The Romanov Prophecy

by Steve Berry

  PAUL THORN

  BORN AUGUST 12, 1904--DIED MAY 26, 1925

  "Interesting that they used the correct dates of birth," he said. "Wasn't that a little foolish?"

  "Not really. Nobody knew who they were."

  On both of the monoliths the same epitaph appeared below the names. HE THAT ENDURETH TO THE END SHALL BE SAVED.

  Lord motioned to the words. "A last message from Yussoupov?"

  "I always thought it fitting. From what I was told, they were each quite special. Perhaps if they'd continued as the tsarevich and grand duchess, their personalities would have been corrupted. But here they were merely Paul and Anna."

  "What was she like?" Akilina asked.

  A smile crept onto Thorn's mouth. "She matured wonderfully. As a teenager, Anastasia was plump and arrogant. But here she thinned and I'm told was quite beautiful, like her mother at that age. She walked with a limp and her body was scarred, but her face was untouched. My father made a point of telling me everything that Yussoupov said about her."

  Thorn stepped over to a stone bench and sat. The hoarse croaking of crows echoed in the distance.

  "She was to be the hope, though there was fear of hemophilia passing from her to a male child. No one seriously believed Alexie would survive long enough for a wife to be found and children produced. It was a miracle he made it out of Yekaterinburg without an attack. He had many attacks here. There was a local doctor, though, who had some success with him. Alexie learned to trust him, as with Rasputin, and in the end it was simple flu that killed him, not his defective blood. Rasputin was right on that, too. He predicted hemophilia would not be the cause of the heir's death." Thorn gazed off at the mountains in the distance. "My father was a year old when Alexie died. My grandmother lived until the nineteen seventies. She was a wonderful person."

  "Did she know about Alexie?" Lord asked.

  Thorn nodded. "She was Russian-born to noble blood. Her family fled when Lenin took over. She knew it all. Alexie's physical afflictions were impossible to hide. They spent only three years together, but you would have never known from listening to her. She loved Alexie Nicholaevich."

  Akilina stepped toward the markers and knelt down on the grass. He watched as she crossed herself and said a prayer. She'd told him about her experience in the San Francisco church, and he now realized this Russian woman was more religious than she wanted to admit. He, too, was moved by the tranquil scene, disturbed by nothing other than the rustle of squirrels through princess trees.

  "I come here often," Thorn said. He motioned toward three more markers, their backs facing them. "My father and mother and grandmother are all buried there."

  "Why wasn't your grandmother placed here, with her husband?" Akilina asked.

  "She refused. The sister and brother should be buried together, she said. They are divine, of royal lineage, and should rest alone. She was insistent on that."

  They drove back to Genesis in silence and Lord headed straight for Thorn's office. Inside, he noticed photographs of a woman and two young men displayed on a dusty credenza. The woman was attractive, with dark hair and a smile that transmitted warmth. Thorn's sons were both handsome with dusky-hued complexions, strong features, and wide Slavic cheekbones. They were Romanovs. One-quarter each. In direct line with Nicholas II. He wondered how Thorn's siblings would react when told they were now nobles.

  He'd brought the travel bag from San Francisco and laid it on a wooden table. Last night, in the excitement of the moment, he'd not shown Thorn the Faberge egg. Now he gently removed the shattered treasure and found the two tiny portraits of Alexie and Anastasia. Thorn studied them closely.

  "I've never seen what they looked like after they came here. No other photographs were ever taken. My grandmother told me about these pictures. They were made at the cabin, not far from here."

  Lord's gaze returned to the photos of Thorn's family on the credenza. "What about your wife?"

  "I didn't say anything to her last night. Once your employer arrives and we determine what's to be done, then I'll speak to her. She's gone for the day. Down to Asheville to visit her sister. It'll give me time to think."

  "What's her background?"

  "What you really mean is, does she qualify as tsarina?"

  "It's something that has to be considered. The Succession Act is still in place, and the commission intended on following it as closely as possible."

  "Margaret is Orthodox by birth, with some Russian blood, as much as could be found twenty-five years ago here in the United States. My father personally searched for candidates."

  "You make it sound so impersonal," Akilina said.

  "I didn't mean to. But he realized the depth of our responsibility. Every effort was made to maintain a continuity with the past."

  "She's American?" Lord asked.

  "From Virginia. Which makes two Americans Russia will have to accept."

  There was something else he wanted to know. "The man who sent us here told us about tsarist wealth that might still be in banks. Were you privy to that information?"

  Thorn set the photos of his ancestors beside the clump of debris that was once a Faberge egg. "I was given a safe-deposit key and told where to go when the time arrived. I guess that's now. I assume the information will be in the deposit box. I was told never to attempt access unless you arrived. New York will have to be our first stop."

  "Are you sure the box still exists?"

  "I pay the rental every year."

  "Did you pay the rental in San Francisco?"

  Thorn nodded. "Both are paid from automatic withdrawals on accounts that were opened decades ago under fictitious names. I don't mind telling you we had a problem when the law changed and Social Security numbers had to be attached to every account. But I managed to use a couple of deceased clients' names and numbers. I was concerned about a trail, but I never considered my position dangerous. That is, until last night."

  "I can assure you, Michael, the threat is real. But Taylor Hayes will provide protection. You'll be okay. Only he knows where we are. That much I can assure you."

  Hayes climbed from the car and thanked the Pridgen & Woodworth associate who'd been waiting at the Atlanta airport. He'd called ahead and told his secretary to have somebody there, and with three dozen lawyers in his division, and that many and more in paralegals to choose from, the task should not have been difficult.

  Droopy and Orleg had traveled with him from California and they, too, stepped out into a foggy morning. Neither of the Russians had uttered a word since the airport.

  Hayes's house was a stone-and-brick Tudor monstrosity that sat on three wooded acres in north Atlanta. He had no wife. The divorce had come a decade ago. Luckily, there'd been no children. And there would be no more wives. He harbored no desire to share anything he possessed with anyone, much less a greedy woman who'd want a respectable percentage of his assets as compensation for the privilege of having lived with her.

  He'd called from the car and told his housekeeper to have food prepared. He wanted to clean up, eat, and get on the road. There was business waiting a few hours north in the North Carolina mountains. The kind of business that would shape his future. Serious men were depending on him. Men he did not want to disappoint. Khrushchev had wanted to come with him, but he'd vetoed the idea. Bad enough he was strapped with two burly Russians who could use personality lessons.

  He led Droopy and Orleg through a wrought-iron gate. Leaves slid across the brick pavers, riding a wet morning breeze. Inside the house, he saw that his housekeeper had followed directions and prepared an early lunch of cold cuts, cheese, and bread.

  While his two Russian associates gorged themselves in the kitchen, he stepped into his trophy room and unlocked one of several gun cases that lined the paneled walls. He selected two high-powered rifles and three handguns. Both rifles were equipped with sound suppressors--usually used for hunting in heavy snow to avoid avalanches. He unbolted the clips and peered down the barrels. He checked the
scopes and sites. All seemed in order. The handguns were loaded with ten shots each. All three were Glock 17L Competition pistols. He'd bought them on a hunting trip in Austria a few years back. Droopy and Orleg had certainly never been privileged enough to handle weapons like these.

  He gathered spare ammunition from the locked closet on the other side of the room, then walked back to the kitchen. The two Russians were still eating. He noticed open beer cans. "We'll leave here in an hour. Easy on the alcohol. Drinking has limits here."

  "How far away is this place?" Orleg asked through a mouthful of sandwich.

  "About a four-hour drive. That will put us there by midafternoon. Let me make myself clear. This isn't Moscow. We do this my way. Understand?"

  Neither Russian said a word.

  "Is it necessary I call Moscow? Perhaps more instructions could be given to you by phone."

  Orleg swallowed his food. "We understand, lawyer. Just get us there and tell us what you want us to do."

  FORTY-SIX

  GENESIS, NORTH CAROLINA

  4:25 PM

  Lord was impressed with where Michael Thorn lived. It was a lovely neighborhood of older homes with forested lots and deep lawns. Ranch style was the description he recalled appended to the design, most of the houses single-story brick structures with gabled roofs and chimneys.

  They'd driven over so Thorn could tend to his dogs. The lawyer's wooded backyard was dotted with pens and Lord immediately recognized the breed. The males were noticeably larger and all of the animals, about a dozen, varied in color from sable red to tan and black. The heads were long and narrow and slightly domed. The shoulders sloped, the chests narrowed. They stood about three feet tall, each animal a hundred pounds or so, and muscular, the fur long and silky.

  They were in the sight hound family and their name, borzoi, meant "swift." Lord smiled at Thorn's choice of breed. These were Russian wolfhounds, bred by nobility for the demands of coursing wild game through open terrain. Tsars since the 1650s had raised them.

  This one apparently no exception.

  "I've loved these dogs for years," Thorn said as he walked about the pens, filling water bowls with a hose. "I read about them years ago and finally bought one. They're like chocolate-chip cookies, though. Can't have just one. I ended up breeding them."

  "They're beautiful," Akilina said. She stood close to the cages. The borzois stared back at her through oblique brown eyes encased by black rims. "My grandmother cared for one. She found him in the woods. He was a fine animal."

  Thorn opened one of the cages and dumped scoops of dry food into a bowl. The dogs did not move and had yet to bark. The animals' gazes followed Thorn's movements, but they did not otherwise advance toward the meal. The lawyer then motioned with his forefinger to where the food bowls lay.

  The dogs pounced.

  "Well trained," Lord said.

  "No sense having beasts like these unless they obey. This breed trains well."

  Lord noticed that the scene was repeated in the other cages. Not one of the dogs challenged Thorn or disobeyed a command. He knelt in front of one of the cages. "Do you sell them?"

  "By next spring this litter will be gone, and I'll have puppies again. Each time I breed the best of the lot. Only those two, there, stay continually."

  Lord stared at two dogs in the pen closest to the back porch. A male and female, both sable red, coats like silk. Their pen was larger than the others and included a wooden enclosure.

  "The best of a litter from six years ago," Thorn said, pride in his voice. "Alexie and Anastasia."

  Lord grinned. "Interesting choice of names."

  "They're my purebred show dogs. And my friends."

  Thorn moved toward the cage, unlocked the gate, and gestured. The two animals immediately smothered him with affection.

  Lord watched his host. Thorn appeared levelheaded and genuinely in awe of his ancestral responsibilities. Nothing like Stefan Baklanov. He'd heard Hayes speak of Baklanov's arrogance and the fear that Baklanov was far more interested in the title than actually ruling. Michael Thorn seemed quite different.

  They returned to the house and Lord examined Thorn's library. The shelves were filled with treatises on Russian history. There were biographies of various Romanovs, many from nineteenth-century historians. Most of the titles he recognized from his own reading.

  "You have quite a collection," he said.

  "You'd be surprised what you can find at secondhand bookstores and library sales."

  "Nobody ever questioned the interest?"

  Thorn shook his head. "I'm a long-standing member of our historical society, and everyone knows my love of Russian history."

  On one shelf he spied a book he was quite familiar with. Felix Yussoupov's Rasputin: His Malignant Influence and Assassination. Yussoupov had published the account in 1927, a scathing attack on Rasputin that repeatedly tried to justify the murder. Beside the volume rested the two memoirs Yussoupov published in the 1950s, Lost Splendor and En Exil. Vain attempts at raising money, if Lord recalled what later biographers had concluded. He motioned to the shelf. "Yussoupov's writings were anything but flattering to the imperial family and Rasputin. If I remember, he particularly attacked Alexandra."

  "All part of the deception. He knew Stalin was interested in what he was doing and didn't want to do anything that might raise suspicion. So he kept up the facade till his death."

  He noticed a few volumes on Anna Anderson, the woman who maintained to her death that she was actually Anastasia. He pointed to the books. "I bet those were amusing."

  Thorn smiled. "Her real name was Franziska Schanzkowska. Born in Prussia. She wandered in and out of sanatoriums until Yussoupov learned of her resemblance to Anastasia. He taught her everything she needed to know, and she was an eager student. By the time she died, I actually think she believed herself Anastasia."

  "I read about her," Lord said. "All spoke of her in loving terms. She seemed an exceptional lady."

  "A fitting stand-in," Thorn said. "One I never really minded."

  The faint sound of car doors slamming could be heard through the front windows. Thorn stepped over and peeked out plantation shutters. "A sheriff's deputy is here," he said in English. "I know him."

  Lord stiffened and Thorn seemed to understand. The lawyer moved to the double doors leading to the entrance foyer. "Stay here. I'll see what this is about."

  "What is it?" Akilina asked in Russian.

  "Trouble."

  "When is your employer due?" Thorn asked at the doorway.

  He checked his watch. "Anytime now. We really need to get back to the inn."

  Thorn closed the double doors, but Lord crossed the room and cracked them open just as a doorbell chimed.

  "Evening, Mr. Thorn," a deputy said. "The sheriff wanted me to come over and talk with you. I tried your office, your secretary said you were home."

  "What's the trouble, Roscoe?"

  "Has a man named Miles Lord and a Russian woman come to see you yesterday or today?"

  "Who is this Miles Lord?"

  "How about you answer my question first."

  "No. I haven't had any visitors. Much less Russian ones."

  "Kind of strange to hear you say that. Your secretary said a black lawyer named Lord and a Russian woman were at your office last evening and with you all today."

  "If you already knew the answer, Roscoe, why'd you ask?"

  "Just doin' my job. Care to tell me why you lied to me?"

  "What's the big deal about these two?"

  "A Moscow warrant for murder. They're both wanted for the death of a city cop there. Shot in Red Square."

  "How do you know that?"

  "Those two there in my car told me. Brought the warrant with 'em."

  Lord raced from the door to the study's front window. He glanced out just as Droopy and Feliks Orleg climbed out of the police cruiser.

  "Oh, shit," he whispered.

  Akilina was instantly by his side and saw what he did
.

  The two Russians started their march from the curb. Both reached under their coats and guns appeared. Shots popped like firecrackers in the distance. Lord bolted for the double doors and yanked them open just as the deputy's body crumpled forward into the front doorway. Apparently the first salvo had been meant for him.

  He leaped forward and grabbed Thorn, jerking him back and slamming the wooden door shut. He clicked the lock just as bullets pounded the outside.

  "Down," he screamed.

  They lunged to the tile floor, rolling toward a far hall. Lord glanced at the deputy. Three large holes were spewing blood. No sense wasting time with him. "Come on," he said, springing to his feet. "That door won't stop 'em long."

  He sprinted down the hall toward sunlight at the far end. Thorn and Akilina followed. He listened as the front door was rattled, then more shots. He entered the kitchen and yanked open the back door, motioning Thorn and Akilina out onto the terrace. More shots echoed and, in the instant before he followed, he heard the front door splinter.

  He watched as Thorn raced for the nearest dog pen, the one harboring Alexie and Anastasia. He heard Thorn tell Akilina to move toward the others and open the gates. Thorn pointed to the back door leading into the kitchen and screamed to the dogs, "Move. Strike."

  Akilina had managed to open only a couple of pens, but the two dogs in each, along with Alexie and Anastasia, responded to the command and galloped toward the back door. In the second that Orleg appeared in the doorway, one of the borzois pounced and the Russian screamed.

  Three more snarling dogs followed the first inside.

  Shots came in rapid succession.

  "I don't think we can hang around to find out who wins," Lord said.

  They sprinted toward the gate that led to the front drive, back to where the rental Jeep was parked, and climbed inside.

  Lord held the ignition key.

  More shots came from the back of the house.

  "My poor dogs," Thorn said.

  Lord gunned the engine and jammed the gearshift into reverse. He wheeled out of the drive and spun around, ending up beside the police cruiser parked at the curb. He caught a glimpse of one of the dogs loping down the drive.