The Betrayed Series: Ultimate Omnibus Collection With EXCLUSIVE Post-Shiva Short Story (81 page)

However, the owner of the station hovering around the gas pump, apparently making sure they didn’t leave before paying, kind of undercut that affluent vibe he was going for. Not even in Compton did anyone physically guard the pumps.

But more than the station and its shady owner, Brandt surveyed the busy crossing of the M4 Highway and Vneshnyaya Storona, the first of Moscow’s “ring” freeways. Cars streaked past. Was the enemy in one of them? Was Davidson? And were they one and the same?

So far their trip had been quiet. Lopez had somewhat obeyed the command to stay within the speed limit and not cut off
every
car on the road. No snipers. No RPGs. Which made Brandt all the more concerned. Could they really have slipped the enemy’s noose so easily? He doubted it. If those pricks could find them in Pushchino, they could find them in Moscow. It was just a matter of staying a step ahead of these Disciples and then getting the hell out of Russia ASAP.

“You’re sure we push straight in?” Lopez asked, spreading a map on the hood of the SUV. “I’ve got like fifteen different options here.”

The corporal wasn’t wrong. Now that they had reached the outer “ring” freeway, they could take a number of routes into the capital’s Red Square. Like tendrils, roads led into and out of the heart of Russia’s capital. Or Lopez could loop around the city along any of the three ring highways. Brandt squinted at the map. Was it just him, or did Moscow seem encircled in a large, messy spider web?

And here they were going right into the spider’s den, Red Square. This was going to be like trying to pull off a heist across the street from the White House, only with cops who didn’t believe anyone was innocent until proven guilty.

Brandt traced his finger over the map in a line to the capital. “We flipped the coins, Lopez. Straight it is.”

To keep their route truly random, they flipped coins to map out their route. And sometimes, random turned out to be a straight line. Brandt didn’t like it much more than Lopez. It felt like they should be covering their tracks more, laying down a false trail. Anything but heading straight toward their target.

However, Brandt doubted the enemy would expect them to head directly to where they ultimately wanted to wind up. Would that be enough of a ruse? To do the most obvious thing? Heading directly to the cathedral did save them about an hour of backtracking and stalling. Hopefully that saved time would benefit them later.

However, Brandt wasn’t all that fond of a word like
hopefully
associated with any mission objective.

“Rebecca still powdering her nose?” Lopez asked as he folded the map.

“More likely charging her laptop,” Brandt responded, looking over his shoulder to the restrooms.

Harvish was on guard duty, only to make himself not look on guard duty, he’d bought a pack of smokes. The guy’s face flared a bright red as he sputtered on the cigarette. Brandt knew that Harvish had smoked before, but clearly not Russian cigarettes. Like everything else, the Motherland liked their products to pack a punch. Good thing the point man had chosen the Play brand. It was meant to appeal to young girls.

Brandt’s attention was diverted back to Lopez as he spat out the Russian “
Nyet
” at the station owner.

“Is there a problem?” he asked his corporal.

“This guy is trying to tell me there’s suddenly a new twenty-percent tax on all petrol.
Right.
”

Brandt looked to the short Russian man in front of them. Barrel-chested with slicked-back hair and a heavy mustache, the guy could have been named Boris and no one would have blinked an eye. He also resembled a bulldog. A bulldog that could bald-faced lie.

“Pay it,” Brandt ordered Lopez. They didn’t need to get into a squabble over a few rubles, which the station owner seemed to understand fully. However, when the guy got that victory smirk, Brandt responded in Russian. “
Iat he kompranac.
”
Split the difference
.

Neither Lopez nor the station owner seemed pleased, so clearly it was an effective compromise.

“Finish up,” Brandt said as he walked to the restrooms. “I’m going to find out what’s taking Rebecca so long.”

“I’ll keep the engine revved.”

Of that Brandt had no doubt.

* * *

Rebecca splashed water on her face. She looked up into the mirror as droplets fell from her eyelashes. The reflection looked like a woman she barely knew, and come to think of it, didn’t really want to get to know. Dark circles outlined her puffy eyes. No amount of concealer was going to fix that. And her hair? Blond strands stuck out at awkward angles, and her face was framed by a mini blond ’fro. And to think that’s probably how she’d looked since the epic fail on the torpedo launch.

Just one more reason Brandt was probably glad he married that Maria chick. From the pictures Rebecca had seen, Maria didn’t need any makeup to look stunning. Being eight years younger didn’t hurt any. According to Lopez, Maria didn’t even own a bra. Good for her.

She splashed more water, hoping it did something for the blotchiness in her cheeks. Rebecca made sure not to get any moisture on her charging laptop though. She’d already emptied her first battery and was well into exhausting the backup. Despite all her research on the drive up to Moscow, Rebecca didn’t know much more about why Osip sent them to St. Basil’s than she did before.

Not that it didn’t have a typically colorful Russian history. Built by two architects whose names were still in dispute, the church no longer had a moat and wasn’t even owned by the Russian Orthodox Church. It had been owned by the state since Stalin, who really, really, really wanted to tear it down so he could have more room for military parades in Red Square.

Military dictators, man. Delusions of grandeur.

Stalin had been stopped though by an impassioned plea of the man assigned to demolish the church. The man had refused to harm a single tile. Stalin had him imprisoned for years, yet the man staunchly stood by his conviction and in the end saved one of the world’s greatest examples of architecture.

Which made the cathedral a stunning example of Russian architecture, and perfectly matched Osip’s dying words, yet Rebecca still had no idea why the old man had sent Amed to St. Basil’s in particular.

Moscow’s bishop was outspoken on all manner of subjects, especially his heated words that the Roman Catholics were nothing more than a splinter sect of the Russian Orthodox Church. Was it that controversial stance, one seeded all the way back to proto-Christianity, that caused Osip to send a terrorist to St. Basil’s? Or something else?

Rebecca startled as a sharp knock came at the door.

“Everything okay in there?” Brandt asked.

“Yeah,” she said as she turned off the water and wiped her hands on a wad of paper towels. “Be out in sec.”

Quickly she checked her laptop’s power bar. At the least it had inched up past the halfway mark. Tucking the device into its bag, Rebecca made one last desperate effort to get her hair under control, gave up, and opened the door.

“Figured you might want some of these,” Brandt said as he handed her a package of black licorice. “You realize you aren’t all that stealthy, right? We all know you holed up in there to charge your laptop.”

Rebecca snatched the candy out of his hand. “Like you would have let me do it if I’d asked.”

“Point taken.”

She ripped the plastic open and grabbed one of the licorice straws, nibbling on the end to make sure it wasn’t made out of some super-strong Russian variation. Luckily, it tasted like good old-fashioned licorice.

Brandt opened the passenger door for her. Still chewing on the candy, Rebecca loaded in next to Talli. The dark-skinned sniper glanced to the licorice then away.

“Want some?” Rebecca asked as she buckled up.

“No thank you,” he said, yet his eyes slid over to the package again.

She pulled a straw out. “Come on, we deserve a little something after all that.”

The sniper’s eyes flickered to Brandt, who gave a noncommittal shrug.

“Thanks,” Talli said as he took a piece of licorice. It was the most inflection she’d heard from the guy this entire time. But she didn’t blame him. Brandt had never been too thrilled by his newest team members, and after everything that had happened? Yeah, Rebecca would lie low too.

“Ready to fill us in?” Brandt asked Rebecca as Lopez gunned the car out of the gas station. “Lopez, read my lips.
Speed limit.
”

With an audible sigh, the corporal inched his foot off the gas.

Brandt turned to her. “So, figured out what we’re walking into yet?”

How she
wished
.

* * *

Brandt waited as Rebecca booted up her computer. That was not a good sign. Usually she was all Chatty Cathy while it loaded, talking and gesturing as to whatever esoteric research she’d found.

“Are we even heading to the right place?” Brandt asked.

“The right place, yes,” Rebecca answered. “The reason though,
that
I’m still a little sketchy on.”

Brandt adjusted his seat belt so he could face her. “Walk us through it.” She tugged her lower lip with her teeth as she scanned the screen as if one more glance would answer all of their questions. “Shaky and all.”

“Okay,” she said, taking in a breath. “We know the cathedral was built by Ivan the Terrible.” Rebecca glanced up at him with a faint smile. “So not exactly an auspicious start.”

He was glad to see her sense of humor coming back. Brilliance couldn’t be too far off.

“And in true Ivan the Terrible–style, he blinded the supposed architect of the building,” Rebecca said, quickly scrolling down. “Of course that could just be an urban myth, or should I say given the time period, an old wives’ tale, however if Ivan did want to keep something hidden…”

Brandt sighed. She was doing her best not to piss him off. She was walking around the huge elephant in the room, which wasn’t doing any of them any good.

“The actual stone slabs of the Ten Commandments?” Brandt prompted Rebecca, then glared at Lopez. “Not. A. Word.”

“Hey,” Lopez retorted, “I’m just saying that a movie that sits at number nineteen all-time box office, adjusted for inflation, had to get a few things right.”

Brandt continued his glare until Lopez focused back on the road. Then and only then did Brandt indicate for her to continue.

Rebecca shrugged. “There is also the legend of the Byzantine Libreria.”

“And we are supposed to know what that is?”

Turning the screen around toward him, Rebecca explained. “Before Constantinople fell to the Ottomans, one of the greatest libraries known to the world was hastily removed before the city was ransacked.”

He scanned the large list of items the library supposedly contained. “And it was moved to Russia?”

“Yes,” Rebecca confirmed. “The sultan’s daughter was married to Ivan the Third…”

“Let me guess, the mother of Ivan the Terrible?”

Rebecca nodded. “Everyone wanted a piece of that library. The Vatican. The pope. So Ivan hid it in Moscow. Then his son, well, his son, Ivan the Terrible got really paranoid and built a sprawling network of tunnels down there and then killed the construction crew to keep the library’s whereabouts safe.”

“Tunnels?” Lopez perked up. “Did you say an elaborate interlocking set of cavernous tunnels under Moscow?”

“Really?” Rebecca asked. “Out of all of that, you just heard
tunnel
?”

Lopez’s smile broadened. “Hey, there are not a lot of opportunities to practice cave surfing, and as long as we have to be in Russia we might as well have some fun.”

Brandt turned his glare up to an eleven, finally convincing Lopez to watch the road. Their inaugural “cave surfing” event last year had not been fun. The last thing from it. His hipbone still felt bruised. Plus that incident marked his and Rebecca’s first, horribly awkward, aborted kiss.

Did she remember?

From the deep red filling her cheeks, she did in fact remember that moment in Budapest.

* * *

Rebecca looked at anything but Brandt’s eyes. The embarrassment of that stupid, sophomoric kiss still burned her with shame. Now though? Knowing what she did? How little time they would have together? Rebecca would have laid a lip-lock on Brandt and not let him go.

Unfortunately, the worst thing that could happen to them was
not
a momentary lapse of judgment. Nope, life had a lot more in store for them after Budapest.

“Sorry, Ricky.” Rebecca tried to sound upbeat but failed miserably. “I don’t think the commandments would be down there.”

“Come on,” Lopez said, “can’t you give a guy a little room to hope?”

“Why then would Ivan build the cathedral? I think the tunnels were a ruse. Keep everyone looking under Moscow rather than right across from the Kremlin.”

Brandt’s eyes narrowed. “But why wouldn’t he put the tablets down in the labyrinth? It looks like to date no one has found the secret chamber holding the library.”

Finally a question she felt comfortable answering. “From everything I know about Ivan, he was not the type to just bury the tablets. He would have wanted them close. Which meant somewhere he could access without arousing suspicion.”

“Like a confessional booth?” Harvish asked from her left.

She turned to the point man. “No. Orthodox churches don’t have confessional booths, per se.”

“Bummer,” Harvish answered.

Succinct but true. It would be nice if just once a religious mystery would be uncovered that easily.

“So it looks like we’re going to have to go and just take a look around,” Brandt stated.

“Well…” Rebecca said as Brandt arched his eyebrow. “The Orthodox Church, given its name, is well, way more Orthodox than the Catholic Church.”

“How so?” the sergeant asked.

“Their religion is much more aligned with Jewish traditions than the Vatican.” She hurried on as Brandt frowned. “Such as beginning holiday celebrations at sunset rather than sunrise. They use incense in a deep and intricate way. Nor do they have a pope. It is considered that each person has equal access to God.”