Red Templar Read online

  “If that’s true he wasn’t as drunk as we thought.”

  “This is my thinking as well, Doc. He tricked us.”

  “Why?”

  “There is only one way we will know.”

  “Find him.”

  “Si.”

  The train was made up of fifteen cars: three first-class, like the car Holliday and Eddie were in, each with ten compartments with four bunks each. Beyond that was the dining car, a bar lounge car for snacks and overpriced booze, four second-class cars that were like old-fashioned American Pullmans, two seats down, one bunk up, and then six third-class coaches with eight bunks crammed into each compartment. At the end were the baggage car, the generator car and the locomotive. They searched the train again from end to end, but there was no sign of Genrikhovich. They checked all the toilets and asked all the provodnitsas, but no one had seen anybody fitting Genrikhovich’s description. Both of the conductors agreed that the train was completely full and all their passengers were accounted for. Unless Genrikhovich had somehow managed to crawl under somebody’s bunk, he simply wasn’t on the train.

  On their way back to their compartment they stopped in the plainly decorated dining car and ate an early and expensive breakfast of meat-filled pelmeni in piping-hot broth, a slice of heavy bread, some sort of smoked fish with the head still on and a gigantic chrome thermos of black, very strong coffee.

  “Did somebody take him or did he run on his own?” Holliday wondered.

  “There couldn’t have been much of a struggle-I would have heard, or the provodnitsa would have. No, compadre, we must accept that leaving us was his idea.”

  “But why come all this way, lead us along, bring us into the middle of nowhere? I don’t get it, Eddie.”

  “Nor do I, mi coronel,” responded the Cuban. He stared out the window. Holliday could see flickering bright images of a wide river through the trees. Most probably the Volga. He was riding through Russian history. Finally Eddie spoke again. “Have you ever played chess, companero?”

  “When I was a kid.” Holliday nodded. He sipped some of the scalding coffee. “My uncle Henry taught me. He said it formed the basis of most military strategy.”

  “It was compulsory in my group of Young Pioneers. Our leader wanted to become the Cuban Boris Spassky.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “We are playing a game of chess and we have no idea what pieces we are-pawns, rooks or knights.”

  “My vote would be pawns. Genrikhovich had a good story and we fell for it. I think the real analogy is that we don’t even know which side of the board we’re playing on, black or white.”

  “Maybe red and white would be more apropiado, considering where we are.”

  “Lets get back to the compartment; we’ve got some decisions to make.”

  “Si,mi coronel, such as deciding whether we should stay on the board or absent ourselves, yes?”

  “You bet your ass, Eddie.”

  By the time they made their way back through the creaking, swaying cars the sun was fully up. Holliday wanted to ask their provodnitsa whether she was sure she hadn’t seen Genrikhovich earlier that morning, but she wasn’t in her usual place at the samovar or in her little cabin at the end of the car. Even provodnitsas took pee breaks, he supposed. He turned around and went back to their compartment. He slid the door open. Eddie was seated on the right-hand bunk. The provodnitsa was seated across from him. Instead of a little silver tray with glass cups of amber-colored tea, she was holding a nasty-looking Serdyukov SPS automatic in her hand, the nine-millimeter cannon of choice for the FSB.

  “Zakryt dver,” said the woman, twitching the automatic in Holliday’s direction.

  “She wants you to close the door,” translated Eddie.

  “I figured that,” said Holliday, sliding the door closed behind him.

  “Sadit’sya,” the woman ordered, pointing to the bunk beside Eddie. Holliday sat down.

  “Bylo radio soobshchenie, Ya, chtoby derzhat’ vas zdes’, poka politsiya prihodyat.”

  “It seems there was a radio message. She is to hold us here until the police come,” Eddie translated.

  “When’s that?”

  “Kirov Pass. Nine forty-five.”

  “Ninety minutes.”

  “Long time.”

  “Heavy gun.”

  “A kilo, at least.”

  “Zavali yebalo!” the provodnitsa hissed.

  “Shut up?” Holliday asked.

  Eddie smiled. “Something like that.” The Cuban paused. He glanced toward Holliday. “?Entiende usted? Hay que matar a ella.”

  “Matar?” Holliday asked.

  “Asesinato, hacerlauna muerta.”

  “Zavali yebalo!” the provodnitsa repeated.

  “Gotcha,” murmured Holliday. The question was, how? If she somehow managed to fire the gun it would be a disaster, even if she missed. The noise would be deafening. The bullets for the SPS were designed to go through thirty layers of Kevlar, a requirement in these times, when the bad guys wore better body armor than the cops. The shock of a bullet like that hitting either one of them at such close range, even in an arm or leg, would be enough to shatter bone and induce instant shock. A hit to the body would probably be fatal.

  The provodnitsa’s grip on the weapon wasn’t very practiced; her right hand was wrapped around the grip, her index finger on the trigger. Her left hand was on her knee, rubbing back and forth nervously. The safety on the pistol was in the down position, meaning that it was off. The hammer was at full cock.

  “On three,” said Holliday softly. “I go low, you go high.”

  “Si, entiendo.” Eddie nodded.

  “One, two.”

  “Zavali yebalo!” the provodnitsa yelled.

  “Three.”

  “Svyatoe der’ mo, smotrite na chto!” Eddie yelled, looking out the window.

  It was just enough. The woman’s eyes flickered and the gun moved a fraction of an inch. Holliday’s right arm snapped across the space between him and the woman, his hand folding over the slide of the pistol, his thumb jamming between the hammer and the firing pin. For his part Eddie lurched forward, his left hand in a rigid four-fingered blade smashing into her larynx, crushing it.

  Holliday tore the gun out of her hand, wincing with pain as the hammer slammed down on his thumb. He moved to one side, giving the Cuban room to maneuver. Eddie put one knee into the woman’s diaphragm, took his left hand from her larynx and grabbed her hair with his right, pulling her head back as far as he could. He slammed his left hand under her chin and there was a distinct snap as her vertebrae parted company with one another. She flopped down onto the bunk. The smell of urine filled the compartment as her bladder voided.

  “Now what?” Eddie asked.

  “Stuff her in one of the upper bunks and then get the hell off this train.”

  23

  The two men jumped off the Trans-Siberian Express just as it slowed to begin the sharp curve past the small village of Chandrovo. They swung down on the long steel handrails on either side of the doorway, dropping down in a roll on the cindered track bed, then scrambled into the ditch. They hunched low as the train rumbled past in the early-dawn light. Apparently no one had seen their escape.

  “Not so bad.” Eddie grunted, getting to his feet.

  “Sure,” said Holliday. “We just jumped off the Trans-Siberian Express in the middle of nowhere after breaking a young lady’s neck.”

  “Companero, it was I who broke the young lady’s neck, and she was holding a pistol in our faces.”

  “True enough,” said Holliday. They watched as the train disappeared into the distance. “I wonder how long we’ve got.”

  “They will look for the provodnitsa and perhaps find her. The police were to be waiting at Kirov. According to the schedule they will not arrive there until ten o’clock. At best we have three hours, but I would not bet on it.”

  “So what’s our best bet for getting to Yekaterinburg?”

>   Eddie pointed to the west across a series of rolling fields. In the distance, perhaps a mile away, Holliday could see the bright gleam of water. “The Volga,” said the Cuban. “It flows to Kazan. Perhaps we can catch a local train there.”

  “What are we supposed to do, swim?” Holliday asked.

  “You didn’t study Russian geography in school the way we Habaneros did.” Eddie grinned. “It is the Volga. We will find a boat there; I guarantee it.”

  “Lead the way,” said Holliday. They climbed out of the ditch, ducked under the farmer’s fence and headed for the distant river.

  * * *

  Whit Havers knocked on Assistant Deputy Director of National Security J. Hunter Kokum’s office door-located directly across from General Temple’s own office on the main floor of the West Wing-then stepped inside. Kokum, thin and gray, sat behind his desk, flipping through red-tabbed security reports, his trademark scowl on his face.

  “What?” Kokum asked without looking up.

  “Report on Black Tusk,” said Whit, using the appropriate code name pulled from the classified security computer file for the present operation in Russia.

  “Any word?”

  “Yes, sir, the asset was contacted in Amsterdam and agreed to take on the contract. Assuming that the targets would not be using regular air transport to reach their destination, he waited in the appropriate Moscow train station for the targets to appear.”

  “And did they?”

  “Yes, sir, at approximately seventeen hundred hours local time yesterday. They purchased a second-class compartment and boarded the train a few moments before it was to depart.”

  “The asset is traveling with them?”

  “No, sir. He saw them onto the train and then flew on ahead. He’s already in Yekaterinburg.”

  “And if the targets leave the train before then?”

  “Yekaterinburg is their destination one way or the other. It doesn’t really matter how they get there.”

  “You seem pretty sure of yourself, Havers.”

  “It’s logical, sir.”

  “When you’ve done this for as long as I have you’ll come to understand that logic has very little to do with intelligence matters.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Whit.

  “What about Ducos?” Kokum asked. “You have the Frenchman under surveillance?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What’s he up to?”

  “He appears to have gone on vacation, sir.”

  “Where?”

  “A town at the edge of the Pyrenees. A little village with an old castle on a hill. Montsegur, I think it’s called.”

  “Find out about it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Enjoying your first assignment as a case officer, Mr. Havers?”

  “Yes, sir,” Whit answered-what the hell else was he supposed to say?

  “Know why we have case officers for projects like this, Mr. Havers?”

  “To oversee the operation,” answered Whit.

  “That’s part of it, certainly, but it’s not the most important part, Havers.”

  “No, sir?”

  “No, Havers. The real reason is to have someone to flush down the shithole when the whole thing comes apart.”

  Yevgeni Ivanovich Barsukov, imprisoned head of the notorious Tambov Gang of St. Petersburg, lounged in his cell at Vladimir Central Prison, smoking a British Senior Service cigarette and reading an American edition of TIME magazine.

  On the table beside his comfortable upholstered chair was a large goblet of freshly squeezed orange juice and a lightly toasted English muffin slathered with butter and Dutriez Bar-le-Duc red currant jam.

  At fifty-eight, Barsukov looked at least fifteen years younger. His graying hair was dyed the same brown it had been all his life, his neatly trimmed mustache and Vandyke beard colored to match.

  He wore contact lenses rather than submit to spectacles, and although he had thickened slightly through the middle during his time in jail, he worked out several times a week and lifted weights on occasion. It was hot in the cell, and Barsukov was stripped to the waist, the five stars tattooed on each shoulder and the large crucifix across his chest clearly visible. Even if an inmate had never met Barsukov, the tattoos would tell the man that Barsukov was “prince of thieves,” a man of great power and position.

  The cell was large, twenty feet by thirty or so, with four tall windows facing east. Most cells at Vladimir contained six inmates, but Barsukov shared with only one other, Sergei Magnitsky, his bodyguard and private chef. At the moment Magnitsky was preparing Barsukov’s breakfast of oladyi pancakes and sausages with a pair of George Foreman grills kept on one of the broad concrete windowsills.

  Barsukov was serving a fourteen-year sentence for fraud and money laundering. Magnitsky had been convicted of no crime but had simply joined his boss in prison out of choice. In fact, both Barsukov and Magnitsky had committed murder many times over during the course of the last twenty-five years, but neither man had ever been convicted.

  By Western standards, Barsukov’s lifestyle seemed wildly at odds with being incarcerated in what was without a doubt the most dangerous and violent prison in the Russian Federation, but Barsukov was more than the leader of a major gang outside the prison-he held the unofficial rank of smotryashchiye within the prison. If a prisoner needed an argument settled or was experiencing other problems, he would come to Barsukov, who served as the “watcher” or mediator, often the only thing between total chaos and a prison that ran on an even keel.

  As Magnitsky waited for the sausages to cook he brought his boss a fresh cup of his preferred dark arabica coffee. Barsukov took an approving sip, then placed the cup on the side table beside his goblet of orange juice. He butted his cigarette, picked a fleck of tobacco from his lower lip, then took up his cell phone. From memory he dialed a number; he was old-guard, rarely writing anything down, and never committing a name or a number to the memory of an electronic device. The line rang twice before it was answered.

  “I am looking for Father Deacon Ivan Yevseyevich Veniamino; is he there? No? Then perhaps you can give him a message for me; my name is Vladimir from St. Petersburg. That’s right. Please tell Father Deacon Veniamino that the bells should be rung in turns tonight. Yes; the bells should be rung in turns.”

  He flipped off the phone and dropped it onto the table. Magnitsky would take it apart and dispose of it later.

  “Come on, Sergei, those sausages must be done by now.”

  “Coming right up, boss.”

  It took them the better part of an hour to reach the shallow banks of the wide, slow-moving river, and another twenty minutes to find a short, waterlogged pier jutting drunkenly out into the water, built on rusted, half-submerged fifty-gallon drums. A long, high-prowed rowboat was tied up loosely to the pier. Several inches of water in the bottom of the boat smelled of old fish and dead worms, but it seemed solid enough. There was a wooden box of fishing tackle-very heavy line, big three-barbed hooks and below-the-surface floaters. There were also two pairs of heavy work gloves in the box and a ball-peen hammer, probably for killing whatever fish they caught.

  “Sturgeon poachers,” said Eddie. “We read about them in school. They fish for the big female sturgeon, then dye the eggs black to make look like beluga caviar from the Caspian Sea. Fish can be an easy hundred pounds, even more.”

  Eddie sat down at the oars, and Holliday unlooped the rope from the pier, then settled down by the transom. Both men pushed off, and in a few moments they were well out into the swirling currents of the dark river, Eddie doing little more than guiding their passage. The river was quiet as they moved through the early-morning mist, the silence interrupted only by the sounds of waterbirds by the shore taking to the air. After the constant clatter of the train it was a peaceful change. Holliday vaguely remembered a scene from The Great Escape, one of his favorite movies from the early sixties. Charles Bronson and John Leyton casually pick up a rowboat on the shores of the Danube a
nd calmly row to safety. If it were only that easy.

  They switched positions every hour or so and, taking the current into consideration, by noon Holliday figured they’d moved about fifteen miles or so downriver.

  “How far to Kazan?” Holliday asked, getting behind the oars once again. Eddie settled by the transom, looking downriver.

  “Perhaps fifty kilometers. I’m not really sure.”

  Holliday rowed, his tired muscles already complaining. The mists were gone and a chilly breeze was blowing across the river, setting up little storms of ripples that he had to fight against to stay in position. After fifteen minutes or so Eddie suddenly told him to pull for shore.

  “Why?” Holliday asked.

  “I saw something,” said Eddie.

  Holliday looked back over his shoulder, but all he could see was a stubbled field that had long since been harvested and a large, well-worn barn with an equally worn sign in large, flaking white letters on the side. The rowboat nudged the muddy bank.

  “We may be in luck, I think,” said Eddie. A straight dirt road led directly to the barn’s big double doors. The Cuban pointed to the sign on the barn at the edge of the farmer’s field.

  “I don’t get it.” Holliday shrugged, staring at the incomprehensible assortment of Cyrillic letters.

  “Yuriya kul’tur pyli sluzhby,” said Eddie, grinning from ear to ear.

  “You got me. I still don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

  “The sign says, ‘Yuri’s Crop-dusting Service,’” Eddie replied. He grabbed the hammer from the box of fishing tackle and stepped out of the boat. He climbed up the riverbank, heading for the barn. Holliday was right behind him.

  Reaching the barn, Holliday saw that what he thought had been a dirt road was actually a short runway, less than two hundred yards long. Eddie stood at the barn doors. They were locked securely with a large brass padlock. The hasp, however, was screwed on the outside of the door, and it took only a few whacks with the hammer before the hasp had splintered away from the door. Holliday looked around. There was a cluster of farm buildings in the distance but they were a good mile or so away.