Tom Smith - The Secret Speech

Raisa glanced at the militia officers, attempting to communicate the danger they were in. However, the militia officers were stupefied by the guise of these agents, scared at the very mention of the KGB. In her efforts to catch their attention, she caught the eye of the impostor. Whereas the militia were dumb to her signals, he was not. Before Raisa could raise her hand to warn the militia the tattooed man had drawn his weapon. Turning, he fired twice, a shot into the forehead of each officer. As they collapsed to the floor, the man turned the weapon on Raisa:

— I’m taking your daughter.

Raisa stepped closer to the barrel of the gun, in front of Zoya, who was still crouched on the floor:

— No.

The gun was turned on Elena.

— Give me Zoya. Or I will kill Elena.

A shot rang out.

The bullet missed Elena, embedding into the apartment wall, a warning. Looking into his eyes, Raisa had no doubt this man would kill a seven-year-old as easily as he’d shot the two officers. She had to choose. She stepped out of the way, allowing them to take Zoya.

The man scooped Zoya up in his arms:

— Struggle and I’ll knock you unconscious.

He threw her over his shoulder, carrying her toward the door and calling out:

— Stay in the apartment!

The keys were taken: the apartment door was shut and locked.

Raisa ran to Elena, dropping to her side. Elena was on her knees, staring at the floor, her body shaking and her eyes vacant. Raisa took hold of her head, directing her eyes up, trying to get through to her:

— Elena?

But she didn’t seem to hear, didn’t respond.

— Elena?

Still no reply, no recognition or awareness, her body was slack.

Transferring Elena to Anna’s care, Raisa stood up, taking hold of the front door handle, unable to get out. She pulled back, moving to the bodies of the dead officers, taking one of their guns and tucking it into the back of her trousers. She hurried through the living room, opening the door to the small balcony. Stepan grabbed her:

— What are you doing?

— Look after Elena.

She stepped out onto the balcony, shutting the door behind her.

They were on the seventh floor, some twenty meters above street level. There were identical balconies each directly below the other. They could serve as a step to the next. She could climb down from balcony to balcony. If she fell, thin heaps of snow would do little to break the fall.

Kicking off her smooth-soled shoes, Raisa scaled the rail. She’d not taken into account the bite on her arm. It was still bleeding. The arm felt weak, her grip less secure. Unsure whether she could carry her weight, she lowered herself to the outer rim of the balcony. Gripping the freezing-cold concrete ledge, she hung by her fingers, blood dripping onto her shoulder. Even at full stretch her toes didn’t reach the sixth-floor balcony rail below. She hazarded a guess at the distance being no more than a couple of centimeters. There was no choice other than to let go.

A split-second fall, her feet made contact with the rail below. Trying to keep her balance, rocking from side to side, she heard Zoya’s voice. Looking over her shoulder, she saw the men exiting the front entrance, one carrying Zoya. The other had his gun trained on her. Balancing on the narrow rail, she was helpless.

The man fired. She heard glass smash. Raisa was falling toward the snow.

UNWASHED, STILL STINKING OF THE SEWERS, Leo was driving at the car’s top speed. Cumbersome and slow, incongruous with his urgency, it had been the first vehicle they’d been able to requisition after he and Timur had emerged from a manhole almost a kilometer due south from where they’d originally descended into the sewers. His hands a bloody mess, Leo had refused Timur’s offer to drive, putting on a pair of gloves, taking hold of the steering wheel with his fingertips, eyes watering each time he changed gears. He’d driven to his parents’ apartment, only to discover the area closed down by the militia. Elena, Raisa, and his parents had been taken to the hospital. Elena was being treated for shock. Raisa was in a critical state. Zoya was missing.

Reaching Municipal Emergency Hospital 31, Leo skidded to a stop, leaving the car on the shoulder — door open, keys in the ignition— running inside with Timur just behind. Everyone was staring, appalled by the sight and smell of him. Indifferent to the spectacle of himself, demanding answers, Leo was eventually directed to the surgery where Raisa was fighting for her life.

Outside the operating room a surgeon explained that she’d fallen from a significant height and was suffering from internal bleeding.

— Will she live?

The surgeon couldn’t be sure.

Entering the private ward where Elena was being treated, Leo saw his parents standing by her bed. Anna’s face was bandaged. Stephan seemed unhurt. Elena was sleeping, her tiny body lost in the middle of a white hospital bed. She’d been given a mild sedative, having become hysterical when she’d realized Zoya was gone. Peeling off his bloody gloves, Leo took hold of Elena’s hand, pressing it against his face pitifully, wanting to tell her how sorry he was.

Timur put a hand on his shoulder:

— Frol Panin is here.

Leo followed Timur to the office commandeered by Panin and his armed retinue. The office door was locked. It was impossible to enter without first announcing your name. Inside were two uniformed armed guards. Though Panin appeared unruffled, neat as always, the additional protection was testament to the fact that he was scared. He caught the observation in Leo’s eyes:

— Everyone is scared Leo, at least everyone in power.

— You were not involved in Lazar’s arrest.

— The issue stretches beyond your prime suspect. What if this behavior triggers a pattern of reprisals? What if everyone wronged seeks revenge? Leo, nothing like this has ever happened before: the execution and persecution of members of our State Security services. We simply don’t know what to expect next.

Leo remained silent, noting Panin’s interest was not the welfare of Raisa, Elena, or Zoya, but the wider implications. He was a consummate politician, dealing with nations and armies, borders and regions, never the mere individual. Charming and witty, yet there was something cold about him, revealed in moments like these when any ordinary person would have offered some words of comfort.

There was a knock on the door. The guards moved for their guns. A voice called out:

— I’m looking for Officer Leo Demidov. A letter was delivered to reception.

Panin nodded at the guards, who cautiously opened the door, guns raised. One took the letter while the other searched the man who delivered it, finding nothing. The envelope was handed to Leo.

On the outside was a carefully drawn ink crucifix. Leo tore open the envelope, pulling out a single sheet of paper:

Church of Sancta Sophia

Midnight

Alone

THIRTY MINUTES PAST MIDNIGHT, LEO was waiting at the location where the Church of Sancta Sophia had once stood. The domes and tabernacles were gone. In their place was a vast pit, ten meters deep, twenty meters wide, and seventy long. One of the pit walls had collapsed, forming an uneven slope that led down to a muddy basin of brown snow, black ice, and oozy water. The remaining walls were near collapse, slipping inward, creating the impression of a mouth closing around a monstrous black tongue. No work had taken place since 1950: it was a construction site with no construction, sealed off and closed down. Along the steel perimeter fence were faded signs warning people to keep out. After the initial, botched attempt, when one demolition expert had died and several of the crowd had been injured, the church had been successfully destroyed and cleared away, loaded on the back of trucks, the remains dumped outside the city, a rubble corpse now bound together with weeds. Preliminary work had begun for what was to be the nation’s largest watersports complex, including a fifty-meter pool and a series of banya , one for men, one for women, and one marble chamber for State officials.