by Glenn Meade
“Who’s the woman?”
“My wife.”
He grinned, stroking his grubby beard. “Nice-looking wench, I’ll give her that.”
Andrev sensed trouble and reached for his gun but the man’s hand came up grasping a pistol. “Fingers off the gun or you’ll lose your head.”
Lydia went to reach for a Nagant on the sidecar floor, but soldiers rushed forward and grabbed her arms, dragging her from the motorcycle, wrenching the weapon from her. She kicked and fought but it was useless.
Andrev said, “You’re making a mistake interfering with a Cheka officer.”
The bearded man took his revolver. “Does it look like I give a fiddler’s curse? I spit on Lenin.”
“You’re not Red Army?”
The man sneered. “Deserters, all of us. The Reds know better than to bother us around here; they have enough on their plate.” He stepped closer to Andrev. “And you’re Captain Andrev, aren’t you?”
Andrev stared back, astounded.
“Meet an old friend of yours.”
Before Andrev could reply, a voice said, “It’s certainly a small world, captain.”
Andrev spun. The unmistakable figure of Sergeant Mersk—with his drooping mustache and wearing his grubby sheepskin hat—stepped out of a room at the back. His nagaika whip hung from the Ukrainian’s greasy belt and he had a malicious grin on his face, as if he’d been watching the proceedings.
Andrev’s heart sank like an anchor.
Mersk spat on the ground, then he grabbed Andrev’s letter. “If you’re a Cheka officer, then I’m a dancer with the Bolshoi. What are you up to with this, Andrev? The last I heard you were on the run.”
Andrev didn’t answer.
“I asked you a question, you scumbag.” Mersk’s fist came up and crashed into Andrev’s jaw. He slammed against the truck and slid to the floor. Mersk moved in, lashing out viciously with his boot and stamping on Andrev’s neck. “Every dog has its day. I’ll teach you to have respect when I ask you a question.”
Andrev was choking for breath.
“You and I have unfinished business, I think.” He jerked his head at the soldiers and took his boot away. “Tie his hands and watch him closely; he’s a slippery customer.”
Two soldiers manhandled Andrev. They searched him before they tied his hands together with rope.
Two others grappled with a struggling Lydia, and one of them found the black Mauser.
He tossed it to Mersk, who weighed the gun in his palm.
“Plucky, aren’t you? Let’s see if I can turn you two into a profit. What do you think might happen if I cabled the nearest Red barracks with a message for Commissar Yakov, telling him I have you?”
He slipped the Mauser into his jacket pocket and grinned at Andrev. “Business first. I’ll send the cable. Then I’m going to have some fun with this wench of yours before the Reds get their hands on her.”
79
The carriage door opened and Zoba led in Nina. She wore a shawl about her shoulders, her hair tied back. Zoba slipped out, silently closing the door. She regarded Yakov silently.
“How is Sergey?” he asked.
“He’s sleeping but his chest is worse. I’m worried his lungs might hemorrhage. It’s happened before. He needs to see a doctor.”
Yakov saw the heavy strain on her face. Tiredness mixed with anxiety and despair.
“I have a medic on board. He’s a qualified doctor. He’ll do his best for you, though our medicines are limited.”
“What’s happened to Uri?”
“He’s escaped, that’s all I’m certain of right now.”
“Why did you take us from Moscow?”
Yakov sighed. “I told you there would be consequences to your actions. I wasn’t lying. I was ordered by Lenin to put you on a train bound for a prison camp. Right now, we’re headed toward Ekaterinburg. Your situation’s quite hopeless.”
He saw the pained horror in her eyes. “What kind of man can condemn an innocent child to death for his parents’ sins? What kind of man would do that? Sergey’s done no wrong. You’ve sold your soul, Leonid. Sold it, do you hear?”
Yakov fell silent. When he spoke again, he was resolute. “Listen to me, Nina. I didn’t put you on the prison transport. I’m disobeying orders to buy time for you to reconsider. It could cost me my life, and my daughter’s.” He stared into her face. “I may be able to still save you. But do you want to be?” His voice lowered to almost a whisper. “Do you know why Uri came back? If you think it was to save you, you’re greatly mistaken. He’s here to try to rescue the Romanovs.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s true. Half the Red Army is on the lookout for him and the woman he’s with.”
“What woman?”
“We haven’t identified her yet, but when we do, you don’t want to share their fate. You don’t want to condemn your son to death. You owe it to him to survive, Nina, not end your days in a frozen grave in some godforsaken Siberian wasteland.”
He paused. “You have to help me to find Uri, convince him of the folly of his mission, and get him to betray his fellow conspirators. It won’t save him, but it may save you and your son. This is your last chance. When we reach Ekaterinburg tomorrow you’ll be transferred by train to the prison camp and there will be nothing more I can do for you.”
For a long time Nina said nothing, simply stared at him. When she spoke, her voice was strangely distant. “Did you mean it when you said you loved me?”
“Of course.”
She slowly unbuttoned the neck of her dress, exposing the soft rise of her breasts. There was a deadness in her voice. “Is this what you want, Leonid? Is this what you desire? Well, you can have me, anything to save Sergey. But don’t ask me to betray the father he loves.”
She held his stare. Yakov saw tears fill the corners of her eyes. She broke down sobbing. He pulled her close. This time she didn’t resist, as if all the fight was gone out of her, and they stood there, both of them silent, until Nina finally pulled away, wiping her eyes.
Yakov reached out and gently buttoned her dress.
She looked up at him, her watery brown eyes meeting his.
He said, “You don’t know how long I’ve waited for a moment like this. How I’ve ached for it. But this isn’t the time.”
“I’ll do whatever it takes to save Sergey.”
“Then I’ll ask you one last time—help me.”
80
Yakov splashed water on his face in his bedchamber.
He looked at himself in the mirror and saw the desolation in his eyes.
The door opened and Zoba stepped in to join him. “I took her back to her cabin. How did it go?”
Yakov dried his face with a towel and tossed it on the bed. “She hasn’t agreed to anything yet. I’m working on it.”
“I take it there’s definitely no hope if she refuses?”
Yakov said bleakly, “Not a shred.”
The carriage shuddered with a squeal of brakes as the train slowed. Yakov peered out the window and saw a station up ahead. “Why are we halting?”
“To take on more fuel.”
“Find the cable office. See if there’s any news from Moscow.”
Yakov remained by the window, staring at his reflection, tension around his mouth.
Nina’s accusation echoed in his mind. “What kind of man can condemn an innocent child to death for his parents’ sins? What kind of man would do that?”
He stared back at his reflection in the mirror. “Well? What do you say?”
Was she right? Had he sold his soul? He had changed. The passing years and the revolution had hardened his heart. But the grim thought of Nina and her child dying in some freezing hellhole of a camp weighed heavily. And one thing remained constant—his love for her. Even if she spurned him, he couldn’t ignore his feelings.
He gave a hopeless sigh and turned from the window. Some instinct made him open his desk drawer and he remove
d the framed photograph he’d once cherished, taken at the St. Petersburg fair: of him and his mother and Stanislas and Uri Andrev and his father.
Ever since Stanislas’s death he couldn’t bear to look at it. But now he stood the frame on his desk. His mouth grim, he studied the image. The sight of Andrev enraged him. He swept the photograph from the desk with an angry blow.
It crashed against the wall, the glass splintering, and then he knelt and tore the photograph from the shattered frame. He ripped Andrev’s image from the snapshot, crushed it in a ball in his hands, and tossed it on the floor, grinding it with the heel of his boot. All control gone, he kicked at the remains of the frame and they smashed against the corner wall.
He strode into the cramped stationmaster’s office, where a couple of signal clerks were busy with paperwork behind a desk. He found Zoba reading a cable.
“Well?” Yakov demanded.
“Good news mostly, just a touch of bad. More like an inconvenience.”
“Out with it. I don’t have the patience.”
“It’s all happening—Kazan’s apprehended the Phantom.”
“How? Where?”
“In a tunnel near the Ipatiev House. He’s under guard at the Amerika Hotel. We’ll find out more in Ekaterinburg. I’ll bet Kazan will be Lenin’s sweetheart after this.”
“We have to find Andrev.”
Zoba said, “There’s more good news. He’s been caught, along with the woman.”
“What?”
“The cable just came through. The bad part is they were seized by a gang of brigands and deserters.” Zoba slapped a palm on a rail map on the station wall. “They’re here. A village near Kovrov. The brigands cabled our nearest garrison, forty miles away, and asked that the message be passed on to you personally as a matter of urgency.”
“Me? Who are these people?”
“Bandits and cutthroats most of them. A law unto themselves who steal, rape, and terrorize.”
“Why ask for me in particular?”
“One of them is our old friend Sergeant Mersk.”
“Mersk?”
“A bad penny always turns up again. He deserted, remember?” Zoba tapped the map. “There’s a minor rail line that passes through the village, if it hasn’t been blown up or sabotaged.”
“How far?”
“Less than two hours should do it. One other thing.”
“What?”
“Mersk’s cable says he’d consider it an honor to kill Andrev for you. But if you want to take custody of the prisoners, his comrades are demanding a ransom of ten thousand rubles.”
“Whatever it is, we’ll pay.”
81
EKATERINBURG
2:45 A.M.
The Amerika Hotel was the jewel in the city’s crown.
It boasted all modern conveniences—electricity, flushing toilets, bathrooms with hot running water—and not surprisingly was seized by the Bolsheviks for their headquarters.
The luxury first-floor suites were reserved for the Cheka, one flight up from the staff quarters in the basement. There a dozen rooms were transformed into detention cells.
Kazan looked pleased with himself as he hurried down the steps that early morning, rapping his knuckle-duster against his leg. He approached a heavily padlocked metal gate. Two guards snapped to attention, and one of them inserted a key in the lock.
“Well? Has the quack arrived?” Kazan demanded.
“He’s with the prisoner now.”
“Perfect. Remember, no one gets past the gate unless they’re authorized by me. Disobey and you’ll get a bullet.”
The cell had once been a staff bedroom, but now the window was barred.
Sorg lay unconscious on a metal gurney, a tattered white sheet pulled up to his neck. His jaw was bruised and heavily swollen.
A thin, anxious man wearing a frayed dark suit flecked with cigarette ash stood over the prisoner, a black doctor’s bag open by his side. Fear ignited in his face the moment Kazan appeared. The milky-eyed inspector chilled his blood.
“Has he come to yet?” Kazan demanded.
“Briefly, but he lapsed back into unconsciousness. His jaw doesn’t appear to have been fractured or broken, but you must have hit him hard.”
Kazan pulled back the sheet. Sorg was naked above the waist and strapped down with leather restraints. His wound was freshly bandaged. “Can’t you force him to come round?”
“With strong ammonia salts, perhaps. I wouldn’t recommend slapping him in case there’s internal cranial bleeding.”
The doctor felt Sorg’s pulse.
Kazan pinched Sorg’s forehead between his thumb and forefinger. “This swine almost cost me my life. Do whatever you must to get him conscious.”
Outside, the sound of footsteps clattered down the stairs.
Kazan snapped his fingers at the doctor. “I’m expecting company. Get out. Wait for me in the lobby.”
The terrified doctor scurried out and the Ipatiev House komendant, Yurovsky, appeared.
He regarded Sorg with interest. “So, this is the spy? You think he’ll be fit to talk?”
“He better, or the doctor’s life won’t be worth living.”
Yurovsky looked in high form as he lit a cigarette. “I have excellent news. The couple have been caught.”
“What?”
“Commissar Yakov is on his way to take them into custody. You don’t exactly look brimming with joy, Inspector. Do I detect a touch of rivalry between you two?”
Kazan snorted and looked down at Sorg. “Think what you want. One thing is clear: this wasn’t a one-man operation. Our friend here must have had help. Which is why I’m having every guard on checkpoint duty last night questioned, in case they saw anyone.”
“But hundreds of guards were on duty. Besides, most of them are being moved back and forth to the front all the time.”
“We’ll question who we can. You saw the tunnel?”
Yurovsky nodded. “This city’s full of them, They’re like spiderwebs, going back to when Ekaterinburg was designed as a fortress. I didn’t know about the passageway you found. But we’ve thoroughly searched it and it’s empty, as are all the others.”
“And they better remain that way.”
“We’ve locked the doors again and arranged for guards to be posted at every tunnel entrance.”
Kazan smirked. “A word of advice. It might be wise not to mention the tunnel when you’re making your report to Moscow. As komendant, it could seem like a failure of your duty.”
Yurovsky flushed at the reprimand, crushed his cigarette, and went to go.
Kazan said, “Where are you off to?”
“To inspect the woods I’ve chosen for the disposal of the Romanovs’ bodies.”
Kazan grinned. “Why don’t I join you? I could do with some fresh air. By the time we get back our spy ought to be ready for interrogation.”
82
NOVO-TIKHVINSKY CONVENT
EKATERINBURG
6 A.M.
“How? How could you be so reckless?”
Sister Agnes’s temper was in full flow as she faced the undertaker.
Markov anxiously wrung his hands, dark patches under his eyes as if he hadn’t slept a wink all night. “It wasn’t my fault! I warned him to be careful. I was on my way back to pick him up when I saw troops everywhere, so I cleared off as fast as I could. I waited until curfew ended before I even risked coming here.”
They were in Sister Agnes’s office, her mood sombre once she heard Markov’s news.
His voice was shaky. “What if he squeals on us? The Reds could have him screaming for mercy. We’re finished, I tell you. Me, I’m getting out while I can still walk.”
As he turned to leave, the nun put a hand on his arm. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“To hide with relatives in Perm. My son’s already gone ahead—”
She struck him a stinging slap across the face. Markov reeled back, clasping a hand to his jaw, shoc
ked by the nun’s ferocity.
“What—what was that for?”
Pious strength bristled in Sister Agnes’s voice. “To bring you to your senses. This is a time to put your faith in God, not to panic. Tell me again what you heard.”
Markov massaged his jaw. “The Reds delivered the corpse of a curfew-breaker to the mortuary an hour ago. They scared the life out of me when they banged on my door. I almost passed out. I thought they’d come for me.”
“Go on.”
“They boasted that an enemy spy was caught in a tunnel under the city. A Cheka inspector named Kazan made the arrest. The prisoner was taken to the cells in the Amerika Hotel for interrogation. Apparently, he was knocked unconscious. They had to summon a doctor from the city hospital.”
Sister Agnes paced the room in dismay. “I know it looks hopeless, but there must be something we can do.”
“The plan’s a mess now that we can’t use the tunnels. Worse, we’re in danger of being betrayed if he talks.”
A knock came on the door, and a young novice hurried in.
“There’s a man in a uniform waiting for you in the chapel, Sister. He banged on the church door, asking for you.”
Sister Agnes was immediately on guard. “Who is he?”
“I don’t know. But he has the look of the military about him. He demanded to speak with you personally.”
Markov began trembling. “I told you we were finished. What’s the betting that the Reds have the place surrounded?”
Sister Agnes addressed the novice. “Did you see any army vehicles out in the street? Any troops?”
“I didn’t look, Sister. Should I?”
“No, don’t do it now, that might draw attention.” Sister Agnes made the sign of the cross, then pushed Markov toward the door, her voice firm as she instructed the novice, “Take him down to the basement and keep him there. I’ll try to deal with the military.”
Sister Agnes bustled into the chapel, her black habit flapping about her legs.