The Thieves of Faith (47 page)

And then they were there, in Senate square: the two guards from the Palace of Congresses, the two guards who saw him on the phone. They remembered and they were walking straight for Michael.

“Ostanovka,”
the lead guard shouted.

The group stopped as one.

Both guards raised their rifles for emphasis. “Halt,” the guard repeated in English.

The entire group of twenty became paralyzed. All except Michael. His eyes danced about the grounds looking for a way out. But there was nowhere to go. He couldn’t risk the guards opening fire, one of the tourists would surely be hit. Michael turned to the group. “Walk as far away from me as you can.”

Michael turned back to the guards, who were twenty yards off now. He raised his hands halfway up. The two guards remained focused on him as the tourists scattered away from their line of sight, leaving Michael alone in the now-vacant Senate square, the ancient yellow buildings silently looking down on him, as if holding him in contempt.

Michael couldn’t afford to be captured again. His luck was up; there was no way he would escape once more. It wouldn’t be just Raechen this time, Michael would have the whole of the Russian government coming down on him for killing their doctors, raiding their historic artifacts, bombing the Kremlin. The lead guard withdrew his radio and spoke into it. Michael realized there was no time for thought, only action.

And he took off. He ran harder than he had ever run in his life.

His back grew cold; it was a target and he was waiting to be struck down by a hail of bullets.

The guard dropped his radio; they both raised their rifles and began shouting.

Michael didn’t need a translator to know what they were saying. He ran harder.

The two guards looked at one another. They would have to decide what to do, they were out of touch with their command. They both wrapped their fingers about the triggers of their Kalashnikov rifles. They raised them in unison and each lined Michael up in their gun sight.

Michael pushed his legs past the burning point, his lungs ready to explode. The Arsenal was twenty yards off now. He might just make it. But his back grew colder. He knew it was coming.

And there were two shots. Close together, their echo reverberating between the buildings. Michael winced and stumbled but he did not fall. He came to a sudden stop. He checked his body, running his hands about, looking for blood, thinking his nerves suppressed the pain, but there were no wounds. As he turned around he saw the two bodies: the two Russian guards lying in the courtyard, their unfired rifles at their sides. They were both dead before they hit the ground. One clean shot each, straight through the forehead. Michael looked for where the shots emanated from but saw nothing.

Michael shook off the moment and turned back toward Senate square. And there he was, his pistols already stowed. He stood six two, his face covered in a thick black beard that blended with his dark hair. It almost gave the impression of a homeless man. He had let his hair grow since the last time Michael saw him four months earlier; it now fell just below his collar. But if he had let his hair go, he had not let his physical condition go south. He was trim and fit, his clothes hanging loosely over his taut body. Simon had forgone his priest’s collar, opting for a pair of dark pants and a dark blue Oxford University sweatshirt.

“Nice outfit,” Michael said as he and Simon began walking briskly toward the main gates.

“Makes me look like a student, don’t you think?” he said in his Italian accent. Simon passed Michael a baseball cap. “Put it on.”

“Aren’t you about twenty-five years late for college?” Michael said as he put the cap on, tucking his hair behind his ears. “Nice touch with the smoke bomb.”

“As I recall, distraction was one of your gimmicks. Sorry I’m late.”

They rounded the corner and were greeted by a mass of panicked, swarming tourists all pushing and shoving in a vain effort to escape the unknown crisis.

“How long you been here?”

“A few hours. I figured you’d show yourself eventually.”

“You’re lucky they didn’t pick you up, looking like that.”

Simon rubbed his beard. “It’s not that bad. It’s my idea of living on the edge.”

Michael smiled as they worked their way into the masses.

Simon kept his hand low as he surreptitiously passed a pistol. “Gun?”

“You know I hate these things,” Michael said as he rejected the gun with a wave of his hand.

“Anti-gun attitudes are only for those who have the luxury of not being in life-or-death situations.”

Michael held up a corner of his shirt, revealing his pistols.

“You may want to use them next time,” Simon said as they continued to flow into the crowd, losing themselves within the sea of people. “Of all the places to rob, Michael.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m surprised you didn’t pick the White House.”

Though it had been months since they had seen each other, there was no time that Michael would have been more happy to see him than now.

With all of the confusion, the masses of tourists were filling the square trying to get out through the main tourist access over Troitsky Bridge. A contingent of guards and Kremlin administrators were shouting orders in various languages that everyone would be searched and that this would take some time. But their efforts were lost among the shouting, confused swarm of tourists. Michael and Simon worked their way through and held to the side of the crowd, which had grown by the hundreds and which had fortunately gathered right next to the archway leading into the Arsenal. There were three uniformed soldiers guarding the entrance, their weapons drawn as a warning to the foolish.

“Any ideas?” Michael said as he leaned toward Simon, trying to make himself heard over the cacophony of panicked tourists.

Simon nodded and walked into the undulating mass of people, Michael on his tail, heading in five people deep. People were pushing and shoving, voices in all languages growing impatient and nervous as if something terrible was about to befall them. All eyes were fixed on the exit, on the guards at the main gate pulling each person aside, studying their faces, patting them down, never apologizing for the inconvenience.

No one saw Simon drop his hands to his side and pull out his pistol. They were all too busy pushing and shoving, distracted by their singular focus of escaping the confining walls of the Kremlin. He held the pistol out of sight as he flipped off the safety. Simon turned his head slowly side to side, looking at the guards trying to control the agitated tourists while searching among them, searching for someone. Without further delay, Simon fired three quick shots into the ground. The loud report silenced all for the briefest moment, a harsh silence as if the crowd was coiling back.

And then the panic erupted.

Everyone scattered in all directions, moving outward like ripples on a pond. Screams and cries of fear roared from the masses, their self-preservation instincts taking over. Simon and Michael lost themselves in one group as it plowed thirty strong into the Arsenal’s archway for cover, fighting through the stunned guards who didn’t know what to do in the face of a panicked mob.

Confusion reigned as the group of thirty ducked and covered in the brick tunnel, panting, weeping in fear for their lives. With all of the mayhem, unseen in the chaos, a side door was jimmied open and Michael and Simon slipped inside.

They stood in a small walled vestibule of the Arsenal, the outside noise and confusion falling away to silence. They peered into a large vacant lobby that stretched as far as the eye could see into a forever-long hallway. The ceiling was over thirty feet high, the walls of polished marble. The place was deserted, all of the staff having been called to unexpected duty outside. The long hall was adorned in statues and artwork, all depicting the country’s greatest victories over foreign invaders. A vast display of military might that was witnessed by only the privileged ranks of the Presidential Regiment and VIPs.

Michael and Simon hadn’t taken two steps inside the grand hall when the gunfire erupted from outside, from every angle, shattering the windows, tearing through the walls. Michael and Simon dived for cover behind a set of heavy wooden doors. They were six inches thick and, for the moment, better than Kevlar.

Guards had taken up positions outside, flanking both sides of the doorway, in front of the archway, and even from the rooftop of the Palace of Congresses across the courtyard. The guards had no intention of capture. Every guard smelled blood and wanted credit for the kill.

A burst of gunfire shattered the moment. Two guards charged the outside door as the suppression fire was laid down. Simon was prone on the marble floor just inside the doorway. He had no intention of the charging guards getting anywhere near them. With two shots, he ended their approach.

The elevator was across the hall from where they lay. Gunfire was intermittently making it through the doorway, bullets riocheting off the marble walls, shrapnel chips exploding around them.

“You’ve got to get the elevator,” Simon shouted over the gunfire.

“I know. I’m having a bit of a problem with that.”

Simon didn’t respond. He took aim and shouted, “Go.”

Michael took off on a belly crawl in the direction of the elevator. Simon fired off shots, two each in the direction of each of the guards who were taking target practice on him and Michael.

Michael skidded into the wall by the elevator, hit the button, and prayed.

Busch had raced through the cavern, following the map that Michael had given him and the well-placed orange paint dots along the wall. His hulking frame squeezed through the vent shaft and peered out into the vacant vestibule of the medical lab that sat ten stories underneath the Kremlin Arsenal. He watched and waited half an hour for a sign of any activity before removing the grate and hopping into the pure white room. The corner table still held the spread of food from the morning: the fruit now tinged brown, a single uneaten piroshki dried and crumbled, the half-empty cups of coffee grown cold.

He held his gun high and at the ready, moving down the hall, quickly checking the rooms. He walked back and hit the elevator call button.

He knew it would be at least a minute before the elevator arrived. He held his gun tight as he went back down the hall. He peered in the operating room: the doctors were gone, the bodies removed. The bloodstains were fifteen-foot-wide puddles of dark brown. It appeared as if the five doctors had completely bled out from their gunshot wounds. The revulsion he felt for Fetisov served to distract his mind from the tainted floor before him.

He looked through the shattered glass that the intense Russian had shot out, the same Russian who captured Michael. The theater was empty but for the chairs, probably never to be occupied again. The spectators had all been evacuated for debriefings before going home to nervous breakdowns.

As Busch looked upon the mayhem, he wondered whether this was all worth it. Five people were dead. Michael and Busch were no further along in saving Michael’s father, Genevieve was gone, and Susan was missing.

And the box, the mysterious box that Genevieve had pled with Busch to destroy, had now fallen into the hands of Fetisov and Julian. He wondered what it really held, how such a simple thing could hold so much danger. But he knew that was a foolish notion. A teaspoon of VX gas could kill tens of thousands. Plagues had killed millions. He didn’t know what the box held, but he knew it was in the hands of the last two people on earth who should possess it.

The elevator
pinged
. Busch headed back to the vestibule and stepped through the opening door of the cab. He flipped the stop button, locking the doors open, holding the car in reserve, and waited. He checked his watch. Simon said he would hit the call button in the main lobby when he had Michael. But if the call button didn’t illuminate by five o’clock, Busch was to not only leave the building but get back to Martin and leave the country.

Busch was pulled back to the moment as a gun landed two inches from his eye. The Russian guard had silently stepped into the elevator, catching Busch by surprise. He motioned him back against the wall and ripped the pistol from Busch’s hand. He shouted a barrage of questions, all in Russian and all useless as Busch stood there, cursing himself for being caught off guard.

And then, much to Busch’s despair, the elevator call button lit up for the lobby floor. The guard glared at Busch, reached over, flipped the elevator stop switch, and watched as the doors slowly closed. The guard read the fear on Busch’s face and, while keeping his gun keenly pointed at the huge blond American, raised Busch’s gun, pointing it at the seam of the door, prepared to kill whoever would appear when the door opened, whoever was going to meet Busch.

Michael heard the elevator kick into gear. The indicator showed the car to be starting its rise from the basement level. His sense of doom dropped a notch; they had a chance if they could just make it through the next minute in this ancient stronghold. Michael looked about at the oversized statues of the Russian military heroes that flanked the far wall, hoping their spirits wouldn’t react adversely to this blasphemous act in their sanctuary.

Two more guards suddenly charged the Arsenal doorway, rolling in from either side. Simon spun across the floor, narrowly avoiding their gunfire. He took one out with a shot to the neck and the other clear through his left eye.

“Hurry that elevator up.” Simon checked his gun. Out of ammo. “Throw me your guns.”

Michael slid his two unfired pistols across the polished marble. Simon picked them up and in a single motion continued to fire double-fisted out the doorway. Michael prayed that it would keep them away long enough for the elevator to make its ten-story climb.

Michael looked up from his prone position. The elevator was at sublevel eight and slowly approaching. Simon continued to fire, placing his shots to create the greatest amount of fear, the greatest amount of trepidation in the guards. He needed to hold them off for at least another minute. But his ammo was running low.