The Romanov Legacy

by Jenni Wiltz

  “Yes,” Vadim sighed. “And he’ll kill you when you find it.”

  “So where does that leave us?”

  Vadim took a gulp of vodka. “Starinov obviously believes the tsarist cache exists or he wouldn’t risk sending Vympel into the United States.”

  “If we get it first, maybe we can strike a bargain.”

  “How long do you think you can avoid the next Vympel death squad?”

  “As long as I have to,” Constantine said, turning to look at Natalie. “But there’s something else. It’s about the girl.” He told his boss about Natalie and her connection to the Berlin forger. “I don’t know if it’s true, but she believes it. If her story checks out…”

  “Jesus Christ, are you telling me this girl can just ask Nicholas and Alexandra where they hid their goddamned money?”

  “No,” he said. “It’s not like that. Natalie says her sister’s never even met Voloshin. They’ve never heard of him or seen his copy of the Romanov letters.”

  “And you believe her?”

  Constantine watched the gentle rise and fall of her chest, and the curl of her hands next to her breast. “Yes,” he answered.

  Constantine heard the sound of breaking glass as Vadim chucked his bottle across the room. “It was all a bluff? Why in God’s name would Voloshin do something so foolish?”

  “Because it worked. A professor’s name was enough to make us all believe him. But listen, Vadim, if Voloshin’s never met the real Elizabeth Brandon, he won’t know Natalie isn’t the expert. Let me take her to the meeting.”

  “With Vympel following you?”

  “I don’t know enough about the tsar or his money to see through Voloshin’s bullshit. We need her.”

  “We need the professor, the one Voloshin mentioned!”

  “Natalie is her sister’s researcher. Everything her sister knows, she knows.”

  There was a long pause as Vadim sighed and cracked his knuckles. “You aren’t going to give me a choice, are you?”

  “You didn’t give me one,” Constantine replied. “Lana’s still waiting.”

  “Fine,” Vadim grumbled. “Maybe God Almighty will whisper the Tsar’s password into that girl’s ear and save us all the trouble. Kadyrov set the meeting for 1 p.m. at Voloshin’s house.”

  Constantine jotted down the address and the time. “I’ll call you when it’s over.”

  “Be careful, my boy.”

  “I’ll be fine. Starinov doesn’t know any more than we do. All he can do is have me followed and wait for something interesting to happen. If Natalie thinks Voloshin’s story is good enough, maybe we’ll have something to bargain with.”

  “If that girl can uncover what the entire Soviet war chest could not, then God help you both. Starinov will send the angels themselves after you.”

  “Let him,” Constantine said. “Natalie’s already got one of them on our side.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  July 2012

  Moscow, Russia

  Vadim hung up and reached for the bottle of chalky antacid tablets in his drawer. The vodka had been a bad idea. Just hearing the word “Vympel” made his stomach leak like a Soviet faucet. He knew he couldn’t fight Starinov head-on—the bureau didn’t have the money. All they had was a brief head start and the cooperation of Constantine’s lunatic girl. Starinov was going to obliterate them and there was nothing he could do about it.

  He thought of his daughter Liliya and granddaughter Marya. They would be cooking supper right now, simmering things in a pot and making the house smell of meat and paprika. Marya would set the table and fold yellow cloth napkins into unidentifiable shapes that she insisted were zoo creatures. Liliya would put far too much spice in the stew and their noses would all run while they ate.

  A sudden pang of longing dwarfed the burn of his ulcer. He wanted to be with them. He wanted to embrace them and tell them how much he loved them. If the worst happened and Starinov sent a Vympel squad for him, too, he wanted to die knowing he had made peace with the people dearest to him.

  He hefted his briefcase and left the office, a two-story whitewashed brick building north of the Kremlin, just off Bolshaya Nikitskaya. Nondescript except for two false towers and a dormer window, the building looked more like a well-to-do merchant’s home than a government agency’s headquarters. He liked it that way: no glass-walled skyscraper, no view of the vulgar riverboats draped with banners advertising tourist hotels, nightclubs, and websites. He detested the young billionaires of the Ostozhenka who wasted all their rubles on Rembrandts, Bentleys, and models who looked like starving choir boys. The city he loved was the ancient one, a colorful place with brightly painted homes and silver samovars in every parlor. Moscow, he believed, was the true soul of Russia, old and powerful and boisterous, like a drunk boyar at the table of Peter the Great.

  Vadim trudged down Bolshaya Nikitskaya, past the ornate red-brick theater and the beautiful blue opera building. A passing afternoon shower had left puddles along the sidewalk and the road. He avoided them as best he could; Liliya would not be happy if he splattered mud up and down his slacks. In good weather, street vendors sold fruit and snacks for commuters on their way home but the storm had driven most of them away. There were no Greek nectarines for Marya today.

  When he reached the traffic signal at Nikitsky Vorota, he turned east on Tverskoy. As he walked, he thought about what Constantine had said about the spy in their midst. There were twenty analysts who might have processed and prepared Constantine’s brief. Even worse, sometimes field agents prepared briefs if they had relevant experience and knowledge. That drove the number of possible culprits to over a hundred. He would have to ask Pavel for a sweep of employee computers and phone records. The log would take days to inspect, and by then the culprit might have leaked even more information.

  He turned onto Malaya Bronnaya, alert to the noises of the city. Car honks, dog barks, children’s laughter, and splashes. He curled his lip at the last. Some lucky bastard who doesn’t have a drill sergeant for a laundress, he thought. But the further he went, the more the sound disturbed him. The splasher kept pace with him, neither overtaking him nor falling too far behind. People minding their own business rarely kept such a studied pace—they sped up to reach a crosswalk or slowed down to take a call.

  In an instant, he decided not to go home. He did not believe the splasher meant to kill him—Vympel would never be so sloppy. But whoever it was obviously needed information about him and there was no sense in providing it.

  Directly across the street stood a line of residential buildings, some renovated with freshly painted exteriors and some in a lesser state of repair, with crumbling brick facades and flaking paint. These were the easiest targets—decaying wood doors with flimsy locks that he could easily force open. All he needed to do was enter one and get access to a cell phone.

  He trudged north, hands shoved deep into his pockets. He slowed his pace, as if the long walk were too much for him. As he slowed, he listened again for the sounds of pursuit. The rustle of a coat as it brushed against a man’s legs, the barely audible thump of rubber soles on pavement: yes, someone was still following him.

  Vadim looked ahead for an opportunity. Two blocks north, he spotted an older brick building with an open door and an idling Lada parked at the curb. He pushed back the sleeve of his coat and looked at his watch, as if he were surprised to see the car. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out his cell phone and called his voicemail. “Hi Kolya, it’s me,” he said loudly, turning in the street. “Are you going somewhere tonight?”

  He gave the imaginary Kolya time to offer a response.

  “Well, I’m almost to your house and I saw the car running so I just wanted to make sure we’re still on.”

  He counted to ten while Kolya told him that while he wished he could accompany Vadim to their favorite Japanese restaurant, he’d forgotten about his niece’s dance recital.

  “That’s too bad,” Vadim said. “I guess we’ll go out so
me other time. But since I’m right here, I’ll just pop in and wish your niece good luck at her recital.” Then he disconnected and walked through the open door.

  Once inside, he pushed the door until it was nearly shut, closing the home’s hallway from public view. He saw a closet and bathroom on the left, living area on the right, and a staircase at the end of the hallway. A green buffet table held ticket stubs from the Helikon opera house and a Nokia phone. He picked up the phone and shut himself into the closet.

  The glow of the phone’s tiny screen provided enough light to type out a text message to Liliya. He told her to keep Marya inside until he returned, to open the door for no one. A second text went to his head of security, Pavel Chubais, with the emergency code for a full building sweep. He was about to leave the closet when he had another idea.

  The only way to save Constantine was to convince Starinov the boy was already on the money’s trail. What would convince Starinov that they’d found something? Who was left to trust, if every agent and every analyst were under suspicion?

  He sent two more text messages, crossed himself, then exited the closet and left the phone exactly where he found it.

  Chapter Fourteen

  August 1918

  Ekaterinburg, Russia

  Filipp blinked, unable to see past the blinding white light in his eyes. He tried to lift his arms but they lay useless at his sides, like dead sturgeon on the fishmonger’s table. He turned his head to the side and waited for his vision to clear.

  “Awake, are you?” a woman asked. Cold fingers fell to his wrist, checking his pulse. “I suppose you’ll survive.”

  “Where?” he gasped.

  “You are in the convent of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament,” the woman answered, lowering herself onto a stool at his bedside. Scrubbed clean, her ruddy face was unlined and devoid of all warmth. He could not see her hair; it lay flat beneath her white wimple. “I am Sister Marfa.”

  He forced another word from his bone-dry throat. “Water.”

  “You’ve had plenty,” Sister Marfa replied. “But I will fetch you some more.”

  Filipp closed his eyes as the nun fetched a water glass and held it to his lips. The liquid trickled down his parched throat and he swallowed greedily. “What happened to me?”

  “You fell ill, right after you left that house. You dropped like a rock into the street. The guards brought you here and you’ve been in this bed ever since.”

  “Ever since?”

  Sister Marfa raised an eyebrow. “It has been more than a month. The fever held you like a mother suckling a child.”

  My hand, he thought. In a month, surely they have washed it. If they had, it no longer bore the touch of the Tsar’s daughter. A flare of regret lit up in his chest.

  As his memory descended from the realm of fever and flight, he remembered what else he might have lost. The basket was of no importance; he had transferred the letters and ring to his coat, afraid the guards would tear away the basket’s fabric lining before sending him through the gate. He wished he could remember if they had.

  Filipp looked down to find a plain chemise draped over his chest. “My clothes,” he mumbled. “What have you done with them?”

  “They’re here,” the nun assured him. “Disinfected, of course.”

  “What?” His heart beat hard enough to break his ribs. What if the nuns had destroyed the Grand Duchesses’ letters? The Great Father’s family asked one simple thing of him and now he might have ruined it all. A sob gathered deep in his chest and he met Sister Marfa’s gaze head-on. He did not trust this red-faced nun. “Do the sisters still bring eggs to the Great Father and his family?”

  Sister Marfa tilted her head, small gray eyes narrowed to look like a cat’s. “They are no more,” she said smoothly.

  Filipp scrambled to sit up. “What did you say?”

  “They are gone,” she said, pressing him back down.

  “But where have they been taken?”

  “Nowhere you may follow.”

  A cold sweat gathered along his breastbone and beneath his hair. “What do you mean?”

  “The guards told us our services were no longer needed. We heard from no one for several days and then hell descended on us.” She turned her hands into fists, clenched tightly at her sides. “Guns and cannon fire raining smoke and noise upon us like the end of days. The Bolsheviks had run away, and the White soldiers meant to rule the town. They spent days banging on doors, looking for people, dragging away some but not others.”

  Filipp made his voice as hard as the knot in his chest. “Where have the Great Father and his family been taken?”

  Marfa smiled. “To the earth, maybe? No one can say. Someone saw a bloody girl hauled up some stairs, another saw soldiers digging a pit in the forest, some peasants say they saw two trains pull from the station, going in opposite directions.” She shrugged. “But anyone who thinks they saw something soon disappears. They do not come back.”

  He understood the warning in her words. “What is happening to this place?”

  “No one knows. God alone remembers Russia, and it is only to visit plague upon us.”

  “But surely you must have hope,” he said, voice rising to make it a question.

  “I have nothing but what He gives me.” Then she rose, black robes falling about her like a waterfall. “You must rest. Someone will bring you bread after vespers.”

  He closed his eyes and pretended to obey until Sister Marfa closed the door behind her. Then he threw back his woolen blanket and set his feet on the floor, feeling his legs shake beneath him. He could not wait for someone to bring him bread. They might have decided to turn him in by then. There was a coldness in Sister Marfa’s eyes that he remembered seeing other places—in the eyes of the guards surrounding the Tsar. She was one of them, a Bolshevik.

  His legs wobbled across the room to the wooden wardrobe. The knobs turned to reveal his clothing, folded neatly on a dusted shelf inside. He reached for the dull gray bundle and carried it back to the bed, knowing he was too weak to stand and dress himself. He lay back down and slipped the garments on, limb by limb. When he came to the jacket, he reached inside the pocket and felt for the pieces of paper he’d taken from the basket.

  His thick fingers touched a pocketknife, his watch, a money clip (money gone, of course), and…there, yes….a folded wad of paper. He pulled it out to see if his thin attempt at disguising the contents had been successful. Unfolding carefully, he spread each piece of paper to its original size and sifted through them: market list, pharmacy receipt, letter from his mother, and then…yes. The two torn pieces of paper from the Grand Duchess, one covered with swirly writing, the other with a spidery, slanted hand.

  He said a silent prayer of thanks and returned the papers to his pocket. There they would remain. He knew he had to take them far from the people who had imprisoned the Tsar and his family.

  His hand, pale and blue-veined, looked no different for having been touched by the Grand Duchess. Still, he knew it was a sign from God that he had been chosen. Even though he had failed to follow the girls’ orders and post the letters immediately, God spared him from the fever for a higher purpose. There was more he had to do, and he would be kept alive long enough to do it. He remembered the words the Grand Duchess had spoken in his ear and thanked God he had not yet committed them to paper.

  His shaky fingers fastened the toggles on his peacoat. If it was still summer, he would look ridiculous but he did not have the strength to carry it. Overheated and underfed, he would simply claim to be suffering from the fever—people would stay away.

  Once he had the coat on, his fingers swept the seam of the right-hand pocket, feeling for the hole. He found the spot where his mother’s stitching had given way and slipped his finger through it. There, between the lining and the wool, lay the ring that had come from the hand of Grand Duchess Olga herself. He smiled and left it where it lay.

  “Goodbye, Sister Marfa,” he said, arranging the pill
ows and blankets to look as if he lay huddled beneath them. Then, without enough strength to pull himself out of the window, he opened the casement and let himself fall headfirst into the soft grass below.

  Chapter Fifteen

  July 2012

  Moscow, Russia

  Liliya’s sharp eyes canvassed Vadim’s legs from knee to ankle. She pointed at the brown specks near the cuff of his slacks. “You stepped in a puddle, didn’t you?”

  Vadim hung up his raincoat in the foyer. “I just told you someone tried to follow me home. Is that really the first question you wish to ask?”

  “Yes,” she snapped. “It’s harder to remove a stain than it is to pull a trigger.”

  “You may get to do both.”

  Liliya raised an eyebrow. “Go change. I’ll wash those pants while you entertain your granddaughter.”

  Vadim obeyed and went to change into a sweatshirt and jeans. He tried to clear his mind, hoping to give Marya at least a few minutes of undivided attention. The world will still be crashing down around you in half an hour, he thought. You owe her that much.

  He found her in the living room, entranced by a television program featuring a pink puppet and a blue puppet devouring cookies at an alarming rate. He watched her from the hallway, taking in the gentle halo of blond hair tied up in two scrawny pigtails. Her feet dangled from the sofa, encased in glittery pink socks. Sometimes he still had trouble accepting how close they had come to losing her.

  For six months last year, she’d lived with a foster family while he scrambled to erase Liliya’s conviction for embezzlement. The court-appointed case worker had not allowed Marya to live with him once she realized who he was—spies made poor parents and worse grandparents, she said. The case worker’s ruling had left him no choice. He had mortgaged his soul to Valery Zyuganov, head of the Moscow Criminal Intelligence Department, in return for Valery’s help circumventing the charges. Still, because of the system’s impenetrable bureaucratic cogs, his granddaughter spent her fourth birthday with strangers.