Grandmaster by Molly Cochran Read Free Book Online Page A

he gave me the necklace."
    "The necklace?"
    "The guy was cracked, I tell you."
    Starcher rummaged through the items on his desk. "What necklace?" he asked, frowning.
    Corfus poked around the items. "I know he gave it to me," he mumbled. "It was after he dumped the rest of the stuff into my hands. He acted as if it was important. Maybe it's still in my pocket." He rose and walked to the small divan where he had draped his coat and rummaged through the pockets. "Here it is. It must have gotten stuck in the lining."
    He tossed the gold medallion onto the glass desktop with a clatter.
    Starcher stared at it for a moment, unmoving. The gold disc with its ancient coiled snake figurine seemed to glow with a terrible power.
    Corfus looked from the medallion to Starcher. "What—what's the matter?"
    Starcher reached out for the necklace with tentative fingers. He rubbed the gold thoughtfully. It felt warm to his touch.
    So long, so long ago ...
    "What did Riesling say?" Starcher asked, pulling off his bifocals with a grimace. The hand that had touched the medallion trembled.
    "He said the Grandmaster was alive."
    Starcher shot out of his chair. An intense pain coursed down his left arm. "What?"
    "It was the last thing he said," Corfus said, confused. "Are you all right?"
    Starcher groaned and gasped for air. His chest tightened as if a steel band were squeezing his lungs together. The corner of his desk shot up to meet his gaze; his chair toppled with a heavy crash. "The medallion," he said softly. But of course that was ridiculous. Even the Grandmaster's coiled snake didn't possess the power to stop a man's heart. With a sigh, he lost consciousness in a sea of pain.

Chapter Five
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    A lexander Zharkov filled his lungs with the crisp October air mixed with the smell of new bread from the bakery on Neglimmaya Street. To his left, several blocks away, the twenty towers of the Kremlin's fortress walls pricked the sky. Beyond them, the bright-colored gingerbread domes of St. Basil's Cathedral stood in splendid ancient barbarism.
    It was said in the old legends that Ivan the Terrible plucked out the eyes of the cathedral's designers so that its magnificence might never be duplicated. Zharkov's eyes rested for a moment on the structure, as they did each morning. He understood the belligerent, bloody czar of all the Russias, now defiled for his selfish achievements.
    He had understood since his days as a student, when he had first set his unworldly eyes on the great cathedral. While his contemporaries set about ensuring the success of their careers by vocally damning the excesses of the corrupt kings and praising the weekly agricultural output of the Ukraine, Zharkov had been silent, listening, planning. Even then he had understood the price of greatness, and respected it.
    He turned down a side street lined with modest homes, their shutters open. He nodded to an old grandmother, a baba , who swept her steps each morning as Zharkov passed. She smiled toothlessly and watched him walk toward the two-story house that no one on the street spoke of.
    The people in the neighborhood knew that it was not a home. It was not a brothel, because no women came or left there. It was not an office, because no office sounds issued from the small house with the tightly closed windows. Only a crew of workmen in a truck came to the dark little house with regularity, letting themselves in before dawn with dollies loaded with electronic equipment, and then let themselves out within the hour. Those neighbors who guessed that the equipment was for electronic security sweeps of the premises kept the information to themselves. Such knowledge was not welcome in Moscow.
    The house belonged to Nichevo. Sporadically it served as the meeting ground for five or six serious, silent men. Zharkov was the youngest among them. And the most powerful.
    A heavyset man carrying a brown envelope stood at the foot of the steps leading to the front door of the house. They