He was thankful for the diversion because it had kept his mind from being preoccupied with thoughts of Layla, but she was never far from his mind.
It was confusing.
And it was daunting.
He needed to get his head back in the game.
Except that he had the ring in his backpack, and thoughts of it and Layla weren’t going away.
He walked up to one of the ANP patrolmen and showed his passport to the man.
The young man nodded gravely. “Professor Lourds. We’ve been expecting you.” He made a path through the sawhorses.
“Yes. Thank you.”
“Watch your step as you go up.”
“I will.” Lourds started up the incline, and then the feeding frenzy hit.
“There’s Professor Lourds!”
Lourds didn’t know who had first vocalized his arrival, but the hue and cry rose.
“Professor Lourds. Could we get a picture?”
Lourds turned back toward the crowd and waved. Several cameras and camcorders were in evidence.
“Professor Lourds, could we get an interview?”
“In a little while, perhaps. At present, I’m afraid you people know more than I do.”
The ANP talked to a lithe young woman in a blue parka for a moment then let her through. She leaped up the incline, quick as a deer, and joined Lourds.
She threw back her parka hood and revealed strawberry blond hair and an innocent face. “Professor Lourds, you may not remember me, but I’m—”
“Anna Cherkshan. Of course I remember you. Boris is delighted that you’re involved with this.”
“And you’re not?”
“Of course I am. I was deferring to Boris. This is his circus, after all.”
“Thomas!”
Gazing uphill, Lourds saw Boris emerge from the cave and couldn’t help thinking of the groundhog that came out and checked for its shadow. It wasn’t a very flattering comparison in one respect, but Boris’s presence had certainly changed the weather.
The slight noise that had started at Lourds’s arrival became an avalanche of questions and demands for information.
Anna gazed at the crowd in wide-eyed wonder.
“Shocked to see your fellow journalists worked up into such a lather, Miss Cherkshan?”
Anna turned to him, raked hair from her face with her fingers, and shook her head. “I’ve never been on this side of it, you know. It’s a bit much, isn’t it?”
“It can be.”
“Do you ever get used to it?”
“No. Trust me, you don’t see this kind of thing every day in the field of archeology.”
“You must. You have found so many amazing things.”
“Well, I didn’t find this one. I was back in Cambridge while Boris was risking the elements and a broken neck climbing this mountain.”
“Can I quote you?”
Lourds smiled. “Of course. He’s only asked me in as a specialized consultant.”
“To translate the documents he found inside the tomb?”
“Exactly.”
Boris waved Lourds up the mountain, and Lourds went. When he reached Boris, the Russian professor scooped him up in an immense bear hug that drew laughter and catcalls from the crowd of journalists.
“It is good to see you, Thomas.” Boris placed him back on the ground.
“It’s good to see you as well.”
“I see you discovered Miss Cherkshan.”
“Actually, she found me.”
“And Layla?”
“Working, as I said.”
“Ah, that is too bad.” Boris frowned, but the expression lasted only a moment before being replaced with his broad smile again. “Does she know what has been found?”
Lourds smiled. “Boris, I still don’t know what you’ve found.”
“Then come. Let me show you.” Boris made his apologies to Anna, promised that she would be the next person he brought into the tomb, and led Lourds into the cave.
16
Seated at his desk, General Anton Cherkshan watched the live broadcast of President Nevsky in front of Lenin’s Tomb. A large crowd had gathered in Red Square, and Cherkshan waited anxiously for some sort of violence or terrorist attack to break out.
He had wanted to be at the speech, but Nevsky had forbidden it. None of the military leaders were present. Nevsky had planned this to be a solo effort, a way to implore the Russian people to embrace his plans for the prosperity of their great country.
However, there were snipers in the area, in the buildings surrounding the Tomb that had clear fields of fire into the crowd. Cherkshan knew this because he had signed off on the placement of those men.
Nevsky looked good on the camera, but he didn’t look great. As always, he wore a gray suit, never changing his appearance, always remaining constant.
“My friends, I come here today to face the accusations of the faceless detractors who hide in the shadows and tell you that I am somehow going to be responsible for the downfall of Russian freedom.” Nevsky spoke slowly, allowing his words to reach all who were listening. “They claim that I am stockpiling munitions, that I am planning to make war on the satellite countries that have left our fold.”
Cherkshan had seen the figures reported in the newspapers. Someone inside the Kremlin was talking, and one of his jobs was to find out who it was. The newspapers didn’t have the exact numbers. In fact, they had less than half of them. But the numbers they had printed were enough to worry the people and some of the neighboring countries.
As well as the West. Already the United States had started rattling its saber, but its military — for a change — was financially stressed as well after years of the Middle East involvement and the rising cost of fuel.
The Russian scientists that Nevsky had funded had designed more economical war engines, and Russian oil corporations had found more ways to get to the oil resources within their own country. After all these years of the Cold War, the boot, so to speak, was finally coming back to the other foot. Even the Chinese were feeling the pinch of economic hardship as the spending by their citizens grew out of control.
But the reporters didn’t have access to the figures that Cherkshan did. The actual amount of military buildup was staggering.
Nevsky continued speaking. “My detractors fail to realize that I am simply trying to create business for this country. I am creating jobs for my fellow countrymen at a time when the West is staggered by the failure of their capitalist dreams.” He paused. “I am giving my countrymen jobs, providing a way for them to remain in their houses, and I am reshaping our dream for the future.”
Cheers broke out in the crowd.
“These accusers will tell you that I am going to take away the rights of the people. I say that they have already been taken away. Would any of you have thought that the day would come when you had to stand in line for bread, only to find out it had gone up in price as you had stood there waiting?”
The crowd reacted again.
“I did not. I find this evidence of capitalism ruin to be abhorrent to everything that is Russian. I see young people in our streets who wear American clothing they got through the black markets instead of outlets that are designed to protect our economy. I see men my age wearing expensive suits.” Nevsky pulled on his own jacket. “Do you know what this is, comrades? Russian manufacture. Made by Russian hands. Right here in Mother Russia. This is where my loyalty lies. Not with some seductive vision of a capitalist society like the West.”