“How? Because I fight like my dad?”
Starting down a narrow basement staircase, Otrera said over her shoulder, “How do you think? We have a lab. All they need is a drop of blood—”
“They certainly got that.” Nick pressed past me and followed her closely down the staircase, apparently not sharing my apprehensions about our underground destination. “And then what? You have my DNA, you know who my parents are. What comes next? Are you going to show me a box with my old teddy bears? Is that what we’re doing down here?”
Instead of replying, Otrera continued ahead of us through a narrow basement storage space with spears, bows, axes, and snowshoes either hanging on or leaning against the walls. As we walked past a door slightly ajar, both Nick and I paused to peek into a room that had an entire wall covered with television screens set on different news channels. Oddly, the only sound coming from the room and its maelstrom of flashing images was the rhythmic trot of a strapping woman running on a treadmill with a headset on, intently observing the changing screens.
Realizing she had lost her retinue, Otrera came back toward us with a strained smile. “Obviously, we have to know what’s going on,” she snapped, mostly to Nick. “But we have no computers online in this house. Our research team is one hundred percent mobile and operates exclusively out of random Internet cafés. But please come with me. We don’t have much time.”
Walking ahead once more, Otrera took a large key out of her trouser pocket and stopped at the end of the armory to unlock a massive door. “There,” she said, pushing open the door with her shoulder and flicking on a light switch inside. “This is our sanctuary.”
We followed her into a vast dimly lit room, which had the temperature and feel of a crypt. The only light came from illuminated shelves on the walls, and the darkness in the rest of the sanctuary was so pervasive it took me a moment to make out the presence of an enormous ironclad coffer in the center of the stone floor. At least five feet wide and three feet deep, the coffer was sealed with a medieval-looking padlock, and despite Otrera’s impatient waving, both Nick and I had a hard time wresting our eyes from it.
“What’s in there?” asked Nick. “The Amazon Hoard?”
Seeing she could not coax us away from the enigmatic receptacle, Otrera came back toward us again, folding her arms against the cold. “It’s not what you think.” She looked at us intently, almost nervously. “It is not gold.”
My pulse quickened. “But it is King Priam’s treasure?”
Otrera hesitated. “We believe so.” She put a hand on the coffer’s lid, as if to ensure it remained closed. “Only the queen has the key.”
As much as I knew she was uncomfortable with the subject, I could not walk away. Here I was, a faithful Amazon believer, within arm’s length of a treasure even I had dismissed as a legend…. It was too wonderful. And so I nodded and said to Otrera, “I understand. But at the same time, I must take issue with the idea of safeguarding history in this manner. Assuming King Priam really did entrust the Amazons with the most valuable artifacts of Trojan civilization … well, why did he do that? Presumably he wanted to ensure they weren’t destroyed. And he was wise. The Greeks annihilated the Trojans so completely we’re not even sure what language they spoke. To this day, the nature of Trojan civilization is one of the greatest mysteries of the ancient world. In fact, for hundreds of years, scholars believed Troy and the Trojan War were nothing but a grand fantastic myth. Was that what King Priam had in mind when he asked the Amazons to safeguard his treasure? That his realm should be erased from human history for three thousand years? No!” I slammed a palm against the lid of the coffer and saw Otrera jump at the sound. “It would be his greatest wish, I am sure, that these things be known to the world. For if they are merely festering in a frozen basement on the fringes of nowhere, they might as well have been destroyed by the bloody Greeks.”
Otrera recoiled at my exclamation, then said, stiffly, “I did not invite you down here to discuss mythology. As you can see, this is a place for memories and meditation.” She gestured at the illuminated shelves all around us, and only then did I notice that the objects on display were bronze urns in different sizes and shapes. “Vabu Rusi and all her girls are at rest here. I am the last one. Come.” She took me by the elbow and walked me over to one of the shelves, which held seven urns. On the wall behind them hung a framed black-and-white photo of a somber lady seated in an armchair with seven young women clustered around her. “There!” Otrera pointed at a girl in the picture. “Do you recognize that little angel?”
I leaned closer, expecting the girl to be Otrera herself. But instead, I saw a face with two serene eyes that I instinctively knew.
“My sister, Tyyne,” said Otrera. “She was your grandmother.”
The revelation came as such a shock to me that I could not hold back my tears. It was not just the photo and the sudden realization that this was why Otrera had invited us…. Most of all it was the unexpected weight of finality. Granny was dead. I had suspected it ever since I received her bracelet in the mail, but now I knew it for certain. Here was the urn with her ashes. I touched it with a profound sense of loss.
Overcome, I wanted to embrace Otrera and thank her for making this moment possible. Beating me to it, she slipped a hand into her trouser pocket, took out a small, sealed envelope, and held it out to me, as if to prevent me from coming any closer. “Take it!” she said, clearly in a hurry to quicken the transaction. “Writing to outsiders is strictly against our rules. But Tyyne—or Kara, as she was called here—was a rule breaker. She made me swear that if you ever came to Suomussalmi in search of her, I would greet you as family and give you this letter.”
Nick put a comforting arm around me, perhaps sensing how overwhelmed I was. “You call us outsiders,” he said, “but we are your relations, even if you don’t think of us that way. There must be others like us—especially male children like me—who have tried to find you.”
Otrera shook her head. “It is extremely rare that we consort with men. No one wants to risk conceiving a boy and having to make a terrible choice between the child and the sisterhood. But sometimes Nature takes over.” She smiled at us both, as if to say she understood the power of romantic love even if she had lived her life in defiance of it. Then her expression changed. “Oh, that reminds me.” She held out a hand toward me. “The jackal bracelet. Tyyne gave it to you, and therefore it is yours. But she did not intend you to wear it like a piece of jewelry. It represents a pact, Diana, and it comes with rules and responsibilities. Yours is one of the original bronze jackals; we only have a few of those left. Some of us wear an iron or silver jackal, and some wear bronze replicas, but more and more, we are moving away from metal. It is too detectable. Most of our younger operatives choose a brand or tattoo these days. The queen still wears a bronze jackal, but she takes it off on missions.” Otrera gave Nick a knowing look. “At least she does now. When your father met her, she was still in training and wore her bracelet wherever she went. I’m guessing that was what gave her away.”
Nick’s arm tensed around me. “Correction: She gave me away. Is that part of the queenship test, choosing the sisterhood over motherhood? Myrina clearly passed with distinction.”
Her patience running out, Otrera turned to me with a frown. “Here.” Taking my arm, she pulled up my sleeve and removed the bronze jackal from my wrist in one expert movement. Then she handed it to me with a grave nod. “Should you ever choose to wear it again, Katherine Kent will be your contact.”
I barely knew what to do with the bracelet. “Do you think that was what my grandmother wanted?” I asked. “That I become one of you?”
Otrera gave me an obscure, sideways glance, before starting back toward the door. “I don’t know. As I said, Tyyne was a rule breaker. And when she returned to us after all those years, she was scarred. But she was still the best mentor our girls ever had. Unpredictable, yes.” Otrera smiled at me over her shoulder. “I’m sure I don’t have to tell yo
u this, Diana. She was a brilliant teacher, and I want you to know that her last years here with us were very busy, and very rewarding.”
“How did she die?” I asked.
Otrera paused to look at me with a tender smile. “The way she always wanted: She died riding.”
“Did she ever talk about me?”
Otrera began walking again. “All the time. But read the letter. And when you have read it, please destroy it.”
“Wait!” said Nick. “What about me? Don’t I get a letter?”
Otrera stopped to pull open the heavy door. “Human hearts are complex, unpredictable mechanisms.”
“She’s here, isn’t she?” He glanced up at the house above us. “Why doesn’t she want to meet me? Is the noble Queen Myrina embarrassed about her past?”
Leaning against the open door, Otrera turned to look at him, sympathy and austerity at war in her face. “What she did to your father was no worse than what men have done to women since the beginning of time. Just be happy she let you live.” With that she turned off the lights and waited for us to follow her upstairs. “Clear your minds. We need to prepare for battle.”
THE OTHERS WERE STILL assembled in the dining room. As soon as we entered, Pitana came toward us, giving the impression of a pirate captain with her tall boots and the scar running through her eyebrow.
“Any news?” asked Otrera.
Pitana replied with a curt nod. “Breakdowns and delays. None of the teams can be here before morning. If Reznik comes tonight, we can’t attack him head-on until we know what he’s got.”
“Of all the nights.” Otrera took a deep breath. “So, what’s the plan?”
Pitana turned to the Slavic woman in black who had taunted Nick earlier. “Pen?”
Penthesilea stepped forward, a challenge in her eyes. “That depends on you two,” she said, looking from me to Nick with cautious expectancy, “and how willing you are to fight with us.”
CHAPTER FORTY
And there’s no heaven above to punish you?
—EURIPIDES, Andromache
WE DROVE AWAY FROM THE HOUSE IN STUNNED SILENCE. IT WAS all so new, so confusing; only two things were certain: Granny had hoped I would find her in the end, and I did. I could not wait to open the letter she had left for me, and yet part of me dreaded the emotions it might unleash.
“Don’t be sad,” said Nick, putting an arm around me as he drove. “Be happy for her. She made it back home, thanks to your piggy bank savings.”
I wiped my eyes. “I just wish I had known … instead of being so upset with her all the time. When she talked about the men in green clothes, she was not thinking about doctors, but about murderous Russian partisans. What horrible memories she must have had—”
“But how fortunate she also had you,” said Nick. “You gave her a happy space where she could hide from it all for a while.”
Outside the car, new snow was falling on the silent forest, tumbling toward us in the pale glare of the headlights. It all felt ominous and unreal. We had found the Amazons, and I had finally learned the truth about Granny, but at what price?
“How about you?” I glanced at Nick’s profile in the blue glow from the dashboard. “Are you okay?”
“I will be,” he replied, without conviction, “once all this is over.”
Just then we both noticed an unmoving dark form blocking the road ahead. A delivery van. Slowing down, Nick changed the lights to see better, but the snow was falling so heavily they just reflected back at us. “Here we go,” he said grimly, bringing us to a skidding halt on the icy road. “Are you ready?”
From one second to the next I was filled with violent, stomach-turning fear. And then we were suddenly bathed in light—the blindingly bright beams from two other cars pulling up right behind ours, preventing us from turning around.
“Now please—” Nick turned to look at me, his features distorted by the ruthless light. “Don’t provoke them. Just play the game.”
As soon as we got out of the car, at least a dozen men in black combat gear spilled out of the other vehicles, quickly surrounding us. Half of them had guns pointed at us. The others might as well have, for their expressions were as cold and hard as any weapon.
“How cute,” said Reznik, stepping leisurely out of the shadows.
Dressed in combat gear just like his men, the retired Communist boss looked quite at home in the frosty wilderness, with snowflakes falling on his gray crew cut. “You’re a lovely couple. I have some nice footage of you.” Stopping right in front of us, he smiled that measured, forced smile of his that had unnerved me when I first met him in Istanbul—the grin of a calculating killer. “The Aqrab prince and his Amazon princess. Complimenti. You had me fooled, both of you. I didn’t realize Amazons could be so”—he looked me up and down with amused disdain—”meatless. Oh, well.” Reznik looked over his shoulder. “See? I told you we would find them together.”
Only then did I notice who was standing behind him.
James Moselane.
Hunched with cold and squinting against the flying snow, my old friend looked so reluctant and miserable that I first assumed he was Reznik’s prisoner. But then I noticed that James, too, had a gun.
“What on earth?” I exclaimed, so appalled I almost forgot to be afraid. “This is absurd! You know I’m not an Amazon.”
James made a weary grimace and said, mostly to Nick, “Come on, hand it over. Let’s be grown-ups.”
I glanced at Nick, sensing he was struggling not to punch James in the face. “Here.” I eased the Historia Amazonum out of my handbag. “We did mean to return it—”
Reznik grabbed the volume only to toss it aside with a sneer. “Not that useless piece of shit. The notebook!”
“I don’t have it,” I stammered. “We left it with Professor Seppänen—”
“Who the fuck is Professor Seppänen?”
I glanced at Nick. We had rehearsed the story with Pitana, and she had insisted it sounded more authentic coming from me. “He’s an expert on ancient languages,” I explained, my teeth chattering from fear and cold and the need to be convincing. “We just had dinner with him—”
“Where?”
I waved an arm at the blackness behind us. “Just down the road.”
Reznik looked at me with narrow eyes. Then he turned to James. “What do you think?”
I didn’t dare take my eyes off Reznik. Did James know me well enough to see that I was lying? If so, he didn’t let on.
“All right!” Reznik waved at his men. “Let’s go—”
“Wait!” James walked up to him, and the two men had a brief, avid exchange. I was sure I heard James saying, “We had an agreement!” to which Reznik responded with muttered reluctance until, in the end, he growled with annoyance and turned around to issue an order to four of his goons.
Without hesitation, the men came forward to seize Nick by the shoulders and drag him away from me. I tore at their arms and yelled at them to release him, but Reznik restrained me with a crushing grip. When I kept writhing and pulling, he slapped me across the face with the back of his hand.
It was a numbing blow, and for a few seconds my world went black. I faintly registered Nick calling my name, but didn’t have the air to respond.
“I lost two of my best officers in Kalkriese,” sneered Reznik, right into my face. “It has not been a good week. You Amazon bitches are all the same—”
“Please!” I croaked, trying to regain my balance. “Don’t hurt him!”
Reznik snorted with mirth. “Isn’t that touching? The Amazon is in love. That makes it all so much more fun.” Snapping his fingers, he had the men yank off Nick’s ski jacket, then his sweater as well, leaving him in nothing but trousers and a T-shirt. “How do you like that?” he asked me, his eyes bulging with the need to dominate. “Your hot date is getting very cold very fast. Now, let’s see … ninety kilos, six feet one inch, thirty-five years, minus ten degrees.” He wagged his head in mock calculation, then snap
ped his fingers once more.
“Stop!” I cried, when the men started tearing at Nick’s T-shirt. “You’re going to kill him!”
“Wrong.” Reznik took me by the jaw, a sardonic smile on his face. “You are going to kill him if you don’t—”
Nick threw himself at one of his guardians—the one holding a submachine gun to his ribs. The man fell down with a hiss of pain, clutching his throat, while the gun changed hands. It happened so rapidly I could barely follow the movements. Within a heartbeat, the three other guards were backing away, fumbling for their weapons.
“Don’t!” yelled Nick, aiming at each of them in turn. “No blood. Okay? No blood. Let’s keep this clean. You don’t want to piss off my dad, do you?”
For a few tense moments, the forest was so silent you could hear the howl of a distant wolf. Then Reznik let go of me and waved at everyone to calm down. “We’re just having fun. Back to business. No need to fuck with al-Aqrab.” He gestured impatiently at the man holding Nick’s clothes. “Give the man back his jacket.”
Reznik was too busy issuing orders to notice that James, pale with fury, raised his own gun and aimed it at Nick.
I burst forward and pulled down James’s arm, but the gun went off with a hellish, ear-rending blast that had Reznik leaping forward and tearing the smoking weapon from James’s hand with a barrage of swearwords.
Horrified, I ran toward Nick, who had fallen to his knees with a groan of agony, clutching his hip where a red stain was spreading. Sick to the stomach at the sight of his blood, I threw myself down next to him, tore off my coat, and draped it over his shoulders to shield him from the cold. “He needs to get to a hospital!” I yelled. “Please!”
I heard Reznik grunt. “You want to go to the hospital? Sure! I’m an old romantic. You can spend the night together in the morgue. Maybe they will even zip you into the same bag.”
“Don’t be a moron,” said Nick through gritted teeth, still clutching his hip. “It’s the notebook you want, right? Diana already told you: It’s just down the road. But you need her to guide you.”