The Romanov Conspiracy (69 page)

Andrev translated.

Yakov lit a cigarette, blew out smoke, and seemed strangely calm. “You’re walking to your deaths, all of you. There are more guards around the Ipatiev House than there are flies on a jam pot on a summer’s day.”

Andrev interpreted, and Boyle smiled. “Typically Russian, always the pessimist. But it’s not over yet.” He nodded to Lydia. “Give the signal.”

Lydia waved her lantern.

Within minutes there came the sound of horses’ hooves, clip-clopping through the darkness. Markov appeared driving the hearse, Sorg beside him, the carriage laden down with white-sheeted corpses. The undertaker jerked the reins and the hearse settled to a halt.

Boyle wasted no time inserting the key in the gate lock. The door yawned open, revealing the tunnel. He gestured to Sorg. “Fetch some lamps and we’ll get these bodies unloaded.”

Sorg climbed down and grabbed two more lamps from the back of the carriage and lit them. They worked quickly, moving the corpses into the tunnel. Markov removed the white sheets, the sickly smell of death already on the air.

When they were finished, Markov folded the sheets and tossed them on the hearse. He handed Boyle a single written sheet of paper containing a diagram. “My directions are simple enough to follow, and I’ve drawn a map so you won’t get lost. You’ll see our symbol marked in paint above the metal turret.”

Boyle took the page. “With any luck, we’ll meet you at the station. Give us no more than an hour.”

Markov climbed up on the hearse and took the reins. Sorg joined him and said, “Mind telling me what happens if you don’t appear by then?”

Boyle slapped one of the horse’s flanks. “It’s a case of every man for himself. Go!”

As the sound of the horses’ hooves faded, Boyle checked his watch. The rattle of a vehicle sounded on cobblestone and he said to Andrev, “Right on time.”

The motorized ambulance appeared out of the gloom, its headlights off, Sister Agnes driving. She halted under the archway, the engine running.

Boyle went to speak with her and when he came back he said to Andrev, “We’re all set. Here’s hoping we’ll meet you in the basement.”

Lydia said, “Good luck, Uri.”

“You be careful.”

Boyle hurried them, and they barely had a moment to embrace
before he handed Lydia a lantern and ushered her inside the iron door. He grabbed a lantern for himself, and the sledgehammer and pickaxe, and went to join her.

He paused at the doorway. Fixing Yakov with a threatening stare, he addressed Andrev. “Make certain Yakov understands. If he gives us the slightest hint of trouble, he gets a bullet.”

Somewhere outside the house, Anastasia heard a truck start up. Then came a harsh crunch of gears and the engine noise grew louder. The vibration rattled the grimy, barred window.

She realized she was in the same room where her interrogation took place. The table was gone, but the chairs the guard had brought looked like the same ones.

Everyone appeared tense and expectant, even her papa. No one spoke, apart from a few whispers from her mother, and little Alexei. Beyond the double doors, they all heard raised, muffled noises that sounded like the guards getting drunk.

“Where’s the photographer, Papa?” Alexei asked for the third time.

“Heaven knows. But I’m sure he’ll be here soon.”

“They told us to hurry but they’re leaving us to wait.”

“I’m sure they have their reasons, Anastasia. They can’t be long.”

Anastasia clutched her dog in her arms. Jimmy had settled down, the little spaniel content to be stroked. She looked over at her papa again. Why did he keep giving Dr. Botkin odd glances? Her father smiled back at her reassuringly. But she had a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach—a feeling she couldn’t explain—and it wouldn’t go away. “Maybe they’ve got drunk and forgotten about us, Papa?” she said, looking for an answer—any answer.

“I hope not, my love.”

Anxiety was growing in everyone, she sensed that. Alexei, wide-eyed as always, shifted uneasily in his chair, clutching his crippled leg. Olga, emaciated with worry this last year, was wringing her hands and hovering by their mother, tight-lipped and nervous. Tatiana, as ever of late, looked pale and sickly as death. Maria, with her baby face and her lush hair down about her shoulders, somehow still
managed to look the picture of health, but she offered her sister a fleeting, anxious smile.

Anastasia winked back.
How I love them all
.

And at that moment, for some strange reason, she felt the intensity of that love all the more. Perhaps because they were all here, huddled expectantly as prisoners in this small room, ignorant of what would happen to them next. She felt vulnerable, and sensed that vulnerability in each member of her family, though not a word was spoken now.

Of the others, Dr. Botkin looked the most apprehensive. He fidgeted, clasping and unclasping his hands, sweat beading his forehead.

The small room felt warm and claustrophobic.

But Anastasia felt that their discomfort was more than that: it was as if everyone in the room sensed
something
was about to happen, and yet no one knew what.
Or is it simply my imagination?

A second later, they all heard it: a rumbling, jarring noise. Not the vehicle engine—that was still humming in the background. This sound was different.

Heavy footsteps. Lots of them, marching toward the doors.

Her dog’s ears pricked up and his tiny body fidgeted in her arms. For some reason she glanced at her brother’s face: Alexei’s skin was even more bone-white than usual. He looked petrified with fear.

The floorboards trembled and shook like thunder. A split second later, the doors burst open …

108

Andrev sat in front next to Yakov, who drove the Fiat up a deserted Voznesensky Prospect. As the wheels bumped over cobble, Yakov said, “Why sacrifice your life and Nina’s? Why dare so much, and for what? We can still turn back. I beg you. This stands no hope.”

Andrev kept one hand in his jacket pocket on the Nagant. “In spite of that I must try.”

“The family could already be dead for all we know.”

“We delayed the truck from the garage. Nothing’s going to happen without transport to remove the bodies.”

“And even if you make it inside the house, then what?”

Andrev said, “You tell the
komendant
we have a special directive from Lenin. The execution order’s to be delayed just long enough for us to search the family for the missing gems.”

“And how do you convince him you have the authority?”

Andrev removed the forged letter from his pocket. “This ought to confuse him for long enough. All I need is five minutes alone with the family to get them into the tunnel.”

“I tell you it’s doomed, Uri.”

“We’ll see. No tricks, Leonid. I don’t want to kill you, but if I have to, so help me I will.”

They approached the Ipatiev House compound. The guards on the barrier looked tense but they relaxed a little when they saw Yakov. “Raise the barrier,” he ordered. The guards studied Andrev. Yakov said, “This is Commissar Couris, on a special mission from Moscow.”

Andrev produced his letter but the guards, probably illiterate, didn’t examine it, and instead looked to Yakov for reassurance. “The
komendant
gave orders for no one to enter.”

“I gave him those orders. Now raise the barrier. We have urgent business.”

Anastasia almost jumped as the door burst open and the
komendant
reappeared.

Behind him were more of his men. She got a strong smell of alcohol. She felt a catch in her heart: something about this was not right. She looked at her sisters, and all of them appeared frightened.

Her mother stiffened, her father bravely stepped forward, but there was an anxious note in his voice. “Well, here we all are. What are you going to do now?”

The tiny room seemed even smaller, crowded to extreme, and whether it was the enclosed space or her nervous reaction to all the men suddenly storming into the room, she found it harder to breathe.

Yurovsky held a piece of paper in his left hand, his other hand stuck in his pocket. Anastasia noticed tiny beads of sweat on his forehead.

“Will you please all stand?”

Anastasia saw her mother struggle to her feet. Only Alexei remained seated, unable to raise himself.

The
komendant
took a step forward, his voice raised as he read from the note. “In view of the fact that your relatives and supporters, and enemy agents, continue to try to rescue you, you have been sentenced to be shot.”

Nicholai Romanov stared at the
komendant
blankly before he turned to his family, incomprehension on his face. “What … what?” He turned back, deathly white. “I don’t understand. Read it again.”

Yurovsky repeated his words and added, “The revolution has decreed that the former tsar, Nicholai Romanov, is guilty of countless bloody crimes against his people and is to be shot.”

Anastasia saw her sisters cross themselves, fear in all their faces now, for it all seemed to happen so fast as the
komendant
drew a pistol from his right pocket. He shot her father point-blank in the chest.

Anastasia shrieked in horror.

And then sheer madness broke loose as the room erupted in a torrent of gunfire and screams …

109

Yakov drove into the courtyard. Another truck was already parked there, its engine running, a driver at the wheel, smoking a cigarette. He acknowledged them with a nod.

“Get out, leave the engine running,” Andrev whispered to Yakov.

Yakov obeyed. Andrev joined him.

With both truck engines running, it took a moment to register but then they heard an explosion of gunfire from somewhere inside the house.

Andrev’s face drained of color and he felt his heart sink. “No …”

“I told you, Uri.”

Andrev was rooted to the spot as the gunfire raged inside the house, a savage volley, followed by sporadic shots and hysterical screams, then came complete silence.

Yakov said, “Turn back
now
and no one will be the wiser. It’s not too late.”