Panthera Spelaea Ch. 01-10

I nodded slightly; that was my Dad. Me dying on an expedition wouldn't hurt his business, but his oldest son caught up in a criminal investigation would look bad for him. "I'll wait for the cavalry to arrive," I said as I closed my eyes again.

"This is a mistake, Mr. Cantwell," Viktor said with a growl.

"I'm tired, Senior Investigator, and you've answered none of my questions, so I'll wait to answer yours." I heard them leave as my mind tried to figure out what the hell could have happened. What gave me the electric shock? Did the Cave Lion's eyes glow red? And what caused the pain?

I'd sound like a crazy man if I said any of that, and I didn't want to end up in a Russian asylum.

Ch. 7

Viktor didn't come back into the room. Lunch was delivered, and when the door opened, I caught a glimpse of a uniformed officer sitting outside my door. I was hungry, but Nurse Svetlana explained the bland food and soup had a purpose. "You have not eaten anything in a week, Mr. Cantwell. Your body might reject what your eyes want." She pressed buttons to raise the head of the bed so I could eat.

Svetlana was gorgeous, with ice-blue eyes and blonde hair pulled into a ponytail. She looked to be in her mid-twenties, and a ring check came up with nothing. She spoke English, which helped. "Please, call me John. Can I get one of these off so I can eat?"

"I can check," she said. She popped her head out and spoke in Russian to the policeman. I knew that "нет" meant "no." She came back in and sat down by my bed, moving the tray closer. "I'm sorry, but I am not allowed."

"I guess you get to feed me then," I said as I looked into her eyes. I was pleased she looked at me with compassion, not fear or anger. It was a welcome change from the way Viktor looked at me or the detached behavior of the doctors.

She put a towel under my chin and started with the soup, which looked and smelled a little like a soup I'd had in base camp but not quite. "Is that Kalya?"

"Kalya is made with fish, while this is Rassolnik which uses beef or pork kidney. Here in the hospital, it is vegetarian. The pickled cucumber, potatoes, pearl barley, onions, and carrots will digest slowly for you." She fed me a spoonful of broth, and it was good. "It is believed to be a hangover cure, though there is no medical basis for that."

I could imagine such a dish would be popular. I'd learned early in the expedition the wisdom of never trying to out-drink a Russian. The hangover the following day had me begging for a quick death. Come to think of it, the first thing I'd eaten was a bowl of Kalya. Maybe there was something to it. "I've never been to Moscow," I mentioned. "Do you like it here?"

"It is big and crowded but exciting," she confessed. "I grew up in Rybinsk, about two hundred and fifty kilometers northeast of here. My father has a good job working at the hydroelectric plant and sent me to University to get my nursing degree. I was lucky enough to find a job at this hospital."

"Why here?"

"This hospital treats a lot of politicians, VIPs, and foreigners with money," she said in a whisper. "I speak Russian, English, and French, so I often end up caring for patients like you. The good news," she said as she glanced at my handcuffs, "is that you can't grab my ass while I'm treating you."

"Is that a statement or a challenge," I teased?

Svetlana laughed, and her smile was lovely. "You are far younger and better looking than most who try, but I've learned a few techniques along the way," she told me.

"I don't physically assault beautiful ladies trying to do their job," I said. "I find it tedious fending off the constant clumsy advances, inappropriate touches, and sexual harassment that come with being a single student in the paleobiology program." I teased a grin from her. "It's true. I have professors and students constantly objectify me like I'm a specimen under their microscope. That's why I had to head to the far reaches of Siberia to get some sleep."

She laughed louder at this, smacking my arm gently. "You're going to make me spill your lunch."

"Do you love your job?"

"I like helping people, so yes," she told me. "Tell me about your schooling."

I told her about how I rebelled from my father's plans, disappointing him to no ends, to follow my dreams. "I guess I'm fortunate. By accident of birth, I never had to worry about money. I love what I do."

"What did you do in Siberia?"

I told her about our team finding and removing the intact Wooly Mammoth and the Cave Lion underneath it. "My team was successful in freeing the lion and bringing it out of the cave. A fully intact, perfectly preserved adult Cave Lion? It was the highlight of my life as we walked out of that cave with it."

"What happened then?"

"We put it on the boat to take it back to Belaya Gora. I think Vitali Semchenko, our expedition leader, had air transport arranged to take it to the University of Moscow for further study. It's all about timing; the longer the cave lion was exposed to above-freezing temperature, the more of the specimen that would thaw and start to decay. I pushed off the boat from the riverbank and jumped in the front, with Vitali and Nicole in the stern with the local boat operator. We were maybe halfway there when a gust of wind uncovered the cave lion's head. I moved over to cover it up, and that's when I felt it."

"Felt what?"

"Pain. It was like an electrical shock; I couldn't move, everything hurt, and then I blacked out. I don't remember anything after that until I woke up in this room."

"You remember nothing of what happened?"

I shook my head, no. "I got hit with a taser once when a few buddies and I got rowdy at a bar, and that was nothing compared to whatever this was. I couldn't think, I couldn't breathe, all I felt was pain and then blackness."

Svetlana looked at me with sorrow in her eyes. "You don't know, do you?"

"No one has told me a thing."

"You're the only one they found alive," she told me.

"Nicole?"

Svetlana shook her head. "It was on the news. They fished three bodies out of the river, and the cave lion was missing."

The door burst open, and Viktor stood there, furious. "сейчас," he barked. Svetlana immediately got up, collecting the empty dishes and leaving the room. I could hear yelling in Russian after the door closed.

Three things were clear in my mind. One, the Russians had the room bugged. Two? I wasn't supposed to know the other three were dead. Three? Someone took the priceless Cave Lion, and I was the prime suspect.

The handcuffs made a lot more sense now.

Ch. 8

When a nurse returned to check my vitals and give me my pills, she didn't speak a word of English. She wrote a few things down, watched me take the tablets, and removed my IV before leaving the room.

I was insanely bored. The room had no windows or clocks, so I couldn't tell what time it was. I pointed to the television and motioned for the remote on the table next to my bed. The nurse asked the officer outside and shook her head no when she came back in. I figured Viktor wanted me to be unaware of what was going on so he could trip me up in his interrogation. I listened to the muffled conversations outside, hoping to hear something I could understand, but it was all in Russian.

I closed my eyes, but sleep didn't find me. My mind wouldn't shut down. What happened to my friends? Why would they suspect me? And who took the Cave Lion?

Finally, the solitude ended with a knock on the door. Two men entered; one was a middle-aged white man in a blue suit and red tie, the other a gray-haired Russian woman in a power suit with a briefcase. "Good afternoon, John," the man said. "I'm Brian Burghammer, the Deputy to the Assistant Ambassador for Legal Affairs at the US Embassy. With me is Marina Federov, a criminal defense attorney retained by your father to assist in your defense."

I looked at the woman. "Do you speak English?"

She rolled her eyes. "Of course, Mr. Cantwell. It wouldn't help you much if I didn't."

I laughed at that. "The quote-unquote 'lawyer' who was in here before didn't speak a word of English, yet Senior Investigator Viktor Kaprisov thought that was enough to interrogate me. It didn't work."

"You've made no statement," Marina asked?

"I refused to speak without counsel, and I requested someone from the embassy to be present. Now that you both are here, I need to see some identification, and for Mrs. Federov, proof my father has retained her. You can't be too careful."

"In Soviet Russia, the lawyer finds you," Marina said with a laugh. She showed me the email from my father on her phone and her court identification. Brian showed me his Embassy identification.

"Thank you. Do you have something to write on?"

Marina handed me a legal pad and a pen from her briefcase. It was awkward writing while handcuffed to the rail, and moving still caused me pain. "My room is bugged," I wrote. "Viktor listened to me talk to Nurse Svetlana about it but stopped us when she started to tell me what she knew about what happened on the river."

Marina took out her pad and wrote something, then showed it to me. "Not illegal to plant listening devices or send people in to get you to confess. What did you say?"

"I'll give you my statement," I told her. I flipped back a few pages so the pen depressions wouldn't show, then spent the next ten minutes writing out what happened. Marina watched as I wrote, jotting down notes as she read my story. When I finished, she asked me to sign and date it.

She removed the pages from the pad and put it in her briefcase, then gave the paper back to me. "Nothing here is incriminating, but the authorities will see your claim of memory loss to be convenient. You have no recollection of anything after touching the cat?"

"Just pain, then waking up here."

"I'll speak with your doctors to see if there is a medical reason for the gap. In the meantime, say nothing about what happened, not even to a hot young nurse. She was, wasn't she?" I just nodded. "Viktor wants a conviction, and you're the only suspect. He's not above using people to get to you."

I liked Svetlana, and I thought it was mutual. Had she been playing me? If she came in and kept interrogating me, I'd know. "What happened to the others?"

Brian looked at Marina. "It's public knowledge, and he needs to know." She nodded her assent, so she continued. "When the boat didn't arrive in Belaya Goya after an hour, they tried to raise the boat operator on the radio. He didn't answer, and the team at Cave Three hadn't seen you either. They sent another boat downriver to investigate. That group found your craft six kilometers downstream, run aground on a mud bank with the engine still running. There was no sign of any of you, and the cave lion specimen was missing."

"How could it be missing? It took eight of us to move the dang thing!"

"I don't think they know. I read reports of a fire in the front of the boat that melted the tarp and left scorch marks on the boat."

I thought about it for a while and couldn't explain it. I didn't get knocked overboard by an explosion, and I hadn't been burned. I couldn't move, and I was in a lot of pain, and then nothing. "What about my friends?"

"Vitali and Nicole drowned, with the cause of death confirmed by autopsy. No other injuries were noted. The speculation is that the cold water combined with the chest waders they wore made swimming so difficult they couldn't get to shore after falling overboard. The deaths might have been written off as an accident, except for how they found you and Vladimir Zhukovsky." Vladimir was the boat captain.

"What happened to Vladimir?"

"They recovered his body, but his head wasn't attached."

Holy shit! How was that even possible? I didn't want to say anything else that Viktor might listen to, so I kept my questions back. "And me?"

"Police recovered pieces of your clothing were recovered on the boat, with evidence of burning at the edges. They found you half a kilometer downstream, naked, with your body part submerged in the river. You almost died of hypothermia in the river, John. If not for a helicopter flight and prompt medical intervention, you wouldn't be here."

It was a lot to take in at once. "What happens now?"

"I go to court in the morning to try and get these removed," Marina said. "There is no arrest warrant, and they can't restrain you like this on suspicion of doing something wrong. They have confiscated your passport and your possessions pending the completion of the investigation; I'll try to get those back too. The clothing should be easy, but your electronics and passport are a whole other matter. You're a criminal suspect in a multiple murder case, so they aren't letting you leave the jurisdiction." Great. Was I stuck in Russia? I might have to see what the University of Moscow Paleontology Department is like if they'll let me in.

"How long will this take?"

"There is no way to know, John. The best thing that can happen now is for the authorities to find the people who took the cave lion. If it is as priceless as I've heard, it's the most likely motive for the death of the crew."

And that was why Viktor looked at me like I was the lowest of the low. He thought I'd cooperated with the theft and faked a near-drowning to escape accountability.

I didn't have to fake anything, and I had no idea what happened to the lion. I just prayed the Judge would buy my defense.

Ch. 9

In the morning, Svetlana came in with an assistant. "You're back," I said with a big smile.

"I am sorry about yesterday," she told me. "I went to my boss and complained. No one should be listening to me talking to my patients."

"I don't blame you for what Viktor did." I would have reached out for her hand, but my wrists were still secured to the bed rails, and I still couldn't get a television remote.

"Good news and bad news," she told me. "The good news is that we're going to give you a sponge bath."

John Junior perked up at that news. He was going to be trouble around this one. "And the bad news?"

"Yulia is with our physical therapy department. She is going to stretch your muscles out and help you regain your motion." I shuddered at the thought; just moving my body as much as the handcuffs allowed brought pain. The doctors didn't tell me why. Yulia said something in Russian. "She said she worked on you while you were in your coma, but this session you would remember."

I sure did. Everything was sore and aching, and my body rebelled against the movement and stretches. Yulia had a job to do and did it. "You are hurt, not injured, so stop whining," Svetlana told me when she walked back in with the police officer. Yulia had finished with my lower body, so the officer moved my cuff points to my ankles so she could abuse my torso and arms. He stayed in the room, enjoying the looks of pain on my body over the next twenty minutes.

When the handcuffs were back on, the officer left, and Svetlana and I were alone again. "I believe you," she told me when the door closed.

"I think you're the only one outside my parents and my lawyer," I replied. "Why?"

"You can't fake what your body has been through," she replied. "Your body is telling us that every muscle contracted at the same time, straining every muscle and tendon. That is consistent with electrical shock, not near-drowning or hypothermia."

That made sense. "Why can't the investigator accept that?"

"No entry or exit burns on your body. It doesn't match what we would expect from electrocution." She put her hand over mine. "Now behave. I need to give you a sponge bath, and if you get grabby, Ivan gets the job."

"I'll be good, but I can't help my reactions." That was an understatement. Svetlana was volcanically hot, intelligent, fun to talk to, and smelled wonderful. After a month in the field, there was nothing short of death that could stop my reaction.

Junior was up and about the whole time, standing under the towel like a periscope on a U-boat. I tried to ignore it, and Svetlana was a professional. It felt good to get clean, especially under her gentle touch. She saved my tent for last, moving things around efficiently until I was clean. When she left, it took an hour for the swelling to go down.

I took a nap after lunch, waking to a commotion in the hall. I recognized one of the voices, and my eyes got wide. The police officer entered the room, followed by my Mom and my lawyer. "MY BABY," my Mom said as she rushed to my side. She was hugging the hell out of me as I felt the handcuffs coming off, and the officer left. I hugged my Mom back, both of us crying for a minute until she finally let me go and backed up.

I rubbed my wrists as I looked over at Marina Federov. "What happened?"

"The Prosecutor agreed there isn't enough evidence to support murder charges YET. You are still their main suspect and the only witness to what happened on the river. You aren't under arrest as of now, so the handcuffs are off. However, you are a foreign national, and the investigation is still open. The police are allowed to continue holding your passport."

"They won't let me leave the country?"

"Yes," Marina said.

"Mrs. Federov thinks it could be months before the investigation is complete," Mom said. "I've talked to your father about this. He and I agree it would be best if you stayed here in Moscow, close to your lawyer."

What would I do in Moscow? "I'd rather go back to work in Siberia," I said.

Marina shook her head. "There is still an active murder investigation. The victims include one of the townspeople and two members of your expedition. You remain a suspect in those murders. You returning to the expedition is NOT going to happen, John. Even if the police allowed it, the expedition wouldn't take you."

The expedition was the culmination of my life's work! I couldn't accept that it was over. "What can I do? Where do I go from here?"

"Stay out of trouble," Mom said. "I have to head home in a few days, but you won't be without resources. You have your credit card, so find a place to stay."

"And keep me up to date on where you are and what you are doing," Marina told me. "If you want to go somewhere, I'll give you the number of a security service that can provide a driver and a bodyguard for you."

"A bodyguard? Why? Am I in danger?"

"You haven't been watching the news, so you wouldn't know," Mom told me. "It's all over the news, and they are not shy about calling you the prime suspect."

Marina agreed with Mom. "You also don't know the city or the language, and you are a rich foreigner." She hadn't seen my wallet. My Dad was rich, while I was on an allowance. "Your parents already set the account up, so all you have to do is call them at least two hours in advance. I'd recommend laying low until things die down a little. They have paparazzi here, too."

"Fine," I agreed. Having a driver would be convenient. Moscow's subway system is world-famous, but if I couldn't understand what the people around me were saying, it might not end well.

Marina relaxed a little when I agreed. "Here's a list of hotels in the city and nearby that are good for foreign nationals." She set the paper on my table. "By the way, stay away from the US Embassy. It's fine if you call them, but since that is officially US territory, going there could be seen as an attempt to flee the country. Given the fluid status of the investigation, the US Embassy might turn you back over anyway."

Great.

I wasn't going to be in jail, but I'd lose some of my freedoms anyway.

Ch. 10

My life vastly improved when the handcuffs came off.

Svetlana came in after my visitors left, and she had a television remote in her hand. "Thank God," I said as I took it from her. "I was going stir crazy in here."