Sibley's Secret

instructions for bug bombs. He knew there were heavy-duty bombs in the maintenance storage locker on the first floor of his building. It was easy to use. He just needed to wait until both the man and woman were gone for a time during the day. He’d been reading in the hall when the woman left, giving him a scowl, but not saying anything. A few minutes later, the man came out, “What you lookin’ at, boy!” He’d waved a menacing fist, but Rack had looked away as the man lumbered down the stairs. He’d waited to be sure that both had gone down all three flights to the outside entrance, then he’d gone to their door. It would take both obese monsters several minutes to climb back up when they returned, which was more time than he needed.

  He’d stolen the bug bomb the previous night. All he had had to do was read the directions for timing it and then find a place to hide it. With all the trash, it hadn’t taken a minute to hide the canister and leave. The bomb was intended for a space four-times larger than the tiny one-room fire trap, and had come with a warning about encapsulating the building with a tent. He couldn’t use a tent, but the sealed apartment worked fine. They had died in their sleep. Rack did feel something after he knew for sure that they would not be coming out again: he’d felt excited and joyful. His mother was never going to be brutalized again. He wanted to tell her that he’d killed the pigs, but, of course, he didn’t want her to think of her perfect boy as a killer.

  It was that day in the eighth grade that he became an assassin. Throughout his high school and college years, he had disposed of half a dozen vermin around the project in different ways, best suited to the individual’s circumstance. He perfected techniques that were either so baffling or undetectable for investigators that no suspicions were ever raised about him. He was the good boy living there. He even started a website to brag about his exploits, disguised as video game successes, not actual murders. As his education progressed, he used his studies to research science and techniques to perfect his craft. In college, he took martial arts classes and joined a gun club with its own firing range. He’d studied everything possible about using weapons.

  In his senior year at the university, he found an obscure website used to arrange murder-for-hire contracts. It was controlled by someone or some consortium, but he was finally admitted as a guest. The first job he won by bidding low had been in Chicago, which didn’t interfere with his studies. This job was followed by another for the same client, involving more complexity and some weekend travel. Once again, it went flawlessly, and the client had used him exclusively since then.

  Rack was known online as “Odd Job.” Neither he nor his clients ever disclosed true identities, although some of them weren’t initially cautious about using their own IP addresses. After ten years, since graduating, Rack had built up his clientele and increased his fee to the point that he usually made a low seven figure income each year. He’d maintained offshore bank accounts almost since the beginning. Some years were more lucrative than others, but he could now live comfortably from his investments, even if the work stopped completely. It wasn’t ending, however, and he was enjoying the challenges of higher profile engagements. Most of his victims today were protected behind massive security systems and bodyguards. The challenges invigorated him.

  Curiosity

  He said, “I’m planning to follow Sonya to Paris. She left Sevastopol in 1919 and there wasn’t much historical interest in her after that.” Evan didn’t detect much interest by Karina either.

  She mumbled something, but continued reading the document on the screen. After a moment, she replied, “Why do you think she could lead to the gold?”

  “I don’t. I’m not looking for the gold, like I said.” Then he added, “But she had Kolchak’s son Rostislav with her. The boy was barely ten and the Admiral loved him, even if not her.”

  She paused, “Kolchak had already lived with Anna for two years by then. Sonya must have despised him.”

  “Then why did she stay in Sevastopol for so long when she had to know she was in danger from the Bolsheviks? They weren’t living together any longer, but they weren’t divorced either. I think Rostislav is the answer. He kept them linked almost to the end until the Red Army had virtually won. Sonya and the boy ran for their lives, but only at the end. The Reds were killing everyone who represented higher education, authority or nobility.”

  Karina nodded slightly, sat back, and looked at him. “When Kolchak was receiving The Last Rites, he handed a letter to the Czech officer in charge of the firing squad saying that he loved his son. The letter was addressed to his wife in Paris. No one knows if the letter was ever delivered.

  “According to some of the stories, the Czech told Kolchak to ‘fuck off’ – not in those words, but something similar.”

  Evan was skeptical, “I doubt that he would have written anything about the gold, even if the Czechs did mail it, which I doubt. It’s possible, I guess, since he was going to get shot that he didn’t care if his letter got read and the gold discovered. That wouldn’t have been his purpose in writing to Sonya. I just think he wanted his son to have his last wishes.”

  She said, “I’m checking for other possibilities that the gold could have been taken by the Czechs or even by the American Army guarding the train.”

  He just nodded and kept scrolling through the files. He’d mainly wanted to talk to her.

  A few minutes later, Karina asked him, “Do you think Sonya continued to love her husband even after all the women he slept with during their marriage? He basically cast her off for Anna Timiryova who was married to his best friend. The man was a philanderer. Is that the right word?”

  He nodded, “I don’t know, Karina. You’re a woman. How would you react if the man you were married to, the father of your son, was openly living with another woman? Could you still love him?”

  “I don’t know. I think I would be full of hatred, but I just don’t know. If they had really been in love before, maybe she could forgive him. Maybe he was just infatuated with the younger woman.

  “Maybe the more important question is if he still loved her? He lived with Anna for the last two years of his life, but she had her own son from Timiryova; and from the little we know, Kolchak loved him like his own son. He was a navy hero and Supreme Ruler. He had immense responsibilities pulling him in many directions. It’s possible that Sonya saw him in several dimensions and was able to forgive. She might have felt Anna was just a diversion for him, like the others; he had many lovers. Maybe that is why Sonya stayed near him to the end.”

  He thought about it. “Okay, so I’m going to trace Sonya and Rostislav in Paris if I can. So far, all we know for sure is that they both died in Paris in the 1960s.”

  Graves

  Major General William Sidney Graves was born March 27, 1865, in Mount Calm, Texas, and died February 27, 1940. In 1918, President Wilson ordered Graves, the commander of the 8th Army Division, to Russia as Commanding General American Expeditionary Force-Siberia, AEF-Siberia. The mission was to maintain total neutrality in the civil war, but, along with Japanese and British troops, to maintain security over war materials shipped from the U.S. to Russia to press the battle on the eastern front against the Germans before they retreated to fight the Red Army at home. In reality, this meant protecting the stockpiles of supplies offloaded at Vladivostok and the Trans-Siberian railroad, which was the only transportation route across the country.

  The AEF-Siberia consisted of headquarters company, two infantry brigades, the 27th and 31st from the Philippines, four infantry regiments, three machine gun battalions, artillery and mortar batteries, an ammunition train, police and supply trains. It also included several medical companies.

  Personally, Graves was open about his dislike of Admiral Kolchak as a person and of his government, which he saw as totalitarian. President Wilson shared this view. As a result, Kolchak was refused any sort of military aid from the Americans. Kolchak was aware of their distaste of his methods, but in a
move of desperation when the Red Army closed in around him, he begged for Graves to save his life on humanitarian grounds. The main Red offensive against Kolchak began in late April, 1919, after the Siberian thaw, aimed at the center of the White Army near the city of Ufa, an industrial, economic, scientific and cultural center. The city fell on June 9th and other Red forces progressed against the Whites through the Ural Mountains. The Reds forced the Whites into retreat. The White forces held out until October, but the supply of men lost in the fighting could not be replenished. By November, the White forces were falling back towards Omsk.

  Kolchak also had other problems. The British stopped supporting him, and Omsk fell with the loss of almost 50,000 soldiers and ten generals. Kolchak then left Omsk heading for Irkutsk on the Trans-Siberian Railroad, with Graves’ reluctant agreement. In late December Irkutsk fell, and Kolchak resigned his command in an attempt to live. After resigning, he was promised safe passage on the train by the Czechoslovaks in charge of the area so Kolchak could move to the British military mission. It was a ruse. The Czechs had been allied with the Whites, but then felt betrayed by Kolchak’s resignation and turned him over to the Bolsheviks in Omsk.