Red Templar

28

There were eleven A. Ivanov in the Moscow phone book, but only one of them lived on Sivtsev Vrazhek Lane. Number thirty-six was a two-story nineteenth-century granite block of flats with a leaded mansard roof, built to look like the old aristocratic mansions that had once been common on the street.

The building stood on the corner of Sivtsev Vrazhek and Plotnikov Street, a block from the kilometer-long pedestrian-only section of bustling Arbat Street. In the old days the Arbat had been home to top-ranking government apparatchiks, and in the “new” old days, when the Mafiya and the gangs ruled in the old historic neighborhoods close to the Garden Ring, the Arbat was a place of purchased sex, expensive vodka and lines of black Escalades lining the streets like a Muscovite’s dream of Fifth Avenue in New York.

At the turn of the nineteenth century it was home to writers, artists and young revolutionaries; at the turn of the twentieth century, gentrification had turned like a grinding wheel, and it was turning into Greenwich Village all over again.

Eddie peered anxiously around at the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century buildings that ran up and down the narrow street. It was dusk now, and the Cuban looked apprehensive. Dealing with a few thugs in a St. Petersburg square was one thing in broad daylight, but something else in the dark of a Moscow night.

White racism was alive and well in Russia, and Moscow was its capital. Groups like the banned Slavic Union, Young Russia and Young Moscow were becoming more powerful each day, and Eddie knew that the longer he stayed in Russia the more dangerous it became, no matter how fluent he was in the language. The groups had become so bold they were even posting their immigrant “kills” on YouTube.

“What apartment is he in, again?” Holliday asked.

Eddie glanced at the scrap of paper from the phone book. “Numero tres. Three,” he said. They stepped up to the main door and pulled it open. In the old days a housekeeper would pop out of her single room at the first creaking of the door, but today there was nothing but a corridor stretching the length of the building.

Number three was on the right. Holliday could hear music playing softly. It sounded like Rimsky-Korsakov, the man who wrote “Flight of the Bumblebee.” Holliday could also hear low voices, the tone urgent. He knocked. The voices stopped abruptly, but the music played on for a few seconds longer. Then it too fell silent. Holliday knocked again. He heard another sound; slippers swishing on wood floors.

“Kto eto?”

Holliday gave Eddie the nod. “Druz’ya Viktora Ostrovskogo,” answered the Cuban. There was a long pause and then the sound of chains being drawn and latches turned. Holliday touched the side pocket of his jacket. The flat Serdyukov pistol he’d taken from the woman on the Trans-Siberian was still there. He kept his hand in his pocket and popped off the trigger safety. Unless Anatoliy Ivanov wore something better than a grade-three Kevlar vest to answer the door, they were covered.

The door opened. Holliday found himself staring at a man in his late forties or early fifties with salt-and-pepper hair and a long graying beard. He was dressed in a plain black suit with a large silver three-banded pectoral cross around his neck, identifying him as a Russian Orthodox priest. The walls behind the man were covered in icons of every size and type. There was a second man sitting on a worn, faded green corduroy couch, eating something that looked suspiciously like a Big Mac. He looked up, his mouth full of food, and adjusted his wire-rimmed spectacles with one hand, the half-eaten burger in the other.

“So, we are friends again, are we?”

It was Victor Genrikhovich.

Although there were certainly doubtful aspects to Anton Pesek’s character, morals, personality and perhaps even his sanity, there was no doubt that he was extremely good at his job. Within five minutes of the appearance of Holliday and his black companion at the mausoleum-like exit to the Teatralnaya metro station just off Red Square, he had taken up a loose surveillance, following them at a distance across the cobbled plaza and through the Spassky Gate into the Kremlin.

Pesek, who hated the cold, was dressed in a gray, down-filled nylon ski jacket, an old-fashioned Russian fur hat, jeans and work boots. In a small backpack slung over his shoulder he carried several pieces of potentially useful equipment that had come in handy on other assignments. He looked like everyone else, and he looked like no one in particular, which is the best way to look when you’re following someone.

The Czech assassin followed Holliday and his friend as they meandered through the Kremlin, looking at the sights, but he stopped when they entered the Armoury Museum. Father Brennan had briefed him on the egg and its importance, but there was no way Holliday was going to try to steal it from behind the prisonlike walls of the Kremlin. Instead he stepped inside the small gold-domed St. Lazar Church across from the Armoury’s main entrance and waited. He picked up a pamphlet beside a donation box and began to read, one eye on the Armoury entrance.

According to the pamphlet, the Kremlin had originally been called Mastera Gornogo, or Wizard’s Mountain-a burial place for wizards, witches and magicians whose spirits were restless. A priest had once cursed the place and, according to legend, was martyred on the spot. Pesek smiled. According to the stories Pesek’s father had told him, Comrade Stalin had martyred more than priests in this place.

Reading on, Pesek discovered that in 1750 Elizabeth, empress of Russia, had ordered St. Lazar’s Church to be built for the indigents and beggars of the city. Twice each year all the dead beggars who had been kept in a giant icehouse to keep them from decomposing were brought to the church and buried in a single grave. There were so many beggars in Moscow, however, that the ritual was ended after only a dozen years for lack of space, but the church still stood, the cemetery paved over hundreds of years ago, its nameless occupants forgotten.

Twenty minutes after they’d entered the Armoury Museum, Pesek saw Holliday and his friend come out. He followed them again, this time to a taxi stand on the far side of the square. Pesek got his own cab and followed them to the Holiday Inn on Lesnaya Ulitsa, a relatively modern hotel a few miles across the Moskva River to the north. They picked up their key from the desk clerk and headed up the elevator. Pesek waited for a moment, then crossed the plain, brightly lit lobby and approached the clerk. Speaking Russian, he booked a room for himself, expressing an interest in getting a room adjoining the one occupied by the two gentlemen who had just come in, describing them and making his interest clearer by putting two folded hundred-euro bills down on the reception desk. The bills disappeared and he was given the key card to a room on the fifth floor. Pesek didn’t fret about the expense of two hotel rooms, or the two-hundred-euro bribe; the Catholic Church had plenty more where that came from.

He found his room, rummaged around in his backpack and eventually found his tiny FM wireless microphone and the headset radio he used. He knelt down beside the adjoining door, switched on the microphone and eased it forward under the doorsill, then took the headphones back to the comfortable-looking bed and lay down. He turned on the headphone radio, tuned it to the bottom of the FM dial and slipped the headset over his ears.

Pesek could clearly hear the quick flipping of pages. There was a pause and then the black man’s voice came clearly through the headset.

“There are many men with that name here. They are all listed as A. Ivanov.”

“No Anatoliy Ivanov?”

“No, but there is only one of the names listed on Peryeulok Sivtsev Vrazhek-number thirty-six Sivtsev Vrazhek Lane.”

“Does it give an apartment number?”

“Three.”

“That has to be the one.”

“In Russian Vrazhek is meaning una arroyo.”

“Stream?”

“Si. In the olden days there would have been such a stream there. In Habana there are many places like this-streams covered over and turned to sewers. Do we go and see this man?”

“Yes, but I need a shower and some dinner first. I’m starving.”

Pesek smiled. He slipped off the headphones and sat up on the edge of the bed. He had what he needed now, except for one last vital element.

The assassin stood up, removed the listening device, then put it and the headphones back in his knapsack. He slipped on his ski jacket and left the room. Pesek then headed downstairs, picked up a taxi from the rank near the door and told the driver to take him to the Central Bus Terminal near the Shcholkovskaya metro station. He settled back in the comfortable leather seat of the Avtoframos Thalia, a Russian-made Renault, feeling quite pleased with himself. For the present, at least, things seemed to be going quite well.

For being in a profession renowned for its short life spans, Anton Pesek had done quite well for himself over a career covering an astounding four decades. He had a generous retirement fund spread over seven banks and five countries; a beautiful albeit somewhat compulsively murderous wife, Daniella Kay; a condominium in Vancouver, Canada, close to the Southlands so Daniella could ride her beloved Dutch Warmblood, Bohemian Rhapsody; an immense and lavish condominium apartment on Old Town Square in the center of Prague; a villa in Tuscany; and another condominium in the tiny village of Mougins in the Alpes Maritimes, fifteen minutes from Cannes and the slot machines of his favorite casino, La Croisette.

While Pesek had developed few if any real friendships over those four decades, he had accumulated a remarkable number of contacts, acquaintances, people who knew people and people he’d done favors for at one time or another. It was one of those people he was visiting now.

Three days a week Yuri Otrepyev ran a small souvenir booth next to the bus station, mostly selling cheap plastic icons and matryoshka nesting dolls, and T-shirts with the word “Moscow” stenciled on them in Cyrillic writing. His market was almost entirely made up of hayseed country bumpkins on their way home after a visit to the big city.

Each Wednesday afternoon, however, as Pesek knew, Yuri’s uncle, Grigory Otrepyev, the real owner of the booth, would leave his last shift at the Izhevsk Mechanical Plant and would take the overnight train to Moscow, arriving at noon on Thursday. He would then take over the booth’s operations until Sunday afternoon, when he would ride the train back to Izhevsk and his poorly paid job as an inventory clerk in the huge factory.

On the surface it seemed ludicrous for a man in his sixties who barely had a job at all to travel so far to operate a souvenir booth that rarely did much more than break even most months, but like many things in Russia, things weren’t always what they seemed. During his four days in the booth Grigory Otrepyev generally netted the equivalent of between three and five thousand American dollars-roughly six times the net monthly salary of an Aeroflot pilot. Otrepyev was the chief inventory clerk in the largest combat weapons factory in Russia, and the suitcase he carried with him to Moscow each week was filled with the factory’s stock-in-trade.

The taxi dropped Pesek off at the Central Bus Terminal, and he made a pretense of going into the big modern terminal. He came out again a moment later and wandered around the cluster of booths to the left of the entrance. Most of them sold souvenirs, but a few sold soft drinks, snacks and sandwiches for travelers about to go on their way. He purchased a plastic bottle of Polustrovo water and sipped it as he meandered among the booths. He finally stopped in front of Otrepyev’s establishment, by no means the largest one at the bus terminal.

Grigory Otrepyev bore a remarkable resemblance to Mr. Toad of The Wind in the Willows. He was short and squat, with wide, rubbery lips, a bulbous nose and slightly bulging eyes. The resemblance was heightened by the old curved pipe inevitably clamped between his teeth that constantly sent up a cloud of choking smoke that had long ago given Otrepyev a permanent squint in his right eye. To top things off, the man’s complexion was cratered with pockmarks like the surface of an asteroid, and he made only the most basic passes with a razor at the white stubble on his cheeks and chin.

“I’m looking for a matryoshka doll,” said Pesek in Russian.

“As you can see, gospodin, I have many such dolls,” answered Otrepyev, making a sweeping gesture over his stock and grinning around the yellowed stem of his pipe. Even from six feet away behind the counter, the man smelled like an overflowing ashtray. “Do you have any particular size doll in mind?”

“I thought that today I would like a nine-millimeter doll,” said Pesek, pitching his voice softly. Otrepyev reached out and picked up a doll. “I have a rather nice Grach in stock. As you can see, it is very nice.”

“How heavy?”

“Point nine seven of a kilogram.”

“I think I would like something lighter today.”

Otrepyev put down the first doll and randomly picked up another. “What about the PMM Makarov. Just point seven six of a kilogram?”

“Out-of-date, and it has a tendency to jam,” said Pesek.

“Then perhaps I could interest you in our Baghira doll. Nine-millimeter Parabellum, fifteen-round capacity, the same weight as the Makarov and with a slope return/buffer mechanism to prevent shock and increase accuracy.”

“How much?” Pesek asked.

“Eight hundred euros,” said the Russian, squinting at Pesek. Eight hundred euros, almost twelve hundred U.S. dollars.

“Expensive,” commented Pesek.

“Worth it.” The Russian shrugged.

“I’ll take it,” said Pesek.

“Ammunition?”

“A single magazine.” If fifteen rounds wasn’t enough he was dead anyway. He took out his wallet, removed four yellow two-hundred-euro notes and folded them into a small rectangle that fit between his index and middle fingers and against his palm. Otrepyev picked up a nesting doll, bent down to get a bag from beneath the counter and rose a few seconds later, handing the plastic bag to Pesek. For his part the Czech assassin reached out and shook the Russian’s hand, passing the four folded notes in a single rapid move.

“Good doing business with you again,” said Otrepyev.

Pesek nodded, smiling. “And you,” he replied. He checked his watch. Forty minutes had passed since he’d left the hotel on Lesnaya Ulitsa. He turned away from the booth, went to the taxi rank in front of the terminal and headed for 36 Sivtsev Vrazhek Lane.