chapter 1 THE TOMB JANUARY 22, 1975
MONASTERY OF THE HOLY MARTYRS, LENINGRAD, U.S.S.R.
YURI TUCKED HIS chin under his coat collar, trying to ward off the stabbing wind that gusted across the frozen Neva River. The street slithered with white rivulets of snow as Yuri and his young daughter stepped around an old man struggling to shovel a narrow pathway up the monastery steps. Fat snowflakes churning in the raw evening wind accumulated faster than the old man could scoop them away with his one good arm. A pinned-over coat sleeve covered the stump of his other arm. A row of ribbons and war medals hung from his chest.
As Yuri and his daughter approached, the man paused, squinted against an icy gust and leaned on the broken end of his shovel. "The monks have bread for the hungry," he said, then bent over again and scraped his flat, rusted spade over the hard-packed ice that covered the path.
Yuri and Tanya moved up the steps and arrived at a pair of locked, cedar-plank doors. Yuri pounded the wood with a leathergloved hand. A few moments later, the door creaked open, exposing bone-thin fingers that held a thick chunk of brown bread.
"We are not here for food," Yuri said.
A voice wafted from behind the door. "Then why do you come here?"
"I bring the girl. She has the gift."
"Gift?"
"The gift of the Pravda legend." Yuri waited for a response.
The thin fingers unfurled and the brown bread tumbled to the floor. The monastery door moved, widening the gap between it and the jamb.
Yuri and his young daughter stepped inside. A gray-bearded priest wearing a brown floor-length cassock, a black Byzantine klobuk perched upon his head, watched them with sunken eyes. A large, ornate, silver cross dangled from his neck. He lifted a flickering paraffin lamp and bowed in silent greeting. He then turned and pushed the heavy door shut against the invading blast of cold, and latched it with a large sliding bolt.
"I am sorry, but I usually tend to the welfare of men's souls -- not the digging up of their bodies, as we are about to do." His words flowed over blue lips and lingered in a vaporous mist.
Yuri had no desire for small talk. "We must hurry. The KGB is looking for the girl. We must conduct our business and leave quickly. I will take the girl across the border to Finland and escape the madness of this vile government."
The priest nodded, then waved for them to follow in the flickering glow of his light.
Two rats nibbled at the fallen chunk of bread on the floor, unconcerned as the priest limped past. Yuri and Tanya followed the priest's lamplight and descended a steep set of stone stairs. The cold seemed to follow, pushing from behind.
At the bottom of the stairs was an arched stone chamber, its floor covered in a thin veneer of frozen scum that crackled with each footfall. Green water dripped from the ceiling.
The priest pointed to a dark corner, where a large gray granite sarcophagus rested.
Yuri felt Tanya pull his coat sleeve as she released a muffled sob from under her woolen neck scarf. Chiseled on the face of the crypt, in old Russian Cyrillic, was the moss-encrusted name of Feodor Kuzmich, with the date of 1864 carved below.
A monk, head bowed and hooded canopy shielding his face, stood on each side of the stone coffin, murmuring somnolent prayers.
The old priest bent to the girl. "You are the awaited one of the legend...the girl with the Pravda." His lamplight reflected in her small, troubled eyes. Tanya took a step back and brushed away a tear. The old cleric spoke slowly, his lips slipping over tarnished brown teeth. "The man entombed here has a message for you."
Yuri stared at the smooth granite casket. "I bring my daughter at the request of my wife, Natalia."
"Where is your wife?" the priest asked.
"She has died. Three weeks ago."
The priest closed his eyes in a moment of reverent reflection. "You have done well to bring her." Placing his hand upon Tanya's black hair, the priest asked, "So it is true? I must know for certain. You can hear when a voice speaks an untruth? Do you truly have the Pravda?"
Tanya looked at her father, whose eyes relayed his approval. She then turned back to the priest, and nodded.
The priest sighed. "At long last the legend breathes."
Yuri asked, "How did you know that the girl and I would come?"
"Your wife knew the legend. It tells of a girl born with the Pravda -- a girl who should be brought here and given a message from the tomb."
"My wife would have brought the girl, but she was gravely ill for some time." The memory of his wife's passing drove a hot blade through Yuri's heart.
The priest gave a comforting smile. "Do not mourn. She awaits your arrival in Heaven, and Heaven is never far away. Her ears will be able to hear, and her lips able to speak words of love for you." He returned his attention to the girl. "It is a mystery why your daughter was born with the Pravda gift when her mother lived her entire life stone deaf."
Yuri studied the priest for a moment, long enough to remember the day his wife told him that when their daughter was old enough, they would visit the monastery. That was seven years ago. At the time Yuri hadn't understood his wife's words. Now he did.
The old priest clapped his weathered hands. The two monks standing by the stone coffin stepped forward, and, in unison, curled their fingers under the edge of the stone lid. They slid it slightly to one side. The scraping sound broke the chamber's silence. The lid refused to move easily. With a few more muscle-straining pushes, the heavy slab scooted a few more inches.
The priest turned his wizened face to the girl. "Remember this night well, child. Remember the legend. There is no secret in this world that time and Heaven does not unlock."
Stepping to the sarcophagus, he held the glowing paraffin lamp over the narrow gap between the grave's lid and stone side, and peered into the coffin's cavity.
Yuri moved to the priest's side and craned his neck to see what lay within. He saw a skull topped with a coarse, tangled tuft of gray hair. The tomb's occupant stared back with black, empty sockets. The skull had no jaw. His head, a stub of a spine, and a pair of arms was all Yuri could see. A full-length peasant chemise blackened with aged fungus covered the skeleton. In the naked bones of the right hand rested an old, golden snuff box.
The priest pulled back the sleeve of his cassock, then slid his arm through the space between the lid and side of the sarcophagus, until his searching fingers found the golden object. It was fused to brown, curdled skin. He pulled again and the relic came free, the connected dry sinew disintegrating into gritty granules. The priest drew the box slowly from the coffin and held it close to his light for a moment. Despite a layer of dust, it glinted in the light. He held it out to Tanya.
Tanya looked at Yuri. He nodded. Her hands trembled as she took the box. "What is it?"
The priest spoke softly, as if muttering a prayer. "It is a snuff box, child -- a gold snuff box. Inside is a message from long ago -- a message for you."
"Message?" Yuri asked.
"Yes, a message and a small glass vial of bread from Heaven -- the manna of God."
Yuri took the box and examined it. It was heavier than he expected and ornately crafted. Delicate filigree edged the golden lid and a double-headed eagle decorated the middle: the imperial seal of the royal Romanov family.
"What's a snuff box?" Tanya asked. She looked confused and frightened.
The priest explained. "Long ago, men ground tobacco into powder. The wealthy kept their powder in a golden snuff box."
Yuri gazed at the box resting in his gloved hand, his mind whirling with questions. "Who is the man in the grave? What does he have to do with us?"
The priest stepped away from the sarcophagus. "He once lived as a czar, his soul lost to the wind, but he died a monk saved by the cross of Jesus."
"The czar?" Yuri said. The words drained him of strength.
"Yes -- "
A loud pounding on the upstairs vestibule door rumbled down the stone steps. They froze in silence; the only sound Yuri could hear was the gulping breaths of his daughter.
They heard more pounding, followed by a muffled, harsh voice. "KGB. Open the door, priest."
The priest's forehead creased. He motioned for the two attending monks to go up the stairs and tend to the visitor. As they turned to go, the priest spoke in a reassuring tone. "In Christ, to die is gain." The hooded monks nodded, but said nothing. Their dark forms ascended the stone steps.
The priest turned to Yuri. "Bring the girl."
Without waiting for a reply, the priest turned and started down a narrow, low-arched tunnel that snaked into darkness. He was old and bent over, but he moved with urgency. The passageway's floor and walls felt slick. Yuri assumed the tunnel also served as drainage for the wet tomb. He gripped Tanya's hand.
Light from the priest's lantern reflected eerily off stone cavities cut in the walls. Stacked skeletons in various stages of decomposition plugged each cavity. A sour, pungent odor hung in the air. Yuri saw Tanya pulled her scarf over her face to keep from retching.
After a minute of shuffling and slipping in the icy maze of darkness, they reached the end. Yuri saw the faint blue hue of falling snow through the tunnel's exterior opening. A moment later, they stood in the monastery's courtyard.
The priest gulped for air -- more from exertion, Yuri assumed, than fear. The old man pointed to a dark clump of trees at the edge of the courtyard. "The evil one comes to take the child, so run; run with Godspeed."
Yuri led Tanya by the hand and had made fifty trudging strides in the snow when he heard a shot split the howling wind. Yuri turned and caught sight of a flashlight beam scanning the courtyard. The beam silhouetted the old priest as he held out his ar...
