It was a sure bet slipping out of town was good for my health. As long as I kept moving I could count on these killers to believe I was leading them to a pot of gold. If I stayed a step ahead I might even avoid their bloody hands altogether. Abramovich was my firewall for now, as long as I stayed useful to him. There’s no free lunch in this world. It’s a quid pro quo all the way to the grave.
I packed my heaviest sweaters and jeans to hold up against the Russian weather. I had to rummage carefully through my wardrobe to find them, since I hardly ever get to wear heavy clothes in a winterless L.A. If I needed to double down I’d do some shopping when I arrived, I thought. Where better to purchase warm clothes than in Ukraine in wintertime? In rubles, no less, or whatever they were using for money these days.
It was ten p.m. and I had an early flight so I got down to business. I went online to search for a little town outside Odessa, then printed out a Google map of the area. But it didn’t give me what I needed most –public transportation options. That was a safer bet for staying under the radar. Personal drivers and cabbies could easily identify me. I had to keep my footprint small. As long as I kept my trap shut I could easily melt in with all those Russian faces.
This business I was orchestrating outside of Odessa was the lucrative side job Abramovich offered me in addition to the task of moving priceless art out of Ukraine. I had never met Abramovich up close. He was adamant about doing business strictly by phone. I suppose running a busy crime syndicate didn’t leave him time for personal meetings, unless it became necessary to rectify a situation, so to speak. But he did send me emails with all the necessary information – without getting into the finer details, naturally.
What he and his dad had in mind for this side job was not the usual fare for a courier, nor was it above my station in life like the elite art world. I could sink my teeth into this gig. It was much more than the usual dealings of smugglers and thieves. Murder would become my mantra, and I’d make it my business, as well, rectifying old injustices from the last World War.
There was one more thing to look up. I started surfing the Internet for a history lesson regarding a matter I’d recently taken an interest in. A pop-up ad online a while back had stoked my curiosity and led me to search out my genetic ancestry. A research company offered to do a DNA test for genetic markers that could identify my paternal bloodline. The result turned up an obscure gene, which slated a Siberian origination.
I had become fascinated with genetic history. Ads for it were blossoming all over the Internet and even showing up in television commercials. It wasn’t just for the usual suspects – racial supremacists who are naturally drawn to this stuff. It was now fodder for people of every ilk and background, and fast becoming a full-time occupation for those trying to make hay of their origins.
For a reasonable fee one could find a recent ancestor, or trace an origination ten to twenty thousand years in the past. There was a visceral thirst out there for this stuff, though I didn’t think one cared to find a toothy caveman in their ranks. But as it turns out, Neanderthals actually were fooling around with our great great grannies, keeping them warm in those icy cold European caves.
My own genetic marker identified me in a very surprising way, with a tribal affiliation I had no idea even existed. This male genetic marker was being hyped on some websites as the “smoking gun of Khazarian ancestry.”
I began to read up on the Khazars. History had all but ignored them. A millenium ago they ruled over a large swath of the European continent as the nation-state of Khazaria. Their land ran along the Caspian and Black Sea shores, and stretched over a wide territory that bordered the Byzantine and Persian empires. One of their kings, Bulan, converted to Judaism and brought a number of his subjects to the fold before Khazaria disappeared from the map sometime in the twelfth century.
There’s money in this racket. Tracing genes of modern-day people to ancient tribes, more or less, can offer a sense of identity that’s lacking in our present day world. It seemed I shelled out a hundred dollars to find I shared genes with a ruthless steppe warrior clan with close blood ties to Attila the Hun. I almost fell off my chair when I read that, but after knocking down a few drinks I took stock and doubted if it said anything more about me than I already knew. Nevertheless, I was itching to find out.
These hard fighting warrior nomads intrigued me. They were merciless according to historical accounts, yet they had organized a multicultural state of sorts and ruled tolerantly over it. They ran an empire efficiently and had the only standing army in medieval Europe. Even the mighty and crafty Byzantines paid a hefty tribute to them. These dudes ruled, I noted proudly. They lorded over Slavs, Finns, Bulgars, Magyars, and a whole slew of pagan tribes. They fought to victory against the Arabs, I gloated. History sure had a way of repeating itself. And even berserko Vikings along the Volga sought a truce with them.
The heart of Khazaria had lain in southern Russia. It seemed fated I would stake my life in this particular venue, even if I considered this genetic obsession bordering on the absurd. I already had an identity – one that was exclusive, unforgiving, and victimized like no other. Why the hell did I need to be weighed down by one more? But in its own way it would serve my purpose, lending me confidence to carry out the side job if nothing else.
I threw some ice in a glass, poured bourbon over it, and sat back on an old, frayed leather chair I picked off the street some time ago. I started to reflect some more:
This ancestry bit, along with my involvement in an art heist a half-world away, was just plain nuts. I was either off my rocker or close to it. It was a psychiatrist I needed and not a new career path. All those big ideas of making a P.I. comeback were pushing me off the deep end, to be sure.
I finished off the glass, poured myself another, and kept knocking down shots till I finished off the rest of the bottle. I stared out the window for a while before going out like a light.