HELIX (a technothriller)

15 - Nevsky Prospekt

NINE YEARS AGO

St Petersburg, Russia

Olesya blinked snow from her eyes. Flakes fell from the sky and collected on the street lamps. The garden was empty, except for the monument of Catherine the Great. The empress wielded her scepter above her flowing gown and stared out over the treetops. She wasn't scared, like Olesya.

Underneath the empress, Olesya could see Ekaterina Dashkova, the first woman in the world to lead a national academy of sciences. She clasped a book in both hands and almost seemed to smile at Olesya.

People walked the street of Nevsky Prospekt, but no one paid Olesya much attention. She wasn't cold but her arms were shaking. She folded them, climbed the steps of the monument and crawled over the bronze sign. Using it as a foothold, she reached up along the smooth surface. She was just tall enough to reach Ekaterina's feet.

Removing a glove, she used her hand to check the folds of the gown while holding onto Ekaterina's foot with her other hand so she wouldn't fall off. Each fold in the bronze gown was hollow. But there was nothing inside. It was only after her second thorough search, when her fingers started to feel numb, that she discovered a fold she'd missed before. She reached as high as she could and her cold fingers brushed something that wasn't metal. A scrunched ball of paper.

She crawled back down off the monument, making sure no one was watching her. Her heart pumped faster as she unraveled the note. Sure enough, scrawled in faded ink, there was an address, one not terribly far from her old home. Her brother's handwriting.

Olesya scrunched the paper and shoved it in her pocket. She hoped he hadn't given up on her.

* * *

Illarion found Yuri halfway through demolishing a sandwich of cold meat and salad. The security outpost smelled of hard-boiled egg.

'Have you seen Olesya?'

Yuri raised an unruly eyebrow and picked lettuce from his black mustache.

'The young one? She hasn't been through here.'

'The watchtower hasn't seen her either,' Illarion said.

The phone on Yuri's desk rang. He carefully placed his sandwich on the table and answered with spidery fingers. 'Yes? I see. How long ago?' He hung up, puzzled. 'How could she make it so far without being noticed?'

'Because I trained her to,' Illarion said. 'Who was on the phone?'

'One of our drivers. He just found your gloves in his truck,' Yuri said. 'And the truck is in St Petersburg.'

Illarion had given his gloves to Olesya.

'Assemble your Spetsnaz,' Illarion said. 'I want everyone at the gate in five.'

'Just for one girl?' Yuri asked, reaching for his rifle. 'Does she have superpowers?'

'Not yet,' he said. 'But your team isn't to handle her.'

Yuri hit a button, which Illarion knew would trigger the alert for Yuri's team.

Illarion walked out into the snow.

'Her family are in St Petersburg, aren't they?' Yuri asked, calling out from the doorway.

'It's why she's there,' Illarion said.

'Sure, but the whole team? What's the worst case scenario?' Yuri asked. 'Her family find out she's back? I'm sure they can keep it a secret. We can manage this.'