he came back as a young man. It had frightened and confused him. It was the late sixties, and soldiers were hated by civilians. Once, when she was doing a paper for high school, he told her how badly soldiers were despised who fought in Vietnam. He’d been shot at and had killed enemies, as a young man under orders, and Americans hated him for it, or so he had believed. His generation had been raised not to question authority, especially the President.
He’d only been twenty-two at the end of his enlistment when he came back home from combat. He burned his uniform. His father had been in WWII, and the idea that soldiers weren’t honored anymore didn’t make any sense to his generation. Throughout history, our soldiers had always been honored, but not the men drafted to serve in Vietnam. Her father’s generation of soldiers never would feel that honor. Her dad said, years later, long after anyone thought of him as a soldier, that he could finally understand that the SE Asia war was wrong. The crime of society was blaming it on the soldiers. It wasn’t the soldiers who’d caused it. Young men had always been called upon by their country to defend America and had been proud of it; they died serving their country. He and his comrades in the Marines had grown with parents that had lived through the Great Depression and served in WWII that didn’t question government policy, they simply expected to one day serve their country in combat if called to duty. Many of his friends died in Vietnam. Many Americans were bitterly against the war, and soldiers became the symbol of their hatred.
As her father reached middle-age, he no longer felt the bitterness of his youth, everyone had forgotten that he’d been a soldier, but he’d long given up on feeling any pride in his country or trust in its leaders. She later learned that most men who served from his generation felt the same.
He’d led a solitary life, without any advancement at Ford or significant achievements. If he had had any joy in life, it came from the farm. Some years, crops were phenomenal, and some years they were lousy. He worked on an assembly line during the day, then spent most of his free time working on equipment at home. She never had any interest in the farm, so they didn’t get to know each other well before she started college and later went to the academy. After she moved to Detroit, they rarely talked again. Now, they never would. She was feeling melancholy when Chad came in from the pool, soaking wet, with a towel around his shoulders. He asked, “So, what are we doing for supper?”
She put the death certificate in a folder, “Let’s go into Ann Arbor. Washington Avenue is lined with good places, better than anything in Tranquility and way better than Jackson.”
“Okay, I’ll clean up.” She smiled as he took his bag into the bathroom. Her son seemed to understand her feelings without discussing them.
Minutes later, while Chad was still showering, her cellphone rang, showing a local exchange number. “Hello.”
“Hi, Kiki. This is Jim, Jim Olander.”
“Hi, Jim.” She was surprised and mildly concerned that he was calling the night before she was leaving.
“I was wondering if you and your son were doing anything for dinner tonight?” Before she could answer, he continued, “I know this might seem like an odd call from a sheriff, but I thought we could maybe talk about growing up here and some of our high school memories. Nothing ever changes around here except that you moved away and are back for a few days.” It was kind of lame reasoning, but it was all he could think of.
“Well, Chad and I were planning on going into Ann Arbor.”
“Hey, if it would be okay, I know a couple great places. How about it? My treat.”
She wasn’t sure how Chad would feel, but figured he wouldn’t mind. Anyway Detective Olander was a good contact to have here: it might save her a trip back. “Okay, should we meet there?”
“No, let me pick you both up. I promise to use my personal ride, not the county car.”
She smiled to herself. “Sure, what time? We’re at the Holiday Inn on Airport Rd.”
“Great, I’ll come to the lobby entrance in half an hour. Does that work?”
“Okay, we’ll be there.” She was thinking about how to explain it to Chad.
Gangster
Gregori Jelavich had already concluded that the search in Lake Baikal was a loss. He had gambled and lost, which he could tolerate. In his risky world, losses were a normal expectation. He would find Kolchak’s gold. It had to exist and no one had claimed it. It was either forgotten or cleverly hidden somewhere. If so many hundreds of billions of rubles had ever been found, it would have been impossible to hide. No government records accounted for it, none in Russia or any other government. He was now engaging in the most detailed research project ever funded to locate the treasure, and he would follow it until successful. He had the resources and determination to make it happen. He also had Karina Chuikov, his private weapon. He was a quick judge of people. It was the one skill that had served him well, developing his empire. She was remarkable, and not only in her intellect. In the long run, he would reward her when the treasure was his, and she would become more than his employee.
But now, he had to tidy things up with the failed expedition at the lake. Even if he was willing to accept the failure and overlook the people who had deceived him, he could not afford to have others learn of this misadventure. If he was going to be successful finding Kolchak’s gold, he didn’t want other treasure seekers benefitting from his dead ends. News of the failed lake adventure would only help others look elsewhere. Searching the lake bottom was enormously expensive and the financial barrier it represented would stop many would-be hunters.
From the beginning, he’d been skeptical of the plan presented by Yazov and Khakimov. They had, however, piqued his interest in the Kolchak story, and it was important to prove or disprove the train-in-the-lake theory. The whole expedition was undertaken with guarded secrecy to avoid generating competition. Remarkably, Yazov and Khakimov had insisted on secrecy. None of the other crew members were told the real purpose for building a submarine and exploring the lake. Another story had been fabricated and followed faithfully from inception. Otherwise, the consortium, led by Jelavich, would suspend funding immediately. The two partners were so convinced themselves in their plan that nothing had ever been divulged. It amused him that even the other investors had no details.
Arrangements had been made. Jelavich hung up the phone, smiling to himself. The submarine team was operating from a mother ship supplied by one of his transport companies with a small crew of his men. They had their instructions.
Gregori Jelavich was a Ukrainian, heading one of Russia’s most powerful criminal groups, trafficking in young girls, leading to human slavery, drugs, extortion and weapons. He controlled most of the country’s underground casinos. He also had many legal businesses, usually made successful by bombing his competitors. He’d been born into a family of professional criminals. He sported many crude prison tattoos that he kept hidden under expensive dress shirts.
He was first convicted in 1986 and, like other members of his family, he’d initially avoided contact with police and public officials, but that had changed as his power expanded. He didn’t follow the old ways. He followed new rules that kept him out of prison after his youth. Elder members of his clan had had a different code, one that he’d changed over time as they died off from natural causes or in some cases, with his help. His family had avoided luxurious lifestyles and anything that drew attention to them. Gregori was the opposite; he enjoyed the façade of successful capitalism after the fall of communism. He made sure the bureaucrats that could harm him were well-compensated or eliminated. He never got married, preferring to use the steady flow of female merchandise through his organizations. He cast them off each time for export to foreign customers who would control them through terror, putting them on the streets, following his indoctrination.
With the failure of communism, his empire had grown explosively in the decades following 1991. His first success had come from a chain
of casinos in Moscow. He became the employer of choice for Russian underworld criminals after they served time in prison. Most were common thugs whom he killed when they got out of line, but some had survived to help manage his growing empire. It was a process of elimination. The prisons provided the raw manpower; he then sorted through it for the best people. He had very simple rules of employment: be loyal, make profits, or die.
By the early twenty-first century, he had consolidated control over the criminal groups in western Russia, uniting the gangs throughout the region. He refused collaboration with other crime bosses who wanted an Italian-style mafia with its own secret codes and hierarchy. He made his own rules, and over time, he’d eliminated other wannabe bosses. He was constantly at war with other criminal groups and was protected by an army of guards. Three assassination attempts had failed. After each one, the assailants were eliminated in gruesome ritualistic ways meant to terrify others. After the third attempt and the video recording of his method of executing those responsible, no further attempts had been made.
He was initially fascinated by the stories surrounding the Kolchak legend, then it had become an obsession. Other interests had been