“But very thorough as well. And that person could only prey on those who were greedy.” Lourds picked up another kofta. “You can’t con an honest man. Using the passageway was a much easier way to dispose of the bodies. That way, the con could be done again and again.”
“You think all of those people in that cave were killed by this person?”
“Or persons?” Lourds shook his head. “No, Boris and I have theorized that whoever came up with this scenario found an actual ossuary used by the Zoroastrians. We’ve dug up evidence of habitation here, some of it Zoroastrian, so that’s no stretch of the imagination. This was just a case of need meeting a fortuitous circumstance. At least, that’s how we’re going to write up our findings.”
“Would you mind going public with your story first?”
“What do you mean?”
“There is a young woman who has impressed me with her work.” Layla nodded at Boris and at Dmitry. “A fellow countrywoman to the two of you. Her name is Anna Cherkshan.”
Boris shook his head. “I’m afraid I haven’t had the pleasure.”
Layla picked at the palao on her plate, isolating a fried raisin with her fork. “It will be a pleasure. She is a very bright young woman. Very diligent about her duties, and she loves what she does. You can see it in her eyes.”
Dmitry cocked his head to one side. “Did you say Cherkshan?”
“I did. Do you know her?”
After a brief pause, Dmitry shook his head. “No, I don’t. No Anna Cherkshan.”
Layla switched her attention back to Lourds and Boris. “She would like it very much if the two of you would grant her an interview. She’s a journalist with The Moscow Times.”
Lourds stretched his legs under the table. “That’s impressive. The Moscow Times only publishes the best writers in the country, and the articles have to be in English.”
“Exactly. I believe this would be a good experience for her, and it wouldn’t hurt to embellish your careers, and mine. Perhaps it would help if the two of you found the Holy Grail or a lost Russian ikon that somehow found its way out here—”
“Given the trade through this area, that’s not as impossible as you might think.” Boris smiled.
“—but your story, especially with the added trappings of the deadly con game, will probably seize the attention of her readers. As well as armchair archeologists throughout the world.”
“Only for a brief time.” Lourds sipped his wine. “Fame is very fleeting.”
She looked at him. “Not always fleeting, Professor Lourds. Bedroom Pursuits continues to hit the international bestseller lists.”
Lourds met her gaze for a moment and didn’t say anything.
Dmitry nodded, and it was apparent the vodka was affecting him as well. “Yes, my wife has this book. She hides it from me, but I know where it is.”
Boris looked at the SVR major and smiled. “Because you are a spy.”
“This is true. Because I am a spy. A very good one. Just not so discreet about it when I am among friends.”
Lourds flicked his attention to Dmitry. “So, why were you spying on Boris?”
Dmitry shrugged. “Is orders. I am given orders, I follow them. It is what I always do. I am called back to Moscow already. There I will get new orders.”
“They know you’ve been caught out?”
“Of course. I told them. I am no longer effective to spy on you. If they wish you spied upon further, they will have to send another spy.”
Boris shook his head. “But I’ve done nothing to draw the attention of spies or spymasters.”
Chuckling, Dmitry patted Boris’s hand on the table. “Is Russia. You don’t have to do anything wrong. Sometimes we spy on you just as practice. Sometimes we spy on you to let you know we will spy on you whenever we wish. To keep you from doing anything wrong.”
Lourds stared at the man in disbelief. “But that doesn’t make any sense.”
Dmitry shrugged magnanimously. “Is Russian way.”
And that settled the matter.
9
With his hat under his arm, General Anton Cherkshan strode through the quiet halls, trying not to appear nervous as he marched to the most important meeting he’d had in his career with the Federal Security Service.
A little under six feet tall and heavier than he should be, though still a strong, fit, and able man, Cherkshan would take on a bear with a pocketknife if he had to. This meeting with Mikhail Nevsky, the current president of the Russian Federation, was like that: extremely dangerous but something he had to do. Cherkshan would meet the man, but he wished he had a pocketknife.
His personal weapons and his pocketknife had been taken by Nevsky’s personal security detachment. They were good men. Cherkshan had served alongside many of them.
Meeting with the president — alone — was mystifying. No one Cherkshan knew was aware of the meeting, and it had been kept in utmost secrecy. If there was one thing Cherkshan had learned over the years, it was that secrets were very dangerous things, able to cut anyone they touched.
A few minutes later, Cherkshan reached the room where he had been told he would find the president. Through the open doorway, the general saw Nevsky gazing through one of the bulletproof windows out over the Moskva River to the south. The morning sun glittered on the water as boats passed under the Borodinsky Bridge.
That bridge represented the spirit of change to Cherkshan. As a boy, he had traveled on it with his father and sometimes floated under it because his father worked as a tugboat operator and occasionally took his son along with him while at work. But Cherkshan only got to go if his schoolwork was exemplary, which had been difficult because book knowledge didn’t come easily to him. Not like knowing the military life. However, the same honor and courage his father had taught him had served Cherkshan in good stead in the Russian army, then in the FSB.
As a young man, Cherkshan had traveled the bridge, proposed to Katrina on it, and scattered his father’s ashes across the Moskva River. Then Cherkshan had joined the Russian military to help provide for his mother and two younger sisters.
In 2001, the bridge was torn down and replaced with a larger version, and Cherkshan’s memories of his father and his childhood were no longer as firmly anchored as they had been. From his office, Cherkshan had sometimes watched the construction, and he’d hated the necessity of it. Not enough things in the world remained the same.
Even Russia had changed. Her people, and not just the younger generation, had embraced the ways of the West. Cherkshan did not agree with the leanings in his country, and the unrest further bothered him because Russia might one day tear herself apart.
But Mikhail Nevsky held the promise of turning Russia back into the great country it had once been. The president had worked hard to purge the Mafiya and black market dealers from the city as well as the country. Nevsky had worked even harder to shut down the oligarchs, the Russian businessmen who trafficked in smuggled goods, going after the heads of business and charging them with tax evasion and other crimes. Nevsky had locked some of them up, and he had sent others scurrying away.
The previous administration had protected such men, and unrepentant capitalism guided by unfettered greed sucked the lifeblood from Mother Russia. Nevsky had led a team of FSB soldiers into one office building, tearing through the new “privacy” laws those men tried to import from the West to protect them.