by Jenni Wiltz
Belial shivered. I tried to read him, but everything inside was black. The words of the twenty-third psalm sprang to her mind but she quashed the impulse. Viktor didn’t deserve them.
“Is he dead?” Beth asked, calmly wiping her face with her sleeve.
“Yes,” Constantine answered. He let Viktor’s body crumple to the floor and picked up the second PP90. “Get back behind the bar, both of you. This isn’t over.”
“Ignore everything I said, Nat,” Beth said, gripping her elbow and guiding her back behind their marble shelter. “Constantine needed a distraction.”
“God, Beth, you scared the shit out of me!”
Beth flashed her a smile. “Bet you forgot I was the president of the drama club in high school.”
She squeezed her sister’s hand then turned to Constantine. “Are you all right?”
He shook his head. “I should have seen what he really was.”
“You saw what was good in him, just like you see what’s good in me. You couldn’t have helped him, even if you’d known.”
“No, but I could have killed him a hell of a lot earlier.”
“You did everything you could. Beth and I are only alive because of you.”
Beth scooted over to them and pulled the PP90 from her hands. “So what happens next? Is this a Butch and Sundance kind of thing?”
“No,” Constantine said. “We wait. We hope whoever wants in can overpower Starinov’s men. If they can’t…”
Beth nodded. “Then it’s Oscar speech time.”
Natalie looked at her sister, dirt-streaked and bloodstained and blonde and petite, holding the gun as if she actually knew how to use it. She would do anything for you, Belial said. I know, she thought. “Beth, I love you so much.”
“I love you, too, babe. You’re my family. You and me and Seth.”
“I missed Shark Week. He’s going to kill me.”
“He’ll forgive you,” Beth said. “Or he’s grounded.”
“Someone’s coming,” Constantine said. He crouched and leaned around the side of the bar, aiming the PP90 at the door. “Stay back.”
“The hell I will,” Beth said, mirroring his position on the other side of the bar.
Natalie heard sharp commands in Russian followed by the slick sound of nylon straps sliding off ballistic vests. From the foyer where the guards crouched in wait, the sound of breaking glass punctured the silence. Gunfire erupted and voices speaking English demanded surrender.
“Davies’s men!” she cried.
“Wait until they’ve subdued the guards.” Constantine held his position, gun aimed at the door. “I don’t trust them yet.”
Natalie nodded and listened for the sounds of the British soldiers as they screamed orders at Starinov’s guards. On your knees! Hands on your head! Drop your weapons!
The door of the room broke open, kicked in by an S012 soldier in black vest and pants. Splinters rained over the pile of bodies and the soldier stepped backward. He held a semiautomatic rifle at eye level, making a visual sweep of the room through his rifle’s spotting scope.
“We’re over here!” Beth called.
The soldier whipped his head in their direction, stepping over the pile of bodies and advancing slowly toward the bar. “Come out slowly with your hands on your head.”
She looked to Constantine, who nodded. He tossed the PP90 on the floor and Beth followed suit.
“Which one of you is Natalie Brandon?” the soldier asked.
“I am,” she answered.
“We have orders to bring you to the Bank of England.”
“Whose orders?” Beth barked. “Is Starinov there?”
Two more men ran in behind him with rifles raised high. They swept the room, covering every corner before pronouncing the room clear. “Jesus,” one of them said, eyes following the trail of bloodstains across the floor that marked the paths of the dead, dragged bodies. “What the hell happened here?”
Constantine cleared his throat. “My name is Constantine Dashkov. I’m with the Bureau of Classified Intelligence of the Russian Federation. Where is Prime Minister Starinov?”
The first soldier held out his hand out for Natalie. “Come with us, miss.”
She shook her head and stepped away. “No! I’m not going anywhere without Beth and Constantine. If you want me, they come, too.”
The soldier lowered his rifle and spoke into the comlink on his collar. A second later the answer came crackling through. “Come on, then. There’s a vehicle waiting outside.”
“This is it,” she said, looking up at Constantine. She slipped her hand into his and grasped Beth with her other hand. The soldiers marched them through the embassy to the driveway where a black SUV waited. They climbed in, followed by five armed men and the vehicle sped off through the dark streets of London toward Threadneedle Street.
Natalie watched the narrow storefronts fly by, convenience stores and pubs and coffee shops. She closed her eyes and waited for Belial to shake his wings or shuffle his feet. But he didn’t. He was at rest and she realized, with a shock, that she felt no fear: no sweaty palms, no butterflies, no dry mouth.
You see? You have nothing more to fear, Belial answered. You already know what you’ll be asked to do. And you already know what your answer will be.
“Smart ass,” she muttered.
The man sitting next to her turned his head. “Beg your pardon?”
“I wasn’t talking to you. I was talking to Belial.”
“Don’t ask,” Beth interrupted. “Just go with it.”
The man nodded.
Twelve minutes later, the vehicle pulled up at the steps of a large columned building with a triangular cornice. Another group of soldiers waited for them there, surrounding the vehicle as it pulled up. Each man held a gun, and they converged on the SUV as it parked.
“Uh-oh,” Beth said.
“This isn’t a welcoming committee, is it?” she asked.
“This kind of shit doesn’t happen to botanists. Why didn’t I just become a botanist?”
“Botanists don’t make history, Beth. Besides, Belial says we have nothing to worry about.”
“For some reason, that’s not helping me.”
“They have guns and we don’t,” Constantine said. “That’s not helping me.”
“Belial’s right,” she said. “I can feel it. Come on.” She followed the soldier out of the vehicle without waiting to see whether Beth or Constantine followed her.
Chapter Seventy
July 2012
London, England
It was long after business hours. The bank sat empty and forlorn, its cavernous entrance veiled in darkness. Natalie’s footsteps clattered on the gray stone as she crossed the threshold. She started to wonder what would happen if Belial was wrong. What if there were plenty of things left to fear? “If you’re wrong, Belial, I’m going to kill you,” she muttered.
A thin man with wavy white hair stepped out of the shadows to greet them. Deep pockets of reddened skin had settled beneath his eyes like a ship’s ballast. He wore a navy blue suit with yellow bow tie and pocket square. “Good evening,” he said, looking them up and down and curling his lip. “Or perhaps it is good morning? I don’t suppose the three of you would know.”
“I don’t suppose the three of us would care,” Beth said.
The man pointed at Natalie’s neck, still stained with blood from her torn earlobe. “Are you in need of medical care, miss?”
“It’s self-inflicted. Thanks, though.”
One white eyebrow rose to the ceiling. “Of course. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Algernon Perry, governor of this bank. I believe you know why you are here.”
“I don’t know anything except that people have been chasing me and shooting at me for a week straight. Belial is tired of it and so am I.”
“Belial?”
“Don’t ask,” Constantine said. “Just go with it.”
Perry blinked and nodded. “You are here because Prim
e Minister Davies has instructed me to give you access to a certain account, provided you have the correct password.”
Shit, Natalie thought. I still don’t even know if I’m right. “About that…I have a little confession to make.”
Beth grabbed her arm. “Nat, now is not the time.”
“We’re in the fucking bank, Beth. I’d say now is the perfect time.”
“Perhaps,” Perry interrupted, “until you’re sure of the time, you’d be good enough to follow me?”
She glanced back toward the bank entrance, where the convoy remained with guns drawn and vehicle lights flashing. She gulped and followed the white-haired man across the foyer. “Mr. Perry, do you know what this is all about?”
“Of course,” he said. “You must understand, we have discouraged many inquiries about this account over the years. Most of them are harmless and come from reporters or authors. Some of them are less well-intentioned, like the Soviet incursion in the 1930s.”
“Rumkowski,” Constantine said. “We were told that one of his men got into the bank as an employee, but could never find the account itself or any written proof that it existed.”
“Correct.”
“But that makes no sense,” Beth argued. “Doesn’t every account need paperwork or at least a signature or forward address? Even this goddamn password needs to be written down somewhere, doesn’t it?”
Perry turned in mid-step, eyes twinkling. “One would think that, wouldn’t one?”
She glared back at him. “I’m glad you find this all so amusing. Every official statement of yours I’ve ever read denies the existence of any tsarist funds. How many people have you lied to about this money?”
“People have a hard time taking no for an answer.”
“Why shouldn’t they, especially when they’re right? How have you kept such an enormous lie intact for all these years?”
“How would anyone know it’s a lie if there’s no paperwork to be found? Any bank employee, even a vice-president, would find no evidence to prove such an account exists. When they denied the existence of the account, they weren’t lying. They were simply reporting the truth as they saw it.”
“So who does know the truth?”
He stopped in front of a brass-paneled elevator and made a polite half-bow. “Only the sitting governor.”
“Not the prime minister?”
“Goodness, no. Why bring politics into it?” Perry pulled an electronic passkey from his vest pocket and used it to unlock the elevator. “Follow me, if you please.”
The elevator opened and they filed in. Perry pulled up his identification badge and held it in front of a sealed metal panel in the elevator wall. He pressed it there for five seconds, palm against the badge. Suddenly, the panel began to glow white as an intense light shone out from behind it.
“Biometrics,” he said. “Combined with nanotechnology and a good old-fashioned x-ray. I don’t understand a bit of it.”
The panel beeped and the governor removed his palm and the badge. The metallic panel popped open, revealing another set of buttons. He pressed the bottom button and re-latched the panel.
Beth watched his movements with a pale face. “Oh, God, you’re going to have to kill us now, aren’t you?”
“If you were going to be killed, madam, I would have asked that it be done as far away from me as possible.”
The elevator descended quickly, jolting Natalie’s stomach up into her throat. She took a deep breath, but still—no flutter from Belial’s wings. What the hell is wrong with you? she asked. Are you even paying attention?
It’s all right, little one, he answered. When Marie told me the password, she also told me what’s inside. She’s here with me now, watching you.
“What?” she screeched.
They all turned to look at her. “Nat,” Beth said. “Spill it.”
“Belial’s got company.”
Perry opened his mouth to ask a question and Beth glared at him. He closed it.
“What kind of company?”
“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but…the good kind.”
Clanking and rattling, the elevator flew down an endless shaft. When it was pulled to a stop by a great squeak and clank of cables, the doors opened and revealed a dim hallway with sound-absorbent tiles on the roof and pendant light fixtures that looked like they were leftovers from a World War II army base. The air was chilly and damp and the cement walkway beneath their feet was littered with dust and debris.
Perry turned left and proceeded down the hallway, stepping over the larger rocks in his path. She followed him until he stopped in front of a metal door with a tarnished brass knob. He reached into his pants pocket and drew out a single key. Long and old, it looked like it was made from the same brass as the doorknob itself.
“How old is that?” she asked.
“Seventy-three years,” he answered. “We rebuilt this bunker in 1938, when we knew war was inevitable. It withstood the Blitz, which was all we asked of it.”
“And now?”
“Now it is up to you,” he said, looking at her. “I am told by the Prime Minister that you are the one with the password. If you are correct, this key is yours.”
“And if I’m wrong?”
“I take you back upstairs and the men with guns put you on a plane.” He pointed to a thin series of red wires ringing the doorway. “Then I destroy the contents of that room. There will be a press release from Downing Street that describes the unfortunate death of Russian Prime Minister Starinov when his driver lost control of their car. I point out what a tragedy it is that the man died while harassing the bank yet again about a tsarist account that simply does not exist. In the spirit of transparency which you Americans so eagerly desire of your bankers and politicians, I may even make public our records from the Great War, to put to rest once and for all the possibility of any secret account.”
“What if I tell the world you’re lying?”
Perry shrugged. “You have no proof. You are here without passports, I am told, so there is no official record of your entry to Britain. I can destroy or replace any bank security footage that includes you. The only people who have seen you are now dead, in custody, or are British soldiers who will do exactly as they are told.”
“Wait a minute,” Constantine said. “Starinov is dead? Is that true?”
“It is,” Perry said. “He was pronounced dead not half an hour ago at the Royal London Hospital, while you were en route. Davies will release a statement shortly, no matter what happens here.”
Constantine grasped Natalie’s shoulders. “Did you hear that? No matter what happens here, Starinov can’t hurt you again.”
Her whole body shook with relief. Now Beth and Seth would be safe. No more Vympel breaking into apartments and dragging people away into the night. She stared at the door and wondered why she felt nothing, no hint of angelic excitement or inspiration. Inside, she just felt numb. “What happens to the things in that room?”
“The tsar’s instructions are ironclad: no one shall claim the contents except the first person to give the correct password.”
“Hold the phone,” she said. “The tsar’s instructions? I thought Soloviev set up the account while the tsar was in custody in Russia.”
Perry smiled. “I see you only know part of the story. The account opened by Mr. Soloviev was ancillary to the primary account, which was set up by the tsar himself, through his finance minister Sir Peter Bark. After the tsar’s untimely death, Sir Peter collapsed the accounts under Soloviev’s name, in the interests of security.”
Beth frowned. “But Nicholas and Bark never saw each other again after February of 1917. We know the Soloviev account couldn’t have been set up before late 1917. When was the primary account set up?”
“I’ve seen it myself,” Perry said. “The date on the charter of the first account is 1916. It was written by Nicholas II and witnessed by the empress Alexandra and her brother, the Grand Duke Ernst of Hesse.”
> “That’s impossible,” Constantine said. “Russia and Germany were at war in 1916.”
“Holy shit,” Natalie breathed, clutching Constantine’s wrist. “Anna Anderson was right! Beth, she was right!”
“Nat, what are you talking about? That crackpot wasn’t right about anything, not even her own name. The DNA tests proved she wasn’t Anastasia.”
“But do you remember what she said? She said Anastasia’s uncle, Ernst of Hesse, made a secret trip to Russia in 1916 to try and work out a peace treaty between Germany and Russia. It would have taken Russia out of the war, leaving England and France as sitting ducks. She said Nicholas refused because he was honor-bound by his agreements to the Allies. When Anderson’s claim became public knowledge, everyone freaked out…especially Ernie and his relatives in Germany. Why would they have cared, unless it were the truth?”
“So where’d she get that information?”
“Someone fed it to her.” She started to pace, her brain whirring like a computer scanning itself for a virus. “So Nicholas refuses to make a separate peace with Germany, but he understands Ernie’s concern about the terrible state Russia is in. He tells Ernie he’s going to set aside enough money to take care of them should anything happen. Ernie witnesses the charter for this secret account, and Bark sets it up through the old-boy network. The tsar tells Bark the password, and Bark tells the governor of the bank. Each governor tells the next, like some sick Masonic ritual.” She turned to Perry. “Is that how it happened?”
“I wasn’t there, my dear. How could I know for sure?”
Beth narrowed her eyes at the old man. “You said you’ve seen the date on the charter. How?”
“The charter still exists,” he replied. “It is shown to each new bank governor when he takes over.”
“By whom?”
Perry’s lips twisted into a smile. “Whom do you think? The reigning sovereign, of course.”
Natalie smacked her forehead. “Of course! Bark smuggled the charter to England and showed it to George V, didn’t he? That’s why there’s no record of it in the bank. They keep it at Buckingham.”