Following the map that she’d memorised, she turned left at the end of the corridor, and then left again ten feet later, until she reached the staircase she’d been looking for. She climbed down to the lowest level, her rubber-soled shoes making soft whispers on the concrete steps.
There was a crypt in the bowels of the tower, and a chill ran along Sofiya’s spine when she entered it. The cavernous space was entirely made of slabs of dark-grey stone. It was unlit, which added to the eerie feeling emanating from the place. Pulling her small flashlight out of her bag, the young spy flicked it on and continued to move forward.
The light did little to alleviate the creepy feeling in the room, and shadows danced on the floor as they sought to evade the harsh white glow that dared disturb them. Sofiya forced herself to focus on her goal rather than on the various raised tombs and what she knew lay inside.
According to the Italian’s map, she was looking for lo stemma—the coat of arms. It had been Petrov and Sofiya’s hope that the clue would make sense to her once she got here, but it did not.
Too bad we can’t ask Vittorio Amalfi what he meant by that, she thought bitterly, remembering the corpse she had surrendered to the depths of Lake Mälaren.
The coat of arms of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic was composed of wheat, a rising sun, the red star, and of course, the hammer and sickle. This celebration of communism was created in 1918 and, thus, had no place in an old basement like this one.
Sofiya closed her eyes to better remember what came before. Was it the Russian Empire and its great circular coat of arms? In the centre, black on yellow, was the traditional two-headed eagle. It was flanked by the archangels Michael and Gabriel, themselves encircled by the 15 coats of arms of the Empire’s territories.
The crowned, two-headed eagle, a powerful mythical creature, had been the symbol of Russia ever since Ivan the Great and the end of the Byzantine Empire. Dozens of variations of the emblem had been made throughout the centuries, but always, the eagle remained. And for several hundreds of years now, it held, in its left paw, a golden sceptre, and in its right, a globus cruciger; the symbols of the ruling power and the church—power and dominion over all men.
Looking around at the small room she was in, Sofiya found none of that. Everything here was old, covered in dust, and unadorned. The walls were barren of emblems and symbols and only carried a couple of dried-up oil lamps. The rectangular room had no furniture—no painting or sculpture of any kind. There was nothing here, aside from the eight tombs she had spotted earlier.
Despite her uneasiness, she moved closer to the first one. As raised tombs went, this was a simple one. Four slabs of dark grey stone, one for each side, and a fifth rectangular one to serve as a lid. Sofiya blew a breath over the top surface, and a cloud of dust lifted to reveal parts of the name of the man buried here. She had to use a hand to wipe the surface to read it in its entirety. Fyodor Godunov, died 15 March 1604.
Sofiya moved to the next tomb and repeated the action, only to discover that Mikhail Mikhailovich had died on the same date. She continued, discovering the names of these men until she reached tomb number five. This one had no name on its surface, only a carved symboclass="underline" a two-headed eagle.
She inspected the tomb more closely but could find no mechanism or button to press. Aside from the emblem on the lid, it looked like the other ones. “Please, be empty,” she murmured as she pushed the lid with both hands.
Drawing in a deep breath, she had to put all her weight into the motion for it to begin to slide over. The first inch was the hardest, and she kept pushing until she managed to get it three-quarters of the way off. Bracing herself, Sofiya used her light to reveal the interior. She let out a relieved sigh when she didn’t find a decayed, centuries-old skeleton. Instead, she found a steep staircase with steps made of the same dark-grey stone as the tombs.
Flashlight in hand, Sofiya slid herself inside the tomb. Some thirty steps later, she reached the beginning of a dark corridor. It was a well-known fact that each medieval fortress had secret passages and tunnels underneath it, and the Kremlin was no exception. Many of these were believed to have been built in the time of Prince Dmitry Donskoy, who ruled Moscow for 30 years, beginning in 1359. Under his order, underground pathways were built beneath the Kremlin fortress as a secret passageway to the outside. They were to be used by government spies, as an escape route if the Kremlin were besieged and to bring water in from the river during times of war. The fortifications of both the original wooden Kremlin and of the white-stone fortress, built under Donskoy, did not survive the centuries, and a large remodelling was made in the late 15th century by Ivan the Great. It was he who decided to invite renowned Italian architects to build the brick walls and towers, the churches, and the palace of the Grand Duke. The Italians also created the Kremlin’s basic underground structures that remain to this day—it was, after all, a must-have for any fortress at the time.
Though few historical documents refer to tunnels, and Soviet officials never mentioned them, the Italians kept some of the original plans in their archives. And that was what Vittorio Amalfi had sold to Petrov for the price of his own life. How that greedy architect had come by them in the first place, Sofiya had no idea, but she hoped the blueprint she pulled out of her backpack was accurate, lest she’d be wandering the meandering corridors until the end of time.
Balancing the flashlight and the map in her hand, she slowly headed north. Her destination, the Arsenal, was at the opposite end of the Kremlin, and she’d have to cross through the entire square to get there. On the surface, that would have taken her less than ten minutes, but down here, she was forced to follow one tunnel after another, and she had no idea how long that would take her. Providing none of the paths she’d selected were obstructed, she estimated it would take her around fifteen minutes, but if she had to re-route on the way—there was no telling how long she would have to trudge through the citadel’s belly.
Her target, the former armoury, remained in use as the home to the Kremlin Regiment, the main security service for the Soviet President. On the surface, it was a large elongated trapezoid two-storey building, with yellow-painted brick walls. But below the surface, it was another matter, as Sofiya had recently found out. There was a maze of vaults and chambers, all connected by sinuous tunnels that people had forgotten about.
Keeping a steady pace, Sofiya advanced in the darkness. Aside from the glow of her light, the tunnels were pitch black and smelled of must and mould. The dust had settled on the slab floors, and spiderwebs dangled from crack to crack in the brick walls. The gullet was just wide enough for one person to fit through and barely high enough for her to stand to her full height, and every now and then, she had to duck to pass beneath a wooden beam.
Sofiya checked her map at every junction, pushing forward through dust and decay. The further she went, the thicker the stale smell grew. Fresh air became a rare commodity in the Kremlin’s bowels, and she felt herself grow faint. She was forced to slow down to regulate her oxygen intake.
At the turn of a corridor, the path widened, and Sofiya’s hopes of finding the exit surged. They were crushed when she stumbled upon a wide chamber and three skeletons lying on the floor. The prisoners still had sturdy iron shackles on their wrists and ankles, and the remnants of moth-eaten clothes on their backs. It looked as if they’d been forgotten down here, for God knows how many hundreds of years. Sparing a thought for the poor souls, she pushed forward. There was another corridor on the other side, and Sofiya headed that way.