Nest of the Monarch

by Kay Kenyon

  She turned on the light switch by the kitchen door. A shattered plate lay on the floor. What was happening? It could not be that her mistress had left so suddenly, for what reason would she have left with Nikolai and not summoned Polina to help?

  Her hand went to the counter to steady herself. Irina Dimitrievna Annakova had not wanted Polina’s help. Because she had poisoned her chocolate. And now the dog had come into her room during the night . . . Hurrying into the great room she turned on all the lights. No one was there.

  Mother of God in heaven, they were running from the Germans. No, that was madness; no one could leave the Aerie without permission, not even the tsarina.

  Her heart thudded as she turned to and fro. At the windows, she looked out to the veranda. Surely they would be outside, they would be standing there. But they were not. Polina remembered the night Evgeny had come, and the tsarina was crying, and she had heard “England” and “my son.”

  They were running away. A new thought came stabbing at her. If they were defecting, Polina would be blamed. It was not believable that they could have fled without the tsarina’s attendant taking note. Colonel von Ritter would have her shot. He had told her to take care of the tsarina, or he would see her suffer for it. He was, like all the SS, a man without pity. He would bring her into the yard and make an end of her.

  She rushed to the front door, throwing it open. “Guard!” she shouted in Russian, and then in French. Two guards came rushing down from the plaza. “Colonel von Ritter,” she cried. “Tell him to come immediately!” She did not speak German. “Colonel von Ritter,” she repeated. One guard raced off in the direction of the Festival Hall, and the other shoved past her and entered the chalet.

  4:20 AM. The shaft smelled of mud and bird droppings. By the light of the flashlight Kim held, the three of them made their way down the tight spiral of metal stairs. This was the back door of the Aerie, paralleling the lift shaft, but leading into the woods. Through small, deep apertures in the outer wall, bands of moonlight striped the staircase.

  “Kolya, be very careful,” Annakova said, turning around to watch him as he followed her. Kim, at the rear, shined the beam on their path. At the bottom was the tunnel leading into the woods.

  “Be careful, but hurry,” Kim said. “When we left, we had an accident. Something crashed to the floor.”

  “And so? Polina is well asleep tonight.”

  A strange noise stopped them.

  Shadows flicked on the stairs. Looking up at an aperture in the wall, Kim saw a small owl perched, its shadow black against the moonlight-soaked sky. Flapping its wings, it hooted, a forlorn sound. They continued their descent. How strange, for all Evgeny’s talk of owls, she had not seen one in the forested stronghold, only here.

  As they made their way down the stairs, Nikolai between Kim and Annakova, he turned his head just enough so that Kim could hear him. “Your name is not Nora, is it? If you are a spy, then you have another name.”

  “Perhaps I do.”

  “What is your name? And you can call me Nikolai, now that I am not tsarevich anymore.” So he knew. Annakova had told him the harsh truth.

  “Kolya!” hissed Annakova, as though she still could not accept it.

  They might be halfway down. Kim listened with her whole concentration for any sounds from above. Had the maid awakened despite the sleeping pills? It had been a very loud crash. She tried to quicken her steps, but Annakova led the way more slowly.

  The owl hooted, turning its face to watch their progress down the steep turns.

  Nikolai was waiting for her to answer, and at last she did. “My name is Kim.”

  Annakova stopped, forcing them all to do the same. “What did you say?”

  They could not pause for conversation. Her tone urgent, Kim hissed, “Don’t stop. We have to hurry.”

  Annakova didn’t move. “What do you say is your true name?”

  “Kim.”

  “Is a woman’s name? Kim?”

  “It must be, because it’s mine. Now we have to hurry!”

  “Where is your home?”

  “Uxley.”

  “Is in England?”

  “Yes, in Yorkshire.” She was so anxious for them to be moving she almost put a hand to Nikolai’s shoulder, to force him to step downward.

  Annakova said something to her son in Russian. He sidled by his mother as she flattened herself against the wall, allowing him to pass. When he had disappeared around the curve, the tsarina withdrew a pistol from her coat pocket and aimed it at Kim.

  “You lie to me. This escape, a lie.”

  Kim’s chest clutched up in panic.

  “You and Stefan. You arrange this.”

  Shock froze Kim where she stood. “Sir Stefan knows nothing about this.”

  “You two do not discuss me?” Annakova’s voice wavered with emotion. “You two, being lovers?”

  What was this madness? It felt more than wrong; it felt like a looming disaster. “We aren’t lovers. What are you saying?”

  “I say you ruin me. You destroy Nikolai, and all his future. You come here, are in Aerie, because Stefan brings you. So to have a scheme, taking away the throne, taking Russia from me.”

  “But why would he do this? He obeys Hitler, who needs you. I am with the British!”

  “I do not believe. Whatever your country, you come here to be with him. I leave here, trusting you. And now you take my Stefan.”

  “Your Majesty, you must know. No one takes Erich Stefan von Ritter. He’s for the Nazi cause only.”

  “Another lie.” She cocked the gun. “I am miserable fool.” The dark shadow of an owl swept down from the wall and over their heads.

  Kim snapped off the flashlight.

  But it was not dark. By the moonlight leaking through the slits in the wall, Annakova pointed the pistol at Kim’s chest.

  The roar of a gun, and Annakova fell backward, crashing headfirst down the steps.

  Nikolai’s plaintive cry came from far below. “Maman!” Kim heard him scrambling up the stairs. Annakova lay slumped and unmoving against the wall.

  In terror, Kim turned to see who was coming down the stairs. A man in uniform. Von Ritter.

  Annakova lay crumpled and still. Kim looked at him in stunned dismay.

  He grabbed her arm and pushed her against the wall, cocking the gun and pressing it to her temple. “Where are you to meet your people? Tell me quickly.”

  Her chest had constricted so tight she could hardly breathe. She had not imagined dying in a dark shaft, a stony mausoleum. It was over, over.

  “Tell me,” he hissed. “Or I will kill the child.”

  She whispered, “At the lake.”

  “And leaving how?”

  “By plane.” No hope to protect Hannah. Her only thought: to obey von Ritter so that Nikolai might live. They might kill him anyway, but she wouldn’t help them do it.

  Keeping a harsh grip on her arm, von Ritter forced her down the stairs, stepping over Annakova’s body.

  “You killed her,” Kim said, bewildered, dumbfounded.

  He shrugged. “She was a traitor.”

  After another turn, Nikolai met them.

  “Sir Stefan! Where is my mother?”

  “She is dead, as she deserved. You will do as I say, or I will shoot you, too. Move. Quickly!”

  Nikolai obeyed. Kim heard sobs, but subdued, as the boy stumbled on down the stairs.

  “The Aerie is waking up. They will be coming,” von Ritter said.

  At the bottom of the staircase, Kim saw the opening to a tunnel, completely black.

  “Give me the flashlight,” von Ritter said. Kim did so. He switched it on.

  He pushed them into a near run down the tunnel, keeping his gun at Kim’s neck, Nikolai driven before them. As they rushed, she noted how von Ritter limped, so pronounced, the faster they went.

  Von Ritter said, “Tell me the name of the catalyst. I know that he is not in England. I believed I had time to persuade you to the
truth, but now you force things.”

  The tunnel, deep-earth dark, was barely wide enough for two people to walk side by side. Von Ritter was close behind her, the gun nudging her neck.

  He went on. “We have intelligence intercepts that the British tried to extract a German national. A catalyst, yes? Since I know details, I will also know if you are telling the truth. Now you will tell me the name and location of this person, or I will shoot the boy.”

  He would, she had little doubt.

  “I think you do not wish me to kill the boy. You of the tender heart. But I have no such heart.”

  Yes. His heart: dark through and through, using kindness and brutality to have his way.

  The tunnel became an emblem of her mission, pressing on and on in darkness, leading to failure and the silence of the deep earth. “Hannah Linz,” she whispered. “She’s waiting for me at the lake.”

  His voice betrayed surprise. “Hannah Linz?”

  Nikolai stumbled and fell. Von Ritter yanked him up and pushed him forward.

  “Let me help him,” Kim hissed. She took Nikolai by the arm and they went forward together.

  “Erich,” she said as they rushed on. “What will happen to us?”

  “Monarch has failed. You turned Annakova, and she has paid the price. There is no reason for you to die too. When I have what I want, you are no further threat.”

  No reason for you to die. He was letting her go. Hope rushed back to fill the space that had moments before been filled with despair. “Are you going to escape too? Leave here with us?”

  His voice from close behind. “Of course I am not. What time does the plane come?”

  “By 7:30.”

  “You cannot wait that long. Soldiers are twenty minutes behind us, perhaps less. What was your backup plan? You had one?”

  “There is a service road to the lake. A truck.”

  “They will be waiting for you at the bottom of the road.”

  “Not if we move fast enough.” They rushed on.

  Beams supported the walls and ceiling. Their boots splashed through small pools of water, some with a scrim of ice.

  Von Ritter pushed them onward. “I cannot let you have Linz. You will deliver her to me, and if you do, you and the boy may leave. If you can forgive yourself for this bargain, you may go with him. If not, the SS awaits. And they will take everything from you. Your information, your pride, your life.”

  So this was the final ordeal: she would be forced to betray Hannah.

  Letting go of Nikolai’s arm, she stopped. Turning to von Ritter she said, “Erich, please. I beg you.”

  Von Ritter pushed her against the wall, the flashlight pressing cruelly against her neck. “Please what?” he hissed. “You cannot beg me for more. You have nothing to offer. You are a lowly spy who consorts with terrorist Jews, and who pays back my mercy with many lies.”

  Her voice was a thin rasp. “Please do not take Hannah.”

  His laugh was short but full of mirth. “Oh, I will take her.” Yanking his arm away from her throat, he pushed the two of them on.

  4:40 AM. Every light was on in the compound. Juergen Becht watched as the SS formed into their units in the plaza. Some units had rushed to the lift. No one knew the threat, only that it was imminent. Soldiers swarmed around the chalet.

  His mind darkened with fury. If anything had happened to Her Majesty . . .

  Commandant Bassman and his lieutenants appeared from the Hall and strode past the milling soldiers and through the plaza, disappearing into the chalet. After a few minutes, Bassman appeared again, this time in the small yard between the chalet and the bunker. He went to the toolshed. Soon he was back in the yard, but a unit of SS began disappearing into the garden shed.

  So. Another way out. There had always been rumors.

  Then the plaza went dark. Every light in the large square between the Festival Hall and the chalet was extinguished. Several SS ran into the hall, and there, too, lights began to disappear. They wished to thwart an attack by air. Surely no one would dare make an air strike against Germany, but they took no chances.

  The moon that had flooded the night sky was just setting behind the mountain, leaving the Aerie in true darkness.

  Becht saw with disgust that there was a queue of soldiers waiting for the lift. That no one had thought of that! If the threat came from outside the Aerie, there was no way to bring a force of superior numbers to bear, not quickly.

  And speed might be of the essence.

  48

  A HILLSIDE OUTSIDE THE AERIE

  4:45 AM. The tunnel ended in a metal door. Von Ritter pulled away the heavy bar that kept it barricaded. When he shoved open the door, a dull glow flooded over them. In the predawn, patchy snow reflected a gray light, poking soft fingers of pain into Kim’s eyes.

  The three of them emerged from the tunnel door. Kim pointed down the hillside. “We follow the ridgeline down the valley.”

  Von Ritter told her to carry the flashlight and gestured them on. There was only the crunch of their footfalls through the snow and the sweep of the wind, high and intermittent in the trees.

  Nikolai went forward, stunned and silent, a small, hunched child carrying his little knapsack with the extra socks that his mother had told him to pack. Irina Annakova, dead on the stairs of the shaft. She had finally seen the error of siding with the Nazis, but Kim had no pity for her, only for Nikolai. And for Hannah.

  She knew that the lake was nestled below in a broad valley lying west of a prominent ridge. Hannah and she had studied the topographical map with great care, but here in the darkness, all they could do was make their way down the steep hillside. It was hard going amid thick underbrush camouflaged by pockets of snow. Von Ritter half dragged Nikolai along, as the boy struggled to make his way.

  The world was only trees and black, frozen ground. Nothing was familiar. On their left was a ridge; all ridges here led to the lake.

  In the east, the mountains began to show a ragged profile. Although the moon had set, leaving them in the shadowy forest precincts, a false dawn now pushed up against the night.

  So close to the ridge, she couldn’t see the Aerie. They tramped onward, weaving their way to avoid humps of snow that hid fallen logs and boulders. It was slow going, their tracks obvious to any who followed them. The wind scoured over the tops of the trees, sending down light cascades of snow. Already they were wet, especially von Ritter, who wore only his uniform.

  He spotted the lake first, pointing in silence. A broad oval in the valley bottom, its surface unblemished. She and Hannah couldn’t wait for dawn and the airplane. The SS would arrive momentarily.

  As they descended the last slope to the lake, Nikolai lost his footing and fell, sliding a few yards on his backside. He got to his hands and knees, but would go no farther.

  Kim hurried to his side. “Nikolai, get up.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You can. You must.”

  He stood, gazing at the lake. Kim saw that there was a hut by the lake’s edge. A light flashed from it. Hannah.

  Kim started down, but Nikolai sat on the ground. “I can’t walk any more. Besides, there is no airplane.”

  “It doesn’t matter! There is a forest road and a motorcar.”

  Von Ritter watched them. His gun had been in his holster, but now he drew it out. “Move.” He gestured for Kim to continue.

  At last she managed to pull Nikolai to his feet, and they went the last hundred yards to the lakeside. They paused for a moment, as Kim waited for von Ritter to say how they would proceed. Hannah must come out. But when capture was unavoidable, Hannah would kill herself. The thought, dark and chilling.

  Two lone fir trees stood sentinel nearby. Von Ritter led them there, taking refuge behind the larger one. Nikolai sat in the snow, his head between his knees, his knapsack a lump near his feet, a picture of despair.

  “Tell Hannah Linz to come out,” von Ritter said.

  “And you will let me take Nikolai?”
>
  “I have no need to lie to you. Take your motorcar, if it is there.”

  “And if it isn’t?”

  “Then you are lost anyway. And so am I. Leave quickly. I will say I got here too late to prevent you. But if we are all here when they arrive . . .” He shrugged.

  Hannah came out of the hut. She flashed the light, thinking Kim still had not seen her.

  An ear-ringing crack of a gun. Kim spun around to see who had come upon them. No one on the slope.

  But von Ritter braced a hand against the tree and sank to his knees.

  Then she focused on Nikolai. He stood there, a pearl-handled revolver in his hand.

  Von Ritter was wounded. He slid down the tree into a sitting position.

  Nikolai’s voice was soft but clear. “He killed the tsarina. He killed my mother.”

  Kim went to von Ritter’s side, unable to see how critical his wound was. But she knew already that it was bad, because her senses were filled with the smell of warm, coppery blood.

  He rested his head against the tree trunk, his gun still in his grip. Kneeling by his side, she saw blood seeping out from von Ritter’s jacket closure.

  He looked at Kim, trying to speak. Finally he managed, “Kim. Take . . . my gun.”

  She took it, placing it in her lap. His eyes went to slits.

  His voice, very soft. “Use the gun. If they find you, you will die slowly. It does not hurt if you . . . aim well.” His blood pumped hard, and his eyes closed. Dying. He was dying.

  “Take it,” von Ritter repeated, unable to feel that she had already done so.

  “I have it, Erich,” she whispered. “I will use it if they come.”

  She heard Hannah nearby, saying something to Nikolai.

  Bending close to von Ritter so that he could hear, Kim said, “Another time, a different country, we wouldn’t have been against each other.”

  A small smile. “Another time, Kim. Perhaps you will . . . follow me.”