Carpathian: An Event Group Thriller (Event Group Thrillers) Read online

  4

  SOUTHEAST ROMANIA, DACIAN HOT SPRINGS QUADRANGLE

  The British-made Land Rover moved slowly up the winding road that twisted in and out of sunshine to darkness two miles above the newly built attraction below—Dracula’s Castle. The two teams of armed men wound their way through the second small village and the lead vehicle pulled to a stop. The leader of the motley group of huntsmen stepped from the vehicles and stretched as he took in the craggy rocks that lined the drive for the next mile up the side of the mountain to a spot that was rumored to be home to one of the hardiest groups of shepherds in all Romania. The Patinas Pass was a rugged but beautiful area that is usually not traveled by anyone outside of the tight-knit peoples of the high country. The tales of the Carpathian Mountains always fall far short in the description of the area. One of the more beautiful and scenic ranges in Eastern Europe, the Carpathians have been sorely and falsely depicted in literature and film. Instead of the brooding, sharp, and darkened sides of mountains that could hide anything of mythic proportions you had small valleys nestled into the sides of the mountains the further up you travel where people live a slow but comfortable life tending their large herds of milk cows, sheep, and goats and it was this life that the rest of the world didn’t realize was part of the mystical mountain range.

  The man who had spoken briefly with Janos Vajic inside the resort knew his job was simple; wait until nightfall and he would be met and then he could deliver the message from Dmitri Zallas. The men he traveled with were just window dressing for the peasants that work at the castle and those below. As long as they thought the Russian was looking out for them while they were tasked with building the monstrosity below was all Zallas was concerned with. Their safety was not a priority but their work schedule was. The men thought they were to be hunting wolves even though the Russian knew there were none in this region of Romania. Zallas didn’t care about the animal life, he just needed his message delivered to the man responsible for the disappearances and that in and of itself would stop the killing around the castle—not hunting down something that couldn’t possibly be in the region—wolves indeed.

  The Russian mercenary looked at an area of Romania that had been protected by governments both elected and those where the rule of one man was absolute. He looked into the village and the growing number of citizens watching from the cracked and worn cobblestone-lined street through the small enclave. The Russian sniffed through his bushy mustache as he saw at least two of the villagers had the old-fashioned shepherd’s staffs that looked as if they had jumped from a book of fairy tales.

  The driver of the first Land Rover stuck a camouflaged arm out of his window and tapped the car door three times in rapid succession to get their employer’s attention. He indicated with a dip of his head that they were being approached from the small causeway over the fast running river that led into the village. The leader of the two cars and six men saw the villager with the white beard and brightly stitched vest slowly step over the small bridge. The mercenary squinted his eyes as he looked at the bright sun as it neared the western edge of the mountains. He was losing daylight and wanted to get closer to the pass where he would meet Zallas’s most silent of partners so he could deliver the envelope. He looked at the old man with the long white hair and equally long beard. The man from the small village held up his hand.

  “Are you gentlemen lost? This is the village of Tyrell,” the old man asked in his native Romanian. The question was delivered with what seemed genuine concern in expression and voice that these burly, ill-dressed men in their new vehicles were actually lost.

  The Russian took a moment to translate his limited Romanian in his head. He scowled when he failed to understand it clearly enough to answer the old man. He felt a moment of relief when his Romanian driver joined the two men. The old man crossed his arms over his chest and waited patiently.

  “Tell this old fool that we have come to see and possibly hunt in the pass above. That we have been asked to do this by very powerful men from far below.”

  At first the Romanian hunter looked uncomfortable as he thought about how to tell the old man what was said and not insult him with the “old fool” part. He said the words in Romanian slowly to the village elder. The interpreter saw the large cross around the man’s neck. The wind blew his white hair as he came to a rigid stance, lowering his arms to his side as the statement, once translated, made the small valley suddenly grow cold as a cloud passed over the setting sun. The interpreter looked uncomfortable, as he didn’t particularly care for the timing of the wind and temperature change.

  “You cannot hunt the pass. Patinas Pass is not a place for that kind of foolishness. The only animals you will find there are sheep and goats and maybe some milk cows.” The old man looked from the two men in front of him to the two Land Rovers. “Nothing more threatening for men such as yourselves.”

  “Wolves, old man, wolves.”

  The villager needed no interpretation of the word wolf. He laughed and as he did turned and looked back over the small causeway at the men and women gathered in their small square watching the exchange. The old man shouted “Lup!” as loud as he could, enough to make the Romanian hunter jump.

  The villagers, about twenty-five in all, started laughing. Some of the women raised their aprons and waved them as if the statement about hunting wolves was the funniest thing they had ever heard.

  The Russian never wavered as he watched the demonstration by the men and women of the high country; he just turned his head and looked toward the pass only another mile and a half up into the clouds.

  “There are no wolves in the high passes. They have been gone for a hundred years. They were hunted by our ancestors to protect what little we have here. We have always been left alone and they—” The old man nodded toward the high mountain and the Patinas Pass that looked down upon them. “Have always been left alone by us.”

  “Tell the old man that we have no intention of speaking to more Romanians in the pass. We have come for the Lup, the wolf of the high country.”

  The old man laughed once again at the mention of the wolves. He shook his head and was about to wave the men away from his village when some rattling sounded from around the bend in the road leading to the village from below. As they watched, five vehicles of several different makes and models slowly wound their way up the mountain. The lead vehicle was an old and battered Toyota Land Cruiser that had seen far better days. That was followed by four more all-terrain four-wheel-drives, all in battered and rickety condition. The lead vehicle slowed as it approached the small meeting by the causeway. As the three men saw the occupants there was a moment of clear recognition to all. The passenger had his arm crooked in his open window and his dark eyes were perched under a bright red kerchief, a much smaller version of the female head scarf, that was tied off in the back and held a long, black ponytail in place. The music poured from the open window and the Russian realized it was an American song from the sixties fouling the air of the mountains. As the man with the black eyes watched the meeting on the side of the road the old Jimi Hendrix cover version of the Bob Dylan song “All Along the Watchtower” blared and echoed throughout the small valley.

  The old villager raised a hand nervously in greeting as the Land Cruiser moved slowly past the hunters and the last small village before the pass above.

  The man in the passenger seat moved his black eyes only but made no movement to return the greeting. With his well-trimmed beard and mustache and clean-shaven cheeks and jaw, the man looked as if he were one of Satan’s henchmen. The Gypsy’s arm and bloused sleeve of purple material screaming out in an outrage to fashion simply looked away from the hunters with what amounted to dismissal as the five cars moved off.

  “Gypsies,” the Russian said in English. He turned to the Romanian hunter. “Ask him how many Gypsies live in the pass.”

  The old man again seemed not to need the interpreter as he turned and raised his hand as he walked away toward the small
bridge and his village beyond.

  “Why do you care how many there are, you’re here to hunt the great Lup, not hunt Gypsies. I wish you luck, gentlemen, with whatever is hunted.”

  The interpreter said the exact words of the old man to his Russian boss and then lowered his head.

  “Gypsies and backward Romanian peasants, the best of everything. Come,” he said as he retreated to his Land Rover. “Let us find the man we have come to see.”

  * * *

  The sun had set an hour before and the two vehicles still had not gained the pass. The Russian directed his driver to pull off to the side. As the man behind the wheel looked to his right he saw nothing but open space and the same to his left. The road had sheer cliffs on both sides. Now everyone in the hunting party was thinking the same thing—suddenly the Carpathians looked as menacing as the old tales said they were. It did not take much to become believers in the children’s nursery rhymes of their shared past.

  The Russian pulled out his cased American-made .30-06 Springfield night-vision-equipped rifle. He unzipped the case and then waited until his men had gathered. The six looked at the barren terrain around them, which had changed in the very short distance between the small village below and where they now stood. The Russian switched on his scope as he raised the rifle to his eyes and scanned the area. The hue was green and captured the dark in a relief of grays and greens.

  “We walk from here to the pass. We will not go into Patinas, there is no need. We will avoid the sheep men and Gypsies and then find the man I was sent here to see.”

  “We are here to hunt, are we not?” asked one of the more experienced Romanian hunter-trackers.

  “The only thing you will be hunting is the man I seek. You are here to guarantee my safety, nothing more. Now let us finish this business so I can enjoy my long weekend.”

  Some of the Romanian hunters looked around nervously. The wind had freshened and it brought the smell of old wood to their nostrils. In the air was also the smell of wood smoke from the few ancient villages dotting the mountainside leading to the resort. The lights of the castle could still be seen below and they could even make out workers as they applied the finishing touches to the attraction. The men each uncased their rifles and then made ready to move up into the Patinas Pass. The Russian saw that the men were not concerned in the least that they had been lied to about the hunt; they looked far more concerned that the sun had just disappeared behind the western mountains.

  * * *

  The dark eyes watched the six men from high above. The man with the red kerchief and dark features saw the intruders and their weapons that had been parked at the village below and sniffed through his nostrils. He shook his head as he watched from behind a large, crookedly broken, and very dead tree.

  “They will not be harmed.”

  The man turned at the sound of the soft voice in the darkness.

  “Grandmamma, what are you doing, do you wish to break your neck in the dark?” the man said as he saw the frail shape of the old woman as she leaned heavily against her old wooden cane. The man could see the thinly held together woolen wrap that covered her spindly shoulders. Her golden earrings gleamed in the light of the rising moon.

  “I have been up and down these mountains for over eighty years; I think I can walk in the night without breaking my neck.” The old woman took a step toward the man, who nodded his head and then turned back to face the men who had intruded from the abomination far below. “The past two nights you were not at your home. Where were you, child?”

  The man slowly turned and the moonlight caught his eyes and to the old woman they shone brightly, catching the light that is hidden in the dark, as had his father and his father before that.

  “I have not been a child for some time now, you know that.” He watched the men far below as they started up the road in near darkness.

  “Ah, yes, the child who will be king.” She laughed as she slowly sat upon the broken and crooked tree. She took a deep breath and then moved a strand of gray hair that had fallen free of her head scarf. “Patience, man-child, your queen is still among the living.”

  The man finally turned and then went to the old woman and kneeled in front of her.

  “And you will be among the living for many years to come. I am a patient man.”

  The old woman placed her right hand on the man’s clean-shaven cheek. Her thumb lightly ran along his strict jawline. “Two lies in one breath taken.” She smiled at him. “A man truly destined to lead the people.”

  The man of twenty-seven looked confused as he always did when his grandmother spoke in the old ways. He could never follow her train of thought as his younger sister was able to. The man knew he was the lesser of the two children, lagging behind his sister in intelligence and the desire to not be who they were meant to be.

  “As I said, these, these hunters, they will go home without trouble from you, Marko, am I understood?” She patted the man’s knee but he stood so suddenly that it fell on empty space.

  “They have come to the pass to see me, Grandmamma.”

  “Or do they come to seek the beast that has murdered their own far below?” The old woman stood so suddenly that the man took an involuntary step back. She pointed her cane with the golden symbol on its handle into the man’s chest. “I know it was you and Stanus, he’s always been hard to control, much like my grandson. You have left our territory and have gone where the Golia is forbidden to go. If the rest of our people find that you have flouted the ancient laws I would have a hard time controlling their anger.”

  “The ancient laws were made to blind the truly faithful and give those others, those sheep you call our people, an easy way out. We have been lied to. Our lands, our mountains have been invaded.” The man gestured wildly about him but his voice remained even as he spoke directly to his grandmother for the first time about his desires for the people. “I have taken an opportunity to secure our future. To make sure our lands stay ours—”

  “We need no flatlanders to give us what has been ours. You need not make deals while I am still your queen.” She reached out after cutting off his words and gently laid a hand on his arm. “Child, we have but to await the return of sister, then we will start changing the old ways to new ones, we will—”

  The man continued as if the old queen had never spoken.

  “—this land that has been deeded ours since the time of the Impaler, these very mountains that our ancestors settled when the Hittites were still crawling out of the rocks. Invaded by them,” he nodded at the group of men, “and not defend ourselves? Perhaps the queen is too afraid of the men who come.” He looked down at her as she lowered her head. “You sit and wait for sister to give you advice. I need not await something that will never come. She is not coming back—ever! So I have taken it upon myself to make sure our people are left alone.”

  The old woman leaned once more against the strength of the old wooden cane.

  “We have been counseled,” she spoke, “that the men below are on ground that may be untenable on a legal basis. We may have a chance to see the intruders leave the mountains without exposing the Golia. If that fails, we will move the Golia and the people to a place deeper into the pass. I agree with my grandson that times dictate our changing. Now listen to me, man-child, your sister is soon finished with her long task and she will be coming home. I am making the arrangements now and an old friend is sending her back to us.”

  “Grandmother, we play a fool’s waiting game. The more men that come the more chance there is of everything being exposed. I will not allow that. If the deal I made for the protection of the people fails, then I will accept your way of things. This is the way it must be and the Golia will side with me on this.” He half smiled. “I’m not sure you could convince Stanus to move his family anywhere—this is their home and they may fight with or without us.”

  “And you know this as fact, my grandson?” she asked as she took a step toward him. “You have been with Stanus the pas
t two nights, haven’t you? You and Stanus are the prey the men hunt. Tell me, does Stanus know you are speaking to men of the flatlands?”

  “Yes, I and Stanus are the prey of those filthy flatlanders. Stanus is aware of what is happening and how it all could come to an end after three thousand years of hiding. Yes, Queen Mother, Stanus and the Golia are on the move to the lower climes. They sense the war that is coming to the pass and they are preparing. If the arrangement I made fails, the Golia will be uncontrollable.” The man leaned over so his grandmother could see his face clearly in the moonlight. “And if you would become one with the Golia as you have many times in your younger years you would have known that the beasts are frightened of the things happening. I am the calming factor here. Without me controlling the alpha male, Stanus would not wait, the Golia would kill every man, woman, and child near that resort. My way is the only way to keep us and the Golia safe. We need allies, Grandmamma. And those men represent the man we need to secure our home and future. The days of herding sheep and milking cows and our people wandering the earth with no home are over. After we make our deal with these men we will finally have a deeded document to show the world that these mountains are ours.”

  “As long as I am queen the Golia will remain in and above the pass at all times. The sister, child, will have answers. When sister arrives she will find my answers. The gifts you are bestowing among the people, where do these expensive trinkets come from, Marko? How can a poor people such as us lavish such gifts as music players, violins, new clothing for the children of the pass and the villages below? Who supplies you with these gifts, or is bribes a better description? No, we will wait for sister before we move to stop this.”

  “Sister is as big a fool as our queen,” the man said as he turned and left the old woman leaning meekly upon her cane.

  The Gypsy queen watched her grandson move off into the rocks and the crevices, undoubtedly seeking Stanus. Little could she know that her grandson shed a tear as he walked away from the only woman besides his sister in his life. She did not know that the boy loved her and his sister but would not remain blinded by the old ways.