The Milestone Protocol

by Ernest Dempsey

  34

  Russia

  “What?” Tabitha huffed. Her head bobbed with the question.

  “Salvation and doom lie with God’s artist,” Sean repeated.

  “Okay,” Tommy said, holding up his hand to stop everyone. “Can we just pause for two seconds to acknowledge how cool this thing is?” He stared at the metal tube with renewed excitement. “I mean, this has been in that reliquary for over six hundred years. We are probably the first people since Saint Alexius himself to actually see this writing.”

  Everyone stared at Tommy for a long five seconds.

  “Yes,” Sean said. “It is cool. Now the question is, what does that mean?”

  “And who is the artist?” Adriana wondered. She picked one foot up and wedged it onto the seat beneath her, stretched one arm across the back of the bench seat, and bit her other thumbnail as she considered the question.

  Tommy sighed. “Fine. The salvation and doom prove our theory about why Alexius didn’t destroy the gem. He knew the potential for the cataclysm engine, both for good and evil.”

  “Correct,” Sean said.

  “What about the artist part of it?” Tabitha asked again. “How are we supposed to know that one?”

  Silence descended over the table, interrupted intermittently by the clanking of dishes or pans, or muted conversation from the four other patrons in the place.

  Sean paid close attention to them, making sure they weren’t listening in too closely. He was still on alert, constantly watching for trouble to walk through the door.

  “It would have to be someone the metropolitan knew, or perhaps admired,” Adriana mused. Her eyes stared vacantly past Tommy, just over his shoulder.

  “Do you know who that might have been?” Tommy asked, a tad uncomfortable at the blank gaze in her eyes.

  “Not off the top of my head.” She returned to the room and lowered her foot. “I mostly deal with classics, well-known artists. This metropolitan,” she shook her head, “I’d never heard of him until yesterday. He’s still a relatively obscure historical figure in the grand scheme. However, if we needed to find out, we could just search the internet and find out?”

  “That sounds like a lot of searches,” Tabitha asked. “Where would we start?”

  “How about fourteenth-century Russian painters and sculptors?” Tommy offered.

  “It can’t be that easy,” Sean quipped.

  Every one of them reached for their phones and quickly tapped the search into their browsers. Most clicked on the top result. Sean checked one farther down on the page.

  “There are five listed here under medieval Russian artists,” Tommy announced.

  “Seems like a small crowd.”

  “I recognize Dionisius on that list,” Adriana said. “He was pretty well known. As was the last one on the list, Andrei Rublev.”

  “Let’s each take a name and see if there was a connection to Saint Alexius,” Tommy suggested.

  “I’ll take the last one,” Sean said.

  The others divided up the names and began their search.

  For several minutes, no one said anything as they pored over the information provided by numerous links from their search results. The waitress returned twice to ask if they needed anything else and refilled their water glasses. She seemed annoyed that the group was hanging around so long after they finished their meal, but it wasn’t as if they were taking up valuable table real estate. Since their arrival, only three new customers had arrived, and there were still plenty of seats available.

  Sean quickly scanned the information provided by each search result, then tapped the back button and went to the next one. There was surprisingly little to be found regarding a relationship between the famed icon artist Rublev and Saint Alexius. Indeed, the painter was born near the end of the metropolitan’s life. When Saint Alexius died, Rublev would have only been close to eighteen years of age. All he could uncover were bits and pieces, a few loose connections. The one that stood out most, and appeared in more than one source, was the detail that Rublev had done much of the artwork for various monasteries and cathedrals in Russia, though only a few dozen works could definitively be attributed to him.

  While Rublev had lived and worked primarily at the Andronikov Monastery in Moscow, most of his main works were created elsewhere. He designed and painted frescoes for the Annunciation Cathedral at the Kremlin and the Cathedral of the Assumption in Vladimir. His greatest work remained the Holy Trinity Cathedral at Saint Sergius.

  Sean processed the information, his face twisted into a frown as he tried to connect the dots.

  “Anyone else find anything useful?” Tommy asked, breaking the silence again.

  The others shook their heads.

  “Me, either,” he admitted. “I checked the first two and couldn’t find any meaningful information.”

  “There is a vague connection between Rublev and Alexius,” Sean stated. “Rublev created some of the paintings at a monastery and cathedral founded by the metropolitan. Not sure if it matters, but he was buried there, too, at the Andronikov Monastery.”

  Sean felt uncertain about the link between the two, but kept going. “Rublev was a painter, considered by many to be the preeminent icon artist of his time, and perhaps the most notable in Russian history regarding religious works of art made specifically for churches and other such institutions.”

  “If Rublev is the answer,” Adriana thought out loud, “then Alexius either identified something about the young man that made him think Rublev was trustworthy, or the gem was taken to the artist after the metropolitan’s demise.”

  “I was thinking the same thing,” Tommy added. “It’s a loose string, though. Not sure if it really goes anywhere.”

  “None of the other artists have even a remote connection,” Tabitha said. “Except for Dionisius, and his was looser than Rublev’s. It sounds like this Rublev guy might be our best shot. You said he was buried at one of the monasteries founded by Alexius?”

  “Yeah,” Sean said with a nod. “Looks like it’s open to the public, too.”

  “Does that mean we’re going to be robbing another grave?”

  Sean chuckled. “This time, maybe. We will just have to see when we get there.”

  “So, it’s settled then?” Tommy asked. “We’re going back into the city to find the grave of Andrei Rublev?”

  “Looks that way. Unless you have a better solution.”

  Eyes darted around the table, but no one offered another plan.

  “Okay,” Tommy said, putting his palms up. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Sean stuffed the cylinder in his right pocket and the phone back in his left. A pants pocket was hardly the place for such an important historical artifact, but neither was carrying it out in plain sight.

  The four walked out of the restaurant, and Sean thanked the hostess for a wonderful meal—a compliment that took the girl by surprise and was returned with a sheepish grin.

  Outside, the cold bit at their skin, and within seconds the comfort of the restaurant’s warmth had sloughed away and was replaced by a bone-chilling breeze.

  Tommy led the way around the corner, to the back of the restaurant. He looked back at Sean, slowing his pace as he walked. “What’s the plan if this monastery isn’t the place we’re supposed to go?”

  Sean stopped before he reached the back corner and turned around. “Hey, I’m going to run back in and hit the little boys' room. Any of you need to go?”

  “No,” Tommy said. “But thanks for making it weird by calling it the little boys' room.”

  “Okay,” Sean groused, blowing off his friend’s attempt at an insult. “Get the car warm for me, would ya?”

  Tommy rolled his eyes and rounded the corner with the two women in tow. He unlocked the sedan with the key fob and reached out to open the door for Tabitha to get into the back. As he did, she abruptly slammed into the car’s side.

  A man in a black coat pinned her to the window. Tommy felt a sudden
pain in his lower back as an elbow drove him against the car next to Tabitha.

  Adriana whirled around before her attacker could strike. The man held a gun in his hand, aiming it carefully at her head. Her eyes blazed with hatred, but there was nothing she could do. The gunman, a man with dense, dark hair and tanned skin, stood at the perfect distance to keep her from attacking and depriving him of his weapon.

  If she made a move, he would pull the trigger and end her. The suppressor on the muzzle would keep anyone from hearing it, and with the only patrons at the restaurant parked out front, there would be no witnesses.

  “What do you want?” Adriana asked.

  Another man swaggered up next to the gunman and grinned. He stared at her from behind dark sunglasses, as if trying to find an answer in her eyes that he couldn’t get any other way.

  “There were supposed to be four of them,” the man said, vaguely speaking to the one holding the gun.

  “That’s what I was told as well, sir,” the gunman replied.

  “Where is the other one? And where is the artifact?” This time, he addressed Adriana directly.

  “Bend over, and I’ll show you,” Tommy said.

  “You think you’re funnyman.” The leader’s voice was smooth and full of condescension, despite speaking in slightly broken English. “Where is the other one? Tell me, and we’ll make this quick.”

  Adriana kept her breathing calm, rhythmic. She blinked only when she meant to, never wavering in the face of certain death. “We split up,” she said plainly.

  “Split up?” The man removed his sunglasses and peered at her in confused irritation.

  “He found another lead. Had to check it out. Said he would meet up with us.”

  She could tell from the look on his face that the leader didn’t believe her, but for her intentions, he didn’t have to believe her. He only had to hesitate, and that purpose had already been achieved.

  The man drew his own weapon from the folds of his coat and pointed the long barrel at her.

  “You’re not going to tell me I have to the count of three, are you?” she asked. “That’s so cliché.”

  Tommy chuckled, but Tabitha couldn’t find it in her to laugh during such a dangerous moment.

  “I can’t believe you’re laughing,” she grunted, squirming against the force from behind her. She directed her next statement to the assailant. “And do you realize you’re assaulting an MI6 agent?”

  “That’s not going to do anything for you,” Tommy managed before the man behind him pushed hard enough on his back to shut him up.

  “No counts to three,” the leader said. “Tell me where he went, or I kill your friends, then you.”

  “Oh, that old line,” Adriana soured. “Do you want to know how many times I’ve heard that one?”

  “Very well,” the man started to sweep the gun toward Tabitha when he heard a crunch on the snow-dusted gravel behind him.

  He and the other gunman spun in time to see the kitchen knives tumbling at them. It was the last thing they saw before the blades pierced their eyeballs and sank into their skulls with mortal force.

  Their faces grimaced as they fell—an instinctual reaction initiated before death. Sean swooped in, snagging both pistols from the dying men’s hands before they hit the ground.

  The two men holding down Tommy and Tabitha loosened their grip and turned to see the commotion. Their last visions on earth were of two pistol muzzles popping. The twin headshots ended both would-be killers, and their bodies slid off the sedan and onto the gravel.

  Sean lowered the pistol in his left hand and passed it to Adriana, grip first, before he swept the area, making sure the threat was eliminated. He saw no one else in the vicinity. The parking lot was empty, as was the hill behind it. The skeletal trees offered no danger, either.

  Satisfied that they were safe for the moment, Sean lowered his weapon and moved over to the sedan.

  “You guys okay?” he asked.

  Tommy looked down at the bodies by the car, then over at the other two. “Yeah, we’re fine.”

  “Fine?” Tabitha protested. “He just killed four people.”

  “I’d prefer to keep it to four if it’s just the same to you,” Sean said in an easy tone.

  “Is that some kind of joke?”

  “No.” He shook his head lazily. “But the longer we stick around here, the more likely it becomes that we could face more trouble. And next time, I don’t think it will be a variety we want to deal with.”

  “He means the cops,” Tommy whispered, leaning close as if sharing a secret.

  “I know what he meant,” Tabitha snapped.

  “Just clarifying because a second ago I think you thought he was insinuating killing you too.”

  “Would you just shut up?” she fumed.

  “Seriously, though,” Sean said, “we need to move. Someone will park back here sooner or later. Or someone’s shift will end.”

  “You’re not going to leave the bodies out here, are you?”

  Sean sighed, already regretting the fact the MI6 agent was with them. “Well, yeah. I’m not going to dig them a grave. And we know they’re not cops.” He pulled back the coat on one of the collars to reveal the same tattoo that had become obligatory with their attackers.

  “Again with the ankh,” Tommy murmured.

  Sean could see there was no getting around disposing of the bodies. Tabitha made that clear with the way she peered at him through slitted eyelids.

  “Fine,” he said. “But it would have been simpler to just let them kill you.”

  “That supposed to be funny?” Tabitha asked.

  “I don’t know. Did you laugh?”

  Sean winked and grabbed one of the corpses by the ankles. “I suggested you each take one. We’ll hide them behind that hill, and hope that no one sees us dragging four dead guys across the parking lot.”

  35

  Russia

  Niki watched from the shadows of a barn just over the small rise behind the restaurant. He’d remained there during the ambush, watching in mesmerized, and somewhat amused, horror as Sean Wyatt snuck up behind four of his best men and killed them like they were common, everyday street thugs.

  It had been the right call to hang back and observe, both to command the situation and to keep a safe distance.

  One of the things Niki had learned during his training was to never underestimate an opponent. Now, that fact’s irony stewed inside him. Odin sent him here, giving him four men and a thin amount of information regarding the mission and its targets.

  Given what Niki knew about Wyatt and Schultz, he realized that those two men alone would be dangerous. With the proper precautions, he could have eliminated them, but the fact that Wyatt had split off from the group, only to show up minutes later at their car, could have been fatal for Niki. There was no way to know if he’d have been savvy enough to prevent the second ambush from occurring.

  He liked to think he was smarter than that, but doubts lingered in his mind.

  The one certainty behind the deaths of his four men was that Wyatt must have realized they were there. It was the only explanation for the kitchen knives the former government agent used to eliminate two of Niki’s men.

  There’d been another strangely troubling part of the failed ambush.

  As he watched from the shadows of his hiding spot, he caught himself staring at the dark-haired woman.

  There was nothing on her in his dossier, except "possible wife of Sean Wyatt", though that could neither be confirmed nor refuted. Not in the scant time Niki’d been given.

  Something about the woman, however, struck him. Her profile, the hair, her figure, even cloaked in winter clothes…all of it resonated deep inside his brain. Who was she? Her face had turned so quickly that Niki couldn’t get a good look at her, and he’d been searching for the fourth member of the group by the time she turned his way. By then, his own men had blocked his view, and Niki didn’t dare move, not with a member of the target
group on the loose, the one who just happened to be the most dangerous of the four. She’d covered her face with a scarf before they pulled the corpses out of view from restaurant workers or new customers.

  Still, despite not clearly seeing her face, there was something strangely familiar about the woman. Niki couldn’t pinpoint why, but he felt a strong connection to her, as if he’d seen her before. It was more than a memory, and yet less, too. Like a hint at a past life that he’d never been aware of, she lingered in his mind as he watched Wyatt and his crew drive away after dumping his men’s bodies on the other side of the short ridge.

  Niki waited patiently until the car was out of sight before stepping from the shadows and into the full brunt of Russia’s early winter cold.

  He barely felt the sting of the air on his face as he traipsed through the tall, brown grass toward his car on the other side of the barn. He puzzled over the woman until he reached the black Land Rover, where he opened the door and retrieved his phone. Niki tapped on the contact from his last call, and the phone started ringing.

  “What news?” Odin’s voice grumbled.

  “Just as I suspected, sir. They killed all my men. And they didn’t have the stone.”

  “What?” The older man sounded surprised at the report. “Killed?”

  “Yes, sir.” Niki tried not to sound amused about it.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t care about the soldiers under his command, but there was also the part of him that appreciated an equal adversary. It was possible he’d found that in Sean Wyatt, and the thought was intoxicating. Niki loved a challenge. Perhaps it was because of the challenging childhood he’d experienced. Or maybe it was the way he was raised in Odin’s house, always being put to the test in one way or another.

  Either way, he shared the information with his benefactor without fear of reproach or punishment, when others may have cowered under the powerful man’s accusing, all-seeing gaze.

  “Are you going to explain what happened?” Odin asked after waiting patiently for details.