Moscow River:
Jacqueline had been in front of him in the first tunnel, but it was possible that she’d never made it through the underwater tunnel. Her clothing could have snagged on a rough outcropping.
“Kirk,” Jacqueline’s voice came weakly from the right. “Kirk.”
“I’m here,” McGarvey called. ‘Keep talking.” He started along the wall toward the sound of her voice, when he spotted a glow under the water ahead of him.
“I’m here,” Jacqueline said, her voice regaining strength. “I lost you.”
“Wait,” McGarvey called to her. He dove into the water to the glow, and came up with Jacqueline’s still working flashlight.
“Kirk,” Jacqueline screamed in panic as he surfaced.
McGarvey spotted her with the beam of the flashlight where she clung to a large iron ring hanging from a stone shelf or platform. He hurriedly slogged over to her, where she threw her arms around his neck.
“Oh, God, oh, God, I thought you were dead!” she cried. “I thought I’d never see you! I thought you were gone! I didn’t know what to do! I almost didn’t, make it! And then you were gone, and I was alone! Oh, God, Kirk!”
He held her closely for a long time, until her cries subsided and she stopped shivering. Then he kissed her.
“I guess I was right about you in Paris,” he said gently. “You have become a crusty old bastard from being around me.”
She laughed, half-hysterically, although she was nearly back in control of herself. “Anatomically impossible, but I’ll take it as a compliment.”
“You can swim.”
“I didn’t have much of a choice.”
McGarvey shined the flashlight on what he’d taken to be a stone ledge, but which was in fact a long stone platform that looked like a riverside dock or quay.
He boosted Jacqueline up, then climbed up himself with a great deal of difficulty because of the heavy satchel, his waterlogged clothing, and his weakened condition.
Jacqueline helped him pull the satchel off his back, and together they unsteadily crossed the quay to a narrow set of stone stairs leading upward but blocked by a gate of iron bars secured by an ancient padlock.
McGarvey cut the lock with three pumps of the big hydraulic bolt cutters, and pulled the gate open on rusted hinges, the squealing noise echoing harshly throughout the chamber.
“If we’ve come out where I think we are, our river ride was a stroke of blind luck,” McGarvey said.
He started up, but Jacqueline held him back.
“Where?”
“We’re either beneath the Kremlin or St. Basil’s,” McGarvey said. “The direction and distance are about right. If I had to bet, I’d say St. Basil’s, because I think the Kremlin would be secured better than this.”
“You’re coming back to the embassy with me, Kirk.”
“They’ve got Liz.”
“I know. But assassinating Tarankov won’t do her any good.”
“It may be the only thing that will save her,” McGarvey said.
“I didn’t come this far for nothing,” Jacqueline cried.
“Neither did I,” McGarvey replied grimly. “Once we get out of here, you’re going back to your own embassy and you’re going to stay there this time.”
“If I had followed your instructions when you called, you’d still be up there in the storm sewers with Chernov’s men closing in on you.”
“You’re probably right. But this time you’ll do as I say, because we’re not going to get so lucky a second time.”
“Goddamn you, Kirk,” Jacqueline said in frustration.
“It’s something I have to do,” he said gently. “You can either accept that or not. But that’s the way it is.”
Jacqueline lowered her eyes after a moment.
They headed up, taking it slowly and quietly, the stone stairs switching back and forth, their path blocked by two more iron gates. McGarvey cut the padlocks free with the bolt-cutters, and through the second gate they found themselves in a series of chambers which held huge stone sarcophagi.
A stone passageway led to broad stone stairs that led in turn up to tall iron gates through which they could see the scaffolding beneath the main onion dome of St. Basil’s Cathedral.
It was a few minutes before 4:30 a.m. The search for them would still be concentrated in the tunnels beneath Dzerzhinsky Square, and no one would be in the church at this hour of the morning. In fact all the buildings around Red Square would probably be closed until after the rally which was scheduled to take place in less than twelve hours.
At the top of the stairs, McGarvey reached the bolt cutter through the bars and cut the padlock free. When they were through, he replaced the padlock, and smeared some grease from the hinges around the severed metal hasp. It would fool a casual observer.
He led Jacqueline to one of the rear gardens and let her out.
“One last time, Kirk. Don’t do this,” she pleaded, looking up into his eyes.
“I have no other choice.”
She touched his cheek with her fingertips. “Will I ever see you again, my lovely man?”
McGarvey managed a smile. “Count on it.”
FORTY-TWO
At 5:00, the morning was still pitch black and chilly as Tarankov sat on the open rear platform of his car smoking a cigarette and drinking a glass of brandy. He’d been brooding and watching the stars for the past three hours, thinking about how much he was going to miss Liesel. Her counsel as of late had become unsteady, as if the life they had led was finally beginning to unbalance her, but he missed her at his side now.
Every ten or fifteen minutes he spotted a shooting star. At first he’d made a wish on each of them. But he had stopped, because of course wishes never came true. The only truth was the reality we made for ourselves. The truth was that before the day was over he’d either be the supreme ruler of a new Soviet Union or he would be dead. At times like these he wondered if he really cared which, because throughout his life he had done questionable things. Things to which some biographer would apply his or her own truth.
He also thought about the young woman who’d infected them like a virus. She was an alien presence on the train and she was even starting to have an effect on his men. She’d not bothered to hide her nakedness as Liesel’s body was removed and her compartment cleaned, and Tarankov had seen the looks on the faces of his young commandoes. It was lust, the same emotion that had affected him, and the same emotion that had resulted in Liesel’s death, and very nearly his own.
But he found that he couldn’t really hate the young woman who, after all, was here against her will. She’d defended herself the only way she knew how. And part of him could even admire her for her strength.
After the rally there would no longer be any need for her, he decided. He would kill her before the disease she carried infected them all beyond a cure. In a way she was every bit as dangerous to them, as her father was. They would both have to be destroyed at all costs.
Elizabeth McGarvey felt as if she had never slept in her life, or ever could. She had killed Liesel without hesitation, and had the gun contained more bullets she would have killed Tarankov as well. Afterward when the woman’s body was being taken away and two of the young soldiers were cleaning up the mess she’d found that she was unable to move so much as a muscle. She’d been in shock, she supposed, but even though she was aware that she was naked, she’d done nothing to turn away or cover herself.
It was the last look in Liesel’s eyes when the bullet had crashed into her chest, that troubled Elizabeth.
