Red Templar

5

Holliday held up a hand. “Okay, let’s stop this right now. Back it up a little.” He looked at Genrikhovich hard, then turned to his friend Eddie. “Ask him how he knew about Rodrigues, and how he knew we were going to be at the Khartoum airport when we were.”

Eddie spun out a long, lilting line of Russian. Watching Eddie speak like a native was almost as strange as being in Dublin and hearing a waiter in a Chinese restaurant take your order in an Irish accent. Coming from a relentlessly upstate New York, blue-collar, Presbyterian background, Holliday was always astounded at people who could speak fluently in two languages, or in Eddie’s case three: Spanish, English and Russian.

Genrikhovich’s response was equally complicated and accompanied by various incomprehensible hand gestures. Dimitrov’s name was mentioned several times. In the end it was a waste of time.

“I can answer for myself, Colonel Holliday,” said the monk.

“Please do.”

“Do you know the name Theodore Svetoslav?”

Holliday dug into his memory banks. The file drawer for Bulgarian history had very little in it, but it was just enough. “Wasn’t he an emperor?”

“He was, between 1300 and 1313. I’m named after him, in fact, Theodore Svetoslav Dimitrov. My family traces back to his on both sides.”

“I’m sure that’s very impressive, but right now I’m not. What’s the connection?”

“As well as being emperor, Theodore Svetoslav was also a friend to the Templars and they to him. At that time much of the old Pilgrim Road from the Holy Land ran through the emperor’s territory. They fought with him in the Battle of Skafida in 1304, less than a hundred miles from here. A Templar saved the emperor’s life at the bridge at the Battle of Skafida. A special Templar.”

“Don’t tell me-the Templar in your crypt.”

“Mikail Alexandreivich Nevsky.” The monk nodded. “From the bloodline of Mikhail Yaroslavich, also known as Michael of Tver or Michael the Saint.”

“I’m not following,” said Holliday.

“My grandfather was a member of the White Templars, as was his father before him and his father before him. As am I.” There was a long moment of silence. Holliday knew what was required of him-it had been one of the first things he’d learned from the notebook Rodrigues had given to him as he lay dying in that volcanic crater in the Azores.

“What do you seek?” Holliday asked.

“I seek what was lost,” answered Dimitrov.

“And who lost it?”

“The king lost it.”

“And where is the king?”

“Burning in hell,” said Dimitrov with a smile. Holliday relaxed slightly. The exchange was almost a thousand years old, devised after the fall of the Templars so they could safely identify one another. The first time Holliday had used it was with Pierre Ducos, the fat little spider of a man who seemed to be at the center of the whole Templar web, living out his years in the little hilltop village of Domme in France.

“I never met Brother Rodrigues, but we corresponded. I was terribly saddened by his death. He was a good man.”

“That he was,” said Holliday, remembering the tall, dark man with the deep-set eyes.

“It was the first time I heard your name,” said Dimitrov.

“From whom?” Holliday asked.

“Pierre Ducos,” replied the monk.

“And he was the one who told you I was in Khartoum?”

“Yes. After Gospodin Doktor Genrikhovich contacted me with his story. I thought I should inform you. I asked him where I might find you and he told me.”

“And what is Gospodin Doktor Genrikhovich’s story?”

“In a nutshell, Gospodin Genrikhovich says that the Faberge eggs in the Kremlin Armoury collection are fakes. He also says that one of the eggs is the lost secret of secrets that allowed the Sirin to invisibly rule Russia for hundreds of years. According to Genrikhovich, if the secret were revealed it could destroy the world.” Dimitrov paused and glanced at the Russian. He turned back to Holliday.

Holliday gave Genrikhovich a long, skeptical look. “And what secret is that?”

Genrikhovich began to babble wildly, throwing his arms around. He looked as though he were having an apoplectic fit, his eyes bugging out, sweat beading on his face and his entire body shaking.

“He does not want me to tell you, not yet, but I feel I must. The key will reveal, among other terrible things, the final location of the Apophasis Megale, the Great Declaration of Simon Magus. The declaration supposedly proves beyond any doubt that Jesus Christ was a mortal man who lived and died as all of us do. And according to Genrikhovich, there is even more that he does not know about.”

Holliday took a breath. Simon Magus was the court magician of Emperor Nero, who could, with only the power of his mind, levitate and move objects at will. Simon Magus, the man who virtually single-handedly invented the gnostic creed. Simon Magus, the man the Catholic Church called the King of Heretics and perhaps the devil himself. Simon Magus, whose very name gave the world the term ‘simony’: the crime of paying for the sacraments and holy offices. If the document was what it purported to be and the proof offered for Christ’s ‘humanness’ by Simon Magus was established, it would rock both the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches to their very foundations.

Incredible, thought Holliday.

“Katwazanyet, katwazanyet, Rasputin katawazanyet!” Genrikhovich blurted.

“He knew, he knew, Rasputin knew,” Eddie translated.

“Rasputin was one of these Sirin, or whatever you call them?” asked Holliday.

“Genrikhovich thinks almost certainly.” Dimitrov nodded. “So was Spiridon Ivanovich Putin, at that time a chef in the Winter Palace of the czars. It is a black conspiracy of terror that goes back a very long time. The secret now belongs to Vladamir Putin, Spiridon’s grandson and presently the prime minister of Russia, the chairman of United Russia and chairman of the Council of Ministers of Russia and Belarus.

“In 2013 Putin will be legally allowed to run for the office of president, and there is no doubt at all that he will win. He controls the state and he controls the Church. He has more power than Stalin ever did, and it grows with each passing day. From the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 to Putin’s rise after forcing Yeltsin to resign, Russia’s place in the world faltered. Vladamir Putin wants to see Russia rise again, and with the Sirin and their deadly secrets he will succeed. Have you ever seen a gas and oil pipeline map of Russia? They could choke Europe to death in a minute.”

“The rest of the world wouldn’t allow it,” said Holliday. “It’s not like the old days.”

“Give Putin a little time to strengthen the military and it will be the old days all over again,” Dimitrov said. “Over the past few years he’s allowed the Church to infiltrate every facet of daily life in Russia. He doesn’t need the KGB or the FSB anymore-he has the priests. He’s developed a cult of personality in Russia that is at least the equal of Stalin’s. To most people Vladamir Putin is Russia.”

“So what am I supposed to do about it?” Holliday said.

“Stop him,” said Dimitrov.

“Don’t be idiotic. I’m one man, a nobody.”

“You’re far from that, Colonel Holliday, and you know it. You have great power at your command, and great wealth. Use them if you have to, but however you do it, you must stop him. Stop the Sirin once and for all.”

Sure, thought Holliday. That’s me, Sancho Panza, tilting at windmills. “Nice idea, but how do I practically go about taking on the dark lord of all the Russias?”

“Go with Genrikhovich to St. Petersburg. See what he has to show you. Begin at the beginning.”

“I’m not sure I’m ready for this,” said Holliday. “When you get right down to it, Brother Dimitrov, regardless of my admiration and respect for Helder Rodrigues, I’ve fought too many battles in too many wars and I’m getting a little too old for saving the world. Maybe this is where it should end.”

There was a long silence. Finally the monk reached into the drawer of his desk and took out an old, butterscotch-colored molded leather holster with a snap flap. The leather had been cared for, but the holster was very old. It was also quite small. Dimitrov undid the flap and pulled out a short-barreled pistol. The black plastic grips were embossed with the TOZ logo of the famous Tula Arms Factory. Holliday had never seen one before, but he recognized it from the old weapon-recognition books he’d collected over the years. It was a Korovin.25-caliber automatic, a Russian-made civilian pistol and standard issue for the NKVD back in the early twenties and thirties. Because of the heavy-duty construction of the weapon, the rounds used tended to be loaded with almost twice the powder of a normal.25-caliber round, and the pistol was known for packing a punch almost equivalent to a much larger Browning.45.

“You may have no choice in the matter, Colonel,” said Dimitrov, sliding the weapon across the desk toward Holliday. “Since I spoke with Ducos there have been a number of strangers in the area. The DS may have changed its name since the fall of the Soviet Union, but they still have the same look about them.” The DS was the infamous Bulgarian State Security, KGB-trained and just as feared.

“You’re being watched?” Holliday asked.

“Yes, and my telephone is surely tapped.”

Holliday picked up the lethal-looking little pistol. “Why does a monk have a gun?”

“It belonged to my grandfather. After the war there was a great deal of looting. The monastery has several valuable icons and altarpieces.”

“I wonder where your grandfather got it,” said Holliday, a note of suspicion creeping into his voice. The priors of monasteries didn’t generally pack weapons under their robes.

“He got it from an NKVD agent who thought he was an art collector. My grandfather killed him with his bare hands. He’s buried in an unmarked grave in our little cemetery behind the wall.” The monk smiled. “My grandfather was a man of many talents. He was a yatak during the war, a ‘friend of the resistance,’ right under the abbot’s nose.”

“Thanks for the offer,” said Holliday, putting the gun back on the table and sliding it back to Dimitrov. “But I wouldn’t get it through the Turkish border, let alone through airport security.”

Dimitrov shook his head and slid the pistol back to Holliday. “I would suggest that you not return to Turkey and continue north to Varna instead; it’s less than a hundred kilometers, and the connections to St. Petersburg will be much better. When you get to Varna throw the weapon away, but while you are in my country it would make me feel better if you kept it.”

Holliday picked up the pistol and popped out the magazine. He thumbed out a round. The spring was strong and the magazine well oiled. The round was a brand-new Fabrique Nationale hollow-point, the brass gleaming. “It’s in good condition,” Holliday observed.

“My grandfather told me that tools taken care of will in turn take care of you.”

“My uncle Henry used to tell me the same thing, more or less,” said Holliday. “He rescued Hesperios from Hitler’s Berchtesgaden just after the war.” Holliday slid the round back into the magazine, then snapped the magazine back into the grip.

“I have a feeling your uncle and my grandfather would have liked each other,” Dimitrov said.

Holliday picked up the pocket pistol again and hefted it. At least a pound, maybe more. Heavy for such a small weapon. “You’re sure?”

“Certain.” Dimitrov nodded.

Holliday shrugged and slipped the pistol into the pocket of his jacket. “Okay,” he said. “But I’m sure it’ll be unnecessary.”

“Better safe than sorry,” replied the monk.

“My uncle said that, too.” Holliday laughed, standing up. A hundred kilometers to Varna and then the trials and tribulations of buying visas and booking tickets would put them on a plane to St. Petersburg by late evening at best. It was time to go.

The monk was kneeling at the altar in the church when they came for him. He’d heard the squeak of the gate and the creak of the door as it opened, but he did not move from his knees; nor did he stop his prayer. Less than half an hour had passed since his conversation with the American. It was a relief to know that someone else would be taking up the quest that had begun so long ago. He finally ended his prayer:

Many are the scourges of the sinner, But mercy shall encircle him that hopeth in the Lord. Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, ye righteous; And glory, all ye that are upright of heart.

He stood and turned, his hands held together beneath his robes. There were two of them, one older with very short gray hair, his bad suit barely covering a bulging middle-aged paunch, and a younger one with dark oily hair who wore a brown leather coat.

The older one spoke. “You are Brother Theodore Dimitrov?”

“Yes.”

“You know why we are here?”

“To torture me and force me to tell you things you wish to know.”

The younger one snickered. “We have people in Sofia who do that.”

“We’re just here to accompany you, Brother Dimitrov. The best thing would be to come peacefully.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” answered Dimitrov.

“Yes, you can, priest,” said the younger one. He took a weapon out from under his coat. It was a Veresk, an older Russian-made version of an Uzi, which explained the long coat.

“Put that away, Kostya,” said the older one, taking out his own weapon from under his jacket, this one a much more discreet Yarygin nine-millimeter. He held it loosely in his hand. “Please, Brother Dimitrov. I would like to do this without any unpleasantness.”

“I’m afraid I can’t accommodate you,” answered the monk. The younger one made a threatening gesture with the little submachine gun. The monk wondered for a brief moment which it would be. He decided on the older one. An object lesson for the young man in the leather coat. He took his hands out from between the bell-like sleeves of his robe. In his right hand he held the other weapon his father had taken from the NKVD agent just after the war. The Korovin.25 he’d given the American had been the NKVD agent’s backup gun, worn in a concealed holster on the hip. The other weapon, worn in a shoulder holster, was a Tokarev TT-33, a rough knockoff of the classic Browning.45 and just as powerful. The monk pulled the trigger twice, hitting the older man in the chest and the belly. The older man looked surprised, vomited blood and slid to the floor. The one the older man had called Kostya lifted the Veresk and frantically squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened.

Dimitrov turned the old Tokarev on the boy in the coat and waited while he flipped off the safety. Killing the young man would serve only to prolong things. Eventually they’d find him, torture him, and in the end they would kill him anyway. Brother Theodore Dimitrov took the last long seconds to speak to his God, and then the church filled with the screams of the boy and the thunder of his weapon and then there was nothing.