The Romanov Conspiracy (26 page)

The man with the sailor’s duffel bag called out, “Maria! Tell these idiots to let me pass.”

The secretary said to the commander, “I can vouch for this citizen, comrade. Let him enter.”

As Maria Glasser led the way up toward the Kremlin, she addressed the visitor like the old comrade that he was. “Lenin read your cable. He’s been anxiously awaiting your arrival. But we better hurry—he’s got an important meeting in the War Ministry at ten.”

“Do yourself a favor and just cancel Lenin’s meeting, Maria.”

“What?”

“Once he hears my news he won’t be going anywhere.”

Two miles away in Moscow’s Arbat District, Yakov stepped out of the Fiat truck.

In the driver’s seat, Zoba said, “Maybe you could spend some time with her at my place. My wife can make us all dinner.”

“There isn’t time. I have an appointment at the Kremlin in an hour.”

“You have to make time where children are concerned, Leonid. Do you know why Trotsky summoned you?”

“I’ll worry about that when I get there.” He picked up the brown-wrapped parcel from the truck’s floor and tossed it at Zoba. “I’ve a job for you. Find another way to get food and clothing to Nina Andrev.”

He removed a heavy leather purse full of rubles from his pocket and left it on the front seat. “She’ll need medicine for the child. You can only get that kind of thing on the black market these days, and it’s expensive.”

“But she’s already refused your help.”

“Use a local priest, or the doctor who tends her child. Have them say it’s to help her plight. Make it sound believable. I don’t want her to suspect it came from me.”

It was two o’clock and the public schoolyard was filling up, some of the younger children coming out to meet their mothers.

Yakov walked up to the wire fence.

The dark-haired girl came out moments later. She would soon be six years old and was wearing a worn blue dress and stout leather shoes. Nothing remarkable about her, a plain little girl with pigtails, but her big, expressive eyes were her mother’s and they made her look incredibly innocent.

Ever since the first day he held her in his arms as a newborn, he felt touched by her. He’d named her Katerina, after his dead sister, and she seemed to be his only real connection to the world, now that Stanislas was gone.

She searched the waiting crowd anxiously, and then Yakov saw Zoba’s wife appear, a smiling, big-bosomed peasant woman.

She picked up his daughter in her arms, hugged and kissed her, then led her away by the hand, the child skipping happily.

Yakov felt a terrible urgency to go after his daughter, to take her in his arms and smother her with kisses, see her childish smile and those big innocent eyes light up her face, but he desperately fought the need.

He had the party’s work to do. Personal needs came second.

“A revolution is difficult for everyone. It can’t be won without sacrifice and suffering.”

He recalled Nina’s reply. “And what’s yours, Leonid … ?”

He was staring at the answer to that question, as Katerina skipped away.

For a long time Yakov stood at the wire, silently watching his child, until he felt his eyes moisten and he turned back toward the truck.

30

MOSCOW

3:30 P.M.

Yakov hated the Kremlin.

There was something sinister about its twelfth-century bloodred walls, the site of the original wooden stockade where Ivan the Terrible liked to impale his victims.

He drove his dark green truck into the Armory courtyard.

A Red Army aide was waiting for him. “Follow me, Commissar Yakov.”

The aide ran up a flight of granite steps up to a stone-flagged archway and Yakov followed. In a square below a battery of trucks and artillery was drawn up, and everywhere there were vigilant Red Army guards armed with rifles.

The aide came to a studded oak door, which he opened. “Inside, Commissar. Mind your step, the floor’s slippery.”

They entered a highly polished, ornate corridor. The parquet floors smelled of disinfectant and wax polish. The walls were painted duck-egg blue, and plush red, navy, and yellow rugs with the tsar’s royal insignia still covered the floor.

Two guards with rifles slung over their shoulders kept watch either side of another door at the end of the hallway. Yakov said to the aide as they approached the door, “I presume you know why I’m here?”

His face was set in a blank expression. “You’re asking the wrong man, Commissar. My task is simply to deliver you to your destination.”

The two guards admitted them into a plush outer office draped with magnificent tsarist tapestries, a sparkling chandelier hanging overhead. Paintings adorned the walls, their frames covered in solid
gold leaf, and in the center of the outer office was a pair of floor-to-ceiling double oak doors.

The aide held out a hand. “Your sidearm, please. No visitors are allowed to carry weapons past this point. But with luck, you shouldn’t have long to wait.”

Yakov removed his revolver and handed it across. The aide placed the revolver in a desk drawer.

Almost on cue the floor-to-ceiling doors burst open and an arrogant-looking man appeared.

He bristled with restless energy and was dressed in a black military uniform and polished knee-high boots. In one hand he carried his trademark officer’s baton, in his other he held a stiff paper envelope. His full head of untamed, wavy hair, his black Vandyke beard, and wire-rimmed spectacles gave him the look of an eccentric academic.

Yakov recognized Leon Trotsky, the defense minister and Lenin’s ruthless right-hand man. He had the glittering, dark eyes of a fanatic, and coldness emanated from him like a physical force. Yakov always found something slightly chilling about him.

He snapped to attention, clicked his heels. “Comrade Trotsky.”

“Come.”

The balcony overlooked Moscow. The tall French windows were already open and Trotsky stepped out. He fitted a cigarette into a long cigarette holder, lit it, and blew out smoke.

Yakov joined him. Farther along, he glimpsed another French-windowed room where a man with a balding head was hunched down over some paperwork. He recognized the unmistakable figure of Vladimir Lenin.

“You’re proving very capable. Comrade Lenin is well pleased with you, Yakov. But I wonder if you’re up to the task he has in mind for you.”

“Comrade Minister?”

Trotsky delicately balanced the cigarette holder between slim, aristocratic fingers. He removed the envelope from under his arm, opened it, and handed Yakov a photograph. It was a picture of the tsar and his
family, the kind of royal memento commonly sold in street kiosks and stores before the tsar’s abdication.

Trotsky said, “Your wife was one of the first to be shot during the uprising, I believe. What do you feel when you look at that photograph, Yakov? Hatred? Fury? Bitterness? Answer honestly.”

“For the children, the wife, I feel nothing. For her husband, hate is too mild a word. I despise him.”

“I’m glad to hear that. Personally, I’d put the tsar on public trial and hang him, but Comrade Lenin has other plans.”

Yakov went to hand back the snapshot.

Trotsky shook his head. “Keep it. Let it be a reminder of your hatred, never to allow your loathing to diminish, even for a second.”

“Why?”

“Because we want you to administer the execution of the entire Romanov family.”

31

LONDON

It was easy to believe that the most brutal war in world history was happening a million miles away that evening.

The gala fund-raising concert in Albert Hall was attended by the usual dignitaries, the ladies in their finest silks, the gentlemen in formal evening wear.

The London Symphony was playing Sibelius and just before the interval the American ambassador, Walter Page, left his wife’s side and stepped out of his box. He was guided by an usher to a private room at the end of a hall.

The lights were out and the curtains open, the room faintly illuminated by the amber streaks in London’s evening sky. A figure stood in shadows.

Page lit a cigar and strolled over. Someone had placed a silver tray on a side table, champagne already poured for the interval into a half-dozen flute glasses, the bottle stuck in a silver bucket of crushed ice.

Page selected a glass and knocked back the champagne in one gulp. “I always find these things so terribly boring, don’t you, Mack?”

The American ambassador’s aide, John MacKenzie, appeared out of the shadows. He was tall, immaculately groomed, his hair well oiled, his Brooks Brothers suit crisply pressed. “What can I say, Mr. Ambassador? It’s a diversion.”

Page took a couple of pills from a bottle in his pocket and washed them down with another glass of champagne. “It’s giving me the headache from hell. What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to talk with you about our agent in Russia, sir.”

“Can’t it wait until tomorrow?”

“I’m afraid not. What do you know about Philip Sorg, sir?”

“Only what our friends in State tell me. That he’s kept a watch on the Romanovs since their imprisonment, following them from Tsarskoye Selo to Tobolsk, and on to Ekaterinburg. That his efforts are a vital part of our plans. Why?”