The Thieves of Faith (23 page)

Chapter 23

N
ikolai Fetisov led Michael through the diminutive
but ornate Kutafya Tower on the west side of the Kremlin, across a bridge under which once flowed the Neglinnaya River—a moat in every sense—before its course was diverted into a pipe laid under the Alexandrovsky Gardens. They continued through the enormous Troitskaya Tower, the tallest in the Kremlin wall. Known in English as the Trinity Tower, the 230-foot structure, begun in 1495, was crowned with an enormous spire whose grandeur was but a precursor of the magnificent world that lay within. It was the main public entrance used by the public and a perfect bottleneck for security.

“Where are we going?” Michael asked.

“Someone wants to see you,” Fetisov answered as he adjusted his glasses. “But I thought while we were on our way, I would show you around, give you a taste of Russian hospitality.”

They were surrounded by tour groups, Michael estimated at least ten, with guides speaking a host of different languages. While everyone paid a fee, Nikolai Fetisov merely waved a pass that Michael had no opportunity to glimpse, and they were ushered through. Fetisov affixed a badge to the lapel of Michael’s sport jacket and it was as if the seas parted for them. Guards suddenly nodded, doors were opened, and emotionless people smiled.

“Who are we going to see?” Michael asked.

“As I’m sure you know, the Kremlin is the seat of Russian government, overseeing a country that extends over eleven time zones. Much of the Soviet world was shaped from within these walls.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” Michael said.

“You do not like more tour guide speech?”

“I want to know where we are going,” Michael said through gritted teeth as he came to a stop.

Fetisov stepped into Michael’s space, uncomfortably close. Michael could smell the man’s foul, stale breath. Fetisov turned his head so his one good eye was centered on Michael and he whispered, “Do not make a scene, do not raise your voice to me again, particularly within these walls. As a thief, I thought you would possess a bit of discretion. But I guess I was mistaken. You need to know what you are up against, what you will be facing, and I’m going to show it to you. You were reconning the outside of the Kremlin walls, now I am providing you the opportunity to recon the inside.”

Michael stared at the Russian and finally stepped back. “How do you know what I need to see?”

Fetisov paused a moment to make his point. “Within the Kremlin, within Russia, I know everything.”

“If you know everything, then why don’t you find the box?” Michael turned to walk away.

Fetisov looked at Michael for a moment before breaking out in a big grin. “Well, there may be one or two things I do not know.”

Fetisov turned to a small side door. It was being guarded by a tall blond man, a teenager really, with pockmarked skin. He and Fetisov spoke in short bursts of Russian, both of them occasionally looking toward Michael.

Finally, the young man opened the door and motioned Michael in.

Michael tentatively stepped through the door to see Susan seated in a vestibule on a small couch. Confusion washed over both of their faces as they turned and looked at the two Russians.

“We didn’t know if she was with you or trailing you,” Fetisov said.

“Trailing me? I thought you were Mr. Know-It-All, that everything happened under your watch.” Michael was pissed as he turned to Susan. “Are you all right?”

Susan looked up at Michael and nodded, breathing a sigh of relief. “I’m not too fond of this country so far.” She glanced at the young Russian and then back at Michael. “Or its people.”

“I’m sorry to have caused you any pain,” Fetisov said. “Lexie here was just watching my back, he’s a good boy.”

“That’s debatable,” Susan said.

Fetisov laughed. “That’s what his mother always says.”

Michael turned his back to Fetisov and looked at Susan. “You were supposed to stay in the car.” Michael tried to admonish her with his eyes but she avoided his gaze. “Where’s Busch?”

She glanced up at Michael. “I was anxious, I can’t sit back and do nothing. I left him in the car—”

“Actually,” Fetisov said, pulling Michael’s attention away from Susan, “your large blond friend is wandering around Red Square. Rather frantically, I might add. Not to worry. I’ll send one of my men to let him know you are all right, that you are getting a first-rate tour for free. He can go to your hotel, get a drink, and watch reruns of
I Love Lucy
in Russian.”

Neither Michael nor Susan could tell if he was serious.

“But enough wasted time.” Fetisov opened the door and motioned to Susan. “I hope you will join our little expedition.”

Susan slowly rose from the couch and followed Michael out of the door and across the entrance to a courtyard.

Before them was an enormous building surrounded by eight hundred cannons. A two-story archway was protected by a pair of menacing-looking guards dressed in crisp blue military uniforms, rifles held tight to their chests. Fetisov made a point of steering his party away from them.

Michael couldn’t help staring at the imposing building with its equally imposing guards. “What is that building?”

“It’s just the Arsenal, they’re a little serious in there. We’ll see that last,” Fetisov said as he directed their attention to a modern building. Made of plate glass interspersed with numerous triple-faceted pylons of white marble, it stood in sharp contrast to all of the other structures within the Kremlin. “The Palace of Congresses was constructed in the early sixties to show off the proud Communist machine. For the first time everyone could hear the bombastic rhetoric of Nikita Khrushchev and the wonderful Soviet congress gather and pound their chests. Today it is a nice place to watch ballet and hear rock concerts with six thousand of your closest friends. I think you will find interesting the view through some of its windows.” Michael and Susan saw a series of escalators running down below grade level. “Half of the building is underground. We Russians like to do things underground, if you know what I mean.” Fetisov winked his one good eye.

“How many means of egress for the Kremlin?” Michael asked.

Fetisov smiled. “Too many to count. There are only two public—”

“I need you to map them for me.”

“Done,” Fetisov said without thought, and continued on.

Michael watched him as he limped across the plaza, wondering who exactly this man really was, whether he could actually procure Michael’s necessities, and whether he was truly there to help.

“The Italian master builder and engineer Aristotle Fioravanti was the initial designer of the Kremlin and was brought here from Italy at the request of the grand prince of Russia, Ivan the Third, and his wife, Sofia Paleolog. He was summoned based on his vast experience and expertise at building castles in Milan, fortresses in Hungary, and tunnels in Rome. The walls of the Kremlin were built by the order of Ivan the Great to replace the white-stoned barriers that had surrounded the city for over two hundred years. The red-brick walls were constructed by three Italian masters Anton and Mark Fryazin, and Pietro Antonio Solario. The walls are a mile and a half long, up to sixty feet high, twenty feet thick, and ringed with nineteen towers. The top of the walls, along their entire length, serve as battle platforms which range from six to fourteen feet in width. There are one thousand forty-five swallow-tailed merlons that look like teeth crowning the top of the walls. The multitiered towers are interconnected and not only provide a tremendous defense for the city but are well positioned to meet any marauding force head-on. The three corner towers are round so troops could fire at all angles. And where strategic roads used to converge on the Kremlin, double-strong carriage-accessible towers were constructed. No other seat of power in the modern world is within a walled city except for the Vatican, and it is like a cardboard box compared to our steel tank. No one dares to breach these walls.” Fetisov looked at Michael. “I never heard of the fool who tried and if there was a fool who did, he was simply lost in the shadows within and erased from existence.” Fetisov continued to look at Michael before breaking out in a broad smile. “Scary, huh.” He chuckled and walked on.

“During the times of the Soviet Union, the Kremlin was the dark and dreary center of a dead, forgotten city. Now, even though none of the buildings has changed, it is once again magnificent. It is amazing that the eyes we look through can be filtered by our hearts and politics.”

Michael asked Susan to stop while he took her picture, ensuring that he captured the wall, the gates, the guards, the general ebb and flow of everything within the confines of the Russian landmark.

They walked silently for ten minutes past ornate structures that dragged their minds to medieval times. While Susan was fascinated, Michael was concerned. Countless guards walked the grounds, patrolled the battlements atop the great wall, and remained in a constant state of alert. Everyone was being watched.

Fetisov stopped and threw his hands wide. Before them was a truly enormous building, a palace in every sense of the word. An ornate structure with exquisite archways, moldings, and filigrees throughout. Hundreds upon hundreds of windows wrapped the golden and white exterior. “Now this is pure Russian architecture. The Great Kremlin Palace. It took eleven years to build this for the imperial family of Nicholas the First. The main facade of the palace faces the Moskva River. It is almost four hundred ten feet long and one hundred fifty-four feet high. There are almost seven hundred rooms in any variety of styles from Baroque to Classicism to good old Russian Renaissance. Before electricity, it used to take twenty thousand candles and five thousand kerosene lamps per night to light the building. Now”—he turned away in disgust—“the place is just for ceremony. Its halls and chambers are used for official meetings and receptions, for kissing Western ass.”

Fetisov shuffled along, Michael and Susan a step behind, with Lexie taking up the rear. Fetisov came to a large door that led into an enormous building. Without a word, he opened it and motioned everyone to enter.

They walked silently down a large wide hall past ornate rooms filled with the treasures of Russian history. Imperial thrones and crowns, costumes and exquisite carriages, artifacts from their fascinating yet checkered past, brought together in the supreme collection of Russian treasure.

“This is our greatest museum, it is on par with the Louvre, the Vatican Museums, your Smithsonian, yet you couldn’t even tell me its name.”

Michael and Susan said nothing, slightly shaking their heads.

“It’s OK, most people in the Western world have not heard of the Armory. It includes a vast collection of Imperial Russian artwork, over fifty Fabergé eggs, Catherine the Great’s ball gowns—”

“Ball gowns?” Michael asked, losing patience again. “And how are ball gowns going to provide me the insight I need?”

“Shhh, this will only take two seconds. You will like where we are going.” Fetisov sounded like a parent who was bursting to give his child a birthday present. He continued to lead them at a brisk pace down the Armory’s never-ending hall. “Relax, play the tourist for a moment, I think you are going to love this.”

They arrived at a door ringed in guards who parted ways as they saw Fetisov’s credentials. “The Diamond Fund: you want to steal something? This is where you go.” Before them was an exquisite collection of gems: rubies, sapphires, diamonds. Hundreds of them. All on display. Some within crowns, necklaces, bracelets, others all alone, crying their historic significance to the world.

“This is Russia. Right here. It is the piece of our history that I think will interest you the most.” Fetisov stopped at a large case. “The Russian crown jewels and Catherine the Great’s scepter. Now for a man of your talents, I’m sure that whets the appetite, hey?”

Michael and Susan stood before the case staring in at an enormous diamond. It sat within the royal scepter of Catherine the Great, by far the largest diamond either of them had ever seen. It was the size of half an egg. It was mounted in a simple gold scepter and was ringed in smaller diamonds. Whoever wielded it truly wielded power.

“In 1773, Count Orlov purchased this one-hundred-ninety carat diamond in Amsterdam for 1,400,000 florins. It originated in India, stolen by a French soldier stationed there in the 1750s who converted to Hinduism in order to enter the innermost sanctum of the sacred island shrine, Srirangem, where he removed the jewel from the eye of a Hindu idol. Count Orlov presented this enormous jewel to Catherine the Great in hope of winning her love and marrying her. She had the stone placed in this scepter in front of you, thanked him for his gift, and sent him packing. She was tough. Talk about bling.”

Fetisov, Michael, and Susan walked out the door of the Armory that Lexie held open, emerging into the hot midday sun. Fetisov kept them moving toward the middle of an enormous plaza that was ringed with churches. A natural hush fell over the large expanse as the crowds stood in awe at the holiness around them. Each structure was unique, but all bore one thing in common: they were spiritually spectacular. Michael looked up at the multitude of domes; he had never seen so many crosses, even in the Vatican. They were surrounded by a concentration of houses of worship in a world that forbade religion for seventy-five years. And it made Michael think of his friend Simon, a priest who epitomized contradiction, whose actions stood far from the peaceful representation of his collar. A man who was equally adept at guns and prayer, much like the conflicting philosophies of crosses and Communism.

“Cathedral Square was the setting for coronations, receptions, and many theatrical events. And then, as you know, religion was outlawed during the seventy-five years of Communism,” Fetisov said as he came to a stop, Michael, Susan, and Lexie following his lead. He said nothing more as they all looked around. It was an incredible collection of medieval churches of exquisite design, each distinct in its own right but sharing a universal theme under God.