Blood of the Czars

by Kilian, Michael;

  He was a small man, expensively but ill-fittingly dressed, his wrists too thin for his cuffs, his shoulders too small for his suit jacket. He had thick dark hair and moist, nervous, darting dark eyes. He licked his lips as he talked, reminding her oddly of Ramsey.

  His manner was polite, indeed respectful. He thanked her effusively for agreeing to the tour, saying they would have had to settle for an unknown or an aging has-been if she had turned them down. He said he himself disapproved of the project, as he disapproved of sharing anything with the Russians, likening American entertainment to American technology. He then launched into an inchoate speech on the virtues of free enterprise and the menace of communism. It was a long harangue, and Tatty twice caught herself on the brink of nodding back into sleep. He invited her to lunch. She was relieved at being immediately able to claim another engagment without having to search through her sodden mind for an excuse. He gave her a souvenir pen with the State Department seal on it. She feared he might also hand her an autographed photo of the president, or of himself.

  Ramsey was very subdued, staring into his cocktail glass until lunch was finally served, only picking at his expensively prepared salmon. He made little effort at conversation and fended off her attempts to learn the cause of his distress, staring tragically off at what looked to be a side door. At last, Tatty decided to make the most of the situation by getting some questions answered.

  “There are some things I still don’t understand,” she said. “Why can’t I have someone go with me? Gwen would love the trip.”

  “The Soviet authorities prefer that you come alone. I don’t know why. There’s no understanding them. But you’ll have people watching out for you until you get on the Aeroflot plane in London, and there’ll be someone from our embassy with you all the time in Russia, along with your Intourist guide, whom I expect will be a lady. You’ll be fine, Tat.”

  He looked off again at the door.

  “Why do I have to fly to London on Air India and change planes?”

  “The Soviets, as a friendly gesture to Madame Gandhi, are subsidizing Air India by using it for the trans-Atlantic leg in their tourist packages. The State Department is trying to be friendly to Madame Gandhi as well. Your seat is first class. You won’t notice much difference. Unless you order the curry dishes.”

  “No thank you. When am I to be paid?”

  “I’ve no idea. Does it matter? Tatty, you’re a woman of—”

  “I’m a professional actress.”

  “Yes. I’ll make the necessary inquiries.”

  “The money is to be paid to my agent.”

  “Yes, Tatty. Shall we go?”

  “Why are you so unhappy today?”

  “Let’s go to Langley.”

  Tatty was impressed by the ease with which Ramsey was admitted through the gates and surprised at the immensity of the building as it came into view in the midst of the Virginia woods. He obtained a visitor’s pass for her with similar ease, explaining as they walked on toward the elevators that he had prearranged her clearance.

  “You’re in the computers as a part-time employee,” he said. “Courier.”

  “How wonderful.”

  He did not respond to the sarcasm of her tone, appearing not to notice it. His countenance was utterly dark and somber now, and he did not speak until they reached his office. His secretary, an attractive older woman, rose to greet them, but without a smile.

  “Mr. Twill has been looking for you, Mr. Saylor.”

  “Well, don’t let him find me, Elizabeth. I’m going to be in my office with Miss Chase for some time.”

  “Mr. Saylor, Mr. Twill is in your office.”

  There were three men waiting there. Seated at Ramsey’s desk, rising with the other two upon seeing Tatty, was a large, athletic man with very short hair and a dark Washington suit that cramped his massive shoulders. Nearby, unfolding himself from a leather chair, was a tall, cadaverously thin old man who blinked at her through thick glasses with heavy black rims, the same color as his hair, suit, and tie. In a corner by the window was the white-haired man they had seen at the Canadian embassy the night before, dressed in a perfectly pressed gray suit and looking younger in it than he had in black tie. He was also friendlier, bowing his head to Tatty with a polite smile. Ramsey introduced him as Hugh Laidlaw. The spooky man in black was Freddy Mendelsohn, and the brawny one was William Twill, Ramsey’s boss.

  “Miss Chase has assisted us in the past, as you may remember,” Ramsey said, seeming nervous in his superior’s presence. It was so odd to see Ramsey in the company of someone he felt inferior to, as he would put it, a “rara avis.”

  “Twice, as I remember,” Twill said. “Thanks. Sorry about the rough stuff in Marseilles.”

  “We regret it very much, Miss Chase,” said the man named Laidlaw. He had an extremely cultured voice, with a very exact touch of New England accent.

  “‘Ah, my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears Today of past Regrets and future Fears,’” the spooky one recited. He was smoking, with a holder, exhaling as he spoke. The expended cloud hung about his face like a veil. “The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam,” he added, with an eery smile. “A less remembered passage.”

  “Miss Chase is going to Russia,” Ramsey said.

  “For the State Department,” Tatty said. “To do dramatic readings.”

  “Yes,” said Twill. “We know.” He looked unhappily at Ramsey. “We need to have a little powwow, Ram. Beaucoup schnell.”

  “Certainly,” Ramsey said. “Uh, Miss Chase …”

  “We’ll go back to my office,” said Twill. “Miss Chase can wait here.”

  With Twill leading, moving in a sort of rapid trudge, they filed out; Ramsey gave an unhappy backward glance. Mendelsohn paused at the doorway, as Tatty seated herself on Ramsey’s leather couch.

  “‘Serene, I fold my hands and wait,’” he said.

  “What?”

  He smiled. “John Burroughs.”

  She stared at him.

  “Serene, I fold my hands and wait,

  Nor care for wind, nor tide, nor sea;

  I rave no more gainst time or fate,

  For lo! my own shall come to me.”

  He backed out, pulling the door behind him. “A pleasure Miss Chase. Proshchaite.” The door closed silently.

  The office’s decor was most unlike Ramsey. The paintings were all modern, some quite stark. The furniture was contemporary as well, though comfortable. When Ramsey’s absence grew to fifteen minutes, she slipped off her shoes and put her feet up on the couch. After a half-hour, she let herself fall asleep, her last thought a curious one about what sad thing he was going to show her, and what it could possibly have to do with her poor dead father.

  Ramsey shook her gently awake. “I’m sorry, Tatty. There’s a big to-do. The Soviet general secretary is ailing and everyone in the White House and Congress is turning to us for answers as to what might happen next.” As she sat up, he eased himself beside her. “We, of course, have no idea.”

  “They seemed angry with you.”

  “I’ve been somewhat inattentive to duty these past few days.” He took her hand and squeezed it, but did not look at her. His long-lashed eyes, deadly serious, were fixed on the carpet. He sighed. “Well, let’s get this done with then. Please, come sit by my desk.”

  As she did so, he went to a locked file cabinet, opened it, and with great solemnity removed a bound folder. He placed it carefully on the desk, as though it contained something fragile.

  “This is in the nature of a remarkable coincidence, what I’m about to relate to you,” he said. “It’s not a happy one.”

  She felt chill. She had left her shoes by the couch. Without them, she lacked not only warmth but dignity.

  “You read your grandmother’s memoir. Do you remember the man Jakov Sverdlov? He arranged the murder of the Romanov family.”

  “He was himself murdered by a Moscow laborer some six months after the regicide, presumably with the conn
ivance of the Soviet. Lenin honored him nonetheless by renaming Ekaterinburg ‘Sverdlovsk.’ He had an illegitimate son, this Comrade Sverdlov. A party camp follower was the mother. He was looked after, even by Stalin. All the right Bolshevik schools, if you know what I mean. His name is Valeri Jakovich Griuchinov. He is sixty-seven years old and is now a member of the almighty Politburo. He is in charge of all Soviet agriculture, and is unusually competent. You don’t follow these things, of course, but Soviet grain harvests have improved significantly every year since he took over. This success has taken a great deal of internal political pressure off the military to be less extravagant with the Soviet exchequer. They are so pleased with him he stands a good chance of ascending to the throne if the present secretary should succumb. It’s all in this report.”

  She only glanced at it. “What has this to do with my father?”

  “Valeri Jakovich Griuchinov was not always so important. Twenty years ago, he was only an agriculture specialist in the Soviet foreign service, assigned to the Russian embassy in Hanoi as an advisor on rice crop production. This was deep cover. He had been an intelligence officer in World War II, working as liaison with our OSS. You’re familiar with the OSS, the original incarnation of the Agency?”

  She nodded.

  “His real function in Indochina was counterintelligence, with particular attention to Laos. In the early 1960s, the Agency was waging its famous ‘secret war’ there against the Pathet Lao. It was a discreet affair, but very nasty.”

  She hugged herself for warmth, half-seriously wondering if Ramsey had deliberately turned off the heat, or whether she was coming down with some illness.

  “We had a number of American pilots flying reconnaissance for us. Mostly free-lance, but a few serving military officers. Your father, an extremely brave man, was among them, TDY from the Air Force. These were not stratospheric U2 flights, you understand. They were low-level missions, always very close-run things.”

  “My mother told me about that,” she said, very softly.

  “Your father was shot down over the Plain of Jars and taken to a Pathet Lao camp near Muong Soui. There was a Soviet operative at that camp, in functional control of that camp and Pathet Lao operations in the area.” He took a photograph from the file and set it on the desk in front of her. “Valeri Jakovich Griuchinov.”

  The photograph, a slightly blurry enlargement, was of a stoutish man with a pleasant, almost handsome face. He was wearing a short-sleeved tropical shirt and standing in front of thick, exotic-looking foliage. There was a holstered pistol on his belt.

  “Mr. Griuchinov, son of the murderer of your czarist ancestors, was your father’s captor, Tatty. He was in charge of your father’s execution. It happened August 3, 1964.”

  “Yes.” Her voice was softer still.

  “Our side overran the camp that afternoon,” he said, consulting another official-looking paper. “They took prisoners who had witnessed everything. They took photographs.”

  He reached again into the folder, but stayed his hand, hesitating. Again he sighed.

  “Tatty, I loathe the idea of putting you through this. It has preyed upon me ever since you agreed to the Russian tour. But I think that, under the circumstances, it’s quite necessary, for you see, it’s quite likely that on this tour you will encounter this Griuchinov among other members of the Politburo. Socially.”

  “Socially.”

  “Receptions, dinners, public occasions and private ones. The entertainers we send over there are invariably treated that way. Do you remember that cowboy actor, Chuck Connors, with Brezhnev?”

  She shook her head.

  “It was embarrassing. Brezhnev kept hugging him whenever he had the chance. At the airport, he climbed Connors like a telephone pole and hugged him for the benefit of the news cameras. You would have thought them newlyweds.” His smile flickered and went out under Tatty’s unhappy gaze.

  “Are you saying I’m going to be hugged by the man who killed my father?”

  “No. But if you go through with this it’s likely you’ll find yourself in his company, along with several of his colleagues. You’re a very beautiful woman, and a celebrity. They are Russia’s ruling elite and will consider fellowship with you their droit de seigneur, pigs that they are.” He leaned forward, looking at her very earnestly now. “Tatty, this is something you’re going to have to have very clear in your mind. If you make the final decision to go, it will mean more than just meeting Griuchinov and being civil to him. You will have to be nice to him. It’s part of the protocol.”

  “This is why you brought me here? To tell me this? To show me Griuchinov’s photograph.”

  “I regret that’s not all, Tatty.”

  “You said it was something in, inen …”

  “Inenarable. I’m afraid that it is. Before you make this decision, it’s important that you know all that there is to know. Unfortunately, Tatty, that means you must see all that there is to see.” He paused once more. “Your father was tortured and then executed,” he said, drawing out another photograph. “The method of execution was decapitation.”

  He set the photograph in front of her.

  6

  The photograph put her into shock. He took her to his couch and covered her with his coat, summoning a nurse from Langley’s medical section, who put her hand on Tatty’s forehead, took her temperature, and asked Ramsey if he wanted to give her a sedative. Tatty recalled Ramsey saying no, emphatically. She remembered other people coming into the room, especially the cold, calm face of the white-haired Hugh Laidlaw. When they were gone, Ramsey called for an official car and driver and took her back to her hotel.

  He held her close in the back seat, but she kept her face averted from his, staring out the window at the rhapsodically beautiful autumnal Virginia countryside, finding it suddenly bleak. Brown and white highway signs flashed by at the approach of bridges over deep ravines falling to the Potomac on her left. Spout Run. Windy Run … Run.

  She was able to walk into her hotel, but collapsed on her bed. He undressed her, covered her gently, and went to a chair in the corner, as though to see her through the night. In a moment, she flew into a rage, ripping the sheets from her bed, throwing an ashtray at him, knocking over chairs, pounding on the window. He subdued her as best he could, holding her down until she at length relaxed. Then he let her sit up and got her to drink a large glass of Scotch. He stayed with her until she was asleep and was there when she awoke again hours later. Then, he took her off on a mad round of the loudest discos he could find in Georgetown, till her mind was numb from noise and drink. When they returned once more to her room, he stripped her clothes from her again and mercilessly put her through the most athletic sexual acts he could devise.

  The rest she could recall with great clarity. They lay side by side, trembling with fatigue, covered with sweat, too tired to speak. Yet he embarked on a dissertation on the essentiality of aristocracy and the importance of family lines and breeding. He said that his overriding regret about never marrying was that he hadn’t fathered a child—a son, an heir. He said he could think of no woman more perfect to be the mother of a child of his than she. He said that, as long as Tatty was alive, he could not stand to have another woman bear his child.

  Confused, shivering from the evaporation of her perspiration, she had sat up and pulled the blanket around her. She told him, hesitantly, that it was doubtful she could bear children, that she had an irregular menstrual cycle and ovulated only infrequently. She wanted to say she did not love him, but hesitated. He had said nothing of love. She hugged her knees and stared at the wall. The nightmare photograph of her dead father was still much in her mind, though she was now drained of any emotion with which to respond to it. It was as though she were in some way dead herself.

  Ramsey was watching her. She looked away. She let him take her hand and hold it gently.

  “You’re father should be avenged,” he said. “So should all your murdered relatives.”

  “Y
es,” she said. Her voice was the merest wisp of a sound.

  “I have a way.”

  She looked at him again, into his steady, gazing feminine eyes. She knew what he was about to say, but could find no anger with which to stop him.

  “A way?”

  “It would involve you.”

  “Yes. That’s what all this has been about. That’s why you want me to go to Russia.”

  The flat, emotionless sound of her voice seemed odd to her, as though she were listening to someone else talking, as though she’d been hypnotized.

  “What I want doesn’t matter, Tatiana. What you want is to bring suffering upon those who murdered your father, and I know a way.”

  She slid back down beneath the covers and turned away from him. He let a long, long silence pass. They could hear the shrill, distant call of awakening birds in the park below. If they turned out the lights, the pale beginnings of dawn would doubtless be visible through the window.

  She sighed. “What is it you want me to do?”

  “Not very much more than what we discussed. You would do your readings, and you would be nice to your Soviet hosts. But that would have to include Valeri Jakovich Griuchinov.”

  “How nice to Valeri Jakovich Griuchinov?”

  “Enough to compromise him, but it wouldn’t mean what you think. Appearances would suffice, certainly.”

  “Appearances.”

  “If he seeks you out, as we think would be a strong probability, we’d want you to allow yourself to be entertained by him, socially, and privately.”

  “How would I keep ‘privately’ from becoming another Marseilles? You’ve told me he killed my father. You’ve shown me how horribly he did it. How do you think I’d feel if he touched me?”