Red Templar

33

The Leningrad Four-Vladimir Putin, prime minister of Russia; Dmitry Medvedev, the president of Russia; Vladimir Gundyaev, patriarch of Moscow; and Vasilyevich Bortnikov, head of the FSB-sat in their comfortable green leather armchairs drinking fresh tea from the silver samovar at the end of the inlaid oak-and-brass conference table. In the background the four big Ilyushin engines droned on steadily through the night sky over the Ural Mountains. All four men had been at a secret meeting with their “foreign” counterparts at Putin’s billion-dollar Black Sea residence near the tiny village of Praskoveyevka, population four hundred and forty-two. They were now an hour out of Moscow on the Russian version of Air Force One, a luxurious gutted version of an Ilyushin II-96, the work done by the English company Diamonite for a reported ten million British pounds sterling. Another few million euros had been spent in Voronezh, the headquarters of the Voronezh Aircraft Production Association, to protect the aircraft from any satellite, EMP or broadband intrusion. VAPA and a variety of other engineers then installed enough electronic equipment in the aircraft to launch every army, navy and air force group to defend Mother Russia from any foe stupid enough to step into the great bear’s den. It also had the telemetry to launch all sixteen thousand nuclear warheads left in the Russian arsenal.

“A very nice dacha you have, Vladimir,” commented Gundyaev, patriarch of Moscow. “There has been some comment on it in the press lately, foreign and domestic. Very lavish.”

“Not nearly as lavish as Buckingham Palace.” Putin laughed.

“A billion dollars, Volodya?” Medvedev asked, using his childhood nickname for Putin. “A little much, don’t you think, in a worldwide recession, as they call it?”

“And during that same recession the Canadian prime minister, the one with the plastic hair, spends the same amount on a weekend in Toronto for a G8 conference.” Putin snorted, then took a long swallow of the fragrant tea. “At least I built something with the government’s money.”

“The Canadian was reelected with a majority,” teased Medvedev.

“Who knows.” Putin shrugged. “Maybe Canadians like their leaders to have plastic hair. To me he looks like the man who plays the organ at a funeral. He makes me queasy.” Putin laughed. “Not that Canada matters much in the scheme of things.”

“They have enormous natural resources,” said Medvedev.

“What they have, others own. It was the essence of the meeting we just had,” Putin said. “It is no longer a world of governments; we must face that or Russia will fade into history, her best people lost in a diaspora of greed to other nations.”

“You really believe that?” Bortnikov said.

“Certainly,” replied Putin, nodding. “The future of Russia lies in private equity.”

“Do away with government?” Gundyaev said. The patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church actually looked frightened by the thought.

“Why not?” Putin said. “Effectively the world as we know it is run by half a dozen major corporations and another half dozen secret conglomerates the world has never heard of.”

“And the Vatican?” the patriarch asked.

“There have been various audits over the years, rarely placing the value of the Vatican holdings at something just over a billion dollars, which is absurd, of course. In terms of simple real estate they probably have holdings of at least a trillion dollars worldwide, and this doesn’t include their corporate investments, like Fiat automobiles and Bank of America.”

“What about our corporations?” Bortnikov, the FSB chief, asked.

“Gazprom, Rosneft, LUKOIL, Novatek, Gazprom Neft-the top five companies are all oil and gas producers, and the other five making the top ten are steel companies. Natural resources requiring outside buyers-exactly like the Canadians. An economy like that is always vulnerable to the whims of Wall Street and other stock exchanges. Watch CNN or the BBC-how often is the RTS mentioned? Never. We have one billion dollars in the equity trading market; the Americans have more than a trillion dollars in private equity funds. There are individual companies in America larger than our entire country’s investment in private equity. This is insanity, gentlemen.”

“During the Cold War it was an arms race; now it is all about money,” said Bortnikov wistfully.

Putin angrily rattled his spoon in his teacup, placing another lump of sugar in it. “During the Cold War the Russian bear was a world power to be feared. The Americans shook in their boots when the bear roared. We were a worthy foe. Now the Americans dance in the streets when their military kills one sick lunatic cowering in his compound in Pakistan, watching himself on television. If the Americans think of us at all it is as a source of immigrant organized crime, the Mafiya. We are little more than a joke, and a joke unable to deal with its own domestic squabbles, like Georgia or Chechnya. It must change, and soon.”

“What you say is all fine and good, Volodya, but I still don’t see how this has anything to do with the Church, Victor Genrikhovich, the American or the Phoenix order.”

“It has everything to do with them,” answered Putin. A white-jacketed steward who was actually a junior officer in the Kremlin presidential guard appeared carrying a tray of freshly made blinis, Golden Osetra caviar, creme fraiche, a bottle of Georgievskaya vodka and four flare-topped crystal glasses. The guard set down the tray, deftly put a glass and a small plate in front of each of the four men, filled the glasses from the bottle and then withdrew as silently as he appeared. In the background the engines of the big jet thundered quietly through the darkness.

Putin took a blini off the stack on the tray, put a big dollop of the pale yellow caviar in the center of the crepe-thin pancake and topped it with another dollop of the slightly sour creme fraiche. He folded the blini into a little package, then popped the whole thing into his mouth. He closed his eyes for a moment, savoring the wonderful assortment of tastes, then swallowed. He opened his eyes, took a sip of the chilled vodka, then sat back in his armchair with a contented sigh.

“The Church, Victor Genrikhovich and the American,” reminded Gundyaev, spooning a heaping mound of caviar onto his own blini. “Not to mention the Phoenix order.”

“Ah, yes.” Putin nodded. “It’s like pieces in a puzzle-each piece has its place in the larger picture. As you are aware, we have consolidated the Church’s position inside Russia and are ready to expand to include all the Orthodox churches worldwide. We are already the largest of those churches numerically, and consolidation would give us power equal to that of the Vatican.”

“All of which I am well aware, Volodya,” said Gundyaev.

“But if our assumptions about Genrikhovich and his theory are correct and he was right about the Bulgarian monk and his long-lost knight, then the Phoenix order’s power is permanently broken, and we will have a weapon to hold the Vatican in check forever.”

“And if it is a fantasy, like it was for Stalin, Khrushchev and the others who came after. . including yourself, Volodya?”

“Then we have Holliday, at least.” He nodded across the table at Bortnikov, the FSB chief. “Vasily has had him under loose surveillance for quite some time, and his research bureau has developed an extensive dossier. Genrikhovich, the Bulgarian and his friend the priest-archaeologist simply provided a way to lure him into our sphere of influence, so to speak. He hardly would have come to Russia without some major incentive, which we provided.”

“And what if Holliday and his vast Templar riches are as much a fantasy as Genrikhovich’s Holy Grail or whatever it is? Have you thought about that?” Medvedev said.

“Holliday’s treasure is no fantasy. The Vatican has tried to assassinate him on more than one occasion, and that maniac billionaire in the United States tried as well. That is not fantasy, Dmitry; even the financial hierarchy of his own order wants what he has and will not share.”

“The elusive notebook,” murmured Bortnikov.

“The elusive notebook.” Putin nodded. “The key to the greatest fortune in the entire world.”

It looked surprisingly like an IRT station on the New York subway-tile walls, narrow platform and low ceilings. There were no benches, however, and the track Holliday found himself looking at as he climbed through the freshly made hole in the old brick had only two rails, not three, which meant that the big green car parked at the platform’s edge was probably a self-propelled, gas-operated carriage. At the far end of the platform there was a ragged hole in the ceiling where a section of the roof had collapsed at some point, and a pile of concrete and old bricks that had been swept aside against the wall.

It was a smart idea, when you thought about it: a bunch of Russian bigwigs in the Kremlin fleeing from a barrage of American ICBMs wouldn’t want to depend on local electricity sources. Holliday also noticed that while everything looked 1950s old, it also looked well maintained. There was even the faint smell of lubricating oil in the air. This place was still being used.

“It’s the D-six,” said Holliday, fascinated by seeing something he always thought of as a Cold War urban myth.

“?Que?” Eddie asked.

“It was called Metro-two,” replied Holliday. “The KGB code-named it D-six. An escape route for high-ranking members of the Kremlin. It was supposed to lead to several underground command posts and bunkers and even an underground city. Stalin was even supposed to have used it to get to his dacha in Kuntsevo, which is where he spent most of World War Two.”

“We have no time for this,” said Ivanov irritably. He checked the GPS. “We are three hundred and eleven meters below the surface; this puts us in the time period of Ivan the Terrible. We must continue.”

“Continue where?” Holliday asked.

“There,” answered the priest, pointing. Under the broad lip of the platform above, Holliday could see a square of brickwork almost lost in the shadows. When the tunnel was dug for the train they must have simply cut through the passageway he and the others had come though, then sealed it up again when they were finished building the underground station.

“Hurry, please,” said Ivanov. “The Spetsnaz must patrol here regularly.” He scuttled across the tracks and ducked below the platform, crawling on his hands and knees to reach the rough patch of brickwork. The rest followed quickly behind him. This time it took them less than fifteen minutes to break through to the other side. They were instantly assailed by an odor that even their respirator masks failed to dull. Not the smell of human waste in all its forms, but something much worse, a thick stench of rot and mold and death.

The passageway narrowed almost immediately, and within fifteen yards the four were on their bellies, Ivanov in the lead.

“Dios mio, what is that stink?” Eddie groaned. “It is much worse than before, this smell.”

They crept forward slowly until Ivanov stopped. “What is it?” Holliday asked, his lamp lighting up the man’s boots. There was no brickwork here, only an amalgam of broken stone and dank, dark earth.

“A grating of some kind. Pass me up the pry bar.”

Holliday slipped the eighteen-inch crowbar off his workman’s belt and passed it up to the priest. A moment later there was a grunt and the sound of metal on metal and then the sound of crumbling masonry.

“How many bars?” Holliday called out.

“Five. I’ll have to remove them all, and even then it will be a tight squeeze, especially for someone as large as you and your companion.”

The sound of straining metal continued for a long ten minutes and then stopped. There was a series of sounds from Ivanov as he slithered forward, his feet scrabbling for purchase and throwing back dirt into Holliday’s face. Finally the boots disappeared altogether and Holliday crawled forward, his lamp illuminating the grate Ivanov had been working on.

Ahead lay a letterbox-shaped opening perhaps four feet wide and two feet high. Holliday could see the ancient cement frame that had held the iron bars in place. The bars were gone, leaving nothing but gaping holes like the sockets of rotting teeth. He could see almost nothing beyond except a wall of pitted, dressed stone, the blocks fitted so tightly together there had been no need for mortar.

Struggling, Holliday dug his feet in and pushed himself forward, eventually reaching the opening. He put his arms above his head and slithered forward, finally pushing his shoulders through and then his hips. Halfway through the opening he rolled over and pushed hard with his heels, finally popping completely out of the rectangular opening.

Standing, Holliday saw that Ivanov was shining his lamp down a long, dark corridor about four feet wide, the arched ceiling not much more than six feet overhead. There were low, riveted iron doors with massive hinges every five feet on both sides of the passage. The doors were solid, each equipped with a heavy iron bar set onto massive iron brackets.

Holliday shone his own light down at the opening he’d just come through and watched as Eddie struggled to free himself. From the looks of it, the grated opening had been some sort of overflow channel for water. Eddie, cursing resoundingly in Spanish with every inch gained, finally pulled his big muscular frame through the hole and stood up. A few moments later Genrikhovich appeared, coughing and choking and spitting out dirt.

“Do you have any idea where we are?” Holliday asked Ivanov.

The priest nodded. “If I’m not mistaken, these are the dungeons of Ivan Chetvyorty Vasilyevich the Fourth, better known to the world as Ivan the Terrible.”