“But you never said whether you believe in me.”
“I believe the Metropolitan. That is sufficient.”
Malinin stood up and motioned towards the street. “In that case, may I offer you a ride?”
8
With Constantine and Malinin sitting in the back, the car returned to the Arc de Triomphe, taking a northeasterly bearing.
“Ah, Paris,” Malinin breathed. “A horrible city, really. Do you agree, Constantine?”
Despite his own distaste for the town, the question was confusing. “What do you mean?”
“The history, if nothing else, my boy. The torrents of blood, the piles of headless bodies… That is where the Bolsheviks found inspiration. The original Paris Commune. It was there,” he pointed his finger, “on the Place de la Concorde, that the heads rolled off the Guillotine.”
Constantine turned to see that the old businessman was overcome with emotion. Flickers of memories rekindled inside his eyes. His lips paled and quivered. It was Malinin’s turn to dispel his demons.
“The Bolsheviks were always driven by only one cause. Terror. They were nothing more than bandits. Vermin. Stalin was an exemplary Bolshevik — street thug, bank robber and rapist,” Malinin said. “But they never fantasized about ever fulfilling their dreams. About ever returning to Russia. The Provisional Government gave them that chance as they sent the country spiraling into chaos. The February of 1917 stemmed from these parisian streets as well.”
“Kerensky didn’t just give the Bolsheviks a chance, he did all the hard work, paved the way for them and handed over the keys to Russia on a silver platter,” Constantine corrected him. “Financed by the Kaiser, Lenin rushed back to Petrograd and arranged a scrappy overthrow.”
Malinin smirked. “It’s almost comical, isn’t it, the Bolsheviks and their mythical revolution. Their so-called Great October is a hoax. A mystification. Claiming power in Russia for the Bolsheviks felt like winning the lottery. No one took them seriously at first. All the while, Lenin was hiding in a safe flat wearing a pathetic disguise, fearful of arrest! Their rule didn’t seem like it could last very long.”
“I’d say they found their feet pretty quickly,” Constantine noted.
Malinin shook his head in apparent disgust.
“You’re a historian, Constantine. Do you know how many the Bolsheviks killed in the ensuing war?”
“How can anyone ever know? Nobody was counting the bodies. The official stats estimate 13 million killed during the Civil War and another 10 murdered by Red Terror. But where does that put the millions who perished due to famine and disease? Officially, within just five years, from 1918 to 1923, Russia had been butchered by five Holocausts. Thirty million dead in the blink of an eye. But why not fifty million? It could easily have been a hundred. Lenin declared that he would kill ninety percent of the Russian population as long as the remaining ten witnessed his victory.”
Constantine paused, bitterness creeping up his throat. He was conversing with Malinin about genocide carried out against them. Millions of Russians.
But most of all, Cossacks.
It was genocide that no one acknowledged even in the face of archived documents. Two million captive Cossacks sentenced to death by a single note from Lenin to Dzerzhinsky…
“The bands calling themselves the Cheka marched across the country, exercising their newfound right and duty to instill Red Terror. They became the new Jacobins, entitled with a freedom to kill. Coming to every town and village they captured hostages by the thousands and shot them down with machine guns. But killing en masse was not enough for those pathological sadists. The chekists skinned and scalped their victims, sawed off their heads, severed limbs and genitals. Their ruthless craze stemmed from their cowardice — for they were afraid of the people they killed. In the merriment of bloodlust, they raped and tortured, confiscating food and possessions, burning homes and churches.”
“Churches,” Malinin echoed. “Lenin was a mass murderer but he killed for profit. The call to annihilate the old world and build a workers’ paradise was rooted in very mercantile foundations. I’m sure you know that as early as 1918, a massive campaign unfolded to confiscate all valuable possessions from the population.”
“I believe Lenin authorized Trotsky to control its progress. That terrorist gang marauded even the remotest villages.”
Malinin nodded.
“Here’s a fact from history I’m sure they didn’t teach you at university. In the pre-war global monetary system, the Russian currency’s parity with the existing Gold Standard was 0.774 grams of gold per ruble,” the businessman said. “The crown jewels alone, highlighted by the legendary 190-carat Orlov diamond, were evaluated at 375 million. By 1922, Trotsky’s campaign amassed valuables worth a total of more than one billion rubles. The helpless Church proved to be a real treasure trove for the Bolsheviks — jewelry, gems, precious metals and icons. Over 50,000 churches and monasteries were ransacked, hundreds of thousands of priests killed.”
Constantine knew what Malinin was getting at.
“The Bolsheviks tried selling the relics abroad, but failed. So what happened to the treasures after that? This disappearance has always been a mystery.”
“Indeed. The most priceless items, including the Kremlin Collection, remained locked in the vaults of the Bolsheviks — and vanished in the chaos of World War Two, during the rise of the Soviet Empire. And the Empire’s fall proved to be a turning point in my life as much as it had been in yours. At that time, I stumbled on the trace of the greatest artifacts in Russian history. And like you, I had to pay a price for the revelation.”
“What did you have to give up in order to find it?”
Malinin stared in the window.
“My soul. I had to shed blood for that.”
The only sound inside the car was the hiss of the tires against the smooth asphalt.
Driving via the Boulevard Peripherique, off the A1 and past the suburb of St. Denis, it took no more than ten minutes to reach Le Bourget airport. Although international and regional airline traffic had been shut down decades ago, Le Bourget operated as a business class airport hosting general aviation.
Alarm bells went off in the back of Constantine’s mind.
“Where are we going?”
Malinin cocked his head, amusement on his face. “Why, the only place on earth to store secret documents! An alpine haven of first-rate banking.”
9
A pilot’s son Constantine knew enough about aircraft to recognize Malinin’s business jet instantly. With a maximum range in excess of 6,000 kilometres, the Cessna Citation X was designed for transatlantic flights. The highly swept wings and tail stabilizers made the Citation X the fastest civilian aircraft in production, as the side-mounted Rolls-Royce Allison turbofans on the rear of the fuselage could produce a maximum speed of 965 km/h.
The plane’s interior was refined enough to pass for a deluxe hotel lounge — despite its cylindrical shape and porthole-sized cabin windows. The beige leather chair that Constantine sank into had nothing in common with the typical spine-breaking contraption of a commercial carrier. The six club chairs were arranged in doubles, facing each other. There was also a two-seat divan across the carpeted aisle.
“Can I get you anything?” Malinin called from the galley. Borisov was at the controls in the cockpit, waiting for permission from the tower to take off.
“Mineral water, please.”
He came back carrying a glass bottle and two bar tumblers, which he set on the hardwood table.