The Lost Throne

43

The Church on Spilled Blood, a breathtaking Russian cathedral built on the spot where Tsar Alexander II was mortally wounded by revolutionaries in 1881, sits off of Nevsky Prospekt beside the Griboyedov Canal. The church’s onion domes and ornate façade look beautifully out of place in Saint Petersburg. Contrary to the European look of the city’s architecture, it resembles St. Basil’s Cathedral, the famous church that overlooks Red Square in Moscow.

As a tourist boat chugged up the waterway toward the colorful landmark, Jones crossed the canal on foot, hoping his blood wouldn’t be spilled next to the tsar’s.

For the time being, he felt optimistic that his shadow was working alone. Back at the Astoria Hotel, Jones had heard a single set of footsteps in the stairwell, and only one man had followed him across Nevsky Prospekt. Still, in this age of technology, Jones knew reinforcements were just a phone call away.

And phone calls were something Jones wanted to prevent.

While prepping for this mission, he had studied a map of the local terrain. He had memorized street names, bridges, and multiple escape routes. He had learned as much as he could as fast as he could, just in case something bad happened along the way. Something like this. Thankfully, his knowledge of the city gave him several choices. Instead of being trapped like a rat in a maze, he knew exactly where he wanted to go and what he hoped to accomplish when he got there.

In this situation, there was one obvious solution: the Saint Petersburg Metro.

A white sign with a blue letter “M” marked the entrance to the Nevsky Prospekt/Gostiny Dvor stations. Jones had never been inside, but he understood the basic layout of the system. Four lines, all assigned different colors, extended throughout the sprawling city and its suburbs. The blue Moskovsko-Petrogradskaya Line ran north and south. The green Nevsko-Vasileostrovskaya Line ran east and west. Both lines could be accessed from this central location, which happened to be the busiest terminal in the city.

To Jones, the large crowds were a bonus. If he timed things right, he might be able to slip away in the chaos underground. He was also thrilled that he could leave the city in any direction. That made it tougher for his opponent to anticipate where he was headed next.

In his mind, however, the best asset of the Metro system was the natural geology of the city. Because of potential flooding from all the rivers and canals in Saint Petersburg, the Metro is the deepest subway system in the world, buried under a thick layer of bedrock that prevents cell phone reception of any kind.

And no phone calls meant no reinforcements.

Kozlov smiled at the development. He had used the Metro several times in the past week, so he was familiar with all four lines, where they went, and which stations would be crowded.

His immediate goal was to follow the black man wherever he went, hoping to generate as many leads as possible. But at some point, Kozlov knew, he would be forced to grab the bags that the black man carried — just in case they were filled with information about Byrd.

And when Kozlov made his move, the black man would have to die.

Jones slipped inside the station and studied the flow of people in front of him. A row of turnstiles prevented passengers from entering the subway without a card or token. In the corner of the lobby, he saw three small booths manned by women cashiers. Jones hopped into the shortest line while digging through his pockets for local currency. A moment later, he placed a fifty-ruble note on the counter and signaled for one subway token.

She mumbled something in Russian, then gave him a bronze coin and a handful of change.

His ticket to freedom cost him less than an American quarter.

Jones hustled toward the turnstile, put the token in the slot, and pushed through the revolving bar. An arched hallway funneled all the passengers toward a long bank of escalators. Jones thought nothing of it until he reached the top step and had a chance to look down. The escalator was so long he couldn’t see the bottom, as though it were going all the way to Hell.

The person behind him pushed him gently, urging him in Russian to keep moving.

Jones nodded, stepped forward, and started his descent to the tunnels below.

Suddenly, he found himself trapped for the next several hundred feet. He couldn’t run or hide or change directions. His options were blocked by a waterfall of people, all of them inching forward at the same pace. Frustrated, Jones looked at his watch, wondering how long this journey was going to take. When the woman in front of him pulled out a novel, he groaned.

“You’ve got to be shitting me,” he said to himself.

But there was nothing he could do about it.

He was stuck until he reached the bottom.

Earlier in the week, Kozlov had purchased a Metro card worth several subway trips. So there were no lines or delays for him. He walked through the turnstiles, barely breaking his stride.

This helped him close the gap.

Up ahead, he spotted the black man carrying the three bags. At no point did his target turn around and look for someone behind him.

The guy was either crafty or clueless, Kozlov didn’t know which.

But he would find out when they reached the labyrinth below.

The trip took forever. At least it seemed that way to Jones.

Finally, the people in front of him gathered their things and stepped off the escalator. One by one, they scattered in both directions toward the different tracks.

The vaulted ceiling arched above him, lit by recessed lighting. The floor was made of polished stone. No trash or graffiti stained the terminal. The place was spotless. Jones stared at the sign on the wall in front of him. It was written in Russian. No translations of any kind.

“Damn,” he muttered.

This was going to be tougher than he thought.

Glancing to his left, he saw a neon sign with green Cyrillic text. To his right, one was written in blue. He couldn’t read any of the words, but he knew the blue trains went north and south. He remembered that fact by thinking of the map he had studied earlier in the day. In his mind, the north arrow pointed up toward the blue sky above.

And north was the direction that he was supposed to go.

Wasting no time, he hustled to his right and looked for another sign. The vaulted corridor stretched for a hundred feet before it branched again. This time both of his choices were written in blue. One was going north; the other was going south. He stood there in the intersection, calculating his options, as people streamed past him in both directions. The sound of screeching brakes echoed in his ears, followed by a whoosh of air and the heat of a surging train.

Or maybe that was Kozlov breathing down his neck.