Red Templar

“And so Rasputin died at your father’s hand.”

“Using Rayner’s Webley pistol for the coup de grace, and finally drowning him. But not before retrieving the key.”

“The key to Ivan the Terrible’s treasure house?”

“The key to everything,” answered Genrikhovich. He began to hum something that sounded like a hymn of some sort, and then began to sing the words under his breath.

“Can you make out what he’s saying?” Holliday whispered to Eddie as they continued on down the mysterious corridor somewhere deep beneath the Kremlin.

“It is something religious, I think,” the Cuban said, listening to the mournful, chanting tune. “It is very old, too.” He listened again as Genrikhovich repeated what sounded like a chorus. “‘We who misticamente. . mystically? represent’. . ?el bebe angel?”

“Cherubim?” Holliday suggested.

“Si. . ‘cherubim, and singing to the life-giving Trinity the. . three-times-holy hymn, let us now lay aside all earthly care that we may. . receive the king of all, who comes invisibly’. . transmitido por. . ‘carried up. . borne up by angels. Aleluya! Aleluya! Aleluya!’”

Behind them Genrikhovich repeated the chorus over and over again, lost within the hymn and whatever it meant to him. A few moments later the passageway ended in a wrought-iron gate with six rusted bars that was closed, but not locked. Eddie cautiously pushed open the gate and waited.

“Step through into the chamber,” said Genrikhovich.

“What do you see?” Holliday asked, standing a couple of feet behind his friend. “Any wires, traps, anything out of place in the doorway?” Eddie scanned the iron frame of the gate, paying particular attention to the hinges, the bottom of the frame and the lintel overhead.

“Nada,” said the Cuban.

“What about the room beyond?”

“A circle, a dome in the ceiling. There are two other gates and a door. There is a great deal of dust everywhere. The floor is in mosaic. Circles one inside another, red and black, and there are mosaic pictures over the gates.”

“Pictures of what?”

“A saint in one, the Holy Mother above the other.”

Holliday smiled faintly. You could spend a lifetime under Fidel, but once a Catholic, always a Catholic. “Anything else?”

“Directly across the room there is ?un. . pulpito??Un altar? ”

“An altar?”

“Si,” said Eddie. “Un altar de oro. A golden altar.”

“A golden altar?” Genrikhovich asked, excitement rising in his voice.

“Yes,” replied Holliday.

“The Holy Altar of the Ninth Sanctuary,” breathed the Russian. “The old stories were true!”

“What old stories?” Holliday asked.

“Step through!” Genrikhovich demanded. “Step through! I must see for myself!”

“Go through,” said Holliday to Eddie, his voice soft. “But stay close to the wall.”

“Si, compadre. I understand,” the Cuban replied. He stepped through into the room and shuffled quickly to the left, keeping his back close to the wall. Holliday followed, his eyes scanning the room in the light from his helmet. Genrikhovich stepped through the gateway, the big lantern in his left hand, the Tokarev still firmly gripped in his right.

“It is true,” he whispered. “All true.” He walked forward, hypnotized by the gleaming vision of the gold altar on the far side of the room.

“I think you’d better stop,” advised Holliday. Genrikhovich ignored him and continued forward toward the altar. “Stop!” Holliday said, speaking like a drill instructor.

Genrikhovich stopped and turned, blinking like a man coming out of sleep. “What did you say?” the Russian asked. Holliday noticed that the hand with the gun had dropped slightly. Not enough to do anything about, not yet, at least.

“Look at the floor,” said Holliday. “There are four circles of red, four of black and one red circle in the center. Between the last circle of black and the red one in the center it looks as though the dust has settled into some sort of crack.”

“What are you talking about?” Genrikhovich asked, suspicion rising in his tone along with the pistol in his hand.

“It’s a tiger trap,” said Holliday.

“What?” Genrikhovich asked, looking confused. “What is that?”

“Your weight springs a trapdoor and you fall into a pit with twenty or thirty bamboo stakes jutting up. In Vietnam they used to cover the sharpened ends of the bamboo with human feces; if the spikes didn’t kill you the sepsis would.”

“You think those deeper lines in the floor could signify such a thing?” Genrikhovich asked.

“Positive.” Holliday turned to Eddie. “Give me the shovel.”

Eddie handed him the entrenching tool, and Holliday walked forward until he stood just outside the large crimson center ring. He knelt down, raised the shovel above his head, then brought it down hard. There was a cracking noise, the rusty groan of old hinges, and then the gallows thump of two semicircular doors six feet across dropping downward. Holliday edged forward and looked into the pit. It was twenty feet down, and the stakes were made of what appeared to be the pointed blades of upended broadswords. The entire bottom of the pit was covered with a piled litter of bones. One of the sword stakes had slid between the old sepia-colored bones of an intact rib cage. Holliday counted at least twenty human skulls.

“Looks like your friend Ivan had a few practice runs,” said Holliday.

Genrikhovich came cautiously forward and looked down into the pit, keeping one eye on Holliday and Eddie. He stepped back quickly, his lip curled in distaste. “No doubt he had the workmen and artisans who worked here killed to keep his secret.”

“No doubt,” said Holliday dryly. There was a heavy metallic sound from somewhere under the floor, and the trap snapped shut again, ready for its next victim. “What about the two other gates?”

“Simple,” said Genrikhovich. “The czar had many enemies and was a great believer in secrets and escape routes. The stairs and the passageways we used to get here led from the dungeons. That was almost surely how the czar had his treasures from Byzantium carried here.” He paused and nodded toward the gate with the mosaic of the saint over it. For the first time Holliday noticed that the vestments the saint was wearing were covered with large red crosses, the same eight pointed crosses that were used by the Templars on their shields and even by Columbus on the sails of his three famous ships. “The saint over the gateway is Saint Basil, or Vasily in Russian. When the czar went to Saint Basil’s Cathedral a hundred yards away in what is now called Red Square, he would use that passageway to reach his treasure house unharmed. The other passage leads to the Cathedral of the Assumption in the Kremlin itself. The cathedral is consecrated to the Virgin Mary. As you may know, the Cathedral of the Assumption is also known as the Uspenski Cathedral.”

“The Faberge Kremlin Egg,” said Holliday.

“The pieces of the puzzle begin to come together at last.” The Russian smiled.

“What about the Templar crosses on Saint Basil’s robes?”

“Equally simple,” said Genrikhovich. “You may not be aware of this, but Saint Basil’s lies at the exact geographical center of Moscow. The tenth church of Saint Basil’s was known as the Jerusalem church by its priests, since it was by definition the very center of holy life in the great city; they have worn the crosses for almost a thousand years to honor the knights who guarded Jerusalem the way the priests guarded the church. It is why, in the end, the Sword of the South, Octanis, came here with the rest of Ivan’s treasures.”

“I don’t see it,” said Holliday, trying to get the Russian’s goat and get him off guard. It didn’t work.

“The last secret,” said Genrikhovich calmly. “Go to the altar, please,” he said, waving the gun a little, but standing aside. “Your friend as well.”