Nikolai, page 3
At that, the men turned toward her.
She shrugged. “You and I both know that can happen. Think about it. He’s alone in the world, too isolated, struggling, knowing that a group here is all tucked in and warm, and he walked away from it as a joke. However, now it’s become something he can’t laugh about anymore, so it becomes an anger, a burning hatred inside him, all against this base,” she pointed out. “I can see it, even if you guys can’t.” She pivoted to Nikolai. “Could you see that being him too?”
Nikolai frowned, his fingers tapping on the tabletop, his lips twisting as he pondered her words. “If people didn’t play the game the way Eric thought they should, he could get very irritated, angry at their lack of skill, their failure to grasp his intention, and even at their varied perspectives.”
“So, a control freak through and through,” Mountain suggested.
Nikolai nodded. “I guess that’s a better way to put it. A very short fuse when it came to people’s inherent stupidity. So, building on Emily’s scenario, if Eric was thinking, in his mind, that this game was supposed to go in another direction or that we should have found him by now—and he can’t come back in until he’s found—then, yes, in a way, I could see him going off the deep end,” Nikolai murmured. “Maybe, after all this time, he did go a little nuts.”
“But why kill the way he did? Why not come in and take everybody out?”
“You mean, by fire or carbon monoxide poisoning?” he asked pointedly. “We’ve had two fires here that I know of and some generator issues and, of course, the attempt on the scientists’ camp.”
Mountain asked, “Would Eric have had anything to do with the attacks at the village?” At that, everybody stiffened and turned to look at Mountain. This was obviously news to everyone around the table.
“Attacks at the village?” Emily asked in shock.
He nodded. “Yes, in the middle of the night and anonymous. They have no idea who has been slowly attacking the village, taking foodstuffs, hurting a couple elders, not killing anyone yet, taking fresh kills, things such as that,” he shared.
“But those are the signs of a man who’s looking to survive out here and doesn’t want to be found,” Emily stated in a hoarse whisper.
“Exactly,” Mountain agreed, “so you have to consider who could be in that position. If someone was trying to survive out there and wanted to be found and commended on his skills, then no need for these kind of shenanigans.”
“Shit,” she muttered. “I don’t even want to think about that.”
“I feel bad for the villagers as it is,” Magnus stated. “They must really think that we’re absolutely nuts if we can’t control our own people. They know we’ve had missing people, killings, not to mention all the bizarre accidents.”
Day 2 Wee Morning Hours
By the time the meeting was over, a matter of hours before breakfast, Emily’s mind floated in circles at the horrible options. The news that the village had been attacked several times was troublesome. That some of the elders had been hurt bothered her more than she could imagine, as she headed back to her room slowly, her arms wrapped around her chest.
She wondered if she could get any sleep, when Nikolai called out to her. She turned and watched as he strode to her. “Hey,” she greeted him.
“You okay?” Nikolai asked her.
She nodded. “Tired.” Even as she said it, she yawned.
“Go get some sleep,” he murmured. “We’ll talk later this morning.” And, with that, he headed toward his room.
She watched him go and noted he was only a couple doors away from her.
Before he went in, he turned and smiled at her. “Thanks for coming out and looking after me tonight.” He went inside and closed the door.
She was surprised but pleased at his attitude shift. It wasn’t long before she was in bed and crashed.
*
Later that morning, Nikolai sat back in the general assembly meeting of all on base, deliberately trying to keep an eye on everybody as they heard the news. There were moments of complete shock, followed by a flurry of questions, as everybody wanted answers as to where Eric had been, what he’d been doing, why he’d come in, and it went on and on.
Finally Magnus lifted a hand and cut off the ruckus. “Look,” he called out in a raised voice. “We don’t have all the answers, but we’re working on it. If anybody knows anything about Eric’s last few hours, days, weeks while he was here, anybody who was friends with him, anybody who knew anything about him… please contact us.”
One of the men seated at the front shouted, “That would be Nikolai.”
“Nikolai has already come forward. However, we need to hear anything and everything. One way or another, we’ll be talking to everybody on this base.”
“Turning everything upside hasn’t done a damn bit of good any other time, has it?” asked one of the men in a surly tone.
“Look at how many people are dead,” added another one, “but maybe now we can find out why and who might be behind some of it.”
“Do you really think Eric was behind any of those deaths?” asked one of the other men, who stiffened and straightened up, glaring at everyone. “Obviously something got to him, or he was injected with drugs or something.”
Nikolai stared at the man. He thought his name was Spencer, though he wasn’t sure, but he was acting the way people around Eric often acted. As if Eric could walk on water and could do no wrong.
Magnus apparently had picked up on it too. “Obviously you knew him well enough,” he began, “so why don’t you tell me about him.”
“Sure, I knew him. He was a good guy, a great guy,” he declared, a bit too proud, as if he were honored knowing him. “He could do damn-near anything. That’s why I know he wouldn’t have done this. I don’t know what the hell that story is about him attacking Chrissy and Whalen because that’s not the kind of guy he was.”
“When you say that’s not the guy he was, what kind of guy was he?” Magnus asked immediately.
“Hey, give him a puzzle, and he could sort it out in five minutes. Give him a dismantled gun, he’d put it together in seconds. Give him a target ridiculously far away and a nearly impossible shot. He’d hit it, or, if he didn’t hit it quite right the first time, he’d make damn sure he hit it the second or third time … or die trying,” he stated. “He was driven, but he was a good guy. So I don’t know what the hell is going on here or how whatever he was doing may have been misinterpreted, but he wouldn’t have tried to hurt Chrissy.”
“Interesting,” Magnus replied. “Okay, we’ll talk more in a few minutes.” He looked around at the rest of the room. “Anybody else?”
Then the colonel walked in, and everybody stood at attention and saluted. He waved his hand and ordered, “At ease, soldiers.” He looked over at Magnus. “My room in five minutes.”
Magnus immediately nodded, and, as soon as the CO left, everybody relaxed. Magnus looked over at Nikolai. “This might require you too.”
His eyebrows shot up. “I don’t think he wants anything to do with me.”
“You might be surprised.” Magnus smiled. “Things aren’t always as they seem.”
“Yeah, you’re not kidding,” Nikolai said, scrunching his face. “I’m starting to realize that we can’t seem to keep anything straight and clear here.”
And, with that, Magnus disappeared as he headed down the hallway toward a meeting with the colonel.
Nikolai looked around to see Emily watching him. He stood and walked over, hearing the low chatter break out among the whole group, but mostly all were shocked at what they had heard.
She smiled, stood, and walked a few steps closer to Nikolai. “Notice anything?”
He shook his head and shrugged. “Nothing really.”
“Right? Fun stuff,” she muttered.
“Not really.” He gave a half laugh, as he looked around. People were staring at him, but they were trying to not be obvious. He groaned. “I’ll be a leper here for a while.”
“Only until people figure out what’s going on and remember that you were friends with Eric, but that doesn’t mean that you were responsible for him.”
“No, sure feels like it though,” Nikolai mumbled. “I wish to God I had spoken up more.”
“I’m sure you do, but, if you don’t think anything is wrong, then you don’t realize what you need to say.”
“Eric’s always been that guy Spencer described,” Nikolai noted. “The one who could do everything. So, when he couldn’t do everything and didn’t come back that day, it was kind of a shock. Then you realize that Eric’s glory days had run to an end, and he was human after all. And yet, I guess, the fact that we hadn’t found his body was always in the back of my mind as being wrong. It nagged me as being a problem that we needed to do something about, but we searched time and time again and found nothing.”
“Of course the weather here has hardly been conducive to finding anything or anyone,” she pointed out. “We’ve had storm after storm after storm, and, within hours, all tracks were wiped out. It’s not as if we haven’t tried to find the missing men,” she noted earnestly. “I’ve been out on search parties looking for him—and for Teegan and Amelia as well. We haven’t found anything to lead us to any of these missing people.”
“The Teegan situation gets to me too,” Nikolai muttered.
“Hey, that gets to us all,” she murmured. “He was much younger than a lot of them here, but he was friendly in a way that Eric wasn’t. Your friend was more arrogant, whereas Teegan was fun and full of life.”
“And yet, according to the rumors I’d heard, Teegan had some idea of wrongdoing here at the base and was likely taken out because of it.”
“I heard those rumors too,” she said, “and we should ask Magnus and Mountain about that now, rather than jumping to any conclusions.”
“Wouldn’t that be nice?” he quipped, with a half laugh.
She shrugged. “I would much prefer going to the source. Misinformation runs rampant in this place because everybody’s on a need-to-know basis. Since we apparently didn’t need to know, we’ve only now found out the hard way that this is an issue. All of a sudden, people want to know what we know. In this instance,” she pointed out, “we are at a disadvantage because of that need-to-know ruling. Not that we can help out much, but still, it’s a problem.”
“And that’s the thing because we do understand need to know and why that’s a thing, and generally we really don’t need to know.”
“I sure won’t stay out of the investigation because of that,” she stated in a determined voice.
He laughed. “Let me know how far that gets you.”
She turned, gave him a flat stare, and added, “Oh, don’t worry about me. I’ll get where I need to go.”
“Watch it,” he warned in a gentle voice. “You’re starting to sound like Eric.”
She winced at that. “Right, that determination at all costs?”
“Something like that,” he confirmed, with a nod, “yet ten times worse, and, because he could do everything, you never doubted whatever he said he would do.”
She nodded. “And yet I don’t remember him ever being totally obnoxious.”
“Not totally obnoxious, no”—Nikolai laughed—“but plenty obnoxious.”
“That’s a problem too. It’s never easy when you have all these personalities, living in stressful situations, and people start going behind your back, grouping with like minds, and if you happen to be on the wrong side of all of that,” she murmured, “it doesn’t look good for you.”
“Sure, but no way you can’t be on the wrong side of somebody.” Nikolai shrugged. “When you look around, and you see how much chaos is happening, there will be sides. You have to keep sticking to the side of right, and hopefully the rest of it will work out.”
“I wonder,” she murmured, looking over at him. “When you say the side of right, what does that even mean?”
“Everybody here thinks they’re in the right,” he admitted pointedly, “except for whoever helped Eric pull off this shit. And, if he didn’t help Eric pull off this crap, he must have some suspicion of what Eric had been up to.”
“You do realize that, when it comes to that kind of thinking, everybody here will think that you’re the one who knew something and who still has something to hide.”
Day 2 Morning
Emily looked from Bertie, the big Samoyed cross that she was brushing, to Joe, walking toward her with a cup of coffee. He placed it beside her. “I know you’re hiding,” he stated, with a knowing stare, “so you might as well be warm and comfortable while you’re doing so.”
She gave a choked laugh, as she gently scratched Bertie’s neck. “I wouldn’t have said I was hiding,” she muttered, “but everybody’s going around and around again with the same damn information, and it’s not getting us anywhere.”
“Yeah, things can get like that.” He checked the dog barn area and asked her casually, “You want to take them out for a ski?”
“Yes, absolutely I do.” Emily bounded to her feet, laughing, as Bertie jumped around, barking.
“I’m taking Benji over there for some more exercise,” Joe shared. “He’s one of my two dogs that got shot. I’m not real happy with the way that leg is healing, and I suspect his sledding days are over.”
“Oh, ouch, sorry about that.”
“He’s also seven, so maybe his days need to be over,” Joe muttered, with a shrug. “Anyway, I need to take a bunch of them out. No games today.”
“Do you take them out every day?”
“Of course,” he confirmed, looking at her.
She nodded. “Anybody else come with you?”
“Lots of times, Magnus, Egan, Barret. Hell, everybody comes out and spends time with the dogs.” Joe smiled and she laughed.
“I think that’s selfishness on their part.” She bent over and gave Bertie a big hug. “I love having the dogs here.”
He grinned. “I know. I have the best seat in the house. Unfortunately too many shenanigans are happening at the base to make me happy. So, I’m okay to stay here and to keep hidden away.” Joe shrugged. “Whatever the hell’s going on with that base is bad news.”
“I know,” she agreed. “I don’t want to be scared all the time, but it’s hard not to, especially when I’m there.”
“Of course it is, with all the shit going on all the time.” Joe added, “Doesn’t mean that it’s yours to deal with though. If you stay out of the shit, you might stay out of the line of fire.”
“And yet I feel as if Nikolai’s in the line of fire now, and that’s not fair either.”
“Did you put him there?” Joe asked her.
Surprised, she shook her head, as she helped Joe buckle the dogs on leads and then put on her own skis. She checked her bindings to make sure everything was good. “All good here. I think Whalen’s been doing a lot of equipment checks.”
Joe nodded. “He does appear to be quite bothered that something will go wrong with the equipment.”
“I think he’s being cautious,” she noted, “and I, for one, appreciate it.” She shook out her foot, clicked her ski on, and looked at Joe. “Are we taking Bertie? She’s not on a leash.”
“I’ll take these three on a leash, and, of course, Benji has to come.” He laughed. “The others can stay inside. Bertie too.”
“They won’t like that, will they?”
“I’ll take them out a little bit later,” Joe explained, “but we don’t want to take them all out if we’re skiing. We’ll take four, and that’s plenty.”
“And if they get tired?”
“We’re the only ones who will get tired—besides Benji, after getting shot, and he’s one of the reasons I’m taking them out now.”
“Got it,” she said.
“Anyway, let’s get a move on now, so we’ll be back for dinnertime.” With that, he opened the door and let out the dogs, then he turned to look back at the others and gave them a warning. “Stay inside. I’ll be back in a little bit.”
They didn’t like that and started to howl the minute the door closed on them.
She looked around and frowned. “I hate to even leave them alone and locked up.”
He stopped, frowned, and asked, “What do you mean?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know, just one of those ghostly feelings over my back,” she muttered. “As if… no, no, no, I won’t even say it.”
“Now you already put fear in my head.” He pulled out his phone and faced her. “I need somebody to come sit with the dogs. Who do you suggest?”
“Nikolai. He needs a break.”
“And is he trustworthy?”
“Absolutely.” He studied her, and she shrugged. “No, I don’t have a reason to say that, but neither do I have any reason to think he’s not safe. I’ve been watching him from a distance for quite a while,” she shared. “I think he’s as real as it gets.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
As soon as Nikolai answered the phone, Joe explained he was heading out for some skiing with the dogs and with Emily and wanted Nikolai to stay with the remaining dogs to ensure that everything was safe. Joe looked over at Emily, as he put away his phone. “He did sound relieved.”
“Exactly. Everybody’s looking at him sideways now. He was friends with Eric, good friends supposedly, but now Nikolai’s wondering if they were friends at all.”
Joe winced. “Got to love those scenarios, don’t we?”
“Not really.” She gave a shake of her head. “It’s tough enough that he’s already wondering what happened to his friend, but now he’s also got to be wondering if he himself was set up or if his friend was deliberately using Nikolai. Now that? … That kind of betrayal is hard.”
“Yeah, the thing about trust is, the minute you lose it, it feels like a betrayal. So, in Nikolai’s case, I’m sure he does feel very much as if he’s been used.”
