and the FSB director bristled.
“No, Your Holiness, and neither are you a parish priest taking the confessions of your people and then passing them on to Vladimir Vladimirovich anymore,” replied Bortnikov, glancing at Putin. He turned back to the primate. “I leave the running of the Church to you,
Preeyatyel Papa.
You leave the running of the Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki and the FSB to me.”
“We should stop arguing like children in the schoolyard,” said Putin. “This is about neither the Church nor the Foreign Intelligence Service, nor the FSB. It is about the four of us in this room and our great duty, and it is about the Order of the Phoenix. Most important, it is about Russia, our motherland, the Rodina and her future. Remember that.”
Bortnikov’s cell phone chirped loudly. He slipped it out of his breast pocket, thumbed it on and held it to his ear. His face brightened as he listened. Finally he ended the call and put the phone back in his pocket.
“They have discovered who the third man accompanying Holliday and the Cuban is. His name is Victor Nikolaevich Genrikhovich, and he is a curator of documents at the Hermitage.”
“Dear God,” whispered Medvedev, the president. “We could be ruined.”
“Don’t worry,” said Bortnikov. “He is being arrested as we speak.”
14
The telephone trilled. Genrikhovich stared at it as though the plastic device were a scorpion. It rang a second time. He picked it up and listened. The blood drained from his face and Holliday thought he was going to faint. Genrikhovich hung up the telephone and dropped into his old wooden chair.
“We have been betrayed,” said the curator, his face the color of ash.
“Who?” Holliday said quickly, getting up from the drafting chair.
“One of the secretarial people staffing the basement level. She is an informer for the FSB. The file boy must have told her I was here.”
“Who warned you?”
“A friend. It is not important.”
“How long do we have?”
“According to my friend, not long. They are sending a squad of OMON.”
“Shit,” breathed Holliday. OMON Black Beret squads could be armed with anything—AK-47s, PK machine guns, Bizon folding-stock submachine guns, AN97 assault rifles with under-barrel grenade launchers. Their motto was, “We know no mercy and do not ask for any.” Their unit insignia was the roaring head of a white Siberian tiger. Not exactly comforting news. “How many exits?”
“Dozens, scores,” answered Genrikhovich. “I have never counted.”
“How will they come?”
“Probably the same way we did. Either that or through the courtyard entrance to the basement level.”
“What’s the quickest way out?”
“Those two exits. The others lead onto the square or onto the Neva Embankment.”
“Do they have a boat unit?”
“In St. Petersburg, yes. They will be waiting.”
“That’s out then,” said Holliday. Something was niggling at him in the outer suburbs of his brain, but he couldn’t quite see it through the clutter of a billion other pieces of useless historical information. Who really cared if the thing they used to pull back the spring on a French crossbow was called a goat’s-foot lever? And why was he thinking about key lime pie? Or Orson Welles, the theme music for
The Third Man
echoing furiously in his head like a burrowing earwig?
“We are running out of time,
compadre
,” urged Eddie calmly.
Key lime, Harry Lime, the character played by Orson Welles in
The Third Man
. The cats. The Hermitage cats. Where did the rats come from?
“Are there any old tunnels down here, maybe left over from World War Two?” he asked suddenly.
“My father never told me of any. . . .” Genrikhovich paused for a moment, then nodded. “St. Petersburg has always had terrible problems with sewage. Hundreds of years ago houses would connect their wastewater pipes to the small storm sewers. Everything became terribly polluted. Nothing was done until 1924 or 1925. They
“No, Your Holiness, and neither are you a parish priest taking the confessions of your people and then passing them on to Vladimir Vladimirovich anymore,” replied Bortnikov, glancing at Putin. He turned back to the primate. “I leave the running of the Church to you,
Preeyatyel Papa.
You leave the running of the Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki and the FSB to me.”
“We should stop arguing like children in the schoolyard,” said Putin. “This is about neither the Church nor the Foreign Intelligence Service, nor the FSB. It is about the four of us in this room and our great duty, and it is about the Order of the Phoenix. Most important, it is about Russia, our motherland, the Rodina and her future. Remember that.”
Bortnikov’s cell phone chirped loudly. He slipped it out of his breast pocket, thumbed it on and held it to his ear. His face brightened as he listened. Finally he ended the call and put the phone back in his pocket.
“They have discovered who the third man accompanying Holliday and the Cuban is. His name is Victor Nikolaevich Genrikhovich, and he is a curator of documents at the Hermitage.”
“Dear God,” whispered Medvedev, the president. “We could be ruined.”
“Don’t worry,” said Bortnikov. “He is being arrested as we speak.”
14
The telephone trilled. Genrikhovich stared at it as though the plastic device were a scorpion. It rang a second time. He picked it up and listened. The blood drained from his face and Holliday thought he was going to faint. Genrikhovich hung up the telephone and dropped into his old wooden chair.
“We have been betrayed,” said the curator, his face the color of ash.
“Who?” Holliday said quickly, getting up from the drafting chair.
“One of the secretarial people staffing the basement level. She is an informer for the FSB. The file boy must have told her I was here.”
“Who warned you?”
“A friend. It is not important.”
“How long do we have?”
“According to my friend, not long. They are sending a squad of OMON.”
“Shit,” breathed Holliday. OMON Black Beret squads could be armed with anything—AK-47s, PK machine guns, Bizon folding-stock submachine guns, AN97 assault rifles with under-barrel grenade launchers. Their motto was, “We know no mercy and do not ask for any.” Their unit insignia was the roaring head of a white Siberian tiger. Not exactly comforting news. “How many exits?”
“Dozens, scores,” answered Genrikhovich. “I have never counted.”
“How will they come?”
“Probably the same way we did. Either that or through the courtyard entrance to the basement level.”
“What’s the quickest way out?”
“Those two exits. The others lead onto the square or onto the Neva Embankment.”
“Do they have a boat unit?”
“In St. Petersburg, yes. They will be waiting.”
“That’s out then,” said Holliday. Something was niggling at him in the outer suburbs of his brain, but he couldn’t quite see it through the clutter of a billion other pieces of useless historical information. Who really cared if the thing they used to pull back the spring on a French crossbow was called a goat’s-foot lever? And why was he thinking about key lime pie? Or Orson Welles, the theme music for
The Third Man
echoing furiously in his head like a burrowing earwig?
“We are running out of time,
compadre
,” urged Eddie calmly.
Key lime, Harry Lime, the character played by Orson Welles in
The Third Man
. The cats. The Hermitage cats. Where did the rats come from?
“Are there any old tunnels down here, maybe left over from World War Two?” he asked suddenly.
“My father never told me of any. . . .” Genrikhovich paused for a moment, then nodded. “St. Petersburg has always had terrible problems with sewage. Hundreds of years ago houses would connect their wastewater pipes to the small storm sewers. Everything became terribly polluted. Nothing was done until 1924 or 1925. They
Similar Books
