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by Frederick Forsyth

  “I believe so,” said Grishin.

  “First the presses, then the secret meetings with the Patriarch, now this. What the hell is going on?”

  “We’re being sabotaged, Mr. President.”

  Igor Komarov’s voice remained deceptively quiet, too quiet. But his face was deathly pale and bright spots burned red on each cheek. Like the late secretary Akopov, Anatoli Grishin too had seen the rages of which his leader was capable and even he feared them. When Komarov spoke again, his voice had dropped to a whisper.

  “You are retained, Anatoli, at my side, the closest man to me, the man destined to have more power in Russia than any save me, to prevent me from being sabotaged. Who is doing this?”

  “An Englishman called Irvine, and an American called Monk.”

  “Two of them? Is that all?”

  “They obviously have backing, Mr. President, and they have the manifesto. They are showing it around.”

  Komarov arose from his desk, took up a heavy cylindrical ebony ruler, and began to tap it into the palm of his left hand. As he spoke his voice began to rise.

  “Then find them, and suppress them, Anatoli. Find out what the next stage is, and prevent it. Now listen to me carefully. On January sixteenth, in just a few short weeks, one hundred and ten million Russian voters will have the right to cast their ballot for the next president of Russia. I intend that they shall vote for me.

  “On a seventy percent poll, that means seventy-seven million votes cast. I want forty million of those votes. I want a first-round win, not a runoff. A week ago I could have counted on sixty million. That fool of a general has just cost me at least ten.”

  The word ten came out close to a scream. The ruler was rising and falling, but Komarov was now hammering the desktop with it. Without warning he began to shriek his rage at his persecutors, using the ruler to hit his own telephone until the plastic cracked and shattered. Grishin stood rigid; down the corridor there was utter silence as the office staff froze where they were.

  “Now some demented priest has started a new hare running, calling for the return of the czar. There will be no czar in this land other than me, and when I rule they will learn the meaning of discipline such that Ivan the Terrible will seem like a choirboy.”

  As he shouted, he brought the ebony ruler down again and again on the wreckage of the telephone, staring at the fragments as if the once-useful tool was itself the disobedient Russian people, learning the meaning of discipline under the knout.

  The last scream of choirboy died away and Komarov dropped the ruler back on his desk. He took several deep inhalations and resumed his grip on himself His voice returned to normal levels but his hands were shaking, so he placed all ten fingertips on the desk to steady them.

  “Tonight I will address a rally at Vladimir, the greatest of the whole campaign. It will be broadcast, nationwide, tomorrow. After that I shall address the nation every night until the election. The funds have been arranged. That is my business. The publicity belongs to Kuznetsov.”

  From behind his desk he reached out an arm and pointed his forefinger straight at Grishin’s face.

  “Your business, Anatoli Grishin, is one and one only. Stop the sabotage.”

  The last sentence was also a shout. Komarov slumped into his chair and waved his hand in dismissal. Grishin, without a word, crossed the carpet to the door and let himself out.

  ¯

  IN the days of Communism there was only one bank, the Narodny, or People’s Bank. After the fall, and with the onset of capitalism, banks sprang up like mushrooms until there were over eight thousand of them.

  Many were blink-and-you-miss-it affairs that quickly folded, taking their depositors’ money with them. Others vaporized in the night, with the same effect. The survivors learned their banking almost as they went along, for such experience in the Communist state was sparse.

  Nor was banking a safe occupation. In ten years over four hundred bankers had been assassinated, usually for failing to see eye to eye with gangsters on the matter of unsecured loans or other forms of illegal cooperation.

  By the late nineties the business had settled down to a basic four hundred reasonably reputable banks. With the top fifty of these the West was prepared to do business.

  Banking was centered in St. Petersburg and Moscow, mainly in the latter. In an ironic mirror of organized crime, banking too had amalgamated, with the so-called Top Ten doing eighty percent of the business. In some cases, the level of investment was so high that the enterprise could only be undertaken by consortia of two or three banks acting together.

  Chief among the major banks in the winter of 1999 were the Most Bank, the Smolensky, and biggest of all, the Moskovsky Federal.

  It was to the head office of the Moskovsky that Jason Monk addressed himself in the first week of December. The security was like Fort Knox.

  Because of the dangers to life and limb the chairmen of the major banks had private protection squads that would make the personal security of an American president look puny. At least three had long since removed their families to London, Paris, and Vienna respectively, and commuted to their Moscow offices in private jets. When inside Russia their personal protectors ran into the hundreds. It took thousands more to protect the bank’s branches.

  To achieve a personal interview with the chairman of the Moskovsky Federal without an appointment made days ahead was at the very least unheard of. But Monk managed it. He brought with him something equally unheard of.

  After a body search and an inspection of his leather briefcase on the ground floor of the tower building, he was allowed to go up under escort to the executive reception, three floors below the chairman’s personal suite.

  There the letter he offered was examined by a smooth young Russian who spoke perfect English. He asked Monk to wait and disappeared through a stout wooden door that opened only to a code in a keypad. Two armed guards watched Monk as the minutes dragged by. To the surprise of the receptionist behind the desk, the personal aide returned and asked Monk to follow him. Beyond the door he was frisked again and an electronic scanner was run over him as the smooth Russian apologized.

  “I understand,” said Monk. “Times are hard.”

  Two floors further up he was shown into another anteroom, and then ushered into the private office of Leonid Grigoreivitch Bernstein.

  The letter he had brought lay on the blotter of the desk. The banker was a short, broad man with crinkly gray hair, sharp, questioning eyes, and a beautifully cut charcoal-gray suit from Savile Row. He arose and held out his hand. Then he waved Monk to a chair. Monk noticed that the smooth one sat at the back of the room, complete with the bulge under his left armpit. He might have attended Oxford University but Bernstein had ensured he also completed his studies on the range at Quantico.

  The banker gestured to the letter.

  “So, how are things in London? You have just arrived, Mr. Monk?”

  “Some days ago,” said Monk.

  The letter was on very expensive paper of cream linen weave, topped by the five splayed arrows that recall the five original sons of Mayer Amschel Rothschild of Frankfurt. The stationery itself was perfectly genuine. Only the signature of Sir Evelyn de Rothschild at the bottom of the text was a forgery. But it is a rare banker who will not receive a personal emissary from the chairman of N. M. Rothschild of St. Swithin’s Lane, City of London.

  “Sir Evelyn is well?” asked Bernstein. Monk dropped into Russian.

  “So far as I know,” said Monk, “but he did not sign that letter.” He heard a soft rustle behind him. “And I really would be most grateful if your young friend didn’t put one of those bullets in my back. I’m not wearing body armor and I would prefer to stay alive. Besides, I am not carrying anything dangerous, and I did not come here for the purpose of trying to hurt you.”

  “Then why did you come?”

  Monk explained the events since July 15.

  “Rubbish,” said Bernstein at last. “Never heard suc
h rubbish in my life. I know about Komarov. I make it my business to know. He’s too far right for my taste, but if you think insulting Jews is anything new you know nothing about Russia. They all do it, but they all need banks.”

  “Insults are one thing, Mr. Bernstein. What I am carrying in this case promises more than insults.”

  Bernstein stared at him long and hard.

  “This manifesto, you brought it with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “If Komarov and his thugs knew you were here, what would he do?”

  “Have me killed. His men are all over the city looking for me now.”

  “You’ve got a nerve.”

  “I agreed to do a job. After reading the manifesto, it seemed worth doing.”

  Bernstein held out his hand.

  “Show me.”

  Monk gave him the verification report first. The banker was accustomed to reading complex documents at great speed. He finished it in ten minutes.

  “Three men, eh?”

  “The old cleaner, the secretary Akopov who foolishly left it out on his desk to be stolen, and Jefferson, the journalist who Komarov wrongly thought had read it.”

  Bernstein punched a button on his intercom.

  “Ludmilla, get into the agency clipping files for late July and early August. See if the local papers carried anything on Akopov, a Russian, and an English reporter called Jefferson. On the first name, try the obituaries as well.”

  He stared at his desktop screen as the microfiches were flashed up. Then he grunted.

  “They’re dead all right. And now you, Mr. Monk, if they catch you.”

  “I’m hoping they won’t.”

  “Well, since you’ve taken the risk, I’ll look at Mr. Komarov’s private intentions for us all.”

  He held out his hand again. Monk gave him the slim black file. Bernstein began to read. One page he read several times, flicking back and forward as he reread the text. Without looking up, he said:

  “Ilya, leave us. It’s all right, lad, go.”

  Monk heard the door close behind the aide. The banker looked up at last and stared at Monk.

  “He can’t mean this.”

  “Complete extermination? It’s been tried before.”

  “There are a million Jews in Russia, Mr. Monk.”

  “I know. Ten percent can afford to get out.”

  Bernstein arose and walked to the windows that looked across the whitescape of the roofs of Moscow. The glass had a slight greenish tint; it was five inches thick and would stop an antitank shell.

  “He can’t be serious.”

  “We believe he is.”

  “We?”

  “The people who sent me, powerful, influential people. But frightened of this man.”

  “Are you Jewish, Mr. Monk?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Lucky you. He’s going to win, isn’t he? The polls say he’s unstoppable.”

  “Things may be changing. He was denounced by General Nikolayev the other day. That might have an effect. I hope the Orthodox Church may play a role. Perhaps he could be stopped.”

  “Huh, the church. No friend of the Jews, Mr. Monk.”

  “No, but he has plans for the church too.”

  “So it’s an alliance you’re after?”

  “Something like that. Church, army, banks, ethnic minorities. Every little bit helps. Have you seen the reports of the wandering priest? Calling for a return of the czar?

  “Yes. Foolishness, my personal view. But better a czar than a Nazi. What do you want of me, Mr. Monk?”

  “I? Nothing. The choice is yours. You are the chairman of the four-bank consortium that controls the two independent TV channels. You have your Grumman at the airport?”

  “Yes.”

  “It is only two hours by air to Kiev.”

  “Why Kiev?”

  “You could visit Babi Yar.”

  Leonid Bernstein spun round from the windows.

  “You may leave now, Mr. Monk.”

  Monk retrieved his two files from the desk and slipped them into the slim leather case in which he had brought them.

  He knew he had gone too far. Babi Yar is a ravine outside Kiev. Between 1941 and 1943 one hundred thousand civilians were machine-gunned on the edge of the ravine so that their corpses fell inside. Some were commissars and Communist officials, but ninety-five percent were the Jews of Ukraine. Monk had reached the door when Leonid Bernstein spoke again.

  “Have you been there, Mr. Monk?”

  ‘‘No, sir.’’

  “And what have you heard of it?”

  “I have heard that it is a bleak place.”

  “I have been to Babi Yar. It is a terrible place. Good-day to you, Mr. Monk.”

  ¯

  DR. Lancelot Probyn’s office in the headquarters of the College in Queen Victoria Street was small and cluttered. Every horizontal space was occupied by bundles of paper that seemed to be in no particular order, yet presumably made some sense to the genealogist.

  When Sir Nigel Irvine was shown in, Dr. Probyn leaped to his feet, swept the entire House of Grimaldi onto the floor, and bade his visitor take the chair thus liberated.

  “So, how goes the succession?” asked Irvine.

  “To the throne of Romanov? Not well. As I thought. There’s one who might have a claim but doesn’t want it, one who lusts after it but is excluded on two counts, and an American who hasn’t been approached and hasn’t a chance anyway.”

  “Bad as that, eh?” said Irvine. Dr. Probyn bounced and twinkled. He was in his element, his own world of bloodlines, intermarriages, and strange rules.

  “Let’s start with the fraudsters,” he said. “You remember Anna Andersen? She was the one who all her life claimed she was Grand Duchess Anastasia, who had survived the massacre at Yekaterinburg. All lies. She’s dead now, but DNA tests have finally proved she was an impostor.

  “A few years ago another died in Madrid, self-styled Grand Duke Alexei. He turned out to be a con man from Luxembourg. That leaves three who are occasionally mentioned in the press, usually inaccurately. Ever heard of Prince Georgi?”

  “Forgive me, no, Dr. Probyn.”

  “Well, no matter. He’s a young man who has been hawked around Europe and Russia for years by his avidly ambitious mother, Grand Duchess Maria, the daughter of the late Grand Duke Vladimir.

  “Vladimir himself might have had a claim as the great grandson of a reigning emperor, though it would have been a thin one because his mother was not a member of the Orthodox Church at the time of his birth, which is one of the conditions.

  “Anyway, his daughter Maria was not eligible to be his successor, even though he kept claiming she was. The Pauline Law, you see.”

  “And that is ... ?”

  “Czar Paul the First laid it down. Succession, save in exceptional circumstances, is by the male line only. No daughters count. Very sexist, but that’s the way it was and is. So Grand Duchess Maria is really Princess Maria, and her son Georgi is not in line. The Pauline Law also specified that not even the sons of daughters count.”

  “So they are just hoping for the best?”

  “Exactly. Very ambitious, but no true claim.”

  “You mentioned an American, Dr. Probyn?”

  “Now there’s an odd story. Before the Revolution Czar Nicholas had an uncle called Grand Duke Paul, youngest brother of his father.

  “When the Bolsheviks came, they murdered the czar, his brother, and his uncle Paul. But Paul had a son, cousin of the czar. By chance this wild young man, Grand Duke Dmitri, had been involved in the murder of Rasputin. Because of that he was in exile in Siberia when the Bolsheviks struck. It saved his life. He fled via Shanghai and ended up in America.”

  “Never heard of that,” said Irvine. “Go on.”

  “Well, Dmitri lived, married, and had a son, Paul, who fought as a major in the U.S. Army in Korea. He also married, and had two sons.”

  “That looks like a pretty straight male line
to me. Are you saying the true czar might be an American?” asked Irvine.

  “Some do, but they delude themselves,” said Probyn. “You see, Dmitri married an American commoner, and so did his son Paul. Under Rule 188 of the Imperial House, you can’t marry someone not of equal rank and expect your offspring to succeed. This rule was later relaxed a bit, but not for grand dukes. So Dmitri’s marriage was morganatic. His son who fought in Korea cannot succeed and neither can either of the two grandchildren by yet a second marriage to a commoner.”

  “So they’re out.”

  “ ‘Fraid so. Not that they have ever shown much interest, actually. Live in Florida, I think.”

  “Who does that leave?”

  “The last, with the strongest claim by blood. This is Prince Semyon Romanov.”

  “He is related to the murdered czar? No daughters, no commoners?” asked Irvine.

  “True, but it’s a long way back. You have to imagine four czars. Nicholas the Second came after his father Alexander the Third. He came after his father Alexander the Second and his father was Nicholas the First. Now, Nicholas the First had a junior son, Grand Duke Nicholas, who of course never became czar. His son was Peter, his son was Kyrill, and his son is Semyon.”

  “So from the murdered Czar you have to go back three generations to Great-Granddad, then sideways to a junior son, then down four generations to reach Semyon.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Seems pretty well-stretched elastic to me, Dr. Probyn.”

  “It is a long way, but that’s family trees for you. Technically, Semyon is the nearest we can get to direct bloodline. However, that’s academic. There are practical difficulties.’’

  “Such as?”

  “For one thing he’s over seventy. So even if he were restored, he wouldn’t last long. Second, he has no children, so the line would die with him and Russia would be back to square one. Third, he has repeatedly said he has no interest and would refuse the office even if it were offered.”

  “Not very helpful,” admitted Sir Nigel.

  “There’s worse. He’s always been a bit of a rake, interested in fast cars, the Riviera, and taking his pleasures with young girls, usually servants. That habit has led to three broken marriages. And worst of all, I have heard it whispered, he cheats at backgammon.”