But the mood changed the moment they got outside and the first blast of wind rippled the jumpsuits. As they trudged through the cemetery in single file, with Kozak carefully leading the way along the path he had already marked with little flags and Slater bringing up the rear, the full import of what they were about to do was brought home. Sergeant Groves and the Coast Guardsman were waiting by the gravesite, standing next to a high-intensity lamp they had set up. Slater relieved them of their duty now that the exhumation work was about to begin. They’d been working for hours and deserved a break. Groves saluted by touching two fingers to the little plastic visor of his helmet, and, toting his jackhammer, headed back to the dressing shed.
The tombstone, adorned with two doors carved into its upper corners, had been laid to one side, incongruously enough next to a stretcher. And even though the name on the marker had long since been worn away, Slater could see that at its very bottom, where the frozen earth had afforded it some protection from the elements, something like a crescent had been carved.
“What’s that mean?” he said, pointing it out to the professor. “I’ve seen it on the posts to the cemetery and on some of the other headstones.”
“Some people say it is the symbol of Islam, and it is always at the bottom to show the victory of Christ over the unbelievers.”
“It sounds like you don’t agree with them.”
“I don’t. I believe it is meant to be an anchor. In the Russian faith, that is the symbol of the hope for salvation. The hope that the church provides.” He scratched at the side of his helmet, as if it were his head. “The two doors, though, those are unusual.”
While salvation, Slater thought, might be uncertain, in this particular case, resurrection—at least in the corporeal sense—was painfully imminent. Looking into the open grave, he could see, beneath the thin scrim of dirt and gravel, the pale gleam of wood bleached white by its decades in the soil. He could even detect a couple of deep cracks in the lid of the coffin.
“Just as I predicted,” Kozak put in, “the frost heaval has done some damage to the casket.”
Lantos and Nika were standing on the other side of the grave, Lantos surveying the site with a professional eye, and Nika, her head tilted down, apparently reciting some native prayer or blessing. Although Slater wondered what she made of the grim spectacle on display, in deference to her work he nudged Kozak and they both kept silent for the next minute or two. All he could hear from under her helmet was a murmured chant, but he detected a slight rocking on her heels, as if she were moving to some ancient rhythm only she could discern. He became conscious of the bilikin that he was wearing under his shirt, and for some reason he wished that she knew he had it on.
When she had finished, Slater glanced over at Lantos, got a nod in return, then, like a diver going over the side, he slipped down into the grave itself. It would not have been easy under any circumstances, but the bulky clothing made him uncharacteristically clumsy. With an arm that wasn’t as steady as he would have liked—damn those drugs—he balanced himself on the rectangular coffin, then crouched to peek through the largest crack. His visor, though it was clean as a whistle, presented yet one more obstacle.
“Vassily,” he said, “could you move the lamp to the left? My own shadow’s getting in the way.”
Kozak repositioned the light, and said, in a voice muffled by his hood, “Better?”
“We’ll see,” Slater replied, before bending down to peer through the crack again.
He was greeted by the sight of someone staring back at him.
A blue eye, like a clouded marble, gazed upward from under a film of ice, and he reared back in surprise.
“What is it?” Nika said with concern.
“Yes,” Kozak said, “what’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Slater said. “I was just startled. I thought I was at the foot of the coffin.”
“You’re not?” Kozak said.
“No. The head’s at this end.”
“So it’s facing west?”
“Yes. What’s the difference?”
“That would mean he had been a deacon, or maybe a priest.”
“I don’t follow,” Nika said.
“Unlike his parishioners,” Kozak explained, “a church leader is buried facing his congregation.”
“Whichever way he’s facing,” Dr. Lantos said, handing Slater a hammer with a clawed end, “you’re going to need this. Try not to leave splinters.”
Slater didn’t look back through the crack but applied himself to removing the rusty nails from the four corners of the box. They crumbled at the first touch of the hammer. Leaning to one side in the narrow grave, he pried up the lid, which rose halfway before splitting down the middle.
“So much for splinters,” Lantos said, as Slater passed up one half of the lid to her, and Kozak reached down to collect the other.