The Romanov Stone

by Robert C. Yeager

  “I won’t sign anything,” Kate said, her voice loud. “This man”—she gestured at Novyck—“is a fraud. He kidnapped and drugged me and is trying to steal my inheritance. I demand that he be arrested.”

  The room and its stolid symbols of Empire collapsed in shambles. Audibly gasping, Carlyle pushed back his chair and collided with the credenza. The water pitcher wobbled, fell to the floor, and shattered, strewing bits of glass and ice across the carpet. As he tried to catch the pitcher, the Englishman’s flailing arm struck the golden carriage, which rolled down and off the table, clunking loudly.

  Cushing turned to Kate and started to speak, but only gaped. He stared past her to Novyck.

  She saw the weapon in Novyck’s hand even before he moved. In an instant his left arm crooked around her neck. His right reached for the table, and the Romanov Stone.

  Kate felt his thin but powerful arm around her waist and the touch of a polycarbonate blade against her neck. The heads around the table turned again, toward them both, eyes round and astonished

  Carlyle was half-standing. “See here!” he said.

  But Kate and Novyck were already gone.

  Chapter 65

  As Hector Molina could have told Imre Novyck, the moment comes, even for the most carefully planned crime de maitre, when success turns on sheer fortune, when the master of determined discipline must yield to the commander of fickle fate. The doorknob that twists, but does not open. The pistol hammer that cocks, but falls on an empty chamber. The hotel detective who chooses the right floor, but the wrong corridor.

  Or the empty, double-deck Routemaster bus, proud and polished for a vintage run, rumbling along King William Street on its way to Tower Hill.

  Novyck’s arm lashed out, long fingers grasping the upright pole at the slowly passing vehicle’s rear platform. Like a spider clutching his prey, the Russian gracefully swung himself and Kate aboard. Keeping the polycarbonate knife against her throat, he pushed around the staircase that led to the ancient transport’s upper deck.

  Reaching for his ear, he touched the ubiquitous Bluetooth he’d slipped back into place as they left the bank. “Calling Base,” Novyck yelled into the headset. His voice rose against the noise of the city and their clattering, bright red conveyance. “Change pickup location,” he commanded. “Meet other side of river.”

  So this is it. This is how it goes down. He gives up the bank money, kills you here, then moves on, free. With the stone.

  Novyck traded positions, dragging her forward, still barking into the headset.

  Albert Gunter Jr. had watched in the rear view mirror as the fare jumpers boarded his bus. But since he’d not yet picked up a conductor, there was little he could do. A moment later the interloper, his hair toussled by the wind, and the woman, her jaw clenched in defiance, were beside him. A glossy black knife pressed flat against the female’s glistening alabaster throat; her head jerked back and away from the weapon.

  “I’ll cut her unless you do exactly as I say!” His male passenger shouted above the roar of the engine and passing traffic. Gunter noted, however, that the woman’s eyes held a steely presence.

  Gunter had driven the 73 RM for more than 20 years. When the Royal Transport Authority decided to retire the venerable vehicles such a fuss erupted that a pair of lines were kept in service, mostly for tourists.

  Gunter believed his Routemaster’s open design gave it a special connection to the city. “My bus passes through London, and London passes through my bus,” he’d told his wife, explaining why he opted against taking an early pension. “People, pollution, noise, and weather—they’re like passengers who hop on and off.”

  But this passenger wasn’t hopping.

  “Straight over Tower Bridge,” Novyck commanded. “And pick up your pace.”

  “You don’t understand,” the gray-haired driver protested. “I have a schedule and a conductor to fetch…” He saw cold mayhem in the hijacker’s eyes and fell silent.

  Carrying just a fraction of its normal human cargo, the big alloy-bodied bus rattled onward. Gunter cranked the huge mahogany wheel to make a wide left turn at Lower Thames Street, then turned left again at the Tower of London.

  With each swing of the bulky vehicle, Kate felt Novyck’s weight press against her. Behind the driver, the Tower’s grim, 90-foot walls reflected in the window glass, their latticework of stones and mortar flicking by like cards on a pinwheel. Erected by William the Conqueror a millennium ago, the Tower had variously been a palace, a prison, several chapels, a vault for the crown jewels, and a site for high-profile executions. Here, King Henry III’s pet polar bear had fished from the end of a leash in the Thames. Here too, after being lopped off by a French swordsman, Anne Boleyn’s dripping, severed head had been held high by the hair, its owner’s eyes wide with horror for a full eight seconds.

  Kate’s neck twinged at the pressure of Novyck’s knife. She clenched her jaw tighter. This fake Houdini wouldn’t be taking her head!

  Downriver, she saw a private yacht approaching from the open sea. High above the vessel’s deck, a radar dish rotated lazily in the late afternoon sun.

  Kate knew now: Her time was coming.

  Gunter turned right. A block ahead lay Tower Bridge Road.

  Twisting Kate’s arm behind her back, Novyck brought his blade close to the driver’s face. “I said, Faster!” he yelled above the roar and clatter.

  Kate felt the bus pick up speed as it blasted through blinking red warning lights, rolling under the first stone-covered arch that anchored the Bridge’s massive steel supports.

  Suddenly, Kate felt a trembling deep in the earth. The ship she’d seen had drawn closer. She was almost directly below.

  The driver turned toward them, his eyes disappearing into the corners of their sockets, like a spooked horse. “Sir, this bridge is opening! I can’t go on! I’ve got to stop!”

  Fifty feet down, huge hydraulic pumps shuddered again.

  “Go!” Novyck yelled again. “FLOOR it!”

  The big Leyland diesel whinnied to the spur of Gunter’s heavy workshoe. Even empty, the doughty vehicle weighed well over seven tons. The stink of hot metal and diesel fumes gusted into the open cabin. All that weight was on the hoof now, thundering forward like a bull elephant on rampage.

  Kate watched the bridge heave itself into a mountain. The pavement lifted, rising to a clean edge that became the end of the world. Far below, between yawning jaws, the Thames swirled like a cauldron.

  She saw the helicopter then, hovering above the river.

  Novyck moved toward her, sliding like a snake to the doorway. Kate felt a sharp, stinging pain as he slipped by. The knife he’d meant to bury in her breast cut a glancing slice in her side. In pushing off, her onetime Svengali had stabbed her.

  Now, like a stick toy, Novyck was falling toward the water, screaming commands into the headset as he descended.

  The same slow-motion sensation that flooded Kate before a dive blocked her pain.

  Her ultimate moment had come.

  One.

  Two.

  She grabbed a leather passenger strap. Hoisting herself to the same door Novyck had used, she flexed her knees and launched.

  Three!

  Her body is airborne.

  Kate curls, scrunches her legs against her chest, circles into herself like a seashell. One, two, three-and-a-half somersaults. As she rolls, her shoes fall away and her eyes spot on the flying bus, two-thirds through its mid-air arc.

  The red behemoth thumps on the bridge’s other side, squatting from the force of its own weight.

  Kate’s body drops through the London sky like a Nazi rocket, vertical, deadly, falling straight to target.

  She spins in a triple corkscrew before sliding noiselessly into the water.

  She’s made a perfect entry.

  For the rest of her
life, Kate will remember how quiet it is below the surface.

  Chapter 66

  “It’s too choppy,” Hudson said. He looked back from the sniper’s rifle, mounted on the bow of the Scotland Yard speedboat.

  Minutes before, while parking on Threadneedle, the police official noticed what first appeared to be two fare fiddlers jumping on a bus.

  “That’s Kate! And Novyck!” Blake shouted.

  Giving chase, the pair had been stuck at a red light when Hudson decided to change course. “We’ll take a boat. We can pick up another car on the other side,” he said, swerving down an adjoining street to the river. They’d already left the Metropolitan Police dock when Blake saw Gunter’s bus take flight and Novyck make his sky bolt for freedom. Hudson immediately spun the rudder toward Tower Bridge.

  “Too much risk of hitting innocents,” he said now. “Including the girl.”

  Blake nodded. As if to underscore Hudson’s assessment, the boat’s flat hull slapped the water, jarring the rifle butt against the inspector’s chest. They were closing fast.

  * * *

  Seventy-five yards away, Kate swam toward Imre Novyck in long, swift strokes. Wind from the helicopter’s blades blew the tops of the waves into a creamy froth. She shrugged off her jacket. The knife wound burned at her side.

  Reaching the chopper’s pontoons, Novyck grabbed a line someone threw from the cabin door, and hauled himself out of the river.

  In the water below, Kate flung up her right arm and grabbed the Russian’s ankle.

  Novyck turned. Bracing himself on the aircraft’s metal frame, he stretched across the float. Breaking Kate’s grip with his free foot, he pushed her back under.

  Water and air swirled over Kate’s head in a rush of bubbles and current. When she broke the surface, Novyck stood on the pontoon above her.

  His laugh taunted her. “I’ve still got it!” In his left hand, high above his head, he held the Romanov Stone, glowing like an ember. In his right, he held a Walther automatic. “Stupid cow. You’re going to die the same way Grigori did.”

  Kate heard a sharp mechanical sound as he cocked the pistol’s firing mechanism.

  The first slug plowed harmlessly past her, traveling about two feet before it fell straight to the bottom.

  The second seared her left arm like a branding iron.

  Kate flipped her legs in a dolphin kick and headed straight down. Murky and cold, the Thames molded around her like an icy gel. A third slug churned past her left ear.

  On the surface, she heard the hum of the helicopter motor, gaining momentum for liftoff.

  She had to get him into the water—he’d be no match for her here.

  Spinning in an underwater somersault, Kate reversed direction and headed back up. The pontoons floated above her like huge gray sausages. Novyck peered over the side, his face wavering through the water. A fourth bullet went wild, boring an oxygen tunnel before dropping harmlessly to the depths.

  Kate surged out of the water and onto the pontoon next to Novyck, beaching herself on her elbows. Startled, her opponent turned, but too late. Kate rolled into his calves, rose to a half-crouch and drove her weight into his mid-section. Novyck lost his footing. With a loud splash he fell backward into the water.

  The Romanov Stone hung in the air like a small balloon.

  Thunk!

  The gem made a hollow, metallic echo as it hit the pontoon and rolled lazily down its length.

  Kate stood frozen, her eyes locked on the moving treasure.

  Novyck stroked frantically, racing the jewel to the end of the pontoon.

  He lost.

  The stone slipped over the edge and splashed into the river.

  Kate dove.

  For an instant, even in the tenebrous river, the jewel gleamed red. Less than a yard from Kate’s outstretched fingertips, it darkened to green. Arching her back, Kate pulled her arms apart in a powerful breaststroke, and frog-kicked. She shot forward.

  But the big alexandrite was falling faster than she could swim.

  It turned black and vanished.

  Kate pulled up, momentarily treading in place. Then she pushed her palms toward the river bottom and scissored her legs. She drifted back to the surface. Gasping, she gulped in a fresh supply of air. Her lashes squeegeed the water from her eyes.

  Simon Blake leaned over the side of a Scotland Yard patrol boat.

  Novyck and the helicopter were gone.

  Chapter 67

  “I suppose we could ask Cushing to try for an extension,” she said, her voice as distant as her eyes.

  “I already did,” said Blake. “He commiserated, but said it was pointless. Even if we got the stone back, Parliament set the deadline; there’s really nothing anyone can do.”

  Kate stared between the planks of teakwood decking. She could see the smooth interior of the small boat’s hull. How far below was the Romanov Stone, mired for eternity in a mud and sludge strongbox? Her chest seemed to collapse around her windpipe. “I had him and I let him get away,” she wheezed, speaking as if to herself. “And I lost the stone as well.”

  “Don’t blame yourself.” Blake circled her with his arm. Both the wounds Novyck had inflicted were superficial, but the stiff police bandages made her wince with movement. Her shoulders trembled.

  “Novyck may have escaped for the moment,” Blake said, “but he fled empty-handed. He won’t last long.”

  “I can’t believe how much power he had over me.”

  Blake looked down at her. “I know I may have just seemed jealous,” he said, “but I wondered about that from the start. You talked about Novyck as if he were a demigod, but he just didn’t add up. Something didn’t ring true.

  “The good news, however” he continued, “is that you stood up to him.”

  Kate sat very still, mulling his words. For much of her life, she’d locked her emotions behind a door. She’d created the same kind of closed house her mother had kept her in—believing it was for her own safety. And in those dark rooms her heart had grown cold.

  With Anya’s recent help, she’d flung open that door. She might have trouble seeing clearly at first—abruptly looking into the sun could do that to you. But at least she’d stepped out of the shadows.

  “They say life is a journey,” Kate said, squinting up at Simon. “But does the journey create the person, or the person create the journey?

  “I suspect a bit of both,” he replied.

  They reached the dock.

  Simon Blake leapt gracefully off the bow, then turned back to her.

  “I lost everything,” Kate said, taking his hand. “I lost Imre. I lost the stone. I lost the money. I let Anya down. I missed my last chance to make things right with Irina.”

  “You haven’t lost everything,” Blake countered in a measured tone, “and you haven’t missed any last chances. Every day you live you make Anya and Irina proud.”

  “There are things about me you still don’t know,” Kate protested. Even in uttering the words, however, she realized how trifling a 10-year-old sports scandal seemed compared to what they’d just been through. Kate stared back at the Thames and Tower Bridge. “I owed them their dream,” she said.

  Blake moved closer to her. River spray slickened his face, plastering his hair to his forehead. “I know about your past, Kate. Let it be the past.” He grinned. “Like I said, we’ll talk about it when we’re old and gray. And as a matter of fact, you’re wrong about the dream. It may not be lost, at least not all of it. Cushing said the bank was highly receptive when he suggested using the account to fund a special Romanov Center for Russian scholars. It would offer grants and fellowships to strengthen cultural and commercial ties and improve understanding with the west. He wants to talk to you about the idea as soon as you’re ready.

  “Besides,” he went on, “you still have the egg. That
would be a handsome dowry for any Russian princess. You also have this.” His hand opened to reveal Anya’s Faberge frog, the jeweled amphibian that first brought them together. Stepping behind her, Blake kissed the back of Kate’s neck as he fastened the twice-repaired necklace. “And you still have me, such as I am.”

  Kate finally smiled. “But Simon,” she said, turning back to face him, “It’s not just the Romanov stone or the money. Novyck killed my mother and escaped justice, and he almost killed me. The worst part is no-one will ever know that the tsar—my great-great grandfather—had a living heir. It’s as if Anya, Lydia, Irina and I never existed. As if the past hundred years of our history never happened.”

  “Kate, darling Kate,” Blake said, drawing her close into his arms, “Don’t you see? You know. We know. It’s your history. I hope it becomes our history.”

  She looked at him. The truth of his words slowly filled her.

  She reached for his hand.

  “Not Kate,” she said quietly, shaking her head. “From now on, call me Katya.”

  Epilogue

  On the other side of the city, a Daimler limousine drew up outside a neighborhood park in St. John’s Wood. A slender olive-skinned man rose from a bench. He passed a caretaker kneeling in a rectangle of lavender flowers, and approached the long black car.

  The rear passenger window made a scuffing sound as it slid open.

  “Please join me inside,” said Jacob Massad.

  “Much appreciated, but I am—as you say—pooshed for time,” the other man replied in a soft Latin accent. “One thing,” he added, “you will absolve the woman and Mr. Blake of any and all obligations regarding the stone?”

  “You have my word,” Massad replied.

  The Colombian nodded and slipped a heavily padded package, about the size and shape of a small grapefruit, through the window.

  He accepted a thick manila envelope in return.

  “Vaya con dios,” he said, smiling.

  Then, with a wave, Hector Molina walked briskly up the street. He’d catch a cab on Abbey Road. With any luck, he could still make that 2:00 p.m. flight to Spain.