Blood of the Czars

by Kilian, Michael;

  Ramsey took his hand from her back.

  “You wouldn’t have to permit that. I’m sure you’ve kept legions of theatrical producers from doing that. You are an exceedingly resourceful woman. We just want to be able to record that you met with him privately, secretly.”

  “Record how?”

  “We have means.”

  “Photographs?”

  “Simply arranged. Even in Moscow. After your tour, we would make them available to extremely interested parties in the Kremlin, along with information attesting to your being an employee of the Central Intelligence Agency and your being a linear descendant of the family Romanov.”

  “And that I killed a KGB agent in Marseilles.”

  “If necessary. For emphasis.”

  “And what would happen then?”

  “You would be back here, safe, sound, and fifty thousand dollars to the good. Tovarisch Griuchinov would be dispatched to a gulag, or with luck, executed in the Lubyanka.”

  “What do you and your employers get out of this? What’s my father’s death to you?”

  “We would be extremely pleased to see Tovarisch Griuchinov removed from the succession to the party leadership. If we can do something for you at the same time, it would be most gratifying, for all of us.”

  “Tell me why you would be extremely pleased to see him removed.”

  “Your father has not been his only victim. If Griuchinov were to become premier, there would be more, possibly millions more. We think he’s the most dangerous man in the Politburo.”

  “The others are all enlightened reformers, with western sympathies?”

  “Did you read the piece in this week’s Time about the new Soviet hierarchy?”

  “I turned to the theater section first, and didn’t go back. I’m not much interested in politics, anyone’s politics.”

  “A failing, Tat. Although the Time article would have misinformed you. There are not eight in contention for the party chairmanship should something truly unfortunate befall the ailing premier. There are only four. Griuchinov, unfortunately, has the best chance, barring a massive corn blight. Of the others, and they’re all basically swine, the best is Felix Alexyevich Popov. You’re familiar with him?”

  “I think so. He’s the deputy premier.”

  “Felix is something of a bumpkin, but he has argued in meetings of the Politburo for increased talks between the two Germanys, for some limited forms of Hungarian-style capitalism in the Soviet domestic economy, and for détente with both the People’s Republic and ourselves. Lamentably, Felix is seventy-four years old. The premier made him deputy so that none of the stronger rivals could be number two. With Felix about, there really isn’t a number two.”

  She closed her eyes. She wanted to send Ramsey away, but kept listening.

  “The third possibility is General Viktor Vasilevich Badim, as I’m sure you know, chairman of the Committee for State Security. He’s actually a civilian. He carries the general’s rank as head of the KGB, but he’s basically a diplomat and a spy. Far, far more westernized, sophisticated, and educated than Andropov was purported to be, which is why he’s been given the same idiotic reputation for liberalism. In fact, he’s quite ruthless, a rotten son of a bitch. He’s backed the Red Army in everything it wants and has filled the gulags as they hadn’t been since Stalin. I shouldn’t like to be one of his guests.”

  He coughed. She wished he would put on his clothes.

  “Badim has only a slightly better opportunity here than old Felix,” Ramsey continued. “Andropov came out of the KGB and there’s resistance to establishing that as the traditional step to party leadership. And Badim’s western posturings have made him somewhat obnoxious to some of the hardliners, though he’s really one of them. Also, he’s Latvian. He was born and reared in Riga.”

  The image of her dead father’s staring face flitted across her mind. She reopened her eyes, focusing them on the night table.

  “The fourth candidate is the sleeper, and our secret trump. He’s already made some discreet, unofficial diplomatic contacts with us and has given us reason to believe that he’d work with us in neutralizing Iran, among other exigencies, should he come to power and should we make certain concessions. His name is Yevgeni Ivanovich Kuznetzov and he’s a career soldier. Marshal Kuznetzov, now, and defense minister. He used to be head of the GRU. You remember the GRU?”

  “Vaguely.”

  “GRU. Glavnoye Razvedyvatelnoye Upravleniye. The Chief Intelligence Directorate of the Soviet General Staff. The ‘clean’ Soviet spies.”

  “They don’t rape helpless women in Marseilles.”

  She sensed his smile. “I’ll conclude. If the premier should die, Griuchinov is the likely winner of any fight that would ensue. If Griuchinov should himself succumb to an untimely end, his civilian supporters in the Politburo would probably move to old Felix, if only to purchase time, but Badim and the Kremlin marshals would likely retaliate at the earliest opportunity, perhaps one of their own scheduling. If Griuchinov were disgraced and discredited, however, we think the turn would be to our man Kuznetzov. Griuchinov’s faction would not dare try to enthrone another of their own, but they would have enough strength to block the Latvian Badim. Kuznetzov would be the natural compromise: a creature of the army, but liberal enough for the rest of the apparat. More usefully to us, he’d have the strength to entrench himself in power, unlike Felix.”

  She rubbed her eyes with the heel of her hand.

  “Tatty?”

  She sighed again. “What?”

  “Does this interest you?”

  “How long ago did you think this all up?”

  “It came together as something of a quadratic equation: Our obligation to you for Marseilles. The State Department’s deciding on this tour. The illness of the Soviet premier. My finding that photograph of your father in the files. The logic was impelling.”

  She rubbed her eyes again. “Why didn’t you tell me from the start?”

  “I wanted you to come upon your decision slowly, with a full understanding of what this means.”

  “The first time you promised me an exciting adventure.”

  “This time I promise you revenge. And your complete safety.”

  He waited.

  “Tatty?”

  She said nothing.

  “Tatty, what’s your decision?”

  “Go away now, Ramsey. I’m going to cry. I can’t help it. Go away. I want you to leave me alone.”

  Trembling, she controlled herself until she heard him close the door behind him.

  The Air India flight left New York at ten P.M. Tatty had taken dinner by herself at Altri Tempi, a quiet Italian restaurant on the Upper East Side that was a longtime favorite of hers. She had no interest in the meal the stewardesses in their saris began serving almost immediately after take-off. They had a decent cognac aboard, and she was interested in that. She sipped it modestly but frequently, turning to peer down at the flickering lights of New England as the huge 747 groaned on toward the sub-Arctic on its great circle flight-path across the ocean. When dinner was finished, they would dim the cabin lights for the movies, and she could be alone with her jumbled thoughts.

  The first class section was nearly empty, and she was happily spared the company of some stranger in the seat next to her. The economy class behind her was quite full, about evenly divided between Indians in turbans and saris and American tourists organized into groups, little red, blue, or white tags dangling from their carry-on baggage.

  She recognized one couple, taking seats near her in first class, as distinctly English, and four men who boarded after, three short and round, one tall and thin, as distinctly Russian. One of the short round ones dropped off into a seat in first class. The others, moving as though in step, disappeared into economy.

  Now, reclining further in her seat, she saw only darkness below. The aircraft was probably crossing a brief stretch of the Atlantic before the next landfall at New Brunswick. After that would come
Newfoundland and then Cape Farewell, Greenland. She had made so many of these crossings that the isolated outpost was now a routine reference point, as familiar as any of the commuter stations between Grand Central and Greenwich. On one flight, with the clear northern skies aglow with the aurora borealis, she had actually seen the few dim lights marking the Cape Farewell settlement. It had seemed so cold, lonely, and forbidding then. Compared to her destination, it now seemed friendly and familiar.

  Farewell. There had been a song about good-bye. About wishing someone love. She had sung it alot to herself when she had first come to the Hamptons. Farewell. Sweet sorrow. Tears. She tried to put the song from her mind, but voices continued to sing it, over and over.

  Shortly after returning to New York, Tatty had driven up to Westchester to the bank of the small river where her mother’s ashes had been scattered. It had been a bright clear day with the autumn sunlight intensifying every color, but as she looked down at the stream, dropping roses slowly one by one onto its steady surface, she thought she heard the depressing sound of rain. It was only the leaves, falling. She said to herself that the trees were crying.

  Finishing her brandy, she leaned forward to press her cheek against the coldness of the window. When this Russian affair was over, she would go away, far away, perhaps to California. That was about as far from reality as she could possibly get.

  There was bustling in the cabin. One of the first-class stewardesses was distributing earphones for the movie, which in this section was another dreadful Glenda Jackson comedy. Tatty shook her head when the stewardess came by. The girl lingered, asking in heavily accented English if she minded if a few people from the tourist section came into first class for the movie, as it was the only place the film would be shown. They would be sent away immediately afterwards, she said. Tatty said she didn’t mind, and turned away. She wanted to sleep.

  Before she could, one of the passengers from economy class, a turbaned Sikh with a coal black beard, took the seat beside her, adjusting the earphones with some difficulty. The movie started and she closed her eyes again, only to have the man jostle her.

  “A thousand pardons, memsah’b,” he said, with Kiplingesque exaggeration. Then he jostled her again. She was about to reply, angrily, when he put his fingers to his lips, leaned close, and whispered, “Relax, Tat. Just because I’m from economy doesn’t make me an untouchable.”

  She glanced quickly across to the Russian on the other side of the cabin. He had his earphones on and was watching the film. She turned back to her seatmate.

  “Your makeup is very good,” she said. “I almost wonder if I should make you prove your identity.”

  “What? Quo warranto? Very well. You have the faintest small birthmark on the inside of—”

  “Stop it, Ramsey. Aren’t you taking a risk? There are four Russians aboard. There’s one just over there.”

  “Actually, there are seven of them on this flight. But no one particularly worrisome. At any rate, I shall be dropping off at London. I’ve a bit of business there.”

  “I’d expected you to show up, you know.”

  “Did you?”

  “I thought you’d pop up in London, or in Russia somewhere.”

  “That would hardly do for a man of my station in the Soviet section. They’d snatch me five minutes off the plane and haul me off to the Lubyanka. If there was anything left of me when we finished chatting, they’d then barter my remnants for whichever of their leading lights we have locked up, or worse, persuade me to defect. I’d take death to that, Tatty. Nothing patriotic, mind you. It’s just that life in the great workers’ paradise and pigsty would be all the same to me as rotting in the grave.”

  That comment alone would have assured her of his identity. Ramsey hated communists more than anyone else on earth, and he hated many, many people.

  “Do you have anything new to tell me?” she asked. “You’re not calling this off?”

  “Heavens no. I just wanted to reassure you that we’re watching out for you. And I wanted you to have a little bon voyage gift.”

  He placed a small package on her lap.

  “Open it on the Aeroflot flight to Leningrad. It’s meant for good luck. It was the duke’s idea.”

  She studied the package, and then looked at the antique emerald ring the old man had given her.

  “Ramsey …”

  “The Russian has noticed us. He’s taking off his earphones. I need to make an appropriate exit. I’m going to kiss you, Tatty. I want you to push me away and then hit me in the face as hard as you can.”

  “What?”

  “I’m an obnoxious wog, missy. I’ve been pestering you. I’m doubtless drunk.”

  He opened his mouth and pressed it against hers in what could be described as a slobber. She felt his saliva run down her chin. Though never so realistically, she had played this scene many times. Shoving him as hard as she could, she struck him hard in the mouth, hurting her fingers and causing his lip to bleed. The emerald ring.

  Ramsey rose, his earphones hanging comically from one ear, and leapt back into the aisle, spewing out mouthfuls of whining curses and apologies in a language she thought and hoped might be Hindi. Then he fled.

  An anxious stewardess rushed to Tatty’s seat, hands aflutter. Tatty asked for a wet towel and another brandy. After those were brought, she requested a pillow and blanket. Brandy, warmth, softness. They might bring sleep.

  But they did not. When she closed her eyes, she heard the sound of leaves, falling like rain.

  She did not see Ramsey for the rest of the flight. At Heathrow, the Russia-bound passengers were given time to refresh themselves and relax in the international terminal lounge. The bright neon lights pained her eyes, which had looked horribly red in the mirror of the dim airplane lavoratory. She bought a pair of unattractive but serviceable sunglasses at a notions counter, then went to the duty-free shop to see if there was any clothing that interested her. There wasn’t. Buying a copy of the Times, she went to the café and settled down at an empty table with tea, biscuits, and a sour orange juice. It was then that she noticed Ramsey, reading a newspaper himself off in a lounge area. She watched him steadily but he never once looked her way.

  He was waiting to make sure of her decision, that she would continue on. Once she boarded the Russian aircraft, it would be irrevocable.

  With sudden haste, she set down her cup, snatched up her coat and carry-on bag, and hurried to the customs exit, starting toward the Nothing To Declare line, then retracing her steps.

  Ramsey was still in his chair, still reading the newspaper. She moved quickly back to where the American tour group was being assembled for transfer to the Russian flight. He did not follow. He didn’t need to.

  They were passed through a checkpoint with the worst sort of British officiousness, two blue-uniformed women counting passports and noting, “One male, one female. One female. Two males …”

  From the gate, they were taken not out to the plane but down onto the tarmac, where their luggage had been placed in a large rectangular pile between two white lines. There were four men standing nearby, all quite Russian, two of them in brown leather or vinyl trenchcoats. When the passengers approached, the men moved to take position at the corners of the rectangle. One of them gestured to the first of the passengers, and demonstrated what was wanted. The passengers were to take their individual luggage by themselves over to another space between white lines on the tarmac. The point of this idiocy, apparently, was to match luggage with person. But what else?

  Tatty did as instructed. As someone traveling with the tour group but not part of it, she was made to wait until last. She had Gucci luggage—a very large tan suitcase, a smaller one, and her makeup case, plus her carry-on bag. It took her two trips. She looked up at the nearest leather coat when she was done. He nodded once at her, and then again at the waiting aircraft, and looked at his watch. She hurried aboard, and the heavy-set stewardess quickly reached to close the forward door behind her.
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  The interior of the plane, the Soviets’ closest approximation of transport luxury, was funereal—dingy gray walls, stained, dark blue seats and carpeting. The three stewardesses were large, square, and grim, lending the impression they were chosen more for their abilities to subdue passengers than to charm them. As with Air India, they began serving the meal almost immediately after take-off, from a huge chipped and peeling white metal cart that looked as though it had done duty in a nineteenth-century Russian army hospital. The food was a match. Tatty declined it, accepting only a glass of extraordinarily bad wine, a wine so awful she almost didn’t take a second sip.

  Thoroughly intimidated, the other passengers sat in dumbstruck silence, acting more like cowed inmates than the boisterous tourists they had been aboard the Air India plane. Tatty ignored them, even the nice old couple in the two seats next to hers. She took Ramsey’s gift from her handbag, recognizing the wrappings as Tiffany’s. The small box inside was Tiffany’s as well. She opened it clumsily, surprised and enchanted by what it contained: a small, gold and red enamel pin bearing a crest and coat of arms. The design was very old fashioned, as antique as the emerald ring that the old duke had given her, but the pin was quite new, as though it had been made up to special order very recently. It was elegantly beautiful. It was the imperial double-headed eagle of the family Romanov.

  It was pinned to what proved to be a piece of notepaper folded many times over into a very small square. The message, in Ramsey’s hand, was only a few words long.

  “I love you, as you cannot know.”

  She affixed the pin to her jersey, letting her wool jacket fall back over it, hiding it. She would look at it in private glances. She finished the execrable wine in three quick gulps, then went to sleep.

  She awoke to a graying dusk. The plane, losing altitude rapidly, was banking over a dull expanse of water, a bay or large lake. One of the stewardesses, in commandant style, announced over the public address system that they were nearing Leningrad and warned against the taking of photographs out the cabin windows. Tatty yawned, amused by the notion. There was nothing to see but an endless darkening expanse of green-brown-gray merging to black in the east. The country at the center of the world, her grandmother had called it, a land of limitless horizons. Beyond one was the Arctic; beyond another, the United States; beyond others, China, the Middle East, and Europe. Both Mathilde and Tatty’s mother Chloe had cherished their Russianness; Mathilde had a passion for the physical state of Russia, for the land and trees and skies, for the extraordinary space of Russia. Mathilde and Mathilde’s Russian friends had called it a magical country, the most magical country in the world, in all history.