The Black Sun

by James Twining

  “Well, that wasn’t too bad,” Turnbull whispered as they followed the other cleaners along a narrow corridor and down a flight of stairs into the basement.

  “Viktor said she could get us in,” Tom reminded him, “but from here it’s down to us.”

  The staircase gave onto a large room filled with mismatched chairs and crumbling sofas, the cushions riddled with cigarette burns. Tom and Turnbull took off their coats and hung them on one of the few coat hooks that hadn’t snapped off, pictures of topless women smiling down at them from where they’d been ripped out of old calendars and pinned to the walls. A few people had gathered around thermos flasks and were sharing out cups of coffee; others were changing their footwear from heavy boots to more comfortable shoes.

  A man entered and, from the way he began calling out names, Tom guessed he was the shift manager. People came up to him in twos, took a piece of paper, disappeared into a small side room, and then reemerged wheeling a small cart bristling with brooms, mops, buckets, bin liners, and bottles of detergent and polish. Thus equipped, they made their way back upstairs via the elevator to wherever their piece of paper had directed them. 310 james twining

  Eventually, Turnbull nudged Tom to indicate that their names, or at least the names that corresponded to their badges, had been called.

  “You guys new?” the shift manager asked. His name badge identified him as Grigory Mironov.

  “That’s right,” Turnbull replied in perfect Russian.

  “No one told me,” complained Mironov.

  “No one told us until a few hours ago.”

  He looked at their badges, then at their faces. “You’re not on my list.”

  “That’s not our fault.”

  Mironov sighed. “Don’t you talk?” he asked Tom.

  “Never shuts up,” Turnbull answered for him.

  Mironov looked suspiciously at Tom, who returned his stare unblinkingly. Mironov’s face broke into a grin. “I can see that,” he chuckled. Tom smiled too, still unaware of what was being said.

  “Here you go.” He handed Turnbull a piece of paper. “You’ll find the gear in there. Head for the second floor. You get lost, just ask one of the guards.”

  They gathered their equipment from the storeroom and rolled the cart to the lift.

  “We drew the second floor of the Western Wing,” Turn-bull said as soon as the door shut. Tom pulled out the floor plan he had brought with him and ran his finger across the page.

  “That puts us on the right floor but the wrong side of the building. We need to get to the northeast corner, where the restoration rooms are.”

  The door rolled open and an armed guard greeted them with an upturned hand.

  “What?” Turnbull asked in Russian.

  “The work schedule.” The guard clicked his fingers impatiently. “What room are you in?”

  “Oh”—Turnbull lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper—“no schedule tonight.”

  The guard frowned. “The director’s expecting an important guest tomorrow, but his office

  isn’t

  due

  for

  a

  clean

  until

  the

  day

  after.

  Well,

  you

  the black sun 311

  know what the Committee are like when it comes to bending the rules, even for him. So he’s paid us cash to do it for him tonight. I gave a third to Mironov and here’s a third for you. We don’t want any schedules screwing things up for us, do we?”

  The guard winked and closed his hand around the crisp fold of notes that Turnbull had just slipped him. “Understood.” He stepped back from the lift. “Do you know your way?”

  “Just down there, isn’t it?”

  “That’s it. Last door on the right before you turn the corner. Anyone wants to know what you’re doing over there, just tell them to speak to Sasha. I’ll smooth things over.”

  They headed off in the direction of the administrative offices and workshops. Even though this area was closed to the public, the corridors were no less richly decorated, with their intricate parquet floors and ornate plasterwork, chandeliers drooping to the floor under their own weight like branches loaded with ripe fruit. Suddenly Tom felt a tug on his sleeve. Turnbull indicated the door beside them and translated the inscription: “Department of the History and Restoration of the Architectural Objects—looks like this is the one.”

  It was locked.

  Turnbull gave a glance over his shoulder to check that there were no guards in sight, then unzipped the front of his overalls and detached the small pouch that had been strapped to his belt. The same pouch that had set off the metal detectors on the way in. Tom was not surprised to see that its removal had not visibly reduced Turnbull’s girth. Tom pulled on his gloves and took his pick and tension wrench from the pouch. Most thieves use the pick to locate the locking pins and, one by one, push them out of the way; the tension wrench is then inserted underneath the pick and turned, like a key, to open the lock. This was too time-con-suming for Tom’s liking. His preference instead was for a technique known as scrubbing, which requires split-second timing and a level of dexterity that

  makes

  it

  the

  preserve

  of

  312 james twining

  only a select few. By moving the pick rapidly back and forth over the pins once, and applying pressure on the tension wrench between each pass to knock the pins off center, Tom had the door open in seconds.

  To

  Turnbull,

  looking

  on,

  it

  seemed

  as

  simple

  as

  using

  a

  key.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE

  BORIS KRISTENKO’S OFFICE, THE HERMITAGE

  January 10—11:52 p.m.

  Boris Kristenko was sitting in the dark in his office. Having long since exhausted the meager respite that chewing his fingernails could offer, he was now gnawing anxiously on a ballpoint pen. Every so often he would swap it to the other side of his mouth, his saliva filling the pen’s clear plastic case with a cloudy liquid. A pipe gurgled somewhere and he jumped, convinced for a moment that it heralded the arrival of an angry horde of police officers. He fixed the door with a fearful stare, but it remained shut, his heart hammering inside his chest.

  Closing his eyes, he leaned back in his chair, the wood creaking under the strain as he balanced on the rear legs. Try as he might, he simply could not make sense of what had just happened on Decembrist’s Square.

  The moment when those armed police came bearing down on him played over and over again in his mind. Fortunately he hadn’t been their target, and some other poor soul was tonight languishing in the depths of a damp jail. But who was to say that tomorrow, or the day after, it wouldn’t be his turn? All it would take was for one of the guards who’d escorted him

  to

  the

  storerooms

  to

  mention

  it

  to

  someone,

  or

  for

  314 james twining

  Viktor to betray him to the authorities rather than hand over the twenty thousand. He remembered running into an old school friend who’d been locked up for three years after stealing a car. On his first night in jail, the other inmates had taken one look at his soft white hands and gang-raped him. By the time he was released, the diet, the cold, and the guards had broken him; only a desiccated shell remained.

  But what could he do? Retrieve the painting from the Restoration Department and return it to the storeroom? Not pay Viktor her money and risk her harming his mother?

  He screwed his eyes shut, pained at the thought.

  The phone rang. All four legs of his chair hit the floor with a thud. This was it. “Hello.”

  “We
’re here.”

  “Where?”

  “In the Restoration Department.”

  “How—?”

  “Never mind that. Just get here.”

  He

  struggled

  to

  his

  feet.

  “I’m

  on

  my

  way.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR

  MAIN ATELIER, RESTORATION DEPARTMENT,

  THE HERMITAGE

  January 10—11:53 p.m.

  Moonlight filtered through the overhead skylights, turning the shroud-covered statues and sculptures undergoing restoration into ghostly apparitions that seemed to float above the ground. The worktops were an undulating mass of tins and jars and bottles and brushes, everything covered in a fine coat of dust, the air pungent with the heady musk of cleaning spirits and paint. And in the far corner, black and forbidding, was the vault door. Tom examined it curiously as they waited for Kristenko.

  “Could you get us in?” Turnbull asked.

  “If I had to,” said Tom. “It must be about sixty years old. Not exactly state-ofthe-art.” Turnbull’s head snapped toward the door. “Someone’s coming—

  quick.”

  Not wanting to take any chances, they both ran to the far side of the room and crouched behind one of the workbenches. A few moments later they heard a jangling of metal, followed by the sound of a key being inserted into the lock. The door opened. Tom peeked around the edge of the workbench.

  “It’s

  Kristenko,”

  he

  whispered

  with

  relief.

  316 james twining

  Kristenko jumped in fright as they both stood up.

  “Expecting someone else?” Turnbull asked.

  “No,” said the curator. “You just surprised me, that’s all.”

  “Right,” said Tom, “let’s get this over with.”

  “My money?”

  “Here—” Tom tossed the shoulder bag over impatiently. “Open the safe.”

  “I’ll stand sentry outside,” Turnbull volunteered. “Pretend to mop the floor or something. I’ll whistle if I hear someone coming.”

  “Good idea,” said Tom.

  Grabbing a mop and bucket, Turnbull let himself out of the room. Kristenko approached the safe and, shielding the dial from Tom’s eyes with his body, fiddled with the combination until, with a heavy clunk, the door eased open. The vault consisted of a steel-lined room, about six feet square. A set of wooden shelves extended down the left-hand wall, sagging under the weight of assorted paintings and other objects. Kristenko stepped inside and emerged a few seconds later holding a painting.

  “Here it is,” he said. “Although God knows what you—”

  A low whistle came from outside. Tom’s eyes snapped toward the door as Turnbull stepped back into the room.

  “Who is it?” Tom whispered urgently.

  But Turnbull didn’t answer. His eyes locked pleadingly with Tom’s as he reached toward him, but as his mouth opened to speak he collapsed to the floor. A knife handle jutted awkwardly from the base of his skull.

  Kristenko let out a low, terrified moan.

  “Good evening, Thomas,” Renwick intoned as he swept into the room, Hecht and his two heavies lining up behind him.

  “Renwick,” Tom said through clenched teeth.

  “My thanks for your efforts in locating the missing Bellak. It seems I have been looking in the wrong places.” Renwick snapped his fingers at Kristenko, who, with a confused, almost apologetic glance at Tom, stumbled over and handed him the painting. Renwick’s eyes narrowed as he studied it. He looked up with a smile. the black sun 317

  “Well done. You have what you wanted.” Tom’s voice was glacial.

  “Not quite.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Stories like ours rarely have happy endings.” Renwick sighed. “It is unfortunately the nature of things.”

  Hecht stepped forward, a silenced gun clutched in his outstretched hand, and leveled it at Tom’s head. Tom’s jaw tightened, his mind going blank as he braced himself. Hecht took aim and fired.

  The bullet caught Kristenko in the throat and he staggered backward, his hands clutching his neck, blood spurting through his fingers, a strangled coughing echoing through the room. A second shot caught him square in the chest and he collapsed to the floor with a gurgled sigh.

  “What was the point of that!” Tom shouted.

  “Loose ends, Thomas. You know how I hate loose ends.”

  The two other men stepped forward, picked Kristenko up under the arms, and dragged him into the safe, smearing blood behind them. They dropped him, his head smacking against the floor with a wet thud, then stepped outside and repeated the procedure with Turnbull, albeit with visibly more effort required this time.

  “You too, Thomas,” Renwick ordered. “Keep them company. That way the authorities will not have to look too far to find someone to blame.”

  Tom walked into the vault and then turned to face Renwick. “This isn’t over, Harry.”

  “It is, for you.” Renwick smiled. “Believe me, by the time the Russian police have finished their interrogation, you will wish I had just shot you. They have ways of making themselves very persuasive.”

  The door slowly edged shut, a final sliver of light framing Renwick’s face before it too vanished, accompanied only by a dull clang as the restraining bolts slammed home.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE

  January 11—12:07 a.m.

  Silence, broken only by the pounding of his heartbeat and the faint whisper of his breathing. Total darkness. A soul-sucking inky nothingness that squeezed and stifled and crushed him like a great weight pressing on his chest.

  In a way, Tom knew that Renwick had done him a favor. There wasn’t enough oxygen in this airtight space to sustain three people for more than a few hours. By killing Turnbull and Kristenko, Renwick had ensured that Tom, at least, would see through the night. Not that Renwick was acting out of compassion—his only concern had been to provide the Russian police with a convenient fall guy.

  Tom pressed a button on his digital watch and a pale neon glow licked around his wrist like a small tongue of gaslight. Squatting next to the two corpses, he ran the cold blue light over their faces. Disgusted at the sight of Renwick’s handiwork, he released the button. He was used to working in the dark.

  He turned his attention to Kristenko first, patting him down and finding the mobile phone—useless inside the vault—and the digital camera he had given him. He pocketed them both, just in case. Next, he felt his way over to Turnbull, searching the body until he came

  across

  his

  toolkit.

  He

  then

  the black sun 319

  edged his way gingerly to the door and ran his hands over its smooth, cold surface until he located the square inspection hatch located at about waist height. Operating solely through touch, Tom located his screwdriver with one hand and the top left-hand screw of the inspection panel with the other. The square blade of the screwdriver slotted into the groove on the screw’s head, and he breathed a sigh of relief as it turned easily. He quickly removed the other three screws, then pried away the panel. The gap was just large enough to slide his hand through, his fingers navigating their way between the rods that controlled the locking bolts, to the back plate that concealed the locking mechanism itself.

  Again, he had to remove four screws. This time it took him considerably longer, the constrained space making it difficult to maneuver the screwdriver. Eventually the plate came free in his hands and he removed his gloves, probing inside the lock until his fingertips connected with the rear of the combination wheel. The vertical direction of the marker groove indicated that it was set to zero.

  Cracking combination locks had been one of the first skills he’d mastered. Although the prevalence of digital security system
s had rendered it almost obsolete, Tom put himself through regular training drills to maintain the technique. Less skilled thieves might be content to drill a safe and then use an endoscope to see the mechanism—

  occasionally a necessary precaution, where an alarmed dial or mercury switch was involved—but Tom preferred to trust his senses. It was just as well, because in this instance, he had no choice.

  Tom shut his eyes and began to turn the wheel. His breathing slowed as he concentrated. The noise of the individual tumblers slowly bumping against the wheel’s tiny teeth was almost inaudible, but to Tom’s highly tuned ear each infinitesimal click was a deafening crash, the minute vibration almost stinging the tips of his trained fingers. Click, click, click, CLUNK. The change in tone, the slight variation in feel, was minute. But to Tom, it was as clear as if one of the statues in the room outside had just toppled to the floor. He had his first number. He’d counted it as seventeen. 320 james twining

  He closed his eyes again and turned the dial the other way. This time the change came quickly. Eight. He moved it back the other way, going past thirty, then forty, then fifty, the lever eventually dropping on fifty-three. Then back again, he assumed for the final time, since this model of safe was usually programmed with four numbers, although it could take up to five. Twenty-seven.

  He tugged on the steel rod that controlled the upper set of restraining bolts. Nothing. He frowned and tried it again. Still it wouldn’t open. So he placed his finger on the dial, turned it one notch, and smiled as he heard the tumbler fall into place. It was an old trick, placing an additional number just one or two places on from the previous one. This time when he pulled on the rod it moved down, the upper bolts retracting smoothly. He repeated the procedure on the bottom and side rods, and these too pulled free

  in

  his

  hands.

  With

  a

  firm

  push,

  the

  door

  swung

  open.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX

  THE HERMITAGE, ST. PETERSBURG

  January 11—12:22 a.m.

  Grigory Mironov cleared the final flight of stairs and headed for the Western Art gallery. In addition to handing out the night’s work rotas, it was his responsibility to check that all the cleaners had followed their instructions and that they were doing a good job. It was a responsibility that he took very seriously.