The Blood Gospel (53 page)

“Where are we?” Jordan asked as the lightbulb buzzed overhead.

“We are beneath the Hermitage,” Rasputin said. “One of the largest and oldest art museums in the world.”

Jordan glanced around the crowded room. “It doesn’t look like much.”

“These are the museum’s storage areas,” Rasputin said with a glare. “Above, the actual museum is quite lovely.”

Erin felt a twinge of professional irritation. Like most academics, she had heard of the sorry state of the Hermitage’s long-buried and decaying collection, but never had she imagined it would be
this
neglected. As she stepped forward, mice erupted from a pile of mildewed quilts.

She stumbled back, aghast. “This is where and how the museum stores its extra collections?”

Rasputin merely shrugged, as if to say,
What is history to someone who has lived centuries?

She wiped her hands on her jeans and looked around in dismay. A framed picture leaning against the wall behind the quilts looked like an original Dürer woodcut of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The priceless woodcut had been tossed in haphazardly with broken tools and old rotting tapestries. Overhead, a black bloom of mold stained the roof, marking an old leak.

“This can’t be the right place,” she insisted.

Rasputin chuckled and nudged Rhun good-naturedly. “She is endearing, isn’t she? This Woman of Learning of yours.”

Rhun simply turned to Jordan. “You should try the detector in here.”

As Jordan set about booting up the explosives sniffer, Erin refused to let it go. “Why has none of this been cataloged?”

Rasputin pulled what looked like a dirty dishcloth off a sculpture, like someone rummaging through a garage sale.

“Careful!” Erin touched the top of the exposed sculpture’s downturned head, ran a finger along an extended leg. “This is a Rodin. A dancer. It’s priceless.”

“Likely,” Rasputin agreed. The monk moved to a stack of leather-bound books, picking through them. Scraps of paper fluttered out of his hands to the ground.

Erin closed her eyes. She couldn’t watch, and she hated to think of the damage that had been done to the artifacts in the museum and to the historical record.

Rhun sifted through a crate. “Why do you believe this is the right room, Grigori?”

“The date.” Rasputin fingered a yellowed card affixed to the wall by a rusty nail. “This is one of the rooms where Russian forces, those returning in late May, warehoused the treasures plundered from Europe.”

“How many other rooms are there?” Jordan had finally booted up his detector and swept it from side to side.

“Several,” Rasputin said.

A piece of plaster fell from the ceiling, narrowly missing Erin’s head.

“Are they all this disorganized?” Her head throbbed in time to the flickering bulb.

“Many are worse.”

Sighing in defeat, she joined Rhun in his search.

It took them an hour to go through the first nest of rooms. Rasputin’s minions did not help. They stood out in the corridor and smoked.
Smoking
wasn’t doing the artifacts any favors either, but Erin supposed it was just another grain of sand in the hourglass marking the inevitable decay of these treasures.

Rasputin remained as gratingly cheerful as ever.

“One down, but more to come!” he announced, and led them down a damp corridor.

The next room, like the first, was crammed to the ceiling with a mishmash of useless and priceless objects, but here there was at least a theme—a martial or military one. Erin stared across the panoply of old Russian flags, piles of helmets, bayonets stacked up like cordwood, and what looked like a giant propeller stretching across the room.

The space was cavernous. They could search a lifetime in just this one room and never find something as small as a book.

Then Jordan’s machine beeped.

October 27, 7:18
P.M
., MST

The Hermitage, Russia

Jordan whooped with delight.

Now we can get down to business—and soon, hopefully, get the hell out of here.

“Is the book here?” Erin hurried to his side, looking over his shoulder. Her breath brushed the back of his neck.

He had to step away. “Maybe. I don’t know. But at least it’s a positive reading. Something with a chemical signature equivalent to Nobel 808 is close. That’s what I picked up on that chunk of rock in your pocket.”

He swung the detector from side to side, almost bumping her. The sniffer led him to a tattered tapestry. He lifted it and it disintegrated under his finger, tearing apart with a quiet sigh.

This time Erin didn’t scold him. She stuck close to his side.

Jordan stepped past the tapestry, following each beep of the detector deeper into the room. It led him toward the giant propeller that rested atop a wooden crate in the center of the room.

“I think that’s from a MiG-3,” he said, stroking a hand along the smooth metal. “Only a few thousand were ever made, but they kicked butt in dogfights on the eastern front.”

“Is that what’s setting off your detector?” she asked.

“Noooo …” He slowly knelt, pointing the tip of the device forward. “Whatever is triggering the detector is
underneath
the propeller. Probably in that crate.”

“We will move the propeller,” Rhun said, nodding to Rasputin.

Jordan glanced over his shoulder at the other men. It would normally take six or seven guys to lift this steel monstrosity. But then again, there was nothing
normal
about the pair.

The two men crossed to either side of the giant propeller, each shouldering himself under one of the steel blades. At a silent signal, they both straightened, lifting the massive hunk of aeronautics with a groan of metal. From the strain on their faces, the weight was taxing even their strength.

Jordan wiggled under the blades, trusting them not to drop it on his head. He reached the exposed crate and stared into its straw-filled depths. His heart thudded into his throat.

Oh, God …

“Anything?” Erin called.

To either side of him, Rhun and Rasputin struggled with the sheer mass of steel. Overhead, the propeller began to shake in their weakening grips.

“Freeze!” Jordan yelled. “Nobody move!”

7:22
P.M
.

Hearing the panic in the soldier’s heart as much as in his words, Rhun went dead still, as did Grigori. A fleeting fear passed through him with razored wings, cutting through his resolve:
had the propeller crushed the book?

“What is it?” Erin asked. “Should I help you?”

“No!” The salty scent of fear wafted from him. “Stay where you are. And I mean everybody. Or we’ll all die.”

The soldier crawled backward away from the wall, his heart skittering.

Rhun waited, the propeller growing heavier in his hands.

Grigori gave him a mischievous grin. “Here we are, working side by side, one step from death, my
droog
. Just as in the olden days.”

Jordan slowly rose to his feet. “You can’t put the propeller back down. There’s an unexploded ordnance stored in that crate. The detector did what it was designed for. Unfortunately, it found a bomb, not a book.”

“Are you sure it’s a bomb?” Erin asked.

“It’s a Soviet antitank missile. And yes, I’m sure.”

As always, Erin kept arguing. “Maybe the book is
under
the missile—”

“If it is, I’m not getting it out.” Jordan pointed to the hall. “Sorry, guys, but I think you’re going to have to take that to the far side of the room. If so much as a pound of weight presses on that missile, we’re all dead.”

“Did you hear that, Rhun? We must be
cautious
.” Grigori gave a carefree laugh.

The sound took Rhun back decades. Grigori had been the most foolhardy member of the trio, unconcerned about the prospect of death—not for himself, not for others. His blithe bravery had saved Rhun’s life many times, but it had also endangered it.

“Should the two of you evacuate before we attempt to move it?” Rhun asked.

“It wouldn’t help,” Jordan said. “If that missile goes off, it’ll take out the building and half a city block around it.”

Erin’s heart sped up.

“I suggest everyone make their peace with God, then.” Grigori’s lips curved into a familiar half smile. “On three, Rhun?”

Together they lifted the propeller higher and inched toward the back of the room. Jordan and Erin ducked under the blades and helped clear the path for the others’ burdened legs.

Once he was far enough away, Jordan waved them to lower the propeller to a mound of crates near the back of the space.

“What if there are bombs in these crates, too?” Rhun asked, his voice strained by the sheer weight of the engine blades.

Jordan swore, and Erin’s face paled.

“Life is always a risk.” Grigori began lowering his end. “I see no point in perishing while holding this.”

With no choice, doubting he could carry the weight another foot anyway, Rhun followed Grigori’s example. Together, they safely sat the propeller on the pile of boxes.

They all waited, as if expecting the worst.

But the crates held.

Satisfied, Grigori called to one of his acolytes, telling him to seek out the museum curator in the morning and explain what they had found. Rhun was grateful that Grigori had assumed the responsibility to ensure that the missile would be removed.

Over the next long, tense hour, they continued to search this room and others, hitting a series of false alarms, including a rusted truck muffler that Jordan’s detector sniffed out, which must have been exposed to a bomb long ago.

At some point, Erin’s hair had come loose from its fastening and dusty grime now streaked her cheeks. Rhun could see that the chaos around them weighed on her. She seemed to be more upset that so many precious objects were hidden away than that they had made no progress toward finding the book.

Grigori searched with his usual dogged patience, a counterpoint to his reckless daring. The Mad Monk was more careful and cunning than most believed.

Jordan’s detector beeped again.

Erin walked to his side. “Another car part?”

“Let’s hope it’s not another
missile
.” Jordan moved closer to the room’s corner.

Rhun followed.

The device led them to a crumbling wicker basket holding linens that might have once been white. Thick dust had settled on the top, and black mold ate at the basket’s sides.

Rhun pulled off the top sheet. A tablecloth. He set it atop a Louis XIV–era writing desk and reached for the next one.

“The readings are getting stronger,” Jordan said. “Be careful.”

Rhun lifted off another tablecloth, a pile of napkins, and a red Nazi flag.

Grigori tensed when the flag was unfurled to reveal the black Nazi swastika. How many of his countrymen had died under the waving of that flag? Rhun crumpled the cloth and tossed it aside.

Erin lifted out a linen pillowcase stuffed with oddly shaped objects. She set it on the floor and searched through it, item by item. She pulled out a book, but it was only a German code book.

Rhun closed his eyes. Was it the Gospel’s destiny to remain hidden? Perhaps things were better so. Perhaps the best outcome would be if they
never
found the book. He opened his eyes. No. They must find it, if only to keep it from the hands of the Belial.

Erin pulled blackened sardine tins out of the pillow sack—then she tensed.

“Jordan! Rhun! Look!” She lifted out a gray concrete fragment identical to the ones that had encased the book.

Jordan ran the sensor across the top. It chirped.

Excited, she removed more fragments until the pillowcase was empty. She shook her head. No book.

Rhun clutched his cross, attempted to hold back the tide of despair that accompanied the pain of burning silver.

Had they come this far only to be disappointed again?

Jordan poked through to the remainder of the basket with his device.

The sensor began to beep again, steady as a heartbeat.

8:31
P.M
.

Erin pulled the last threadbare sheet from the basket. She lifted it like a burial shroud, holding her breath, fearful of what she might discover, yet just as excited. But what she found both disappointed and confounded her.

What is it?

Resting at the bottom of the basket was a featureless block of dull gray metal about a foot in width and a little more in length. She lifted it carefully. It felt heavy, like lead.

Jordan ran the explosives detector over it, sagging a bit. “This is definitely what set off my sensors. See the scorch marks? It must have been caught in the same sort of blast.”

Rhun turned away, bowed over his cross in frustration.

Erin refused to succumb to defeat. If nothing else, the oddity of the artifact intrigued her. Could this still be what they were searching for—not a book written by Christ, but a symbolic relic, a piece of ancient sculpture?