The Romanov Legacy

by Jenni Wiltz

  Constantine ran the odds: twelve armed men and a secure perimeter against four unarmed people, two of them women. He caught Viktor’s eye and saw the same calculation in his dispirited gaze. “Probably not.”

  “I thought I was doing the right thing!” Natalie wailed.

  He felt his heart clench within his chest. At least she had made an attempt to save them; no one else had done any better. “You did,” he reassured her. “If Davies refused to pick up Starinov, we were dead anyway. You bought us some time.”

  “Time to think about how we’re going to die,” Viktor mumbled.

  Suddenly, Constantine heard the hiccup of rubber boot soles scuffing on slick marble. He snapped and pointed at the double ballroom doors. They heard the harsh crackle of a comlink turned up too loud and a few metallic clicks as the guards disengaged their safeties.

  “Time’s up,” Beth said.

  He scanned the room, looking for something to use as a distraction, but an empty ballroom wasn’t the best place to mount a last stand. Then his eyes landed on one of the dead guards. He glanced at the doors—they opened inward. “Komsomolskoye,” he said to Viktor.

  During one of their early Stealth missions, a group of Chechen rebels had barricaded themselves inside a house, using a stack of their own dead and wounded to hold the doors shut. As the Russians worked to push through the blocked door, the rebels picked them off one by one, crouched behind the corpses of their comrades.

  Viktor’s head snapped up. “Do you think it can work?”

  “We retreated, didn’t we?” He sprinted across the room to the farthest body and dragged it by its feet until it lay a foot in front of the double doors. Viktor immediately did the same with the second body. It wasn’t much, but the bodies would at least keep the doors from swinging wide open right away. “Viktor, you take the door on the left. I’ll cover the one on the right. Natalie, Beth—get behind the bar and stay there.”

  Natalie nodded and pulled Beth around the far side of the bar, out of his line of sight. He took up his position at the right-hand door and Viktor did the same on the opposite side. “Just like old times,” Viktor said.

  “Not quite,” he replied. “Now I know you’re a traitor.”

  Suddenly, a burst of fire sprayed the flimsy locks and a booted foot kicked in one of the doors. It slammed into the pile of bodies and didn’t move very far. He could hear the commander on the other side, ordering the first two men through. They turned sideways to slink through the opening.

  “Now!” Constantine yelled. He and Viktor pounced, yanking the guards inside and kicking the double doors shut behind them. They wrenched the guns from the men’s hands and fired. Two more bodies slumped to the floor.

  He could hear the consternation in the hall outside. The other guards hadn’t expected resistance, but they would only be stunned for a moment. He dropped to his knees and shoved the collection of four bodies closer against the door.

  “That won’t hold for more than a few seconds,” Viktor said.

  “It doesn’t have to. If that door starts to move, we fire. They’ll back off.” He retrieved the dead guard’s PP90 and scuttled around the bar to the women, huddled in each other’s arms. Constantine positioned himself nearest the edge of the bar, where he could lean forward and spray the door with fire if anyone tried to enter. “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “We’re fine,” Beth said. “What’s the plan?”

  “Hold out here as long as we can. Davies said he’d send a team and so did Vadim. Even if only one of them does, someone should be coming for us.”

  “And if they don’t?”

  “They will,” he said. “They have to.”

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  July 2012

  London, England

  The limo sped around the corner, fishtailing as the driver struggled to stay in his lane. The motion threw Starinov sideways, sloshing the vodka in his hand. Several drops of liquid flew over the rim of the glass, splattering his pants. He righted himself and pressed the intercom. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? I told you to go faster, not drive like a drunken dog!”

  “It’s the cars, Your Excellency. They’re getting closer. I thought I could lose them, but they’re still there.”

  Starinov spun toward the back window and counted three BMW 760Li sedans with tinted windows, all speeding toward him. “Govno,” he swore. “If you stop this car before we get to the bank, I will put a bullet in your head. Do you understand?”

  “Y—yes, Your Excellency.” Gennady sped up and the car flew down the Embankment, lights on the water rushing past him like comets.

  Let them try and stop me, he thought. I will get to the bank and meet the governor, who is there waiting for me. No police force in the world would drag me out of the bank. I am a Prime Minister, a ruler in my own right. They will have to wait until I am done, and when I am done, they will be a problem no longer. What won’t they do for a few coins, tossed behind me as I leave?

  He sat back, satisfied. Everyone who knew about the Romanov account would soon be dead, except for Vadim and he was already broken. The moment he said or did anything that irritated him, he would order him and his thieving daughter to be thrown into the Moskva River.

  There were no more obstacles. He had conquered them all.

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  July 2012

  London, England

  Constantine clutched the magazine of the PP90 tightly, waiting for the onslaught. He kept his eyes trained on the tiny crack between the doors. The attack, when it came, would be sudden and fierce, designed to leave no survivors.

  Suddenly, staccato blasts of gunfire erupted on the street outside. Constantine held his breath. Had someone finally come to their rescue? What would the guards on the other side of the door do—defend themselves or slaughter the captives to keep them from escaping?

  “What’s happening?” Natalie whispered.

  He could feel her warm hand on his back and he wanted to turn and comfort her, but he didn’t dare. He kept the gun aimed and his eyes forward. “The cavalry’s coming.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “That’s a good thing, you daft cow,” said Viktor, crouched at the opposite end of the bar.

  “No, it’s not! It’s why they killed Nicholas II. The White Army was closing in and the Soviets couldn’t risk him being rescued.”

  “You just love being the bearer of good news, don’t you, love?”

  Another sharp burst of gunfire split the night. Someone on the other side of the double doors barked an order and several pairs of boots squeaked away on the marble floor. Constantine fought the urge to smile. Maybe we’ll get out of this after all, he thought. “They’re sending some of the men outside. They’re just as confused as we are.”

  “Should we run for it?” Natalie asked.

  “Not just yet,” Viktor said. He threw an arm around Beth’s neck and pointed his PP90 at Constantine. “We have some unfinished business to take care of.”

  “Viktor!” Natalie cried. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m just being me, lamb. Don’t tell me your angel didn’t warn you.”

  Constantine swung his own gun around. Beth’s wide eyes looked up at Viktor and she clawed at the arm around her neck. “You fucking asshole,” she spat.

  First Marya, now Beth. Anger made his body shake until even his thoughts came out with a stutter. I will not let her die.

  “Put the gun down, Con.”

  He felt his adrenaline pumping, set loose by the wild rage he felt against his former comrade. It took all his willpower not to aim at Viktor’s head and shoot until nothing was left but a bloody pulp. “Even if you kill us, Starinov’s guards will mow you down the second you touch that door.”

  “Money has a lovely way of changing people’s minds. I’m sure they’ll see things my way when I promise them a million each to let me go.”

  “But there won’t be any money,” Natalie said. “I gave Stari
nov the wrong password, remember?”

  Viktor cocked his head. “I don’t think you did, love. I think you gave him the right password and lied to us to cover it up.”

  Beth gulped, still struggling in his grasp. “You’re crazy! Do you seriously think my dog’s name is the last Russian tsar’s secret password?”

  “Don’t you? Your nut-job sister didn’t even know that old man in the nursing home and she went berserk on Yakov for killing him. Do you really think she’d sign her own sister’s death warrant just to uphold a ridiculous set of principles?” Viktor shoved the muzzle of the gun into Beth’s back. “Now for the last time, Constantine, put the fucking gun down.”

  Constantine gritted his teeth and obeyed, setting the PP90 on the floor and kicking it behind Viktor.

  “Now go unbarricade the door. I’d hate to trip and fall on my way out.” He pushed Beth forward with the muzzle of the gun. “You help him.”

  “No!” Natalie cried. “They’ll get shot!”

  Viktor shrugged. “Better them than me.”

  “I’ll go,” Constantine said. “Let her stay here.”

  “Many hands make light work. I have a limousine to catch.”

  “You fucking selfish bastard! Don’t you care about anyone except yourself?”

  “Why should I? No one else cares about me.”

  He imagined snapping Viktor’s spine. The pop would echo against the polished floor and it would sound so harmless, like a soda can being opened. “You will never leave this room.”

  Viktor shrugged. “Neither will you. Perhaps that’s enough.”

  “I never hurt you, Viktor.”

  “You exist,” he said simply.

  “How did you hide it all these years?”

  “My deep and abiding hatred for you?”

  “Your pathetic level of self-loathing.”

  “Jesus, Con, are you really so stupid? Look at your girlfriend…she’s so crazy it seeps out of her pores. She can’t hide it, and where has it gotten her? There is only one way to win and I learned it at a very early age. The rest of you struggle like ants carrying anteaters, sagging under the weight of things you never learn to let go.”

  “It’s called ‘humanity,” Natalie said.

  “I think you mean ‘insanity,’ lamb. Now go,” he said, waving the gun at Constantine and Beth. “I want out of this hellhole.”

  Beth stumbled forward and Constantine held out his arms to keep her behind him. He shielded her with his body as they stepped slowly toward the stack of bodies blocking the exit. If the soldiers on the other side of the door sensed an attack, they might shoot straight through the door. “Quietly,” he whispered. “I’ll try to pull them all away at once. Don’t let them touch the door.”

  Beth nodded. He grabbed a wrist and leg of the body on the bottom, pulling the whole stack away from the door. One of the topmost body’s legs fell sideways. Beth reached for it but she was too late. The leg brushed the door, rattling it slightly.

  Fuck, he thought. He closed his eyes and tucked his head, waiting for the thin whine of bullets slicing through flesh. But it didn’t come. He rose out of his crouch and Beth’s wide, frightened eyes met his in an unspoken question. He pressed his lips together and shrugged. “Keep going,” he mouthed. “One at a time.” Beads of sweat rolled down his face, falling onto the pile of bodies.

  Beth moved first, leaning over the topmost body and grabbing its wrists. The man’s jacket rode up, exposing a swath of white stomach and a black leather belt.

  Constantine narrowed his eyes. He’d killed with less and there were few other options remaining. He touched Beth’s wrist and mouthed the word “distraction.” Beth instantly dropped the wrists of the body she was dragging. She staggered towards Viktor and Natalie and unleashed a violent flood of tears. “I can’t do it, Nat,” she sobbed. “He’s making me touch dead people and I just can’t do it. You have to tell him the truth.”

  “Truth?” asked Viktor. “What truth?”

  Natalie popped up from behind the bar. “Yeah, what truth?”

  Beth sniffed and wiped her nose with her hands. “Are you really going to let him put me in front of a firing squad like this? All you have to do is tell him the other part of the password!”

  Constantine moved toward the body Beth had set down. “Beth, please. Be quiet.”

  “No!” she shrieked. “I want my son! I want to go home.”

  He could hear the confusion in Natalie’s voice. “Beth, what are you talking about?”

  “This is just like you, Nat! You’re always telling half the truth. If you told your shrinks everything, they might be able to help you. Don’t you get tired of living in your head? Doesn’t it feel like a prison? There are people who can help you, Nat. Why won’t you just let them?” She threw her arms down onto the bar and buried her head in them, sobbing.

  Constantine suppressed a grim smile. Beth was quite an actress—she probably had Natalie in agony. But he clamped his lips shut, kept his head down, and moved one hand toward the dead man’s belt clasp.

  “Beth, don’t cry,” he heard Natalie say. “I can fix it! Just tell me what you’re talking about!”

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Viktor grow pale and point the PP90 at Natalie. “What is she talking about, half the password?”

  “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I swear, I don’t know.”

  “Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” Viktor howled. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  Constantine’s fingers unbuckled the dead man’s belt and slid it from his waist. He gripped the tail end in his palm and wrapped it around his closed fist. If he kept his arm low and close to his body, there was a chance Viktor wouldn’t see it until it was too late.

  “Give me the whole password!” Viktor roared, gripping the gun with both hands and pointing it at Natalie.

  “I can’t,” she sobbed, clutching the bar and her sister’s arms. “I don’t know what she’s talking about!”

  “Tell me!”

  Constantine grasped the belt in both hands and leapt at Viktor, looping the belt around his neck. He pulled it tight and jerked backwards, changing Viktor’s line of sight. “Natalie, move!” he yelled.

  Viktor lowered the gun and shot blindly. Bullets splintered the bar and ricocheted into plaster and mirrors. Constantine pulled the belt as tight as he could, keeping Viktor’s back arched. He crossed his hands, straining to shrink Viktor’s airway. If Viktor were able to lean forward, he could flip Constantine onto the floor and shoot him.

  Natalie and Beth scurried to retrieve the PP90 he’d kicked across the room. Viktor realized what they were doing and squeezed his trigger in their direction. Beth screamed and ducked, but Natalie kept on crawling on hands and knees. He saw her reach out and clasp the gun. “Got it!” she cried.

  It didn’t matter. Constantine felt Viktor’s flailing kicks and knew they were powered by the desperate shot of lightning in his veins, the last effort the body could make to save itself. For the space of a heartbeat, he considered letting him go. He could shoot Viktor in the leg to immobilize him and simply walk away. But that would violate the code of soldiers, written in blood on bones, skin, dirt, and everything else they touched.

  It should have been inviolable. It should have been something each one takes to the grave—the knowledge of what it’s like to stare into a man’s eyes as he dies, pinpointing the moment he is and then the moment he is not. They were never supposed to talk about it. They were never supposed to share it. They were never supposed to bring that on one of their own. But Viktor had. He thought about every shot Viktor had fired while standing behind him. Which had been meant as cover and which had been meant for him?

  Constantine jerked the belt as tight as he could. “See you in hell,” he said.

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  July 2012

  London, England

  The BMW sped up along the limousine’s left flank and the driver cranked his wheel to the right. The door didn’t b
uckle, but the limousine’s rear end skidded to the left and smacked the BMW.

  Gennady felt the car pull sharply and flung the wheel to the left, trying to steer out of the deadly spiral. He eased off the gas for a moment and waited for the car to stabilize. Sweat gathered beneath his arms as he scanned his mirrors, looking for the rest of the cars he’d seen following them.

  “What are you waiting for?” Starinov yelled from the back. The prime minister pulled a pistol from his waist and shot through the glass separating them.

  Gennady ducked, avoiding the shot and the spray of glass. When he tucked his head down, his hands automatically steered to the right. The car struck a second BMW lodged on the limo’s right front side. It slammed on the brakes and dropped back.

  The first car, still on the limo’s left, sped up. As the car swerved right with Gennady’s unconscious movement, the BMW tapped the limo’s bumper and floored it. The car’s momentum was enough to nudge the limo into a spinout. Gennady tried to turn left and correct the spin, but momentum was already working against the long, heavy vehicle.

  From the back of the limo, another bullet flew forward. Gennady shrunk into his shoulders yet again, pulling the wheel to the right as he did. The limousine teetered on two wheels then flipped to its side, skidding helplessly down the street and plowing through mailboxes and bike racks.

  Gennady let go of the wheel and covered his neck with his hands, but no more shots pinged through the front of the car. He hung suspended, held in place by his seatbelt. When the car struck a building, he was thrown against the wheel. He felt it strike his head, twist his neck, and then the world went black.

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  July 2012

  London, England

  Viktor made one last desperate kick and then his body went limp, held up only by the belt in Constantine’s grip. Natalie stared at the red, panicked man with clawed hands gripping his own throat. The flesh of his neck was scraped raw and puffed out over the belt, like a woman’s flesh spilling up out of a corset.