Turov grimaced. “Then let us be finished with this matter, too.”
Oleg, ten years his junior, was a dour-faced mountain man from the Urals. His blond hair was shorn tight under a black beret, a hat that represented his past with the naval infantry brigade. While serving in Syria, the man had lost a leg, just below his left knee. Afterward, while recuperating, he had studied at the Arctic Marine Institute, gaining a degree in geology.
Oleg also shared more than just a professional role. The two had forged a deeper bond. It gleamed in white gold on the man’s left hand. It was Oleg who had introduced him to the Arkangel Society, a group that had already opened powerful doors and held the promise of far more.
Turov clapped his friend on the arm, squeezing firmly, then collected an overcoat from a rack, along with a furred ushanka hat. Oleg already had donned a heavy woolen jacket over his uniform.
The two headed out of his office and into an elevator.
“Did Sychkin say if he was successful?” Turov asked as the doors closed.
“No. Only that there was something important he wanted to share with you.”
Turov frowned.
What could that be?
11:55P.M.
As Turov exited the administration building, the breeze off the sea cut through his fur-lined coat. Ice and salt filled his lungs. Though it was well into spring, the temperature remained frigid, dropping precipitously after sunset.
He and Oleg hurried through the dark streets, hunched against the cold. They strode quickly toward a building lit by flickers of gas lamps.Unlike the base’s utilitarian cement block and corrugated steel architecture, this structure was mortared stone, with leaded glass windows and sills of hewn pine. Above it, a wooden steeple rose high, topped by an orthodox cross.
It was the Church of the Holy Sacrament. It had stood on this spot for more than a century. During the Soviet era, the structure had been transformed into a jail. Now it had been returned to a place of worship, though steel bars still covered its windows.
They headed up the stone steps and pushed through the heavy wooden doors and into the church’s dark narthex. Ahead of them, on the far side of the nave, a few fat candles glowed warmly, reflecting off the rich gold iconography of its altar screen. Closer at hand, the plaster walls bore new frescoes, which still looked wet in the candlelight.
Turov frowned, resenting the expense it took to renovate the church. Then again, the current regime in Moscow considered the restoration of the Russian Orthodox Church to be a top priority, a means to a spiritual renewal for the country, a way of instilling national pride—or as cynics would believe, returning Russia to the theocratic values of the tsarist era.
“The archpriest should still be below,” Oleg said as he led Turov to a set of stairs on the left.
They headed down steps into the church’s basement. While everything aboveground had been returned to its former glory, this level still clung stubbornly to its Soviet roots. The stone walls remained un-plastered. Stark sodium lights lit the passageway. Cells lined either side, closed by thick steel doors. Likewise, the purpose down here remained the same.
This was still a prison, one that the Church had found little reason to change. To Turov, it was the dark truth of the newly restored orthodoxy, what it hid from the world. The Church’s word had become absolute. Dissent was not tolerated. Only the Church was allowed to do the questioning.
Like today.
When Turov had been down here earlier, screams had echoed in a painful chorus. The place was now as silent as a grave.
Oleg led the way to a door halfway down the passageway. It had been left ajar, allowing firelight to flicker into the hall. Oleg pushed the way open and motioned for Turov to enter first.
With a hard swallow, Turov stiffened his back and stepped into the room.
Like the rest of the subterranean jail, this interrogation chamber had not changed from its role during the Soviet era. The room’s walls were hung with all manner of torture devices, some sharp, others serrated. They gleamed with threat under the harsh lighting. A steel-doored firepit lay open along the back wall, heating the room to a blistering temperature.
The reek of scorched flesh struck his nose. Blood pooled and ran in tepid flows down a floor drain. The source of all of it came from two figures strapped to chairs. They had the shapes of the young man and woman who had been hauled into the church, but there was little recognition beyond that. Skin had been stripped, joints broken, fingers severed. Their heads hung to their chests.
Turov had believed them to be dead, but a low moan rose from the man. The woman’s naked chest still moved.
The pair were students, part of a team of urban explorers who had discovered a vault deep beneath Moscow. The Kremlin kept close watch on such trespassers and had heard what they claimed to have found: an ancient trove of books, possibly part of the lost Golden Library.
Archpriest Leonid Sychkin turned at Turov’s arrival and lifted an arm. The clergyman was only thirty-three, young for such a rank. He wore humble dark pants and a matching black shirt. His only adornment was the heavy silver crucifix that hung to mid-chest, just below the end of his thick, black beard.
“We were about to leave,” Sychkin said, motioning to his assistant, a hulking monk who had taken a vow of silence.
Turov frowned. “Did these two have any further information about their discovery?”
“Nothing that we hadn’t already discerned. It was unfortunate they had to be treated so harshly, but we had to be certain.”
