“I do,” she mumbled. “Because last night, I wanted…I
mean, we almost…I mean…that’s not who I am. With Belial, it’s just too
hard.”
“Shh,” he said, grasping her arms and placing his lips on
her forehead. “I know.”
She collapsed against him, imagining he would put his arms
around her. But he didn’t. He let her rest against him for a moment
and then he released her, holding out his hands for the box. She looked
up at him, confused.
Why won’t you behave like you did last night?
she thought. But she was afraid to ask, was afraid of the answer.
She surrendered the box and followed him back to the living
room, where Yuri was tethered to a banister with a white plastic zip tie.
“Those are my letters,” he grumbled, struggling against the plastic. “I
want my money.”
Constantine ignored him. “Who wants to do the honors?”
he asked, looking from Viktor to Natalie as he set the box on the coffee table.
“You do it,” Natalie said. Suddenly, she felt tired
and overwhelmed. She didn’t know what was happening or why, but she knew
she couldn’t let anything get in the way of finding the truth about these
letters. To her, the Romanovs were fairy tale creatures, as shrouded in
myth as the denizens of Troy or Illyria. She had never believed she would
come this close to them, to touch something they had touched. Her stomach
tingled with nervous anticipation as Constantine lifted the lid.
Inside the box lay several sheets of paper, a purple velvet
bag, and a small stack of yellowed photos and postcards. She let out her
breath slowly.
Belial,
she thought,
even if these turn out to
be fakes, let me always remember what it was like to believe.
“Christ’s toenails!” Viktor said. “Half the Russian
army could be on our tail by now!” He reached past Natalie and jerked the
pile of papers out from under the velvet pouch. He sifted through them
and handed her two sheets with the same date scrawled across the top: July 13,
1918. “Here they are. Are they real?”
She took the letters and held them side by side. She
couldn’t read Russian—Beth had a translator from the university’s Russian
department for that—but she’d studied the children’s schoolroom primers and
correspondence in three languages and knew the quirks and the signature of
each. She looked for the characteristics she knew, the swoops and swirls
that differentiated one girl’s handwriting from the others’. She waited
for Belial to chime in, but he remained strangely silent. “This is
Marie’s,” she said, holding up the letter in her left hand. “And this is
Olga’s.”
“I told you,” Yuri snapped. “I told you I had them.”
“Right. Viktor, let’s get this over with.”
“I live to serve,” Viktor said, typing in the transfer
amount of $10,000,000. “Now, Mr. Voloshin, I’ll just need the bank name
and account number you wish to use. Our system will locate the routing
number automatically.”
Constantine used a knife to free Yuri, who typed in his
account number and bank name as requested. “How do I know this is going
to go through?” he asked. “I want proof.”
“Of course you do, sweet pea. We can hardly ask you to
take ten million dollars on faith, can we? Once my system shows the
transfer as complete, I’ll receive confirmation on my phone. Of course, with a
transfer this large, your bank won’t be able to process the entire sum right
away. Give them a few days to recover from the shock.”
Viktor’s computer scrolled through hundreds of lines of
visible code. Upon completion, the system sent his phone an automated
text confirming the transfer. He pulled the phone from his jacket pocket
and held it out for Yuri to see. Yuri nodded. “Now what?”
“It’s up to you, pet. I can hack into their system to
show you they’ve received the money, or you can use my phone to call
them.”
Yuri narrowed his eyes. “I don’t trust your computer.”
“
Quelle surprise
,” Viktor said, handing over his
phone.
While Yuri dialed, Constantine packed the letters back into
the strongbox and handed it to Natalie. She took it from him eagerly,
clasping it to her chest.
“Are you sure you don’t want to hang onto that?” Viktor
asked.
“She won’t let anyone else have it,” Constantine said.
“Besides, she’s not the one you need to worry about. It’s the voice
inside her head.”
“She hears voices?”
“Just the one, really.”
Natalie frowned. “I’m right here,” she said.
Suddenly Yuri let out a whoop. “It worked! They
said they see it and they’ll start processing it this afternoon.”
“You see?” Viktor beamed. “You’ll never get anywhere
in life unless you learn whom to trust.” He took one last piece of paper
from his briefcase—a receipt—and acquired Yuri’s signature. “That
completes our business,” he said, turning to clap Constantine on the
shoulder. “What do you say, old chap? Shall we leave this good man
in peace and take our treasure trove on home?”
“The sooner, the better.” Constantine put a hand on
Natalie’s shoulder and steered her into position between the two
men.
Yuri stepped forward to open the door for them. “Nice
doing business with you,” he said. Then he scowled at Natalie. “Not
you. You’re still a crazy bitch.”
“See you in hell,” she said. “They have better knives
there.”
No one saw it coming. The bullet whizzed straight past
her and struck Yuri in the chest. Natalie screamed as Viktor and
Constantine pulled her to the ground, covering her with their bodies as the
tinny clap of assault rifle rounds shattered the morning’s silence.
October 1920
Shenyang, China
The soles of his shoes had come off weeks ago, sometime
after leaving Changchun. Filipp continued barefoot along the dusty trail
used by White Russians fleeing Siberia into China, a trail that led all the way
down to the port city of Dalian. He had no intention of following it all
the way—he suspected the Okhrana had agents posted at every Chinese
harbor.
Just ahead lay the city of Shenyang, situated on a dry, ugly
plain. He paused and looked longingly to his left. Fog hung low
over the rolling emerald mountains and he wished he could abandon the dusty
trail for their protection and isolation. If he tracked eastward, he
could cross the Hamgyeong Mountains and slip down into the Korean peninsula
undetected. Surely, he thought, the Bolsheviks couldn’t patrol the
entire
continent.
Then his stomach rumbled and made the decision for
him. If he were to have any chance of eating or acquiring shoes, he had
to risk a trip through the city. His last meal, two days ago, had been a
paste made of rotten rice and another traveler’s discarded tea leaves. He
licked his lips and rested one hand over his coat pocket, seeking the outline
of what lay hidden in the lining.
He’d fled Ekaterinburg on foot like many of the cowardly
Bolsheviks who feared reprisals from Admiral Kolchak, the man leading the
monarchist counter-revolution in Siberia. Once, he met a group of
Kolchak’s soldiers and came within a single breath of asking them to take him
to the Admiral. But his heart warned him against it just in time.
The White soldiers were no better off than the Bolsheviks; what was to stop one
of them from killing him, stealing the Grand Duchesses’ letters, and selling
them? He closed his mouth, took a meal around the soldiers’ campfire, and
continued alone.
Outside Harbin he’d camped with deserters from the Bolshevik
army. They told him that the ambitious admiral had confiscated the
tsarist gold reserves then stored in Omsk. Filipp feigned outrage to
please the deserters, but in his heart, he understood Kolchak’s
reasoning. The murdering Bolsheviks could not be allowed to fill their
coffers with the Great Father’s gold. Still, he did not feel Kolchak
could be trusted—the man printed his own money and seemed more interested in
creating his own empire than in finding out what had happened to the Tsar and
his family.
Throughout northern China, he encountered impoverished White
Russian refugees. Some pressed onward without knowing why while others
built tin shacks near the border with Russia and waited for a future that would
never come. He stayed with one such family for a month while he
recuperated from an illness, after which they confessed to owning pieces of
porcelain and jewelry stolen from the Tsar’s palace at Tsarskoe Selo. He’d
excused himself and gone for a walk, wondering how he could get the money to
buy the artifacts from them.
Surely
, he thought,
I cannot leave
the Great Father’s things scattered all over China. I will collect them
for his family and keep them safe, just like the letters.
But when he returned to the family’s hut later that evening,
he found it in disarray. Every member of the family had been shot in the
back of the head.
Okhrana
, he thought. The Bolshevik secret
police were everywhere, hunting down émigrés and reclaiming what they believed
to be state property. He’d gathered his meager possessions and fled into
the night.
Filipp swallowed heavily at the memory.
People
meant danger.
Those three words had kept him alive for nearly two
years. But now, without food or salve for his cracked and bloody feet,
the time had come. He trudged down the hill into Shenyang and stumbled
down its side streets, searching for an open shop or restaurant. Night
had fallen an hour ago and he did not know whether local custom permitted the
types of evening amusements available in larger cities. Finally, a mile
down the high street, he found it. Tucked beneath a layered canopy of red
and green tiles, he saw a weathered sign with Russian characters carved beneath
the Chinese ones.
Years ago, Russia had leased parts of this area from the
Chinese, only to lose them in the disastrous Russo-Japanese War. Perhaps
the man who owned this shop would remember those days and look upon him
kindly.
Or
, Filipp thought,
perhaps he will sell the
description of yet another fleeing Russian émigré to the Okhrana.
His belly rumbled again and he knocked on the door.
Almost immediately, a black-bearded Chinese man appeared. “
Jiǔyǎng
,”
Filipp said, bowing his shoulders. Then he continued in Russian.
“Blessings be upon you, sir.”
Short and stout, the merchant had a round face offset by a
long moustache. “And you also, stranger,” he replied. “I see you
are in need of a place to rest. Please come inside.”
Filipp thanked him and obeyed gratefully. Inside, the
small store held shelves filled with boots, hats, gloves, outerwear, blankets
and saddles. It smelled of leather and incense. Behind a linen
curtain, he could see the shadow of a woman and a small boy. “Have you
come here to shop?” the man asked.
“I have no money,” Filipp said slowly. “Would you be
willing to trade?”
“Let me see what you have.”
Filipp set his knapsack on the merchant’s counter and opened
it up. The merchant nodded, his sharp black eyes inspecting Filipp’s
hat. “That hat is beaver fur, is it not?”
“You have a good eye.” Filipp forced a smile to his
lips and a lie through his teeth. “I am from Perm, where the animals are
trapped and skinned.”
“Perm,” the merchant said. “I have heard rumors about
that city.”
“I am but a traveler. No one speaks to me of such
things.”
“They say your empress and her daughters may be held captive
there. Perhaps your emperor, too.” The merchant tapped his long
yellow fingernails together. “After all, no one knows what happened to
them. Have you heard this rumor?”
Filipp wiped sweaty palms against his trousers.
“N—no,” he said. “The only rumor I have heard is that they are all dead.”
“Then where are the bodies?” the merchant asked. “Many
travelers I’ve spoken to believe they are all still alive. Do you know
anything about this?”
“I know nothing. I have been away from home for nearly
two years now.”
The merchant’s eyes glimmered with greed. “But that is
precisely when they disappeared. Surely you must have heard something.
Or been given something.”
I knew it
, Filipp thought. It happened
everywhere along his route—Russian émigrés frantically selling their
possessions as they fled from the Bolsheviks. Some of them sold stolen
goods they claimed were the Great Father’s. Merchants and pawnbrokers had
become used to acquiring jewels and gold for a pittance. They were never
pleased with travelers who had no such treasures to give.
Travelers like me
, he thought. The warmth of
the bamboo floor had finally begun to penetrate his feet. He wiggled his
toes and realized that for the first time in weeks, his heels didn’t
hurt. He closed his eyes. “It has been a terrible journey.”
“You are much the worse for wear,” the merchant
agreed. “You need a hot meal and a new pair of slippers.”
“Yes,” he whispered.
“There is a fresh pot of soup with dumplings in my
kitchen. My wife has made too much. She always does, even though I
tell her we are expecting no one. Can you smell it?”
“Yes,” he whispered.
The merchant pointed at Filipp’s feet. “I also have a
pair of slippers that might fit you. They have an otterskin bottom, lined
on the inside with soft fur. Very good for walking. Do you do much
walking, traveler?”
Filipp touched his coat pocket and felt his heart knock in
his chest. What if the rumors were true and the Great Father and all his
family were dead? He did not want to believe anyone could murder such
beautiful, helpless girls…but if they lived, why had they not been seen since
that terrible summer? He had comforted himself with the fact that no
bodies had been found, yet he knew there were ways of making bodies
disappear. Surely, if the Tsar and his daughters were in heaven, they
would not begrudge him a bowl of soup, a cup of tea, and a new pair of shoes.
Would they not want him to be cared for, after all he had been through on their
behalf? He felt his eyes moisten as he looked up helplessly at the
merchant. “F—food,” he mumbled.