"You're oversimplifying," said Mikovsky. "Although there was a period of rampage, teams of observers traveled throughout the cities and countryside writing down everything they saw and heard. Not only facts but impressions, opinions, interpretations of what they witnessed. The academicians insisted upon it, for it was a moment in history that would never be repeated and they wanted no instant lost, none unaccounted for. Everything was written down, no matter how harsh the observation. That was a form of discipline, Vasili." Taleniekov nodded. "Why do you think rm here?" The old man sat forward. "fhe archives of the revolutionTO "I must see them." "An easy request to make but most difficult to grant. The authority must come from Moscow." "How is it relayed?" "Through the Ministry of Cultural Affairs. A man is sent over from the Leningrad office with the key to the rooms below. There is no key here." Vasili's eyes strayed to the mounds of papers on Mikovsky's desk. "Is that man an archivist? A scholar such as yourself?" "No. He is merely a man with a key." "How often are the authorizations grantedT' liMovsky frowned. "Not very frequently. Perhaps twice a month." "When was the last time?" "About three weeks ago. An historian from the Zhdanov doing research." "Where did he do his reading?"
"In the archive rooms. Nothing is permitted to be taken from them." Taleniekov held up his hand. "Something was. It was sent to you and for everyone's sake it should be returned to the archives immediately. Your telephone call to the ]Leningrad office should be rather excited."
The man arrived in twenty-one minutes, his face burnt from the cold.
"The night duty officer said it was urgent, sir," said the young man breathlessly, opening his briefcase and removing a key so intricately ridged it would take a precisiontooled instrument to duplicate it.
"Also highly irregular and without question a criminal offense," replied Mikovsky, getting up from his chair. "But no harm done now that you're here." The scholar walked around the desk, a large envelope in his hand.
"Shall we go below?" "Is that the material?" asked the man with the key.
"Yes." The scholar lowered the envelope.
"What material?" Taleniekov's voice was sharp, the question an accusation.
The man was caught. He dropped the key and reached for his belt. VasiIi lunged, grabbing the young man's hand, pulling it downward, throwing his shoulder into the man7s chest, hurling him to the floor. "You said the wrong thingl" shouted Vasili. "No duty officer tells a messenger the particulars of an emergency. Per nostro circolot There'll be no pills this time! No guns. I've got you, soldierl And by your Corsican christ, yoWlI tell me what I want to knowl" "Ich sterbe ffir unser Verein. Ffir unser Heiligtum," whispered the young man, his mouth stretched, his lips bulging, his tongue... his tongue.
His teeth. The bite came, the jaw clamped, the results irreversible.
Taleniekov watched in furious astonishment as the capsule's liquid entered the throat, paralyzing the muscles. In seconds it happened; an expulsion of air, a final breath.
"Call the ministry!" he said to the shocked Mikovsky. "Tell the night duty officer that it will take several hours to re-insert the material." "I don't understand. Anythingr' "rhey tapped the ministry's phone. This one intercepted the man with the key. He would have left it and fled after be had killed us both." Vasili ripped the dead man's over-coat apart and then the shirt beneath.
It was there. The blemish that was no blemish, the jagged blue circle of the Matarese.
The old scholar reached for the two ledgers on the top shelf of the metal racks and handed them to Taleniekov. They were the seventeenth and eighteenth volumes they had each gone through, searching for the name Voroshin.
"It would be far easier if we were in Moscow," said Mikovsky, descending the ladder cautiously, heading for the table. "All this material has been transcribed and indexed. One volume would tell us exactly where to look." "Ibere'll be something; there has to be." Taleniekov handed one book to the scholar and opened the second for himself. He began to scan the handwritten entries of ink, cautiously turning the brittle pages.
Twelve minutes later Yanov Mikovsky spoke. "It's here." "What?" "T'he crimes of Prince Andrei Voroshin." "His execution?" "Not yet. His life, and the lives and criminal acts of his father and grandfather." "Let me see." It was all there, meticulously if superficially recorded by a steady, precise hand. The fathers Voroshin were described as enemies-of-the-masses, replete with the crimes