Paul Christopher: Red Templar

“So what am I supposed to do about it?” Holliday said.

“Stop him,” said Dimitrov.

“Don’t be idiotic. I’m one man, a nobody.”

“You’re far from that, Colonel Holliday, and you know it. You have great power at your command, and great wealth. Use them if you have to, but however you do it, you must stop him. Stop the Sirin once and for all.”

Sure, thought Holliday. That’s me, Sancho Panza, tilting at windmills. “Nice idea, but how do I practically go about taking on the dark lord of all the Russias?”

“Go with Genrikhovich to St. Petersburg. See what he has to show you. Begin at the beginning.”

“I’m not sure I’m ready for this,” said Holliday. “When you get right down to it, Brother Dimitrov, regardless of my admiration and respect for Helder Rodrigues, I’ve fought too many battles in too many wars and I’m getting a little too old for saving the world. Maybe this is where it should end.”

There was a long silence. Finally the monk reached into the drawer of his desk and took out an old, butterscotch-colored molded leather holster with a snap flap. The leather had been cared for, but the holster was very old. It was also quite small. Dimitrov undid the flap and pulled out a short-barreled pistol. The black plastic grips were embossed with the TOZ logo of the famous Tula Arms Factory. Holliday had never seen one before, but he recognized it from the old weapon-recognition books he’d collected over the years. It was a Korovin.25-caliber automatic, a Russian-made civilian pistol and standard issue for the NKVD back in the early twenties and thirties. Because of the heavy-duty construction of the weapon, the rounds used tended to be loaded with almost twice the powder of a normal.25-caliber round, and the pistol was known for packing a punch almost equivalent to a much larger Browning.45.

“You may have no choice in the matter, Colonel,” said Dimitrov, sliding the weapon across the desk toward Holliday. “Since I spoke with Ducos there have been a number of strangers in the area. The DS may have changed its name since the fall of the Soviet Union, but they still have the same look about them.” The DS was the infamous Bulgarian State Security, KGB-trained and just as feared.

“You’re being watched?” Holliday asked.

“Yes, and my telephone is surely tapped.”

Holliday picked up the lethal-looking little pistol. “Why does a monk have a gun?”

“It belonged to my grandfather. After the war there was a great deal of looting. The monastery has several valuable icons and altarpieces.”

“I wonder where your grandfather got it,” said Holliday, a note of suspicion creeping into his voice. The priors of monasteries didn’t generally pack weapons under their robes.

“He got it from an NKVD agent who thought he was an art collector. My grandfather killed him with his bare hands. He’s buried in an unmarked grave in our little cemetery behind the wall.” The monk smiled. “My grandfather was a man of many talents. He was a yatak during the war, a ‘friend of the resistance,’ right under the abbot’s nose.”

“Thanks for the offer,” said Holliday, putting the gun back on the table and sliding it back to Dimitrov. “But I wouldn’t get it through the Turkish border, let alone through airport security.”

Dimitrov shook his head and slid the pistol back to Holliday. “I would suggest that you not return to Turkey and continue north to Varna instead; it’s less than a hundred kilometers, and the connections to St. Petersburg will be much better. When you get to Varna throw the weapon away, but while you are in my country it would make me feel better if you kept it.”

Holliday picked up the pistol and popped out the magazine. He thumbed out a round. The spring was strong and the magazine well oiled. The round was a brand-new Fabrique Nationale hollow-point, the brass gleaming. “It’s in good condition,” Holliday observed.

“My grandfather told me that tools taken care of will in turn take care of you.”

“My uncle Henry used to tell me the same thing, more or less,” said Holliday. “He rescued Hesperios from Hitler’s Berchtesgaden just after the war.” Holliday slid the round back into the magazine, then snapped the magazine back into the grip.

“I have a feeling your uncle and my grandfather would have liked each other,” Dimitrov said.

Holliday picked up the pocket pistol again and hefted it. At least a pound, maybe more. Heavy for such a small weapon. “You’re sure?”

“Certain.” Dimitrov nodded.

Holliday shrugged and slipped the pistol into the pocket of his jacket. “Okay,” he said. “But I’m sure it’ll be unnecessary.”

“Better safe than sorry,” replied the monk.

“My uncle said that, too.” Holliday laughed, standing up. A hundred kilometers to Varna and then the trials and tribulations of buying visas and booking tickets would put them on a plane to St. Petersburg by late evening at best. It was time to go.

The monk was kneeling at the altar in the church when they came for him. He’d heard the squeak of the gate and the creak of the door as it opened, but he did not move from his knees; nor did he stop his prayer. Less than half an hour had passed since his conversation with the American. It was a relief to know that someone else would be taking up the quest that had begun so long ago. He finally ended his prayer:

Many are the scourges of the sinner, But mercy shall encircle him that hopeth in the Lord. Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, ye righteous; And glory, all ye that are upright of heart.

He stood and turned, his hands held together beneath his robes. There were two of them, one older with very short gray hair, his bad suit barely covering a bulging middle-aged paunch, and a younger one with dark oily hair who wore a brown leather coat.

The older one spoke. “You are Brother Theodore Dimitrov?”

“Yes.”

“You know why we are here?”

“To torture me and force me to tell you things you wish to know.”

The younger one snickered. “We have people in Sofia who do that.”

“We’re just here to accompany you, Brother Dimitrov. The best thing would be to come peacefully.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” answered Dimitrov.

“Yes, you can, priest,” said the younger one. He took a weapon out from under his coat. It was a Veresk, an older Russian-made version of an Uzi, which explained the long coat.

“Put that away, Kostya,” said the older one, taking out his own weapon from under his jacket, this one a much more discreet Yarygin nine-millimeter. He held it loosely in his hand. “Please, Brother Dimitrov. I would like to do this without any unpleasantness.”

“I’m afraid I can’t accommodate you,” answered the monk. The younger one made a threatening gesture with the little submachine gun. The monk wondered for a brief moment which it would be. He decided on the older one. An object lesson for the young man in the leather coat. He took his hands out from between the bell-like sleeves of his robe. In his right hand he held the other weapon his father had taken from the NKVD agent just after the war. The Korovin.25 he’d given the American had been the NKVD agent’s backup gun, worn in a concealed holster on the hip. The other weapon, worn in a shoulder holster, was a Tokarev TT-33, a rough knockoff of the classic Browning.45 and just as powerful. The monk pulled the trigger twice, hitting the older man in the chest and the belly. The older man looked surprised, vomited blood and slid to the floor. The one the older man had called Kostya lifted the Veresk and frantically squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened.

Dimitrov turned the old Tokarev on the boy in the coat and waited while he flipped off the safety. Killing the young man would serve only to prolong things. Eventually they’d find him, torture him, and in the end they would kill him anyway. Brother Theodore Dimitrov took the last long seconds to speak to his God, and then the church filled with the screams of the boy and the thunder of his weapon and then there was nothing.