What She Got Out of It - E. D. James

The envelope was the same as the first two. White. Cheap. No return address. Postmarked from Blagoveschensk in Siberia. After the first one she had investigated what connections to her work there might be in Blagoveschensk. She found that the Amur branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences had a facility there. It leant credibility to what the envelopes contained, but it didn’t answer the question of who had sent them.

The first envelope had contained three photographs were notes in ledger regarding radiological experiments conducted in a Soviet gulag prison in the early 1950’s. Audrey had taken the photos to the Russian language department at U. C. Berkeley to get the pages translated. The notes were an accounting of hospital beds, thermometers, spirometers and other equipment that were shipped to an unnamed camp.

The second envelope had contained a list of peoples names with dates. A note accompanying the list stated that the names where prisoners who had been killed in the radiological experiment. The note was printed in block letters with thick black marker. Both of the envelopes had also contained notes written with the same blocky style stating that Olivia’s life was in danger if she continued to be a part of the Arkhara project.

She pulled her simple silver letter opener from her top drawer and slid the thin tip up under the flap of the third envelope. She carefully slid the blade along the fold neatly cutting the envelope open, then set down the opener, and pulled the contents out. A photograph of an old graveyard with a few graying wooden crosses sticking up like broken teeth from a field was on top. She could see nothing identifying where the photo was taken. The second sheet was another of the notes with the blocky lettering. This one was more blunt than the previous two. It read, “You will be killed before you can leave for Siberia if you do not resign from the project immediately. Please heed this warning.”