Romanov Succession (30 page)

“When men have nothing better to do with money than gamble it away.…”

Prince Leon cut across him smoothly: “I think we're here.”

The villa was on a height in a pastel cluster of genteel residences each of which had its two or three acre garden of semi-tropical vegetation: rubbery greenery, bougainvillaea, palms, grape trees, Bermuda lawns, flowers carefully tended and vividly displayed. A high wall sealed off the property and a man in an olive drab uniform and a white Sam Browne belt came to attention at the gate. The driveway was crushed seashells; it gritted under the tires.

The portico was an arched stucco affair; the villa was high and massive with walls of North African tile, predominantly pink—very bright in the sun. Their heels rang on the mosaic floor.

They had proceeded along half the length of the lofty corridor when the wide doors opened at the far end and their host revealed himself. “Welcome, gentlemen. I'm Colonel Buckner.”

“It's good of you to come on such short notice.” Buckner arranged the seating and saw to their drinks. Then he took a place in the circle of chairs.

It had been the Graf von Schnee's game room and the silent deep carpet remained but the room had been redesigned by its American tenants as a conference chamber; there was a long table beneath the windows but he hadn't wanted the formality of that.

He began with casual inquiries; it was the first time he'd met any of them and he didn't want to reveal the extent of his knowledge about them.

After a decent interval he cleared his throat and leaned forward in his seat with his forearms across his knees. “Very well then. Suppose we start by having me lay out the situation and then we'll discuss it from there. Are there any questions you'd like to ask me before I start?”

There were none; he hadn't expected any. They were smart enough to sound him out first.

He said, “I'm here as the informal representative of the President. I stress the word ‘informal.' Nothing I say can be construed to be a binding commitment by my government. We're involved in a clandestine operation—if there's ever a public question about it we're all bound to deny it. Even if your operation succeeds it'll be many years before Washington will be able to admit having had any part in it.”

“That's fully understood,” said Baron Oleg Zimovoi. “There won't be any embarrassing exposures on our part.”

“I'm just trying to explain to you why we'd have to deny it.”

Baron Oleg produced a pipe and a pouch.

Buckner said, “Here's where we stand. You're trying to overthrow the Stalin government. You've got tacit approval and a certain amount of secret matériel support from the governments of the United States and Great Britain.

“This thing was pretty chancy from the start. There've always been a lot of ifs in it. I don't know if you realize this but we very nearly lost Russia to the Nazis ten days ago—there was an attempt on Stalin's life.”

“We were aware of it,” murmured Count Anatol Markov.

Buckner gave him a sharp glance. “Then you know the Kremlin discovered the plot in time to head it off and corral the perpetrators. They're not fools. They're bound to be twice as alert now as they were before that attempt—your chances are getting slimmer all the.…”

“Colonel Buckner,” Count Anatol said, very cool. “The recent attempt on Stalin's life failed because Stalin was warned in advance.”

“By whom?” He had to ask it even though he suddenly felt he knew the answer.

“By us,” Anatol told him without hesitation.

Buckner was angry and showed it. “Is it your idea of good faith to keep your allies in the dark on an issue that vital?”

“The issue is no longer vital,” Anatol said.

Baron Oleg said, “That attempt failed because we foiled it, Colonel. Stalin will not be given warning of our own attack. And it is reassuring, don't you think, that our participation in forestalling the German attempt was not discovered by your own intelligence. It leads one to conclude that our security is very tight.”

“I'd damn well like to know how you got wind of that scheme.”

“We have access to channels of information in Germany that are denied to you, I'm sure,” Anatol said.

The Russian Count seemed made of ice: no emotion at all in his presentation. Buckner said, “It might be helpful to us all if you'd share those channels.”

For the first time Prince Leon spoke. “The time may very well come when it is mutually advantageous for us to do that, Colonel. At the moment however our alliance is fragile as you know. Clearly that makes it important that we retain what few advantages we have. They may prove useful as bargaining points as time goes by—I'm sure you can appreciate that.”

“You're very candid.”

“I try to be when the reverse would serve no purpose.”

“At least you can tell me this much. Who organized that attempt against Stalin?”

He saw them look at one another; Prince Leon nodded his visible assent and Count Anatol said, “They were White Russians—the followers of the Grand Duke Mikhail. The program had Nazi support.”

“Just as yours has Anglo-American support. That's rather cozy—playing both ends against the middle.”

“It was hardly like that, Colonel,” Baron Oleg said. He pushed his thumb down into the pipe and prepared to strike a match. “If we had been working with them we'd hardly have given away their plan to the Bolsheviks.”

Anatol said, “It was a race between their operation and ours. We have put them out of the race—temporarily at least.”

“What did they expect to achieve?”

“A German victory. Apparently Hitler offered Mikhail the puppet throne of Russia.”

“I see.”

Prince Leon said, “I'm sure you did not summon us here to discuss the thwarted attempt on Stalin's life last week.”

Oleg sucked at his pipe until he had it going to his satisfaction and then he said. “He asked us here in order to impose a schedule on us.”

They were damnably irritating: forever a jump ahead of him. He'd underestimated them badly. He said cautiously. “I'm not trying to impose anything on anybody. But history has a way of doing those things for us. I think we've reached the point where we've got no choice but to trust one another—there isn't time for anything else.”

Prince Leon said, “In what matters are we to trust one another, Colonel?”

“It's time you let us in on your tactical plan, I think.”

“Of course he thinks that,” Baron Oleg remarked to Anatol. “He has thought that from the beginning.”

Prince Leon said, “The British seem satisfied, Colonel.”

“Then perhaps the British have been approached more frankly than we have.”

He saw them glance at one another again. He said, “Danilov went to London two weeks ago. Who did he talk to? What did he do there?”

“I'm sure we cannot answer that,” Anatol said. “We were not there.”

“You're playing a dangerous game.”

Baron Oleg took the pipe out of his mouth. “We are fighting for Russia, Colonel. Not for the United States of America. Surely you recognize that our first obligation is not to you.”

Buckner willed himself to sit back and cross his legs. “Very well. According to our latest intelligence briefs the Germans have surrounded four entire Red Armies west of Moscow—the Nineteenth, the Twenty-fourth, the Thirtieth and the Thirty-second. Von Bock has them trapped east of Smolensk. Those pockets will be wiped out or captured within five or six days at most. Guderian has the Third and the Thirteenth surrounded. That's six entire armies, gentlemen—the better part of a million troops and God knows how many tanks and guns. The roads to Moscow will be wide open within a week. Stalin's throwing everything he's got left into the Mozhaisk Line and he's put Zhukov personally in charge of it—but it's only forty miles from the center of Moscow and the way things look right now Zhukov won't be able to hold it for long.”

Count Anatol said, “The blizzards of winter will stop them, Colonel. Winter comes in three to four weeks.”

“And if the panzers breach the Mozhaisk Line before that?”

“We do not think they will. The German tanks are wallowing in deep mud now—quite often they have been immobilized completely. They are not likely to break Zhukov's lines within a week or two. And those four armies on the Smolensk-Moscow road are still holding their positions, surrounded or not. As long as they remain there the Germans can't advance with their full force.”

Prince Leon had a gentle voice. “Colonel, we began this undertaking with the understanding that it would be done within one hundred days. We expect to be in operation well within that time limit.”

“The limit has been shortened,” Buckner said flatly. “Hitler has moved faster than we had any reason to expect. We credited the Russian army with more fighting ability than it's demonstrated.”

“No,” Leon said softly. “It was not their ability you depended on—it was their will to fight. The elimination of Stalin—the restoration of their country to its people—will rekindle that spirit.”

“I'm not sure we have time for that any more.”

Leon's face told him nothing. It was nearly expressionless: remote, courteous, attentive. “I'm not certain I understand your position, Colonel. What is it you wish us to do—abandon the enterprise?”

“No. I'm asking you to accelerate it. To convince Danilov he hasn't got as much time as he thought he had.”

Baron Oleg said, “There are certain things you can't rush, Colonel. You can't expect to make nine women pregnant in order to get a baby in one month. Nor can you execute a plan like ours with half-trained and half-equipped troops. There is no point starting the operation unless it has every possible advantage—the odds are poor enough as it is.”

Buckner shook his head. “It's your choice, gentlemen. Speed it up or cancel it. There's no third course.”

Count Anatol said, “That is an ultimatum, is it?”

“I'm not dictating it. The facts are.”

“No,” Prince Leon said. “It is not the facts, Colonel, it is your interpretation of them. One has the impression your President has developed—what is your expression—cold feet? The Nazis have not moved very much faster than we anticipated. They are approximately where we expected them to be by autumn—nearer Moscow than they were before but not yet at the gates of the city. We expected Zhukov to blunt their drive and he did so. We expected the rains to slow their tanks and they have done so. We now expect winter to stall the German advance and while no one can promise it there is a good likelihood it will do so. No, Colonel. The facts in Europe have not changed. It is only the facts in Washington that may have changed.”

“What are you implying, Your Highness? That we're trying to back out of our agreement?” He could feel the blood rise to his cheeks. “My country isn't in the habit of reneging on its commitments.”

“Oh come now,” Baron Oleg said. “You're not in a public forum now—we are not impressed by a show of the flag, Colonel. You will renege on this agreement the moment you feel it is in your interests to do so. You have kept the bargain only because you are convinced it can still be profitable to your interests. And you are trying to increase the odds of success by shortening the schedule.”

Anatol said, “And we are trying to convince you that shortening it will do just the opposite—it will reduce the odds of success, don't you see that?”

Oleg scraped ash out of the bowl of his pipe; when he spoke it was to Anatol. “The nearer we come to the day of reckoning the more nervous they become. It may prove intolerable—it may ruin us in the end.”

“Then we shall have to calm them down, won't we.” Anatol turned to Buckner. “What will it take to soothe you, Colonel?”

He was beet-red to the hairline and knew it. These shrewd bastards had been weaned on Machiavelli; they were the hard realists of an old school that went back a thousand years and he hadn't the guns for this and he knew it. But he had his instructions and he had to proceed. “I've told you what it will take. Move it up.”

“We can't do that,” Prince Leon said in a reasonable way. “The timing is determined by Stalin. When Stalin moves we move. It is that simple, Colonel, and nothing you can do or say will change that.”

He watched the Peugeot turn out through the gates and then he turned to the game room and opened the side door to the chamber beyond. A thin man with short hair and a neat grey suit looked up from the wire recorder's rewinding reels.

“Did you get it all?”

“Yes sir.”

“For all the damn good it'll do us,” Buckner growled. “Keep it to yourself, will you? I wouldn't like it bandied about Washington that I let three doddering old playboys make an ass out of me.”

“What now, Colonel?”

“The purpose of this little quiz session was to pry Danilov's plan out of them. It didn't work. There's one more thing to try. Pack us up, Hawkes, we're going to England.”

PART FIVE:

November 1941

1.

The pale disc of the sun was vague in the grey November sky. In the distance beyond the woods he saw the Dakotas going over, vomiting jumpers toward the fifty-foot target circle. Alex watched the jumps as he ran.

The runway was 4,800 feet long and they were running three laps today. Going into the third lap ahead of Solov's company of troops he felt the pull of the stiffened muscle of the bullet-pinked leg.

Breathing to run: let it all out, open the mouth wide, pull in as much as the lungs can hold—and hold it there for three strides; then expel it and do it again. It had taken him two weeks of running to get his wind back but now he had the rhythm and hardly noticed the weight of the combat pack on his shoulders.