Michelle remained motionless, her back pressed against the wall, her breathing shallow, her eyes locked on Sokolov. Tears rolled down her cheeks.
“Eugene,” she whispered. “Eugene …”
It felt as though they had known each other for ages and now finally met after a long separation.
“Michelle, don’t worry. I’m here with you. You’ll be safe now.”
She nodded, holding back more tears.
He picked up her purse off the floor and handed it to her in order to shift her thoughts to action and calm her down.
“We must leave.”
“Of course, yes,” she replied. She spoke flawless Russian in a quiet voice.
Holding her delicate hand, he led her down the stairs and back outside.
Seeing them, the African groggily got to his feet and fled. The Arab had already disappeared without a trace. The other hoodlums stayed sprawled on the ground, out cold.
Sokolov and Michelle hurried across the street to the BMW. Sokolov opened the front passenger door for Michelle. When he walked over to the driver’s side, the tattooed blond slowly got up onto all fours with a moan. Sokolov hit him with the car door and he rolled away.
“This isn’t a very friendly neighborhood,” Sokolov said, as he got behind the wheel.
Headlights ablaze, engine revving, the BMW pulled away. Sokolov plotted a route to the Champs Élysées.
“Where are we going?” Michelle asked.
“Somewhere crowded and noisy, doesn’t matter. We just need to get as far away from here as possible.”
“Do you think they’ll be after us?”
“Right now, they’ll be after medication,” Sokolov reassured her. “Have you seen those guys before?”
“No, they’re not the types that usually hang around in the area.”
“What about the one with the silver hair?”
“No idea who he is. Never met him.”
“I’ll make sure you never will.”
He directed the X6 towards the N1 highway. In the rearview mirror, Michelle’s district faded into darkness beyond the junction of Avenue Lénine and Avenue de Stalingrad.
“Thank you, Eugene,” she murmured.
3
THEY DROVE PAST THE Stade de France football arena entering Paris proper. Signboards denoted pharmacies and advertised cheap calls to Africa and the Middle East. Advancing downtown, older architecture replaced the featureless apartment blocks. Alluring lights and flashes of neon made the setting resemble the French capital’s popular image. The traffic intensified near the glamorous, shop-lined Boulevard Haussmann, even shortly before midnight.
“How did you know it was me?” Sokolov asked.
“Nina gave me this photo.”
Michelle rummaged her purse and took out a print.
Sokolov held it, decelerating at an intersection with Rue de Moscou.
The photo showed himself standing beside an embracing couple, Nina and Constantine, all three of them laughing. A still shot from another lifetime. Nina’s lifetime. Wordlessly, he handed the picture back to Michelle.
“My newfound cousins.” Michelle smiled. “I never thought I’d see you. Did Nina tell you about me? She was supposed to call, but I haven’t heard from her.”
Sokolov paused a beat before he could speak. Seeing the photo made it even harder to utter the words.
“Nina has been murdered, Michelle.”
“No … no …” she said in disbelief.
“And what happened today was no accidental mugging.”
“She did warn me.” Michelle’s voice quivered. “She said it was dangerous, but I never thought that she could actually … God, no …”
Sokolov spared her the details. She’d suffered enough stress already. He waited until Michelle could continue.
“Nina told me that she worked for the FSB. She got in touch with me saying my name appeared in their records. This is how we met. She found my lineage. And it got her killed.”
She reached for her handbag.
“I have it in my purse. I always carry it with me now.”
“What is it?”
“The object that was the reason Nina died.”
4
SOUTH-EAST IN THE 12th arrondissement, powerful headlights illuminated a secluded three-way intersection. A Volvo truck with Dutch plates eased into a driveway in front of a tall garage door which belonged to a nondescript multistoried building. A sign on the wall reading CROIX-ROUGE FRANÇAISE, accompanied with a drawing of a Red Cross, disguised it as a medical facility. The door rolled up and down swiftly as the truck drove in along a ramp.
The former ambulance station had been leased and converted into warehouse space. For now, the 500-square-meter area was empty. Fluorescent lighting shone over the concrete floor and yellow-painted walls. The truck stopped. Men in blue coveralls hurried to the back of the Volvo and the half-dozen workers began unloading cardboard shipping boxes and stacking them in the center of the storeroom. The driver got out of the truck and lit a cigarette. Armed guards were positioned inside the perimeter, donning black uniforms with the word Avarus stenciled on the left above each breast pocket.
The Volvo’s passenger also hopped out from the cabin, stretching after the long haul all the way from the Netherlands. Sporting a leather jacket and boots, he compensated for his average height with a beefy build. A mop of lanky brown hair made his round face look less chubby. Dark, bushy eyebrows and small, black eyes expressed a ruthless attitude for someone so young. At twenty-one, Alik Kugotov had already established his authority in the underworld.
Alik walked over to an older man watching the proceedings from a platform at the other end of the warehouse. He was shorter than Alik, overweight, with a bald, pumpkin-shaped head and a flat snout. A polka-dot bow tie and matching handkerchief complemented his gray three-piece suit. His name was Stepan Rezler and he was one of the very few men whom Alik feared.
They shook hands. Rezler smiled cordially, showing his gapped teeth.
“How was the trip?” he asked, patting Alik on the shoulder.
“Good. Everything went without a hitch.”
“What about your family? Have they settled in Amsterdam?”
“Yeah, even my grandmother lives there now, thanks.”
“Glad to hear it. This will be the last delivery for a while?”
“Yes,” Alik replied. “Mr. Dedura is planning a big shipment from Novorossiysk, aboard a huge cargo vessel. I heard that the new items are of amazing quality. Nothing will be coming out until they’re properly assessed. I’m going back to Russia next.”
Rezler nodded. “Enjoy your stay, then.”
Alik smiled. “You know I come here just for the girls.”
“You never get enough, do you?” Rezler smirked. “Every single whore in Holland must be sick of your face by now.”
“The ones you have, I like them better.”
Rezler said nothing. Aged over fifty, he most likely didn’t enjoy women as much. And to him, they were just another commodity he traded.
He led Alik out the back door past a little garden to a parked Ferrari F12berlinetta. Alik whistled at the sight of the spanking new grand tourer.
“Can I drive it?”
“Be my guest.” Rezler tossed him the key.
Alik revved the 740-horsepower engine which hummed, responding to the accelerator.
No sooner had they pulled away from the warehouse than Rezler’s phone buzzed. He answered and listened for a few moments.
“Yes? … Who did? … And what the hell were you waiting for? Huh?” A scowl creased his mouth. “All right. I'm with Alik. We were heading to your place anyway. Meet you there. You'll have a lot of explaining to do, you moron.”
He broke the connection.
“Who was it?” Alik asked.
“Prince.”
“What did he say?”
“He botched the job like a worthless freier.”
“How?” Alik exclaimed. “His
punks couldn’t handle a stupid woman?”
“Apparently, someone came up and beat the crap out of them.”
Alik cursed out loud.
“Prince got roughed up but he said he’d managed to snap a pic of the guy’s car on his phone.”
“I told you so. Never trust a pimp to do a man’s job.”
“Oh. And you’re the man, Alik?”
“Whoever that was, I would have chopped him to bits.”
“Now listen up, boy,” Rezler snapped. “This isn’t your native village in Adygea. You can rape and kill anyone you want back there. This is Europe. This is my turf. You’re lucky enough that Dedura decided to reward you by letting you and the rest of your clan out into Holland. But in France, you should know your place. Sit tight and be happy with what I give you. Girls, booze, dope―have fun. But don’t you poke your nose into how I get things done here.”
The reprimand felt like a hard slap across his face, but Alik knew better than to oppose Rezler. He gripped the Ferrari’s wheel tightly to rein back his ire.
“Dedura won’t be happy with the result,” he simply said, unable to resist.
“I can deal with Dedura. That’s none of your damned business. Dedura won’t be happy if one of your crazy stunts alerts the authorities. Nobody must learn what's really inside those packages. Now shut up and drive.”
5
THE TRAFFIC LIGHT SIGNALED red. As the car came to a halt, the engine ran sounding barely above a whisper. Taxis drew up waiting in the bus lane to the right. It felt as if the world outside had frozen in anticipation. Sokolov set the BMW’s gear to neutral.
He turned to Michelle. She took out the object from her purse. It was small enough to be concealed in her clenched fist. The she held out her hand and placed the object into his palm, hesitating before she withdrew her slender fingers.
Quickly, he switched on the overhead light. His mind registered both the shape and its significance. He identified the object at first glance.
“Incredible …”
“You know what it is?”
“Yes.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“My brother is a historian.”
“Russia has a dangerous history,” Michelle said solemnly.
Even aged, the enamel felt smooth to the touch. A white cross pattée, though its triangular arms were not concave. Centrally, they joined into a medallion which depicted a mounted knight slaying a dragon. The cross had a suspension ribbon, striped gold and black.
“I’m familiar with military decorations,” Sokolov said. “This one is unmistakable. It’s the Order of St. George. The highest bravery award in the Russian Empire.”
“Fourth Class,” Michelle confirmed. “Earned by officers for heroic feats in combat only. Under the Communists, its possession was punishable by death.”
He gave it back to her as the light turned green and the vehicles in front began to pull away. A car horn blared behind the X6. Sokolov accelerated.
“Who did it belong to? How did you get it?”
“This cross is almost a century old, awarded during the First World War. I inherited it.”
“From our common ancestor?”
“Adrian Sokolov. My great-grandfather. And brother to yours.”
“Adrian,” he echoed. “And the brother …?”
“He was the one whose file Nina discovered. Grigory. Grigory Sokolov.”
Finally, he had the name. Two names, as it turned out. The Sokolov antecedents. Adrian and Grigory. Brothers like himself and Constantine. Was this information worth killing for?
Already manifested in his and Michelle’s appearance, their blood link strengthened with the details of their shared origin. Eugene Sokolov had found a distant cousin, but she was becoming ever closer to him now as he discovered his past.
“But why the secrecy?” he asked. “Did Nina explain?”
“I don’t know the bigger picture. I’ve only learned a few bits and pieces of our family history. There might be clues within them. Some facts I’ve known since I was a child. Nina helped fill in several blanks. That’s still too little to make any sense of this… this horror. But Nina did say one thing which scared me. She said that the truth would expose the darkest conspiracy of the twentieth century.”
6
HOW MUCH DO YOU know about Grigory and Adrian?” asked Sokolov.
“They were separated first by the Bolshevik revolution and then the Civil War.”
A nauseating thought entered his head.
“Do you mean that Grigory, my great-grandfather, sided with the Bolsheviks? They ended up fighting against each other?”
“Dear God, no,” Michelle said. “By no means. As far as I can tell, Grigory was a man of absolute integrity. He would never waver from his moral values and accept Bolshevik rule. Quite the opposite: he and Adrian fought in the same regiment. Already a decorated officer and a veteran returning from the Great War, Adrian enrolled as a volunteer in the Don Army in 1918. Grigory, being younger, served as a cadet. But the resistance couldn’t last long. Eventually, the remaining, battered White forces had to flee, evacuating from Novorossiysk. There was a shortage of ships. Chaos ensued.
“Adrian did manage to get aboard one of the last departing vessels. But as he watched the Russian coast recede, he had no idea where his brother was. Their units had split up en route to the city, hunted by Reds, and they had agreed to meet at the port. But Grigory had never shown up. Adrian stayed behind and waited as long as he could. However, he had no choice but to leave. He also had his wife to take care of.”
“I understand,” Sokolov said. “After they captured Novorossiysk, the Bolsheviks killed thousands of civilians to instill terror. Tens of thousands. Both he and his wife would have been murdered on the spot. Where did they end up? In Europe?”
“Yes. The Balkans. And Grigory remained in the Soviet Union, his fate unknown. For years, Grigory had no way to reach his brother. Inside the communist paradise, contacting relatives abroad or even acknowledging their existence was a criminal offense. A capital offense if it became known that Grigory had fought in the Don Army.”
“So this is how you received the St. George’s Order. Adrian passed it on to your parents as a family relic when he grew old.”
“Unfortunately,” Michelle said, “nobody knows where, when or how he died. He only managed to give the St. George’s to his wife as he sent her and their child, my grandfather, out of Yugoslavia to hide in Paris. After that, all traces of Adrian Sokolov have been lost.”
“What happened?”
“In the end, not only the Communists were intent on killing him for that cross, but also the Nazis.”
Eugene let out a breath. “At least his wife must have survived the war.”
“Yes, she lived the rest of her life here in Paris. Her name was Anna.”
“Where is she buried?”
“At the Russian Cemetery in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois.”
“I hope it’s not too far away.”
“Why?”
“Let’s pay her a visit.”
“Now?”
“Yes, right now.”
“Eugene … I don’t think …”
“It’s simply Gene for friends and family. You’re my family, Michelle. And so is Anna. She’s part of what I am.”
7
A QUICK TWENTY-KILOMETER drive south brought them to the hamlet of Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois. It was a quaint suburban community. Rows of small detached homes were completely serene at night. The Russian Cemetery edged a rural area, situated as far away as possible from the daily lives of the hamlet’s inhabitants.
Sokolov parked the BMW in the empty space adjacent to the concrete wall which fenced off the Cemetery’s grounds. He and Michelle followed it, finding the main entrance. Wanly irradiated by lampposts against the black sky, it left a lasting impression. The portal bore a Christian cross painted over its massive wooden door, eight-pointed in the Russian Orthodox fashion. On the portal’s
archway, angels flanked an icon of Christ. Behind the wall, rising above the entrance, was a single blue-colored church dome.
Sokolov tried to open the door but it wouldn’t give.
“There should be another entrance somewhere,” he said.
“Yes, there are two more apart from the main one,” Michelle confirmed.
They proceeded a few dozen meters further to a less obvious iron gate. Sokolov switched on his phone’s LED flashlight, training the beam on a notice attached to the metal bars.
Michelle translated. “It says that the cemetery is open from eight to five o’clock and unauthorized entry is forbidden. Please respect the law.”
Sokolov pushed the gate, which happened to be closed but unlocked.
“I don’t see any guards.”
“No one bothers with security. The Russian Cemetery is unwanted by the French here. Local officials have been threatening to get rid of it for decades. They’re eyeing this land for development.”
“In that case, I have no respect for their law. Let’s go.”
Beyond the gate, Michelle guided him down an alley as he shone his torch. From the gloom, different graves materialized in the Sonim’s pale bluish glow.
They passed rows and rows of headstones. Granite and marble; white, grey and black. Most were topped by Russian Orthodox crosses or tiny onion cupolas. Scientists and writers. Soldiers and generals. Aristocrats. Cossacks. Priests. All lay there. The pride of Russia, exiled. An entire country buried in a French hamlet.
“How many here?”
“Over ten thousand.”
Their voices were low murmurs. Sokolov and Michelle were lone guests paying homage to a Russia long gone.
Total silence. Not a leaf rustled in the trees. A peaceful necropolis which made Sokolov’s blood rush in reverence.
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