Pharaoh’s Gem

Samoikhin had an apartment on Ostozhenka and a neoclassical pile somewhere near Peredelkino, but Seleznev knew that he would be at the dacha in Barvika for the next week, and that this was where the gem was kept.

The idea of stealing the gem, referred to as the Pharaoh’s Gem because Samoikhin had a fetish for Egyptian antiquities, had been Kotov’s, and Kotov had procured the plans of the house, access codes, and one hour of the evening during which the security system would be turned off.

Seleznev had never required a whole hour before, but he had always known exactly what he was looking for and usually had reference photos or even, in one case, an isotopic marker to make things easier. He had nothing except Kotov’s word that the gem was in the same and that the safe was in the study and could be opened without too much difficulty.

Seleznev sincerely hoped so. Samoikhin had made his money in the chaos of the 90s and still took a bandit’s approach to retribution, burning the homes, cars, and families of those who crossed him. Normally Seleznev would not have been lured back into the field for a job as sketchy as this but he had recently discovered a primary cancer on one lung, with secondaries scattered across the lung peripheries. The x-rays had looked like a monochrome Christmas tree. He wanted to die quickly and in comfort: in Russia speed and comfort passed for compassion, and all of it cost money.

This was why he had hiked wheezily through five miles of pine forest along the south bank of the Moskva, and scaled the wall of Samoikhin’s laughably-named dacha. When Seleznev had been a child he had stayed in a state-owned dacha for several summers – a real wooden one, with three other fortunate families, taking turns making meals, picking vegetables from the plot, and playing in the woods around the house. Samoikhin’s version of the traditional Russian summer home looked like an airliner and had been designed by Zaha Hadid Architects. It had a helipad and an Olympic swimming pool, and a separate wing which housed Samoikhin’s collection of Egyptian antiquities.

The gem, Kotov had assured him, was not in the collection wing, but in the safe in the main house, which Seleznev had entered four minutes previously, and up the main staircase of which he was climbing quietly. Samoikhin was at an Alla Pugacheva Charity concert for the war effort against Ukraine and would not be home until midnight, if at all.

Kotov had gathered most of his information about the gem in his capacity as Samoikhin’s banker. He knew that the gem was insured for over ten million US dollars, and was Samoikhin’s pride and job. Seleznev had demanded two million for stealing it, and Kotov would either sell the thing or ransom it, depending on Samoikhin’s reaction to its loss.

The staircase was one of the floating kind, with slats of clear perspex anchored to the wall at once side and hovering in space at the other. It reminded Seleznev that Samoikhin did not drink. No drunk could navigate the staircase without breaking a leg. He reached the top and turned left down the corridor which led to Samoikhin’s private quarters, his feet sinking almost an inch into the carpet pile.

As part of Kotov’s guaranteed one-hour shut-down of the house’s security, the motion-sensitive lights did not come on, and Seleznev slowed as he passed a massive bulk against the corridor wall. He turned his torch on it, expecting a chest or sideboard, but saw a long, cold statue, carved horizontally, lying on top of a bigger bulk of stone. It was an effigy of a man, with a winged thing carved on his chest.

There was a sudden movement from behind the effigy’s head: Seleznev’s heart banged in his chest and a small striped cat leapt out into the torchlight, stretching and yawning. Seleznev had a soft spot for cats: their mercenary behaviour and quick transition from lithe beauty to savagery reflected something reassuringly Russian. He extended a gloved index finger and the cat ran a furred cheek along it. In the striped fur of the cat’s neck Seleznev saw a twinkle of gold. The cat wore a collar of small gold links like wings. From the centre dangled a pendent like a beetle. He turned it over. TА МИУ. He took the collar off the cat and examined it in the light of the torch. The first wing was stamped KΦ. He pocketed the collar, of which the cat seemed happy to be rid. He stroked the neat little heat and turned away.

Only one item in Samoikhin’s private study was illuminated, though by what means, Seleznev could not determine. Several LEDS embedded on a plinth threw beams onto a small limestone chest which looked like the sarcophagus of an infant. Perhaps not a baby, Seleznev thought: the reliefs carved on the front showed a cat sitting at a dinner table covered in food. The safe was, rather conventionally, behind a framed papyrus which looked to Seleznev like the knock offs that freezing illegal Chinese sold on blankets outside Red Square.

The little tabby from the corridor whispered around his legs. Seleznev made an indistinct kissing noise at it from beneath his mask, and lifted the frame from the wall. The safe behind it was a classic Rosengren, at least a century old. Seleznev felt a twinge of misgiving. It seemed unlikely that a biznizman of Samoikhin’s ilk would keep his treasured possession in something so easily opened.

He had it open within six minutes, which he blamed on lack of practice, and looked inside. As he shone the torch into the safe, two things happened: the sound of approaching helicopter rotors reached him, and the cat jumped onto his shoulder to look inside the inviting box. Panicking, Seleznev looked at his watch – he had another 42 minutes of Kotov’s promised sixty, and midnight was ninety minutes away. Clearly Samoikhin had decided that an evening with the cat and dead Egyptians was more attractive than Alla Pugacheva and Millions of Scarlet Roses.

He shooed the cat off, reached into the safe, and withdrew all the contents, which amounted to three bundles of documents. He patted around the safe and shone the torch inside, looking for concealed panels, but there was nothing: no casket, no jewel box, nothing but the papers which he shovelled into his backpack.

He shut the safe and replaced the frame, cursing Kotov. He was on his way out of the study when it occurred to him to check the sarcophagus. Samoikhin had troubled to give the plinth a separate power source: it might conceal or even be, the real safe.

He lifted the limestone lid gingerly. A smell of dust and something, spiced and unpleasant, drifted into the study’s still, luxurious air. The form of a mummified cat lay on the bottom. Seleznev was unwilling to touch it, and replaced the lif. At his feet the little tabby gave a meow. He shifted the box with some difficulty, but there was nothing on the plinth beneath it. Kotov had evidently been a fool. Seleznev blew the cat another kiss and nipped down the stairs as the helo’s lights came over the final rank of trees.

He met Kotov in a cafe in Patriarshiye Prudy and handed over the documents silently.

‘Where is it?’

He shrugged. ‘Wasn’t there. Whatever it was.’

Kotov narrowed his eyes. ‘What’s this?’ he shoved irritably at the documents.

‘Everything that was in the safe. No gems, no jewellery, nothing. Just paper.’

Like Samoikhin, Kotov had been a market stall trader in the 90s and had also worked his way up to dachas in Barvika over a mountain of bodies. ‘If you’re double-crossing me, I’ll kill you.’

‘I’m already dying. So fuck you and your wild goose chases. Next time get someone who’ll work for fairytales.’

Kotov opened the first folder. It contained Samoikhin’s birth certificate, army service record, marriage and divorce documents, deeds to his several properties, and permits for various weapons.

The second file contained twelve photographs from various angles of the limestone sarcophagus. The images showed it in situ in a tomb, and against a black background – a museum or insurance image.

The third file contained documents in a foreign script. The letterhead said Sooam Biotech, with a nondescript logo of horizontal lines in blue and green. Kotov flicked through them. ‘Korean,’ he said. ‘Something scientific.’ There was an English summary page, which Seleznev had attempted to read with the aid of Google translate, and given up.

Kotov’s face, as he read the document, was almost worth Seleznev’s lost two million. ‘What is it?’ Seleznev said impatiently.

Kotov shook his head and pulled out his phone. There was a prolonged period of searching, gasping, and half-laughs of incredulity. Finally he looked at Seleznev. ‘Was there a cat?’ he said.

‘Yes. A tabby thing. Friendly. Wanted to jump into the safe.’

‘It was a clone.’

‘A clone? Like a robot?’

Kotov opened the second file and took out one of the photos. ‘This coffin thing was stolen from a museum in Cairo about five years ago. It had the body of a cat in it. A mummy. Cat mummy.’

‘I saw it. I thought the box was the safe. The cat body was inside.’

‘Well, the cat belonged to some Egyptian prince, like – my God, like, three and a half thousand years ago. Samoikhin had it stolen and then he had the fucking cat cloned. The cat was a clone of an ancient Egyptian prince’s cat. You have got to be kidding me.’

‘His gem,’ said Seleznev flatly. ‘His gem was that cat.’ He suddenly saw little tabby in Samoikhin’s ultra-luxe dacha, sleeping beside the effigy of its long-dead owner.

‘It says here it was called Ta-Miu.’ Kotov looked at the papers again. ‘He kept the name then. Jesus. What a nut.’ He used several profanities and heaved a sigh. His face recovered its usual impassive surliness. ‘Can’t be helped,’ he said. ‘Some things come to nothing.’

‘My fee doesn’t. I’ll expect that money. Or Samoikhin will find out he can’t trust his banker.’

Kotov shrugged.

Outside, a street full of expat Americans were pushing babies towards afternoon naps in their gated compounds. Seleznev felt in his pocket for the collar he had taken from Ta-Miu’s soft neck and decided he would go to chemo in an Uber.