The Romanov succession

by Brian Garfield

  Alex said, “You’re too angry, aren’t you.” He said it gently with the suggestion of an American smile. “What were you fighting the Germans for in that race? Couldn’t have been Russian pride, could it?”

  Felix threw up his hands. “What’s going to happen to my lifelong ambition to marry a rich widow with a bad cough?”

  His exasperated tones melted away in the smoky clattering racket of a revving Curtiss Hawk. The biplane turned slowly against its rudder and bumped out toward the runway. Its propwash swayed around Irina, pasting the clothes to her body, unraveling her hair. She lifted one hand to shade her eyes and watch it take off.

  Felix was a dialectical man and knew it; filled with contradictory moods. He said, “Suppose I accept this absurd proposition today and begin tomorrow to regret it for the rest of my life? I’ll try to be honest, Alex-I suppose I’ve got to for once. Look here, I’m the sort of chap who’s in demand at dinner parties because I’m good at charming the old ladies, but I will sometimes slip a dose of tartar emetic into some old fool’s claret. Now I’m sure Prince Leon can’t expect these qualities to disappear magically as soon as he hangs a mantle on me. My morals are a bit of a nervous tic, aren’t they-something I can’t help.”

  “Are you worried about that? I’m not.”

  “You’re very reassuring.” He watched the fine line of Irina’s profile turning to indicate her interest in the departing Curtiss. “Of course I’ll accept. I’m too vain not to. Emperor of Russia? The question is whether they’ve got any business offering it to me. I’m just not suitable for it, am I?”

  “That decision’s already been made.”

  “It can be unmade.”

  “The timetable doesn’t allow for that.” Alex gave him a grave look. “They had good reasons for choosing you.”

  “An accident of birth. They neglected to consider my character.”

  “Don’t think so little of yourself.”

  He shook his head dismally. A kind of desperation made him change the subject: “Let me understand this-what’s re quired of me?”

  “I’ve told you that.”

  “No. I mean immediately. What’s my part of this adventure of yours?”

  “You’ll go in with us.”

  “In battle?”

  “They feel it’s important-politically, for the future.”

  “To say I was one of the first, you mean.”

  “To say you were the first. You’re to be the one who leads the liberation.”

  “That’s absurd. I’ve got all the leadership qualities of a lemming. The truth would get out-then where’d we be?”

  “What truth?”

  “That I didn’t lead anything. That you were the real leader.”

  “When the time comes you’ll be the one to give the order. That will be the final truth.”

  He looked down at his hands as if they were unfamiliar objects. “It’s suicidal. We’ll all be captured. They’ll hang us from the highest gallows in Moscow.”

  Alex shook his head gently. “You risk your life every time you drive on the racecourse.”

  “That’s a different thing-it’s for my own amusement.”

  Alex said in his slow spare way, “I know the way your juices shoot up when you’ve got your neck stuck out a mile. You’re alive because you’re in immediate danger of being dead. Stop fighting this-you’ll enjoy it.” He looked at his wristwatch and shot his cuff. “I’ve got a plane to catch. You’ll go back to the villa with Irina.”

  “This instant? I had plans…” He realized the inanity of it but it was too late to recall it.

  Alex said, “There’s a good deal to do. Prince Leon will lay it out for you.”

  “Like jewels on a dark velvet cloth,” he said dubiously. “What do they expect me to contribute at this stage?”

  “If you’re going to be the leader of a liberation movement you’ve got to start acting like one.”

  Irina was staring at Alex; they were exchanging some sort of private signals with their eyes and the intensity of her expression astonished Felix: he was convinced that was exactly the way she’d look with a man on top of her.

  Shaken by it he said lamely, “We’re all making a ridiculous mistake.”

  PART THREE:

  September 1941

  1

  It was the same as before: the bustling uniformed messengers, the corridor, the sergeant rattling his typewriter outside the door, the sitting and waiting because Colonel Buckner once again was “at the White House” and late for the appointment.

  “Look,” Buckner said when he finally appeared, “I don’t do it on purpose. While you’re waiting for me I’m up there cooling my heels waiting for an audience with him. He always runs two hours later than the appointments secretary figured. You know what it’s like to live in a small town that used to have four thousand people and now it’s got eighteen thousand but there’s still only one doctor in town? That doctor’s waiting room-that’s the White House.”

  Buckner slid out of his black raincoat and hung it with his floppy fisherman’s hat on the standing rack just inside his door. Then he went to his desk and waved Alex to a seat.

  “Next time I’ll remember to come at eleven for a nine o’clock meeting,” Alex said. He smiled to show he was joshing.

  “Okay. Tell me about the red epaulets.”

  Alex wore khakis with red tabs on the shoulder straps. He said, “They’ve put rank on me.”

  “Three pips. Lieutenant General?”

  “Major General,” he said. “The ranks are a little different.”

  “Yeah,” Buckner said. “The Russian army still has third lieutenants too.”

  It had been done that last morning at the villa: Prince Leon had brought out a velvet-lined box made of inlaid woods. The red epaulets were in it together with a collection of medals and yellow citations brittle at the edges. “They were Vassily’s father’s. We are settling a commission on you.”

  “In the White Russian Army?”

  “Deniken is still the commander-in-chief. It is by his authority.”

  “A Major General? That’s absurd. I’m thirty-four years old.”

  “Please do not dispute it, Alex, it is a matter of politics. Governments will deal with a Major General at high level where they would force a mere colonel to use the servants entrance.”

  “It’s a rank that implies command of at least a combat division-ten thousand men.”

  “On paper you will have one. Never mind, it is all politics.”

  “The cable from Barcelona was a little cryptic,” Glenn Buckner said. “How did Devenko die?”

  “We put it out that it was natural causes. Heart attack. But he was shot-a paid gun.”

  “Did you catch the killer?”

  “Yes.”

  Buckner leaned forward, intent. “What did you find out from him?”

  “Nothing. He’s dead.”

  Buckner made a face and sank back in the chair. “Crap.”

  “He had nothing in his pockets except a forged invitation to the party.”

  “Did you fingerprint him?”

  “No. I doubt it would have mattered. We didn’t want it reported to the authorities there-and anyway what could we have found out? We might have learned he was a gunsmith from Milan or a greengrocer from Cardiff but that wouldn’t have got us anywhere. It was a paid job. Maybe if we had an army of detectives and a year to poke around we’d have found out who hired him.”

  “Shouldn’t you have tried? Don’t you need to know why?”

  “We’ve got more important problems.”

  Buckner rubbed his mouth with his knuckles. “It must have had to do with this operation. Otherwise it would be too coincidental.” His hand dropped onto the desk. “Now they’ve given you Devenko’s job.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Which may make you the next murder victim.” Buckner scowled, picked up a pencil and bounced its point on the blotter. “I’m going to put heavy security on
you while you’re in this country. We can’t afford to have you taken out.”

  “Just don’t restrict my movements.”

  “They’ll be Secret Service-they know their jobs, they don’t get in the way.” The American’s wide face broke into a crooked grin. “It isn’t you I have to care about-it’s the goddamned operation. Christ I don’t like wars much.”

  “It’s nobody’s favorite pastime.”

  “I get a feeling it was Devenko’s.”

  “I didn’t know you knew him.”

  “I only met him once-in England a little while ago. I got the impression he was a little tilted that way.” Buckner went back to the file drawers and rifled a folder. “Your letter of resignation from the U.S. Army. Need a pen?”

  “I’ll use my own.”

  Filled with contradictory emotions he bent over the brief document, read it, hesitated momentarily and finally put his signature on it.

  “Date it a week ago, while you’re at it. And sign the copy.”

  When it was done Buckner took it from him and tossed the two copies carelessly on the corner of the desk. Alex returned to his chair and experienced a momentary cold hollowness: as if he were resigning from reality.

  Buckner watched him quietly. “You’re on your own now-if anything goes wrong it’s your own neck. We had nothing to do with it.”

  “Understood.”

  “Okay, now I’m dealing with you as the official representative of an Allied military operation. You’ve got the same status as the Free French and the Free Poles. Which is to say however much status we choose to grant you. It makes things a little precarious for you. But I guess you can see it’s the only way we can do it. All right-brass tacks now. What are you going to need from us?”

  By “us” Buckner meant the government from which Alex had resigned less than two minutes ago; it gave him a very strange feeling-as if suddenly he were in an alien capital.

  “Right away I’ll want two men.”

  “Americans?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s sticky.”

  “I want them for training and organization. They won’t go in with us.”

  “I’ll see. Who are they?”

  “Brigadier General John Spaight for one. He’s in command of-”

  “I know who he is. Who’s the other one?”

  “An Air Corps squadron commander by the name of Paul Johnson. They call him Pappy. It’s a heavy bomber squadron — the Thirty-fifth I think.”

  Buckner was writing the names down. “Major? Colonel?”

  “Actually I think he’s only a captain.”

  “The Air Corps works in mysterious ways,” Buckner muttered as he scribbled. He looked up. “I’ll try. They may not want any part of it-it could cost them their commands.”

  “Not if you put them on temporary detached duty with the assurance they’ll return to their current posts.”

  “How long are you going to need them for?”

  “Not more than ninety days.”

  “What do you need these two particular guys for?”

  Alex shook his head.

  Buckner didn’t press it. “I take it you had time to get the details of the plan from Devenko before he died.”

  “No. But it isn’t his plan. It’s my own.”

  Buckner showed mild surprise. “They’re going along with that? They set a lot of store by Devenko, didn’t they?”

  “I didn’t give them much of a choice.”

  Buckner thought about that and nodded. “They haven’t exactly got a surplus of qualified commanders to choose from. Which makes your security all the more vital. If you get knocked off who else have they got?”

  “I don’t know. Most of my generation hasn’t gone in for anything more serious than steeplechasing.”

  “Uh-huh. So what are you going to man your force with-jockeys and playboys?”

  “My brother and I had a White Russian outfit in Finland. I expect to recruit out of that pool.”

  “Aren’t they scattered to hell and gone by now?”

  “No,” Alex said. “I know where to find them.”

  “There’s one thing more. The timetable.”

  “I’ll have it as soon as I can.”

  “I didn’t mean yours. I meant Hitler’s. Inside a month it’s going to start raining in Russia. Another month and that’ll turn to snow. It’s September now-by November it may have been decided. If Hitler takes Moscow you can forget your pipedream.”

  “Hitler won’t take Moscow. Not that fast.”

  “You have a private line to the Reichschancellery that tells you this in confidence?”

  “I spent some time in China,” Alex said. “The Japanese are being absorbed there.”

  “What’s that got to do with the price of vodka?”

  “Stalin’s got some of his best divisions on the China border waiting for a Japanese strike. The Japanese aren’t going to turn that way. Zhukov has already put in requests for those troops to be transferred to the Moscow front. Stalin will sign the authorizations-maybe a week from now, maybe a month; it depends how close Guderian comes to Moscow.”

  “The timetable still applies. Stalin’s ahead of the game once it’s decided for sure. Your object is to knock him over while he’s off balance-while the war’s still undecided. That gives you your deadline.”

  “It’s not a deadline,” Alex said. “It’s only a gamble. You know how military ops go. You can’t predict a thing. You go by the odds. I think Stalin’s on a tightrope and I think he’s going to stay on it for quite a while.”

  “But the longer he has the better his chances. To fall off or to reach the safe end.”

  “Of course.”

  “Then don’t let any grass grow under you.”

  “I’m already in motion,” Alex said.

  2

  He found the two of them standing awkwardly beside a grey Plymouth at Andrews Field-John Spaight in a well-cut grey summer suit, Pappy Johnson in baggy seersucker. Alex stepped out of the Ford and the asphalt underfoot gave way softly in the heat. The two Secret Service men stepped out vigilantly.

  “I’m quitting,” Spaight said by way of greeting. “The only reason I came was to get out of the heat at Bliss. This is ridiculous.” There were sweat stains on his suit.

  “It’s a volunteer thing,” Alex said. “You can both go back right now if you want.”

  “Not until you clear up the mystery.”

  Alex shook his head. “If I explain it to you then you’re in. I’m sorry but it has to be that way.”

  Spaight sighed theatrically and threw up his hands. “Look, we’re here.”

  Alex consulted his watch. “We’ve got time before takeoff. Let’s get under some shade.”

  In the flying officers’ dayroom a huge ceiling fan revolved slowly and Pappy Johnson settled himself under it hipshot on the corner of the billiard table. Spaight brought three open bottles of Coca-Cola inside with him and handed them around and chose a place on the leather couch.

  They had the place to themselves; it was two in the afternoon. Alex said, “How much did Buckner tell you?”

  “Enough to whet our appetites,” Spaight said. “A clandestine operation-commando-vital to the war effort, all that kind of crap. He give you the same spiel, Captain?”

  “Something like that. He sort of hinted I might end up in command of some uninhabited island in the Arctic Ocean if I didn’t volunteer.”

  Alex said, “Disregard that. There won’t be any penalty if you decide to pass it up.”

  “What’s my job supposed to be?”

  “Training pilots and bombardiers.”

  “Where?”

  “In Scotland.”

  Johnson gave his toothy smile. “That’s a lot closer to the war than I am now.”

  Alex turned to Spaight. “I asked for you for my chief of staff-for training and preparations. But it means I’ll rank you.”

  “I did tell you they’d promote you, didn’t I?”
/>   “It may go against the grain. Does it?”

  “Come off it, Alex. I don’t mind taking orders from a man so long as I respect his brains. I’m a little flattered you picked me.”

  “You’re only along for the ride. There won’t be any glory in it-you’ll both be left behind when this thing goes into operation.”

  Spaight thumbed the Coca-Cola bottle shut, shook it up and spouted foam into his mouth from eight inches away. “Can we at least watch from the bleachers?”

  “I doubt it. Buckner wouldn’t allow it.”

  “Buckner’s a colonel,” Spaight said. “I’ll pull rank on the son of a bitch.”

  “I doubt that too, John.”

  Spaight nodded reluctantly. They both knew what neither had voiced: Buckner spoke with the voice of the White House.

  Some of it was going over Pappy Johnson’s head. “Where’s that put me, then? Bottom of the totem pole again-the story of my life?”

  “That’s what you get.” Spaight told him archly, “for wanting to fly a damn fool airplane instead of pushing a pencil like the rest of us cunning ambitious bastards.”

  It was going to work out, Alex thought. His two key staff officers were hitting it off.

  A flight sergeant in fatigues put his head in the door. “Looking for General Danilov, sir…”

  “I’m Danilov.”

  “Told me to tell you your plane’s ready to go, sir.” The sergeant saluted nervously, muffled his curiosity about the three men in civilian clothes and went.

  When they were passing outside through the doorway Spaight said, “I notice how cleverly you’ve avoided telling us anything about what’s really going on.”

  “There’ll be time to talk on the plane,” Alex said, tightening his eyes against the hot blast of afternoon haze.

  The Secret Service watchdogs emerged from the shadows and crowded into the front seat of the waiting staff car beside the driver, two professionals in dark grey suits and hats. They had become an irritant to him in the past week; it would have been nearly impossible for a tail to keep up with Alex’s movements because he had been on the run the whole time-Washington to Ohio, Michigan, back to Washington, New York, Washington yet again, now Andrews Field. If anyone was going to take a shot at him it would most likely be in Scotland after he came to rest. In the meantime these two had become as ponderous as excess baggage.