by Glenn Meade
He smiled. “Always make sure that the lid over the keyboard is open before you start to play.”
She giggled. “Now you’re being funny.”
“My father used to say that.”
“Was he a musician?”
He nodded. “Most of my family, too. Poor ones, though. They worked the music halls of Moscow and St. Petersburg.”
“That must have been interesting. But four seems awfully young.”
“I think we try to make up for our shortcomings in different ways. Maybe I wanted to impress.”
“Pardon?”
“I’m just prattling. I was invited to join an orchestra after music college. I managed to stay a year until it taught me a valuable lesson.”
“What was that?”
Sorg smiled. “That living the rest of my life as a member of an orchestra would bore me to tears. So business replaced the piano, I’m afraid. It’s a lot more interesting.”
The young woman stood and put a hand gently on his arm. He felt a stab of electricity at her touch.
“What a shame, it was obviously music’s loss. Could you teach me how to play like that?”
As their eyes met, Sorg felt a flash of attraction. It was absurd. He was at least ten years her senior but felt captivated. With her auburn hair, blue eyes, and vivacious personality, he thought she was the loveliest creature he had ever seen.
“Why not? But you’d have to put in the effort.”
“Don’t worry about that. My sisters say that I’m the wild one in the family and do everything with a passion. By the way, your Russian is excellent, but is that a slight accent I detect?”
“I’m an American citizen. My mother and I left Russia when I was a child.”
“My papa says the Americans are going to be the most powerful nation in the world someday. What’s your name?”
“Philip Sorg.”
“I insist on hearing you play again, Mr. Sorg. In fact, seeing as my tutor’s lost his nerve and thinks Russia is doomed, I want you to teach me how to play as well as you did, assuming you’d consider giving lessons.”
“I’d consider it an honor.”
She noticed the silver ring on his finger. “Are you a married man, Mr. Sorg?”
“No, a bachelor.”
A door opened and a young woman stepped into the room. Sorg saw a striking family resemblance—the same lush hair and porcelain features. The woman said, “There you are, you imp! Mama says you’re to return at once to the ball. People are asking for you.”
“Tell her I’ll be there soon.”
The older girl offered Sorg an exasperated grin. “Whoever you are, sir, will you promise me that you’ll make sure my sister returns to the ball at once?”
“I promise to do my best.”
“Just remember, or Mama will get cross.” The sister left.
The young woman smoothed her dress. “Don’t mind Olga, she’s a bossy boots. Still, I better be getting back. May I have your business card, Mr. Sorg?”
Sorg rummaged in his waistcoat pocket. “Won’t you have to ask your parents’ permission to allow me to tutor you?”
“They’ll give it once I tell them what a brilliant pianist you are. But first they’ll have your credentials investigated.”
“Investigated?”
Mischief flickered in her eyes. “Tell me if you have done any bad things or that you are wanted by the police or suchlike, Mr. Sorg.”
“Not that I know of.” He handed over a handwritten copperplate business card.
The young woman studied it and moved to the door. “It says your address is the Hotel Crimea and that your business is import and export?”
“Mostly in precious metals, but I deal in anything that turns a profit. May I ask your name?”
The young woman’s smile broadened. She looked lovely when she smiled. “Call me Anastasia,” and with a flourish she was gone, racing down the hall.
6
Sorg snapped out of his daydream. Four armed guards stepped out through a pair of French doors onto the snowy palace lawns.
He tensed, watching through the telescope. Behind the guards came the Romanov family. Sorg’s heart twitched, as if someone slipped a dagger between his ribs.
The last to appear was Anastasia. She clutched the family’s black-and-white pet dog, Jimmy, before she let it down to romp in the snow. Her hair fell about her shoulders, a white scarf bundled at her neck. Sorg should have recognized her that day from royal photographs he’d seen but she seemed so much older: the girl in the images looked like a child. Up close, Anastasia looked like a young woman.
Her piano tutor Conrad’s prediction had come true. Within months, the tsar abdicated and his family was placed under armed guard, confined to the Alexander Palace at Tsarskoye Selo, while Kerensky’s government clung to power by a thread, embattled on all sides: socialists, Mensheviks, and Reds jostling to seize control as the country veered toward bloody civil war.
Sorg watched now as Anastasia and her elder sister, Olga, made snowballs and threw them at their sisters, Tatiana and Maria. Anastasia wore what looked like one of her father’s coats. It was at least several sizes too big for her and it made her look vulnerable.
Sorg tore away his gaze as the former tsarina and her husband strolled toward a bench and sat. As usual the ex-tsar carried his thirteen-year-old invalid son, Alexei, in his arms. He settled the child on his knees, holding him close.
Anastasia told Sorg once that her family was in constant fear of Alexei bleeding to death. Her family—except her father—believed that Rasputin miraculously helped lessen Alexei’s blood disease. Sorg found it impossible to accept that the mad, drunken monk at the ball could help anyone.
But Rasputin was dead now, poisoned and shot by his enemies, and then dumped in the Neva River.
Sorg watched Nicholas tenderly stroke his son’s hair. The man seemed such a contradiction. Sorg could never forget the newspaper photographs his father showed him of Jewish children, infants among them, butchered during the tsars’ pogroms. Sorg’s own relatives were victims. Was it hardly surprising that the revolution was led mostly by Jews, Lenin included?
Sorg shifted his focus back to Anastasia. She and her sisters playfully cavorted in the snow. It’s so absurd, Sorg reminded himself. He was a grown man of twenty-six, a cynical Brooklyn Jew who scoffed at love. Anastasia Romanov was sixteen, a deposed Romanov princess. Was it wrong for him—a grown man—to care for someone so young? But even if he despised everything her father stood for, this young woman aroused in him the warmest of feelings.
As he watched her, he thought: I didn’t foresee this happening. I didn’t foresee falling helplessly in love. I never thought that I would need your company, long to kiss you; ache for you to come and lie beside me at night. I never imagined that I would be terrified of never seeing you again.
It troubled him to think what his own father would say. A man who hated royalty with a vehemence.
Yet Sorg recalled that after each of his piano lessons, he found himself more and more looking forward to his palace visits.
It didn’t matter that he used the visits as much to gather intelligence information as for his own pleasure. Sorg convinced himself that much more than a glimmer of attraction passed between him and Anastasia during their first meeting. And as much of a tomboy as she was, he sensed her vulnerability.
As if despite her privileged upbringing—or because of it—she didn’t fit in anywhere. That weakness made him want to protect her.
Sorg came alert as the guards ushered the Romanovs toward the palace.
Their exercise period was over. The last to enter the French doors was Anastasia. For a moment she hesitated, as if she was searching for something in the grounds but wasn’t quite sure what, and then with a turn of her pretty head she moved back inside the palace doors and was gone.
Sorg’s heart sank like an anchor, as it always did whenever he lost sight of her. He tore his gaze from the telescope. What kept hi
s spirits up was his hope of rescuing Anastasia; that was his mission. He cared nothing for her father. In truth he loathed the tsar, but he had a job to do and it included the ex-tsar and all his family.
He wrote up his notes, recording the time and the family’s general appearance along with his impressions. He would wire his encoded report to Helsinki. In due course, via the undersea cable from London to New York, his message would be telegraphed to Washington.
Sorg put away his notebook and pencil and began to disassemble the telescope. He heard a faint sound like a creaking floorboard and turned.
The landlord, Mr. Ravich, stood in the doorway. He wandered in with his crooked grin, removing his gloves, finger by finger. “Ah, Mr. Carlson, I just came to check if everything’s all right with the plumbing?”
Sorg asked hoarsely, “How long have you been standing there?”
Ravich tucked his gloves into his pocket. In an instant he replaced them with a revolver that he pointed at Sorg.
“Long enough. I’ve learned that a surprise visit to new tenants is often enlightening. It does seem I chose my moment well. I hope this experience has taught you something, Mr. Carlson?”
“To keep my door locked in the future.”
Ravich’s grin widened. “The gun’s loaded, by the way. And I’m well able to use it. Are you armed?”
“No.”
“We’ll see.” The landlord circled Sorg, patting down his clothes.
Sorg felt sweat rise on his forehead, his mind turning somersaults.
Ravich finished, then his free hand caressed the shiny brass telescope. “A fine instrument. German, if I’m not mistaken? Are you enjoying a spot of bird-watching, Mr. Carlson, or is it something more interesting?”
“What do you want?”
Ravich pulled back the net curtain. “The view is one of the reasons why I bought this property. I hoped one day it might add value to my investment. Alas, the mess that Russia is in, I fear my hope may be a lost cause.”
“What’s your point?”
Ravich wandered across the room and peered in at the Gladstone bag on the kitchen table. “I keep asking myself what a man like you is doing with a spyglass pointed at the palace grounds. An innocent act perhaps, but …”
“But what?
“I’ve kept a discreet eye on you since you rented these rooms. After seeing what I’ve just seen I’m tempted to presume that you’re a spy.”
“You presume a lot, Mr. Ravich.”
Ravich jerked the gun. “Don’t take me for a fool. I worked in naval intelligence for years. You’re watching the palace where the Romanovs are imprisoned.”
“Where’s this all leading?”
Ravich’s eyes flashed greedily. “I really don’t give a curse who you are or who you’re working for. Only that you’re sensible enough to come to an arrangement.” The landlord rubbed his thumb and forefinger together in a universal gesture. “You carry on doing whatever it is you’re doing and I turn a blind eye in return for a little generosity.”
“How do I know I can trust you?”
“You don’t. But I think we’d agree things could get messy for both of us by involving the police.”
“I have cash in the other room.”
Ravich motioned with the gun toward the kitchen. “I’m very glad to hear it. But I warn you—try anything and I’ll blow your head off.”
Ravich pressed the revolver into the back of Sorg’s neck and they stepped into the kitchen. “Where’s the money?”
Sorg pointed to the open cupboard and the unscrewed panel lying by it. “In there, in a canvas bag.”
“Remove it. Slowly.”
Sorg hefted out the canvas. He went to open the bag but Ravich said, “Stop. Place your hands above your head and step away.”
Sorg did as he was told.
Ravich used his free hand to loosen the bag string. He rummaged and plucked out a wad of rubles and American dollar bills. Sweat rose on Ravich’s brow. “How much is in here?”
“Seven hundred rubles in different currencies.”
Ravich licked his lips and his hand dug greedily into the Gladstone. “It’s not enough. I’ll want more. Much more.”
At that exact moment Sorg’s fingers grasped at the pen in his breast pocket. Before he could remove the top off the steel nib, Ravich brought up the revolver and it exploded once.
The shot cracked past Sorg’s shoulder. He dropped the pen and grabbed for the gun, his adrenaline pumping. The weapon detonated again, gouging plaster from the wall. Ravich was a big, beefy man but Sorg caught him off balance and pushed against him with all his might. Ravich toppled and Sorg fell on top of him and they rolled on the floor.
Ravich gave a pained grunt, rage in his eyes. “I’ll kill you!”
Sorg struggled to get control of the revolver, using all his weight to twist the gun toward Ravich’s head and slip his finger inside the trigger guard. The gun exploded again, Ravich’s skull snapped back, and his eyes rolled open.
Sorg caught his breath. A pool of blood spread behind Ravich’s skull. He twitched violently and fell still. Sorg retrieved his pen from the floor and pushed himself up to a kneeling position, his face bathed in sweat.
He examined Ravich. A gaping bullet hole was drilled above his left eye, exiting at the back of his head. Sorg pried the gun from Ravich’s fingers. His legs weak, he staggered into the kitchen and threw up into the sink.
When he could vomit no more, he turned on the faucet and rinsed away the mess, and as much of the blood spatter as he could from his clothes. His overcoat and scarf would cover the rest. He opened one of the drawers.
It contained a box of wax candles and a couple of dishcloths. He grabbed a cloth and wiped his mouth. He listened to his heart hammering furiously. It was the first time he ever killed and it made him feel scared, yet exhilarated that he survived.
His survival instinct kicked in and Sorg crossed to the window and stared beyond the curtains. The street was empty. He moved to the front door, opened it gingerly with shaking fingers. The courtyard was deserted.
Ravich had swept it of footprints, except for his own. Sorg’s mind worked furiously. If he simply left the body where it lay and disappeared, perhaps Ravich had relatives who would search for him. Sorg couldn’t be certain of anything, but knew that he had to move fast and without panic.
He stashed the spyglass telescope and banknotes in the canvas bags and tucked both inside his Gladstone. He screwed up the cubbyhole panel. In the kitchen, a blood pool still blossomed around Ravich’s skull. Sorg removed a wax candle from the drawer, took a dinner plate from another cupboard, and returned to the front room.
He struck a match, lit the candle, and dripped enough wax to stick it to the plate. He left the plate on the edge of the table. Sorg wedged open the kitchen door with a piece of folded newspaper. Finally, he buttoned up his coat and donned his Trilby hat. He opened the valve in the cooker, hearing the snake hiss of the gas flow.
He picked up the Gladstone and stuffed Ravich’s revolver in his coat pocket. He exited by the front door and when he hit the cold air, Sorg was already drenched in sweat.
Minutes later and a hundred yards along the street, he heard the massive boom of the gas explosion, sending a spear of bright orange flame shooting into the air, the shock wave striking his back with the force of a punch, almost knocking him over.
Sorg held on to his hat and kept walking.
7
The blond-haired man with hard blue eyes and a pockmarked face sat beside Uri Andrev’s bed. He wore an ankle-length leather trench coat with a scarf and black leather gloves, his polished boots shining, a Bolshevik party badge on his lapel.
Andrev looked at him as he became conscious and the man’s features settled into focus. His face looked older than its twenty-eight years and his coarse skin told of a poor upbringing. Old scar tissue puckered his face, not unlike a boxer who had gone too many rounds in the ring.
They stared at each other with
the easy silence of two men who knew each other a long time, until the blond smiled. “Hello, Uri. It’s been far too long. Two years at least.” His accent was working-class St. Petersburg.
“Leonid. It’s good to see you.”
“And you.” Leonid Yakov studied Andrev, whose dark hair was cropped close to the skull, his face unshaven.
Red welts from malnutrition covered Andrev’s face, his skin blotchy with bruises inflicted by the camp guards.
The room was freezing despite a blazing woodstove in a corner, and the blond removed his leather gloves and blew on his hands. Near the door stood two guards in overcoats and fur-lined hoods, rifles slung over their shoulders. One tall, the other a squat, robust figure with bow legs, both their faces hidden by headgear.
Andrev’s brow felt on fire, an agonizing throbbing in his left shoulder and side. He was in the camp’s sick bay. Sick bay was a joke. It was no more than a filthy wooden shack with a dozen rusting metal beds, vomit-stained floors, coarse blankets, and sackcloth pillows. Disinfectant and rotting bandages stank up the air. A patched sheet hung from a line of rope, all that separated Andrev from a handful of other ill prisoners, their coughing and sputtering a constant background.
“I’ve got something that might help your pain.” Yakov produced a pewter hip flask from his coat pocket. “Here, have some vodka to warm your belly. Put some sunshine into you.”
Andrev gratefully accepted the flask, touched it to his cracked lips, and sipped. “What are you doing in this godforsaken place?”
Yakov stood. “All in good time. Some friends want to see you. Zoba, you first.”
He beckoned the squat little man with the fur hood. When he came closer, Andrev recognized his dark, Georgian features, a hint of the Asiatic in his wrinkled eyes and powerful physique. His good-humored face was set in a permanent grin. “Hello, Captain.”
They shook hands warmly. “Zoba. What are you doing here?”
The Georgian’s grin broadened. “I keep asking myself the same question. Four years in the trenches and still able to laugh—the commissar here reckons I need my head examined.”