About Face (24 page)

All these years.

All this running. The deception.

The lies.

The truth.

You all want to get wild, then let's get wild.

I've got work to do.

100.

110.

120.

The third car is significantly behind the second—which I'm now creating decent separation from again. I look at the navigation screen. I'm only a few turns, and a couple miles, from Derbyshev's neighborhood. Suddenly I downshift and turn off the main drag. Doing so immediately puts me in suburbia. Narrow, winding streets lined with nice homes where families are sleeping soundly on both sides of me.

I'm calm, collected. So much so I even focus on my breathing for a few moments as I upshift again.

My breaths are even, steady, like the beast.

That's more fucking like it.

I hear the sirens. They're still coming, but I clearly have the advantage as I'm out of sight. The streets are short, choppy. There isn't much room to hit higher than sixty mph before being forced into a turn.

Left here.

Right there.

Within a few minutes, once the sirens' volume has dissipated to my satisfaction, I manage my way with the assistance of my navigation consultant to the street perpendicular to Jarretsville Pike—the street where Derbyshev's mansion sits. I scan the area, lights off. We're moving slowly, steadily through the night.

I look at my watch—2:23 a.m.

I'm actually a bit ahead of schedule.

Guess hitting 160 mph can do that for you.

Finally I see it—the beast's perfect resting spot. There's a large home with a long driveway that wraps around the back of the house. I turn in, and the beast crawls up the driveway purring quietly. Once behind the house, I shut him down.

I grab my suit jacket, get out, and gently close the door. Using my iPhone's flashlight app, I survey the damage to L's car.

The rear, left corner got smashed pretty good. I walk around the back. I clearly see the two bullet holes.

Fuck.

I scratch my head. Then I head off on foot.

A
MSTERDAM
, T
HE
N
ETHERLANDS
2010

After five years in Amsterdam, my research regarding the eggs had intensified, leading me to unbelievable results. First, let me refresh your memory:

There were fifty Fabergé Imperial Easter Eggs made between 1885 and 1916. Only forty-two of them were believed to have survived the Russian Revolution in 1917. At the House of Fabergé, two men oversaw the creation of these eggs—Mikhail Perkhin and Henrik Wigstrom. Whichever of the two oversaw a particular egg, their initials were on the egg along with assay marks relating to the karats and gold and either crossed anchors for the shop in St. Petersburg or St. George and the Dragon for the shop in Moscow. Not so for the one planted on me in New York City six years earlier or, as I would soon learn, any of the eight that went missing in the Russian Revolution. These had the assay marks as well as the mark denoting the house of origin. But they were all without initials. And all eight were made by a man named Piotr Derbyshev, an expert stone carver at the House of Fabergé.

Piotr Derbyshev was the grandfather of Pavel Derbyshev, the man in Baltimore, Maryland, in possession of the missing Imperial
Easter Eggs. He—Piotr—was requested to oversee the creation of these eight eggs in particular by the Empress Maria Feodorovna herself. The woman for whom they were made.

Galina Zhamovsky—or the artist known as Ia—secretly communicated with my father through her artwork. And she wanted these eggs so badly she was willing to sacrifice even her own son, Andreu Zhamovsky, to get them. The reason I could never let any of this go—why I remained obsessed with figuring out the true story behind the missing Fabergé Imperial Easter Eggs—was not simply because they were the undoing of my life and the reason my father was dead. It was because of the message in the last piece she sent Pop.

“I must stay true to my own. Cement my legacy. At all costs.”

This much I knew.

Now, here's what I have learned.

I scoured every available piece of material on the planet about the eggs. While I didn't learn anything from this in terms of what Galina could be looking for, I did learn every available detail about the missing eggs. Most notably the materials used in each. We'll get to this later.

I ultimately decided to learn as much as humanly possible about all the players connected to the
story
, if you will. I started with Piotr Derbyshev. He was a master stone carver at the House of Fabergé. He studied at the Ekaterinburg School of Art and Industry in Ekaterinburg, Russia. Apparently, the school no longer exists. I'd reached out to the Ekaterinburg City Hall online in search of something, anything, and managed to befriend a clerk. She was a seemingly lonely type looking for a pen pal, and it turned out she liked the challenge of corresponding in the English she'd been studying. She sent me everything she had on record about the school, the bulk consisting of group photos of each graduating class. And in one of those pictures was Piotr Derbyshev, allowing me to finally put a face with the name.

Next up was Maria Feodorovna. I reacquainted myself with her life, her path. Born into Denmark royalty in 1847 as Princess
Dagmar of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glucksburg, she would die in 1928 as the Empress Maria Feodorovna of Russia. She had four sons and two daughters with Czar Alexander III, including Emperor Nicholas II—Russia's last monarch whom she outlived by ten years. The more I learned about Maria Feodorovna, the more intrigued I became. She was supposed to be married to Nicholas, the heir apparent to Czar Alexander II, but he was ill and died of meningitis in 1865. Lore has it that his last dying wish was that Maria marry his younger brother Alexander III, who would eventually have the throne. I found this fascinating.

Nicholas's last dying wish was that his young fiancée marry his younger brother.

Really?

Who does that?

In a bookstore in Amsterdam, I had picked up a book about King Christian IX of Denmark—Maria Feodorovna's father. There was a portrait of his vast family, one of those painted-looking ones where everyone is looking regal with the women in frilly dresses and the men in their military garb. The king and his queen were standing in the center of the portrait. But one of the peripheral players off to the side made me do a double take.

Then a triple take.

There stood Piotr Derbyshev. The same Piotr Derbyshev from the Ekaterinburg School of Art and Industry.

Only he wasn't Piotr Derbyshev.

He was Maria's cousin.

Gustav Bjerg.

This was too fucked up. I was sure they were the same person. I bought the book and rushed back to 251 Herengracht. I put the two photographs side by side. Gustav was Piotr; Piotr was Gustav. It was unmistakable. Gustav Bjerg apparently became a master stone carver under the fake name Piotr Derbyshev in order to work at the House of Fabergé and ultimately make Imperial Easter Eggs for his cousin—at her request.

Why?

What were they up to?

Fast-forward to our generation. Galina Zhamovsky, married to Alexander Zhamovsky, had a son—named Andreu—with my dad. And Andreu was probably, hopefully, still sitting in a Russian jail somewhere for the stunt he tried to pull with a few hundred million of his company's shareholders' dollars. He was paying for trying to purchase the eggs for his mother—without, it turned out, even knowing why.

Because Galina Zhamovsky needed to “stay true to her own.”

Who was Galina Zhamovsky, really?

I hadn't been sure where to begin. While her husband and son were public figures in the business world, she was not. Whether I tried to learn about her as Galina Zhamovsky or Ia—her name as an artist—I came up empty. In fact, it was almost as if she didn't even exist no matter what I read about Alexander or Andreu. Nothing about her present, nothing about her past.

But the more I looked, one name kept surfacing. Alexander's right-hand man for years at Prevkos—a man who resigned from the company the day Alexander was found murdered in a Russian subway station.

Aleksey Mateev.

Aleksey Mateev was quoted in nearly every article written about Prevkos or Alexander Zhamovsky. Alexander was often described as the “brain” of the organization and Aleksey, the “backbone.” Then, just like that, Mateev resigned after Alexander's death and refused comment. From that day in 1998 forward, I couldn't even find a single mention of Aleksey Mateev.

I was sitting at the Parsons table in my research room at Herengracht. It was the middle of the night, the only light in the room from the glow of my Mac's screen. I had one of the windows cracked for some fresh Amsterdam air. Just as I was about to give up on this particular direction, I decided to give it one more Google search for something I might have missed. There were pages and pages of all the articles I had studied. But on page twelve there was a search result I didn't recall, an article in the
Daily Telegraph
about a car
accident in London. And the only witness to that accident was a man named Aleksey Mateev. The article was only three months old.

I took down the name of the journalist who wrote the article. The next morning, from a pay phone on the streets of Amsterdam, I called the newspaper.

“Daily Telegraph, good morning,” a cheery voice answered.

“Joan Ellison, please,” I said.

“Have a great day,” the voice said as I was connected.

I took a deep breath. I couldn't decide which I wanted more: her to pick up, or not.

“Joan Ellison.”

Showtime.

“Yes, Joan. Good morning. This is Detective Egerton. I work with Detective Fletcher whom you met a few months back when writing about the hit-and-run that took place on Adam Street.”

I had gotten Fletcher's name from the article.

“Right, sure—the hit-and-run on Adam Street. What can I do for you, Detective?”

“There was a witness in the case, as you know, a man named Aleksey Mateev. It turns out I have come across something of interest perhaps to this case this morning, and I would like to ask Mr. Mateev some questions about my findings. While time is of the essence, unfortunately, Detective Fletcher is out of the country with his family. I was hoping you could give me Mr. Mateev's phone number and address so I can properly follow up.”

There was silence on the other end. Not good.

“I'm not terribly comfortable giving out information like this over the phone,” she said as I had literally parted my lips to press on.

“Of course,” I said. “I understand. I can certainly swing by your office to get it from you, but in doing so I might miss out on an associated lead. That's why I figured I would call you directly and—”

“No,” she cut me off, “no—you don't need to do that, Detective. Give me one second.”

•     •     •

“Hello?” a male voice answered with a thick Russian accent.

“Mr. Mateev? Aleksey Mateev?”

“Who is this?” my question was answered with a question.

“I want to speak with you about Alexander Zhamovsky. About Prevkos.”

“I'm sorry, I cannot help you,” he responded after a brief pause.

“But you are in fact the same Aleksey Mateev who worked at Prevkos,” I pressed.

“As I said, I cannot help you.”

“Actually, I believe you can,” I countered. “I'm a friend, Mr. Mateev. My guess is you resigned that day in 1998 because you never bought into the circumstances surrounding Alexander Zhamovsky's death. You were right not to.”

“What is it you want?”

“Just to talk. But not over the phone. I would come to London.”

Nothing.

“I wouldn't be asking if it wasn't important, Mr. Mateev. And I give you my word our conversation will remain confidential.”

“Your word? You still haven't even told me your name.”

“I just need some information. I have your address. Like I said, I would be happy to come to you.”

I threw in that I had his address to motivate him. My subtle way of saying I'll be coming no matter what, you can know when or wait for me to surprise you.

There was a sigh on the other end.

“When will you be coming to London?”

B
ALTIMORE
, M
ARYLAND
2013

The endless, twinkling stars are the main source of night light accompanied by a softly lit streetlight here or there. I come up to 5 Jarrettsville Pike. Within a second of seeing the high gates and high foliage that surrounds the count's sprawling property and castle, déjà vu overwhelms me. I could swear I was just here. It seems like mere seconds since I last saw the sharp, pointed roof of the towers, which tonight, like the foliage, are just solid, outlined shapes a darker shade of black than the night surrounding them.

I come up on the gate's main entrance to the driveway. There's a speaker and button, along with a prominently displayed camera to let any visitor know the game plan. I hit the button. From the speaker I hear ringing, like it's a phone call. At this hour, I figure the staff is gone for the night or asleep, that the count will pick up. No answer. It keeps ringing. I look around. The ringing stops.

I hear a whirring sound as the camera changes position. It stops once positioned squarely on me. I wait for words, but still nothing.

“Hello?” I say, working the European accent.

Still nothing.

“Is—”

“Who are you?” a voice cuts me off.

The man himself. The thick Baltic accent, exactly as I remember it.

I didn't give him my name then. I don't want to give it out now.

“The restaurant Prime Rib, a number of years ago,” I respond, European slant on my voice.

“I'm the guy who kicked you in the balls then dove out the bathroom window.”