by Alex Archer
In other words, he’d done what needed to be done and to hell with the morality of the situation.
Goshenko had needed a man like that on his staff to personally handle sensitive situations Goshenko didn’t want on the books. It hadn’t taken much to convince the sergeant that his future might be brighter under Goshenko’s patronage. The colonel had arranged an interdepartmental transfer for Danislov and the man had been a permanent member of his staff ever since.
Danislov slipped into the room; he could move quietly for a man his size. Unlike most of the agents of the Federal Security Service he wasn’t clean-shaven, but his goatee was neatly trimmed and his hair was cut short enough to satisfy even the most stringent military regulations. He wore civilian clothing and a pair of hiking boots, but there was no mistaking the past position he had held in the ramrod-erect way he carried himself. He came to a stop exactly ten inches in front of Goshenko’s desk.
“You wanted to see me, sir?”
Goshenko waved him forward. “Thank you for coming, Sergeant. Two Americans visited the Cathedral of the Annunciation today as part of an unauthorized expedition to find the Library of Gold.”
Danislov’s eyebrow rose slightly, causing the scar on that side of his face to undulate for a moment, but that was his only reaction to the news.
Goshenko went on. “I want you to determine what it was they looked at and what they might have found as a result of their research. View the security tapes, talk to the curator—whatever is necessary—you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. The man you want to see over there is Semyon Petrescu. He shouldn’t give you any trouble. Call me when you know something.”
“Yes, sir.”
Danislov resisted the urge to salute, a habit Goshenko knew he was trying hard to break, and headed out to follow his orders. Goshenko returned to his vigil.
This time, however, his gaze was drawn across the square to the gold-domed towers of the Annunciation Cathedral and he found himself wondering just what it was that the Americans had found there.
Chapter 11
It didn’t take long for Sergeant Danislov to get to the bottom of what the Americans had been looking for. He knew only one way of attacking a problem and that was head-on, so he took the obvious route to achieve his objectives. He visited Petrescu’s office, questioned him over what was said while the Americans were examining the Gospel of Gold and then confiscated the surveillance video for the time in question.
Returning to his office in the Kremlin, he examined the material in preparation for briefing Colonel Goshenko.
Three hours later, he stood before the colonel’s desk once more, laying out what he had discovered.
“Creed and her companion arrived midmorning and remained inside the Annunciation Cathedral until well after lunch. They were escorted to the examination room by Dr. Petrescu and the video footage shows that they never left the area until the doctor returned to escort them back outside. The only item they examined was the Gospel of Gold.”
“Besides mentioning the library, did they indicate how they expected the Gospel to help them find it?” Goshenko asked.
A quick shake of Danislov’s head. “Except for the man’s one reference to the library, there is nothing clear on the audio recordings. They must have known they were being recorded. And had cause not to be.”
Goshenko frowned at that. Danislov went on.
“According to Petrescu, the Americans were there to conduct research for a graduate thesis on illuminated manuscripts, but that is counter to the information he passed on to you about the library. Nor can I find any information that supports the Creed woman being enrolled in a graduate program anywhere. Even a call to the offices of that cable program she works for didn’t turn up any information.
“The surveillance tapes show the two of them examining each page of the Gospel with great care for several hours. I’ve reviewed the tapes and pulled out a section I’d like you to take a look at.”
The tech officer Danislov had brought along cued the digital file and a moment later the images of Miss Creed and her companion appeared on Goshenko’s monitor. It showed the man’s clear agitation and what appeared to be Creed’s attempt to calm him down.
“Right there,” Danislov said, pointing to the screen where the two of them were standing close together, their bodies blocking the Gospel from sight, “something happened. They found something, I think. I’m not sure what, for as you can see the view was obscured, but their attitudes immediately change and they become focused once more. I’m not sure what set them off, but I do know the end result.”
Danislov gestured to the tech and a still image from the video appeared on the screen. In it, Annja was showing something she’d written on a pad of paper to her companion.
“Enhance that!” Goshenko snapped.
Danislov had already anticipated the request.
The four lines of text that formed a message spread themselves across the screen.
It took the colonel even less time than it had Sergeant Danislov to figure out the riddle. When he did, he snatched up the phone and barked into the receiver. “I want a security detail sent to Saint Basil’s immediately. They are to secure the building, especially the main chapel, and wait for my arrival. Understood?”
Goshenko hung up without another word. He glanced at the clock on the wall, then back at Danislov. “How long has it been since Creed left Dr. Petrescu’s company?”
To his credit, Danislov didn’t flinch. “Three hours.”
More than long enough for Creed and her companion to find “the key.”
Goshenko glanced again at the four lines on the monitor and then rose to his feet. “Time to pay the Lady a visit, I think.”
Ten minutes later they were standing in the central chapel inside Saint Basil’s Cathedral, staring at the statue of the Virgin Mother.
Its right hand was missing.
“Go take a look,” Goshenko ordered.
Danislov was not a religious man and so he had no qualms about climbing over the barrier. Pulling himself up onto the pedestal, he took a good long look at the stump at the end of the statue’s wrist.
“There is a set of grooves on either side of the wrist, almost as if the hand was designed to come on and off,” he told the colonel.
Goshenko opened his mouth to reply, but was interrupted by the arrival of the captain in charge of the guard detachment.
“Colonel! You should take a look at this.”
The guard led them outside and over to one of the trash cans in the square. He pointed inside the mouth of the barrel.
Sitting on some discarded trash was a woman’s hand.
Goshenko reached in and pulled it out, which caused the captain to recoil. But the hand wasn’t flesh and blood. It was stone. The stone hand of the Virgin Mother. The colonel looked at it for a moment and then held it up so Danislov could see the hollow center.
“I want to know what was hidden inside here, Sergeant. I don’t care what you have to do, just get me whatever it was.”
“Understood, sir.”
Goshenko nodded, satisfied. “The American and her companion are staying over at the Marriott on Tverskaya Street. I suggest you start there.”
Chapter 12
The map was everything they expected it to be.
After leaving the cathedral they returned to Annja’s hotel room and carefully unfolded the piece of parchment, revealing crude line drawings and notes in black ink. It only took a moment for them both to realize that it was a quickly sketched copy of the original plans for the vault, no doubt drawn by Fioravanti. While most of the text was legible, a few areas had either faded or gotten smudged out when the map was folded. It specifically noted which of the many tunnels beneath the Kremlin the construction crew had used to access the lower levels and gave directions from that point to the final location of the vault itself.
Calling it the “key to the treasure” was like saying the Hope D
iamond was a nice rock.
“We did it!” Gianni cried, scooping Annja up in a hug that lifted her off her feet. Annja hugged him right back and in the process discovered a surprising set of muscles underneath his shirt. She found herself staring directly into his deep brown eyes.
“We should tell Charles, don’t you think?” she said brightly, and pretended not to notice his knowing smile. Carefully he set her back down on her own two feet.
“Yes, definitely. We should get his advice on how we handle things from here on out, as well.”
Gianni dug out the satellite phone and they put a call into their benefactor, but got his answering machine. Not wanting to leave any details where someone other than Charles might be able to pick them up, Annja simply said they’d had a development in their work and that he should call them back.
They spent some time going over the map, discussing key features and speculating on what the more cryptic notes might mean. Annja pulled out her camera and took several photos of the map, wanting to be able to use the computer’s graphics program to enhance and enlarge the images. Maybe that would allow them to read the damaged notations a little easier. If Charles requested a copy, they would also be able to email it to him.
Deciding that a congratulatory dinner was in order, particularly since they had managed to work right through lunch that afternoon, Gianni called down to make reservations at the restaurant in the open atrium on the fifth floor.
Once Gianni had left to return to his room, Annja showered and dressed in clean clothes. In recognition of the occasion, she decided to forgo her usual T-shirt and jeans in favor of a comfortable pair of pants and a silk button-down shirt. She brushed her hair out, leaving it down for a change. A glance in the mirror, and she was ready to go.
They obtained a document tube from the business center, rolled the map up and placed it inside, and then stopped at the front desk to have it put in the hotel safe. After that, they made their way to the restaurant and asked the maître d’ to seat them toward the back, away from the other diners.
Dinner tasted wonderful, though whether that was because of the chef’s skill, starvation or the elation they were feeling, they couldn’t say. Several times during the evening Annja caught Gianni admiring her when he thought she wasn’t looking and she didn’t mind the attention.
This might actually turn out to be an interesting trip, she thought to herself.
That’s when she noticed the four men enter the restaurant.
They were all big men and the way they stopped just inside the entrance and surveyed the open room called attention to themselves. Their leader, a tall well-built man with a goatee and a scar on the side of his face, had a few quiet words with the maître d’. All four wore dark suits a little too small for their big frames and, as a result, Annja immediately noted the telltale bulge beneath each of their suit coats, revealing the presence of a weapon.
An uneasy feeling in her gut, Annja had the urge to reach into the otherwhere and draw her sword, wanting—no, needing—the protective feeling of having the weapon in hand.
That wasn’t a positive sign.
She had a pretty good idea just who the men were looking for, but she needed to put it to the test before doing anything rash.
Annja waited until the newcomers had begun to fan out through the diners before turning to Gianni. “Do you see the doorway behind you?” she asked in a serious tone.
“The one to the kitchen?”
She nodded. “Get up and walk through it without looking back. Wait for me just inside the entrance. I’ll catch up in a moment.”
“Why on earth would I want to do that?” he asked. “Dessert just arrived and I’m enjoying myself. Aren’t you?”
It would only be moments before they were spotted.
She decided being forthright in this situation was best.
“You don’t want to spend the next twenty years in a Russian prison, do you?”
He began to laugh, glanced over her shoulder and then abruptly stopped. His face blanched and he got up without another word, walked directly to the kitchen door and disappeared through it.
That caught the attention of one of the gunmen, which was exactly what Annja wanted. She hated to use Gianni as bait like that, but time was of the essence and it was the best she could come up with on short notice. The Russian apparently hadn’t noticed who Gianni had been sitting with. He rushed right past Annja’s table without a glance.
That, of course, was his mistake.
Chapter 13
With all his attention on Gianni as he disappeared through the kitchen door, the gunman never saw Annja’s foot in his path.
He stumbled, falling forward, so surprised he didn’t have time to get his hands out in front of him to break his fall. His forehead hit the floor hard and loud.
Annja rose smoothly and timed her strides so that she was able to deliver a stunning kick to the gunman’s face just as he rolled over and pushed himself up onto his arms. It was too much for the man’s muddled mind to take and he went down.
A glance behind told her one of the other gunmen was pointing in her direction and then he called out to the other two. They were on the far side of the restaurant and not able to respond for another minute, maybe more.
It would have to be enough.
She burst through the door to find herself in the kitchen. Gianni was standing a few feet farther in the room, his hands raised before him, facing a thin man in a chef’s coat and hat who was yelling in Russian and brandishing a soup ladle in Gianni’s face. Annja snatched a cast-iron skillet off a nearby rack and rushed at the chef, who saw her coming out of the corner of his eye and decided that discretion might just be the better part of valor, after all. He and his staff retreated behind one of the kitchen’s long counters, letting the intruders make their way across the space unhindered. There was a door on the far side of the room. Annja led Gianni through it.
A series of guest rooms lined either side of the hallway they emerged into. Annja glanced in both directions, noting a pair of elevators to her left, the stairwell to her right and the maid’s cart in the middle of the hallway in between. She thought longingly about the backpack she’d left in the room upstairs, the one containing her camera and laptop. She didn’t want to leave it behind, but going up instead of down seemed like a bad idea from a tactical perspective, especially if their pursuers knew who they were. Getting cornered in the hallways above wasn’t something she wanted to experience. Which left only one option—down.
“Come on!” she shouted, racing down the hallway toward the elevator, Gianni at her heels. As she passed the maid’s cart she noticed that two of the hotel rooms were open and in the process of being cleared, but the maids themselves were nowhere in sight.
The open rooms gave her an idea.
They reached the elevator and Annja slapped the call button. The doors to the left-hand elevator opened at once, as if it had been sitting there, waiting for them. Gianni moved to step inside but Annja stopped him with an outstretched arm.
“No,” she said sharply. “We’re not taking the elevator.”
As he watched, she leaned in, stabbed the button for the first floor and let the doors close on an empty elevator.
“Get inside that room,” she said, pushing him back the way they had come, her gaze on the door to the kitchen.
They had seconds left, at best… .
They had just stepped inside the room and eased the door shut behind them when they heard the kitchen door slam open and rough voices. Annja didn’t speak Russian, but she hoped the shouts she was hearing meant they had seen the light over the elevator door flashing.
A moment passed and then she heard the ding as the doors on the second bank of elevators opened. There was some commotion, each talking over the other, and then silence as, no doubt, the elevator began its descent.
“Are they gone?” Gianni whispered in her ear. It was only then that Annja realized she had him pinned against the wall behind he
r, her body pressed back against his as she cracked open the door a little and peeked out.
She eased off him, turned in his direction and held a finger to her lips. When he nodded, she slowly eased the door open farther and looked out into the hallway.
It was empty.
She grabbed Gianni’s hand and pulled him out with her, heading for the exit sign over a door in the middle of the corridor. Her plan was to take that down to the basement where they could hopefully find an alternate exit out of the hotel and avoid any further confrontation with their pursuers.
It was a good plan.
She just hadn’t counted on the sudden appearance of the first gunman, the one she’d put down with a judiciously placed kick inside the restaurant, as he stumbled out of the door from the kitchen.
Annja didn’t think. She grabbed the maid’s cart and rushed it down the corridor, shouting to Gianni as she went. “The stairs! Get to the stairs!”
The gunman, still groggy from the first encounter he’d had with Annja, didn’t have his gun out, which ultimately saved their lives. The maid’s cart would have been minimal protection if he started firing at them. As it was he fumbled to get his gun out of his shoulder holster and in the end that proved to be his undoing. He was just pulling it free when the cart slammed into him, forcing him back through the doorway to the kitchen and off his feet once more.
Annja turned and sprinted for the stairwell, bursting through the door to find an anxious Gianni waiting there for her.
“Head down the stairs,” she said, pointing for emphasis. “Don’t be afraid to make noise. I want him to pay attention to you rather than me.”
“What are you going to be doing?”
“Hopefully making sure he doesn’t follow us again. Now go!”
Thankfully he had learned his lesson in the restaurant and didn’t question her. His steps echoed up the stairwell as he went.
Annja whirled around and ran up the stairs rather than down, rounding the landing and moving a few steps up the next section of stairwell until she was confident she wouldn’t be seen from the stairwell door below. She pressed her back against the wall, out of sight, then she reached into the otherwhere and drew her sword, holding it upright before her as she waited for the gunman’s arrival.