From the fridge, she grabbed a can of ice coffee. The coffee tasted like acid because of her tense nerves. Her life would be decided in the next twenty-four hours. She had to help Eugene find his brother. If Constantine had managed to disappear without a trace for almost a year, she could well use that knowledge to vanish herself as well, beyond the reach of any intelligence service in the world, and begin a new life.
There was a firm rap at the door, which she answered. It was Sokolov. She found it unusual to see him in civilian attire — an untucked black polo, black denims and a pair of leather Nikes.
He smiled. “I should have guessed that after that dirty wet gi and strict uniform, seeing me dressed normally would be a bit of a surprise.”
“Oh, I…” Asiyah pressed her hand to her face, self-conscious. “Did I actually have that look on my face? I’m so sorry.”
“I actually practised that line.” Sokolov grinned with mock shyness and Asiyah laughed.
She knew that Sokolov was a good psychologist, and while his trick was basic she could not help but fall for it — a few light-hearted words made her feel at ease instantly.
“Glad to see that you’re up and raring to go.”
“You said we’d hit the road early, but I still didn’t expect it to be that early.”
“Do you need some time to get ready?”
“No,” she said. “No. I could hardly wait for you to come.”
As Sokolov led her through the base, she saw that no one slept — people went on with their work just as a few hours before. EMERCOM functioned like a well-oiled mechanism, the personnel on duty always ready to go from stand-by to full action.
Outside, the air was pleasantly warm, a precursor of the heat wave that was about to crash on Moscow after yesterday’s thunderstorm.
“That’s our car,” Sokolov said, pointing at a vehicle parked ahead of them.
“Oh? Not an ambulance this time?”
“Afraid not.”
In fact, it was a Land Rover Defender. Gleaming white, with orange and blue lines painted across the body, the letters EMERCOM stenciled above the Ministry’s emblem of a triangle within an eight-pointed star.
Sokolov and Asiyah climbed inside. The car had the highest clearance Asiyah had ever seen, which made her feel like she had boarded a bus. Sokolov turned the ignition, and after a brief hiccup the engine emitted a mighty roar and came to life.
“Hope you can handle this beast,” Asiyah said.
“Sure. I had one just like it,” Sokolov said.
“What happened to it?”
“Well, it slightly… crashed. And burned. But this thing is reliable as long as you don’t try to set fire to the gas tank under your seat.”
“I see.”
Sokolov navigated to the highway and cruised along. Even at such an ungodly hour, there were other cars always in sight.
“Looks like we sure beat the traffic,” Sokolov said.
Starting from six a.m., every major road would be congested as commuters headed to their downtown workplaces from the suburbs. During rush hour, Moscow came to a standstill.
Sokolov adhered to the speed limit, flickering the headlights whenever a slower car was in front of him. Seeing the huge EMERCOM vehicle, the motorists moved out of the way to a different lane.
“We’re not exactly inconspicuous,” Asiyah said.
“It’s an advantage,” Sokolov said. “I doubt that the people who wanted to kill us will be on the lookout for an EMERCOM staff car. There are dozens of EMERCOM cars out in the streets of Moscow. Ordinary traffic police would not want to meddle with another government agency. Same with the FSB — would they risk putting out an alert on us? They’d rather keep things quiet. They’ll be waiting for us, but they don’t know where we would be coming from. Besides, we might find use of the Defender’s off-road capability where we’re going.”
“We’re not driving to Moscow?”
Sokolov shook his head. “There’s no point. Showing up at the Novodevichy would be useless. It’s not the place to find the answers. Every door would be closed for us, because the Metropolitan is not yet dead officially. The FSB must have scoured the place already for all the papers, every bit of evidence connecting Ilia with my brother. Moscow is a trap.”
“Where can we find the answers, then?”
“Up north. We must begin at the beginning, Asiyah. The place where Constantine first met Ilia. The Trinity St. Sergius Lavra. All the answers are there.”
5
After his parents died, a young man named Bartholomew left his home to become a monk. He went deep into the forest that spanned from his hometown of Radonezh all the way to Pereyaslavl, and chose the most desolate spot for his hermitage, as far away from the world as possible. There, in a place so forsaken that even the nearby river was shallow and muddy, he built a cell for himself, and a tiny wooden church to pray in the name of the Holy Trinity. His elder brother Stefan joined him in his quest, but after some time Stefan could no longer endure the strict life in the forest and left for Moscow, so Bartholomew remained alone.
Taking his monastic vows, Bartholomew changed his name to Sergius. For seven years Sergius lived in total seclusion, away from the world, but knowledge of his endeavour began to spread, and twelve other monks followed him into the woods to build twelve more cells and seek his guidance. By that time, Sergius had turned thirty.
It was then, in 1344, that the Trinity Monastery was thus founded.
People came there en masse, from peasants to princes, and the Monastery grew both in size and fame, for the principles set by Sergius were simple — love, humility and hard work. This spiritual core defined the Russian nation, uniting the lands around Muscovy. With the blessing of Sergius, the combined forces of Russian armies crushed the Mongols in the Battle of Kulikovo, stopping the Golden Horde from destroying Moscow.
Centuries passed. The Trinity Monastery evolved. Stone churches appeared, their beauty made eternal as marvels of Russian architecture, new buildings growing until the late nineteenth century. Christian life centered around it, blossoming with iconography, theology and reshaping monasticism. It went far beyond the convention of a monastery both physically and religiously, at the same time becoming the model to inspire every cloister across Russia. As such, the monastery achieved the honour of the Greek title Lavra, meaning alley.
Even by today’s standards, the trip from Moscow to the St. Sergius Lavra was not the quickest, requiring to cover seventy kilometers to the northeast of the Russian capital. Driving from Zhukovsky, Eugene and Asiyah made it in two hours, justifying their early start.
The dense woods surrounding the Trinity monastery ages ago had since succumbed to civilization — the homes of the early pilgrims had expanded in numbers, developing into a a village, and eventually a town which became known in the late nineteenth century as Sergiev Posad. Still, even today the nature was rich in green, blending in throughout the town as a testament of the locale’s past. As if welcoming the strangers who came to see the Lavra, other churches were dotted around Sergiev Posad, each of them splendid on its own.
Sergiev Posad had one main street running through the town, with tiny alleys branching off it occasionally. Parking on the square in front of the Trinity St. Sergius Lavra was not allowed to avoid congestion, so Eugene left the Land Rover at one of the special parking lots, three hundred meters away.
The view of the Lavra was mesmerizing — the white fortress wall of stone and the constellation of domes rising above it, sharing the golden glow with the sky.
Sokolov increased pace, a sense of foreboding clinging to him like a ghostly mist. The road under his feet, Sergiev Posad’s main driveway, was called the Red Army Prospekt. All around him, signs provided directions to Karl Marx Street, Kirov Street, Soviet Square… The town’s street names defiled the town’s purpose. It was a mystical unity of the murderer and the slain victim, a circle of beginning and end. Thousands of monasteries had originated from the Lavra, and the road leading to it eulogized the people who destroyed them. But there was a difference from the time when Stalin had renamed Sergiev Posad as Zagorsk to honour some long-dead Bolshevik. These Communist signs now announced defeat instead of victory, like dust-covered runes marking a pagan crypt. Symbols of an extinct past, but harrowing symbols nonetheless.