officer at the Ministry of Cultural Affairs. "I made it quite clear-as I assume you made it clear-that he was to remain in the archives until the material was returned. Now, what do I find? Tbe man gone and the key shoved under my doorl Really, it's most irregular. I suggest you send someone over to pick it UP.
The old scholar hung up quickly, ending any chance for the duty officer to speak further. He glanced up at Taleniekov, his eyes filled with relief.
"That performance would have merited you a certificate from Stanislavsky," Vasili smiled, wiping his hands with paper towels taken from the nearby washroom. "We're covered-you're covered. Just remember, a body without papers will be found behind the furnaces. If you're questioned, you know nothing, you!ve never seen him before, your only reaction is one of shock and astonishment." "But Cultural Affairs, surely they'll know himl" "Surely they won!t. He wasn't the man sent over with the key. The ministry will have its own problem, quite a serious one. It will have the key back in its possession, but it will have lost a messenger. If that phone is still tapped, the one listening will assume his man was successfuL We've bought time." "For what?" "I've got to get to Essen." "Essen. On an assumption, Vasili? On speculation?" "It's more than speculation. Two of the names men tioned in the Voroshin report were significant. Schotte and Bohlen-Holbach. Friedrich Schotte was convicted by the German courts soon after the First World War for transferring money out of the country; he was killed in prison the night he arrived. It was a highly publicized murder, the killers never found. I think he made a mistake and the Matarese called for his silence. Gustav BohlenHolbach married the sole survivor of the Krupp family and assumed control of the Krupp Works. If these were Voroshin's friends a half-century ago, they could have been extraordinarily helpful to him. It all fits." Mikovsky shook his head. "You7re looking for fifty-yearold ghosts." "Only in the hope that they will lead to present substances. God knows they exist. Do you need further proof?" "No. It's their existence that frightens me for you. An Englishman waits for you at someone's flat, a woman follows me, a young man arrives here with a key to the archives he steals from another... all from this Matarese. It seems they have you trapped." "From their point of view, they do. They've studied my files and sent out their soldiers to cover my every conceivable course of action, the assumption being that if one fails another will not." The scholar removed his spectacles. "Where do they find such...
soldiers, as you call them? Where are to be found these motivated men and women who give up their lives so readily?" "The answer to that may be more frightening than either of us can imagine.
Its roots go back centuries, to an Islamic prince named Hasan ibn-al-Sabbah. He formed cadres of political killers to keep him in power.
They were called the Fida'is." Mikovsky dropped his glasses on the desk; the sound was sharp. "The Fidais?
The assassins? I'm familiar with what you're talking about, but the concept is preposterous. The Fida'is-the assassins of Sabbah-were based on the prohibitions of a stoic religion. They exchanged their souls, their minds, their bodies for the pleasures of a Valhalla while on this earth. Such incentives are not credible in these times." "In these tirnesT' asked VasilL "These' are the times. The larger house, the fattened bank account, or the use of a dacha for a longer period of time, supplied more luxuriously than one's comrades; a greater fleet of aircraft or a more powerful battleship, the ear of a superior or an in- vitation to an event others cannot attend. These are very much the times, Yanov. The world you and I live in-personally, professionally, even vicariously-is a global society bursting with greed, nine out of ten inhabitants a Faust. I think it was something Karl Marx never understood." "A deliberate transitional omission, my friend. He understood fully; there were other issues to be attacked first.
Taleniekov smiled. "That sounds dangerously like an apology..$ "Would you prefer words to the effect that the governing of a nation is too important to be left to the people?" "A monarchist statement. Hardly applicable. It could have been made by the Tzar." "But it wasn't. It was made by America's Thomas Jefferson. Again, exercising a transitional omission. Both countries, you see, had