Layla frowned. “Whoever did this was very bloodthirsty.”
“But very thorough as well. And that person could only prey on those who were greedy.” Lourds picked up another kofta. “You can’t con an honest man. Using the passageway was a much easier way to dispose of the bodies. That way, the con could be done again and again.”
“You think all of those people in that cave were killed by this person?”
“Or persons?” Lourds shook his head. “No, Boris and I have theorized that whoever came up with this scenario found an actual ossuary used by the Zoroastrians. We’ve dug up evidence of habitation here, some of it Zoroastrian, so that’s no stretch of the imagination. This was just a case of need meeting a fortuitous circumstance. At least, that’s how we’re going to write up our findings.”
“Would you mind going public with your story first?”
“What do you mean?”
“There is a young woman who has impressed me with her work.” Layla nodded at Boris and at Dmitry. “A fellow countrywoman to the two of you. Her name is Anna Cherkshan.”
Boris shook his head. “I’m afraid I haven’t had the pleasure.”
Layla picked at the palao on her plate, isolating a fried raisin with her fork. “It will be a pleasure. She is a very bright young woman. Very diligent about her duties, and she loves what she does. You can see it in her eyes.”
Dmitry cocked his head to one side. “Did you say Cherkshan?”
“I did. Do you know her?”
After a brief pause, Dmitry shook his head. “No, I don’t. No Anna Cherkshan.”
Layla switched her attention back to Lourds and Boris. “She would like it very much if the two of you would grant her an interview. She’s a journalist with The Moscow Times.”
Lourds stretched his legs under the table. “That’s impressive. The Moscow Times only publishes the best writers in the country, and the articles have to be in English.”
“Exactly. I believe this would be a good experience for her, and it wouldn’t hurt to embellish your careers, and mine. Perhaps it would help if the two of you found the Holy Grail or a lost Russian ikon that somehow found its way out here–”
“Given the trade through this area, that’s not as impossible as you might think.” Boris smiled.
“—but your story, especially with the added trappings of the deadly con game, will probably seize the attention of her readers. As well as armchair archeologists throughout the world.”
“Only for a brief time.” Lourds sipped his wine. “Fame is very fleeting.”
She looked at him. “Not always fleeting, Professor Lourds. Bedroom Pursuits continues to hit the international bestseller lists.”
Lourds met her gaze for a moment and didn’t say anything.
Dmitry nodded, and it was apparent the vodka was affecting him as well. “Yes, my wife has this book. She hides it from me, but I know where it is.”
Boris looked at the SVR major and smiled. “Because you are a spy.”
“This is true. Because I am a spy. A very good one. Just not so discreet about it when I am among friends.”
Lourds flicked his attention to Dmitry. “So, why were you spying on Boris?”
Dmitry shrugged. “Is orders. I am given orders, I follow them. It is what I always do. I am called back to Moscow already. There I will get new orders.”
“They know you’ve been caught out?”
“Of course. I told them. I am no longer effective to spy on you. If they wish you spied upon further, they will have to send another spy.”
Boris shook his head. “But I’ve done nothing to draw the attention of spies or spymasters.”
Chuckling, Dmitry patted Boris’s hand on the table. “Is Russia. You don’t have to do anything wrong. Sometimes we spy on you just as practice. Sometimes we spy on you to let you know we will spy on you whenever we wish. To keep you from doing anything wrong.”
Lourds stared at the man in disbelief. “But that doesn’t make any sense.”
Dmitry shrugged magnanimously. “Is Russian way.”
And that settled the matter.
9
The Moscow Kremlin
Moscow
Russian Federation
June 26, 2012
With his hat under his arm, General Anton Cherkshan strode through the quiet halls, trying not to appear nervous as he marched to the most important meeting he’d had in his career with the Federal Security Service.
A little under six feet tall and heavier than he should be, though still a strong, fit, and able man, Cherkshan would take on a bear with a pocketknife if he had to. This meeting with Mikhail Nevsky, the current president of the Russian Federation, was like that: extremely dangerous but something he had to do. Cherkshan would meet the man, but he wished he had a pocketknife.
His personal weapons and his pocketknife had been taken by Nevsky’s personal security detachment. They were good men. Cherkshan had served alongside many of them.
Meeting with the president—alone—was mystifying. No one Cherkshan knew was aware of the meeting, and it had been kept in utmost secrecy. If there was one thing Cherkshan had learned over the years, it was that secrets were very dangerous things, able to cut anyone they touched.
***
A few minutes later, Cherkshan reached the room where he had been told he would find the president. Through the open doorway, the general saw Nevsky gazing through one of the bulletproof windows out over the Moskva River to the south. The morning sun glittered on the water as boats passed under the Borodinsky Bridge.
That bridge represented the spirit of change to Cherkshan. As a boy, he had traveled on it with his father and sometimes floated under it because his father worked as a tugboat operator and occasionally took his son along with him while at work. But Cherkshan only got to go if his schoolwork was exemplary, which had been difficult because book knowledge didn’t come easily to him. Not like knowing the military life. However, the same honor and courage his father had taught him had served Cherkshan in good stead in the Russian army, then in the FSB.
As a young man, Cherkshan had traveled the bridge, proposed to Katrina on it, and scattered his father’s ashes across the Moskva River. Then Cherkshan had joined the Russian military to help provide for his mother and two younger sisters.
In 2001, the bridge was torn down and replaced with a larger version, and Cherkshan’s memories of his father and his childhood were no longer as firmly anchored as they had been. From his office, Cherkshan had sometimes watched the construction, and he’d hated the necessity of it. Not enough things in the world remained the same.
Even Russia had changed. Her people, and not just the younger generation, had embraced the ways of the West. Cherkshan did not agree with the leanings in his country, and the unrest further bothered him because Russia might one day tear herself apart.
But Mikhail Nevsky held the promise of turning Russia back into the great country it had once been. The president had worked hard to purge the Mafiya and black market dealers from the city as well as the country. Nevsky had worked even harder to shut down the oligarchs, the Russian businessmen who trafficked in smuggled goods, going after the heads of business and charging them with tax evasion and other crimes. Nevsky had locked some of them up, and he had sent others scurrying away.
The previous administration had protected such men, and unrepentant capitalism guided by unfettered greed sucked the lifeblood from Mother Russia. Nevsky had led a team of FSB soldiers into one office building, tearing through the new “privacy” laws those men tried to import from the West to protect them.
The Russian people seemed divided on the subject. Some wanted the new protections, but others—those who realized their country was being given away by the bushel and they would have no futures to give to their children—were happy and embraced Nevsky’s tough love of the country and its people.
Cherkshan believed in what Nevsky was doing and in how he was doing it. He just wasn’t certain
why the president would send for him or what the coming discussion could possibly be about. He wondered if Anna had done something again, and Cherkshan’s heart went cold. His daughter was a grown woman and no longer under his immediate care and protection. He told himself that Anna had done nothing, that his friends would have told him if she had. He made himself breathe.
After a moment, the general knocked on the open door.
***
Nevsky turned to face Cherkshan. The Russian president wore his suit well, but it was not an expensive outfit. It was plain and gray, a common suit that fit him well only because he was in shape. He stood a little taller than six feet, and had dirty brown hair that fell over his high forehead. His hazel eyes were so dark they were almost black. In his late forties, he had creases at the corners of his eyes and a pinched mouth.
He rarely smiled. Some of the Western reporters had mentioned the fact that they wouldn’t have wanted to play poker with Nevsky because the Russian president could not be read. His thoughts and intentions and actions were only revealed when he chose to reveal them.
“Good morning, General Cherkshan.”
Cherkshan bowed slightly. “Good morning, Mr. President.”
“Please come in.”
The room was a small reading room. Volumes of Russian law and history filled shelves on two walls. A small table, not a desk, occupied the center of the room. There were two chairs. The third wall held a large monitor and various pieces of electronic equipment.
“You may leave your hat on the table.” Nevsky pointed. “And your jacket as well. I’d like for you to be comfortable.”
Reluctantly, Cherkshan removed his jacket and left it with his hat on the table.
“Would you like some tea?” Nevsky stood at another table that held a tea service that included a ceramic and silver samovar. The hot water container looked rustic and well used.
The smell of the strong brew tickled Cherkshan’s nostrils as he sat. “If it is no trouble.”
“No trouble at all, and I would hate to drink alone.”
“Then of course.”
Nevsky poured tea from the pot atop the samovar into two cups and brought them to the table where Cherkshan sat. The liquid in the half-full cup was dark as coal and had a smoky aroma that had gone missing in new Russia as well.
Cherkshan’s grandmother had made black tea like that, flavored it with oolong as a delicacy and kept the pot brewing all day so it became thick and strong.
Nevsky gazed at the tea with satisfaction. “I like my tea potent.”
“As do I.”
“Good.” Nevsky returned to the table and brought back a carafe of hot water. He finished filling his cup with the water, then added milk and sugar.
Cherkshan did the same. When he picked up the cup, he blew on the tea and sipped the nearly scalding liquid. Then he folded his hands, placed them on the table, and waited.
“I am very familiar with your work, General. You are a punctual man, and you see a job through to the bitterest end.”
Cherkshan didn’t say anything.
“I understand that you had to kill your mentor fourteen years ago.”
The floor seemed like it had opened up and drank Cherkshan down. He was in freefall, looking for something to grab on to. No one had known what he’d done to Viktor Kudrin fourteen years ago. He made himself continue breathing.
***
Viktor Kudrin had been Cherkshan’s mentor in the FSB. The intelligence service had taken him from the Russian army when he was twenty-nine and made him an agent. In that position, under Kudrin, Cherkshan had hunted Chechen terrorists with grim efficiency. He had also gone after black marketeers.
It was the latter operations that ultimately led to Kudrin’s downfall. Too much money had been in play, and Kudrin had embraced the West’s penchant for gambling. On his vacations, he would travel to the satellite countries that had turned their backs on Russia. There, he would gamble and womanize.
Cherkshan had seen the hounds getting close, although he hadn’t known what Kudrin was doing. Cherkshan had stalked the stalkers and ambushed one of them, ultimately getting the truth of the investigation without revealing himself.
Even then, even knowing what the agency suspected, Cherkshan hadn’t wanted to believe. Then, three weeks later, Cherkshan caught his mentor taking a bribe from a British opium trafficker to look the other way while he made his escape. The man had been on several international lists as a wanted fugitive.
Cherkshan had caught the man and forced him to the ground. The whole time, the trafficker had bellowed at Kudrin to help him, that he had paid him to help him. Kudrin had first ordered, then had begged Cherkshan to let the man go, but he refused. In the end, Kudrin had pulled his service pistol and shot Cherkshan in the thigh, narrowly missing the femoral artery. In return, Cherkshan had shot Kudrin between the eyes, then shot the trafficker when he had grabbed for the gun. With the death of an FSB agent involved in the crime, the man would have been executed anyway, no matter what his nationality. Cherkshan had only saved the courts the time and cost of a trial.
He’d saved more than that though. He’d saved the investigation into Kudrin that would have ruined the lives of his wife and three daughters.
***
Nevsky watched Cherkshan in silence for a moment. “No denials, General?”
“I would not argue with you, Mr. President.”
“Do you know how I knew about Viktor Kudrin?”
“No, Mr. President.”
“Because I was the FSB agent who was in charge of the resulting investigation into his death. I knew what you had done then, and I knew why you did it.” Nevsky sipped his tea thoughtfully. “I had my eye on the presidency even then. Perhaps it surprises you that I was so ambitious or so certain of myself.”
That was a dangerous statement to respond to, so Cherkshan merely sipped his own tea.
“I knew that once I got into this position, I would want someone I could trust to work with me on special projects. Someone who, like me, was very Russian. You, General, are a true Russian.”
“Thank you.”
“You made mistakes with Kudrin, you know. Other than trusting the man.”
Cherkshan sipped more tea and waited, not knowing where the conversation was going.
“He shot you in the leg, and you covered that well enough by saying that the trafficker had taken you prisoner and Kudrin had shot to kill him. But you had trouble explaining how Kudrin and the trafficker were both shot with the same weapon. You didn’t think the situation through.”
Cherkshan knew that. He had known that the very minute after he’d pulled the trigger and killed the trafficker.
“You claimed that the trafficker had taken your weapon, killed Kudrin, then you’d managed to take the weapon from him and shoot him.”
The story had been thin, but it had been the only one Cherkshan could come up with as the other FSB agents had closed in on him. Questions had come at him like machine-gun fire.
“Of course, there was no time to think, General. Not then. Still, you recovered quickly, thinking on your feet while still reeling from your partner’s betrayal and death at your hands. I applaud you.”
Cherkshan said nothing, but for a moment, he was back in that tunnel in Little Odessa, and the gunpowder stink and scent of blood filled his nose. Under the table, he squeezed his hand into a fist and relaxed it. He would play whatever game the president wanted, but he would get out of the room with a whole skin, if that was still possible.
“If you were to have to handle the situation again, what would you do differently?”
Cherkshan shrugged. “Given the scenario you just outlined, I would kill the trafficker with his own weapon and change mine out with his. Or I would shoot him with Kudrin’s weapon and say that they’d shot each other.”
“There would still be problems with your story.” Nevsky’s dark hazel eyes glittered. “If someone checked, and I did check all weapons involved, the switch w
ould have been discovered. Then, if someone investigated further, they would learn that the bullet had not been fired from where Kudrin had been standing.” He put his teacup back on the table. “As it was, you had no signs of an altercation on your body. The only thing found was the bullet hole in your leg. I examined the reports of your physician. I also checked with the coroner. Likewise, the trafficker—Hammond Brett—bore no signs of a physical altercation.”
Cherkshan waited. He concentrated on Nevsky’s unreadable face and wished he could do what no one else could.
“I know you are wondering where I am going with this and why I have waited fourteen years to tell you what I know. It’s because of this, General Cherkshan. You are a true Russian, as I have said. Truly the last of a dying breed. I want you to be the new head of the FSB.”
“I was not aware that the director had left his office.”
“He didn’t. Last night he died in his sleep at his home. The media is only now being informed of this tragedy.”
Cherkshan’s heart thudded to renewed life. For a few moments, he’d thought he was a dead man, or at the very least, an unemployed one. Now, to find that not only was he being given a pass on all those events long ago, he was also getting a political appointment, was staggering.
“Well?” Nevsky waited.
“I am overcome, Mr. President. This is a lot to take in all at once.”
“I know. But as we have just discussed, you are a man who thinks on his feet. I am asking you to do that now.”
“Of course I accept.”
“The first order of business will be handling the previous director’s murder investigation.”
Cherkshan was certain he hadn’t heard right. “Sir?”
“The director was murdered with an esoteric injection. Almost undetectable, I’m told. Something that makes the person appear to have died from a heart attack.”
Cherkshan wanted to ask how the president knew these things, but he remained silent.
“No crime, it seems, is completely perfect. No matter how hard one tries.” Nevsky leaned back in his chair. “Over the next few days, some of my detractors will come forward. They will talk about the arguments I have had for the past several weeks with the previous director. They will try to make something of this. They won’t be able to. The actual murderer is a prostitute who will turn out to be an Islamist Chechen Black Widow.”
The Oracle Code (Thomas Lourds, Book 4) Page 6