Paul Christopher - Red Templar

Through it all a few of the original family cottages had remained. The Genrikhovich dacha was a two-bedroom two-story with a board-and-batten second floor with brick facing and fieldstone below. The little house had a steeply sloping roof covered in split cedar shingles and trimmed in rustic gingerbread. There was a makeshift carport tacked onto one side with an old UAZ Buhanka parked beneath it. The Buhanka, or “loaf” in Russian, was a knockoff of the old VW bus. This one was covered in patches of primer paint and looked almost as old as Genrikhovich.

The big living room had a large stone fireplace with a dining room and country kitchen in the rear. There was a floor-to-ceiling brick-and-board bookcase in the living room crammed with what turned out to be English-language crime novels going back to the nineteenth century.

Marina had squeezed in a powder room where there had once been a pantry, and large windows in the dining room had been replaced with French doors leading out to a small deck. There were two bedrooms and a full bathroom separating them on the second floor.

The furniture was old and mostly Victorian, with braided rag rugs and a few willow-twig armchairs that looked extremely uncomfortable and had probably come with the house.

“It was part of my great-grandmother’s dowry when she married my great-grandfather,” said Genrikhovich. “She was the daughter of an admiral and he was a professor at the old Naval Guards Academy. He taught celestial navigation and mathematics. They kept him on after the revolution because, as he put it, ‘Even Stalin could not alter the course of the stars.’ He was good at his job, so they let him keep the dacha; it has remained in our family ever since.”

It had taken them almost an hour to descend through a series of tunnels and manholes to the Pushkinskaya metro station. They’d come up on the track bed in their rubberized protective suits, suddenly finding themselves in the ornate, arched, pale marble station. Genrikhovich led them onto a Number One line train, and by the time they reached the end of the line at Novoye Devyatkino they had the entire car to themselves, the stench emanating from the suits having driven everyone else away.

Marina Genrikhovich’s dacha was on a narrow lane well away from the nearest apartment block and was completely private. While Genrikhovich ran himself a bath, Holliday and Eddie took a bar of soap down to the fast-running creek at the end of the property, stripped off the suits and took the plunge. The water was freezing but neither man cared. They were more than willing to endure the cold just to get the smell of the sewers off.

“Your sister must be a large woman, amigo ,” said Eddie, slipping into a red dragon-motif silk bathrobe that came only to his knees. Genrikhovich had built a blazing fire, and Eddie sat on a velvet footstool, warming up.

“Yes. Even as children I was the one who ate no fat and Marina at no lean. She has a freezer in the kitchen with enough food to last through the next ice age.”

“Good,” said Eddie. “I could, how you say it, eat a horse.”

“I think she has some sudzhuk sausage, if you’d like some.”

“What is this sudzhuk ?” Eddie asked.

“Horse meat. It is a delicacy in the Ukraine.” Genrikhovich shrugged. “You said you could eat one.”

“Jesucristo, los rusos estan locos,” said the Cuban in his dragon robe. “ No, muchas gracias, mi amigo. Tal vez la proxima vez . Maybe next time.”

Holliday had fared a little better in the clothing department and had managed to squeeze himself into a spare pair of Genrikhovich’s trousers and an old sweater that fit him like a sausage skin.

“The first order of business is getting some clothes. Eddie doesn’t have anything fit to wear, and I wouldn’t want to go too far dressed like this.”

“No problem,” said Genrikhovich. “I will drive Uncle Joe to the univermag and get what you need, and then I will make us something to eat. You have money?”

“Sure, I’ve got money,” said Holliday. “But what’s a univermag and who is Uncle Joe?”

“A univermag is a. .” Genrikhovich turned to Eddie.

“A univermag is a. . ?como usted lo dice, almacenes grandes? ” The Cuban snapped his fingers. “A departamento store, a mall.”

“And Uncle Joe?”

“Dyadya Dzho, Kreml’ Highlander,” Genrikhovich tried to explain.

“Stalin,” Eddie translated dryly.

“The minibus outside-it is the name Marina and I gave to it.”

“That thing actually runs?” Holliday asked, astounded.

“Certainly,” said Genrikhovich. “It is a classic.”

True to his word, the Russian drove off in the rumbling, popping Uncle Joe and reappeared after what seemed to be a very long time, beaming and carrying a number of shopping bags. He’d purchased three complete sets of clothing, including a blue-and-white satin Dynamo Moscow bomber jacket for Eddie and a military-style ushanka fur hat with an old hammer-and-sickle emblem on the front for Holliday.

As dusk fell and the evening air cooled, Holliday and Eddie dressed themselves in their new outfits and sat down to a remarkably tasty meal prepared by Genrikhovich-broiled steak with onions, mushrooms and fresh tomato slices from the little vegetable garden beside the cottage. With dinner finished and coffee in hand, they gathered around the fire in the living room once more. Genrikhovich had even managed to get Eddie a box of Partagas Habaneros cigars at the univermag, one of which the Cuban was happily enjoying.

“Much better,” said Holliday. “You have skills as a cook, Dr. Genrikhovich.”

“Please,” said the Russian, “you must call me Victor.”

“All right, Victor,” said Holliday. “The meal was great, but we still have a real problem.”

“Which is?”

“If the FSB knows who you are they’ll eventually find this place. We can’t stay long, and the phony IDs we picked up in Odessa are useless now.”

“The dacha is still under my great-grandmother’s family name-Kornilov-but you are right; they will find it eventually. As to the matter of our papers, I have been giving this a great deal of thought and I believe I have discovered an answer.”

“Do tell,” said Holliday.

“It is in these books.” Genrikhovich smiled, waving a hand toward the rickety brick-and-board bookcase.

“Which books?” Holliday asked.

“A number of them,” answered Genrikhovich. “From Baroness Orczy’s The Scarlet Pimpernel and Mark Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper to Wilkie Collins’s Armadale and even Ian Fleming’s Moonraker .”

“I’m not seeing it,” said Holliday, shaking his head and wondering what the old man was so excited about.

“ The Talented Mr. Ripley?The False Inspector Dew? ”

“Nope,” said Holliday. Eddie puffed on his cigar, the titles going right over his head.

“The Day of the Jackal?” Genrikhovich said, exasperated.

Finally Holliday got it. Each of the books the Russian had mentioned involved someone taking on somebody else’s name.

“Identity theft,” he said.

“Yes.” Genrikhovich nodded. “In particular, a technique called ‘ghosting,’ taking the identities of the newly dead.”

The Russian reached into the inside pocket of his frayed suit jacket and brought out a slip of paper. He handed it to Holliday. It appeared to be a list of addresses.

“What’s this?” asked Holliday.

“When I went to the univermag I was thinking about this problem, so I stopped at FloraQueen, a florist store, yes? They send flowers.”