Empire (A Jack Sigler Thriller Book 8)

by Jeremy Robinson

  The noose was tightening, and there seemed to be nowhere to go.

  She looked ahead, trying to locate another stairwell or elevator to the lobby…anything that might give her a hint as to where they were going. But she saw only storefronts and cafes. Peter did not appear to be interested in any of them. Instead of skirting the outside edge, he was staying close to the rail overlooking the atrium floor. As he rounded the corner, she could see that his gaze was fixed on something out beyond the rail.

  The clock pendulum.

  The impressive Raketa Monumental Clock was one of the largest mechanical clocks in the world, rivaling even London’s Big Ben. It was a recent addition, not present in her childhood memories of the Detsky Mir building. As she stared at the exposed clockwork mechanism, protruding from the balcony one story above them, and the pendulum hanging down halfway to the floor, she realized what Peter intended.

  My father is crazy.

  Peter clambered up onto the rail, crouching like a stone gargoyle on a castle battlement. He paused there for a moment, breathing rapidly. Perspiration was beading on his forehead, but despite the frantic level of exertion, when he turned his head to look at her, he seemed preternaturally calm.

  “You can do this,” he said, and then, as the pendulum swung his way, he leapt out into space.

  He caught the vertical support to which the enormous reflective lozenge-shaped pendulum hung, and then he immediately slid down like a fireman on a brass pole. His feet hit the top of the pendulum disc. Then with a nimbleness that astonished Bishop, he leapt from the disc to catch hold of the rail on the second floor balcony. He glanced back up at her, shouted: “Come on!” and then he let go, dropping down onto a decorative façade above the main entrance.

  Don’t think, she told herself. Just do!

  She vaulted onto the rail and waited for the pendulum to swing back. She felt a brief wave of vertigo as the atrium floor yawned up at her, but she kept her focus on the support lines, which were easily close enough for her to make the same leap Peter had.

  She jumped, throwing her arms wide and wrapping them around the support, hugging it close, as gravity started pulling her down. She felt her feet strike the disc, and she pushed off, bounding over to the balcony and ricocheting to the façade, where Peter waited. He had made it look so easy that she was moving before she could even contemplate the consequences of failure, and just like that, they were both dropping into the astonished crowd on the atrium floor.

  The maneuver had caught their pursuers completely off-guard, but she could hear someone shouting for the crowd to disperse. Bishop knew that not all of the hunters were on the balcony high above. Peter seized her hand and together they bulldozed through the entrance and out onto the street.

  They threaded their way through the cluster of people entering, leaving or simply passing by, and headed for the street and the towering Lubyanka building. It seemed to Bishop like the last place they should be going, but her father had successfully gotten them out of the toy store. There was no cause to stop trusting him now.

  “Metro station,” he said, still a little out of breath. “Don’t stop for anything.”

  Then he was running again, dodging traffic on the edge of Lubyanskaya Square. She spotted the subway entrance, surrounded by a low half-wall. Then she saw an imposing figure in a dark greatcoat, rising up from the steps, eyes locked on Peter.

  Instead of slowing or trying to dodge, Peter ran headlong at the man. He deftly avoided an attempt to sweep him up in a bear hug. As the man’s arms closed on nothing, Peter sidestepped, pulling the man further off balance to send him sprawling on the street. Bishop leapt over the dazed man and then followed Peter down the stairs.

  The subway entrance brought another rush of memories. Everything looked almost exactly as she remembered, from the white tiled walls to the air, warmed by bodies and smelling faintly of grease. Yet she knew it was not the same. In 2010, suicide bombers had targeted the Lubyanka and Park Kultury Stations. Forty people had been killed, and more than a hundred were injured. Bishop had been living in Murmansk then, but the brutal terrorist attack had nevertheless felt like a personal assault.

  They pushed through the crowd, earning more than a few contemptuous looks, descending to the tunnel that led to one of two central vestibules located under Lubyanskaya Square. Peter slowed to a jog, like someone hurrying to catch a train. If he was trying to be less conspicuous, the effect was spoiled when he clambered over the ticket gate without pausing to scan his pass card. Bishop felt like all eyes were on her as she followed suit, but a few seconds later they were on the escalators, descending deeper into the station.

  She scanned the faces around her, looking for FSB agents or policeman in the crowd, but she saw only indifferent commuters, unaware of the chaos that had unfolded behind them. That would change soon enough, she knew, but for the moment, blending in offered greater protection than speed. Once on the platform however, Peter resumed his frantic pace.

  They descended another flight of stairs to a platform clogged with bodies, jostling their way through. Then they moved toward the end of the loading area, as if intent on boarding the last car in the next train to pull into the station.

  Bishop worked the timetables in her head. A crowded platform meant a train would probably arrive any moment. If they boarded it, they would be away from Lubyanskaya in a matter of minutes, but if the pursuers guessed or even suspected what they had done, they might be able to send ahead to the next station. Instead of providing salvation, the Metro might very well deliver them into the hands of their enemies.

  She was still pondering that when Peter did something that, given everything else he had done, should not have surprised her. He jumped down onto the track bed and ran into the train tunnel.

  Of course he did, Bishop thought, and she leapt down after him.

  It was a reckless move, even for the man who had jumped from a fourth story balcony onto a clock pendulum. Dozens of people had surely witnessed their actions. If the hunters did not already know about it, they soon would. Moreover, instead of a quick train ride to the next stop, they would now have to traverse the length of several city blocks to the next station down the line—in the dark no less. How long would that take? Ten minutes? If they didn’t electrocute themselves on the third rail or get pulverized by a speeding subway train, they would almost certainly be greeted by an armed reception committee.

  From the frying pan to the fire, she thought, as the light from the station shrank behind her. A smaller cone of light appeared ahead of her, Peter shining his penlight on the tracks. She quickened her pace to catch up to him.

  “You know what you are doing, I hope.”

  “Of course I do,” he replied confidently. “Always have a plan. It’s the only way to stay alive.”

  “Just like my brother. Your idea of a plan and mine are not the same, I think.” She felt a gust of wind on her face and a faint tremor rising up from the track bed. “A train is coming.”

  “I know.” This time, there was a hint of concern in his tone. “Hurry.”

  She felt like screaming. Hurry toward it? But then Peter’s light swung to the side, illuminating a shallow alcove in the tunnel wall thirty feet ahead of them.

  A faint glow arose from further down the tunnel, growing brighter with each passing second. The tunnel filled with the shrieking tumult of wheels on rails, which seemed to be approaching faster than Bishop would have believed. Peter lowered his penlight again, shining it on the track bed, revealing the path they would have to negotiate. Then they were both making a mad dash for the recess.

  Even though they reached it with several seconds to spare, Bishop felt compelled to press herself tightly against the wall. She felt the wind shift, as if the train was trying to drag her into its slipstream. Then it was gone, plunging them into relative dark and quiet.

  As she pushed away from the wall, she saw Peter’s face, faintly lit by the penlight, which he now had clenched between his teeth. He w
as kneeling beside her, the light shining on his hands and the lock he was endeavoring to pick. He smiled around the light as the lock yielded, and then opened the door.

  What lay beyond did not immediately fill her with hope. It was little more than an electrical room—disused, judging by the dust and grease that coated the meters and gauges mounted to the wall. Peter, however, marched inside like the room contained the lost jewels of the Romanov dynasty.

  “Close the door,” he said, when she was inside. “We don’t want anyone to know we came this way, though I suppose they’ll figure it out quick enough.”

  “And we are just going to hide in this closet?”

  “Sort of,” he said. He ran his fingers along the top of the electrical panel. There was a faint click, and then the entire panel swung away on concealed hinges to reveal a passage, or more precisely, a stairway that descended into total darkness. “But not this one.”

  “How…? Never mind.”

  “This leads to Metro Two,” Peter explained. “A secret subway line built by Stalin, connecting Lubyanka to the Kremlin and other key locations around the city.”

  “I’ve heard of it. I thought it was just a rumor.”

  “It might as well be. The line hasn’t been used in decades, and from what I’ve heard, many of the tunnels are flooded. Getting through won’t be easy, but at least they won’t be waiting for us when we emerge.”

  Bishop nodded slowly. She felt a little embarrassed for having doubted him, but she was grateful that, for the moment at least, they no longer had to run for their lives—at least in the literal sense. “It would have been nice to know your B Plan ahead of time. What happens next?”

  Peter considered the question for a moment. “It’s time I met with Vladimir, face to face.”

  “What if he’s responsible for the trap?”

  “All the more reason. If he is part of this, then he will know the truth about what happened to your sister.”

  “What about King and mother?”

  “I wouldn’t worry about them.” He gave her shoulder a squeeze. “King is in good hands. Your mother was always the better spy.”

  19

  “You shouldn’t have done that,” Lynn said with a disapproving scowl, as Bishop vanished into the toy shop in pursuit of Peter. “Your father was right. We need to split up. One person alone is harder to catch than two moving together.”

  “He also said to keep you safe,” King said in an equally sharp tone. “I didn’t bring you here just to lose you. Maybe if we had talked about this a little beforehand, we could have worked out our contingency plans.”

  She wrinkled her nose, as if trying to decide whether or not to lecture him. “We have to focus on our own survival now. Come along.”

  She turned away, walking briskly along the balcony, heading in the direction of a nearby escalator. He caught up to her. “Are we going out the front door?”

  “Those men went after your father first. They knew exactly where he would be.”

  “Friend Vladimir sold us out.”

  “So it would appear,” Lynn said. “But my point is that they weren’t looking for the rest of us. Vladimir didn’t know your father wasn’t traveling alone.”

  King thought back to the fight in the archive office. Had any of the FSB officers seen their faces? Had any even survived? It was a slim advantage, and one that wouldn’t last long. Eventually, the police would check the hotel or review Peter’s travel itinerary. They would discover that he had been accompanied by his family. Even though they each had used bogus passports and aliases, their photographs would soon be circulated among the hunters. Still, while they had their anonymity, blending in with the crowd was the best course of action.

  “So he already suspected Vladimir might betray him?”

  Lynn shook her head. “No. It was merely a precaution. Healthy paranoia is what keeps a spy alive. I still have trouble believing that Vladimir would turn on us now, after all these years of protecting us.”

  They stepped onto the descending escalator and started down to the floor of the atrium. “Why was he helping you? What’s your connection to him?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know. He made contact with us when we were already in our assignment. I don’t even know who he really is. We never met face to face, at least not that I know of. His interest in us always seemed personal, not political. I cannot imagine what would change that.”

  What had changed was that the Machtchenkos were now looking into the circumstances of Julie’s accident, but King did not voice that observation. “Maybe he slipped up.”

  “Yes,” she said, and then she fell silent as they passed by two men in black coats, who were riding the ascending escalator just a few feet away. King managed a surreptitious glance in their direction and saw no indication that the pair had noticed them. There were more men circulating on the floor and scanning the crowd, but even when their eyes alit upon King and Lynn, he saw no hint of recognition. King wondered if Peter and Bishop were having similar success. Then he pushed the seed of worry out of his head. His mother had been right about the importance of focus.

  As they crossed the floor of the atrium, Lynn set a slightly more determined pace, like someone eager to get home after a long day of shopping. They passed within six feet of one of the FSB men, but his roving eyes did not linger on them. They moved beneath the enormous swinging clock pendulum and into the entrance foyer.

  A few seconds later, they were outside in the bitter cold, moving with the flow of pedestrian traffic along the edge of Lubyanskaya Square. Directly across the street was the FSB headquarters building, and right in front of it was one of the many entrances to the Lubyanka Metro station. Lynn caught King’s eye and gave a subtle nod in the direction of the subway stairs. He returned the nod, and they eased into a group of people waiting to cross the street.

  A low murmur signaled some kind of disturbance arising from behind them. King’s first impulse was to feign indifference, but he immediately realized that doing so would be rather conspicuous. Everyone else was turning to look, so he did too.

  The crowd parted, and he saw Peter and Bishop just a few steps behind, sprinting away from the entrance to the department store. They were pursued by several figures in dark coats. The fleeing pair—his father and his sister—bolted out into the street, dodging cars that swerved and skidded and honked in protest. They headed for the same subway stairs that King and Lynn had been approaching. Before King could even contemplate a reaction, he felt Lynn’s hand grip his forearm, cautioning him to stay where he was.

  He knew she was right. If he tried to interfere with the pursuit, he would accomplish nothing more than attracting notice, which he and Lynn had managed to avoid so far. But standing by and doing nothing while his loved ones were in danger was the worst kind of torture imaginable.

  Dad knows what he’s doing, he told himself. Bishop is a pro. They’ll get away.

  But what if they don’t?

  I won’t leave them behind.

  Across the street, a figure emerged from the Metro entrance to intercept the runners, but Peter evaded the man’s grasping arms and used what looked like a judo move to send the man sprawling into the street.

  King’s view of the fight was abruptly eclipsed by the arrival of a trio of police cars with lights flashing and sirens blaring. They were accompanied by an unmarked black Lada Vesta SUV. The vehicles skidded to a stop on the wet pavement, blocking the way to the Metro entrance in front of the Lubyanka building.

  Doors flew open and uniformed men and women emerged from the cars and immediately began establishing a secure perimeter.

  That’s it, he thought. Peter and Bishop were on their own. There was no way to help them now. I hope they—

  “Julie?”

  Lynn’s shout completely derailed King’s train of thought. Cold dread slammed into him like an avalanche.

  Mom, no!

  It was too late. Lynn had let go of his arm and was already in the street. She mov
ed like someone half-caught in a dream, shambling toward the dark-haired woman who had just climbed out of the Lada.

  “Julie? It’s you, isn’t it?”

  The figure turned hesitantly to face Lynn, and King now saw what had prompted his mother’s rash behavior.

  When he had seen that face on a television screen all those months ago, the rational part of his brain had been able to dismiss it as a fluke. Everyone had a look-alike. Perhaps the camera and his eyes were conspiring to trick him. Maybe it was just wishful thinking.

  But as he beheld the woman staring back at Lynn with an odd mixture of curiosity and contempt, he knew none of that was true. Moreover, he knew why Lynn—his sensible, pragmatic to a fault and totally-in-control mother—had just completely abandoned caution and good sense.

  Now he knew for sure.

  The woman standing twenty feet away was Julie Sigler.

  Without even realizing it, he drifted away from the crowd, moving to Lynn’s side. Julie’s eyes lingered on Lynn’s face for a moment, then shifted to meet his stare.

  Her eyes widened in an unmistakable look of recognition.

  “It is you,” he whispered. “Julie.”

  He saw her lips move, forming a single word that she did not speak aloud.

  ‘Siggy?’ Is that what she said?

  “Julie it’s me. Jack. And mom.”

  She continued to stare at him, recognition becoming certainty, and then…triumph. Her mouth opened again, and this time she spoke clearly, in Russian and loud enough for everyone to hear. “Take them.”

  As men swarmed over him, tackling him to the ground, he realized what she had said. Not Siggy, but another name. A name by which Julie had never known him.

  King.

  20

  Ural Mountains, Russia