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By Root 807 0

been nearly four months since he left his hometown in Lithuania. Four months without his wife. His parents. His children—two daughters. He knew bad times were ahead when he was drafted into the Russian army. It was always bad for Jews in the army, which was why so many tried to bribe their way out. Mikhel’s father had tried the same—selling his gold, his wife’s rings, even the family Bible. For all Lithuanians, there was mandatory army service for at least five years. But the Jews were taken for ten, twenty, sometimes as long as twenty-five years. Mikhel’s father begged and pleaded to keep his boy safe. But the Segalovichs were poor. And the poor went into the army.

In the beginning, Mikhel committed himself to hard work. Maybe he’d make cavalry or even sergeant. But he learned quickly. A Jewish sergeant giving orders to Russians? Never. Even in the cavalry—they weren’t giving sabers and pistols to a poor uneducated Jew. No, the Jews were beaten and practiced on. Low infantrymen to sweep stables and live in feces. That’s all Mikhel would ever be.

Until Sweden.

Back then, they called the trips scientific expeditions. It was how the Russians discovered the Bering Strait, as well as the mammoth fossils in Siberia. Mikhel heard the rumors . . . the search for an imperial treasure . . . the ancient carving known as the Book of God. But when Mikhel heard that he was chosen, that he and a dozen other Jews from different units were being allowed to leave the Russian Empire for this expedition, he knew what his group really was. A suicide squad.

They didn’t expect the group to survive. Didn’t expect them, in that winter, to even make it to Sweden. Most of them didn’t. But the youngest, Mikhel, did.

He wasn’t a hero. Indeed, he was simply the kid in charge of the horses and dogs. So when they finally found the cave—the makeshift tomb left behind by the monks—Mikhel was told to keep watch outside.

He did his job. He stood, in his unlined Russian riding boots, knee-deep in the snow. He waited in the icy silence, wondering what was happening inside. And then Mikhel heard the screams.

“Hopen problemen, eh?” a Belgian teenager teased, laughing as he ran past Mikhel vomiting in the alleyway. “Heaps of problems, eh?”

Ignoring the child, Mikhel spat violently at the ground, clearing the last bits of vomit from his lips. Tucked between two modern houses, he knew this wasn’t a perfect hiding spot, but it was the one with the best view of Avenue Louise.

Still clutching the handle of his leather hold-all, Mikhel studied each and every lime and sycamore tree that lined the main avenue. He eyed the two motorcars rumbling through the square. He even checked the windows of the blue-grained stone house across the street. He knew he had been followed. They had to be close. So from here on in, for Mikhel, it was simply a question of timing.

According to the pocketwatch they gave him, it was exactly half-past ten in the morning. He didn’t hear the warning sounds, but if he wanted to pull this off . . . no question, he had to have some faith.

Bursting from the alleyway, he darted straight toward the pushcarts and milk wagons that filled the square. Sure enough, the kling-ting of the electric tram tickled the air. On his right, the tram’s bright red carriage hummed and stuttered along the tracks that ran up Avenue Louise. Just as they had promised.

At this hour, the passengers were few. The suspicious would have no place to hide. Cutting behind a fruit wagon with a large striped umbrella, Mikhel, for the fourth time, checked over his shoulder. All clear.

“Huelp nodij met uw kossers?” a porter in a crisp linen smock asked as the tram pulled up to the platform. “Help with your luggage?”

Mikhel shook his head, refusing eye contact. No. He hadn’t brought it this far to let the hold-all out of sight.

He took a final scan of the platform. Except for the porter, he was the only one there. He still waited until the last minute to hop aboard.

“Welkom, meneer. Eerste of tweede klas?” asked a ticket collector with a thick mustache.

Mikhel didn’t