Chapter Three: 'God Help the Tsars'

Pasha changed into his civilian clothes and left his apartment, burrowing his thick neck into the felt collar of his coat. In the early evening, patches of trees and shrubs cropped up between the low, pastel-colored buildings like drunken sentries, giving the city a wild, rustic look. A beautiful look. With its wild patches of forest and low, pastel-colored stone buildings, Moscow was very beautiful.

But few Westerners knew this. They thought all of Moscow looked like the squalid, concrete boxes that rose from the city's perimeter. They didn't know about the pastel-buildings, built after Bonaparte's fire ravaged the city in 1812. Nor did they know how the sun glinted off the dome of Archangel Cathedral in the Kremlin, or feel the strength of the ages in the cobblestones of Red Square. Nor did they know that the words "red" -- krasny -- and "beauty" -- krasivy -- had the same root. Once, long ago, they meant the same thing.

He thought of the note again. It has finally come, he thought sadly. The very thought was absurd.

Absurd. "From such absurdity I shall turn gray or change into another person." He had always had a talent for reading -- and remembering -- the most forbidden poems, and Akhmatova's was one of them. But then, that was the benefit you had as a KGB officer. Forbidden books, forbidden booze, forbidden happiness. They were all yours if you were willing to play the game. A game he was about to end.

He reached into the deep pocket of his coat. The Colt's steel was reassuring. He had won it off a drunken American colonel during the last days in Berlin, and he had prized it ever since.

He threaded his way through the noisy traffic of the Arbat and walked slowly, with determination, watching the cars. Soon, a black Mariah crawled alongside him, its wheels squeaking against the kerb. The driver's window rolled down. "A bad night for a walk," smiled Misha Solovieff. "Too bitter."

Pasha smiled grimly. Solovieff was his subordinate and loyal party man, or so they thought. "It's fine weather, Mikhail Ivanich," he countered lightly. "You know the saying, 'there's no such thing as poor weather, only poor clothing.' You got my message."

Solovieff's smile was like his, grim and brief. "Yes. I've told the others to meet us at 'our' place. It's finally time for 'the Streltsy' to act, isn't it?"

Pasha nodded. "The Tsars are out of control. Like in the days before Peter the Great, the Streltsy must save the day."

Solovieff's heavy face flattened into a frown. He raised a gloved hand to his forehead and swept it down to his belly, across to his left shoulder and then his right in the forbidden gesture: the Sign of the Cross. "God help us. God help our families. And God damn them. Get in. We'll get the others."

Pasha went round to the passenger's side. He got in. Solovieff said nothing. Both men's faces were filled with the gravity of their intentions. The black Mariah swung into the Arbat and made for Gorky Park.

Chapter Four