the Romanov Prophecy (2004) (16 page)

Lord projected none of the stereotypical descriptions she recalled from childhood, when teachers in the state-run schools deplored the hideous evil of the Negroid race. She remembered comments about their inferior brains, weak immune systems, and total inability to govern themselves. Americans once enslaved them, a point the propagandists hammered home to emphasize the failure of capitalism. She’d even seen photographs of lynchings where white men gathered in ghostly white robes and pointed hoods and gawked at the spectacle.

Miles Lord, though, seemed nothing like any of that. His skin was the color of the rusty Voina River she remembered from visits to her grandmother’s village. His brown hair was short and neat. His body was compact and sinewy. He carried an air that was formal but friendly, his throaty voice memorable. He’d seemed genuinely surprised by her invitation to spend the night in her compartment, perhaps unaccustomed to such openness in women. She hoped his sophistication ran deeper, since he seemed interesting.

Exiting the train, she’d seen the three men chasing Lord leave the station and climb into a dark blue Volvo waiting on the street. She’d stuffed Lord’s attaché case into her overnight bag and kept it, just as she’d promised, hoping he might want it back.

All day she’d wondered if Lord was all right. Men had not played much of a role in her life the past few years. The circus performed almost every night, twice nightly in the summer. When not in Moscow, the troupe traveled extensively. She’d visited nearly all of Russia and most of Europe, and even New York City for a performance at Madison Square Garden. There was little time for male companionship beyond an occasional dinner or a conversation during a long plane or train ride.

She was a year shy of thirty and wondered if marriage would ever come. Her father had always hoped she’d settle down, give up performing, and start a family. But she’d watched what had happened to her friends who’d married. Laboring all day at a factory or store, only to come home and tend to the household, the process repeated interminably day after day. There had been no equality between men and women, though the Soviets had proudly proclaimed communist women the most liberated in the world. And little comfort came in marriage. Husbands and wives usually worked separately, at different times, even vacationing separately since rarely were both simultaneously excused from their jobs. She understood why one in three marriages ended in divorce. Why most couples birthed only one child. There was no time or money to cope with anything more. Such a life had never appealed to her. As her grandmother used to say,
To know a person, you have to eat salt together.

She took her place before the mirror and squirted water into her hair, tightening the damp braids into a bun. She wore little makeup on stage, just enough to abate the harsh, blue-white floods. She was pale-skinned, having inherited an almost total lack of pigment, blond hair, and stark blue eyes from her Slavic mother. Her talent came from her father. He’d worked as an aerialist with the circus for decades. Luckily, his abilities had translated into a larger apartment, more food rations, and a better clothing allowance. Thank goodness the arts had always been an important element of communist propaganda. The circus, along with the ballet and opera, had been exported for decades—an attempt to show the world that Hollywood did not hold a monopoly on fun.

Now the entire troupe was a moneymaking proposition. The circus was owned by a Moscow conglomerate that continued to parade the spectacle across the globe, the difference being that profit was the goal instead of propaganda. She actually earned a decent salary for somebody living in post-Soviet Russia. But the minute she could no longer dazzle an audience from the balance beam she would most likely find herself among the millions of unemployed. Which was why she kept her body in excellent shape, watched her diet carefully, and regulated her sleep habits precisely. Last night had been the first night in quite a while she hadn’t slept a full eight hours.

She thought again of Miles Lord.

Earlier, at her apartment, she’d opened the briefcase. She recalled him removing some papers, but was hoping there might be something that might shed insight into a man she found fascinating. There’d been nothing beyond a blank pad, three ballpoint pens, a few cards from the hotel Volkhov, and an Aeroflot ticket for yesterday from Moscow to St. Petersburg.

Miles Lord. American lawyer with the Tsarist Commission.

Maybe she’d see him again.

Lord sat patiently through the entire first half of the show. No
militsya
had followed him inside—at least no uniformed policemen—and he hoped no plainclothed men were around. The arena was impressive, an indoor amphitheater rising in a half circle around a colorful stage. Padded red benches accommodated what he estimated to be a couple of thousand people, mainly tourists and children, all sitting close, sharing in the emotion radiating from the performers’ faces. The surroundings bordered on the surreal, and the trampolinists, trained dogs, trapeze artists, clowns, and jugglers had, at least for a while, taken his mind off the situation.

Intermission came and he decided to stay in his seat. The less moving around, the better. He was only a few rows from the main floor, in a direct line of sight with the ring, and he hoped that when Akilina Petrovna appeared she would see him.

A bell dinged and an announcer noted that the second half would start in five minutes. His gaze circled the expansive arena one more time.

A face registered.

The man was perched on the far side, dressed in a dark leather jacket and jeans. It was the man in the baggy beige suit from the St. Petersburg archives yesterday and the train last night. He was nestled amid a group of tourists who were busily grabbing a few last photos before the start of the show.

Lord’s heart raced. His gut went hollow.

Then he saw Droopy.

The demon entered from the left, between Lord and his other problem. The dark hair shone with oily dressing, pulled tight in a ponytail. He wore a tan sweater over dark trousers.

As the lights came down and music blared for the second act, Lord stood to leave. But at the top of the aisle, no more than fifty feet away, stood Cro-Magnon, a smile on his pockmarked face.

Lord sat. Nowhere to go.

The first act was Akilina Petrovna, who bounded onto the stage barefoot, wearing a sequined blue leotard. She skipped to the lively beat of the music and quickly mounted the beam, starting her act to applause.

A wave of panic swelled inside him. He glanced back and saw that Cro-Magnon was still at the top of the aisle, but then he spotted the deeply lined gray slab face of Droopy, the demon now sitting about half way down. Coal-black eyes—Gypsy eyes, he concluded—focused with a look that signaled the end of a hunt. The man’s right hand nestled inside his jacket, which he peeled back enough to exhibit the hilt of a gun.

He turned back toward the stage.

Akilina Petrovna was strutting across the beam in an amazing display of poise. The music softened and she kept step to the gentle beat with agile movements. He focused hard, willing her to glance his way.

And she did.

For an instant their eyes met and he caught a glint of recognition. Then he registered something else. Fear? Did she likewise recognize the men behind him? Or did she read the terror in his own gaze? If she realized any of that, she did not let it affect her concentration. She continued to impress the crowd with a slow, athletic dance while perched atop a four-inch oak beam.

She performed a one-handed pirouette, then leapt from the beam. The crowd applauded as clowns burst onto the stage riding tiny bicycles. As stagehands carted away the heavy balance beam, Lord decided he had no choice. He bolted from his seat and sprang onto the stage, just as one of the clowns rode by, honking a horn. The crowd roared with laughter, thinking him part of the show. He glanced left and saw both Droopy and the man from St. Petersburg rise. He slipped behind the curtain and ran straight into Akilina Petrovna.

“I’ve got to get out of here,” he told her in Russian.

She grabbed his hand and yanked him deeper backstage, past two animal cages holding white poodles.

“I saw the men. You seem to stay in trouble, Miles Lord.”

“Tell me about it.”

They passed more performers busily going about their preparations. No one seemed to pay them any attention. “I need to duck in somewhere,” he said. “We can’t keep running.”

She led him down a hallway crowded with old posters tacked to a dirty wall. A sour whiff of urine and wet fur tempered the air. Doors lined the narrow corridor on both sides.

She twisted one of the knobs. “In here.”

It was a closet that contained mops and brooms, but there was enough room for him to squeeze inside.

“Stay here until I come back,” she said.

The door closed.

In the blackness, he tried to catch his breath. Footsteps passed outside in both directions. He couldn’t believe this was happening. The policeman outside must have alerted Feliks Orleg. Droopy, Cro-Magnon, and Orleg were all connected. No doubt about it. What was he going to do? Half the job of any good lawyer was telling his client what a damn fool he or she was being. He should take his own advice. He needed to get the hell out of Russia.

The door swung open.

In the hall light, he registered three male faces.

The first he did not recognize, but the man held a long silver blade tight against Droopy’s neck. The other face belonged to the man from yesterday in St. Petersburg. He was clutching a revolver, its barrel aimed straight at him.

Then Lord saw Akilina Petrovna.

She stood calmly beside the man with the gun.

PART
TWO

TWENTY-ONE

“Who are you?” Lord asked.

The man standing beside Akilina said, “There is no time to explain, Mr. Lord. We need to leave here quickly.”

He was not persuaded.

“We do not know how many more are here. We are not your enemy, Mr. Lord. He is.” The man motioned toward Droopy.

“A bit hard to believe with a gun pointed at me.”

The man lowered the revolver. “Quite right. Now, we must go. My associate will deal with this man while we take our leave.”

He stared at Akilina and asked, “You with him?”

She shook her head.

“We must go, Mr. Lord,” the man said.

His expression telegraphed to her,
Should we?

“I think so,” she said.

He decided to trust her instincts. His hadn’t been so good lately. “All right.”

The man turned to his associate and spat out something in a dialect Lord did not recognize. Droopy was forcibly led down the hall toward a door at the far end.

“This way,” the man said.

“Why does she have to come?” he asked, motioning to Akilina. “She has no involvement.”

“I was instructed to bring her.”

“By whom?”

“We can talk about this on the way. Right now we have to leave.”

He decided not to argue any further.

They followed the man outside into the cold night, stopping only to allow Akilina to retrieve a pair of shoes and a coat. The exit opened into an alley behind the theater. Droopy was being stuffed into the backseat of a black Ford near the alley’s end. Their host walked to a light-colored Mercedes, opened the rear door, and invited them inside. Then he climbed into the front seat. Another man was already behind the wheel, the engine idling. A light rain started to fall as they left the theater.

“Who are you?” Lord asked again.

The man did not reply. Instead he handed him a business card.

SEMYON PASHENKO

Professor of History
Moscow State University

He was beginning to understand. “So my meeting him was not coincidental?”

“Hardly. Professor Pashenko realized the great danger both of you were in and directed us to keep watch. That was what I was doing in St. Petersburg. Apparently, I did not do a good job.”

“I thought you were with the others.”

The man nodded. “I can see that, but the professor instructed me only to make contact when forced. What was about to happen back in the theater, I think, would qualify.”

The car wove through heavy evening traffic, its windshield wipers clunking back and forth, not doing much good. They were headed south, past the Kremlin, toward Gorky Park and the river. Lord noticed the driver’s interest in cars around him and surmised that the many turns were designed to avoid any tails that might be lurking.

“You think we’re safe?” Akilina whispered.

“I hope so.”

“You know this Pashenko?”

He nodded. “But that means nothing. Hard to know anybody around here.” Then he added with a weak smile, “Present company excepted, of course.”

Their route had taken them away from the blocks of anonymous high-rises and neoclassical oddities, the hundreds of apartment buildings little more than
trushchoba—
slums—and life there, he knew, was a tense daily grind, noisy and crowded. But not everyone lived that way, and he noticed they’d turned onto one of the unobtrusive, tree-lined streets that radiated from the busy boulevard. This one ran north toward the Kremlin, linking two of the ring roads.

The Mercedes veered right into a lighted asphalt lot. A guard watched the entrance from a glass booth. The three-story apartment building beyond was unusual, fashioned not of concrete but of honey-colored bricks laid straight and true, a rarity for Russian masons. The few cars in the lined spaces were foreign and expensive. The man in the passenger’s seat pointed a controller and commanded a garage door to rise. The driver steered the Mercedes inside, and the paneled door rolled shut.

They were led into a spacious lobby lit by a crystal chandelier. The smell was pine, not the horrid scent of mud and urine most apartment lobbies wafted—
The smell of cats,
one Moscow journalist had called it. A carpeted stairway led up to a third-floor apartment.

Semyon Pashenko answered a light knock on a white paneled door and invited them inside.

Lord quickly took in the parquet floor, Oriental rugs, brick fireplace, and Scandinavian furniture. Luxuries in both the Soviet Union and new Russia. The walls were a soothing beige, broken periodically by elegantly framed prints depicting Siberian wildlife. The air smelled of boiled cabbage and potatoes. “You live well, Professor.”

“A gift from my father. To my dismay, he was a devoted communist and afforded the privilege of rank. I inherited the amenity and was allowed to purchase it when the government starting divesting. Thankfully, I had the rubles.”

Lord turned in the center of the room and faced his host. “I guess we should thank you.”

Pashenko raised his hands. “No need. In fact, it is us who owe you thanks.”

Lord was puzzled, but said nothing.

Pashenko motioned to upholstered chairs. “Why don’t we sit. I have dinner warming in the kitchen. Some wine, perhaps?”

He glanced at Akilina, who shook her head. “No, thank you.”

Pashenko noticed Akilina’s costume and told one of the men to fetch her a bathrobe. They sat before a fire and Lord removed his jacket.

“I chop the wood at my
dacha
north of Moscow,” Pashenko said. “I so like a fire, though this apartment is centrally heated.”

Another Russian rarity, he thought. He also noticed the driver of the Mercedes take up a position at one of the windows, periodically peeking out through the closed curtains. The man peeled off his coat, exposing a handgun nestled in a shoulder harness.

“Who are you, Professor?” Lord asked.

“I am a Russian who is glad for the future.”

“Could we dispense with the riddles? I’m tired, and it’s been a long three days.”

Pashenko bowed his head in an apparent apology. “From all reports, I agree. The incident in Red Square made the news. Curious there was no mention of you in the official reports, but Vitaly”—Pashenko motioned to the man from yesterday in St. Petersburg—“saw it all. The police arrived just in time.”

“Your man was there?”

“He went to St. Petersburg to make sure your train ride was uneventful. But the same two gentlemen with whom you are, by now, intimately familiar interfered.”

“How did he find me?”

“He saw you and Miss Petrovna together and watched while you jumped from the train. Another man with him followed your actions farther down the tracks and found you at the grocery using the telephone.”

“What about my bodyguard?”

“We thought he might work for the
mafiya.
Now we are sure.”

“Could I ask why I am involved?” Akilina said.

Pashenko leveled a gaze at her. “You involved yourself, my dear.”

“I involved nothing. Mr. Lord happened into my compartment on the train last night. That’s all.”

Pashenko straightened in the chair. “I, too, was curious of your involvement. So I took the liberty of checking on you today. We have extensive contacts in the government.”

Akilina’s face tightened. “I don’t appreciate you invading my privacy.”

Pashenko gave a short laugh. “That is a concept we Russians know little of, my dear. Let’s see. You were born here in Moscow. Your parents divorced when you were twelve. Since neither one of them could receive Soviet permission for another apartment, they were forced to live together afterward. Granted, their accommodations were a bit better than most, given your father’s usefulness to the state as a performer, but it was nonetheless a stressful situation. By the way, I saw your father perform several times. He was a marvelous acrobat.”

She acknowledged the compliment with a nod.

“Your father became involved with a Romanian national who was associated with the circus. She became pregnant, but returned home with the child. Your father tried to obtain an exit visa, but the authorities denied his requests. The communists were not in the habit of allowing their performers to leave. When he tried to leave without permission, he was detained and sent to a camp.

“Your mother remarried, but that marriage ended quickly in divorce. When she couldn’t find a place to live after the second divorce—apartments were quite scarce, I remember well—she was forced to once again live with your father. By then, the authorities had decided to release him from the camp. So there, in that tiny apartment, the two of them languished in separate rooms until both died an early death. Quite a statement for our ‘people’s republic,’ wouldn’t you say?”

Akilina said nothing, but Lord could feel the pain radiating from her eyes.

“I lived with my grandmother in the country,” she said to Pashenko, “so I didn’t have to see my parents’ torment. I didn’t even talk with them the last three years. They died bitter, angry, and alone.”

“Were you there when the Soviets took your grandmother away?” Pashenko asked.

She shook her head. “By then I had been placed in the special performers’ school. I was told she died of old age. I only learned the truth later.”

“You of all people should be a catalyst for change. Anything has to be better than what we had.”

Lord felt for the woman sitting beside him. He wanted to assure her that things like that would never happen again. But that wouldn’t be true. Instead, he asked, “Professor, do you know what’s going on?”

A crease of concern laced the older man’s face. “Yes, I do.”

He waited for an explanation.

“Have you ever heard of the All-Russian Monarchist Assembly?” Semyon Pashenko asked.

Lord shook his head.

“I have,” Akilina said. “They want to restore the tsar to power. After the Soviet fall, they used to hold big parties. I read about them in a magazine article.”

He nodded. “They held big parties. Monstrous affairs with people dressed as nobles, Cossacks in tall hats, middle-age men in White Army uniforms. All designed to garner publicity, to keep the tsarist issue alive in the hearts and minds of the people. They were once thought fanatics. Now, not so.”

“I doubt that group could be credited with the national referendum on restoration,” Akilina said.

“I would not be so sure. There was far more to the assembly than met the eye.”

“Could you get to the point, Professor?” Lord asked.

Pashenko sat in an almost unnatural pose that communicated no emotion. “Mr. Lord, do you recall the Holy Band?”

“A group of noblemen who pledged their lives for the tsar’s safety. Inept and cowardly. Not one of them was around when a bomb killed Alexander II in 1881.”

“A later group took that same name,” Pashenko said. “But I assure you, it was not inept. Instead, it survived Lenin, Stalin, and the Second World War. In fact, it still exists today. The public division is the All-Russian Monarchist Assembly. But there is also a private portion, which I head.”

Lord’s gaze tightened on Pashenko. “And the purpose of this Holy Band?”

“The safety of the tsar.”

“But there hasn’t been a tsar since 1918.”

“But there has.”

“What are you taking about?”

Pashenko’s fingers templed at his lips. “In Alexandra’s letter and Lenin’s note, you found what we have been missing. I must confess that until the other day, when I read those words, I harbored my own doubts. But now I am sure. An heir survived Yekaterinburg.”

Lord shook his head. “You can’t be serious, Professor.”

“I am. My group was formed shortly after July 1918. My uncle and great uncle were both members of that Holy Band. I was recruited decades ago and have now risen to its leadership. Our purpose is to guard the secret and implement its terms at the appropriate time. But thanks to the communist purges, many of our members died. To ensure security, the Originator made sure no one knew all of the secret’s terms. So a large part of the message vanished, including the starting point. You have now rediscovered that beginning.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you still have the copies?”

He grabbed his jacket and handed Pashenko the folded sheets.

Pashenko motioned. “Here, in Lenin’s note. ‘The situation with Yurovsky is troubling. I do not believe the reports filed from Yekaterinburg were entirely accurate, and the information concerning Felix Yussoupov corroborates that. The mention of Kolya Maks is interesting. I have heard this name before. The village of Starodug has likewise been noted by two other similarly persuaded White Guardsmen.’ The information we lost was the name—Kolya Maks—and the village—Starodug. It is the starting point of the quest.”

“What quest?” he asked.

“To find Alexie and Anastasia.”

Lord sat back in the chair. He was tired, but what this man was saying sent his mind reeling.

Pashenko went on, “When the royal Romanov bodies were finally exhumed in 1991 and later identified, we positively learned that two may have survived the massacre. The remains of Anastasia and Alexie have never been found to this day.”

“Yurovsky claimed to have burned them separately,” he said.

“What would you have claimed if you had been ordered to kill the imperial family and were two bodies short? You would lie because, otherwise, you would be shot for incompetence. Yurovsky told Moscow what they wanted to hear. But there are enough reports that have surfaced since the Soviet fall to cast great doubt on Yurovsky’s declaration.”

Pashenko was right. Affidavits gathered from Red Guardsmen and other participants attested that not everyone may have died that July night. Accounts varied from the bayoneting of moaning grand duchesses to the stabbing and rifle-butting of hysterical victims. There were many contradictions. But he also recalled the snippet of testimony he found, apparently from one of the Yekaterinburg guards, dated three months after the murders.

But I realized what was coming. The talk of their fate was clear. Yurovsky made sure we all understood the task at hand. After a while, I started saying to myself that something should be done to let them escape.