Free Dark Eyes by William Richter

exchange site, where he entered his user name and password. He clicked over to the open market page and began entering the exact description of his new offering. The gem’s recent provenance was listed as “private family estate.” With some further research on the site, Isaac confirmed the amber markings within the stone’s crystal as characteristic of the Lemya Mine, a small placer mining operation in the northern Ural Mountains—long since closed—and Isaac added that information to the stone’s description.
    Within milliseconds, all this information would be officially posted on the exchange site, where the stone would appear as “offered for sale or exchange” to thousands of brokers, all over the world.

FIVE
     
    Five hours out of Krasnoyarsk , it had been more than a hundred miles since Tiger had seen any sign of human life. The stolen Benz kept good purchase on the icy road, steam bellowing from its exhaust as it consumed the distance at a hundred and twenty klicks. The gray glow of predawn produced just enough light to reveal an endless landscape of featureless permafrost on either side of the two-lane road. When the sun finally did rise, it would hover low over the horizon for no more than three hours before yielding again the leaden darkness of Siberian winter.
    Tiger saw a hint of the compound in the far distance. It was almost time. He wondered if Klesko would even know him, nearly twelve years gone by. He flipped down the sun visor and regarded himself in the small vanity mirror. Seventeen years old only but with the look of a grown man, his maturity and strength already had been proved countless times on the streets of Piter. His eyes were the same deep gray as they had always been, of course, and his thick black hair poured down to his shoulders, just as he had worn it as a child. Klesko would know him … if Klesko still knew himself. Twelve years in ITK-61 was a long time to count, and any man could lose his mind in that boundless, frigid abyss.
    Half a klick away from the compound, Tiger slowed the Benz and approached at a non-threatening pace. ITK-61 consisted of two cell blocks—one completely empty and dark now—a guardhouse, and two towers. There had once been a stone wall surrounding the compound, but that had largely been eroded by the elements. Three layers of razor wire fence served as the perimeter, but the condemned men within were imprisoned by something far more forbidding: three hundred miles of icy, desolate wilderness and, beyond that, a world that no longer had any place for them. Tiger knew there were only eight surviving prisoners, all at least thirty years older than Klesko, and six resident guards who certainly had been assigned there as punishment.
    Tiger pulled to a stop outside the front gate and got out of the car, leaving the engine running. An armed guard inside the wire had stepped to the gate and waited there, his eyes never leaving the young visitor but his gun still holstered. Tiger pulled on his heavy leather car coat as he approached.
    “Klesko,” he said.
    The guard considered the request and waited. Tiger produced a thick wad of bills from the chest pocket of his coat, American dollars, and passed them through the wire. The guard took the bills and clumsily shuffled through them with his gloved hands, counting. He turned and disappeared into the nearest cell block, emerging a minute later with the prisoner, urging the shuffling man along with a swift, painful boot to his hamstrings.
    At the first sight of Klesko, Tiger’s heart sank. Time, isolation, and brutal confinement had taken their toll on the man, looking as if he had aged two years for every one on the calendar. Gray beard, face creased by exposure and hardship. Klesko had his bed blankets wrapped around him against the bitter cold. On his feet he wore a ragged pair of old boots, three sizes too large, with several layers of rags underneath, wound around his feet in lieu of socks. His breathing seemed