear war.”

“So, what is the bolthole?”

“The second entrance. It’s a tunnel that extends beyond the fences and a hundred meters into the surrounding woods. It’s also booby-trapped if you don’t know the codes. The exit is well-camouflaged, and its existence is known only to the family and their most trusted staff.”

“Like you.”

He smiled. “Yes, like me. Anyway, I got to the bolt-hole and opened the entrance, only to find Miss Alexandra waiting for me at the bottom of the ladder. I confirmed she was all right and asked for instructions.”

“How was she?”

“A little freaked out, but still in control. Miss Alexandra gave me a burner phone with several numbers programmed in already. I was to drive the car at least twenty-five kilometers away and stay out of sight. The Federal Police would be coming quickly, and there wasn’t a good way to explain why you and Art weren’t around unless the car was gone too.”

That made sense. “So the story is that you drove the two principals away while my bodyguard went to aid the defenders.”

Vasili nodded. “Your bodyguard was dead, so there was no hiding our presence. With you hidden here, Zach running off in the bear, and Art being God knows where? Miss Alexandra thought it was the most believable story.”

“How are they explaining your absence?” I pulled my suit jacket on, ready to go.

“They told the Federal Police that my standing orders in the event of an attack were to go underground and not allow or attempt contact for at least twenty-four hours. We will retrieve Zach, then make contact in the morning.”

We had moved out of the small bedroom and into the ‘main’ living area, which had a living room and kitchenette. I waved at the doctor and nurse as they played cards at the table, then followed him into the storage room. He moved a heavy-duty storage cabinet aside on noiseless hidden hinges, exposing an armored hatch. Vasili entered a ten-digit code on the keypad, and the light changed from red to green. I heard a thunk, then he turned the handle and pulled it open. Red-colored LED lights came on inside. “Down you go,” he told me.

I climbed down the ladder about ten feet into a closet-sized room with a tunnel on one wall. Vasili was right behind me, the hatch closed and secured behind him. I could smell both Vasili and Alexandra’s scents, plus some stale ones. Vasili had me lay down on a fiberglass sled inside the tunnel. “This is faster than crawling,” he told me. “When you get to the other end, hit the RETURN SLED button to send it back.”

The tunnel was dark, so I couldn’t tell how fast I was going when the motor started the sled moving. All I heard was the sound of wheels until I came to a stop in another closet. I stood up, found the button, and sent the sled back. It took another two minutes to get Vasili next to me. “Pretty slick,” I told him. “What happens if they cut the power?”

“Battery backup, plus you can always crawl,” he replied. There was a simple periscope setup he used to verify no one was around before he killed the lights. He opened the hatch, and I followed him up into the woods. He closed the hatch and locked it, then knelt next to me by the fake stump. “Don’t move; let your eyes adjust to the night, and listen to make sure no one is coming.”

The compound was well-lit, and you could see the fence and the summer home through the trees. There were spotlights set up around the outside, and I could see crime scene workers and detectives around the crashed helicopters. My ears were much better than his, so I quickly determined no one was coming. “Did you see the Bear fall?” I still couldn’t believe Art was gone.

“No, I focused on the helicopters and their passengers,” Vasili replied. “Only after I stopped firing did I see him. He was about five meters from the left corner of the wall where those evidence flags are. There was no doubt; his brains got splattered over the ground in front of him. You can see a little on the corner of the wall.”

I tried to imagine it from the bloodstains. “The shooter was behind him?”

“Yes.” A chill ran through my stomach; the shooter must have been in our direction for the blood spatter to go where it did. “Come on; we need to go.”

My head was spinning as we moved silently away from the compound. It took us two hours to reach the car. We pulled off the pine boughs and folded the camouflage netting that hid it from aircraft. I got in the front, and he drove off. “The sighting was about five kilometers north of here.”

“Get me close enough to catch his scent,” I replied. Despite the cold weather, I kept the window part open as we drove. We hadn’t gone far before I told him to stop.

I got out, removing my clothes and setting them on the seat. “The bear is upwind of us,” I said as I pointed into the dark woods. “Are you coming with me?” I could tell he thought that was a bad idea. “I’ll shift, and you get on. Keep your legs along my chest and grip the mane in front. You’ll be fine; the girls love it.” I switched, and Vasili climbed on my back. I stood up and headed into the woods, following my nose into the maze of trees and rocks.

I found Zach sleeping under a fallen tree. He woke up when he caught my scent, giving off a warning growl before stopping. Vasili jumped off, and I carefully approached the new Switcher. I could see him relax his posture as his Bear recognized my Lion. Somewhere in the background, I hoped Zach was following along. We sniffed each other before I ran my face along his shoulder.

Zach switched back first, collapsing to the dirt. I switched to my human form right after him. “Are you all right?”

“I feel like I got run over by a tank,” he said. I remembered that weakness and soreness well.

I ended up switching back, and Vasili loaded Zach onto me before getting on himself. The pair were a lot heavier than my mates, but we didn’t have far to go. We reached our car and set Zach in the back seat. I got dressed, then dressed Zach up as Vasili drove us towards town.

Along the way, Vasili updated Zach on what had happened. “By the time I had driven clear of the cops and the dacha, I had a text message that said only ‘It was Vadim.’ I contacted the Elements and identified myself. I told them that Anatoly was gone, and Zach was taking over.” Anatoly was the name on Art’s passport since Art was supposedly in his seventies. Anatoly was just a deckhand. “When they asked what happened, I told them Vadim Pushkov would know. Then I hung up.”

Zach processed the information. “That would be enough for them to act,” he told us. “I need to get back to the airport; I need to return to the yacht immediately.”

“The Federal Police will want to question you,” Vasili protested.

“The police can kiss my ass,” Zach said. “If they don’t have a warrant out for me, I’m gone. Now give me your burner phone.” He made the arrangements as Vasili turned towards Moscow.

It was five in the morning by the time we arrived at the airfield. I’d decided to join Zach on the flight out of Russia over Vasili’s objections. “What am I supposed to tell the Police?”

“Tell them the truth,” I replied. “I’m not interested in being framed for something I didn’t do AGAIN.”

We watched the news as we waited for the Customs agents to arrive and stamp our passports. The attack on Alexandra Abrahmov was at the top of the broadcast. The breaking news was that Vadim Pushkov was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound when Federal Police raided his apartment. The suicide would help us all bury the investigation of the attack so we could move on.

The agent who cleared us to leave didn't bother to check the bedroom when we told him our friend was sleeping off last night's vodka. He scanned and stamped Anatoly Karpov's passport, removing the five hundred ruble bill in the front, and left. As far as Russian Customs knew, he'd left with us.

Once we were out of Russian airspace, I called my bodyguard back at the Moscow hotel and told him to ship my things back to my home in Houston. I wasn’t ever going back to Russia.

I couldn’t trust the Russian government.

And I couldn’t shake the idea that Alexandra had taken advantage of the chaos to execute her father’s rival with a single shot from the woods.