Ghost of the White Nights

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “Here, for all I have said, ghosts may be more reliable, Minister Eschbach. I wish you luck, for all of us.” With that, he turned and disappeared into the shadows not lit by the tall and curved iron street lamps.

  Wondering exactly the purpose of our exchange, I began to retrace my steps across the square, along the stone path swept clean of the snow, back toward the Volga sedan and Olaf. Christian joined me but did not say anything.

  I could feel a chill from somewhere . . . almost like the feeling of a ghost appearing or being created, and I turned, whirled really, to see another man in a heavy greatcoat running behind one of the lines of piled snow toward us, something in his hand. “Run!”

  “Sir?”

  “Christian! Run like hell!” I didn't have any idea of the range of Bruce's pen zombie-projector, but it was the only weapon I had that was instantly ready for use.

  I triggered it, probably from too far, but at least that might buy me time.

  The man stood there, shaking his head for a moment, then looking at the object in his hand.

  I could sense the ghost-tension rising around me, and threw myself over one of the piles of snow and dropped as low as I could while scuttling away from the half-stunned fellow. I got perhaps thirty yards when there was an explosion, followed by the sound of fragments, falling like a quick rain shower on the stones.

  I moved more quickly but didn't stand erect until I neared the street and Christian.

  “Are you all right—”

  “I'm fine. We need to get out of here.” That was a line from a third-rate spy novel, but true nonetheless.

  “You're still a spy, aren't you, sir?”

  “Let's just say that it might be better not to mention this, Christian. If you feel you have to tell someone, then tell Commander Madley and let him decide.”

  “But you didn't want him to come.” “

  I don't care if he knows. I just didn't want him to be seen here.”

  “Is he? . . .”

  I laughed. “No. Commander Madley is exactly what he seems.”

  “Olaf!” I called as we neared the Volga. “We need to get back to the embassy.”

  The driver frowned but said nothing as we climbed into the back.

  “I think I went sightseeing on the day a revolutionary decided to throw a bomb at the monument. I decided discretion was the better part of valor.”

  “There was one last month, and the month before. They closed the square each time. No one said anything. There was nothing in the papers. There would not be.” The driver made a sound that was half grunt and half laugh.

  As the black Volga carried us back to the embassy, I tried not to frown. I didn't understand the bomb. What purpose was there for Vlasovich to set me up? There was no way he'd get what he wanted—assuming he really wanted what he said he did. But if he didn't, why say he did so directly and enthusiastically? To get my words recorded? What I'd said wouldn't surprise anyone, even on the front page of whatever paper was circulated in St. Petersburg. It probably wouldn't even offend most people.

  The first man had been sent by Vlasovich, but he hadn't said that much beyond platitudes—or had he? What had he said? Even Vlasovich had said little directly, except about the part of my mission that no one really cared if it became public. Everything else had been veiled in sarcasm or innuendo, and in a language foreign to the Okhrana.

  And what if the second man had been the target? In the patches of light and darkness, that also was possible . . . but was what he had tried to convey that deadly that someone wanted one of us dead? Again . . . it had been set up in a way that wouldn't necessarily call attention to my presumed death as being linked to the real issue—whatever it might be. I'd just have been a stupid Columbian diplomat poking around after dark, and an easy target for extremist revolutionaries in a country known all too well for its xenophobia.

  I couldn't say that I understood all the pieces of the puzzle, but those that I did understand bothered me more than a little.

  The other thing was that a ghost had tried to warn me. Or so it seemed. Was that what had happened with Alexander II? Or were the ghosts of the white nights just drawn to the tension of violence, and their appearance served as warning for those who were sensitive? Either way, I owed ghosts—those of the white nights and Carolynne, who in becoming part of my soul had left me more sensitive.

  When we got back to the embassy, we made our way up to the second floor where I had Christian check with Darwaard's office to see if I had any messages or any additional appointments for Tuesday or later in the week. Although I stood back, Darwaard was out, and his clerk looked up at Christian, and then at me, and smiled very politely.

  “When he left, Secretary Darwaard said there weren't any updates.”

  I couldn't say I was surprised, but I didn't say anything until we were well away. “I'm going up to our quarters to rest and get ready for this dinner. I'll see you in the morning, say about ten, in the waiting area outside Piet's office.”

  “Yes, sir.” Christian's smile was somewhere between amused and troubled.

  That was about the way I felt as well as I headed for the back corridor that led to the private elevators.

  26

  Since Llysette was already taking a bath, the first thing I did after I reentered our spacious quarters was look around for suspicious signs. Finding none, the second thing was to change the battery in Bruce's pen projector. The third was to lay out a spare set to slip into the pocket of my formal wear. I might not be able to get back to the embassy for a change the next time, although I doubted I would need the miniature weapon at dinner.

  Then I knocked on the door of her bathroom. “Johan?”

  “C'est moi . . .” I slipped inside into the steamy air. “

  The theatre, it was cold. My teeth they chattered, and Terese's fingers, they were frozen. So a hot bath I am having.”

  “I noticed.” I leered slightly. “

  Johan . . . j'ai froid. Later, mon cher.”

  That was more than enough for me. “How was the piano?” “

  It is very good, and it was tuned.”

  “How did the rehearsals go?”

  “ Comme si, comme ça . . . still we are both tired, and could use more sleep.”

  I nodded. “

  Sleep I am not getting?” Llysette raised her eyebrows.

  “We've been invited out to dinner tonight. Formal wear. We still have to eat somewhere, and I'm not sure that you want to spend every meal in the dining area here.”

  “To where must we go?” Her voice was wary. “

  The Imperial Yacht Club. The number-two man at PetroRus has asked us. His daughter is a fan of your singing, and so is his wife, and a friend.”

  “This will not be late?”

  “No. You're the diva. When you're tired, we beg to depart. But we'll probably get better food than anywhere I know to go.”

  “Plus que ça, je crois.”

  “Probably, but it can't hurt to have supporters among the extended Romanov family.”

  She raised her eyebrows.

  “It can't,” I repeated. “Have you seen any of the others on the concert?”

  “Robert Thies. He arrived this morning. He came to practice as we were finishing.”

  “What's he like?”

  “He is shy. Most quiet. He plays well.”

  “Good.” At that moment, I heard a chiming in the bedroom. I slipped out of the bathroom and looked around. It repeated itself. I realized it must be a door chime, necessary because of the size of the suite, and I hurried through the salon to the door of the guest quarters. I peered through the peephole. Commander Madley was standing there.

  When I opened the door, he stepped into the foyer. “

  I'm sorry for the intrusion, sir, but you and Miss duBoise are going to the Imperial Yacht Club tonight, sir. It's always formal.”

  “I understood that. I have black-and-white wear.”

  “You need your medals,” Madley poi
nted out. He held up a set of miniatures designed to go on a formal uniform. “You'll also need them for the concert on Thursday.”

  I recognized all but two of them. “Medals? I'm a civilian these days.”

  “Ah . . . sir, that distinction doesn't exist for the Russians, not in the upper civil service ranks. I had looked into it before we left Columbia and had this set put together. I'm sorry I forgot to give them to you earlier. If you show up with no decorations, people may talk to you, but it will be much harder, and among some of those you might face a certain disdain. The rank order is roughly equivalent to theirs. The red medal with the blue border means that you're a second level civil servant, the same as Deputy Minister Kent, and the green one with the four stars signifies twenty years of service—that seemed to be right from what we could figure.”

  “That's about right. Military and civil service totalled twenty-four.”

  “The others are your military medals, and you know what each of those mean.”

  It made sense. The Russian aristocracy had always moved in and out of the military and the civil service. “Thank you. That's something I really hadn't thought about.”

  “You seem to have a number of matters somewhat more pressing. Christian told me about this afternoon. Minister Holmbek suggested something might occur. Is there anything I can do?”

  “For the moment, keep it between the three of us. If anything should happen to me, let Minister Holmbek know, but not anyone here until you've reported to him.”

  “I thought as much, sir.” He looked very young, suddenly, and about ready to salute.

  Recalling how long ago it had been since I'd been a lieutenant commander, I felt very old. “We've got another appointment in the morning, at eleven, with a Colonel General Kaselov, who happens to be the head of canals and waterway engineering for the Imperial Army.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I'll see you and Christian at ten, in the second floor embassy office foyer.”

  “We'll be there. Good luck tonight, sir. They say the food there is excellent. I envy you the dinner.”

  After I closed the door, and bolted it, I carried the miniatures back to the bedroom before slipping back into the bathroom, where Llysette still luxuriated in the steamy warmth.

  “That was who?”

  “Commander Madley. He brought me a set of miniature medals to wear. I'd forgotten that people still wear medals everywhere around here. At least to formal dinners.”

  Llysette smiled. “I have never seen your medals.”

  “You will.”

  We finished with bathing and showering and a few other matters and still were down in the doors to the inner courtyard at twenty-five before eight. Llysette was wearing the same formal gown she had worn to the president's arts dinner, the black and green one. I felt overdone with the medals on my chest, and grateful to put my heavy black wool overcoat over the formal wear.

  Olaf bounded out of the Volga and opened the door for Llysette. “Mademoiselle . . .”

  “Thank you.” Llysette bestowed a dazzling smile.

  Olaf returned the smile with a half-bow, then returned to the chauffeur's position and drove out through the open iron gates of the courtyard.

  From what I'd dug up, the Imperial Yacht Club was a relatively new structure on the Neva north of the French Embankment, not all that far from the PetroRus building. The older building had caught fire and been gutted during the confusion of the Winter War of 1936 when the young Tzar Vladimir I had been stupid enough to respond to the Austro-Hungarian gambits over the Polish raids; and by spring, when the snow melted, Austrians held the western half of Poland, and Finland was independent, if only technically, and a protectorate in fact of the Swedish confederacy. So far as I could tell, it was the only winter conflict the Russians had ever lost, and probably because General Schiffen had been smart enough never to invade what might have been called “old Russia” and because the Finns were even better at cold-weather guerilla warfare than the Russians. In any case, that had been the last major war the Russians had fought. No one was counting all the minor insurrections fought in the Caucasus or the border skirmishes with Chung Kuo.

  As we turned off whatever embankment we were traversing, I caught a glimpse of a figure in white, or I thought it was, amid the now lightly falling snow—a ghost in another kind of white night?

  It was less than ten minutes later that Olaf guided the Volga off the avenue and under a gilded covered archway. The area under the archway was brightly lighted.

  “I will wait here,” Olaf said as the doorman in crimson and gray stepped forward and opened the door for me and for Llysette to get out.

  “You could get something to eat . . .”

  “No. I will be here.”

  “Thank you.”

  As we stepped toward the doors, heavy cherry with etched and gilded glass windows set in them, another doorman opened them for us, ushering us into a modest coat foyer, where a young lady in the feminine version of the gray and crimson uniform took our coats. Then we stepped though the second door, opened by yet another doorman in gray, into what was the main entry foyer. No sooner had we stepped into that foyer than Kyril Kulikovsky came forward to greet us.

  “Minister Eschbach . . . Mademoiselle duBoise . . .”

  There were bows all around. The man with Kulikovsky was also tall, both of them slightly taller than I was, if somewhat more slender. I could never be called slender, even with all the exercising and running. As Commander Madley had predicted, they were wearing medals, but only three, the first two almost identical matches to those Madley had added to my array.

  “Serge Yusupov and Adyna Yusupov,” Kulikovsky announced. “This is my wife, Elisabet.”

  Yusupov took a quick but almost furtive inventory of the stuff on my chest.

  “Llysette duBoise, who is the singer, and incidentally, my wife,” I returned.

  “He is the distinguished visiting minister from Columbia.”

  “Most distinguished, I fear,” I said lightly, “for my taste in finding and luck in marrying Llysette.”

  “You are gallant as well as handsome.” The dark-haired Adyna Yusupov smiled.

  So did Elisabet Kulikovsky, but she did not speak.

  I finally managed to finish studying the entry foyer of the Imperial Yacht Club, from the polished warm cherry-paneled walls to the replica shimmering bronze sconces that held electric candles to the custom woven hexagonal carpet laid over the pale green marble tiles, each edged in bronze. The single portrait, set in a recessed section of wall, was that of a young-faced tzar on horseback. It wasn't Peter the Great, and while I couldn't see the rectangular plate at the bottom of the gilt frame, it was probably Mikhail I. It couldn't have been anyone else at the Imperial Yacht Club.

  “Shall we?” asked Kulikovsky, gesturing toward the carved cherry archway, attended by a maitre d'hotel, or the Russian equivalent, dressed in black, but with white trousers.

  The dining room was large, and the tables were set much farther apart than in even the best of Columbian top-level restaurants. In the far left corner was a raised dais, and upon it sat a string quartet, playing something that sounded like Mozart. We found ourselves at a circular table in the far right corner.

  The menus were in Russian and French, and the cuisine seemed to be mainly French.

  “Is there anything that the chef is most known for?” I asked.

  “Here, it is all good,” Kulikovsky said. “I often have the veal impérial.”

  That was something I'd never heard of, which probably underscored my unfamiliarity with the most elite of restaurants, but, then, retired government spies and university professors are not endowed with the kind of resources to frequent such often.

  Llysette had the veal oscar, and I opted for the impérial.

  Kulikovsky ordered the wine, and I wasn't surprised that it was a chardonnay, although the vintage was one I hadn't ever seen—Red Opal—from Australia.

  “To our lovely guest
,” offered Serge Yusupov.

  The wine was a good chardonnay, if not so good as the best from Sebastopol, and went well with the paté, a far lighter type than I'd ever tasted.

  “Kyril . . . did he mention that our daughter studied voice . . . at the Conservatory? . . .” Elisabet's English was deliberate, but not that strongly accented.

  I wondered how many Columbian petroleum executives could have seated themselves and their spouses at dinner with a Russian diplomat and carried the conversation in Russian. I knew the answer, and in a way, it was most depressing. I had to console myself that I could have done it in French or German.

  “Does she sing now?” Llysette asked.

  “Not now. She sang in the chorus with the opera, but the children are small, and . . . her husband is a major with the Blue Cuirassiers . . .”

  So she really shouldn't have lowered herself to singing at all—but I kept that thought to myself and merely nodded. So did Llysette.

  “Can you tell us what you will be singing?” asked Adyna. “At the concert?”

  Llysette offered an embarrassed and rueful laugh. “The Russian songs and arias, mostly. From Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky, and Rachmaninov. Others as well, perhaps.”

  “The tzar will like that.”

  Kulikovsky nodded somberly. The women smiled. I watched, and that was the way it went all through dinner, and dessert.

  I had a .an Russe to finish the meal, and shouldn't have, but flan has always been a weakness of mine. I was debating whether to take another mouthful when Adyna Yusupov turned to Llysette.

  “You must see the Pavlova porcelains . . . you must. They only make one hundred of each, and each is promised years in advance. Even the tzar gets only one.” The dark-haired Adyna smiled cheerfully. “You cannot come to St. Petersburg and not see them. The yacht club is one of the few places where there is a complete set on display. One is even modeled after the great Kshesinskaya. She was a ballerina, not a singer.” She shrugged. “Perhaps someday . . .”