the Romanov Prophecy (2004)

by Steve Berry

  "Your man was there?"

  "He went to St. Petersburg to make sure your train ride was uneventful. But the same two gentlemen with whom you are, by now, intimately familiar interfered."

  "How did he find me?"

  "He saw you and Miss Petrovna together and watched while you jumped from the train. Another man with him followed your actions farther down the tracks and found you at the grocery using the telephone."

  "What about my bodyguard?"

  "We thought he might work for the mafiya. Now we are sure."

  "Could I ask why I am involved?" Akilina said.

  Pashenko leveled a gaze at her. "You involved yourself, my dear."

  "I involved nothing. Mr. Lord happened into my compartment on the train last night. That's all."

  Pashenko straightened in the chair. "I, too, was curious of your involvement. So I took the liberty of checking on you today. We have extensive contacts in the government."

  Akilina's face tightened. "I don't appreciate you invading my privacy."

  Pashenko gave a short laugh. "That is a concept we Russians know little of, my dear. Let's see. You were born here in Moscow. Your parents divorced when you were twelve. Since neither one of them could receive Soviet permission for another apartment, they were forced to live together afterward. Granted, their accommodations were a bit better than most, given your father's usefulness to the state as a performer, but it was nonetheless a stressful situation. By the way, I saw your father perform several times. He was a marvelous acrobat."

  She acknowledged the compliment with a nod.

  "Your father became involved with a Romanian national who was associated with the circus. She became pregnant, but returned home with the child. Your father tried to obtain an exit visa, but the authorities denied his requests. The communists were not in the habit of allowing their performers to leave. When he tried to leave without permission, he was detained and sent to a camp.

  "Your mother remarried, but that marriage ended quickly in divorce. When she couldn't find a place to live after the second divorce--apartments were quite scarce, I remember well--she was forced to once again live with your father. By then, the authorities had decided to release him from the camp. So there, in that tiny apartment, the two of them languished in separate rooms until both died an early death. Quite a statement for our 'people's republic,' wouldn't you say?"

  Akilina said nothing, but Lord could feel the pain radiating from her eyes.

  "I lived with my grandmother in the country," she said to Pashenko, "so I didn't have to see my parents' torment. I didn't even talk with them the last three years. They died bitter, angry, and alone."

  "Were you there when the Soviets took your grandmother away?" Pashenko asked.

  She shook her head. "By then I had been placed in the special performers' school. I was told she died of old age. I only learned the truth later."

  "You of all people should be a catalyst for change. Anything has to be better than what we had."

  Lord felt for the woman sitting beside him. He wanted to assure her that things like that would never happen again. But that wouldn't be true. Instead, he asked, "Professor, do you know what's going on?"

  A crease of concern laced the older man's face. "Yes, I do."

  He waited for an explanation.

  "Have you ever heard of the All-Russian Monarchist Assembly?" Semyon Pashenko asked.

  Lord shook his head.

  "I have," Akilina said. "They want to restore the tsar to power. After the Soviet fall, they used to hold big parties. I read about them in a magazine article."

  He nodded. "They held big parties. Monstrous affairs with people dressed as nobles, Cossacks in tall hats, middle-age men in White Army uniforms. All designed to garner publicity, to keep the tsarist issue alive in the hearts and minds of the people. They were once thought fanatics. Now, not so."

  "I doubt that group could be credited with the national referendum on restoration," Akilina said.

  "I would not be so sure. There was far more to the assembly than met the eye."

  "Could you get to the point, Professor?" Lord asked.

  Pashenko sat in an almost unnatural pose that communicated no emotion. "Mr. Lord, do you recall the Holy Band?"

  "A group of noblemen who pledged their lives for the tsar's safety. Inept and cowardly. Not one of them was around when a bomb killed Alexander II in 1881."

  "A later group took that same name," Pashenko said. "But I assure you, it was not inept. Instead, it survived Lenin, Stalin, and the Second World War. In fact, it still exists today. The public division is the All-Russian Monarchist Assembly. But there is also a private portion, which I head."

  Lord's gaze tightened on Pashenko. "And the purpose of this Holy Band?"

  "The safety of the tsar."

  "But there hasn't been a tsar since 1918."

  "But there has."

  "What are you taking about?"

  Pashenko's fingers templed at his lips. "In Alexandra's letter and Lenin's note, you found what we have been missing. I must confess that until the other day, when I read those words, I harbored my own doubts. But now I am sure. An heir survived Yekaterinburg."

  Lord shook his head. "You can't be serious, Professor."

  "I am. My group was formed shortly after July 1918. My uncle and great uncle were both members of that Holy Band. I was recruited decades ago and have now risen to its leadership. Our purpose is to guard the secret and implement its terms at the appropriate time. But thanks to the communist purges, many of our members died. To ensure security, the Originator made sure no one knew all of the secret's terms. So a large part of the message vanished, including the starting point. You have now rediscovered that beginning."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Do you still have the copies?"

  He grabbed his jacket and handed Pashenko the folded sheets.

  Pashenko motioned. "Here, in Lenin's note. 'The situation with Yurovsky is troubling. I do not believe the reports filed from Yekaterinburg were entirely accurate, and the information concerning Felix Yussoupov corroborates that. The mention of Kolya Maks is interesting. I have heard this name before. The village of Starodug has likewise been noted by two other similarly persuaded White Guardsmen.' The information we lost was the name--Kolya Maks--and the village--Starodug. It is the starting point of the quest."

  "What quest?" he asked.

  "To find Alexie and Anastasia."

  Lord sat back in the chair. He was tired, but what this man was saying sent his mind reeling.

  Pashenko went on, "When the royal Romanov bodies were finally exhumed in 1991 and later identified, we positively learned that two may have survived the massacre. The remains of Anastasia and Alexie have never been found to this day."

  "Yurovsky claimed to have burned them separately," he said.

  "What would you have claimed if you had been ordered to kill the imperial family and were two bodies short? You would lie because, otherwise, you would be shot for incompetence. Yurovsky told Moscow what they wanted to hear. But there are enough reports that have surfaced since the Soviet fall to cast great doubt on Yurovsky's declaration."

  Pashenko was right. Affidavits gathered from Red Guardsmen and other participants attested that not everyone may have died that July night. Accounts varied from the bayoneting of moaning grand duchesses to the stabbing and rifle-butting of hysterical victims. There were many contradictions. But he also recalled the snippet of testimony he found, apparently from one of the Yekaterinburg guards, dated three months after the murders.

  But I realized what was coming. The talk of their fate was clear. Yurovsky made sure we all understood the task at hand. After a while, I started saying to myself that something should be done to let them escape.

  He pointed to the papers. "There's another sheet there, Professor. From one of the guards. I didn't show you. You may want to read it."

  Pashenko shuffled through and read.

  "This is consistent
with other testimony," Pashenko said when he finished. "Great sympathy developed for the imperial family. Many of the guards hated them, stole what they could, but others felt differently. The Originator made use of that sympathy."

  "Who is the Originator?" Akilina asked.

  "Felix Yussoupov."

  Lord was shocked. "The man who killed Rasputin?"

  "The same." Pashenko shifted in the chair. "My father and uncle told me a story once. Something that happened at the Alexander Palace, in Tsarskoe Selo. It was passed down through the Holy Band, from the Originator himself. The date of the event is October 28, 1916."

  Lord motioned to the letter Pashenko held. "That's the same date of that letter from Alexandra to Nicholas."

  "Precisely. Alexie had suffered another hemophilic bout. The empress sent for Rasputin, and he came and eased the boy's suffering. Afterward, Alexandra broke down, and the starets berated her for not believing in both God and him. It was then that Rasputin prophesied that the one with most guilt would see the error of his way and assure that the blood of the imperial family resurrected itself. He also said only a raven and an eagle could succeed where all fail--"

  "--and that the innocence of beasts will guard and lead the way, being the final arbitor of success," Lord said.

  "The letter confirms the story I was told years ago. A letter you found hidden away in the state archives."

  "So what does all this have to do with us?" he asked.

  "Mr. Lord, you are the raven."

  "Because I'm black?"

  "In part. You are a rarity in this nation. But there is something more." Pashenko motioned to Akilina. "This beautiful lady. Your name, my dear, means 'eagle' in old Russian."

  There was surprise on her face.

  "Now you see why we are so curious. Only a raven and an eagle can succeed where all fail. The raven connects himself with the eagle. I am afraid, Miss Petrovna, you are a part of this whether you realize or not. That is why I had the circus watched. I was sure the two of you would reconnect. Your doing that is further confirmation of Rasputin's prophecy."

  Lord almost laughed. "Rasputin was an opportunist. A corrupt peasant who manipulated the grief of a guilt-ridden tsarina. If not for the tsarevich's hemophilia, the starets could have never wormed his way into the imperial household."

  "The fact remains Alexie was severely stricken and Rasputin could quell the attacks."

  "We know now that a lowering of emotional stress can affect bleeding. Hypnosis has been used for some time on hemophiliacs. Stress affects blood flow and vascular wall strength. From everything I've read, Rasputin would simply calm the boy. He'd speak to him, tell him tales about Siberia, tell him everything was going to be fine. Alexie would usually drift off to sleep, which also helped."

  "I, too, have read those explanations. But the fact remains Rasputin could affect the tsarevich. And he apparently foretold his own death weeks in advance, along with what would happen if royalty killed him. He also prophesied a resurrection. The one Felix Yussoupov implemented. Something the two of you are now part of completing."

  Lord glanced over at Akilina. Her name and its linkage to him could be pure coincidence. Yet that coincidence was apparently decades in the making. Only a raven and an eagle can succeed where all fail. What was going on?

  "Stefan Baklanov is unfit to rule this nation," Pashenko said. "He is a pompous fool with no ability to govern. It is only by a fluke of death that he is eligible. He will be easily manipulated, and I fear the Tsarist Commission will vest him with sweeping power--a gift the Duma will have no choice but to confirm. The people want a tsar, not a figurehead." Pashenko leveled his gaze. "Mr. Lord, I realize it is your task to support Baklanov's claim. But I believe there is a direct blood heir of Nicholas II out there. Precisely where, I have no idea. Only you and Miss Petrovna can learn that."

  He sighed. "This is too much, Professor. Way too much."

  A slight smile came onto the older man's face. "Understandable. But before I tell either of you any more, I am going into the kitchen to see about dinner. Why don't you talk in private. You have a decision to make."

  "About what?" Akilina asked.

  Pashenko rose from the chair. "Your future. And Russia's."

  TWENTY-TWO

  8:40 PM

  Hayes lay back and gripped the iron bar above his head. He shoved the weights up from their cradle and sweated through ten presses, his biceps and shoulders aching from the stress. He was glad the Volkhov was equipped with a health club. Though pushing sixty, he was determined to surrender nothing to time. There was no reason he couldn't live another forty years. And he needed that time. There was so much to do, and only now was he in a position to succeed. After Stefan Baklanov's coronation, he'd be able to work at will and do what he wanted. He was already eyeing a lovely chalet in the Austrian Alps, a place where he could enjoy the outdoors, hunt, fish, and be the lord of his own manor. The thought was intoxicating. More than enough motivation to keep him moving forward, no matter what the task.

  He finished another set of presses, grabbed a towel and patted moisture from his brow. He then left the exercise room and headed for the elevators.

  Where was Lord? Why hadn't he called in? He'd told Orleg earlier that Lord may now doubt him. But he was not convinced. It could be that Lord assumed the hotel phones were being monitored. Lord knew enough about Russian paranoia to know how easy it would be for either the government or a private group to accomplish that task. That might explain why he hadn't heard from Lord since his abrupt departure from Felix Orleg's office. But he could have called the firm in Atlanta and arranged for contact. Yet a check there not an hour before had revealed no calls had come through.

  What a mess.

  Miles Lord was becoming a real problem.

  He stepped off the elevator into a wood-paneled lobby on the sixth floor. Every floor had one, a sitting area with magazines and newspapers. Filling two leather chairs were Brezhnev and Stalin. He was scheduled to meet with them and the rest of the Secret Chancellory in two hours at a villa south of town, so he wondered about their presence here and now.

  "Gentlemen. To what do I owe this honor?"

  Stalin stood. "There is a problem that requires action. We must talk, and you could not be located by telephone."

  "As you can see, I was working up a sweat."

  "Might we go to your room?" Brezhnev asked.

  He led the way past the dezhurnaya, who did not look up from her magazine. When they were inside his room with the door locked, Stalin said, "Mr. Lord was located earlier at the circus. Our men tried to intercept him. One was disabled by Lord, the other by men who were apparently likewise searching. Our man had to kill his captor to escape."

  "Who interfered?" Hayes asked.

  "That is the problem. It is time you learn some things." Brezhnev sat forward in the chair. "There has long been speculation that some of the imperial family may have survived the death sentence the Soviets imposed in 1918. Your Mr. Lord came across some interesting material in the Protective Papers, information that we had not been privy to. We thought the matter at first serious, but containable. Now, such is not the case. The man Mr. Lord made contact with in Moscow is Semyon Pashenko. He is a professor of history at the university. But he also heads a group dedicated to tsarist restoration."

  "How could that threaten what we have in motion?" Hayes asked.

  Brezhnev sat back and Hayes took him in.

  Vladimir Kulikov represented a large coalition of the country's new rich, the lucky few who'd managed to turn a tremendous profit since the fall of the Soviet Union. A short and serious man, his face was weather-beaten--like a peasant's, Hayes had often thought--his nose beaklike, the hair short, sparse, and gray. He gave off an air of superiority that often infuriated the other three in the Secret Chancellory.

  The new rich were not particularly liked by the military or the government. Most were ex-party officials blessed with a web of connections--clever men who manipulated a c
haotic system to their personal advantage. None of them worked hard. And many of the American businessmen Hayes represented financed them.

  "Until his death," Brezhnev said, "Lenin was quite interested in what happened at Yekaterinburg. Stalin likewise was consumed, so much so that he sealed every piece of paper dealing with the Romanovs in the state archives. He then killed or banished to the camps anyone with knowledge. His fanaticism is one reason that learning anything firsthand is now so difficult. Stalin worried about a Romanov survivor, but twenty million deaths can stir up a lot of chaos, and no opposition to him ever collated. Pashenko's group is somehow connected with the possibility of one or more Romanov survivors. How, we're not sure. But there have been rumors for decades that a Romanov was hidden until the time was right to reveal his or her whereabouts."

  Stalin said, "We now know that only two of the children could have survived, Alexie and Anastasia, since their bodies were never found. Of course, even if either or both survived the massacre they would have died long ago, the boy especially because of his hemophilia. So we're talking about their children or grandchildren, if there were any. And they would be direct Romanov. Stefan Baklanov's claim would be meaningless."

  Hayes saw concern on Stalin's face, but he couldn't believe what he was hearing. "There's no way any of those people survived. They were shot at close range, then bayoneted."

  Stalin ran a hand along the armchair, tracing the wood carvings. "I told you at our last meeting, Americans have a hard time understanding the Russian sensitivity to fate. Here is an example. There are Soviet documents I have seen where the KGB conducted interrogations. Rasputin predicted that Romanov blood would be resurrected. He supposedly said that an eagle and a raven would accomplish the resurrection. Your Mr. Lord found a writing that confirms this prediction." He leaned forward. "Would not Mr. Lord qualify as that raven?"

  "Because he's black?"