The Romanov succession

by Brian Garfield

  That was Vinsky’s and Vinsky was a cautious pilot: he came in low and slow on full flaps and followed Felix’s example-deliberately stalling out over the end of the runway and dropping hard on his main gear. Bomber Three wasn’t making ninety knots when she landed but the force of the drop burst the great balloon tire on her starboard oleo. The wing tipped down and the portside tires slid on a millimeter of ice and that was the end of Bomber Three: she crashed through the fire-pots and slammed into the bordering trees at seventy miles an hour and burst into a pyre of flames.

  2

  “It changes nothing,” Alex said.

  “The odds are longer now,” Baron Oleg said, and looked to Prince Leon for confirmation.

  Count Anatol Markov said, “For once I agree with Oleg. We should have had more planes.”

  “I asked the Americans for six. They said it was out of the question. We were lucky to get three. Actually I was prepared to accept two-the third bomber was always a backup plane. The operational plan calls for two aircraft-one to interdict the railway tracks and halt the train, the second to hit the troop carriages and gun cars before anyone can get out of them.”

  “Then we had better not lose either of the remaining bombers, had we,” Anatol said drily.

  Their accommodations in the Finnish encampment were primitive: the troops were billeted in field tents with portable coal stoves; there was a mess kitchen but the men had to eat outdoors or carry their meals back to their tents, by which time the food had gone cold. The command echelon was billeted barrack-style in what were ordinarily the pilots’ quarters of a Finnish air squadron. For a full week the temperature did not rise more than two degrees above freezing and most of the time it was well below. Alex and his men were used to it but some of the politicals had become too accustomed to their Mediterranean habitats; Anatol and General Savinov were forever complaining of the cold.

  On the crisp nights they could hear the guns from the front thirty miles away. Alex and Corporal Cooper used the air-tower radio equipment to maintain contact with Vlasov in Moscow. There were brief nightly exchanges that could not settle Alex’s unease. He was ready for it-they all were-and the waiting ate away at him like acid even though they kept up a punishing training regimen. His nerves twanged with vibration and he was snappish with Irina, brusque with the politicals, authoritarian with the members of his command, noncommunicative with Cosgrove and Buckner. John Spaight chewed him out for it but he barked right back at his American friend and Spaight went away fuming: they were all on edge-all except ground-crew chief Calhoun who fussed maternally over his remaining airplanes and kept working on them when it seemed clear there was no work left to do. Then on Wednesday Calhoun came to Alex and said, “You’ve got a bad propeller on one of those C-47S, General.”

  “What do you mean a bad propeller?”

  “Metal fatigue. There’s a hairline crack in one of the blades. It could bust off any time.”

  “Can you do anything about it?” Sudden alarm: they’d already lost one aircraft; they couldn’t do without one of the precious transports.

  “Sure,” Calhoun drawled. “That’s essentially the same Wright Cyclone engine they’ve got on the B-17S. I already told my boys to take a prop off that one that wrecked in the trees. We’ll have it bolted on by this afternoon. But I thought I’d better tell you about it.”

  “Next time see if you can give me the news without inducing cardiac arrest, will you Calhoun?”

  On December fourth a daring Russian counterattack broke through the German lines to Shimki and halted the Wehrmacht’s advance on Moscow.

  That night it snowed more heavily than before. The Germans were still falling back under attack by fresh Siberian regiments. Radio news broadcasts from Moscow were hearty with gusto: the announcers could not keep the excitement from their voices and there was no doubt this victory was more than mere propaganda.

  But the signal that came from Vlasov at half-past eleven that night-when Alex’s transports were filling with troops-was to say that the tank trials had been put off.

  A major storm was tracking northeast across Europe at twenty-five knots. It was expected to blow for the next three days in the Moscow area.

  The tank trials had been postponed to Monday morning.

  3

  Vlasov’s last signal came late Saturday night.

  KOLLIN X WEATHER CLEARING X PROJECTION FOR EIGHTH IS CLEAR X SCHEDULE AFFIRMED FOR EIGHTH X WILL NOT SEND AGAIN UNLESS CHANGE IN SCHEDULE X GOOD HUNTING X KOLLIN X CARNEGIE

  It was strange to see them in these surroundings. They belonged against the luxurious backgrounds of villas, gaming rooms, lofty tapestried chambers, works of art of millennia. In the stark Suomi flying-officers’ dayroom they were uncomfortable strangers. They had endured twenty years’ exile and months of recent tension but now the time that you measured in minutes was attacking their composure. General Savinov had drunk himself to the point of glazed paralysis. Anatol and Oleg occupied opposite corners of the room and at intervals their white-hot glances locked across it. Old Prince Michael had gone very vague and loquacious: most of what he said made no sense to Alex in the snatches he overheard. Baron Yuri Ivanov sat bolt upright on a wooden chair with his straight-armed hands perched on his knees, staring at nothing. Leon sat with his cane hooked over the arm of his chair and a glass of vodka which by now had gone warm with neglect; he was talking in earnest low tones to Prince Felix who kept shoving a lock of hair back from his forehead. And Irina said in a voice calculated to reach no farther than Alex’s ears, “Do you think any of them will make it through the next twenty-four hours?” Then she made an impatient gesture. “I mustn’t laugh at them-it’s so unkind.”

  “They wouldn’t notice.”

  “Are you rattled too?”

  “I suppose I am. I keep craving a thick American steak with all the trimmings.” But abruptly and unaccountably he had an image of Carol Ann’s melancholy frown in a flyspecked El Paso cafe; and he said, “Or maybe a big plate of chili and beans.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” he said. When this was over he would write to her. Just a polite note: how are things? — the sort of thing that couldn’t do her harm if her husband happened to see it. It was something he owed her: acknowledgment that she hadn’t been forgotten. She’d seen him through the worst of it, the months he’d thought he wasn’t going to see Irina again. Suddenly he brought her into the semicircle of his arm and gripped her shoulder.

  “It’s all right,” she said, very gentle. “Do you want to come to bed?”

  “In a little while.”

  In the beginning the challenge had stirred him and made his juices run; he had formulated the plan in quick broad strokes with brilliant speed and then he had filled in the fine touches with careful foresight; he’d been confident he’d got the composition right, drawn every line and every dot where it had to be. Wherever there had been a conflict between methods or means he’d chosen the alternative that had the best odds of success. It was a plan worthy of the masters but now he began to believe in all the things that could go wrong and he knew he had to shake that off. It was the delay that did it. They’d keyed themselves up for a specific hour; it had been put back seventy-two hours and that was more than enough time to ruin the edge.

  Buckner and Cosgrove entered the room: an odd pair-the gaunt one-armed brigadier, professionally reserved; the blunt cheerful American with his foolish facade of amiable buffoonery. They’d hit it off without any of the competitive rivalry he’d half expected to see.

  Irina said, “Our two referees seem to be fast friends. Last night I caught them talking with feverish excitement about murder mysteries. Can you believe that? They’re both fanatical admirers of Dashiell Hammett. It’s incredible. They’re like two small boys who’ve just met and discovered they’ve got the same passion for backgammon and toy airplanes.”

  Felix came toward them arching an eyebrow. “You two look disgustingly cozy and domestic together. Under the cir
cumstances it’s hardly sporting.”

  Alex smiled a little. “You’re nervous.”

  “It’s probably a good thing. When I didn’t begin to get nervous the day before a race I knew I wasn’t going to win.”

  “Keep it under control,” Alex said. “You’ve got nearly thirty-six hours before you take off.”

  “You’ve got only twenty-four. How do you feel?”

  Alex shook his head. “That’s a military secret.”

  “You’re scared half to death like the rest of us.”

  “Of course he is,” Irina murmured.

  Alex dropped his voice. “I don’t like losing that third bomber. It doesn’t leave you much margin for error.”

  “We’ll manage,” Felix said. “We’d manage with one if we had to.” His teeth flashed. “It’s only one train, isn’t it?”

  “Don’t be cocky,” Irina said.

  “Still trying to change my character, aren’t you.”

  “Felix, I adore your character.”

  Felix drifted away and Irina said in her soft way, “Did you know he was up half the night composing letters to the families of the men who died in that bomber crash-Vinsky and the others?”

  “No-”

  “Compassion is a quality Russia’s not used to in her leaders. Felix will be something new to all of them. I wonder how they’ll take to him.”

  “I wonder how he’ll take to them,” Alex answered. “I hope he doesn’t get bored with it.”

  “He’ll find ways to make it interesting. Trust him.”

  “I do,” he said. “In the beginning I wasn’t sure they’d made the right decision. There was no way to see what he was like under the bravado. He might have been a smaller man you know-he might have let it go to his head. It’s the small ones who turn greedy and arrogant when you put power in their hands.”

  “Like Vassily.”

  “Yes…”

  “Do you still dream about him?”

  “No. Not since that night we talked about it.”

  “Sometimes the answer’s that simple-talking it out. It gets the poison out of your system so that it can’t stay and fester.”

  The room was a sea in which animate islands floated, each of them absorbed in its own storms and troubles. He turned and a trick of acoustics carried to his ears a soft exchange between Anatol and Baron Ivanov; Anatol was saying, “… unprecedented to say the very least. We are not a society that is accustomed to having its opposing views aired in public forums.”

  “It will be an interesting experiment,” the little Baron answered, “to find out whether men of our persuasion can live and work in the same halls with men like Oleg. I am rather eager to see what comes of it.”

  Anatol grumbled a reply. Irina was laughing very softly in her throat. “I’ve made a fine discovery,” she whispered. “My awesome brilliant father is in fact an old grouch.”

  He was able to laugh and the ability pleased him more than the amusement itself. He began to steer her toward the door but they’d only crossed half the room when Oleg intercepted them. “A word with you?” Oleg gave Irina his brusque nod of apology. “Only for a moment.”

  Oleg took him away into the corner and spoke as conspiratorially as a pimp in a third-class hotel. “The moment of truth is upon us.”

  Alex had to fight down the impulse to laugh.

  Oleg kneaded the pipe in his fingers; the veins stood out along the backs of his blunt square hands. “It has been torture for me these past weeks-not knowing whether I had done the right thing. You have kept faith with Vlasov. I owe you my apologies and my deepest thanks. His safety was my responsibility-it would have been my fault, my guilt if he had been exposed.”

  “I didn’t do it for you.” He was harsh because he didn’t want Oleg misplacing his loyalty.

  “I realize that, Alex. Quite fully. Nevertheless I must apologize again for my lack of faith in your discretion and your talent. Indeed I might say your genius. I’m quite prepared now to believe that neither Vassily Devenko nor any other man alive could have brought us this far, let alone made success possible. The debt we all owe you is incalculable.”

  “We’d better wait and see how it turns out before we start parceling out the glory, Oleg.”

  “I have no more doubts of our success. None at all.”

  He wondered what it was that had brought the always skeptical Oleg around to such an extreme position of faith. Perhaps it was the panic of these last hours: needing an anchor Oleg had pounced on Belief and was clinging to it with the grip of hysteria.

  Alex said, “In any case we’ll know soon enough, won’t we,” and managed to break away.

  He reached Irina at the door; Felix was there, sparkling. “Just one thing before I let you both go.” He hesitated and his glance whipped from Alex’s face to Irina’s and back. Then with a sudden shy tip of his head: “Alex, I’d very much like to be your best man.”

  Over the top of Felix’s head his eyes met Irina’s; they had gone very wide and he thought she wasn’t breathing. She gave him no helpful signals. In the end he gripped Felix’s shoulder.

  “Done.”

  The bedroom was tiny, spartan, stark: a flying officer’s cell, the place where a knight hung his armor and broadsword between jousts. Bare wooden walls and a single shelf nailed along one wall; a steel-frame cot with a green wool blanket; a row of wooden pegs for hanging clothes; a single lamp suspended from the ceiling with a conical metal shade.

  “It’s a little narrow,” she said, “but we’ll ignore the crowd. Alex darling-if we’re really to go into the tiresome business of marriage there’s one thing you must promise me.”

  “I’ll promise you the stars and the moon. With parsley.”

  “Promise me that we’ll always share the same bedroom and sleep in the same bed.” She was watching him with genuine anxiety: poise had deserted her.

  He faced her across the length of the little cubicle; very gravely he said to her, “I promise that.”

  Only then did she stir. She took a slow step forward and then another and then she came into his arms, ravenously greedy.

  When they slept finally they were pressed together on the narrow mattress like two spoons. But at some hour of the morning he came awake and was startled by the vividness of the image: every line and hair of Vassily Devenko’s high contemptuous face.

  4

  Apart from the others she stood on the runway hugging her breasts; her long hair blew across her face. The soldiers were drawn up in formations beside their transports, bulky in their Red Army winter uniforms, heavily laden with combat field packs and parachutes. There were no lights; the guns snapped fitfully on the distant border. The sky had cleared during the day but it was still bitter cold. The moonlight was enough to see by; from inside the airplanes came the faint glow of the red lights inside their cabin spaces.

  Prince Felix and his air crews stood off to one side at attention, in formation; and Leon’s group had a semblance of military order to it when Alex came across the tarmac to say his good-byes. She was too far away to hear the words they spoke. The soldiers began to climb into the airplanes. She saw Oleg reach out and grasp Alex in a bear hug-a ritual the Baron hardly ever practiced-and then her father shook Alex’s hand. General Savinov gravely drew himself to attention with a faint click of his heels; he lifted his thick right arm in a salute which Alex answered in kind. Then Alex returned to Prince Leon and the old man’s hand, a withered claw, sketched the Orthodox cross against Alex’s forehead and coat. Then Leon drew Alex to him and kissed him on both cheeks. The old Prince was visibly weeping when Alex turned away.

  Alex said his good-byes to Cosgrove and the Americans and then walked to the pilots’ formation and spoke briefly to Prince Felix. She saw the flash of Felix’s grin once. The two men exchanged salutes and bear hugs and then Alex was coming toward her.

  She was numb. He touched her under the chin with his forefinger, lifting her face. She heard the cough and wheeze of the aircraft en
gines starting up; beyond Alex’s shoulder she saw old Sergei waiting by the open airplane door in his combat uniform, beaming with incandescent eagerness.

  Alex lifted his hands to her shoulders. He said, “I love you,” very quietly so that she hardly heard him against the racket of the airplane engines and then he was striding away from her and she wasn’t sure whether he had kissed her or not. She realized her arms were still folded. She watched the planes swing out onto the field and roll down to the far end of it. A single light came on at the opposite end of the runway to mark their way. She stood without moving anything except her head and eyes while the airplanes gathered speed down the runway and launched themselves upward into the night.

  They were running without lights and she lost them very quickly in the sky. Then the drumming of the engines faded and she turned away.

  Felix took her arm and guided her inside.

  5

  Sunrise: a dreary winter gloom and beneath them the birch and fir forests that lay between Leningrad and Moscow, the snow-buried marshes along the Volkhov. They flew at two thousand feet, not hurrying, the aircraft painted with Red Army markings-indistinguishable from dozens of American aircraft supplied to Moscow by Lend-Lease.

  Alex moved through the crowded fuselage talking to his men. Most of them sat with their gloved hands wrapped around cups of coffee. They were nervous and trying to hide it but they were uplifted by eagerness.

  Off to starboard he could see a great deal of smoke hanging low. Moscow; whether from combat or furnaces he couldn’t tell. The forests ran underneath at a steady clip, here and there a dacha with snow on its roof and an unplowed driveway. There wasn’t much movement on the roads except for the occasional battalion of soldiers on the march. Most of the main roads had been plowed.

  The amber light came on and Alex stood up near the rear cargo door. “Hook up.”