Page 48 of Radar (Iniquus Certified Cerberus Tactical K9 #2)

Elyssa

Monday

Seine River, France

Elyssa looked over at Xander. “What do you think is happening?”

The hum of the boat motor, the peaceful countryside, and the gentle rocking. One could lull oneself into thinking that everything was good.

Xander swallowed down his bite of sandwich from the food that Victor had made for them before answering.

“There’s a word, proizvol, which means arbitrariness.

There’s the idea that the Zorics can do whatever they want to you.

It creates a state of paralysis in society.

Their actions are calibrated to feel like the consistent pressure of terror.

There’s another word, prodazhnost, which is close to venality.

The Family, capital T capital F, used to do as they pleased when they pleased back in the days of the USSR. And that power was stripped from them. They want it back.”

“What language?” Elyssa asked.

“Russian.”

“The only thing I can add to that pot is a Polish saying: I found myself at the very bottom, then I heard knocking below. That’s the way these last couple of days have felt, I keep thinking that something was bad, then I discover that there’s worse and worse.”

“In Russian,” Xander said, “it becomes, ‘There is no bottom.’ For the Zorics, there is no limit to their depravity, sadism, and cruelty.”

“And Orest just seemed to embrace life and love the simple things.”

“I’m not saying he didn’t enjoy those things,” Xander said. “I am saying he liked cruelty just as much.”

“I’ve been thinking about him and those pictures.

Mainly, I’ve been wondering how I could ever identify a random plant that I once stood near.

I considered my clothes. They were all items I had packed during my trip to London and France.

I wish I had my phone because I could narrow down the day to the outfit. ”

Elyssa stared at the piece of peach resting on the side of her plate. “Do you remember when I told you we were doing a food tour and buying cider, but we were also setting up a game for the children?”

“You mentioned children, I remember that.”

“See if this is interesting to you,” Elyssa leaned back on the sofa and crossed her arms over her chest. “I was told that several of the families had decided to take a vacation in the area. The mothers wanted to use it as a learning opportunity where the kids didn’t know they were learning.

So, the mothers had put together a scavenger hunt of sorts, but it was nice because it wasn’t just for their family. It was for anyone who wanted to play.”

“Keep going.”

“Yes, so it was basically geocaching. The kids would use maps and compasses, and some clues required them to have a basic understanding of local history to decipher the clues. So, reading and collaborating. Orest had these boxes. Inside, there was a notebook and a pen attached to a little chain. If someone found the box, they could write down their country and a little note of kindness for other families. There were toys, nice toys, and something—like a sticker or enamel pin—from the area. People who found the box could take a prize if they liked. And if they wanted, they could leave something behind. I had done that with my family when I was young. It was fun.”

“Can you describe the boxes?

“They were about eighteen inches by eighteen inches, about five inches deep with a galvanized steel bottom to protect from rust.”

“They were made out of metal?” Xander asked.

“Yes. They were really nice boxes. Quality design.”

“Why would he need you?” Xander sat up straighter, his gaze very intense.

“I don’t understand the question,” Elyssa whispered.

“Orest invited you to Europe. He found an excuse that would entice you overseas, and then he had you go to specific places with these boxes. He needed you for something.”

“He used me for something, you mean?” Elyssa frowned. “I am so damned na?ve. My na?veté is going to be the downfall of humanity, isn’t it?”

Xander reached for her hand.

“Why did he need me?” Elyssa shook her head. “I have no idea.”

“Let’s go through it,” Xander offered. “Would you carry the boxes?”

“They were in the bag with our things. Sometimes, I carried it, and sometimes it was Orest.”

“And when you got to a place he already knew where to place it?” Xander asked.

“He knew specifically where because he had a GPS, and he was very precise. Anally precise about the placement of the boxes, so the children wouldn’t become discouraged.”

“When you got to the X, you didn’t just lay them on the ground, did you?” Xander asked.

“There was always something there.” Elyssa stalled. “And that should have been my clue.”

“Tell me that thought.”

“There was always something there at that GPS point, like a bench or a stairway. That way, the boxes could be attached with a chain, so they weren’t stolen, and they were out of easy view.

” Elyssa said. “Orest told me that the mothers had put the game together but how would a mother in Slovakia know the location of a bench in a French garden? I thought Orest was just an old man out trying to make the babies happy.” She blinked at Xander. “What did I help him plant?”

“I don’t know. I’m guessing elements of his machine.”

“What does the machine do?” Elyssa asked.

Xander pressed his lips together to show that there were certain things they couldn’t talk about when others might hear. “You were telling me that you were putting the boxes somewhere.”

“Always something different. At the gardens in étretat, for example, there was a trail that wound down the hill. There were various installations, so the garden appealed to all the senses. There were times when the garden flowered, for example, but in the seasons without blooms, there were perfume stations where you could breathe in an evocative scent. And there were sound installations. Sometimes you interacted with them, sometimes they were speakers making the sounds. It was at one of those installations, the smell or the sound, that we put the box.”

“And it just sat there. “

“I’m trying to see where there’s a pattern to the behavior. In each place it was easy to get to and on part of the path—no one had to rummage around or anything, but we chained them into place.” Her gaze drifted toward the water as she remembered.

“Yup, that’s what I’m looking for.” Xander squeezed her hand. “Tell me your thoughts.”

“We would call and make an appointment with the manager, explaining our plan. When we got to the site, we’d show them the box and the chain and how sophisticated and lovely the game component was.

I told them where we wanted to put the box and informed them that we would be advertising the Normandy scavenger hunt, which would entice families with children to participate.

We showed them the insides, so they saw that it was filled to the brim with lovely little treats.

We, and by we, I mean I. I showed them the scavenger hunt website. ”

“Do you have the URL?” Xander reached for his notebook.

“No. It was on the flier I handed them so they could advertise it if they wanted to, and it was already queued up on Orest’s laptop.”

“And they let you put it in their garden or wherever?” Xander asked.

“Every last one of them did. But I was looking happy about a children’s project, and there was Orest with his round tummy and pink cheeks, looking like he was an off-season Santa Claus.”

"You’re not the first person to point out that resemblance to me.”

“Well, it’s true. Between the two of us, it looked like what I described, a happy pair that was creating a children’s experience for our family – and other people’s families – to enjoy and perhaps to create new traffic to their site.”

“And Orest didn’t speak?”

“I know why,” Elyssa said. “When Orest spoke in French, it was with a heavy Russian-sounding accent. I know it’s Slovak, but most people don’t have the exposure to distinguish it.

With the war raging in Ukraine, a Russian-sounding accent would put people on the alert.

And there was a significant disdain for that in Paris. ”

“No one in their right mind would allow a Russian to put something in their garden,” Xander agreed.

“It wasn’t always a garden. There were different types of places. All of them were of cultural importance, though.”

“In Normandy? Was there anything put in the U.S. cemeteries?”

“No. Oh no. That would have been sacrilegious. I would have told Orest that. We did go to Sainte-Mère-église. It’s famous because on D-Day, a parachutist caught his chute on the steeple of the church, and he dangled there alive until the villagers could rescue him.

We stayed in a chateau just out of town that had been there since the days of the Vikings.

From there, we toured the cemeteries. We visited Colleville-sur-Mer, overlooking Omaha Beach.

What a moving experience. And because Orest thought it was important, we also visited La Cambe German Military Cemetery.

It’s very near the D-Day landing sites.” Elyssa paused, looking at her lap.

“What happened in that cemetery?” Xander asked softly.

“We stood by the grave of this guy named Diekman. He was the highest-ranking officer at the Oradour-sur-Glane Massacre. In that massacre, the entire village was gathered up, women and babies, old people, men, and women. People from the village. People passing by the village. The men were put in barns, and they had their legs shot. Then they were doused with gas and set on fire.” Elyssa gave a whole-body shiver.

“The women and children were taken to the church, and they too were set on fire.” She raised her gaze to look at the ceiling.

“Can you imagine the screams that rode the wind? Over six hundred people who were just living their lives. Humans can be monsters.”

Elyssa sat with those images in her head. And she thought of Eddie. What was he going through? How cruel and horrible was that man that she had called uncle with such affection?

After a while, Xander squeezed her hand again. “That struck you. Why?”

“It was the one time that Orest told me about a specific person. And I remember him saying that had there not been Nazis, he would have had a father, a mother, and a brother.”

“Which is what was in the article about you that was in the paper, the father and son were separated. The mother and older child escaped to the USA.”

“Yes. So that was the story I knew. That made sense, that he sort of wanted to look the enemy in the eye. I remember I held his hand as he stared at Diekman’s grave.

Someone had left flowers there. And he was looking at the flowers, and Orest said.

‘A man will do what he needs to do to support the cause he holds in his heart. And see there, the flowers? Somebody, all these decades later, believes that he did the right thing.’ And then we walked away.

He was comparing his upcoming actions with those of that evil man, wasn’t he?

He was feeling reassured. What will he suffer? He's old. He’ll die soon enough.”

“Elyssa, can you remember the names of places you left the boxes if I gave you a map? If we go there, Radar is trained to find electronics. You won’t need to remember the exact spot. We can get to them and destroy them.”

Together, they worked on the list. As she came up with a location, Xander pinned it on his off-grid GPS app.

He pulled the file folder of Elyssa’s photos out of his backpack and looked at the numbers on them.

“These were taken by a man tracking Orest’s movements.

If he took a picture of each one where you placed them, on his phone, he’d have the GPS coordinates.

His phone is locked, and we can’t get in.

But if that’s what these photos are, then you’re missing one box. ”

“I am?”

She looked back at the list of tourist attractions in Normandy.

“Not the cemeteries?”

“No.” She scowled.

“Not the church with the parachutist?”

“No sacred places,” Elyssa insisted.

“What about the chateau?”

Elyssa stilled. “Orest had decided that he wanted an apartment outside of Paris, not too far away. He wanted someplace easy to get to, but a sleepy place near the ocean where he could walk and have his thoughts.”

“And where did he get the apartment?”

“At the chateau, Orest had an apartment in what was a side building. The nobleman built the building as a hospital for his men, and his descendants later converted it into lovely apartments. Orest also got a storage room in the turret of the castle. It’s actually a bedroom that nomadic tech workers rent if they want to spend a month in Normandy.

But that was so he could store some trunks that he had delivered to him. ”

“You saw the trunks?” Xander asked.

“I saw them from a distance. Workers brought them.”

“In a truck?” Xander was obviously trying to contain his excitement.

“Van.”

“How many?” he asked.

“Vans? Just the one. How many trunks? I saw three, but I was simply walking by and not paying close attention. But that is odd, isn’t it?

Orest’s apartment was on the first floor of the hospital.

He had the trunks put in the castle turret, which is up four flights of narrow, rounded stairs.

It’s a lot even for me. I did it once to see what was up there, and that was it.

I don’t know that Orest could get up those stairs.

But he said that he would have his assistant help him access the boxes when he traveled.

” The rugby side of her personality steadied Elyssa as she felt a surge of determination to conquer the field.

“That’s what we’re looking for, isn’t it? ”

“I think so. We need to get to the chateau near Sainte-Mère-église.” He reached for his phone, and as he turned it over, it buzzed.

Swiping it open, they read:

Adele – Xander?

Xander – Shit.

Adele – The ferry’s loaded. They’re under way now.