Alex let out a breath. “Good Lord, Krym, that was close.” He lifted the glass to his lips and after swallowing a fortifying two inches of dark liquor continued. “One less hour last night and we wouldn’t have made it. Whatever possessed them to advance the execution by a day?”
Krym moved his bulk—evidence of too many self-indulgent years—and sighed softly. “According to high-placed rumor, lust is the reason … one of the cardinal vices, after all. It seems”—and his brow lifted sardonically—“the commissar misses Lola and must be off to Yalta again.”
“Christ!” Alex exploded quietly. “I asked her to do a good job for me, but apparently she has exceeded requirements.”
Seid Bey eyed his old friend, now slouched low on the down-cushioned sofa. Alex was long, lean, handsome, no dissipation evident in face or form, no evidence of too much hedonistic living, and Krym ruefully resolved to give up a few of his vices starting tomorrow. “Now, Sasha,” Seid Bey reminded him wryly, “you know damn well Lola would do anything for you. She’s always been hungry for you, even though she knew you had eyes only for your wife and wouldn’t give her a tumble. Of course she’d do a good job. Don’t go coy on me.”
Alex looked up over the rim of the glass and didn’t insult either of their intelligences by pretending not to understand. Alex’s experience with the gentle sex had been wide and varied, and he knew very well when a woman wanted him. The “wanting” had never diminished over the years—his dark good looks still attracted constant attention. But shortly after his marriage many years ago, the wide and varied part of his experience had abruptly ceased. When Alex found the love of his life, females like Lola had been forced to repine without his attentions. “Lola’s intentions, despite the unexpected results, were of the best, I’m sure—”
“Indeed,” Seid Bey interrupted with a smirk.
Alex grinned in acknowledgment and continued conversationally, “but her unquestionable allure—”
“You’ve noticed, then.” Another interruption, accompanied by another smirk.
“I happen to be in love with my wife, Krym. However, I’m not blind. Now, if you’re through being lascivious,” he said calmly, “I’ll finish.” Alex looked squarely at Krym and after a five-second pause went on. “Her unquestionable allure for Tiflis’s little commissar made us all work our tails off tonight. Fortunately, all was accomplished in time, and we only await the rising sun. Lola meant well, despite the abrupt change in plans, and she’ll be abundantly rewarded for her efforts. She kept my son alive for ten extra days, and for that she can name her price.”
“A personal gift, Sasha?” Seid Bey asked with a decided leer.
The solemn look vanished and Alex chuckled softly. “Jesus, Krym, you’re in a mood tonight. Is your harem on your mind after a solid night of unaccustomed physical labor with dynamite and land mines?” He grinned, then, setting his glass down, said, “And no, not a personal gift. You know me better than that.”
The finality of Alex’s tone reminded Seid Bey of all the times before the war when he and Alex had spent entire nights at Lola’s in Yalta, gambling and drinking. While everyone else would invariably retire upstairs with some accommodating female guest, Alex had always politely declined. Just like tonight, that same softly spoken yet ineffably firm “no.” “Still, Sasha?” Seid Bey asked wistfully, feeling in that somber hour before dawn a sense of deprivation, an obscure bereavement that his life, perhaps, had been misspent and frittered away. “Still only Zena after all these years?”
“She’s all I’ve ever wanted, Krym,” Alex quietly replied.
Within the half hour, activity was in full swing once again. Red Army uniforms had been obtained—Seid Bey had more connections than a younger son of a sultan—and those uniforms allowed a very smooth and relatively undisputed requisitioning of the truck appointed to convey Apollo to his hanging. The original guards in the truck, of course, were replaced by substitute Bolsheviks bearing a very distinctive Dagestani countenance and physique. The newly requisitioned truck and its imitation guards sped through the streets of Tiflis, then climbed slowly up the narrow streets of the old quarter toward Metekhi Prison.
Apollo was sleeping, his head buried in his bare arms, when they came to wake him before daybreak, leaving him a change of clothes and the dismal fare they called breakfast. “So you look respectable for your execution,” he was told with a light note of hilarity. The derisive words filtered past the throbbing ache in his brain. And suddenly the thought of dying made Apollo more angry than sad.
Christ Almighty, he had a hell of a lot to live for, and he didn’t feel like docilely giving up his life. He wanted Kitty, and he wanted to watch his son grow up. It didn’t make much sense now, in this maze of cells and corridors floors below the street, but once he saw daylight again—damn! He was at least going to make a bid for freedom. Better to die with a bullet in the back than be so much sacrificial meat dangling and turning purple on the end of a rope.
Without very high hopes, but with a driving need to try, Apollo made some swift, if limited, contingency plans. It was more of a gesture for life than anything else. He stirred then, marshaling his depleted strength. He would have to walk, think, act. Stiffly he rolled over and sat up, taking his time. He felt like hell. He hauled himself upright and started dressing.
He was brought up from the subbasement of the prison and escorted through a spiderweb of corridors, stairways, turning hallways, and guardrooms. The long walk took its toll on his fragile stamina. Prison had sapped his strength. He had lost considerable weight, and every part of his body now rebelled at the strain put on it. His tall frame looked even taller because of the prison leanness; the pale hair lay in long curls at the nape of his neck; his dark, heavy brows, golden feverish eyes, and stark cheekbones gave him the dangerous look of a bird of prey.
Calling on his reserves, he managed to walk the long distance unaided, drawing strength from necessity.
One last chance, he thought, seeing the glimmer of daylight coming through the doorway at the end of the long corridor before him. One last chance before the ride to the scaffold. For perhaps the first time in his life, Apollo was stretched to the limit, his concentration essential. There would be no second chances today.
As Apollo emerged into the sunlight of the courtyard, the bold light caught his overlong, untidy fair hair, defined the shadows and hollows of ill health, and lit his brilliant yellow eyes. He looked singularly high-strung. Momentarily blinded by the radiant morning sunshine, he stumbled on the low step, falling against the escorting guard to his left. With instincts of survival nurtured in the mountains and honed to a fine pitch by years of war, he took his slender chance. In a single blur of movement he pulled the pistol from the guard’s holster and fired point-blank even before it was completely free of the leather. With an animal-like twist he spun around, firing at the guard on his right—once between the eyes. A neat, rather largish hole at this close range, his brain abstractly noted. Recovering himself, he poised to leap forward just as a Cheka guard came running up from behind. A leather-coated arm jerked up viciously and a rifle butt slammed into Apollo’s head.
The force of the blow drove Apollo to his knees, and, flinging his head up, he turned half-around with the violence of the impact. For one second—two—he clung to consciousness, defying darkness and death, until with surprise and fury he realized he was falling. His knees gave way and he dropped like a stone, stunned and helpless.
“Give me some help with this bastard!” the Cheka guard snapped at the soldiers in the truck that had drawn up to the doorway, already dragging Apollo’s semiconscious form forward. “He’s still alive, and he’s going to hang a damn long time before he dies.”
Everyone in the truck had viewed the few swift seconds of gunfire, but they had stayed their hands, reluctant to bring out the entire contingent of guards inside with the sound of full-scale firing. When it had become apparent that the third guard was going to be a problem, fingers had tightened on trig
gers and guns had trained on the Cheka. If he made a move toward killing Apollo outright … with a terrible leisure they had watched Apollo go down.
In response to the snapped order, two Red soldiers jumped out of the back of the truck and lifted Apollo. Carrying him back, they placed him on the bed of the truck, then lightly vaulted back in to join the two guards already seated in the dim interior.
Thrusting his head into the covered truck, the Cheka guard’s gaze swung around the benches lining the walls. “Where’s Georgi?” he inquired curtly. “He’s supposed to be on duty today.”
In a monstrously mangled articulation of the Russian syntax, a voice replied, “Georgi feel no good, yes.”
To Apollo, on the floor, the sound of a choir of angels could not have been lovelier as he dimly recognized the familiar voice.
With considerable effort, Apollo turned his head toward the sound.
His heavy lids laboriously lifted, and a dim circle of dark and blurred faces refused to come into focus. Apollo shut his eyes, then tried again. This time his dazed golden eyes met the amused gaze of Karaim.
“Stay here and wait for me,” the Cheka guard commanded. “I have to notify the prison of the death of these two guards. I’ll be right back.” He turned.
“Yes, to please Your Honor,” Karaim murmured softly, and the Cheka guard spun around at the deliberate, clearly enunciated aristocratic formula. Karaim gut-shot him.
Sahin had already given the command to drive, and before the body hit the cobblestones the truck was thirty feet across the courtyard.
“Jesus.” Apollo grinned, speaking with the least possible expenditure of effort. “I’d just about given up on you. Next time don’t call it so close. I was already trying to remember my prayers.”
“We were waiting for Sasha,” Karaim explained.
“Papa’s here?” Apollo struggled a little unsteadily to a seated position in the swiftly moving vehicle.
“Driving.”
Apollo leaned back against the truck wall and exhaled a great sigh. Suddenly the world took on a rosy glow.
Seconds after the truck exited the courtyard and narrow street that fronted the Metekhi, both outlets to the Krasilnava exploded in a fiery blast. Windows were shattered for blocks. Several hairpin turns later, down steep, narrow streets, the truck squealed on two wheels onto the Bebutovskaya, proceeded for six blocks at high speed, turned right onto Ganovskays, and after a block and a half turned left again into Seid Bey’s spacious garage, a mere five hundred yards from Erivansk Square, the site of Apollo’s scheduled hanging.
For the remainder of the day while the city crawled with troops and police and Cheka conducting a door-to-door search for Apollo, the men enjoyed the hospitality of Krym Seid Bey within the confines of his harem. Once, late in the morning, Krym was summoned by servants and left to guide the party of Cheka in black leather coats through his elegant abode—but even the brash, disreputable security troops of the Red Army knew better than to disturb the sanctity of a man’s harem. Every Moslem from the Manchurian steppes to Constantinople would have risen in rebellion at the affront.
Seid Bey returned two hours later. “The search didn’t take long,” he explained to his assembled guests disposed on divans in one of the larger chambers, “but drinking to Lenin’s health from my private stock required a nicety of timing and sincerity. It would never do to rush the amenities.”
“How is the search coming?” Alex asked with a wide smile.
“I detected a note of frustration,” Seid Bey replied, a faint smile quirking his mouth. “It seems the Metekhi is considered escape-proof.”
“Once every hundred years,” Apollo murmured from the pile of silk cushions on which he was half dozing. His face held a distinct smile although his eyes were closed.
“Really?” Seid Bey inquired. “A fitting occasion, then, to celebrate.” He clapped his pudgy hands sharply and within minutes his orders were being carried out. Champagne came first, followed shortly after by food served by a score of exquisite harem females. The rest of the day passed in pleasant idleness.
Apollo ate heartily, drank moderately, eschewed the women with grave politeness, and slept the evening hours away. Having received a bath and clothes immediately upon arriving within the confines of Seid Bey’s sprawling home, Apollo’s much maligned body was now clean, fed, bandaged, freshly dressed, and convalescing with the remarkable recuperative energies of youth.
As the night drew toward its zenith, Alex extended his heartfelt thanks for the last time to his old friend, offered the sanctuary of one of his several homes on the continent should the need arise for Krym to discontinue doing business in Tiflis , and then woke his son for the last leg of their journey to the yacht and … freedom.
Shortly after midnight, on a black night with no moon, a sleek Pierce-Arrow slid out of a garage near the Erivansk Square and, taking a circuitous route out of Tiflis, purred down the road to a quiet cove ninety miles west of the capital.
After the initial exuberant greetings between father and son and friends early that morning, and after he had been given three weeks worth of news in swift detail, Apollo had been calm, composed, almost indolent; resting, sleeping, talking very little. Now as they approached the Ilori area, Apollo became alert, sitting upright, staring intently out the window into the blackness.
“She might be sleeping,” Alex said, understanding what was going through his son’s mind.
“I know.”
“She came down out of the mountains herself with the child, looking to rescue you. Did you know that?”
“Sahin told me.”
“A very brave woman.”
“And more.” It was impossible to adequately express what she meant to him.
Alex smiled, a smile of contentment and reminiscence. “The Cub is the spit of you at six months.”
Apollo’s head turned from the window. “I’m very lucky,” he said, and there was a wealth of meaning in those three simple words.
“So I understand. Would-you have wanted her, had the child borne the stamp of another man?”
“I told myself I wouldn’t, but I think I knew I was always lying to myself about that.” Even before the mountains he had known.
“She hasn’t had an easy time these last few years.”
“I intend to spend the rest of my life remedying that.”
“If you and Kitty can be as happy as your mother and I have been, a man can’t ask for more.”
“God willing,” Apollo said softly and turned back to the window, his golden eyes searching the darkness for the shimmer of dancing light that meant the Southern Star—and his wife and son, whom he had expected never to see again.
“By the way, Leda’s on the Southern Star.”
Apollo’s head twisted around, his face lit from within. “From Shura? You got her from Shura?”
“Sahin did.”
“I owe him a helluva favor.” He laughed softly. “I bet she didn’t let anyone in Shura ride her.”
“So the rumor went, but they wanted her back nonetheless. Since there are only a dozen Karabaghs in all of the Caucasus, she was dyed to disguise the color and brought down three days ago.”
“You were so sure of my release?”
“Of course.”
“Such confidence?” One brow arched slightly.
“Not confidence, necessarily, but determination. I would have died trying. And many besides me.”
“Thank you,” said Apollo simply. “And thank you for remembering Leda. We’ve been through a lot together. On more than one occasion she brought me out of a battle on her own.”
Kitty was rocking her son in the master stateroom of the Southern Star when Apollo walked in. The Cub had been restless through the night, perhaps sensing the tenseness in his mother, and he had just fallen back to sleep.
He had the familiar, elegant presence, but he seemed quieter, less dynamic than she remembered. Apollo came only a few paces into the room, then stopped and smiled
. His burnished head glistened in the dim light, his large tawny eyes were shadowed underneath with blue. He was leaner, Kitty noted. He had been mistreated—the signs were all there—but he walked steadily and he was very much alive.
Apollo’s voice was pleasant, unchanged. “Bon soir, dushka,” he said softly, the smile feathering his eyes and grooving his cheeks in well-remembered, achingly familiar lines. “Tell me, does the Cub have any new tricks for his papa? I’ve thought about you both during these many days.”
Joy, relief, overwhelming love swept over Kitty like a tidal wave. Her misty eyes reflected the great happiness that inundated her senses. “I’ve showed him your picture every day,” she said, her mouth trembling, her eyes clinging to him shamelessly, “and he always smiles.”
Her heart bled at the slight limp when he crossed the short expanse of pale blue carpet. Apollo lifted his sleeping son from Kitty’s lap, kissed him softly, and placed him in his cradle. “In the morning he’ll show me his smile.” Turning back, he reached for Kitty and pulled her fiercely into his arms. “God, I’ve missed you,” he whispered, his arms like iron vises. Only that morning he had contemplated never seeing her again. Tears glittered on Kitty’s lashes. They clung to each other. Their lips met in an aching kiss. Time stood still as their hands and lips said all the things they felt.
The soft bed whispered under their weight and for a time only the sounds of love sighed in the stillness of the room. She heard him swear once as pressure was put on some of his burns, but nothing so mundane could stop him. Urgent mouths tasted, tempted, tantalized; urgent hands and limbs touched and twined, growing wildly impatient until the burning, covetous craving was satisfied in a savage ecstasy.
And then, in the poignant afterhush of release, Kitty gently stroked the scars, the old whippings, the freshly mutilated skin, sorrowing for every painful degradation. Her touch was infinitely tender. “So much suffering. It must have been terrible.”
“But I lived,” Apollo breathed quietly, an inexpressible thanksgiving in his heart. His expression pensive, he added, “And so many haven’t.” Then his muscled body tensed almost imperceptibly and he deliberately changed the subject. “Papa tells me you were bent on some reckless heroic path. How did you slip Pushka’s guard?” He alternately marveled and lovingly chastised Kitty as she related her harrowing experiences. “It doesn’t seem,” he chided mockingly at the end of the narrative, “that you are inclined to be a stay-at-home, docile female.”
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