Valley of Thracians (32 page)

Chapter
56

In central Bulgaria, lying between the
Balkan Range and the Sredna Gora mountains is a long fertile plain known as the
Valley of Roses. Due to the high quality of its roses, mastered over centuries
of dedicated cultivation, Bulgaria is one of the world’s largest exporters of
rose oil, used in the production of perfumes, beauty creams, chocolates,
liquors, and jams. There is even toothpaste made from roses.

An enormous quantity of rosebuds is
required to produce a minuscule amount of the valuable fluid. To extract one
kilogram of this precious liquid, three thousand kilograms of rose petals are
needed. Because of this, rose oil is three times more expensive than gold.

“We saw them harvesting the roses in the
early-morning hours,” Scott told them as they drove down from the mountain pass
into the valley. “Mostly Roma were doing the work. Grandpa, do you know who the
Roma are?”

“The gypsies?” he asked.

“Yes, there are quite a lot of them in
Bulgaria. They get up before dawn to pick the petals at exactly the right time.
It’s quite a fascinating sight to see the moist flowers sparkling in the first
rays of the rising sun. They need to be picked very early in the day because
the oil evaporates in the sunlight. The bushes are head-high; you should see
them! Young women pick the buds, drop them into these huge baskets, and then
they’re carried away on donkey back to distilleries. It’s very picturesque,
all that
manual work, almost like a scene out of another
century. And they have this festival every year to celebrate the harvest. It’s
in the town we’re going to, Kazanlak.”

“The annual festival is taking place
now,” Sophia added for Simon’s benefit.

“I’m absolutely sure that Kazanlak is
where we need to go,” Scott said again. “Kazanlak is the place that Lance
referred to as being our favorite.”

“It’s getting late,” Simon said. His
argument suggesting an immediate return to Sofia had already fallen on deaf
ears. Sophia said there was no chance they’d be able to get back to the capital
before dark, and Scott was anxious to get to the town where he was sure Lance
had hidden the gym bag. Simon was tired, from both the physical exertions
required by this journey and from dealing with his grandson’s exuberance at
solving this mystery. “Where will we stay?” he asked.

“My cousin lives in Kazanlak,” Sophia
replied. “He’ll be happy to put us up for the night.”

And that was how they found themselves,
two hours later, sitting at a wooden table behind Sophia’s cousin’s home, their
appetites growing as mouthwatering aromas rose from a brick barbecue. The son
of Sophia’s uncle on her father’s side, Ivan Petrov was a jovial man with a
large potbelly who enjoyed entertaining as much as he enjoyed eating. And he
apparently ate a lot. He welcomed Simon and Scott into his home with open arms
and greeted his cousin with a warm embrace that lasted a bit longer than Sophia
appreciated. More than anything else, Ivan was excited to have a chance to
practice his rudimentary knowledge of English.

“You come, eat,” he said, waving them
into his tree-lined backyard. “I make good food on fire, see?”

“Thank you for your kind hospitality,”
Simon responded.

“Hospital?
No, no hospital,” Ivan said with a frown.

Sophia explained what Simon had meant,
and this caused Ivan’s face to light up with understanding.

“I grill good food. You like pork? I
make good pork.”

“My grandfather doesn’t eat pork,” Scott
said.

“Actually, I don’t mind,” Simon said,
embarrassed that his grandson was reminding him about Jewish dietary laws.

Scott looked at his grandfather
curiously, but Simon didn’t think this was the appropriate time or place to
explain himself. He smiled at Ivan, and it was clear to him that their host’s
mind was at work, searching for a solution that would please his guests.

“I grill good chicken? You like
chicken?”

“Yes, that will be fine,” Simon said.

As they waited for the meal to cook,
Scott sat at the table next to a large bowl of cherries, popping one after
another into his mouth. “You’ve got to try them, Grandpa,” he said. “They’re
delicious.”

“I don’t particularly like cherries.
There’s too much work involved, spitting out the pits and all.”

“Come on, Grandpa. Don’t be such a
sourpuss. If you’ve never tried a Bulgarian cherry, you don’t know what the
fruit is all about.”

Reluctantly, Simon reached into the bowl
of ripe, red fruit—some of them nearly the size of golf balls—and picked out a
cherry still attached to its tiny stem. He took a bite, and a burst of
sweetness brought sudden, intense pleasure to his mouth. The cherry was so
meaty, so full of sugary charm that he couldn’t help but take another one.

“I told you,” Scott said, laughing.
“There’s nothing like the cherries in this country. And
They’re
addictive. You just can’t stop eating them.”

Sophia was standing next to the grill
talking with her cousin, so Simon took the opportunity to raise a touchy
subject with his grandson.

“Listen, Scott, there’s something I’ve
been meaning to say to you,” Simon began, hopeful his grandson wouldn’t think
he was lecturing him. “It’s time for you to go home, especially after the ordeal
you’ve been through. Your father doesn’t have a clue what we’re doing here in
central Bulgaria, what we’re looking for. And if he knew, he certainly wouldn’t
approve.”

“I’m not asking for his approval.”

“Scott, don’t you realize this is all a
terrible waste of time? Seriously! It’s been three years since you handed that
bag to Lance, and now that we’ve learned he was killed in a car accident, we’ll
never know where he hid it.”

“Grandpa, we’re already in Kazanlak, the
favorite place to which Lance was referring. Tomorrow we’ll continue and
complete the search.”

“That message, about hiding it in your
favorite place, it doesn’t offer much help. Face it, even if he hid the gym bag
in this town, you don’t have a single clue where to start looking. It wouldn’t
be hidden in plain sight. It must be buried somewhere or stored in some safe
location. Scott, admit it. You’re looking for a needle in a haystack.”

“Grandpa, I’m sure we’ll find it. Trust
me. There was a bit more to Lance’s message than just stating it was hidden in
our favorite place. I never informed you or Sophia about the rest of what he
wrote to me.”

“What? You mean you know more than what
you’ve been telling us?”

“I didn’t want to get you too worried,”
Scott said, lowering his head so that Sophia and her cousin wouldn’t overhear
their conversation. “Trust me. I just know that we’ll figure this all out
tomorrow.”

“I’m not so sure.”

“Grandpa, I’ve changed a lot over these
past three years. I doubt my parents will even recognize me. When I came to
Bulgaria, and even during my stint in the Peace Corps, I really wasn’t me. Face
it, I was addicted. I was a drug addict. But going through this ordeal, I’ve
totally changed. Grandpa, I suffered a lot. This gaping dent on my forehead is
a constant reminder of what I went through. All that time of not knowing, not
remembering, it was horrible. But I came through it. I survived, and I’m a
better person for it.”

Scott rubbed his grandfather’s arm for a
moment before continuing. “Hold on just a little bit longer. We’ll find the gym
bag tomorrow, head back to Sofia, and then fly home. It’ll all be okay.”

“Dinner food is served!” Ivan announced
proudly, bringing a huge platter of barbecued chicken to the table. His wife, a
pleasant woman who didn’t understand a word of English, spread before them a
variety of salads in colorful Bulgarian ceramic dishes. Ivan snapped open
several bottles of beer. “How you say in English, dig up!”

“Dig in,” Scott corrected him.

“So, how you like Bulgaria?” Ivan asked
Simon after a huge amount of food was consumed, and they sat completely
satiated around a table cluttered with chicken bones and dirty plates.

“You have a beautiful country,” Simon
replied. “We’ve encountered some interesting people here,” he said, thinking
about what had happened to him at Tsarevets Fortress.

“We have good people,” Ivan admitted.

“Simon, you need to understand
something,” Sophia said, searching for words. “Just like every country,
Bulgaria has its good people and its bad people. Don’t take your attackers at
Tsarevets as examples of what we’re like. We’re similar to every nation. We
have our ups and downs. And we’re playing a huge game of catch up with the
world. Look at how far we’ve come. We only became a democracy less than twenty
years ago.”

“I understand all that,” Simon replied.
“Don’t worry. I’m not making rash judgments based on a few bad apples. On the
whole I’ve found Bulgarians to be very friendly, open to visitors, and proud of
their country. I hadn’t planned to do this much sightseeing, but I’m not upset
at all. What I’ve seen is absolutely beautiful. I’m surprised you don’t get
more tourists.”

“Tourists, yes!”
Ivan said, leaning forward as if to make a point. “We have many tourists now.
Kazanlak, our festival.
Praznik
na
rozata
. You come here at good time. You’ll see!”

Ivan and his wife began to clear away
the dishes, and Scott stood up to help them, unleashing strong protests from
his hosts. Scott wouldn’t take no for an answer, and he joked with Ivan in
broken Bulgarian, demonstrating a good mood for the first time since reuniting
with his grandfather. Laughter filled the kitchen as the dishes were washed,
leaving Simon alone with Sophia at the backyard table. High above, the Balkan
night sky was filled with a canopy of stars—stars seemingly as numerous as the
rosebuds of the valley.

“Sophia, there’s something I’ve been
meaning to ask you.”

“Yes?”

“I need to know why you’ve taken such an
interest in my visit. You’ve gone out of your way to guide me as I looked for
Scott. And now that I’ve found him, I’m surprised that you didn’t want to get
us back to Sofia as quickly as possible.”

“It was no problem at all, really. I
told you, there are good people in Bulgaria.”

“I can’t help but think that there may
be something more,” he said, not sure how to express his thoughts.

“What? Oh, no,” she said, touching his
arm gently. “I don’t want you to get the wrong impression. I’ve enjoyed every
minute being with you, Simon, but it’s not like I was looking for any sort of
companionship other than what we’ve had. You’re a very nice man, Simon, and I
really like you. You didn’t think…”

“No, of course not.
I’m not exactly a spring chicken.”

“Simon, I suffered through a horrible
divorce. I never mentioned that before because, well, it’s not important. Let’s
just say that I’m not one for commitments. I’ve always been more attracted to
my work, to my studies, and my profession. I guess I found that you had a
sympathetic ear, one ready to take in a bit of Bulgaria’s history and culture.
I never meant to give any other impression. I hope I haven’t misled you.”

“No, not at all,” he replied. Could he
have been so vain to think that there had been anything more than simple
friendship in their relationship? At his age, how could he have allowed himself
to be carried away with such fantasies?

They were interrupted by the shrill
ringtone of Sophia’s cell phone, and she stood up to take the call. As she
turned to face the smoldering coals of the grill, she covered the receiver with
her hand, not that Simon would be able to understand any of her conversation.

A sudden thought popped up in Simon’s
mind, disturbing him and confusing him even more. Who was Sophia talking to?
She had also made a mysterious call when they left the hotel in Belogradchik.
It was as if Sophia was reporting not only her own whereabouts but where Simon
and Scott were as well.

No, that was ridiculous, he thought,
trying to dismiss his reservations about her actions. Yet he kept wondering if
her interest in the missing Thracian artifact was more than academic. At times,
he thought that Sophia was keener on retrieving the item than his grandson.

He hoped he could take Sophia’s words at
face value. More than anything, he wanted to trust her—to know that she was, in
fact, one of the good people.

Chapter
57

She could yet make amends. Previous
failures weighed heavily on her mind, but she could more than compensate for
them today. All she needed to do was get close enough to ensure that this time
there would be no mistakes.

She wasn’t doing this for Vlady. Between
swigs of beer at the
mehana
the previous night, the heavyset villager
had forced her to repeat his dictated instructions until she knew them by
heart. Vlady had quickly recovered from the short-acting hypnotic drug. By the
time he regained consciousness in the clinic, Nikolov’s men had already gone,
so their sudden appearance had not been a cause for his concern. Instead of
punishing her for the mishap, all that interested Vlady was renewed planning of
how to abduct the American. They couldn’t waste a minute in their efforts to
learn where the artifact was hidden, he persisted, and he concentrated on
setting their trap.

She wasn’t doing this for her brother.
Boris had called the previous night to get an update on what had transpired at
Veliko Tarnovo. He chuckled when he learned that Vlady had accidentally been
struck with the needle. “That’s probably the only way to knock him out,” were
Boris’s words. But then he turned dead serious, lecturing his sister on the
importance of what she was doing, insisting there was no room for additional
failure. The American had been followed to Kazanlak; that’s where they would
recover the artifact, Boris insisted with a confidence that Katya failed to
share.

No, she wasn’t doing this for either of
them. She had her own reasons—reasons of far more importance for participating
in this strange little scheme. She had lost the person dearest to her, and his
memory still called out to her every day. The latest scars disfiguring her
wrist showed how much she held herself accountable for allowing him to get
away, but today she could take steps to bring him back. With every breath she
inhaled she was reminded of him, every thought in her mind was turned to him.
There was only one way to regain the closeness they had enjoyed, and that was by
bringing him back to the confinement offered by the remote mountain cabin. She
longed to care for him as before, when he knew nothing other than a life framed
by her visits. The item that mattered to Vlady and Boris didn’t interest her in
the least. All that she desired was to bring her beloved back to the place
where he would be hers alone.

Katya reached into her purse, and a huge
sense of relief swept over her when she felt the coolness of the thin
hypodermic syringe, wrapped in a small cloth and ready for action. The needle
was protected, embedded in a small cork, but this could be instantly removed
when she prepared to strike.

This time, she would make certain to
identify her target before she made her move. With one prick of the needle, it
would all be over. Vlady would be waiting nearby, ready to step in and handle
everything else. Katya adjusted the strap of her purse and followed the crowd,
which was growing in number as it converged on the festivities in the center of
the town.

A few streets away, Simon walked with
Sophia and Scott in the same direction. He enjoyed the slow pace, the warm
day’s stroll alongside typical Bulgarian families. Young children perched on
their fathers’ shoulders. Mothers pushed baby carriages, some of them
especially built for twins lying side by side in tandem. Older residents ambled
ahead with the aid of canes. Teenagers pushed forward wearing colorful
T-shirts. Faded blue jeans appeared to be very popular with all ages.

As they walked, Simon could hear the
discordant sounds of what sounded like a marching band—a slightly out-of-tune
one at that. They passed storefronts with cardboard signs bearing the word
“Sale” written in colorful letters in English. A poster advertised King-brand
cigarettes. Another shop window was decorated with the familiar Coca-Cola logo.
There were clothing stores and a restaurant. A vendor’s arm was tied to a huge
bouquet of helium-filled balloons. A stand offered trinkets and bead jewelry
next to carts selling cotton candy and popcorn. Men drank beer from plastic
cups, the foam spilling over to the pavement. A pack of battery-operated puppy
dogs barked and danced in a circle on the sidewalk. Overhead, a huge banner
strung across the street announced something in large Cyrillic letters.

“The parade starts at noon,” Sophia
explained to Simon. “They crowned the Rose Queen yesterday, and she’ll be
leading the marchers.”

“Where do we go?” Simon asked Scott.

Scott’s eyes were wide as he stared up
and down the street, trying to see a familiar sight that would jerk his memory
and provide him with the final clue. “Lance and I were here,” was all he said
to his grandfather.

The street ended at the town’s central
square, a large cement plaza surrounding a simple fountain. People hurried
across the pavement to stand on the sidewalk alongside the bleachers set out
for the town’s dignitaries. A string cord roped off the street itself. The
crowd swelled on both sides, waiting anxiously for the parade to begin. The
music grew louder, blaring out of speakers strung from the light poles. People
jostled for position, everyone straining for a better view.

Simon followed Sophia to a corner where
the crowd was thinner. He looked around and suddenly realized that it was just
the two of them.

“Scott’s not here,” he said, pulling
Sophia’s sleeve.

“I’m sure he’s all right,” she replied,
tilting her head slightly as she gazed up the street.

Abruptly the music stopped and was
replaced by the screeching of someone fiddling with the controls of an
amplifier. Somewhere, out of sight, a man tapped a microphone to test the
volume and began to address the crowd. His opening remarks were met by a loud
round of cheering.

“That’s the president of Bulgaria,”
Sophia explained to Simon proudly. “He’s welcoming everyone to the Festival of
Roses.”

The speech went on for several minutes,
interrupted occasionally by additional waves of applause. The crowd seemed
restless. Young babies began to cry, and their mothers rocked strollers back
and forth in efforts to calm them. Two boys bumped into an older woman as they
hurried past on their skateboards, leading to a sharp heated exchange. The boys
apologized and continued to skate behind the throngs standing on the street.
The speech continued, the president apparently unconcerned with his audience’s
short attention span.

Scott was nowhere in sight, and Simon
was starting to worry. What would happen if he had come this far only to lose
his grandson again at the very last minute? What if Scott was following a clue
toward the missing treasure and hadn’t bothered to inform him or Sophia? What
if someone was trying to harm Scott, attacking as unexpectedly as the assault
at the fortress?

And then the parade began.

Farther up the street, Scott pushed his
way through the crowds lining the sidewalk. He briefly glanced at the teenage
girls leading the procession, their slim figures adorned with formal evening
gowns and their coiffed hair topped with wreaths of flowers. The girls carried
large bouquets of bright-colored roses, and sashes declaring the names of their
hometowns draped over their shoulders. Taking their steps carefully, the
pageant beauties waved at their cheering audience. Whistles and catcalls of
appreciation hailed their passage.

A large contingent of young children
marched by behind a street-wide banner announcing their school, but Scott
turned his attention to the buildings on the far side of the street. Surely he
would recognize one of the unpretentious two-story structures as having played
a meaningful role in his past.
A store?
A restaurant?
A hotel?
His eyes
sought anything familiar that would connect everything together.

He thought back to the words of Lance’s
final email message.
It is safe at one of our favorite places. You know
where that is. Remember when we were so tired?

As he’d said to his grandfather and
Sophia, Scott was convinced that Kazanlak was their favorite place in Bulgaria.
But he had never shared the additional phrase in Lance’s message.
Remember
when we were so tired?
It didn’t make sense on its own, but in the context
of the other words, it must be connected to being in Kazanlak. The final piece
of the mystery was almost within his reach, nearly tangible and visible, but he
had yet to grasp what it was.

A large procession of adults made its
way up the street, all of them attired in traditional Bulgarian outfits
symbolic of their region in the center of the country. The men’s clothing was
simple, as if their outfits were geared for work on their farms, but large red
sashes wrapped around their waists, and small black hats on their heads gave
them a festive appearance. The women of the group wore fancier garments. Long
streamers of yellow ribbon were tied to flowery headdresses, their blouses were
of that bright color as well, and their lavish skirts were wide, swishing as
they walked. Two men swaggering behind the group pounded on large drums,
providing a beat to guide the marchers.

Pushing past the onlookers, Katya
spotted the man she was looking for. He was not far ahead of her, on her side
of the street. The man was not gazing at the participants in the parade but
rather at the buildings beyond the crowd. Katya excused herself repeatedly as
she made her way past the spectators, inching closer to him with each step. She
clutched her purse tightly to her side, ready to withdraw the item that lay in
readiness within. There were just too many people here, she thought. On the
other hand, no one would notice her actions when she made her move.

The man she sought eased forward to the
curb, staring at something across from him. As Katya approached, she saw the
man’s eyes suddenly light up with excitement. He stepped around the protective
cord and into the street itself, nearly colliding with a baton-twirling girl
costumed in festive red. The girl sidestepped him, and he shielded his eyes from
the sun, taking another long glance at whatever had caught his interest.

Katya called out, expecting him to turn
with recognition of her voice. He would remember everything and readily join
her. There would be no need for the drug she had brought after all. It had been
so long. She had missed him so much.

The man turned his back to the parade
and began to shove past the people on the sidewalk. Suddenly, he looked up and
noticed Katya. She smiled and opened her arms wide to embrace him.

He saw her, and the expression on his
face changed instantly to one of alarm. It’s me, she motioned to him, but he
backed away. She inched forward, knocking into people and drawing angry looks
and remarks in her wake. He moved back farther still, into the street itself.

“Stop!” she called out, but her voice
couldn’t be heard above the blaring music. She made her way to the pavement’s
edge. She reached out, and her hand briefly touched his arm.

With one last glance in her direction,
he turned to run. He bounded up the middle of the street, knocking one of the
marching girls to her knees and causing her baton to crash down with a tubular
resonance on the concrete. He ran through the marchers, disrupting their
movements and upsetting their efforts to conduct a precisely timed exercise.
The girls cried out in panic and spun around to flee the intruder in their
midst. Red-sequined caps fell to the ground in a flurry of scattering marching
boots and short skirts.

As the crowd began to voice its alarm,
Katya bolted into the street as well, pushing past the panic-stricken young
girls in pursuit of the man that had interfered with their group. She nearly
tripped over the fallen baton as she hurried forward, fearful that he would get
away.

“Where is he?”

Katya turned to find Vlady at her side.
She pointed, and they both spotted Scott racing through the marching groups,
disrupting everything in his path.

“We can’t let him get away,” Vlady said,
and then he ran after Scott, his heavy frame rushing forth like a bull in a
china shop.

The marching music continued to blast
from the loudspeakers, but the procession no longer paraded up the main street
of Kazanlak. Instead, straight lines of an organized march morphed into chaotic
disorder. Costumed marchers scattered as if being pursued by a stampede of
frightened animals. Crowds on the sidewalk fled in panic, seeking safety in the
narrow roads and alleys surrounding the square. Police whistles shrieked
repeatedly. Someone barked orders through a megaphone. Infants cried out. Young
children screamed as they ran for the protection of their parents. A small
mechanized float, one of the few that had been part of the procession, careened
into a roadside trinket stand, the impact resulting in a cascade of glass beads
and shattered ornaments. In the commotion, a horse bolted, causing the wagon it
was pulling to overturn.

Over everything, a massive cloud of pink
rose petals lifted with the breeze and caught in the air, drifting back and
forth to darken the sky.