The Ring of the Queen (The Lost Tsar Trilogy Book 1)

by Terri Dixon

  Part XXXXIII

  For in the end, freedom is a personal and lonely battle; and one faces down fears of today so that those of tomorrow might be engaged.

  -Alice Walker

  “What?” Tania asked.

  I smiled. “Oh military guy. I need to pee.”

  Tania scrunched up her face at me.

  The military man called a porter and motioned me to follow him, which I did to the bathroom. I sneered at him and slammed the door in his face. I hoped it offended him.

  I took out the fake ring that Peter had created and put it on my finger in place of the real one. I had to figure out what to do with the real one. There was no way that anyone would know that it wasn’t real. No one had seen it in two hundred years. It fooled me.

  I stared at the mirror, trying to think of some place that no one would ever find it. My shoes? No, everyone had to take their shoes off at the airport. I considered putting it back in my pocket, but I was afraid that they would search at least a little bit before they let me get on a plane. I had to come up with some idea. I wasn’t going to let my grandmother’s ring go. I was going back home. I was running from what was happening, but I wasn’t ready to give up that ring.

  There was a small, virtually undetectable pocket inside the right sleeve on the parka that I was wearing. I didn’t know why the manufacturer had put it there, but it was perfect. The coat was in the cabin. I couldn’t hide the ring while I was in the cabin, because the military man was always watching. I put the ring back in my pocket. I would distract the military man for a brief moment and hide the ring.

  I felt punchy with a little bit of hope. “Excuse me,” I said to the military man upon my arrival. He stepped aside and let me enter. The porter went away with a nod to the military man.

  I grabbed my parka, and I put it on. I was not sure what I was going to do, but I thought that as long as he was distracted, it didn’t matter. The train slowed to a stop. I saw a small platform that belonged to one of the country stops coming up alongside the train.

  “Tania, put on your coat,” I ordered her.

  “Why? It’s hot in here.”

  I was either getting bold or losing my mind. “Put it on. We’re coming into a station. I’m going to jump out the window.”

  “What!”

  I opened the window. The military man dove for the window, pushing me in the opposite direction. I slammed into the wall in the hallway and fell to the floor. I got up and ran to the end of the car. The military man wasn’t far behind me. I couldn’t open the door, so I ducked into a cabin and slammed the door behind me. I realized that no one else was on our car. They must have locked the doors to keep me from escaping. I felt like I was in a spy movie.

  “Open this door!” the military man shouted.

  I didn’t listen. I took my coat off and turned the sleeve inside out to get to the secret pocket. I had to dig the ring out of my pants pocket, shove it into my coat pocket, and put the coat back on before he got the door open.

  “Unlike the local police, I have a gun,” the military man announced. “Open the door!”

  I finished with the pocket and put the coat back on. I opened the door. I smiled at him. “Don’t get your panties in a bunch,” I said as I pushed the gun he was holding out of my way and walked to my own cabin. “You can’t blame a girl for trying.”

  Tania and Boris looked relieved when they saw me go back into the cabin. I put my coat up on the rack above and sat down by the window again. “Well, I tried, but the son of a bitch can really run.”

  “I think you’ve completely lost your mind,” Tania said.

  “I can’t take much more of this.”

  “None of us can. I feel like I’ve walked into a gangster movie. All they need is some pin striped suits.”

  The military man caught his breath. he stood outside the door. I wondered about people like him. I wanted to ask Joe Public what he thought of his country. It was one of my original goals when I'd come to Russia.

  “Hey, you!” I called to the military man. He looked at me. I felt the train move again as it left the tiny station. He showed no emotion. “What’s your name, anyway?”

  “Why?” Still no emotion.

  “You almost killed me. I thought I should know your name.”

  “My name is Grigory.”

  “I’m Stacey. I know I told you Catherine, which is my given name, but most people call me Stacey.”

  He stared at me.

  “So, Gregory, what branch of the military are you in?”

  “The Navy.”

  “Isn’t this a strange assignment for a Naval Officer?”

  “Yes. They had to contact the nearest available person to transport you.”

  “You don’t feel like a babysitter?”

  No answer.

  “I would feel like an underling if I was asked to transport two young girls to Moscow. I mean, isn’t there anything more important that you could be doing, like patrolling the Chinese coast or something?”

  “It is not the importance of the assignment, it is about duty.”

  “Oh.”

  “What?”

  I knew that sooner or later my tone would get to him and he would speak.

  “Nothing.” I could see that I was beginning to bother him. “I wondered what they told you.”

  “Were you wondering what they told me, or were you wondering how you could negate it?”

  “Point well taken. What do you think about this nonsense? Did you ever hear any Anastasia stories as a child? Did you ever read anything about the stupid ring or missing Romanovs? What do you know about it? What do you believe?”

  He faced me. His face softened. Maybe I was starting to get through to the person behind the soldier. “Forget what I know about the subject. What do you know?”

  “I don’t know much. I didn’t know about the ring until I saw it in a book at Moscow University. I’d heard a little bit about the missing princess. I saw the Disney movie. I heard that they dug up the corpses and they didn’t find her. I don’t know much. I’m American. I came here to learn more. I didn’t want to take over anyone’s damn country, much less get my friends killed.”

  “You really do not understand this, do you?”

  “No.”

  He came into the cabin and sat down across from me, next to Tania. Tania nervously moved to my side of the cabin.

  “It is an old legend," Grigory said. "The family of Nicholas II was taken to Yekaterinburg and were executed. The legend is that some members of the family may have survived. There have been imposters, such as Anna Anderson who was disproved by DNA testing after her death. The ring was simply another legend until you.”

  “I don’t know anything either. All I know is what my grandmother told me.”

  “What was that?”

  “She told me never to let it out of my sight. Then she died. I'm from Indiana.”

  "You said Indiana. There is legend that the escaped family members went to Siberia. They could have come to America from there."

  “You mean it could be true?”

  “ It could be.”

  “So, do you believe me or not?”

  He stood up. He opened the door. “It does not matter what I believe. I have a job to do.”

  “What if there was a Tsar to take over? Would you personally be in favor of that?”

  “I cannot answer that.”

  “Can I take that to mean that you would be in favor of it? That you would love to have a different government, but you can’t speak of it? If you like your government, you would say no.”

  “You are both as smart and as bold as Catherine the Great supposedly was.” He smiled and shut the door behind him.

  Tania flopped back onto her side of the cabin. “I think you really got to him. He finally closed the door so we can talk. What are you up to and how can I help?”

 
“I’m going to go and give the ring to the President, so that they’ll let Peter and Steve go. Then we’re going home.”

  “This hasn’t changed your view?”

  “No. I can’t run a country. I can’t stage a coup. I’m a kid. I’m handing over this ring and going home.”

  “You’re going to let him win?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Maybe if I’d been better prepared, or I knew more. Maybe if my family had told me about all this. This is not something that I can try and fail at. I’m not going to take my one shot at something of this magnitude with no knowledge to help me. I can’t risk that. Maybe if it had happened in another time or another place. This wasn’t meant to be right now. I’m going to give them the damn ring.”

  “Catherine the Great would never give up.”

  I wiped a tear from my cheek. “I’ve pointed out many times that I’m not Catherine the Great.”

  “You could be.”

  “I don’t want to discuss it. Olga said that Catherine the Great studied Russia for years before she had the nerve to take it over.”

  A voice came on the speaker. “We will be arriving in Moscow in 25 minutes. Please be ready to depart at 6:55.”

  I looked at Tania. “And I don’t have that kind of time.”

  The Ring of the Queen