Read Online Red Templar by Paul Christopher - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Paul Christopher
Tags: Fiction, Historical
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pedestrians window-shopping, stepping in and out of stores, appearing and disappearing in and out of metro stops, even walking dogs.
The broad avenue itself was crowded with cars and trolleybuses, their connectors crackling and flashing overhead as they passed. Nevsky Prospekt had been designed in the seventeenth century by Pyotr Alexeyevich Romanov, otherwise known as Peter the Great. Planned as the beginning of the road from St. Petersburg to Moscow, the avenue had always served as the city’s main street, but its grandeur had become tarnished over the centuries by war, Soviet rule, overhead wires, thousands of streetlamps and the near-Vegas glitz of countless neon signs on storefronts from Gucci and Tiffany to Pizza Hut and McDonald’s.
“Your friend is wasting his time,” said Genrikhovich, happily sipping a Starbucks Frappuccino.
Holliday himself held a plain black coffee. “You don’t think you might be under surveillance?”
“It is very doubtful. Not yet, at least. The discovery I made almost a month ago was accidental; the material was not classified.”
“You came across the border with us.”
“You give the Bulgarians far too much credit, Colonel Holliday. As far as bureaucracies are concerned things have changed little since the old days. If anything it is worse. In Bulgaria as in Russia we are still ruled by mediocrity, I can assure you.”
“Those men who came after us didn’t come out of nowhere,” said Holliday. He could feel an itch between his shoulder blades as hypothetical crosshairs targeted him.
“They were watching Brother Dimitrov.”
“And if they interrogate him?”
“He will tell them nothing, Colonel.”
“Everybody talks eventually,” answered Holliday.
“He is a
man,
like his grandfather. He would die first and take at least one of his interrogators with him.”
“You seem very sure.”
“I am a very small cog in the vast wheel of Mr. Putin’s Russia. He cannot see me turning, at least not yet.”
“What exactly are you the curator
of
at the Hermitage?” Holliday inquired. It was a simple enough question, but this was the first time he’d thought to ask it.
Genrikhovich smiled. “I am senior curator of the Hermitage archives.” He took a slurp from his straw. “You might say I am a bureaucrat’s bureaucrat, Colonel Holliday. The Hermitage archives contain a collection of letters, notes, purchase orders, provenance material and any other document or paper pertaining to the work of the Hermitage itself, going back to its origins with Catherine the Great in the mid–seventeen hundreds, as well as her purchase of several collections. I sometimes call myself the Keeper of the Filing Cabinets, the Troll of the Hermitage Basements, but it is a job not without interest.”
“I can imagine,” said Holliday. Genrikhovich was the museum’s chief file clerk. On the other hand, as a historian Holliday was well aware of the value of old bits of paper and forgotten documents. The Rosetta stone was nothing more than a decree about the revoking of several tax laws for priests by King Ptolemy, and the attendant festivals and temples to be organized. The famous stone had been written in Demotic Egyptian, hieroglyphs and Greek as a way of ensuring that all officials, priests and the ordinary people could read it, but the trilingual document effectively provided a translation for a language that had confounded historians for the previous eight hundred years.
They reached the Moika Canal, and Genrikhovich paused, looking to the south. “Down there is the Yusupov Palace,” he said, pointing down the winding narrow canal. There were barges and floating homes moored along the stone banks, but the buildings on either side were immense, huge mansions long since turned into government buildings and apartments. “It was from there that Rasputin came,” said Genrikhovich, his voice somber. “He ran along the ice, with Yusupov and his British companions following the trail
The broad avenue itself was crowded with cars and trolleybuses, their connectors crackling and flashing overhead as they passed. Nevsky Prospekt had been designed in the seventeenth century by Pyotr Alexeyevich Romanov, otherwise known as Peter the Great. Planned as the beginning of the road from St. Petersburg to Moscow, the avenue had always served as the city’s main street, but its grandeur had become tarnished over the centuries by war, Soviet rule, overhead wires, thousands of streetlamps and the near-Vegas glitz of countless neon signs on storefronts from Gucci and Tiffany to Pizza Hut and McDonald’s.
“Your friend is wasting his time,” said Genrikhovich, happily sipping a Starbucks Frappuccino.
Holliday himself held a plain black coffee. “You don’t think you might be under surveillance?”
“It is very doubtful. Not yet, at least. The discovery I made almost a month ago was accidental; the material was not classified.”
“You came across the border with us.”
“You give the Bulgarians far too much credit, Colonel Holliday. As far as bureaucracies are concerned things have changed little since the old days. If anything it is worse. In Bulgaria as in Russia we are still ruled by mediocrity, I can assure you.”
“Those men who came after us didn’t come out of nowhere,” said Holliday. He could feel an itch between his shoulder blades as hypothetical crosshairs targeted him.
“They were watching Brother Dimitrov.”
“And if they interrogate him?”
“He will tell them nothing, Colonel.”
“Everybody talks eventually,” answered Holliday.
“He is a
man,
like his grandfather. He would die first and take at least one of his interrogators with him.”
“You seem very sure.”
“I am a very small cog in the vast wheel of Mr. Putin’s Russia. He cannot see me turning, at least not yet.”
“What exactly are you the curator
of
at the Hermitage?” Holliday inquired. It was a simple enough question, but this was the first time he’d thought to ask it.
Genrikhovich smiled. “I am senior curator of the Hermitage archives.” He took a slurp from his straw. “You might say I am a bureaucrat’s bureaucrat, Colonel Holliday. The Hermitage archives contain a collection of letters, notes, purchase orders, provenance material and any other document or paper pertaining to the work of the Hermitage itself, going back to its origins with Catherine the Great in the mid–seventeen hundreds, as well as her purchase of several collections. I sometimes call myself the Keeper of the Filing Cabinets, the Troll of the Hermitage Basements, but it is a job not without interest.”
“I can imagine,” said Holliday. Genrikhovich was the museum’s chief file clerk. On the other hand, as a historian Holliday was well aware of the value of old bits of paper and forgotten documents. The Rosetta stone was nothing more than a decree about the revoking of several tax laws for priests by King Ptolemy, and the attendant festivals and temples to be organized. The famous stone had been written in Demotic Egyptian, hieroglyphs and Greek as a way of ensuring that all officials, priests and the ordinary people could read it, but the trilingual document effectively provided a translation for a language that had confounded historians for the previous eight hundred years.
They reached the Moika Canal, and Genrikhovich paused, looking to the south. “Down there is the Yusupov Palace,” he said, pointing down the winding narrow canal. There were barges and floating homes moored along the stone banks, but the buildings on either side were immense, huge mansions long since turned into government buildings and apartments. “It was from there that Rasputin came,” said Genrikhovich, his voice somber. “He ran along the ice, with Yusupov and his British companions following the trail
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