To start from the beginning go here.

I kissed Sophie on the forehead and moved to leave before she got up. I was always shit at long good-byes.

This early in the spring the weather still might be damp, even this late in the morning, so I pulled a tan trench coat from the depths of the closet. A gift from Sophie given to me somewhere around the Swiss border, it had never fit the broadness of my shoulders quite right, but it would have to do now.

I resisted the urge to peek around every corner and headed to the tram stop. It felt more crowded than usual, causing me to eye any passengers that might be of a Slavic bent or anyone with a large backpack or bulging coat. I told myself the crowd was probably just the tourists season beginning to pick up. I rode in silence, trying to keep my frame from taking up too much space in the narrow cabin, and watched the dirty and graffitied streets of Triaite slowly transform into the clean sidewalks and brightly shuttered shops of Old Town.

I got off near the Promenade. Heading east would have taken me to the casino, but I headed north. A couple of blocks before I arrived at the cathedral’s public square I could see the church’s blue onion domes above the orange-shingled roofs and tall trees of the surrounding neighborhood. I watched it as I walked along, keeping my eyes from the wandering tourists and finding its beauty was such that it could keep my mind off what was waiting for me when I arrived. I needn’t have bothered with the trench coat; The day was clear and the Mediterranean sunshine was already raising the temperature.

I stopped at the edge of the cathedral’s square, admiring its sapphire domes and white gold walls and thought about how it had reminded me of a mosque’s minarets when I arrived. Looking over it now, though, I could see every Byzantine inch of it, and it reminded me more of the Kremlin. I had always associated that walled palace with intrigue and deception and that made me wonder at what might be hidden here. I decided there was only one way to find out.

Like a lot of churches, there was a broad public square surrounding it and I strode out onto the open ground like I was baiting a sniper. I found a bench to sit on and wished I had something to feed the pigeons.

I noticed Brick and Whip before I saw Mitnick, a few other Eastern Europeans floating out amongst the crowds as well. They generally kept to themselves, but made any tourist they came close to uncomfortable, as if they were leaking some kind of radiation, unseen but strong enough to be felt by the more innocent. Whip winked and pursed his lips as one family that gathered itself into a retreat as he approached. I grimaced and put that away in the memory bank for later.

Before I had to get close to Whip, though, Minick came out from the street, his height, well-tailored suit and beard marking him out from the crowd. I wasn’t sure how to greet someone of his importance, so I stood up straight and put my hands in the trench coat’s pockets.

He strode across the square as if it were his lawn, his wide, bright smile gleaming in the sun. He touched his left hand to his right as if he were removing a glove then extended his right hand. I shook it, trying to be firm without any macho vice squeeze. His was a warm, dry grip that made me hope I wasn’t sweating as much as I felt.

“Good to see you my friend.” Mitnick gave a single nod with the sentence, exuding command and warmth. Again, I felt the pull of Mitnick’s approval, but newfound concerns for my safety added to my existing cynicism, making it easier to resist this time. “You look tired,” he added after giving me a quick appraisal.

I tried to put on my grimmest expression and began to speak, getting as far as saying, “Mikhail –”

Blithely ignoring my words and bruised expression, Mitnick laughed and clapped his hand onto my shoulder. He turned me towards the cathedral. “Did you know this was built by Tsar Nicholas II?”

Confused by the unexpected topic, I made a show of looking up at the church’s onion domes, squinting into the bright afternoon light. “No.”

“Yes,” Mitnick’s smile got impossibly wider, his white teeth beaming as if he were announcing it had been built by a close relative. “A century ago. Even then, Russians had been coming here for so long that the Tsar decided that such a beautiful edifice must be built so the faithful had a place to worship.” He began to walk, taking a wide circle around the church, eyes lingering on its walls and heavy doors. “Even then, the Motherland’s reach extended to this place.”

“And now,” he continued, hand still on my shoulder, feet still moving, “Putin has reclaimed this place for Russia. You stand on sovereign soil, my friend, rescued from the overlords of Europe by our new Tsar.”

I kept pace with Mitnick, feeling like a complete rube as I asked, “Tsar? I thought he was…what, like the President? Isn’t Russia a democracy now?”

Mitnick laughed. “It is Russia, my friend. No matter if we are a democracy, communists, or a monarchy, there is always one man in charge.” He pulled me to face him, his grip on my shoulder turning to iron, a wolfish grin behind the index finger he lifted to my face. “That is the way it was meant to be.”

I felt my eyes dart between Mitnick and the church. I understood his point, but pushed it with, “I thought you were,” worried that I might mispronounce Belarusian I said, “from Belarus.”

Like a spotlight, Mitnick’s pride shone as he released me. “Did I never tell you? I was on the Soviet Olympic boxing team.” Before I had a moment to respond Mitnick raised his fists into a guard and shuffled his feet. Even in dress shoes, his speed was startling, and I was only able to take a hesitant step back as he landed two or three feint blows. From somewhere behind me I heard Brick chuckle.

I tried to hide my grimace with a grin, finding even small steps back reminded me of all the bruises that Mikhail had left on me, suddenly glad the most prominent ones weren’t on my face. I pointed around, indicating all of Mitnick’s men and the church, as if somehow they were all embroiled together. “So how did you get mixed up in all of this?”

Mitnick shrugged with a casualness that suggested that it was inevitable. “When the Soviet Union collapsed, many of us must work together to survive.” I couldn’t tell if he meant countries, or communist bureaucrats, boxing champs, and gangsters.

I couldn’t keep a wry twist out of my voice. “What? You’re all one big happy family?”

That question caused Mitnick’s expression to dim and he straightened himself as a parent might speak of discipline. “Belarus, Ukraine…like children we may wander away for awhile, but we will always return home.”

My wryness ballooned into full skepticism. “To Mother Russia?”

Mitnick chuckled then, expelling his own small gradient of cynicism, “Indeed.”

Again, like his quick feet, I found the oscillations of Mitnick’s conversation keeping me off balance. I could only think to ask, “So how did you go from boxing to this?”

Mitnick commenced marching around the church again, waving at it, as if its power and beauty were their own explanation. “The incompetence of bureaucrats lost much to us during the collapse. But they had the money, the factories, and needed protection to keep what they could. So apparatchik from my Olympic days called on me. Then other men, seeing my strength, offered me more money. But one man is only so strong, so I reached out to old friends from the KGB, our own protectors when me and my boxing comrades were overseas.”

Mitnick’s pace slowed, eyes softening with a genuine sadness I had seen in other Marines when they spoke about friends they had lost. “There was much bloodshed, though. The vory, they wanted much of what the state had and were willing to kill for it.”

“Vory?”

“Thieves, gangsters,” he explained with a quick aside. “They are nothing but thugs, so we killed them back. And so it went on for a long time. Eventually, alliances formed, peace was made.”

Mitnick rescued himself from a maudlin moment by quickening his stride, banishing it with his hand and a grin. “We are all capitalists now, yes?”

“I guess everyone is.” From somewhere in the back of my mind a quote floated up about the end of history. It made me want to puke.

To read the next chapter, go here.

To read the previous chapter, go here.

To read a polished and published prequel to this story go here.

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