The Thieves of Faith

by Richard Doetsch

  He was afforded access to all things Soviet, privy to the knowledge of the infamously secretive government. He was a powerful man in a powerful nation—and it intoxicated him.

  It was on a Sunday evening thirty-eight years ago that he sat in his office at the Palace of Congresses within the Kremlin walls, stacks of top-secret files before him. The reams of documents and charts, firsthand accounts and historical testimonials, were all research on a single subject. It was a legend Vladimir had been fascinated with since the age of eleven. Now, with so many of the historical records at his fingertips, he indulged his childhood obsession: Ivan the Great’s Liberia, the wonderful, mysterious library thought hidden somewhere deep beneath the Kremlin. He read with fascination of the speculations on its contents, of the many excavations in search of its location, of the frustration throughout the years of never learning its whereabouts. But there was one document in particular that had captured the young doctor’s mind: a brief biography of Dmitri Zhitnik, a monk and the most trusted confidant of Tsar Ivan Grozny. It illuminated Ivan the Terrible’s reasoning for hiding his grandfather’s Liberia from all of mankind. For Ivan was looking for redemption for his soul; he was looking to save the lives of the people he had once so inhumanly put to death. Upon his deathbed, Zhitnik at his side, Ivan shared his logic, his final words, his final secret…Casting the whereabouts of the veiled chamber to the winds with his dying breath, Ivan disclosed to Dmitri Zhitnik the location of the fabled Liberia.

  The young Vladimir’s days were filled with genetics, biochemistry, and medicine while his nighttimes were occupied with historical research, trips through the Kremlin underground, and wild speculation as he pursued the library and all of its treasures and secrets. It became his pastime, a way to clear his mind of the day’s obstacles, a recreational avocation.

  Vladimir Skovokov came out of the Soviet machine, a brilliant mind identified at the age of nine, his mental acumen nurtured and exercised, honed to an intellect sharper than Spanish steel. He was capable of more breakthroughs in a single day than most would strive for in a lifetime. He was the pride and joy of the old regime and had brought renown and admiration to the USSR through his cutting-edge medical research, discoveries, and treatments.

  But his methods remained behind a wall of secrecy. Skovokov’s ego was uncontainable. His drive bordered on a maniacal obsession; nothing would stand in his way. Incompetent assistants would be sent to Siberian obscurity, teams that failed to meet his uncompromising standards became test subjects for his latest theories. His research methods bore comparison to Mengele and Ishii. He exposed subjects to disease, to illness, to pain, all for the purpose of testing his solutions and posited theories. But his results and successes spoke for themselves, and caused all to look the other way.

  With the collapse of Communism, his funding and facilities withered and died. He watched while the world he knew, the world that embraced him, melted away. He left Moscow in 1993, heading for Switzerland. He moved through various universities and teaching positions longing for the freedom he had enjoyed for so much of his life, but the stories of his less-than-ethical approach caught up with him, and he soon became a virtual pariah to the medical world.

  Throughout his lean years, Skovokov became bitter; while others grew rich, he simply grew old. His talents lay dormant due to his reputation and more-than-questionable research methods. And while he yearned for the Russia of old, he knew it to be the dream of a foolish man. It was a dream that had turned to a nightmare. Not even history would look upon Communism as anything more than a social experiment gone awry.

  It was while attending a biology lecture in England that he was approached by Julian Zivera. The young man’s drive and knowledge of Skovokov’s research bordered on the obsessive, and certainly appealed to Skovokov’s ego. They sat in the hotel bar at the Ritz until four in the morning talking about religion, science, and legend. They shared an uncommon appetite for unlocking the secrets of the body, the secrets of the soul, the secrets of the heart through whatever means necessary. Skovokov told Julian of his theories, his medical acumen, and his unrealized goals. And he told Julian of the legendary library still undiscovered beneath the Kremlin, of its rumored secrets and riches, of Zhitnik’s map and how it had spurred his mind, setting him on his life’s journey. Julian told him of God’s Truth, of his medical facilities, of his unlimited resources, and of his need for talent. And so a bond was formed in that early hour, a relationship based on shared interests and pursuits.

  Skovokov worked for two years at God’s Truth: ten patents and six drugs created in less than twenty-four months. But he was growing angry, watching as the supposed partnership with Julian proved to be nothing of the sort. He was being used, his mind but the source of further wealth for Julian Zivera, and it filled him with a feeling of betrayal.

  Just as he was about to pack up and leave, Julian called him up to his castle. They sat in the library overlooking the sea. The day was warm, the crisp blue sky reflected in the cresting waves of the ocean. Julian poured Skovokov a warm Grey Goose vodka and excitedly told him…

  He had found the location of Zhitnik’s map.

  It was an incredible story but, Julian insisted, a true one; he asked Skovokov to partner with him, to be his guide, his Russian counterpart in finding the Liberia and its mythical contents.

  But the map never arrived as promised, rumored to be stolen. Skovokov didn’t believe it, thinking that Julian had reconsidered, once again finding a way to cheat him out of what should rightfully be his.

  Skovokov had had enough of Julian. He had shared his mind, his research, his breakthroughs, but he was too disheartened to share his dream anymore. He packed up his research, his patents, and his drugs, and made a single phone call. Skovokov realized that the owner of this map would have a fortune beyond imagination, greater than the GNP of most countries. How better to restore his Russia to its former glory? It would be like the days of old in the world of tomorrow. The financial reward would be unimaginable. Skovokov decided then and there that the fruits of his labor should not go to the hightest bidder but rather to the land of his origin. He would give back to the country that gave so unselfishly to him while availing himself of a generous percentage.

  One phone call later, the Russian machine that he loved so much had gone into motion. Teams were activated rebuilding Skovokov’s medical facilities. The FSB, the KGB’s successor, recalled their best man, who would help attain the legendary map. Raechen was that one man, and the assurance of his success had come to fruition; he delivered the one thing that could persuade Julian to turn over the Kremlin underground map: his mother, Genevieve Zivera.

  Skovokov looked down at Genevieve now. She was sedated, strapped to the gurney she was brought in on, unaware of her fate or location: nine stories underground, in the most secure building in all of Russia. Her face was serene as she lay under a cover of white blankets. Skovokov was amazed at her youthful appearance—her dark hair, her flawless skin—but more by the fact that he saw no resemblance at all to Julian. He reached down and thumbed the cross about her neck, wondering if she was truly a religious woman or if she wore it for the fashion appeal, similar to the religious facade that her son presented on a daily basis.

  And as Skovokov looked down at her, it was without feeling or emotion; she was no different than the dead bodies that lay within the cold-storage units. He viewed her simply as chattel to be traded for the map of Dmitri Zhitnik. He had no compunction about ending her life if Julian did not comply with his demands.

  “How is your son?” Skovokov asked as he flipped off the light to the lab.

  Raechen turned to him. For such a ruthless man, he had trouble voicing his son’s current condition. “He is weak. I do not know how much longer he can hold out.”

  They walked out together down the hall, stepped into a freight elevator, and rode silently up the nine-story climb. The elevator came to an abrupt stop and the doors parted; two guards turned to them and nodded, allowing t
hem to pass. The doctor and the assassin walked into a grand marble foyer, the ceiling stretching up twenty feet, the wooden benches against the wall unchanged in the last hundred and fifty years. An enormous double-headed eagle relief, its copper sheen oxidized to green, filled the far wall.

  The giant doors opened and the morning sun poured in. They walked out of the Arsenal, and as the two men looked out across the grounds of the Kremlin, they both held hope in their heart. Raechen for his son. Skovokov for the future.

  “God be with you, gentlemen,” Julian said as he shook the two Australians’ hands. “You’ll find the details regarding our pharmaceutical offerings along with various investments you may partake of inside the confidential package we have left on the backseat of your limousine. I encourage you to take advantage of all that God’s Truth has to offer. As we like to say, ‘Devotion to the Lord should provide at least some benefits before you get to Heaven.’”

  Julian smiled as he watched the two middle-aged men get in the limo and drive off. He finally headed back in the house and walked directly to the back stairs. They were carved from the rock foundation and radiated a pleasant coolness.

  Three stories below the former monastery was the wine cellar, vast and well stocked with over ten thousand bottles; a world seen by only Julian’s closest friends and his mortal enemies. It dated back centuries and was where the monks would toil their life away making wine, a singular pursuit in their silent service to the Church. The enormous vats were polished and still on display, the presses standing in testament to the room’s history.

  And after a life of devotion to God and drink, the monks would travel one floor down to the crypt below where they would be laid to rest. The crypt had been designed to hold over a thousand bodies in individual stone and marble tombs, but as the monastery’s devotees dwindled, the crypt found an ever-diminishing use and remained more than half empty. And though wine production had stopped many years ago, the use of the crypt continued since Julian Zivera’s ascension to the head of God’s Truth.

  While the tombs were filled mostly with the devout of centuries past—monks, priests, nuns—there were several that contained deceased of a more recent vintage: enemies of Julian who were dispatched for everything from failed assassination attempts to unsatisfying lovemaking.

  He personally opened a fresh tomb, number 799, removing the marble top, and set it aside in wait for its future occupant. Julian selected a ’78 Montrachet from Domaine de la Romanée-Conti. The white wine, bought at a U.S. auction, was a fitting choice for an American attorney. For while the toast would be to life, it would also be to death. For upon Michael St. Pierre’s completion of his task, Julian had arranged for all involved to be removed.

  And Stephen Kelley would be the first.

  Chapter 22

  Michael stood in the middle of Red Square, overwhelmed by its size and history. He had seen it so many times on television, the Russian army parading all of the USSR’s military might before the government reviewing stand on May Day. The images of enormous ballistic missiles being pulled on flatbeds had been seared into his head. He remembered as a child seeing the vast amount of tanks and tens of thousands of soldiers all marching in severe goose-step ranks broadcast to convey their overwhelming menace, their undefeatable might. The Cold War threat of potential annihilation by nuclear war was a reality that hung over the entire world until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

  He had seen St. Basil’s Cathedral countless times, a symbol of Russia like the Eiffel Tower was to France, Big Ben was to England, or the Statue of Liberty was to the United States. It was something out of a fairy tale, its vast palette a profusion of colors stretching over a host of cupolas, arches, towers, and spires: blues, yellows, greens, and reds. The red-brick structure was composed of nine chapels crowned by nine onion-shaped domes, each with their own distinct motif yet blending together in an array not seen anywhere in the world. But like so many things, its exterior was far greater than its contents: its small cramped interior bore none of the creativity of its facade and was seldom open to worship. Most striking to Michael was that each dome was capped with the same symbol. In a land where religion was forbidden for seventy years, the crosses stood in judgment during the Red Fear era, casting their shadows on the parading military of the Communist world.

  To Michael’s left stood the enormous GUM mall, a vast shopping venue with a current tenancy not unlike any American mall—Reebok, Pierre Cardin, Clinique, Levi’s, Tiffany’s—while to his right sat Lenin’s tomb, no longer accorded the honor guard that had stood for decades protecting the feared leader and architect of the Russian revolution and Soviet Communism. His red granite mausoleum was a tiered pyramid crowned by a marble slab supported by thirty-six columns. Immediately behind the mausoleum sat the Revolution Necropolis where the bust-adorned graves of not only Stalin, Brezhnev, and Andropov stood, but also many of Russia’s cultural icons like cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin and writer Maxim Gorky.

  But above all, what caught Michael’s eye was the enormous wall behind the memorial to the dead. It stood sixty feet high and was up to twenty feet thick. It ran for nearly a mile and a half with swallow-tailed battlements, interspersed with nineteen enormous towers, most of which were built at the end of the fifteenth century by Italian architects. Each tower was capped with a distinctive jade-green spire and crowned by either a ruby-red star or a golden flag. It was truly a fortress out of the past, one that had successfully fended off tens of thousands of ancient troops through countless battles, an impenetrable first line of defense that contained the politics and mysteries of Russia’s past, present, and future.

  Peeking over the great walls, Michael could see the top of the Grand Kremlin Palace and the spires of the Cathedral of the Archangel. All part of a world that was foreign yet familiar. He was facing a heavily defended small city that possessed a modern level of security, complementing its ancient castle-like defenses. He was looking at one of the most guarded arenas in the world, a place that he would not only need to enter but penetrate to its very depths; for behind and below these walls was the golden box, the key to his father’s survival.

  Michael looked about the open space around him—four city blocks in size—and briefly marveled at the site. Red Square was vibrant, metropolitan, nowhere near what he had pictured. The summer blue sky only managed to burnish the colorful world. It was as cosmopolitan as any city in western Europe. Michael had fallen victim to the black-and-white images of his youth and the rumors of oppression, not realizing that Russia had truly become a capitalist dream. The square was a wide open mall: Nestlé ice cream carts scattered about, peddlers selling balloons, tourists buying trinkets from street carts.

  Though thousands of people, tourists and Russians alike, were milling about the square, Michael paid them no mind as he refocused on his sole purpose. He was memorizing his surroundings, learning the flow of the crowds, studying the structures before him. Because his time as a tourist here was short, his time as an observer had to be efficient.

  Michael looked at his watch. 9:59. He reached in his jacket pocket and withdrew the cell phone. He fought to contain his anger as he hit the preprogrammed number.

  “Glad you made it,” Zivera answered after the first ring. “Not as glad as your father but…Good luck.”

  And the line went dead.

  “Looking a little obvious there.” The voice was Russian, with a strong accent.

  Michael turned to see a square, heavyset man with a slight paunch hanging over his belt. He was the proverbial bulldog of a man, five nine, two twenty, his body as wide at the waist as it was at the shoulder. His hair was too black: the mop of ebony locks couldn’t have been more unnatural. He wore horn-rim glasses with Coke-bottle lenses, his right eye milky with blindness. Everything about him was thick: his nose and lips, his cheeks, even his neck all combined in a face only a mother could love. As frightful as he looked, it all washed away with a perfect smile. “Nikolai Fetisov,” he said as he held out his
meaty hand.

  Michael shook his hand. “You sure I’m the one you’re looking for?”

  Nikolai took out a picture, looked at it, held it out at arm’s length next to Michael’s face, his one good eye shifting from the picture to Michael and back. “You’re uglier in person.” He smiled and led the way down the middle of the square, walking with a slight shuffle.

  Michael felt a severe case of dread trusting an unknown man like this as his contact in this foreign land. Michael looked about the square, at the faces of the people, wondering how many associates were watching this Fetisov’s back. He wasn’t fooled by the gregarious demeanor or the toothy smile; Michael didn’t need to see his dossier to know that, despite his appearance, he was more than dangerous.

  “Where are we going?” Michael asked.

  “We have an appointment.”

  “With?”

  “Relax,” Fetisov said in heavily accented English, “it’s nothing to worry about. I’m here to help.”

  Michael had his doubts. “Zivera obviously hired you for a reason, what is it?”

  “What, no American small talk?”

  Michael shook his head.

  Fetisov stopped in the middle of the square and faced Michael, his one good eye deadly serious. “I am what you call a man with connections.”

  “Connections to what?”

  Nikolai looked around at the people milling about, the police on their rounds, and finally at the enormous Kremlin walls. “Everything.”

  Busch sat with Susan in the large backseat of a ZiL stretch limo, watching the flow of the Moskva River out of his window. They were parked on Ilyinska ulitsa. They had landed at a private airstrip just outside of Moscow. Busch wondered what it cost to pay off the Russian authorities; he and Michael hadn’t even left the plane when they received their passports back stamped and processed. It all was taken care of by Martin, who sat across from him now. The man might as well have been mute. Not a single word uttered on the flight or in the limo. Busch judged him to be around fifty-five. What little hair he possessed was perfectly groomed and had not yet begun to gray, but his tired eyes spoke volumes about his years. He was focused on a ledger, deep in thought, his fingers furiously working a calculator. Busch had tried to make small talk but the man not only failed to respond, he never looked up, fingers continuing to work the adding machine.