The Exile

by Allan Folsom

  Nicholas Marten.

  49

  Marten saw the faint blood trail of the toe print just outside the door. And then, far across the square, he saw a man in a plaid suit suddenly turn and look back toward him, then dart into the shadows underneath a high arch between buildings.

  Marten started to run, reaching for his cell phone as he did.

  “He’s alone and on the run!” Marten’s voice jumped from Kovalenko’s phone.

  “Where is he? Where are you?” Kovalenko, parked by the museum’s secondary entrance, was already starting the rental Ford’s engine.

  “Crossing the square behind the museum. He just cut under an archway on the far side.”

  “Stay with him, I’ll meet you.”

  Alexander was clear of the triumphal arch and walking quickly toward the busy Nevsky Prospekt. He looked over his shoulder and saw no one. Then he reached Nevsky Prospekt and turned down it, going away from the museum and the river.

  Marten came through the arch at a dead run. Ahead of him he saw three young women, walking and chatting animatedly among themselves. Quickly he crossed to them.

  “Please, did you see a man in a plaid suit?” he asked.

  “No English,” one of the girls said awkwardly, and they stood staring at each other.

  “Thanks, sorry.” Marten pushed on, running toward the far end of the street. Thirty seconds later he reached Nevsky Prospekt just as Kovalenko’s beige Ford slid to a stop.

  “Lost him.” Marten climbed in beside Kovalenko and slammed the door. “He was wearing a plaid suit.”

  “Okay.” Kovalenko moved the Ford off. “This is the street in St. Petersburg, tovarich, maybe all of Russia. Millions of people are here every day. It will be very easy for him to hide, unless, of course, he is recognized. Then he can hide nowhere. You watch the right, I’ll watch the left.”

  Suddenly the crackle of Russian police-speak came over the portable police radio Kovalenko had propped on the dash in front of him.

  “What is it?” Marten asked.

  “The museum. They’ve found another body in a downstairs toilet.”

  “What do you mean—another?”

  “Two were dead upstairs. Colonel Murzin, the commander of the Tsarevich’s special FSO force, and”—Kovalenko hesitated—“the Baroness.”

  “The Baroness?”

  “Tovarich, he killed his own mother.”

  50

  Alexander pushed through the thick crowds milling along the Nevsky Prospekt sidewalk. So far, in the dead man’s plaid suit and wraparound sunglasses, he was unnoticed; no one had even so much as turned to look as he passed. He glanced back, his eyes scanning both sidewalks. All he saw was a mass of faceless people, and the street in between, jammed with traffic. No sign of Marten. None. He kept on.

  On the pavement in front of him was a crushed McDonald’s takeout carton. Beside it, a crushed Coke container. A dozen paces later he walked by a Pizza Hut; another half block and he passed a store selling Nike and Adidas shoes, then one with American baseball caps in the window. He might as well have been in London, or Paris, or Manhattan. It didn’t matter. The shops, the people, none of it mattered. Other than Marten, the only thing on his mind was the refueled Kamov helicopter at Rzhevka Airfield and its pilot waiting for him to return. Where he would go in it was not important. Maybe south to Moscow, calling President Gitinov from the air to say that the Tsarina had been kidnapped and that he had escaped the massacre at the Hermitage and was on his way to Moscow and the safety of the Kremlin. Or west, to the Baroness’s seventeenth-century manor in the mountainous Massif Central of France. Or maybe—his mind wandered as he thought of the possibilities—maybe he would go east, across Russia to Vladivostok, then Japan, and from Japan, south, using the Philippines, New Guinea, and French Polynesia for refueling stops across the southern Pacific on his way to his ranch in Argentina.

  He looked back. Still no sign of Marten. He had to get to the airfield. What should he do? Stop a car and force the driver out and take the car himself? No, there was too much traffic. He might get a block, two at most before he was caught. He looked up.

  Ahead was a Metro station. It was perfect. Not just as a refuge but as a way to the airfield. Use the Metro the same way he had in Los Angeles when, as Josef Speer, he had taken the public bus to get to LAX. Suddenly he realized that to take the Metro he would need money. He put his hands in his jacket pockets.

  Nothing.

  He tried the pockets in the pants, front and back. Still nothing. What had he done with the dead man’s personal things when he’d stripped him in the stall? He had no idea.

  He needed money. Not much, just enough for a pass into the Metro. But where, how to get it quickly? Ten paces in front of him an elderly woman swaggered along, a large purse dangling from her arm.

  He moved swiftly, decisively. In a moment he was next to her, grabbing the purse and ripping it free. He dashed forward through the crowd as she fell to the pavement. He heard her cry out behind him.

  “Vor! Vor!” she yelled. Thief! Thief!

  He kept on, pushing through the crowd. Suddenly he felt a hand grab him and start to pull him around.

  “Vor!” a heavyset youth yelled, and threw a punch at him. Alexander ducked. And then another youth attacked him.

  “Vor!” “Vor!” “Vor!” They screamed as they pummeled him with their fists and at the same time tried get the woman’s purse for her.

  Alexander threw up an arm and twisted away as a crowd began to close in.

  “Vor! Vor!” the youths screamed and charged after him.

  Suddenly Alexander turned back, Murzin’s 9 mm Grach automatic in his hand.

  Boom! He shot the first youth in the face point-blank.

  Boom! Boom! The second youth was thrown sideways and staggered into the street in front of a bus, two-thirds of his head blown away.

  People screamed in horror. Alexander stared for the briefest second, then turned and ran.

  Marten and Kovalenko looked at each other. They were a block away, but the gunshots were thunderous. Suddenly traffic stopped short.

  “There he is!” Marten caught a glimpse of plaid as Alexander darted across Nevsky Prospekt behind the bus and disappeared into the crowd on the far side of the street. In a blink Marten pushed open the door.

  “Tovarich,” Kovalenko warned, “if those shots came from him—”

  “Means he’s got a gun.” Marten said and was gone, running up the center of the street dodging between the stopped vehicles.

  Behind him, Kovalenko pulled the Ford to the curb and got out. In the rear seat was his traveling case. He reached in and flicked it open. In it was a second Makarov. He slid it into his belt, then locked the car and ran off in the direction Marten had taken.

  51

  Alexander crossed a bridge over a canal, then turned down one side street, and another. He looked back. He was alone. He stopped and looked around, unsure of where he was or which way he had come.

  The world around him spun. Somewhere in the distance he heard sirens. To get to the airfield he needed to find a Metro station. Again he looked around. Nothing was familiar. He needed a street sign, a building he recognized, anything at all to tell him where he was.

  He started walking.

  Ahead an elderly couple was coming toward him walking a dog. He clutched the stolen purse to him so they wouldn’t see it. A moment later they passed. There was no recognition at all, not even a glance, the same as it had been on Nevsky Prospekt. He looked behind him. Where was Marten? Where was his shadow?

  He saw nothing.

  If Marten could find Alexander’s trail in the museum, he could find him on the street. Why had he fallen in love with Marten’s sister in the first place? It had only served to draw the man to him. Again he thought, if only he had killed him before, in Paris or Manchester or even in L.A., but he hadn’t.

  The helicopter.

  He opened the stolen purse and took out the woman’s wallet. T
here was cash, more than enough for the Metro, certainly enough to take a taxi. That was it, a cab. That way he would only have to deal with the driver and not the public.

  The street was narrow; he couldn’t tell where it led. Here and there people passed. Still no one recognized him. He was one of them, he was no one.

  He glanced up at the gray sky. It was getting dark. There was maybe an hour of daylight left, certainly no more than that.

  He turned a corner. A canal was directly in front of him. He walked toward it. Which one was it? He reached it and saw a sign on a protective iron balustrade—EKATERININSKY CANAL. Now he knew exactly where he was. Across it, to his right, was the familiar majestic Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan, and just beyond it the Kazansky Bridge and Nevsky Prospekt. Taxis passed there every few minutes. The shooting had happened farther down. Time had passed; he had to take the chance no one would recognize him. He started along the canal on the run. The bridge was a hundred yards away. When he reached it he would take the stairs leading up to the street. On Nevsky Prospekt, he would find a taxi that would take him to Rzhevka Airfield and the waiting helicopter. It would be alright. Everything was going to be alright.

  Marten walked back along Nevsky Prospekt the way he’d come. He’d seen Alexander dash over a bridge and then disappear. Marten had followed, crossing the same bridge less than a minute later. He’d run two more blocks before he realized he’d lost Alexander. He continued for a little way, passing several side streets that were all but deserted, then he’d turned back. Why, he wasn’t sure. It was just a sense that Alexander hadn’t gone quite that far and was somewhere nearby. But where?

  Marten’s eyes searched faces as he walked. Alexander could be any one of them. To kill for a change of clothes or another appearance meant nothing to him. Life meant nothing to him. Except—Marten remembered the villa in Davos and the look in Alexander’s eyes when he was with Rebecca. The devotion, the absolute love, they were something Marten had been certain Alexander was wholly incapable of. But he’d been wrong, because he had been there and seen it.

  He passed more faces. Men, women, Alexander could be either. Suddenly Marten thought of Alexander’s tricks and deadly guile in Los Angeles. At the same time he remembered Dan Ford’s warning in Paris. You won’t know what he’s doing until it’s too late. Because by then you’ll already be in the cave and then—there he is.

  Marten put his hand on the Makarov in his belt and kept walking, his eyes shifting from one stranger to the next. Alexander was here somewhere, he knew it.

  Suddenly the steely overcast sky that had hovered over St. Petersburg for most of the afternoon gave way to brilliant sunshine as the sun sank low on the horizon. In seconds the entire city was bathed in a breathtaking golden light. It caught Marten unaware, and he stopped to look at it. Then he realized he was standing on the same bridge he had seen Alexander cross, and he looked around. Movement below caught his eye, and he saw a man in a plaid suit moving quickly along the canal beneath him and nearly to the steps leading up to the bridge on which Marten stood.

  Alexander had his hand on the stair railing and was starting up when he froze. Marten stood at the top of the steps, looking down at him. A light wind ruffled Marten’s hair, and he and the city and the sky were colored a brilliant yellow.

  Coolly, even coldly, Alexander turned and started back the way he had come. On the far side of the canal, the Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan glowed in the same golden light. Steps led down from the bridge on that side, too, and he thought he saw someone vaguely familiar come down them.

  He picked up his pace. There was no need to look. He knew Marten was coming down the steps behind him. He was walking, not running, his steps deliberate, keeping him in sight, but not forcing it. If he ran, Marten would run. Yes, there was a chance he might lose him, but there was also an even greater chance that two running men would attract attention, and he knew the police were there because he could still hear the sirens. They were looking for the person who had killed the Baroness and the FSO colonel Murzin and the man in the Hermitage men’s toilet. They would have no idea who that was, or whether it was a man or a woman, or what he or she might look like. But now they would be looking for someone else as well, a man in a plaid suit who had just shot two men on Nevsky Prospekt.

  So just keep walking, he thought, let Marten come. Finally he understood. Marten was here now, the same as he had been at every turn. Here because he was supposed to be. It was why they had gone up against each other in L.A., why Alexander had fallen in love with Marten’s sister, perhaps even why he had left the bloody footprints. Marten was an integral part of his sudba, his destiny. Rebecca had told him more than once how alike he and her brother were. Their skills and daring were on the same extraordinary level; so, too, were their courage and will and tenacity. And both had come back from the dead. Marten was God’s last fiery gauntlet, the ultimate test of his ability to reach the greatness God commanded of him.

  This time, and once and for all, Alexander would achieve it, prove to God that he could bring himself back from the edge of the oblivion where he stood.

  It should be simple. He still had the gun and the Navaja switchblade. Marten had been in the Hermitage. All he had to do was kill him, then put his fingerprints on the knife and the knife in his pocket, and the people of Russia would see what their Tsarevich was made of. He would be the hero who, alone, had tracked the murderer of the Baroness and Colonel Murzin through the streets of St. Petersburg and finally slain him. After that there would be no questions about the plaid suit or the dead men on Nevsky Prospekt and in the men’s toilet at the museum—all of whom, he would say, were accomplices of the murderer and had tried to kill him. Nor would there be any need to go to the helicopter. The helicopter would come to him.

  Ahead another bridge crossed the canal. It was a footbridge. Bankovski Most, Bank Bridge, it was called. It was lovely, ancient, classic, with two huge griffins sporting great gold wings guarding either side. To his left was a series of three- and four-story stone and brick buildings. Nothing else. He kept on, his back to Marten.

  Before long he would reach the bridge. As he did he would slide Murzin’s Grach automatic from his waistband, then drop the purse as a distraction and turn and fire.

  Marten was twenty yards behind him when he saw Alexander shift the stolen purse from his right hand to his left and look to the footbridge directly ahead of him that crossed the canal to the other side. It was then he saw Kovalenko. He was on the far side and staying just behind them, keeping pace. Marten knew Kovalenko was smart, but he had never seen him use a gun and didn’t know if he was aware of Alexander’s deadly quick speed and extreme accuracy with a firearm. If Alexander took the bridge and recognized Kovalenko, he would kill him in the bat of an eye.

  “Raymond!”

  Alexander heard Marten cry out behind him. He kept walking. Another five paces and he would be at the bridge. The griffins were huge bronze statues and would be excellent cover. Marten would be alone on the walkway with no cover whatsoever. The Grach felt light, even nimble in his hand. It would only take one shot, and it would be between the eyes.

  Marten stopped and raised the Makarov in two hands, training its sight on the back of Alexander’s head. “Raymond! Freeze! Now!”

  Alexander half smiled and kept walking.

  “Raymond!” Marten commanded again. “Last chance! Freeze! I’ll kill you right there!”

  Again the half smile. Alexander kept walking. A deaf man out for a stroll.

  For the briefest moment Marten did nothing. Then slowly his finger closed on the Makarov’s trigger. A single thundering boom echoed off the canal and the surrounding buildings. Shards of jagged pavement exploded at Alexander’s feet.

  Alexander ignored it and kept on. He was almost to the bridge. In his mind Marten was already dead. His right hand slid into his belt and he took hold of the Grach at his waist.

  Three paces, two.

  He was at the bridge.

 
; He let the purse drop from his hand.

  Marten was already on the ground and rolling sideways when Alexander turned, the Grach in his hand. Marten came up on both elbows, the Makarov full on Alexander, staccato thoughts spitting through him, all the buttons Kovalenko had pushed before—For Red. For Dan. For Halliday. For the squad.

  He squeezed the trigger just as Alexander fired. There was a thundering roar of gunshots. Pieces of concrete sprayed up in his face and for an instant he was blinded. Then his vision cleared and he saw Alexander staggering back, his left leg a shattered mass of plaid and blood. He saw him try to raise the Grach, but he couldn’t. Then his leg gave way and he collapsed, the automatic skittering away on the pavement.

  Alexander saw Marten push up and start toward him, the Makarov held in both hands. At the same time, he realized he was on the pavement and the Grach was on the ground in front of him. He tried to get up and reach for it. He couldn’t. Everything beneath him felt soft, as if he had landed on a bed of dry leaves. Suddenly he saw Marten stop where he was and look past him. As quickly he turned to see what had Marten’s attention.

  The vaguely familiar figure he had seen coming down the steps on the far side of the canal was now crossing the footbridge coming toward him. It was the Russian policeman, Kovalenko. A Makarov was in his hand, and his eyes were like ice. Puzzlement crossed Alexander’s face. Why was Kovalenko coming at him with the gun raised like that? Why was he looking at him the way he was when he was down and unarmed and helpless? Suddenly he knew. This was his destiny, and had been from the day he plunged the Navaja knife into his half brother’s chest in the park in Paris.