Cristelle Comby - Red Lies

Her target, the former armoury, remained in use as the home to the Kremlin Regiment, the main security service for the Soviet President. On the surface, it was a large elongated trapezoid two-storey building, with yellow-painted brick walls. But below the surface, it was another matter, as Sofiya had recently found out. There was a maze of vaults and chambers, all connected by sinuous tunnels that people had forgotten about.

Keeping a steady pace, Sofiya advanced in the darkness. Aside from the glow of her light, the tunnels were pitch black and smelled of must and mould. The dust had settled on the slab floors, and spiderwebs dangled from crack to crack in the brick walls. The gullet was just wide enough for one person to fit through and barely high enough for her to stand to her full height, and every now and then, she had to duck to pass beneath a wooden beam.

Sofiya checked her map at every junction, pushing forward through dust and decay. The further she went, the thicker the stale smell grew. Fresh air became a rare commodity in the Kremlin’s bowels, and she felt herself grow faint. She was forced to slow down to regulate her oxygen intake.

At the turn of a corridor, the path widened, and Sofiya’s hopes of finding the exit surged. They were crushed when she stumbled upon a wide chamber and three skeletons lying on the floor. The prisoners still had sturdy iron shackles on their wrists and ankles, and the remnants of moth-eaten clothes on their backs. It looked as if they’d been forgotten down here, for God knows how many hundreds of years. Sparing a thought for the poor souls, she pushed forward. There was another corridor on the other side, and Sofiya headed that way.

Knowing now what fate would befall her should she get caught, she slowed her pace even more to not make a sound at all. The corridor turned left and started to incline upwards. Glancing down at the map, Sofiya knew she had to be close to the exit now.

When the ground beneath her feet started to shake, and dust fell off the stone walls, the air became even more difficult to breathe. The young woman froze as a low rumble grew nearer, reverberating off the walls and echoing down the entire length of the corridor. Sofiya flicked her flashlight off as she waited, motionless. The burbling noise built up, louder and louder before it faded to nothingness again.

“Metro–2,” muttered Sofiya in a reedy whisper. It was the only thing that made sense. Flicking the flashlight back on, she got going again. More than an urban legend, Metro–2 was believed to have been built simultaneously with the Moscow Metro to ensure emergency transport links between the most important defence and government facilities and to evacuate the staff of senior state structures in the event of an attack. The secret lines ran deep beneath the city and, she guessed, right below this very tunnel.

When the incline beneath her feet steepened, and the air became more breathable, Sofiya’s anticipation of finding the way out intensified. Her long trek through the past was rewarded when, at the next turn, a large wooden door was revealed. She tried pushing it open, but the thick iron hinges refused to move.

Peering at it more closely, she noticed there was a key in the lock; it was made of iron, too, and looked old and rusty. Praying that the room on the other side was empty, she turned it as slowly and softly as she could, only to realise the key wasn’t the only part that was old and rusty. The entire mechanism was gritted, and she struggled to move the key. It finally turned, and the latch opened with a loud clang .

Sofiya held her breath—if someone was on the other side, there was no way they didn’t hear her. She let a full minute pass by before she dared to open the door.

She was surprised to find herself in a cellar. On both sides, and as far as the eye could see, were tall shelves stacked to the brim with a variety of dust-covered wine bottles. She moved closer to inspect the labels and found French red wines dating as far back as the 17 thCentury.

“And they call this an Armoury,” she tsked.

She was tempted to open one at random for a sip or two. The journey through the tunnels, with its dry, stale air and age-old dust, had left her parched. She fought the instinct; the mission wasn’t over, and she needed to keep her wits about her. On the way back, though…

Folding the map, she placed it back in her pocket. Crossing through the cellar, she found a staircase that led into the north wing of the Armoury. She climbed up as silently as she could and used Petrov’s intel to navigate the building until she reached her target.

The next door she found in her path wasn’t as easy to crack as the last one had been. This one had a biometric lock, and there was no tool in her leather pouch that would allow her to circumvent such an advanced system. She reached for a little zipped bag that she had in her bag and, with careful movements, pulled out a small piece of silicone.

“This had better work,” she muttered to herself as she turned it face down before pressing it to the sensor with her thumb.

A little green light moved up and down as it scanned what the machine perceived to be a human finger. When the machine bipped, and a red light appeared, Sofiya cursed beneath her breath.

She lifted the piece of silicone, counted to ten in her head, and applied it to the surface again, this time adding a little more pressure. The scanner activated again, moving up and down, and the wait seemed infinite. A bip later, the door unlocked, and Sofiya let out the breath she’d been holding in with relief. She pocketed the fake fingerprint and entered the Armoury’s secured vault number 3.

She had General Igorov to thank for granting her access to the Ministry of Defence’s private vault. Not that he would ever know he had—but what else did the man expect, leaving his vodka glass behind after leaving the Marieberg flat? Actually, a small part of her hoped that officers with a higher rank than Igorov would one day figure out that it was him that the enemy had used to get to the file; then, there truly would be karma justice to this world.

The room wasn’t as large as she’d imagined, but then again, this was one vault out of the six hidden at the Armoury, so there was still plenty of space for the Motherland to hide its dirty laundry. Barely three-by-four metres, the room was stacked with shelves from floor to ceiling on both sides. All of them were full of cardboard archive boxes with handwritten labels. According to Petrov’s intel, she needed the one that said ‘Pegasus’ on the front. It was the codename for the list of all the Soviet spies undercover outside of the USSR at the present time. The list was updated once a week and existed in only two exemplars: one that was encoded on a medallion that the KGB director kept on him at all times, and another that was hidden here, in a place where no one would ever think to look—well, almost no one.

Viktor Petrov was waiting for her return in the bedroom when Sofiya climbed back in through the window. Serov must have given him the key, she thought. It probably came with a scathing comment about her behaviour during the reception.

The young spy smiled to herself; the irony of the situation hadn’t escaped her. For all intents and purposes, Mikhaïl Serov was her alibi for the night. The Directorate K officer had escorted her to a bedroom on the second floor and locked her inside himself. Should there ever be an inquiry as to the guests’ whereabouts tonight, Sofiya would be cleared without second thoughts, thanks to him.

Though he’d removed his custom-tailored black jacket, Petrov still wore the rest of his wedding suit. Beneath the perfectly groomed exterior, he looked tired and worried.