“Don’t be, Father Maxim. There have been reverses, but nothing I cannot take care of. Tell me, why did the Patriarch leave so suddenly?”
“I don’t know. On the morning of the twenty-first he received a phone call from Zagorsk. I knew nothing of it. The call was taken by his private secretary. The first thing I knew, I was told to pack a suitcase.”
“Why Zagorsk?”
“I found out later. The monastery had invited the preacher Father Gregor to preach the sermon. The Patriarch decided he would like to attend.”
“And thus give his personal authority to Gregor and his contemptible message,” snapped Grishin. “Without saying a word. Just being there would be enough.”
“Anyway, I asked if I would be going too. The secretary said no; His Holiness would take his private secretary and one of the Cossacks as his driver. The two nuns were given the days off to visit relatives.”
“You did not inform me, Father.”
“How could I know anyone was coming that night?” asked the priest plaintively.
“Go on.”
“Well, I had to call the police afterward. The body of the Cossack guard was lying on the upper landing. In the morning I called the monastery and spoke to the secretary. I said there had been armed burglars and a shooting, nothing else. But later the militia changed that. They said the attack had been intended for His Holiness.”
“And then?”
“The secretary called me back. He said His Holiness was deeply upset. Shattered was the word he used, mainly by the murder of the Cossack guard. Anyway, he stayed with the monks at Zagorsk through the Christmas period and came back yesterday. His principal reason was to officiate at the funeral of the Cossack before the body was returned to his relatives on the Don.”
“So he is back. You called me here to tell me that?”
“Of course not. It is about the election.”
“You have no need to worry about the election, Father Maxim. Despite the damage, the acting president will certainly be eliminated at the first round. In the runoff, Igor Komarov will still triumph over the Communist Zyuganov.”
“That’s the point, Colonel. This morning His Holiness went to Staraya Ploshad for a private meeting with the president, at his own request. It seems there were two generals of the militia present, and others.”
“How do you know?”
“He came back in time for lunch. He took it in his study alone except for his private secretary. I was serving; they took no notice of me. They were discussing the decision that Ivan Markov had finally made.”
“And that was?”
Father Maxim Klimovsky was shaking like a leaf. The flame of the candle in his hands fluttered so that its soft light danced across the face of the Virgin and Child on the wall.
“Calm yourself, Father.”
“I cannot. Colonel, you must understand my position. I have done all I could to help you, because I believe in Mr. Komarov’s vision of the New Russia. But I cannot go on. The attack on the Residence, the meeting of today … it is all becoming too dangerous.”
He winced as a steely hand gripped his upper arm.
“You are too far involved to pull out now, Father Maxim. You have nowhere else to go. On the one hand you go back to being a waiter at tables, despite the cassock and the holy orders. On the other you await the triumph in twenty-one days of Igor Komarov and myself, and you rise to undreamed-of heights. Now, what did they say at this meeting with the acting president?”
“There won’t be an election.”
“What?”
“Well, yes, there will be an election. But not with Mr. Komarov.”
“He wouldn’t dare,” whispered Grishin. “He would not dare declare Igor Komarov an unfit person. More than half the country supports us.”
“It’s got beyond that, Colonel. Apparently the generals were insistent. The killing of the old general and the attempts on the banker, the militia man, and most of all His Holiness, seem to have provoked them.”
“To what?”