Page 15 of Emerald

The more I try to follow Petrov around, the more likely I am to be spotted. It’s already become clear to me that the only place he goes regularly is his compound. That’s where I’ll have to take him. Which means I need to figure out a way to break inside.

My first tactic with a break-in is to find the firm that did the security system and steal the schematics. However, it appears that Petrov did the work himself, or had his men do it. I can’t find a record with any of the usual firms, or even any permits filed with the city.

However, scouting the compound, I can see some of the systems I’ll have to bypass: two guards stationed around the perimeter at all times. Cameras mounted all around. Twelve-foot-high medieval-era stone walls. Dogs patrolling the grounds.

The dogs scare me more than anything. A dozen Caucasian Ovcharkas—Russian prison dogs. Big, heavy beasts that are fearless, intelligent, and ruthless. Their brindled coats protect them from knives or blows or the coldest winter winds. Six of them can take down a full-grown bear. They’ll rip me to shreds if they get a scent of me.

It’s the problem of these dogs that gives me my entry point. I’ve been wracking my brain all week, trying to think how I can get inside the compound without them smelling me.

I have to drop down on the roof, or tunnel underground.

And that’s when I realize, the tunneling may already have been done, four hundred years ago. While I haven’t found any maps of the monastery online, that doesn’t mean that they don’t exist.

So I visit the archives of St. Isaac’s Cathedral. There I find a map so faint that I have to sneak a photograph of it, then enhance the faint brown lines on my computer, extrapolating the areas that have been completely eradicated by friction and crumbling paper.

There are tunnels beneath Petrov’s monastery.

And one of them begins outside the walls. It might be caved in or bricked up—generations have passed since this map was made. But I won’t know until I try.

I gather my gear and ready myself to break into Ivan Petrov’s house.

* * *

The entranceto the tunnel is down an old well, on the backside of Petrov’s property. It takes me nearly an hour just to find the well, which has lost so many stones that it rises only a few inches off the ground and has been boarded over as well. With the thick leaves on the ground, and several inches of dirty snow, I might never have found it at all if I hadn’t happened to step directly on it, hearing the hollow sound of my foot striking the rotted wood.

I pull up the covering and peer down into the black hole of the well.

I’m not entirely certain how a well can also be an entrance, but this is an exploratory mission. I don’t expect to get all the way to Petrov tonight—though I’m ready if I do.

Strapping myself into a rappelling rig, I wait until I’m fully inside the well to turn on my headlamp. This well is only a few hundred yards from Petrov’s walls, and I can’t risk his guards spotting my light.

I expect it to be cold inside the well, but it’s actually warmer than it was above ground. There’s no wind down here. The thick earth and stone all around me provide insulation.

It smells like wet dirt, worms, and decay.

When I look down, I see my headlamp reflecting on black water far, far below me. If my rope breaks, I’ll be trapped like a bug in a test tube. Assuming I survive the fall.

No point in thinking about that. I try to focus on the walls instead. If there really is some kind of door, it must be above the waterline, or else the tunnel would flood.

It’s hard to tell stone from the dirt in the dim light, especially with the tangles of roots that have burst through the walls of the well. It gives the shaft an unpleasant, animalistic feel. As if I’m descending into the throat of a beast.

I almost miss the door, until my headlamp glints off the ancient iron handle. I grip the metal ring and try to pull the door open. It’s so intractable that I think it must be locked. I tear away the creeping roots to see if I can find a keyhole. I’m quite good at picking locks.

I see only the iron ring, however. So I try to pull it once more, bracing my feet against the slippery stone walls on either side. With a shrieking groan, the door inches open.

I climb into the tunnel, unhooking my harness.

I had thought the well was dark, but it still received a little starlight from the sky above. The tunnel has the true blackness of the heart of the earth. Without my headlamp, I wouldn’t be able to see my hand two inches in front of my face.

The tunnel is narrow. I can’t stand upright. I have to walk along slowly, hunched over. Any moment I might come to a pile of rocks, or a brick wall, or a steel security door.

My hope is that Petrov doesn’t know about this tunnel, wherever it comes out within his compound. I saw on the map that it ended in what used to be a cellar, but of course I don’t know if that room exists now, or to what use Petrov might have put the space.

It’s difficult to judge how far I’ve come. I’m losing sense of time and space, with the darkness and my slow, hunched over gait,

Unexpectedly, the tunnel comes to a fork. Two paths branch off to the right and the left.

That’s not what my map shows. One of these routes must have been dug later. I have no idea which way to go.

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