The Black Sun

by James Twining

  He entered the Rodin Room and ran a finger along the nearest frame. It came away dusty. Then he made his way to the Gauguin Room, only to discover that it too had yet to be cleaned. They must be in the Monet Room, he muttered to himself, but that too was untouched. He felt the anger building inside him.

  The three guards who were supposed to be patrolling that section of the museum were loitering in the Renoir Room, taking a cigarette break. As usual. “You seen the two cleaners for this section?” Mironov demanded. “A big fat guy and his mute friend?”

  One of the guards broke away from the other two and hustled Mironov out of the room, draping

  a

  protective

  arm

  around

  his

  shoulder.

  322 james twining

  “Don’t worry. They explained everything. I let them through, no questions asked.” He winked.

  “What?”

  “A third for you, a third for me. The director gets his office cleaned and everyone’s happy.” The guard patted him warmly on the back. “Good doing business with you.” He laughed and went to rejoin his colleagues.

  Mironov stood in the middle of the room, seething with rage. So, those two jokers were freelancing, were they? Thought they could get away with cutting him out. Well, he’d have them up in front of the Committee for neglecting their jobs. And he’d report the director, too. He’d never liked him anyway.

  Muttering

  angrily

  to

  himself,

  he

  set

  off

  for

  the

  staff

  offices.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN

  MAIN ATELIER, RESTORATION DEPARTMENT,

  THE HERMITAGE

  January 11—12:22 a.m.

  Tom stepped gratefully into the room. But his elation was short-lived. Someone was approaching. He could hear footsteps that paused suddenly, followed by a rattle, then footsteps again. His eyes shot to the door handle. Would Renwick have bothered to lock it?

  Unwilling to take the risk, Tom gently pushed the vault door shut behind him and slipped under the sheet covering a tall statue of Mercury near the door. As the footsteps grew louder, he huddled close to the statue, his nose inches away from a vine leaf that had been strategically positioned to preserve its modesty. The winged god’s arms were outstretched in flight, creating a tentlike space under the thin white shroud. Even so, Tom hardly dared breathe in case the rise of his chest could be detected through the fabric. A sharp rattle on the handle was followed by the groan of the hinges as the door creaked open. A squeak of shoe leather on the marble floor, and then nothing. Tom guessed that whoever it was had stopped for a good look around. There was a slight gap between the sheet and the floor, and he could just make out a pair of old but wellpolished shoes.

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  He heard someone muttering in Russian, and the shoes turned back toward the door. The shoes were almost out of the room when they stopped again. The man crouched down, Tom able to make out an outstretched index finger being run across the floor’s surface. As the finger was lifted, Tom could see the dark stain left by Turnbull’s blood. The man sprang up, the shoes swiveling and following the trail of blood to the vault. Tom leapt from his cover as the man ran past, the sheet coming with him as he shouldercharged him. The impact sent the guard crashing into one of the workbenches, and he let out a grunt as the wind was knocked out of him.

  Tom scrambled to his feet, desperately trying to wrestle his way out of the sheet that was still wrapped around his head and arms in case the guard went for his gun. But in that moment a large bottle on the workbench, unbalanced by the impact of the collision, teetered off the edge and dropped onto the Russian’s skull.

  Brown glass flew everywhere as the bottle exploded with a crash, and the guard’s head slumped

  to

  his

  chest.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT

  12:25 a.m.

  Grigory Mironov turned the corner just in time to hear the sound of breaking glass, followed almost immediately by the sound of the door to the Restoration Department being locked.

  “Who’s there?” he shouted, beating on the door with his fist. “Open up.”

  Mironov had done two tours of duty in Afghanistan back in the eighties. His fitness levels might have dropped, but he reckoned he still knew how to handle himself. Certainly, he had no qualms about confronting whoever was inside.

  “I’m coming in,” he warned. There was no answer, just the sound of more glass being broken.

  Reaching for the massive bunch of keys attached to his leather belt, he frantically rattled through them, identified the one he was looking for, tried it, found it didn’t work, tried another.

  The door opened.

  He leaped into the room, his flashlight raised over his head as a makeshift club. But the room was empty. A sharp bite of cold air on the back of his neck made him look up. One of the skylights had been smashed. The intruder had escaped to the roof. 326 james twining

  Glass crunched beneath his feet and he looked down. The floor was wet. His eyes followed the stream of dark liquid to the guard’s body, slumped against a workbench. Mironov ran to his side and felt for a pulse. Seeing that he was still alive, he laid him down on the floor and radioed for assistance.

  Within forty-five seconds, men were pouring through the door, guns drawn.

  “What happened?” demanded the senior officer.

  “We had two new men start tonight. I sent them up to clean a few of the Western Art galleries, but they never showed up. I think they bribed one of the guards to allow them down here. I came looking for them. All I heard was a shout and then the sound of breaking glass. I think they must have gone up there.” He pointed up at the shattered skylight.

  “Could you recognize them if you saw them?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Good. In that case you’re coming with us. I want people up on the roof and all exits sealed. Then I want a room-by-room search until we find these bastards. Alexsei?”

  “Yes, sir.” A young guard who had until now remained by the door stepped forward.

  “Stay here with Ivan. I’ll get a medical team up here as soon as I can.”

  “Yes sir.”

  Mironov and the guards trooped out of the room, their voices excited and determined. Alexsei crouched next to Ivan and loosened his collar, wiping small pieces of broken glass

  from

  his

  hair.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE

  12:28 a.m.

  As he crouched behind the worktop, Tom’s mind was racing. Smashing the skylight had convinced the guards that he must have escaped through it. But it was a trick that would last only as long as it took them to get up there and find the roof deserted. He had to find a way past the guard and out of this room. Fast.

  He peeked out from behind the worktop and caught a glimpse of the guard they’d left—Alexsei, the others had called him. Tom’s heart leapt. It was the same guard who’d deactivated the metal detector when scanning Turnbull. Clearly, he owed Viktor a favor. Tom hoped the debt would extend to helping him. He was hardly loaded with options. Tom stood up and the guard’s hand shot instinctively to his hip.

  “Wait,” Tom said urgently.

  “You go.” The guard looked terrified. His eyes flicked nervously to the door.

  “How?” Tom pulled out his map of the museum and pointed at it questioningly. The guard grabbed it and traced a route with a shaking finger. It led down an adjacent stairwell, all the way along the first floor into the Small Hermitage, 328 james twining

  then into the Great Hermitage until . . . Tom squinted, un

  certain that he was seeing it right.

  “The canal?” he asked uncertainly.

  “Da,” said the guard, then made some hand and leg movements that seemed to imply Tom should make his escape by
climbing down into the canal and swimming away. Now wasn’t the time to explain that, with his shoulder in its current state, he wouldn’t be able to climb or swim anywhere. He’d have to figure something out when he got there. With a muttered “spasibo” he grabbed the key that the guard was holding out to him.

  “Call Viktor. Let her know what’s happening,” said Tom, acting out making a phone call while thrusting the scrap of paper Viktor had given him with her number written on it into the guard’s hand.

  The guard nodded dumbly in response, but Tom was already gone, the crunching of feet on the roof overhead as the guards arrived at the shattered skylight echoing in his ears as he sprinted out of the room.

  The key the guard had given him unlocked the door at the top of the staircase. Tom flew down it, emerging onto the first floor moments later. The corridor was deserted, the guards having presumably joined the search upstairs and on the roof, and he broke into a run across the polished herringbone parquet floor, his shoulder burning, the pain making him feel faint. He followed the map across the small bridge into the northern pavilion of the Small Hermitage and then used the key to enter the passage gallery that led into the Great Hermitage.

  He found himself in the museum’s Italian collection, a group of thirty rooms dedicated to the development of Italian art between the thirteenth and nineteenth centuries, and slowed to a cautious walk. The parts of the museum he had just run through were mainly administrative and therefore only sparsely patrolled. The galleries, however, contained two of only twelve paintings in the world known to have been painted by Leonardo da Vinci. Here, security wouldn’t be so lax.

  His

  caution

  was

  well

  founded.

  No

  sooner

  had

  he

  crossed

  the black sun 329

  into the first room than he made out a man’s silhouette in the distance. The rooms here were all interconnected, and it was almost possible to see from one end of the building to the other through the open doorways. Tom estimated that the person he had seen was no more than two rooms away.

  He quickly decided against taking him on. Even if his shoulder had been up to it, he couldn’t risk the guard getting a shot off. Moreover, he didn’t know how many other guards there were on that floor. Any disturbance would bring them all rushing in. The room offered no natural cover apart from the wood-paneled walls, so Tom crouched by the door, his back flat to the wall, hidden in the shadows. A few moments later, the guard entered the room and walked straight past him.

  As soon as the guard had moved on, Tom slipped into the adjacent room, then the one after that. Again, though, he saw the looming shadow of an approaching guard. This time, with light pouring through the window from one of the floodlights outside, there were no shadows to hide him. Tom dropped to his belly and crawled under a red velvet chaise longue. Peering through the golden-tasseled brocade, he saw the guard enter the gallery, pause, look around, then move on.

  Tom continued on to the next room and ducked behind the base of a large statue. He was almost at the northeastern corner of the building. Ahead of him, he could see the glazed bridge that led over the Winter Canal to the Hermitage Theatre. But first he would have to evade one final guard, who was loitering in the room, muttering to himself. Finally he gave a sigh, turned on his heel, and retreated south. From his movements, it looked as though he was on some sort of set patrol, which meant that the others would soon be retracing their steps toward Tom. Whatever he was going to do, he had to do it now.

  As soon as he was certain that it was safe, he padded over to the far wall and looked expectantly out the window. His heart sank. Not only was the canal’s surface frozen, but even if he’d been able to negotiate the thirty-foot drop, his escape route to the river was barred by a thick iron grille that ran between the underside of the bridge’s arch and the ice.

  He

  was

  trapped.

  330 james twining

  He turned, desperately searching for some inspiration, however remote, before the guards returned. Almost unconsciously, he found himself locking eyes with a large white marble bust of Catherine the Great, who leered at him, silently challenging him to escape her palace.

  But her unfeeling stare gave him an idea. He examined the windows that gave onto the narrow canal. They were alarmed but, thankfully, not screwed shut. That meant he could open them if he wanted to.

  He went back to the bust and, grimacing with the pain, lifted it off its plinth and staggered over to the window, rolling it with relief onto the top of the deep wooden windowsill. He wasn’t sure how thick the ice would be, or how heavy the bust was, but he knew that it would fall heavily from that height. If it broke through, he could jump through the hole, swim under the ice and the grille, and come up in the Neva itself, which thankfully had not frozen that year.

  Of course, getting out of the river would be another matter. In those temperatures, hypothermia would set in within minutes, so he wouldn’t be able to afford to hang around. Whatever the risks, it still beat getting shot in the back by a panicked guard. He climbed up onto the windowsill, took a deep breath, then lifted the latch and opened the window. Immediately a deafening alarm filled the room and he heard the sound of shouts and running feet.

  With a firm kick, he toppled the statue over the edge. Its white bulk sailed gracefully through the air and crashed into the ice, splitting a wide hole in its surface and then sinking out of sight.

  The shouts were closer now, the footsteps almost in the same room. Tom stood up and looked over his shoulder. Five guards were bearing down on him, their guns pointing in his general direction. The first shot rang out, the bullet fizzing past his ear and slamming into the plasterwork.

  Without

  hesitating

  Tom

  jumped

  into

  the

  dark

  waters

  below.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY

  12:51 a.m.

  The cold water bit savagely into him as he arrowed through the hole in the ice. The shock made him inhale sharply, his lungs only half filling with air as the water closed over his head. His momentum carried him down to the canal floor, and he felt its soft, loamy bed grasp his ankles as he touched down, as if trying to hold him there. Immediately Tom kicked off in what he believed to be the direction of the metal grille and the river, hoping that he could hold his breath long enough to get there.

  He tried to open his eyes to see where he was going, but the cold clawed against them like a blunt knife, forcing him to screw them tightly shut. Unable to tell where he was going, or even if he was heading up or down, Tom kicked furiously with his legs, his hands scooping the water ahead of him.

  A sharp knock on the back of his head told him that he’d hit the ice, a series of highpitched pings echoing immediately above him confirming it—bullets drilling into the ice as the guards fired down on him from the rooms above. For a moment he was grateful that the ice was as thick as it was, until he remembered that he was trapped beneath it. He

  tried

  to

  angle

  himself

  down

  a

  bit

  but

  found

  that

  his

  332 james twining

  legs were becoming strangely unresponsive, as if the cold had wrapped a thick blanket around them that he was trying to kick free. His damaged shoulder had seized up completely. With his other hand he reached out and felt a wall to his left—the side of the Hermitage. Using it as a guide, he half dragged himself, half swam toward the river, his chest and throat burning as the muscles constricted, his heart pounding, his stomach feeling bruised.

  He swam on, each kick of his legs tightening the metal fist that was closing slowly around his lungs. Every muscle, every organ in his body was crying out for air, and Tom was
gripped by the strange sensation that he was falling through the water from a great height. He knew then that he was drowning.

  With a last, desperate thrust, he propelled himself forward and felt the grille in front of him, cold and hard as the bars on a prison cell. He pulled himself down its face, kicking and kicking until it felt he must have swum almost to the center of the earth, a sharp, stabbing pain in his eyes and ears.

  Finally he found a gap between the canal bed and the bottom of the grille. He squeezed through it, his head exploding, small stars and flashes of light strobing across the inside of his eyelids.

  He tried one last kick, but his legs barely moved, the riverbed soft and inviting beneath him, the lights of St. Petersburg glimmering soothingly down through the water like stars on the far side of the universe. Everything was quiet and still. Two hands suddenly surged out of the darkness and grabbed him roughly. He had the sensation of flying, of soaring toward the stars like a rocket, his body screaming, his brain roaring. And then he was free, coughing and gasping, his lungs hungrily sucking in air, his throat uncoiling itself, the knot of his heart slackening off.

  “Get him in the boat.” He heard Viktor’s voice behind him and realized that it was her hand that was wrapped protectively across his chest as she dragged him backward through

  the

  water.

  the black sun 333

  Two pairs of arms reached down and hauled him out of the water, immediately wrapping several towels around him. He caught a glimpse of Viktor, fully clothed, climbing up the ladder behind him.

  “Let’s go,” he heard her say. The engine that had been idling roared into life, the speedboat lifting its nose out of the water as it accelerated. The fiberglass hull skipped and slapped across the river’s surface as the Hermitage receded into the distance. Viktor sat down opposite him, handing him a hot drink that he held between his clenched fists, still unable to move his fingers.

  “I guess now we’re even,” she shouted over the engine.