The Exile

by Allan Folsom

  “No,” he said suddenly and out loud. “No!”

  People turned to look at him, the Patriarch included. Abruptly he covered his mouth and coughed, as if that were what he had done before, then turned away to feign another.

  Nick Marten/John Barron. What he called himself didn’t matter. He thought he’d taken care of him on the trail above Villa Enkratzer. But he hadn’t. Somehow Marten had survived and was coming after him now. Coming to expose who he was and, in doing so, turn Rebecca against him.

  It was true. He knew it.

  The metronome beat louder. He had to get Marten out of his mind. Feigning a last cough, he turned back to the service. Marten was dead. Everyone else who had searched with him agreed—Murzin, other FSO agents, Swiss army commandos, Kantonspolizei, mountain search and rescue teams that had included three doctors. These were experienced people who would not just guess but know. Moreover, he had walked what seemed every inch of that dark, snow-driven, God-forsaken mountain river edge himself. He was right, and they were right. It would have been impossible for anyone to have survived through the night, wounded and bleeding and in that horrid rush of icy water. Why did he think Marten had? No, Nicholas Marten was dead. There was no question. Just as his father was dead in the coffin before him. He glanced at the Baroness and she nodded toward him, reassuringly.

  He turned back and looked around the room, the grand, ornate, and final resting place of his royal ancestors. The metronome quieted and his spirits rose at the thought of them. He was, in all truth, one of them, the great-grandson of Nicholas and Alexandra. This was his destiny and always had been. He and he alone was Tsarevich of All Russia. Nothing, least of all a dead man, could change it.

  27

  HAMBURG, GERMANY, FUHLSBÜTTEL AIRPORT, FRIDAY, APRIL 4. 10:10 A.M.

  Nick Marten waited in a row of other passengers to board Air France flight 1411 to Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, where he would take a connecting flight to Moscow. He had used one of his credit cards to buy his ticket, something that had made him nervous at the time because Rebecca might have notified the issuing banks that he was dead and canceled them. Obviously she hadn’t, because his card had been accepted and his ticket given to him without question. It had been the same with his other affairs. He had picked up his passport, a reissue of his original, late yesterday at the U.S. consular office in Hamburg. With it had been a small package. Inside it was a working cell phone, complete with battery charger, and a Russian business visa, good for three months and issued by the Department of Consular Service of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the request of Lionsgate Landscapes, a Moscow-based U.K. landscape design company. His destination in Russia, the place where he would be staying—as required on all Russian visas—was the Hotel Marco-Polo Presnja, 9 Spiridon-jevskij Pereulok, Moscow.

  Marten wondered what Lionsgate Landscapes really was, or if it even existed, but it made no difference because his visa had been approved. Everything he had asked for he had been given, and in less than forty-eight hours. For someone who, in his own words, was “barely employed anymore,” Kovalenko had done a remarkable job.

  BALTSCHUG KEMPINSKI HOTEL, MOSCOW. SAME DAY,

  FRIDAY, APRIL 4. 1:30 P.M.

  Alexander, Rebecca, and the Baroness shared a small luncheon table in a corner of Alexander’s private eighth-floor suite that overlooked a bright spring day and the bustle of Red Square. The food was simple, more like breakfast than lunch—blini (pancakes), red caviar, and coffee.

  Their conversation, too, was uncomplicated and centered on two things: the final steps of Rebecca’s conversion to Russian Orthodoxy—a must for any woman who would become Empress and bear royal children; and the choice of outfits she would wear for her wedding and for the coronation that followed almost immediately, and then for the coronation ball that evening. Both matters were important because time was quickly closing in and the events now less than a month away. Moreover, one of Paris’s top couturiers and his staff were meeting them within the hour to take Rebecca’s measurements and decide on the final selections. On that Alexander would defer to whatever Rebecca, the Baroness, and the designer finally chose. For him, other things pressed: a coronation costume fitting for himself, followed by a state television interview, and after it, a four o’clock appointment at the Kremlin with President Gitinov’s chief of staff.

  The meeting was to be about protocol and duty and was both political and social in nature. Russia had never before had a Tsar who was essentially a figurehead, and Alexander knew that because of his sudden, widespread popularity Gitinov wanted to rein him in and make certain he didn’t attempt to turn that influence into power. It was something Gitinov would not do face-to-face because he was all too aware of the political potency of the triumvirate of powers that had brought back the monarchy, but he would make it clear through his chief of staff exactly how far Alexander was allowed to go. Or, more simply, give him his job description, to wit: a constitutional monarch is to be a public cheerleader, ceremonial host, and glad-handing representative of the new Russia at home and abroad. Nothing more. Period.

  It was a role Alexander chafed at but was fully prepared to play, at least for a time, as he expanded his reach and began to build a power base. Then slowly, and in carefully calibrated stages, he would begin to take a more active role, first in politics, then with the military. The idea was to initiate a popular dream of national grandeur in which he became the irreplaceable centerpiece. In three years, parliament would be afraid to move without consulting him; in five it would be the president who was the figurehead; in seven the same would be said for parliament and the generals who commanded the armed forces. In a decade the word “constitutional” would no longer precede the word “monarchy,” and Russia and the world would at last know the full meaning of the word “Tsar.” Josef Stalin’s opinion of Ivan the Terrible was that he had not been terrible enough. Alexander would have no such problem. There was already blood on his hands and he was prepared for more. The Baroness had schooled him in it since youth.

  Alexander smiled at his contemplation and felt a peace settle over him he had not experienced in a long time. It was a feeling, he knew, caused by the simple realization that, with his father’s death, the throne was finally and firmly his, and that Rebecca would be at his side for the rest of his life.

  It made him realize, too, that his earlier gut-wrenching dread of Nicholas Marten’s miraculously rising from the dead was nothing more than a nightmare of his own creation, driven by what he admitted was an almost primal, near psychotic fear of losing Rebecca. It was an emotion he had to watch carefully, because if he didn’t, if he let it take him over, he could unravel in a blink.

  “You had a gift with you when you went out with Nicholas.” From somewhere far off, he heard Rebecca’s voice. His muse vanished as he looked up and saw her staring across the table at him. They were alone; the Baroness had gone.

  “What did you say?” he asked, puzzled.

  “At the villa. You had a gift with you, a gaily wrapped package under your arm, when you and Nicholas went out for a walk. What was in it?”

  “I don’t know, I don’t remember.”

  “Of course you remember. You brought it with you from the library. You put it on the table in the ballroom where we were sitting. And then you took it with you when—”

  “Rebecca. Why are we talking about gifts? Where is the Baroness?”

  “She left to take a phone call.”

  “There was no need. She could have taken it here at the table.”

  “Perhaps it was confidential.”

  “Yes, perhaps.”

  From behind them came a knock, the door opened, and Colonel Murzin entered. He was dressed in the finely cut dark blue suit and crisply starched pale blue shirt that had become the everyday dress of the FSO who guarded Alexander.

  “Tsarevich, the couturier from Paris has arrived and was greeted by the Baroness. She asked that the Tsarina join them.” From Murzin’s manner
it was clear there was something he wanted to discuss with Alexander in private.

  “Go on, darling.” Alexander stood. “I will join you later this afternoon.”

  “Of course.” Rebecca smiled and got up. Gathering her purse, she nodded pleasantly to Murzin and left.

  Murzin waited for the door to close. “I thought you should know, Tsarevich, the consular service has issued a business visa to a man named Nicholas Marten.”

  “What?” Alexander felt his heart skip a beat.

  “It was done yesterday in Hamburg. Arranged through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the request of a Moscow-based U.K. landscape design company.”

  “He is British?”

  “No, American. He is arriving today from Germany. He has reservations at the Hotel Marco-Polo Presnja, here in Moscow.”

  Alexander stared at Murzin. “Is it him?”

  “His visa will have his photograph. I have asked for an electronic copy. It has not yet arrived.”

  Alexander turned and crossed the room to look out. The day was still bright under a cloudless sky, the city alive with early afternoon traffic and a crush of pedestrians. But there in the room, with Murzin standing behind him, he could feel the darkness begin to creep back. And then, from far inside, the metronome began.

  Boom, boom. Boom, boom.

  The same as before. Unnerving and irrepressible. Like a monster emerging from within.

  Boom, boom.

  Boom, boom.

  Boom, boom.

  28

  PARIS, CHARLES DE GAULLE AIRPORT. STILL FRIDAY, APRIL 4. 12:25 P.M.

  Ticket in hand, Nicholas Marten followed the blue line on the polished floor, walking quickly from Terminal 2F where he had landed to Terminal 2C where Air France flight 2244 would take off for Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport at 12:55, thirty minutes from now. He was thankful for the blue line on the floor. It made the transition from terminal to terminal quite simple, especially now, when his mind was elsewhere and his focus was on Rebecca and what to do about her.

  Kovalenko had told him she was staying with the Baroness de Vienne in an eighth-floor suite at the Baltschug Kempinski Hotel. That entire floor and the one beneath it had been taken over by Alexander and the people planning the coronation. As a result the FSO would have both floors, if not the entire hotel, in virtual lockdown. It meant there was no practical way he could get to her himself, so he had to find a means of bringing her to him. How he would do that, he had no idea, but he had to trust he would find a way and that Kovalenko would be there to help him.

  MOSCOW, THE KREMLIN. STILL FRIDAY, APRIL 4. 5:55 P.M.

  Murzin had delivered Alexander to the office of Gitinov’s chief of staff exactly at four. Afterward Alexander had been shown into a private study, given coffee, and asked to wait. The chief of staff, he was told, was with the president on a vital matter and would be with him as soon as possible. An hour later Alexander still waited. Finally, at five-fifteen, a secretary came in and Alexander was escorted down a back hallway and into Gitinov’s private office, where the president himself waited. Alone.

  “Please sit down,” Gitinov said, escorting him to a comfortable sitting area where two overstuffed chairs faced a crackling fire. An aide came in and served tea and then left. As the door closed behind him, Alexander realized that although he had been with the Russian president numerous times, they had never once been entirely alone as they were now. For the first time he became conscious that Gitnov was far more physically fit than he appeared. The tailoring of his clothes hid a strong neck and powerful arms and a broad chest that slimmed quickly to a narrow waist. His thighs under his trousers were bulked and muscular, like those of a wrestler or cyclist. Beyond that, his manner was equally disconcerting. Even though his kind and personable actions at Davos in the aftermath of Marten’s plunge into the mountain stream and subsequent disappearance had been politically driven, here in the intimacy of his office he seemed very relaxed, almost apolitical. He asked of Alexander’s plans for the coronation and his wedding and where he and the Tsarina planned to honeymoon, giving some suggestions of favored resorts on the Black Sea. His open manner, the way he talked, the sparkle in his eyes, and the warmth of his smile would have put any visitor at ease, making him feel free to relax and return the conversation in a like manner, as if he were talking to an old friend. The trouble was, it was completely an act. In reality Gitinov had him under his microscope and was carefully scrutinizing every word and gesture, looking beneath the veneer to see if he was the person he appeared or if he had other designs or ambitions and should not be trusted.

  For one astute enough to realize what was happening, the impact would be intimidating, if not frightening. Yet Alexander realized it and was neither intimidated nor frightened. After all, it was he who had the imperial birthright and was about to become Tsar, not Gitinov. It was he who should be feared and shrunk from and not the other way around. Yet he well knew this was hardly the time or the place to show his claws, and so he simply sat back and quietly and politely chatted about nothing, giving Gitinov the opportunity to judge him any way he chose.

  Twenty minutes later it was over. They shook hands and Alexander was gone, with the president once again giving him personal condolences about the death of his father and then sending him on his way like a schoolboy.

  In retrospect he should have predicted it; Gitinov showing him who was boss by making him wait, and then surprising him with a private meeting designed to feel him out and assess his character. But Alexander had given him nothing, purposely playing smiling jester instead of king. The end result had made Gitinov, despite his shrewdness, look small and inept, overplaying a hand that had not been necessary to play in the first place. Alexander had to smile to himself at the failing and to appreciate the side effect. The intrusion had, at least for a time, taken away his fixation on Nicholas Marten, and with it, the awful overpowering beat of the metronome.

  “Tsarevich,” Murzin turned the black Volga away from the Kremlin to negotiate rush hour traffic on the Prechistenskaya Naberezhnaya, the broad boulevard along the Moscow River. One hand on the wheel, he took a folded paper from his jacket and handed it over his shoulder to Alexander in the backseat. “A copy of the Marten visa.”

  Alexander opened it quickly to look at the bearded figure that stared out at him from the page. The face was painfully thin, the full beard covering most of his features. The eyes were diverted slightly, as if on purpose. Still, there was no doubt who it was, and at that moment Murzin confirmed it.

  “His passport was a reissue of a previous one. He was born in Vermont, U.S.A. His current address is the University of Manchester in England. He is the Tsarina’s brother.”

  The paper still in his hand, Alexander looked off and Moscow became a blur.

  “Tsarevich.” Murzin was watching him in the mirror. “Are you alright?”

  For a long moment there was no reaction, and then Alexander’s eyes swung toward him.

  “Tsarskoe Selo,” he said strongly. “Take the Tsarina and the Baroness there now, tonight, by helicopter. They are to be told that I was called to an urgent meeting, and considering my increasingly difficult schedule and the escalating media attention for both me and the Tsarina I wished them to be free of it all. No one is to know where they have gone. Officially they have left the city for an unknown destination to rest before the coronation. Under no circumstance is anyone, especially the Tsarina, to be told about Marten.”

  “What do you want done about him?”

  “I will see to that myself.”

  29

  MOSCOW, SHEREMETYEVO AIRPORT. 6:50 P.M.

  Once more Nick Marten waited in line. This time he was in Moscow and the queue was at passport control. Somewhere on the far side of the official booths and uniforms, Kovalenko waited. For now all Marten could do was stand with the hundred or so others waiting to pass through the official checkpoint.

  So far the only person he had told he was alive was Kovalenko. He had been wary
of telling anyone else, even Lady Clem, for fear the word would get back to Rebecca and, in turn, to Alexander. Now he knew he needed to call her, and standing there, inching along in the line toward passport control, gave him the time, so he took out the cell phone Kovalenko had given him, clicked on, and dialed. Wherever she was, whatever she was doing, he needed to talk to her. Not only did he want her to know he was alive and well, he wanted her with him and quickly.

  MANCHESTER, ENGLAND. SAME TIME, 9:50 P.M. LOCAL TIME.

  She was in the bathroom of Leopold’s flat preparing herself for Leopold. Leopold himself, a ruggedly handsome, muscular carpenter who had been renovating her flat, was waiting for her in the dark of his bedroom, sprawled naked and impatient on his oversized bed. He sat up at the distant chirp of a cell phone through the closed bathroom door. It wasn’t his, so it had to be hers.

  “Bloody Christ, not now,” he moaned. “Say what you have to say and hang up, luv. Just hang up and get in here.”

  “Nicholas Marten!” Lady Clem whispered in absolute shock. “Wait.” She straightened up, glancing at her nudity in the mirror. “Who is this really? Whoever it is, you are playing a very cruel joke.” Suddenly Clem’s face went beet red as she realized it really was Marten, and she grabbed Leopold’s robe hanging on the back of the door as if Marten could see her and know what was going on.

  “Nicholas Marten, you are a bastard!” she whispered, fuming, as she pulled on Leopold’s robe. “How dare you call me like this, and here and now? And—Jesus God.” She felt herself shiver with emotion as the truth of it hit. “Jesus God, you’re alive! Are you alright? Where are you? Where?” Abruptly she shifted gears again. Emotion was everything.