“I’m old enough.”
“Why are you here? I would have thought they’d use someone local.”
“The powers that be decided they want this run closely.”
“I thought your people frowned on face-to-face meetings,” said Bone.
“They’ve gone back to old tradecraft; cell phones and computers are too easy to monitor.”
“Would you like some coffee?” Bone asked, gesturing toward the cup on the table in front of him. “It’s very good. Much better than the weasel’s pee we get at home.”
Whit had the feeling that the meeting was getting away from him. It was surreal enough for him to be sitting in a Moscow cafe discussing coffee with a professional assassin without feeling as though he had no business being there and that Bone was secretly laughing up his sleeve at him.
“You ask a lot of questions,” he said, trying to make his voice sound crisp and severe. It came out like a whining complaint.
“If you don’t ask questions you don’t get answers, and for a man in my line of work, not having answers when you need them can be fatal.”
“Well, it’s my turn to ask them,” said Whit.
“Fire away then, lad.”
“And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t call me ‘lad.’”
“All right, then, Agent X, whatever you like.”
“We haven’t heard from you since Amsterdam.”
“I had nothing to say.”
“And now?”
“Your intelligence is poor. There was nothing in Yekaterinburg. It was fluff and flummery. The real objective should have been the Russian, Genrikhovich. He got off the train early, leaving Holliday and the other to fend for themselves. I followed Genrikhovich rather than the American.”
“That wasn’t the protocol we established,” said Whit.
“It was the course of action I deemed would get the best results.”
“And has it?”
“I believe so.” Bone nodded. He took a sip of his coffee.
“Do you have any idea where Holliday is?”
“He should be here within the next half hour or so.”
“Look over my right shoulder. Across the square. There are the ruins of an old mansion. A few people park their cars there illegally. Once upon a time the mansion was owned by a member of the Russian nobility who was carrying on an affair with the princess who lived in the palace next door, which is now a department store. To facilitate the affair he dug a tunnel from the basement of the mansion to the palace.”
“What does this have to do with Holliday?” Whit asked.
“For the last four nights, between eight thirty and nine p.m., Genrikhovich and an Orthodox priest named Anatoliy Ivanov have parked a green 1995 Lada Niva Cossack in the lot of the remains of the mansion. They get out of the car and disappear into the ruins. I have ascertained that they shift a large slab of paving stone that leads down into the old passageway. From there they make their way into one of the original Trubnaya subway maintenance tunnels.”
“And why is this important?”
“I have no idea, except that according to my information the priest is also a member of the Moscow Archaeological Institute. More to the point, before I came here I watched Holliday and the black man go into the apartment where the priest lives.”
“You think Holliday will come here?”
“I’m almost certain of it. According to you, Holliday is searching for something; clearly so are Genrikhovich and the priest.”
Whit was staring over Bone’s shoulder. His eyes were on the ruins of the old building on the far side of the square. As he watched, a dark-colored Lada bumped up off the street and onto an empty patch of ground. “The car just pulled in,” Whit said, his voice low.
“Excellent,” said Bone, smiling pleasantly. He slid out of the booth and bent down to pick up the sports bag. “Care to join me?”
“No. I don’t think so,” said Whit.
“I thought not,” said Bone. “Ta-ta then. I’ll give you a ring when it’s all over, shall I?”
“Yes,” said Whit, suddenly feeling unaccountably ashamed of himself. “Please.”
“No bother,” said Bone. “No bother at all.”
31
“His name was Count Peter Alekseyevich Pahlen, and the princess who spent her summers in the palace next door was named Caroline of Hesse-Darmstadt,” said Father Ivanov as they climbed down the rusty iron rungs of the ladder. “The tunnel facilitated their affair and kept them from being discovered by the princess’s husband. Not a nice man, by all accounts.”
Above them Genrikhovich slid the paving stone over the opening. The only light now came from the big flashlight Ivanov was carrying in his free hand as they went down the ladder.
“Is any of this important?” Holliday asked, directly above the priest.
“Not really.”
“Then let’s forget about them; I’ve got enough Russian names floating around in my head.”
“I thought you were a historian,” answered Ivanov.
“I am,” said Holliday. “But not a historian of
They reached the bottom of the ladder. Eddie came down the ladder next, followed by Genrikhovich. Ivanov turned on several large portable lanterns and the chamber was flooded with light. Holliday found himself in a low- ceilinged room a little larger than a jail cell. At the far end of the oversize cell there was a very narrow arched brick passageway. The smell emanating from beyond the archway was indescribably foul.
In the chamber there was a bench with a box of leather workman’s utility belts, each equipped with a large climber’s hammer, coiled rope and a short pry bar. A pile of hip waders stood in one corner, and spikes in a brick wall were hung with a number of Tyvek biological suits, complete with hoods. Each suit had a half-mask respirator with it.
There was a box of hard hats fitted with miner’s lamps in a rotting cardboard box on the floor beneath the bench, and several folding spades and small pickaxes.
“You seem well equipped,” commented Holliday.
“I have been doing this for six years, on and off.” Ivanov shrugged. “I have accumulated some experience.” He slipped off the knapsack full of bottled water and food and then began to strip off his outer clothes. “A few of the Diggers have helped me from time to time; that is why I have the extra equipment.”
“Diggers?” Holliday asked.
“That is what they call themselves,” said the priest fondly. “Diggers of the Underground Planet. Their leader is a man named Vadim Mikhailov; he has been exploring underneath the streets of Moscow for twenty years. He is a devout Orthodox and has helped me greatly, teaching me the ‘tricks of the trade,’ as he calls them, and warning me of the things to watch out for.
“You might be surprised.” Ivanov smiled. He picked up the folding shovel and clipped it to his utility belt, then handed Holliday the short-handled pickax. “Last month the FSB discovered an underground mosque and three hundred illegal aliens in an underground bunker where the Rossiya Hotel used to be.”
The priest took a very up-to-date Magellan eXplorist 610 GPS unit out of his knapsack, slung the bag over his shoulder, then took one of the hard hats out of the box.
“Father Stelletskii’s maps?” Holliday asked.
“On microchips.” Ivanov nodded.
