Red Templar

by Paul Christopher

  “Paolo Pezzi is no friend of mine,” said Spada, his voice sour. “He wanted my job more than I did, but there were too many rumors about his sexual proclivities. He considers Russia to be a banishment.”

  “I’m afraid we’ll have to take our friends where we find them, Your Eminence. I’ll call my connection in Moscow.”

  “Holliday cannot be allowed to get his hands on the book. It would ruin us,” said the cardinal.

  Brennan smiled. “The Church has lasted these one thousand, nine hundred and seventy years, Your Eminence. One man isn’t about to bring it down.”

  “I’m afraid that’s where you’re wrong, Father Brennan; one man is precisely what it would take.”

  Their ride on the grease-slicked, unholy river of Moscow’s sewage was an hour-long nightmare. On the voyage they saw every conceivable type of waste that a city of eleven and a half million people could produce, animal, vegetable and even mineral. To make things worse, the high-arched tunnel was thick with stalactites of lime that had clearly been forming for centuries, and these pendulous horrors hanging from the stone of the ceiling had become roosts for generations of bats, who dropped their guano where they roosted and fed on whatever had the misfortune to float or fly past them. Fortunately the filters in their respirator masks removed the majority of the odors, but the ammonia-fumes emanation from the bat feces was eye-wateringly dense.

  “Where are we?” Holliday asked, raising his voice over the glutinous blender sound of the little outboard.

  “Close now,” called back Ivanov, checking the GPS on the seat beside him. “We are beneath the old Zaryadye district. The same place they found the bunker of illegals. We must move carefully now.”

  “Why so careful here?” Holliday asked.

  “Spetsnaz,” said Genrikhovich. “Although we are below the levels of the special Kremlin telecommunications conduits, we are very close.”

  “We’re below them?” Holliday asked.

  “Certainly,” said Ivanov. “Moscow today is not the Moscow of a thousand years ago. There have been many cities here, one built atop the next, like the ancient city of Troy. Each in its turn had its own way of dealing with its waste. According to Father Stelletskii, there are seventeen distinct levels under Moscow’s streets, each with its own secret passages, tunnels, dungeons and bunkers.”

  Ivanov eased off on the throttle and guided the rubber dinghy to “shore.” Holliday twisted around in his seat and saw an outflow channel on their left. A mountain climber’s piton had been driven into a crack in the concrete. As they bumped into the walkway Eddie took the forward line and threaded it through the piton’s eyelet.

  “This like the character Arne Saknussemm,” said Eddie, tying them up and stepping up out of the little boat. He held out a hand to Holliday and pulled him up.

  “Who?” Holliday asked.

  “You have never read this story?” Eddie said, surprised.

  “What story?” Holliday asked. Genrikhovich clambered awkwardly out of the dinghy, almost losing his footing, and Ivanov climbed up onto the concrete walkway.

  “It is very popular in Cuba, oh, my, yes,” said the Cuban. “Viaje al Centro de la Tierra by the writer Jules Verne, no?”

  “Journey to the Center of the Earth,” said Holliday.

  “Yes.” Eddie nodded. “Arne Saknussemm left behind A.K. to guide the people who came after; the padre leaves these,” said Eddie, nudging the piton.

  “Eddie, you never cease to amaze me.”

  “Thank you. . I think.”

  Once again Ivanov led the way up the outfall passage. The effluent in the narrow, downward-sloping channel was different from anything else Holliday had seen so far on their odorous journey beneath the streets of Moscow; it was dark, almost black, and it flowed thickly, like molasses. Even through the respirator Holliday could tell the smell was different, too: richer, a sweet-rotten scent, like potatoes left too long in a root cellar.

  After traveling along the outfall for a little more than two hundred yards they stepped out into an enormous circular domed room at least three hundred feet in diameter. The room was made entirely of brick, and very old. At least a hundred broad, troughlike spigots had been inserted into the sloping walls of the dome, one spigot every few yards, and from each one there was a steady trickling flow of the tarry goop.

  From the spigots the thick fluid fell over the edge of an iron walkway that surrounded the base of the black, shallow lake that filled the middle of the room like some enormous tar pit. There were a dozen outfall channels ranged around the enclosure, just like the one they came up. The fumes rising off the artificial lake were thick, choking and easily identifiable. In the center of the lake greasy bubbles rose and broke lazily.

  “That’s alcohol!” Holliday said.

  “Indeed,” said Ivanov. “As I mentioned, we are traveling underneath the old Zaryadye district. The fruit and vegetable markets have been there for more than three centuries. At market’s closing each day the spoiled or rotten fruit and vegetables are tossed into a central refuse area and forgotten. The produce rots further, of course, and over time, the heat created by the rotting began a fermentation process. By the mid-nineteenth century the fumes created became both a health and fire hazard, so this collecting pond was created. Essentially what you see in front of you is a lake of vodka. Poisonous, but vodka nevertheless.”

  “Good thing the local drunkard population hasn’t found it,” Holliday commented. His lamp shone out over the glass-smooth surface of the pool.

  “They have,” said Genrikhovich, laughing behind his mask. “That’s why it’s so poisonous; several of them have fallen in and added their decomposing corpses to the brew.”

  They moved off to the left, following Ivanov’s lead. He paused again at the fifth archway and turned into the passage beyond. They left the dark fuming lake behind them in the enclosing darkness. The thought that the only way to get back to the surface was by retracing their steps began to prey on Holliday’s thoughts; in the Rangers you always left yourself with at least one line of safe withdrawal, but he saw none here. As they walked along the side corridor leading away from the lake he asked Ivanov about it.

  “There are several escape routes, none of them easy, all of them mapped out by Father Stelletskii through the years. They lead upward to sewer grates and storm sewer passageways. Most of them are very dangerous: straight up and terribly narrow. Rungs on ladders rusted through.”

  A few minutes later they reached another tunnel running at a right angle to theirs. Ivanov stopped just inside the entrance and held up one hand. He listened for what seemed a very long time, then turned and whispered.

  “We are within reach of our goal now. This passage leads under the Kremlin Wall but it is guarded by Spetsnaz patrols almost constantly. We must not speak at any time.”

  The others nodded and Ivanov stepped into the passageway, followed by the others. It was barely wide enough for a man to move through without brushing the sides, and the ceiling was so low that both Eddie and Holliday had to stoop slightly. There was a troughlike channel on either side of the tunnel about three feet wide and about as deep, presumably for runoff during heavy rains.

  There were bundles of cable stapled to the side walls above the troughs and even heavier conduits overhead. The wire bundles and conduits were all stamped with Cyrillic lettering. One stenciled notation was clear even to Holliday: ФСБ, FSB, the post-Soviet version of the KGB. They were in one of the telecommunications tunnels Ivanov had mentioned. They had been walking along the corridor for ten minutes when Ivanov suddenly stopped dead and raised his hand. “The lamps! Turn them off!”

  They did as Ivanov instructed and they were instantly bound by complete darkness. In the far distance Holliday could faintly hear people speaking. A few seconds later he saw the bobbing of lights flickering off the walls ahead of them.

  “Spetsnaz!” Ivanov hissed. “Into the runoff channels, and keep absolutely quiet!”

  Holliday dropp
ed down and rolled into the runoff trough on his right. He could hear the equipment rattling on his work belt and prayed that the Spetsnaz patrol was either too far away or talking too loudly to hear it.

  They all held their breath as the patrol approached and the voices got louder. Eventually they appeared, five of them walking in file, each with a miner’s light like the one Holliday carried, but brighter and attached to simple plastic headbands. In the bobbing illumination of their lights Holliday could see that they were heavily armed.

  Each man carried an assault rifle at port arms, and each had a sidearm holstered at his side. Stun grenades were clipped to a bandolier strapped diagonally across each man’s chest. Each was protected by a black Kevlar bulletproof vest, and they were all wearing heavy black combat boots. The men were all big, Holliday’s height or better. Hell on wheels in any kind of fight.

  They finally passed by, the sound of their boots echoing in the distance. Holliday stood and switched on his lamp. All around him the others rose up from the runoff channels and did the same.

  “Close call,” said Holliday.

  “There may be others,” said the priest. “We must hurry.” He took out the GPS unit, checked it and continued down the passageway. A hundred yards on, he stopped and turned, letting his light sweep over the left-hand wall. There was a narrow archway and another short passage that ended in a concrete wall. At the base of the wall the concrete facing had been chipped away in a rough, two-foot circular patch to reveal a brick wall behind.

  “I believe that the way to Ivan the Terrible’s library lies behind this wall,” said Ivanov.

  Together, working in two-man shifts, the four worked away at the wall with their climbing axes and Ivanov’s folding spade. Eventually they knocked out enough of the old brickwork for a man to pass through. A wash of pale light came through the hole, which was surprising, but when Holliday wiggled through the small aperture what he found beyond the wall was even more stunning.

  “Incredible,” he whispered. “The old stories were true!”

  “?Donde estamos?” Eddie asked, looking around.

  “Amazing!” Holliday said. “A metro station. This is Stalin’s secret subway!”

  33

  The Leningrad Four-Vladimir Putin, prime minister of Russia; Dmitry Medvedev, the president of Russia; Vladimir Gundyaev, patriarch of Moscow; and Vasilyevich Bortnikov, head of the FSB-sat in their comfortable green leather armchairs drinking fresh tea from the silver samovar at the end of the inlaid oak-and-brass conference table. In the background the four big Ilyushin engines droned on steadily through the night sky over the Ural Mountains. All four men had been at a secret meeting with their “foreign” counterparts at Putin’s billion-dollar Black Sea residence near the tiny village of Praskoveyevka, population four hundred and forty-two. They were now an hour out of Moscow on the Russian version of Air Force One, a luxurious gutted version of an Ilyushin II-96, the work done by the English company Diamonite for a reported ten million British pounds sterling. Another few million euros had been spent in Voronezh, the headquarters of the Voronezh Aircraft Production Association, to protect the aircraft from any satellite, EMP or broadband intrusion. VAPA and a variety of other engineers then installed enough electronic equipment in the aircraft to launch every army, navy and air force group to defend Mother Russia from any foe stupid enough to step into the great bear’s den. It also had the telemetry to launch all sixteen thousand nuclear warheads left in the Russian arsenal.

  “A very nice dacha you have, Vladimir,” commented Gundyaev, patriarch of Moscow. “There has been some comment on it in the press lately, foreign and domestic. Very lavish.”

  “Not nearly as lavish as Buckingham Palace.” Putin laughed.

  “A billion dollars, Volodya?” Medvedev asked, using his childhood nickname for Putin. “A little much, don’t you think, in a worldwide recession, as they call it?”

  “And during that same recession the Canadian prime minister, the one with the plastic hair, spends the same amount on a weekend in Toronto for a G8 conference.” Putin snorted, then took a long swallow of the fragrant tea. “At least I built something with the government’s money.”

  “The Canadian was reelected with a majority,” teased Medvedev.

  “Who knows.” Putin shrugged. “Maybe Canadians like their leaders to have plastic hair. To me he looks like the man who plays the organ at a funeral. He makes me queasy.” Putin laughed. “Not that Canada matters much in the scheme of things.”

  “They have enormous natural resources,” said Medvedev.

  “What they have, others own. It was the essence of the meeting we just had,” Putin said. “It is no longer a world of governments; we must face that or Russia will fade into history, her best people lost in a diaspora of greed to other nations.”

  “You really believe that?” Bortnikov said.

  “Certainly,” replied Putin, nodding. “The future of Russia lies in private equity.”

  “Do away with government?” Gundyaev said. The patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church actually looked frightened by the thought.

  “Why not?” Putin said. “Effectively the world as we know it is run by half a dozen major corporations and another half dozen secret conglomerates the world has never heard of.”

  “And the Vatican?” the patriarch asked.

  “There have been various audits over the years, rarely placing the value of the Vatican holdings at something just over a billion dollars, which is absurd, of course. In terms of simple real estate they probably have holdings of at least a trillion dollars worldwide, and this doesn’t include their corporate investments, like Fiat automobiles and Bank of America.”

  “What about our corporations?” Bortnikov, the FSB chief, asked.

  “Gazprom, Rosneft, LUKOIL, Novatek, Gazprom Neft-the top five companies are all oil and gas producers, and the other five making the top ten are steel companies. Natural resources requiring outside buyers-exactly like the Canadians. An economy like that is always vulnerable to the whims of Wall Street and other stock exchanges. Watch CNN or the BBC-how often is the RTS mentioned? Never. We have one billion dollars in the equity trading market; the Americans have more than a trillion dollars in private equity funds. There are individual companies in America larger than our entire country’s investment in private equity. This is insanity, gentlemen.”

  “During the Cold War it was an arms race; now it is all about money,” said Bortnikov wistfully.

  Putin angrily rattled his spoon in his teacup, placing another lump of sugar in it. “During the Cold War the Russian bear was a world power to be feared. The Americans shook in their boots when the bear roared. We were a worthy foe. Now the Americans dance in the streets when their military kills one sick lunatic cowering in his compound in Pakistan, watching himself on television. If the Americans think of us at all it is as a source of immigrant organized crime, the Mafiya. We are little more than a joke, and a joke unable to deal with its own domestic squabbles, like Georgia or Chechnya. It must change, and soon.”

  “What you say is all fine and good, Volodya, but I still don’t see how this has anything to do with the Church, Victor Genrikhovich, the American or the Phoenix order.”

  “It has everything to do with them,” answered Putin. A white-jacketed steward who was actually a junior officer in the Kremlin presidential guard appeared carrying a tray of freshly made blinis, Golden Osetra caviar, creme fraiche, a bottle of Georgievskaya vodka and four flare-topped crystal glasses. The guard set down the tray, deftly put a glass and a small plate in front of each of the four men, filled the glasses from the bottle and then withdrew as silently as he appeared. In the background the engines of the big jet thundered quietly through the darkness.

  Putin took a blini off the stack on the tray, put a big dollop of the pale yellow caviar in the center of the crepe-thin pancake and topped it with another dollop of the slightly sour creme fraiche. He folded the blini into a little package, then popped the whol
e thing into his mouth. He closed his eyes for a moment, savoring the wonderful assortment of tastes, then swallowed. He opened his eyes, took a sip of the chilled vodka, then sat back in his armchair with a contented sigh.

  “The Church, Victor Genrikhovich and the American,” reminded Gundyaev, spooning a heaping mound of caviar onto his own blini. “Not to mention the Phoenix order.”

  “Ah, yes.” Putin nodded. “It’s like pieces in a puzzle-each piece has its place in the larger picture. As you are aware, we have consolidated the Church’s position inside Russia and are ready to expand to include all the Orthodox churches worldwide. We are already the largest of those churches numerically, and consolidation would give us power equal to that of the Vatican.”

  “All of which I am well aware, Volodya,” said Gundyaev.

  “But if our assumptions about Genrikhovich and his theory are correct and he was right about the Bulgarian monk and his long-lost knight, then the Phoenix order’s power is permanently broken, and we will have a weapon to hold the Vatican in check forever.”

  “And if it is a fantasy, like it was for Stalin, Khrushchev and the others who came after. . including yourself, Volodya?”

  “Then we have Holliday, at least.” He nodded across the table at Bortnikov, the FSB chief. “Vasily has had him under loose surveillance for quite some time, and his research bureau has developed an extensive dossier. Genrikhovich, the Bulgarian and his friend the priest-archaeologist simply provided a way to lure him into our sphere of influence, so to speak. He hardly would have come to Russia without some major incentive, which we provided.”

  “And what if Holliday and his vast Templar riches are as much a fantasy as Genrikhovich’s Holy Grail or whatever it is? Have you thought about that?” Medvedev said.

  “Holliday’s treasure is no fantasy. The Vatican has tried to assassinate him on more than one occasion, and that maniac billionaire in the United States tried as well. That is not fantasy, Dmitry; even the financial hierarchy of his own order wants what he has and will not share.”