Page 114 of Denied Access
Greta ended the call.
Rapp studied the phone for a minute, half expecting it to ring a second time. When it didn’t, he thumbed the number for the message service, waited for the automated answering machine to pick up, and spoke three words.
“Start the clock.”
Then he grabbed the polished door handle and shoved.
Time to honor his vow.
CHAPTER 66
RAPPpushed aside the swirl of emotions and questions that Greta’s call had generated. There would be time to dissect the robbery’s implications later. He had a job to do and a legend to maintain. Anything that diverted his mental energy from these two tasks might cause him to lose his focus, and by extension, his life.
The door to the Lubyanka building swung inward easily, as if on oiled hinges.
It had seemed odd to Rapp that the exterior to the building that housed Russia’s domestic intelligence organization would be unguarded. Then again, he wasn’t Russian. Presumably someone born in the Motherland would understand in their very marrow why the Lubyanka’s entrance needed no sentry. Posting a guard outside the building would have been the equivalent of stationing demons at the gates of Hades.
No one tried to sneak into hell.
But if the FSK was content to leave the outside unguarded, this sentiment didn’t apply to the building’s interior. Once inside Lubyanka’s granite walls, Rapp found himself in a lobby that could have been takenfrom central casting for any government bureaucracy worldwide. To his front, a pair of guards flanked a tandem conveyor-belt X-ray machine and a walkthrough scanner. Several more guards waited on the far side of the lobby near a single door. A bank of elevators dominated the far wall and a desk sporting a phone and a bored-looking woman sat adjacent to the elevators.
At Rapp’s appearance, the woman looked decidedly less bored.
He saw no one who resembled an FSK colonel.
Perhaps Zhikin was running late, or more likely, the Russian had grown tired of waiting for his tardy Arab guest. Either way, Rapp was on his own. Ignoring the line of four men and two women snaking from the walkthrough scanner to the building’s entrance, Rapp made for the nearest guard. The man barked something at him in Russian and pointed to the end of the line. Rapp shook his head. “I’m here to see Lieutenant General Petrov.”
Rapp delivered the statement in perfect Arabic, but his performance appeared to be lost on the guard. In the way of bullies everywhere, the pudgy man grabbed Rapp by the shoulder and pushed him toward the end of the line.
Or at least he tried to.
With a snarl, Rapp wrenched his shoulder free before delivering his statement a second time in louder, slower Arabic. Then he tried again in heavily accented English. “Lieutenant General Petrov.”
This roused the woman at the desk from her stupor. Her voice cut through the air with what Rapp assumed was a rebuke based on the guard’s reaction. One moment, the beefy fellow had been reaching for the pistol holstered at his belt. The next, he pointed a stubby finger toward the scanner and motioned for Rapp to go to the head of the line. This could not have pleased the men and women he was cutting in front of, but other than a few hard glances, no one reacted.
Perhaps Muscovites could pretend to accept the banality of this building while standing outside its premises, but inside was a different matter. The air felt colder, and the walls looked harder. Rapp wasn’t anoverly religious man, but as with Auschwitz, there was a sense of menace to this place. An evil that permeated the walls and wafted up from the floor.
Rapp’s stomach tightened as he passed through the scanner’s archway. The composite knife that was worked into his belt buckle hadn’t triggered the airport’s metal detectors, and there was no reason to think this sensor was any different. Even so, he didn’t think he’d ever be able to pass beneath an X-ray machine without his gut clenching.
Instruments like this were designed for men like him.
Something above him chimed and Rapp’s heart skipped a beat.
The guard pointed at Rapp and then the conveyor belt. Shrugging out of his coat, Rapp placed it on the belt and then stepped into the walkthrough scanner a second time. The device beeped again, but somehow sounded less urgent. The beefy guard gestured at the single flashing amber light, and the woman nodded. Apparently, electronic devices manufactured by companies in the former Soviet Union did not always operate flawlessly.
“You are here for Lieutenant General Petrov?” the woman said.
Rapp nodded as he picked up his coat from the far side of the scanning machine. “Yes. A Colonel Zhikin was supposed to meet me here.”
A chime sounded from the bank of elevators to his left, and the doors hissed open.
“You just missed him,” the woman said. “If you’ll take a seat in one of those chairs, I’ll ring Colonel Zhikin and let him know you’ve arrived.”
“No need for that. I’ll take him up.”
Rapp turned toward the elevators, expecting to see the FSK colonel.
Instead, he was confronted by a pair of familiar eyes.
