“Who are you?”
“My name is Andrei Borisov! I provide security for Maxim Malinin!”
The businessman’s name didn’t seem to ring a bell to Youdine-Sokolov.
“Why should I believe you?”
The man was clinical. Borisov groaned. The brutal pull at his hair caused such agony that it felt as though the top of his head was about to peel off.
“My ID… it’s in my wallet!”
“No. Why should I believe that you didn’t come here to kill me?”
“Because I didn’t! I’m alone! I’m here to talk!”
“Is that why you’ve brought a gun?” A sharp yank at the hair arched Borisov’s head back, the muzzle scratching the taut skin of his neck.
Borisov wheezed, “It was a mere precaution!”
“Is that why you jumped over my fence? And broke into my house?”
“No one answered… the bell at the gate!”
“Then why didn’t you leave? It was a sure sign I’m in no mood for visitors.” Then, abruptly, “What does this Monsieur Malinin want?”
“A rendezvous… The Metropolitan asked him to see you.”
“Where?”
“In Paris.”
“Why?”
“He wants to confess.”
“I’m not a priest.”
“But you’re the only one who can abolish his sins.”
Constantine’s gaze became unfocused while somewhere in his mind a decision was forming.
He released Borisov’s head. A moment later, the fingers patted over Borisov’s jacket. Constantine didn’t bother about the cell phone, or the wallet. Neither was he interested in the second pistol, a small revolver hidden in a holster on Borisov’s shin. He was checking if Borisov had stolen anything from his house. He retrieved the two passports from the inner pocket, and frowned at the treachery.
Then lifted himself off Borisov and got to his feet.
The stormy grey eyes bored into Borisov’s face before Jean-Pierre Youdine, also known as Constantine Ivanovich Sokolov, motioned with the gun for Borisov to get up.
“Alors, on y va,” he said and walked off towards the wrought iron gate, in the direction from which Borisov had approached. “But I’ll keep the SIG-Sauer.”
2
Borisov’s large Audi sedan was parked on a curb outside Constantine’s house, overlooking the ancient stone bridge across the Loire River. With Constantine’s permission, Borisov rearmed himself, substituting the SIG-Sauer with a spare Beretta that he stored in the glove box.
All the way to Paris they drove in silence. Their first encounter could hardly serve as a foundation for amicability. But Constantine was grateful for the lack of conversation. He did not want to be disturbed by meaningless words. Too much had happened to him at once — his world had shattered with the intrusion. A storm of conflicting images raged in his head.
Who was the man that he was about to meet?
Maxim Malinin, of whom he only knew that he was a Russian businessman, and that he had earned the trust of Father Ilia, Metropolitan of Kolomna, Constantine’s mentor from a time long gone — from a life long gone. But the Metropolitan’s trust was enough to agree to meet the man. To trust him as well. To hear him out.
“He wants to confess.”
“I’m not a priest.”
Yet who was he? Constantine Sokolov or Jean-Pierre Youdine? In his seclusion, he had lost all identity, becoming a shadow, but he remembered all too well the person he had been.
True, he had never been a priest. But he had once been an historian, a confessor of Russia’s past.
He had been son and brother. His Father had died live on television, in the most atrocious act of terrorism ever known. Mother had passed away years later. His brother Eugene was back in Russia, separated from him.
What was left of him?
Fugitive? Immigrant? That had been his legal status in France, where he had obtained asylum, and later an EU passport.
Recluse? Hermit? Monk?
All that and much worse. Twelve months of self-induced exile. Penance for the sins of others.
Day after day passed in prayer and meditation, his physical being improved by exercise, his soul cleansed through acceptance of God’s will.
He had stayed in the sarcophagus that was his little house in the Loire Valley, shut off from the world. No one outside Free Action knew his whereabouts. Not even Metropolitan Ilia, for his own sake.
Free Action — the very thing he was devoid of. It was the name of a human rights organization in Moscow that had helped the Metropolitan to smuggle Constantine out of Russia and hide him in France. Words of hope that now sounded like cruel mockery.
He was suspended in a vacuum. Just to get away from the horrors, and to keep his brother safe from them.
Ultimately, he was a man lost from home.
But he was alive, somehow. Each day of his survival had increased his moral debt to the old man who lived in a medieval convent in Moscow. Now Ilia was calling for a favor.
3
Immersed in his thoughts, Constantine was surprised to see that the two-hour drive to Paris had flashed by. Constantine was intimately familiar with Paris — but the same didn’t apply to Borisov, who relied on a GPS map.
Approaching from the south via the A6 motorway, Borisov drove onto Boulevard Peripherique, the ring around Paris, and then cut inside the 20th arrondissement at Porte de Vincennes, aiming for the center of the city.
Borisov took out his cell phone and sent a text message.
As numerous as they were, the arrondissements followed each other quickly, because Paris was too small. Borisov’s Audi was a ridiculously oversized car for the narrow, one-way streets of the French capital. More than once, the bodyguard cursed out loud, maneuvering the car along the maze of single lanes, huddling between curt cars and pesky motorcyclists. Around them, the low, four-storey Parisian buildings still carried century-old grime on their façades.
Paris was a flea market. Everything was for sale — from its proud name on postcards and coffee mugs, to its cultural heritage that attracted busloads of gawpers like a whore in a red-light district. Faded signs and blinking lights and price tags stuck on Parisian life — the overpriced meals, lazy taxis, sprawling pawn shops and trademark designer stores all rolled together in one wrapper. The city was petty; littered with, and by, tourists. It catered to buyers who could not realize that Paris was a caricature of itself, a city reduced to its postcard image.
The cell phone buzzed once, announcing a reply. Borisov glanced at the text, and altered his route. Constantine guessed that he had received directions to the rendezvous site.
Along the constricted streets, the quaint Parisian brasseries seemed immune to change. Constantine could visualize his ancestors, the Cossack cavaliers who had captured Napoleonic Paris, sitting at the same tables and spurning the waiters to move! Quickly! Bistro, dammit! It was a command that the owners still heeded to, etching the Russian word into the names of their eateries, as if wary that the Cossacks would return two centuries later to check the efficiency of servicing.
In Constantine’s mind, the French would forever remain as perfect lackeys. Arrogant with sanctimonious self-importance, and instantly eager to lick boots when lured by a coin.
Only on the cobblestoned Place de la Concorde did the space become more open. The Audi turned around the jutting Obelisque and slipped away to the Champs Élysées. The recognizable shape of the Arc de Triomphe loomed ahead. Again, Constantine couldn’t fail to notice that the country’s main avenue numbered a pitiful three lanes in either direction.