A sharp whisper startled him.
Ilia halted. His hand gripped the cane tighter.
“Your Eminence!”
Abruptly, a touch brushed his shoulder, pricking his nerves.
Ilia turned to see a man standing right behind him like a wraith. The collar of his brown leather jacket was pointed up to hide a part of his face, but Ilia recognized Herman Weinstock, his only ally, the leader of Free Action.
The manner of his approach bewildered the Metropolitan, but before he could demand an explanation, Weinstock bowed deeply, holding out his palms, his right hand placed over his left.
“Bless me, Lord.”
As his perplexity evaporated, Ilia put his right hand into the man’s outstretched palms, and Herman brought his lips to it, kissing the wounds of Christ.
Drawing back his hand, Ilia asked with concern, “Herman, what has happened?”
As he rose, Weinstock’s eyes were level with his, burning. He was of medium height, a timid middle-aged man of great physique, but always hunched and constrained.
“Lord, I have good tidings. We have received a message from Constantine. He is here, in Moscow. He wants to see you.”
Ilia leaned against the cane to support his weight, his legs suddenly weak. Gasping, he held his chest where pain lanced from his heart.
“Are you all right?”
Weinstock reached out to hold the Metropolitan, but wincing, he motioned that he was fine.
“Constantine! Thank God!” Ilia breathed. “When?”
“Tonight. He wants to see you tonight.”
Ilia’s body sagged over his cane.
“God is with us.”
Weinstock nodded.
“But the venue he has chosen…”
“Yes?” Ilia frowned attentively.
“It may be unsafe. And we have no means to change it,” said Herman Weinstock. “If you allow… I can suggest a plan.”
8
No disaster compared to the stampede occurring in Moscow Metro at rush hour. Constantine worked his elbows, making way along the seething throng of humanity. He could have evaded the flood of evening commuters, but his timing was chosen consciously, intended to decrease the chances of being detected by the subway’s security cameras.
The Metro was high-tech, as the busiest in the world should be, but besides all the modern equipment, little ever changed. It was also the world’s deepest, designed to withstand air raids with ease. As an impossibly long and steep escalator took Constantine down below, he examined the exquisite interiors of Kievskaya Station. Its décor bloomed with magnanimous use of marble, chandeliers, statues and paintings. The sheer grandeur worthy of a museum was breathtaking — as any display of Soviet dominance was meant to be. Each time Constantine entered these so-called “palaces of the people,” he was fully apprehensive of the price that the luxury had come at. Lazar Kaganovich, the foreman of the Metro’s construction, had subjected labourers, most of them volunteers, to conditions worse than those in the Nazi camps. He knew that some of the marble under his feet had been recycled from the wrecked Cathedral of Christ the Savior.
Thinking about it, Constantine concluded that Moscow was a city of cemeteries. Even in Moscow’s very heart, next to the marvelous cathedrals, the Red Square was a burial-ground with Lenin’s undead corpse open for public display. Over a hundred urns containing Communist ashes were entombed in the Kremlin wall. The Donskoy Monastery, infested with the bones of Beria. The desecrated Novodevichy Convent, and another fortress-come-cemetery, the House of Government — a funeral pyre…
At the other extremity of Kutuzovsky, invisible behind dense growth and even denser security checkpoints dotted across the occupied hectare of land, was Stalin’s Blizhniaya Dacha. The place where the Master had died.
The dacha’s stretching, barn-like corridor and gray rooms existed as fresh images in Constantine’s head, brought up by the writings of Kaganovich.
Despite the musky dampness coming off the congestion of bodies packed in the train, Constantine shuddered.
Beyond the cursed dacha was the site he’d picked for the rendezvous with Ilia.
Kuntsevo Cemetery.
9
When Constantine returned to broad daylight, the air was thick with approaching rain. By the time he entered the cemetery, the skies were overcast, which satisfied Constantine. The visitors to the graves of Kuntsevo were few, and the rain would discourage those who bothered to remember their dead. He was glad that the plastic zip-up folder containing the papers and the disc was waterproof.
Unlike the celebrity-filled Novodevichy Cemetery, the graveyard at Kuntsevo was mainly reserved for military commanders, with a few notable exceptions. The Cemetery’s most prominent corpse was Soviet Premier Malenkov.
There was a haze of old mysteries surrounding the Kuntsevo, courtesy of the KGB. As Constantine walked towards the designated part of the cemetery, he passed a plaque which carried the name of one F.F. Martens. In fact, it was none other than Kim Philby.
The grave that Constantine reached at last was just as deceptive in presentation. Engraved in the cold marble surface of the slab were the letters RAMON IVANOVICH LOPEZ. An inscription in a smaller type underneath declared that the remains, when alive, had been honored as a Hero of the Soviet Union. Only the claim about the dead man’s medal was true — but not his name nor the reason for the highest decoration in the Soviet military. This information had been classified once, but now it was commonly known that Lopez was the alias of Ramon Mercader, the agent who had rammed an ice pick into the head of Leo Trotsky on a fine August day of 1940 in Mexico City.
Constantine was early — more due to agitation rather than caution. His effort of scouting the area was intense but naïve in terms of professional countersurveillance. Still, at least he did his best to prevent any sloppy or arrogant ambushes.
No less nervous, Constantine found cover in a tight space blocked between a bronze monument and the body of an ancient oak. Peering out from his concealed position, he had a direct line of sight at Mercader’s grave and every alley that led to it.
Constantine waited.
The seconds stretched until time froze. He couldn’t stand it anymore!
He had to tell the truth to the Metropolitan!
The truth!
Impatience clawed at him. The wait was maddening — and then panic snowballed. Maybe he isn’t coming? Could it be that they got him…? That was too horrible to contemplate.
First drops splattered on a tombstone nearby, and then the walkway was dotted with moisture. Just as a soft drizzle began, a solemn figure appeared at the designated spot, in front of Mercader’s grave.
Ilia!
Constantine wanted to rush out to him and—
He willed to restrain himself. He dared not afford to be reckless — not when everything was in the balance.
So near and yet so far.
Something churned inside Constantine as he looked at a man that was everything to him now, unable to reveal himself.
The Metropolitan stood motionless, propped against his cane like a living statue, only the wind moving his plain black cassock. Dressed like an ordinary priest, he appeared defenseless. His eyes gazed in the direction of promise and hope, waiting for Constantine to appear any moment now. Ilia, the closest person Constantine had to a father, resembled an obedient child left alone by a parent, the roles crazily reversed.