Tsar: A Thriller (Alex Hawke)

by Ted Bell

  Rostov’s most likely and logical successor, Prime Minister Boris Zhirinovsky, had been at the podium for more than two hours, striving for a ringing rhetoric that had fallen woefully short of the mark. He needed three hundred votes to secure his position. He had perhaps half that. And those numbers were going down, not up. He droned on, and a sleepy stupor descended over the ornate, rococo-style room.

  Now, a fresh rumor swept the great hall. The airship belonging to the reigning hero of all Russia, Count Ivan Korsakov, had arrived in Moscow. Reports said he was even at this hour en route to the Duma to make a plea for reason and calm in the wake of the morning’s tragedy. A prescient few guessed he had other, far more ambitious agendas to place before the legislature.

  The prime minister, oblivious to all this, droned on.

  Suddenly, the wide doors at the rear of the chamber were flung open, and a large cadre of heavily armed OMON security forces in full camo regalia marched inside, their heavy boots marking quick time on the marble floors, half of the men moving rapidly along the far left aisle of the room and the other half going right. They positioned themselves exactly one foot apart, backs to the wall, weapons down, eyes forward as if awaiting further orders.

  Entering the room like a conquering hero was General Nikolai Kuragin, resplendent in his sharply tailored black uniform, a black leather briefcase attached to his wrist. He strode alone down the center aisle toward the podium, head high, jaw thrust forward, his eyes on the prime minister.

  Upon seeing his approach, the prime minister stopped his speech in midsentence, struck mute, unable to continue. The room erupted in pandemonium. After a moment, the speaker ushered the prime minister away from the podium and returned to call for order. When the four hundred legislators in the hall had calmed to a dull roar, he invited General Kuragin to the podium and asked him to address the assembly.

  The general cleared his throat and gazed out at the assembled legislators with the look of a man whose hour had come at last.

  “My great good friends, patriots all, I’ve come here today in grief but also in hope,” the general began. The reaction was instantaneous and overwhelming. Applause, loud and sustained, greeted this declaration. Some already knew and many were beginning to guess at what was to follow.

  “My good friend President Vladimir Vladimirovich Rostov served our nation with great distinction and honor. We, in turn, honor his memory and mourn his tragic passing. But at this historic—”

  “Murderer! Liar! Murderers, all of you!” shouted a female voice somewhere in the audience. A small white-haired woman was on her feet, screaming at the general. He nodded his head, and two OMON soldiers quickly made their way toward her from either end of the row where she stood. They lifted Rostov’s widow off her feet, still screaming, and carried her quickly to the nearest exit.

  When the ensuing hubbub had died down, the general continued his speech as if nothing had happened.

  “We, in turn, honor his memory and mourn his tragic passing just a few short hours ago. But at this historic moment in our motherland’s heroic history, we cannot dwell on the past even for a short time. Events allow us no such luxury. Russia must look to the immediate future. And the future, my dear colleagues, is entering the room even as I speak. Please welcome Count Ivan Ivanovich Korsakov, who humbly begs permission to enter this chamber and address this august body.”

  The eruption was predictable. Save for a few naysayers scattered here and there among the rows of chairs terraced up the rear, the four hundred members of the Duma rose to their feet to cheer and applaud, turning to watch the great man enter the chamber.

  Korsakov, dressed in a formal grey suit and wearing a long grey cape that draped from his shoulders, paused in the doorway for a moment, acknowledging their welcome with a modest smile, then strode down the center aisle to the podium. Reaching it, he turned and bowed deeply to those assembled. The roar that greeted this gesture was deafening, and he used the moment to replace General Kuragin behind the podium. Korsakov raised his hands in a futile effort to quiet the assembly.

  The general remained at his side throughout, his sharp eyes moving over the crowd like the trained security man he’d once been. If there was to be any assassination attempt, it would come now, and he and his troops were ready for it. Many of the security men surrounding the podium were more than ready to take a bullet for their leader if it came to that. Not so Nikolai Kuragin. He wouldn’t take a bullet for anybody.

  “I am a proud Russian citizen,” Korsakov began as the room finally hushed. “I’ve been one all of my life. And I have never been more proud of my country than I am at this moment. We have accomplished much since the end of the Soviet era. President Rostov and his predecessor, President Putin, deserve the lion’s share of the credit for this progress. Now we stand together on the threshold of greatness such as we have never known.

  “My friends, Russia is once more a great power in this world and gaining strength every day. It is my will that she will become even greater. Her time has come at last, comrades. I stand before you today, a humble patriot but also a man ready to lead you to where a great and luminous future beckons. And that is Russia’s historic place, is it not? At the very forefront of the world’s great nations! This is where I vow to take our beloved Mother Russia!

  “Therefore, I am privileged and deeply honored to place my name before you as a candidate for the presidency of the Russian Federation.”

  He bowed his head briefly and waved to the crowd, stepping aside to let Kuragin return to the podium.

  “Count Ivan Ivanovich Korsakov has allowed his name to be put forth as a candidate for the presidency. All in favor, signify by saying aye. All opposed, please stand.”

  A chorus of ayes rose in the room and reverberated throughout the chamber. Korsakov, delighted, smiled benevolently at his supporters. It was happening, all of it, just as he’d always dreamed it would.

  Once the noise had died down, a strange silence fell over the room as, one by one, trembling men opposed to Count Ivan Korsakov’s presidency rose to their feet.

  Only a few stood up, of course, the hardened opposition, consisting mainly of diehard Communists and members of Kasparov’s New Russia party. The men who rose were brave indeed. They stood erect, their faces grey and shining with sweat, but their eyes were staring at the podium as the OMON troopers made their way to the ends of the aisles, waiting for a signal to drag them away. There was no shouting, no resistance from them, even though they knew that by standing in defiance, they’d sentenced themselves to life in the gulag.

  Or worse.

  Korsakov, his eyes scanning the faces of the men who dared oppose him, made a slight hand gesture, and the OMON troops withdrew and resumed their positions along the walls.

  A thunderous explosion of applause greeted this show of magnanimity and mercy. Here, then, at long last, was a ruler for all the people!

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Kuragin said, “it would appear that Russia has a new president! President Korsakov, would you say a few words?”

  Then, from one of the last rows in the great hall, came a single voice, rising above the rest.

  “Tsar!” the man shouted. “Tsar! Tsar! Tsar!”

  The chanting of that word in the chamber was startling. It had remained unused in Russia since that terrible night in an Ekaterinberg basement in 1917, when the last Tsar and his family had been executed, their bodies dumped in a well deep in the forest.

  But the men and women of the Duma remembered how to say that word, and the swelling of it grew until it filled the hall, every single one of them stamping their feet and shouting at the top of their lungs.

  “Tsar! Tsar! Tsar!”

  President Korsakov had moved away from the podium. He stood quietly, hands clasped behind his back, his head lifted high, his eyes shining. After a time, he thought the chant might go on for hours if he didn’t stop it, so he stepped back up to the podium and said nine historic words into the microphone.

 
; “I accept with honor this ancient and noble title.”

  Pandemonium, joy, and glee greeted his words.

  Russia, after ninety-plus years, had a new Tsar.

  HAWKE REMEMBERED ELEPHANTS onstage, but that was all he could recall of Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida, the first and last opera he’d ever attended. He’d been six years old at the time, seated between his parents in the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden. Opera and ballet were not his bailiwick. He’d happily never seen a ballet in his life and was hardly looking forward to this one.

  But nothing had prepared him for this moment.

  From the very instant Nasimova appeared as a beautiful white swan gliding serenely across the frozen wintry pond, he’d been mesmerized. Perhaps it was simply Tchaikovsky’s genius at work, the full orchestra dipping and soaring with his inspiration. Perhaps it was the corps of ballerinas, each a white swan lovelier than the next. But whatever it was, Hawke felt a deep stirring inside, something moved within him that he’d not imagined even existed.

  Rhapsodic, that was the word for how he felt, reaching for Anastasia’s warm hand in the dark. And a new sense of wonder at the mysteries of the schizophrenic Russian soul. It produced unholy monsters like Stalin, capable of murdering millions of his own people. And it produced men capable of imagining this loveliest of dreamlike fantasies.

  Alone in the dark of the private Korsakov box with Anastasia at his side, he was entranced. He was actually leaning forward from his plush velvet seat, his elbows on the curved balustrade, his chin resting in the cup of his palms, his eyes sweeping the stage, not wanting to miss a single movement, a single note of the glorious music.

  “Do you like it?” he heard Anastasia whisper softly, leaning into him.

  He tore his eyes away from the stage, from Nasimova flying above Swan Lake, to look at his lover’s beautiful face. She was especially radiant tonight, a glittering diamond tiara in her golden hair and tiny waterfalls of diamonds suspended from each earlobe. She wore a dark blue silk gown with a plunging neckline, the silk contrasting with her full pale bosom, her whole being luminous in the soft blue artificial moonlight streaming from the stage.

  “I can never thank you enough for this, Asia,” he said, kissing her lips. “I didn’t know there could be anything so beautiful.”

  “My love,” she said, her eyes shining with a depth of feeling he had never seen.

  “What is it?” he asked, falling into her eyes. All day, he’d felt she had something to tell him and that she’d been waiting for this moment.

  “There is…something else I must tell you. But I am—afraid. I know I love you. I must have loved you from the moment I saw you. And I think you have feelings for me, too. But now, something has happened. Something that may make you run from me. The timing, you know, it’s just too soon for you, and now I am so afraid you will go away, and all this joy will end for me.”

  “How beautiful you are…what is it, darling? Don’t be afraid. Tell me.”

  “Something more beautiful than one woman could ever be.”

  “Tell me.”

  “We are making a baby, darling Alex. I am pregnant with your child.”

  Hawke looked at her, saw the tears well up and begin to roll down her cheeks and all the questions and hope in her eyes. He wiped her tears away and kissed her mouth, mixed emotions racing through his mind so rapidly that he had no time to think, and so he just said what was in his heart.

  “How wonderful, darling. How absolutely marvelous.”

  “You are happy? You won’t run?”

  “Deliriously happy,” he said, kissing her eyes, her cheeks, her lips.

  “We made our baby during that storm over Bermuda, darling. I know it. That magnificent storm. He will be magnificent, too. Thunder in his heart and lightning in his veins. Just as you are.”

  “Are you sure it’s a boy?”

  “As sure as I can ever be. I know in my heart.”

  TWO HOURS LATER, they emerged from the theater, both of them still glowing with the ballet’s lingering beauty and the bright promise of her news. Hawke had his arm around Anastasia, holding her close to him, protecting her and his child as they made their way through the bustling crowd streaming down the staircase toward the exit.

  It had begun snowing, heavily. A warm front from the Mediterranean had brought high winds, colliding with a cold front from Siberia. A serious storm, exhilarating.

  Storms and babies, he thought, smiling down at her, and he felt as happy as perhaps he had ever been. That a life marred by so much tragedy as his could have moments like this one made it all seem worthwhile. The whole night lay before them, and their lives would be forever entwined and filled with limitless wonder and possibility. He realized at that very moment that he truly loved this woman. And that his badly broken heart had at long last healed enough to take her inside.

  “Isn’t it beautiful?” he said, looking out at the frosted city.

  Moscow looked its best under a blanket of white. The city was made for snowy nights like this one, and he was eager to make his way to the Pushkin Café, just five or six blocks from the Bolshoi, where he had booked a cozy table in the Library on the second floor. There they would drink champagne and plan their future together.

  He was halfway down the steps when he felt the sharp pain in his ribs. He looked down and saw that a short, squat man in a black overcoat had thrust his hand inside Hawke’s own coat. It was the muzzle of a gun, he could feel it now, pushing between two ribs.

  “You’re under arrest,” the man said, not even looking up, just jamming the gun harder into his ribcage.

  Hawke made two moves at once. With his right hand, he gently pushed Anastasia out of harm’s way. His left hand he brought down hard, palm flat, on the back of the man’s thick neck, driving his head down, only to meet Hawke’s right knee coming up under his chin, breaking his jaw. The move sent the little fellow flying.

  “Alex!” Asia cried. “What is—”

  Hawke never had time to reply.

  Instantly, he was surrounded by five more men similarly dressed in black overcoats, but these were big men, burly types. They were all armed, and they pressed in close, letting him see the pistols they carried.

  “Come with us,” one of them hissed in his ear.

  “Where?”

  “You’ll know soon enough.”

  They had his arms now and were moving him quickly out into the snowy street. He didn’t have to wonder where the KGB thugs were taking him. He knew.

  Lubyanka Prison.

  Hawke twisted his head around, looking for Anastasia. She was standing where he’d left her on the steps, looking down at him, both hands to her face, terror in her eyes.

  “Find the American!” Hawke cried out to her. “The one I told you about at the Metropol!”

  He felt a blow to the back of his head and then nothing more. His last thought before he went out was that on the airship, he’d managed to give Anastasia the assumed name Harry Brock had registered under at his hotel.

  Harry would find him. Help him.

  Maybe.

  50

  ABOARD PUSHKIN AT SEA

  Fancha was singing when the lights went out. She was singing “A Minha Vida,” her biggest hit from the Green Island Girl album, which had just gone platinum. The dinner crowd was really with her, she could feel it, and so she went ahead with the beautiful song, singing in the dark, thinking this lighting thing was just some kind of a dramatic flourish by the very flamboyant Russian stage director named Igor. She’d seen him backstage before the show started, sipping vodka from a flask with one of the musicians.

  Or maybe it was just a temporary power outage aboard the giant airship?

  They were sailing far out over the Atlantic now, just north of Bermuda, she thought. Past the point of no return, like in her favorite John Wayne movie, The High and the Mighty. She’d been afraid of flying ever since she’d seen it, but she still loved it, still found herself whistling the haunting theme song
now and then.

  When she ended the song, there was a lot of applause and even shouts of “Brava! Brava!” from some of the French and Italian people onboard. Had to be the smartest audience she’d ever performed for, most of them Nobel Prize winners, after all. And Vice President McCloskey’s wife, Bonnie, was sitting right up front by the little stage, clapping louder than anybody.

  She took a deep bow, even though nobody could see her.

  The sudden darkness was startling and complete. It was a moonless night, and even though there were big windows in the ship’s ballroom, she couldn’t see much other than the silhouettes of the three hundred or so people in the audience. They were mostly all seated at tables of four or more, but a large number of couples were still circling the dance floor, the small band onstage behind her going into an unfamiliar riff.

  Dancing in the dark?

  People just kept clapping, probably thinking, lights go on, lights go off. Happens all the time on shipboard, right? A lot of liquor had been consumed at the cocktail reception and a lot of wine at dinner. She didn’t drink herself, but later, she’d remember that she still wasn’t scared at that point, thinking it was all sort of fun.

  “If someone will light a candle, I’ll sing another song,” she said to a ripple of nervous laughter.

  Someone called out, “‘Ave Maria’!”

  She began to sing the beautiful aria, feeling the power of her instrument, waiting for the violinist to catch up.

  Then the lights came back on.

  And someone screamed.

  The terrorists, for that’s what they were, had entered under the cover of darkness, but many were still pouring into the room from every doorway. They were all dressed in heavy boots and black combat fatigues, but it was the guns everybody was looking at. They all carried big, complicated-looking assault rifles, cradled in their arms like babies, but they had multiple layers of weapons, sashes of bullets, flashy knives, all kinds of smaller guns holstered to thighs or sticking up from belts.