Read Online The Matarese Circle by Robert Ludlum - Free Book Online

distances judged quickly. The sound did not come from the landing above, but from higher up the staircase. His flat was on the next floor; someone was waiting for him to approach. Someone wanted him inside his rooms perhaps, egress awkward, a trap being set.
    Vasili continued his climb, the rhythm of his footsteps unbroken. The years had trained him to keep such items as keys and coins in his left-hand pockets, freeing his right toreach quickly for a weapon, or to be used as a weapon itself. He came to the landing and turned; his door was only feet away.
    There was the creak again, faint, barely heard, mixed with the sound of the distant wind outside. Whoever was on the staircase had moved back, and that told him two things; the intruder would wait until he was definitely inside his flat, and whoever it was was either careless or inexperienced or both. One did not move when this close to a quarry; the air was a conductor of motion.
    In his left hand was his key; his right had unfastened the buttons of his overcoat and was now gripped around the handle of his automatic, strapped in an open holster across his chest. He inserted the key, opened the door, then yanked it shut, stepping back rapidly, silently into the shadows of the staircase. He stayed against the wall, his gun leveled in front of him over the railing.
    The sound of footsteps preceded the rushing figure as it raced to the door. In the figure’s left hand was an object; he could not see it now, it was hidden by the heavily clothed body. Nor were there seconds to wait. If the object was an explosive, it would be on a timer-release. The figure had raised his right hand to knock on the door.
    “Press yourself into the door! Your
left hand in front
of you! Between your stomach and the wood!
Now!
”
    “Please!” The figure spun halfway around; Taleniekov was on him, throwing him against the panel. He was a young man, a boy really, barely in his teens, thought Vasili. He was tall for his age, but his age was obvious from his face; it was callow, the eyes wide and clear and frightened.
    “Move back slowly,” said Taleniekov harshly. “Raise your left hand.
Slowly.
”
    The young man moved back, his left hand exposed; it was clenched into a fist.
    “I didn’t do anything wrong, sir. I swear it!” The young man’s whisper cracked in fear.
    “Who are you?”
    “Andreev Danilovich, sir. I live in the Cheremushki.”
    “You’re a long way from home,” said Vasili. The housing development referred to by the youth was nearly forty-five minutes south of Red Square. “The weather’s terrible and someone your age could be picked up by the
militsianyer.
”
    “I had to come here, sir,” answered Andreev. “A man’s been shot; he’s hurt very badly. I think he’s going to die. I am to give this to you.” He opened his left hand; in it was a brass emblem, an army insignia denoting the rank of general. Its design had not been used in more than thirty years. “The old man said to say the name Krupskaya, Aleksie Krupskaya. He made me say it several times so I wouldn’t forget it. It’s not the name he uses down at the Cheremushki, but it’s the one he said to give you. He said I must bring you to him. He’s dying, sir!”
    At the sound of the name, Taleniekov’s mind raced back in time. Aleksie Krupskaya! It was a name he had not heard in years, a name few people in Moscow wanted to hear. Krupskaya was once the greatest teacher in the KGB, a man of infinite talent for killing and survival—as well he might be. He was the last of the notorious Istrebiteli, that highly specialized group of exterminators that had been an élite outgrowth of the old NKVD, its roots in the barely remembered OGPU.
    But Aleksie Krupskaya had disappeared—as so many had disappeared—at least a dozen years ago. There had been rumors linking him to the deaths of Beria and Zhurkov, some even mentioning Stalin himself. Once in a fit of rage—or fear—Krushchev had stood up in the