Deeper Than Red (Red Returning Trilogy) (14 page)

The man proclaimed dead just six months ago knew he wasn’t fully alive today. Though he’d escaped the explosion that had killed his closest aides, there remained a lit fuse inside him. In the night roaming of his mind, when everyone slept but him, he still wondered at the prompting that afternoon of his “death.” To stay in New York and search for the leak that had, just seconds earlier, aborted his plans for the Brooklyn Bridge. To bail from the helicopter at the last minute and send his aides on ahead to the ship. Wouldn’t it have been easier to die with them? Without warning, with no time to suffer as he did now.

If he could, Ivan would leap to his feet and rush out on deck to inhale the ocean’s empowering vapors, to feel them lift him, to assure him that all was well. But all was not. The man who’d narrowly escaped death would soon condemn others to that fate. So many innocents. Why did that only now disturb him?

Could those before him read his mind? Had the sentient mystic Curt Vandoren already seen an abscess growing inside the mastermind of Soviet Russia’s resurrection?

Ivan regretted his visible brooding and quickly ushered himself back to higher ground. His subordinates weren’t used to such displays of weakness in the man who would rule Russia. He glanced at the van Gogh painting above the sofa, at the bandaged ear of the painter in self-portrait. The artist had severed the ear in a fit of madness. Was Ivan mad too?

“Ivan, you will soon return to the motherland,” Glinka offered, as if clearly reading the mind of his superior and wishing to allay his fears. “At this moment, there is a crate awaiting shipment to the Potomac and delivery upriver to the U.S. capital. President Travis Noland and his powerhouse will soon be extinguished.”

Strangely, Ivan was unmoved.

That’s when Vandoren leaned in. “Ivan, you are not listening to those who counsel you from beyond. Tonight, we will visit them again and you will see that everything they have led you to do will bear fruit.”

Something inside Ivan quaked. Those words. A sudden memory. His grandmother holding his hand as they walked to the village church. Her sweet voice assuring him that God loved him better than anyone ever had. The priest speaking of bearing fruit for the Lord. Surely a weapon of mass destruction wasn’t the kind of fruit he meant.

Who, or what, was this
Lord
? Was it not the voices of those Vandoren summoned from the other realm? The spirit guides who came to Ivan in dreams, in séances, their voices clear and compelling. Was it not the voice of Vladimir Lenin himself who’d called Ivan from obscurity to such heights? Ivan closed his eyes. Wasn’t it?

He opened his eyes to see his companions studying him curiously.

Just then, Glinka slapped his thighs and stood up. Ivan saw it as restless frustration. He had to regain control. “Arkady, please sit down and give us your report.” His voice, once again, resonated with authority. He was pleased to see the now-you’re-talking relief rise to Glinka’s face as he took his seat and faced Ivan.

“Please allow me to first establish what is known. The man you believed ordered your execution is dead. Who President Gorev sent to kill you is not clear, though I and others in our intelligence force strongly suspect it was our disenfranchised friend Evgeny Kozlov. Only the few of us, and those on this ship, know that he failed. Even President Noland acknowledged your death on national television.” Glinka allowed the faintest smile. “He still believes that is true.”

Ivan stiffened slightly. No one knew that he had already slipped an irresistible taunt to his half brother, a photograph of Noland Sr. with his illegitimate Russian son. Even now, Ivan relished the impact that barbed clue must have had. He would send another soon. No one would interfere with his march against the House of Noland.

“Our men were swift and effective in eliminating Gorev and escaping the hit site, though with only seconds to spare. An unidentified motorist came upon the massacre even as our men were fleeing the forest. However, it is still disconcerting that Noland was alerted so soon afterwards. His spies are too firmly entrenched in our soil. We will have to remedy that.”

“Excuse me, Arkady,” Vandoren interrupted. “The American authorities know that our saboteurs are still in place on their own soil, correct?”

“They do, though our people are on temporary stand-down.” Glinka turned a satisfied gaze on Ivan. “Everything is on track. You should be well pleased, Ivan. As you directed me to, in the months leading up to Gorev’s assassination, I have appointed as many of our people as I could to positions of influence in our government. In three months’ time, an election will be held to replace Gorev with a new president. By that time, I will have surrounded myself with all the support I need to move officially into that office.” He smiled triumphantly. “Then, you will return to Mother Russia, her savior back from the dead. Her resurrection!”

Words!
Savior. Resurrection.
His grandmother’s hand on his. The cross behind the priest.
Stop this!
he commanded himself.
No more!

Ivan struggled to stand. He had to get outside. Now.

“Are you all right?” Vandoren asked, as he moved to assist his friend.

“Yes,” Ivan snapped. “Let me be. We’ll continue this later.” He regretted his tone but seemed incapable of altering his mood. He needed air.

Glinka reached for the wheelchair, but Ivan waved it away. “No. Just my walker.”

Vandoren pushed open the outside door as two of the crew scrambled to assist. With a uniformed deckhand on either side of him, Ivan pushed the walker to the railing then dismissed them. Alone now, he gazed at iridescent waters that sparkled clean and pure. He inhaled their primal essence and willed it to restore him.

He felt those behind him watching, wondering if their “savior” had fallen hostage to this thing marauding through his body, what they believed to be rheumatoid arthritis. Would they discard him like soured milk? No more the future of Russia. Would they even martyr him? Certainly Glinka was capable. But what about Vandoren?

Ah, Curt Vandoren. Just as Czar Nicholas II had his Rasputin, Ivan Volynski was to enlist his own mystic healer, seer, channeler of Russian icons past to counsel and empower the new Soviet leader. Curt Vandoren salivated at the prospect of one day entering Ivan’s royal courts as one anointed. He couldn’t know that Ivan, himself, would never reach such courts. None of them knew. Only the German physician who had made the indisputable diagnosis.

Just before dawn on Sunday, from a private airfield in the Bahamas, the small jet lifted into the flight pattern back to Russia. Ivan’s fleet of vessels and aircraft had served Arkady Glinka well. They had afforded him the stealth to slip in and out of countries undetected, leaving his Kremlin staff to explain the occasional absences with well-constructed scenarios. At this moment, he was reportedly ensconced at his river house attending the complexities of transitioning into the presidency. But that task had been rehearsed for so long, it required no such preparation. He and Ivan had been plotting this course for many years, ever since their neophyte days at the Kremlin, learning the lay of the political land and the slight-of-hand techniques for grabbing power. The attempt on Ivan’s life in January had only accelerated their plans to replace Gorev, whom Ivan was certain had orchestrated the attempt.

But Glinka had never been so convinced. Volynski’s coconspirators Vadim Fedorovsky and Pavel Andreyev, after their first attempt to assassinate Gorev, had been executed on Russian soil, in a Russian prison, under Russian law. Glinka believed that the by-the-book Gorev would have done no less with Ivan, and that he certainly wouldn’t have opted for the fireball spectacle in the heart of New York City, even caught on film by the American press. But Ivan rejected Glinka’s reasoning.

The new president of Russia, though interim for now, lifted a snifter of aged brandy to his lips as he gazed into the Caribbean skies just beginning to blush with day. He rested his head against the seat back and let the golden elixir burnish his thoughts. He smiled at the future, certain of his place in it. The voices Vandoren had summoned from the other side just hours ago had assured him he would take the election in three months. He would commandeer his homeland and its military, appoint a new prime minister to his former office, raise the hammer and sickle once again, take back Soviet lands, and deal with the American threat as never before. Even now, the crate lay in wait for its cruise up the Potomac and the last turn toward Washington.

It would all be done without Ivan.

Did he think I was just a wooden-headed puppet? Here to do his bidding and gladly scrape up the crumbs from his table? Did he think I would not seek out his doctor and learn the truth?
A steward appeared to replenish the brandy, but Glinka lifted a dismissive hand. He needed a clear head, perfect vision.
Now, I will not have to end his dominion over me. Mr. Lou Gehrig’s unfortunate illness should handle that for me.

Glinka closed his eyes and summoned the voices through the visualization pathways Curt Vandoren had led him to discover, to let the mind of Arkady Glinka slip free of its earthly tethers and soar to the place vividly imagined for himself. A place of cool waters running swift and deep, surrounding a palace high on a hill with legions of servants and soldiers loyal unto him. In that place, he had always found assurance of his own powers. A god, that’s what he was. Worthy of all he could conceive. Free to rule himself, and now his native land, with autonomy. Guided by the powers of the air, endorsed and coveted by them.

Not asleep, not awake, Glinka traversed an astral plane. Searching. Wandering. Always wandering. No anchor. Just flying.

Suddenly …
What is that?
Something ahead of him. A form, not like his own. A creature advancing, menacing, snarling.
Who are you?
Glinka called in his mind.
Get away from me! I command you!
But the form kept coming, its breath now curling toward him, smoldering, stinging. Creature-eyes fixed on him. Radiant. Unblinking. Watching. Coming closer.

No!
Glinka suddenly lurched forward in his seat. His eyes sprang open, wild and darting. His own breath heaving now, sweat coursing through his thick hair and soaking his body. Words wouldn’t form in his mind, only fear. His hands shaking, he reached for the brandy and gulped. The steward appeared again. “Are you all right, sir?” he asked.

Glinka tried to compose himself. “Yes,” he answered too abruptly. “Another brandy.” When the steward left, Glinka stared into the void beyond the window, and Vandoren’s warning surfaced. He had once dared to quote the book of Ephesians to Glinka: “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”

Vandoren had closed the Christian Bible and returned it to the bookcase in his study at the University of the Spirit. “You see, Arkady, even this man Paul knew about the place we go, about the powers you and I, even Ivan, call upon. This apostle warns the followers of Jesus about the ‘ruler of the kingdom of the air.’ Our ruler, Arkady, the one who empowers us, who will lead you to power over nations and all their people. But understand that there is risk in such an allegiance. There are other forces in our ruler’s kingdom who delight in reminding us who we belong to.”

The skin of the aircraft did nothing to separate the Russian president from those threatening forces. But yes, he had willingly engaged them, and now he understood. They would follow him in whatever menacing form they chose. He must be vigilant. And obedient.

So be it.

Glinka lifted the glass and sniffed the swirling fruit of it. He had earned its pleasure and all others to come. Closing his eyes, he leaned back and was just drifting into sleep when the phone in his shirt pocket sounded, the phone only a privileged few were linked to. He noted the ID code and answered promptly. “How was the fishing this morning?” he asked, his pulse finally settling to normal.

“No fishing for me,” said Maxum Morozov. “I had to leave.”

“What?” Glinka strained to keep his voice down. Both pilots and the steward were Ivan’s trusted staff, but there was no need to alarm them.

“Calm down, comrade. Like you, I do what I must.”

“You were to stay at the river until I returned.”

“I have gathered rather pressing information regarding our favorite musicians.”

“That’s over, Maxum. I warned you.”

“No. I warned
you.
I will serve you and your new regime in whatever way I can, but I will not allow you to dictate to me. I will go and come according to my own agenda.”

“Your agenda almost preempted the attack on Gorev. That stunt with the flyer nailed to the post office door in Gorev’s village was insane.”

Maxum responded instantly. “I told you, I did not do that! I do not know who did, but you should. One of your overzealous assassins, no doubt. You really should screen your killers more carefully, Arkady.” He snickered.

“Just make certain that vengeance against your son does not poison your senses.”