Brennan called off the dogs and hastened to the edge. He and Templar stood side by side, looking down at the lifeless body of innocent Agnes crumpled on the cold marble floor.
Father Brennan turned in rage to the stunned and speechless boy.
“Bastard!” yelled Brennan, slapping the child across the face. “Who the hell do you think you are?” He slapped him again, and the boy’s soul recoiled. Ice poured through his veins, and when he spoke his voice was steel on chilled steel.
“My name is Templar, Simon Templar.” He tried to force the words out, but his faith had fallen with Agnes. A third slap silenced his youthful impertinence, and his once bright eyes became dark stones in a well of tears.
2
CNN correspondent Jan Sharp’s nose had been cold and numb for so long, she almost doubted its existence. Bundled against the freezing Moscow wind, she stood before the familiar backdrop of St. Basil’s cathedral while her cameraman, Lloyd Swain, prepared for broadcast.
“This is what I get for majoring in Slavic languages and broadcast journalism,” quipped Sharp. “I could have majored in Romance Languages and we’d be doing a lifestyle feature on the pleasure resorts of Spain.”
Swain’s laugh formed warm breath clouds around his large, gregarious face. He, too, was encased in thermal underwear, quilted parka, and heavy gloves.
“Been there; done that,” replied Swain as he adjusted the camera’s white balance. “Besides, if we don’t cover this Tretiak story, Chet Rogers at UPN will get all the glory.”
A sudden gust of iced wind compelled Sharp to tug her fur-rimmed hood tighter around her face. She shivered and looked over to her left for a quick glimpse of her primary competitor. Chet Rogers’s UPN crew was also in Red Square, as were the folks from ITN and the big four American broadcast networks.
After a few more interminable minutes of wet, stinging air and last-minute technical adjustments, Swain was ready.
As the seasoned newscaster was about to begin, she noticed a long-haired tourist wearing a bright blue parka point his 35mm camera in her direction. She smiled her best professional smile, and he clicked the shutter moments before she went on the air.
“The Cold War may be over,” intoned Sharp, “but the war against the cold is heating up with dangerous political implications. Ivan Tretiak, the ultra-Nationalist former Soviet minister of energy turned Moscow entrepreneur — the former National Oil Company is now Tretiak Industries — is about to give a highly publicized address projected here, in Red Square, on giant video screens. If he has his way, he will take control of the former Soviet Union, playing the current crisis into an opportunity for another Russian revolution.”
The correspondent continued detailing the background of the crisis as thousands of Muscovites filled Red Square, huddling together in rapt anticipation.
“Moscow’s National Oil Company building was, during the era of Stalinist Russia, the singular source of reliable physical warmth during a reign of icy terror. By the turn of the twentieth century, however, the demise of Soviet Communism and resultant rise of capitalistic entrepreneurism has brought another chill to the Russian people — a coal and oil shortage of numbing proportions.”
The crowd stood shoulder to shoulder, cheering, stomping, and flicking their imported childproof lighters as an enthusiastic ovation for the dynamic leader who would soon address them from the heart of Tretiak Industries.
Giant video screens on either side of a double-headed eagle banner were filled with full-color images of Tretiak’s October Party banner — a rising sun, and a Russian girl and boy gazing on a glorious tomorrow.
The image dissolved into the energetic, fortyish, and victorious-looking visage of Ivan Tretiak being broadcast from the dramatically lit conference room of Tretiak Industries.
He delivered his impassioned, articulate, and inflammatory speech as much to the cameras as to the cold crowd huddled in the streets.
“For eight centuries Moscow, our Moscow, has been the seat of true civilization,” declared Tretiak, his voice echoing back from the cold stone buildings, “but now, what do I see? A Wild West town from some American movie!”
The crowd, familiar with American movies, cheered.
“If this is the Wild West, then make me your sheriff,” he exclaimed. “Let me wear a star... a red star!”
Pandemonium. The crowd, predisposed to agree, chanted his name in wild affirmation.
The long-haired tourist in the bright blue parka squeezed his way through the crowd as Tretiak continued his diatribe against the current Kremlin leadership and the evil influences of American motion pictures. The bitter cold and equally bitter mob meant nothing to him. He casually exited Red Square, returned to his budget-priced hotel room, gathered his belongings, and secured cab transportation to the airport.
The man entering the taxi, however, did not have long hair, nor did he look American. The name on his passport did not match the name under which he rented the Moscow room, nor did it share any similarity to the appellative used upon entering Russia.
Neither the flight attendants in first class nor the well-endowed matron sitting across from him could ever imagine that this handsome and well-mannered young man had, only a few hours before, been pulling off one of the most daring robberies in Russian history.
Simon Templar had done exactly that, and accomplished it by thorough planning, precision timing, and unwavering confidence. Templar’s confidence was well deserved. He had come to Moscow to do what he did best — steal. No longer a small, skinny lad, this handsome man had been self-reliant and self-supporting since his final escape from St. Ignatius at the age of thirteen.
The scene of the daring daylight robbery was the aforementioned Tretiak Industries building. Templar had acquired a small rented room not far from the target, and within days the walls were decorated with numerous telephoto images of the building from various angles, close-ups of specific individuals, and detailed floor plans.
A dedicated professional. Templar prepared for the caper with consummate skill. In addition to an astonishing collection of high-tech tools, he possessed total mastery of the art of disguise. His assortment of false mustaches, wigs, cheek pads, and mouth prosthetics rivaled the collection of any member of the Hollywood makeup artists’ union.
Simon Templar was, after all these years, still determined to be the only one to define his identity — an identity he could change at will.
By the time he left his rented room for Tretiak Industries, he was a moon-faced, chunky, mustachioed ruffian enwrapped in a heavy quilted overcoat.
He was not the only ruffian in a quilted overcoat entering Tretiak Industries that afternoon. Several such men acted as bodyguard escorts for a cadre of tuxedoed Japanese and Russian businessmen attending a high-level business conference preceding one of Ivan Tretiak’s polished media events.
Templar easily blended into the procession.
As they passed the formal security desk on the way to a bank of elevators, he quickly attached a tiny video camera, no bigger than a watch face, to a pillar directly facing the security system’s single video monitor.
Once inside the elevator. Templar hid his face by murmuring officiously into a walkie-talkie tucked deep in his shoulder. The others paid no attention to him, but one man seemed to project an air of suspicious unease. His name was Ilya, and it was his job to be suspicious and uneasy. In his hip Nike attire and Doc Martens, he was exported American excess personified.