The Romanov Cross
Robert Masello
Language: English
Pages: 282
ISBN: 0099587831
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Nearly one hundred years ago, a desperate young woman crawled ashore on a desolate arctic island, carrying a terrible secret and a mysterious, emerald-encrusted cross. A century later, acts of man, nature, and history converge on that same forbidding shore with a power sufficient to shatter civilization as we know it.
Army epidemiologist Frank Slater is facing a court-martial, but after his punishment is mysteriously lifted, Slater is offered a job no one else wants—to travel to a small island off the coast of Alaska and investigate a potentially lethal phenomenon: The permafrost has begun to melt, exposing bodies from a colony that was wiped out by the dreaded Spanish flu of 1918. Frank must determine if the thawed remains still carry the deadly virus in their frozen flesh and, if so, ensure that it doesn’t come back to life.
Frank and his handpicked team arrive by helicopter, loaded down with high-tech tools, prepared to exhume history. The colony, it transpires, was once settled by a sect devoted to the mad Russian monk Rasputin, but there is even more hiding in the past than Frank’s team is aware of. Any hope of success hinges on their willingness to accept the fact that even their cutting-edge science has its limits—and that the ancient wisdom of the Inuit people who once inhabited this eerie land is as essential as any serum. By the time Frank discovers that his mission has been compromised—crashed by a gang of reckless treasure hunters—he will be in a brutal race against time. With a young, strong-willed Inuit woman by his side, Frank must put a deadly genie back in the bottle before all of humanity pays the price.
The Romanov Cross is at once an alternate take on one of history’s most profound mysteries, a love story as unlikely as it is inevitable, and a thriller of heart-stopping, supernatural suspense. With his signature blend of fascinating history and fantastic imagination, critically acclaimed author Robert Masello has once again crafted a terrifying story of past events coming back to haunt the present day . . . and of dark deeds aching to be unearthed.
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here,” Slater said, stopping to rip open the makeshift quarantine tent. Eva was barely conscious as he removed the IV lines, gave the medics the latest stats on her condition, and helped slide her onto the stretcher. “Frank,” she mumbled, “I’m sorry …” But the rest of her words were lost beneath her mask and in the commotion of her removal. “You’ve got nothing to be sorry for,” he said, laying a hand on her frail shoulder. The medics carried her carefully down the slanting steps and across
of streets that comprised downtown Nome, she felt like a marathoner running on shaky legs toward the finish line. As if to bring the point home, she saw off to her left the wooden archway that marked the end of the Iditarod race … and then the wooden sign festooned with placards showing the distance to places like Miami and Rio. The streetlamps swayed and bobbed, casting a wild yellow glow on the bingo parlors and bars, but not a soul was out on the windy, snow-choked streets. At the corner of
chair, like everything else in this section of the old ICU, was sprayed from top to bottom with a powerful disinfectant. Surrounded by the machines and screens, tubes and wires and IV trolleys, Nika could barely be seen. But every fluctuation in her respiration or temperature, cardiac rate or cerebral activity, was being tracked and monitored by the array of instruments that had been brought into the room. Slater, exhausted, slumped backward in the chair, and felt the ivory bilikin on its
with which he grasped everything she had to say, from the topography of the island to the sensitivity of the local Inuit population about what was going to go on there, on ground still considered theirs. She also had the feeling that he would do anything for Dr. Slater; apparently, they’d been through some very tight spots together, and the bond between them was strong. The moment their chopper landed on the spot now vacated by the first one, Sergeant Groves leapt from the cabin and began
lights in the mess tent were wavering, as the wind, only partially blocked by the old stockade, battered the triple-reinforced nylon walls with a dull roar. The temporary electrical grid Sergeant Groves had slapped together was still holding, but the lamps, strung up on wires, were swaying above their makeshift dinner table. Tomorrow, Slater thought, they’d have to get the backup generator online, too—just in case. “Kushtaka,” Nika said. “The otter-men. If you were an unhappy soul, still nursing