The Romanov Conspiracy (7 page)

Lydia allowed Ritter to escort her along the harbor. There was no breeze, the sea mist lingering, and suddenly she felt very tired, the stress showing in her face.

Ritter removed his pigskin gloves. “After a week of sharing cramped quarters with a crew full of men, you must be longing for a hot bath and some privacy.”

“You read my mind, Colonel.”

“This is the third smuggling run you’ve carried out in seven months. I’m surprised you’ve lasted this long without being caught by the British.”

“You know us Irish. We’ll risk taking weapons from the devil himself.”

Ritter smiled. “Not that we Germans can complain. Your rebels will tie up British troops and keep them from our front lines.”

“What’s this bad news, Colonel?”

“I’ve received reports from our Kriegsmarine that the Royal Navy is very active in the Irish Sea. The British appear to be working even harder to prevent you from smuggling arms.”

“Don’t worry, our captain is used to playing cat-and-mouse with their navy.”

Ritter slapped his pigskin gloves in his palm. “I’m sure. But remember what happened to your comrade Roger Casement when he smuggled our rifles?”

“The British hung him as a traitor.”

Ritter nodded. “They’ll do the same to you if you’re not careful, and it won’t matter that you’re a woman. They may not even give you the benefit of a trial—just a bullet in the back of the neck to simplify matters.”

“Why the sudden concern?”

“I don’t want to lose you, Fräulein Ryan. Neither, I’m sure, do your fellow republicans, or that young brother of yours. So I’ve arranged for one of our submarines to shadow your vessel all the way to the Irish coast. If you encounter trouble, the U-boat captain will do his best to take care of it.”

“I appreciate it, Colonel, as I’m sure the crew will.” Lydia Ryan observed that the
Marie-Ann
’s cargo was almost loaded. “And now, if there’s nothing else?”

“Actually there is. It’s about the prisoner you asked me to check on.”

Lydia Ryan halted, her expression changing instantly. “What about him?”

“I checked our lists of British forces prisoners-of-war in at least two dozen of our POW camps and so far there’s no report of an Irishman named Sean Quinn among our captured enemy. Or at least no one who matches the age, background, and description you gave.”

“You’re certain?”

“Absolutely. I’m truly sorry, fräulein.”

Lydia’s face was crestfallen. “Not your fault, Colonel. At least you tried.”

“I take it the man was a close friend or relative?”

“Yes.”

Ritter frowned. “I don’t understand. He’s British forces, yet you’re a rebel fighting the crown?”

“A long story, Colonel, one meant for another day. And now, I really better be getting back.”

As they turned to walk toward the
Marie-Ann
, her cargo loaded, Ritter said, “Please. I have a gift for you, too. One good turn deserves another.”

He slipped a hand into his uniform pocket and removed a small, shiny black Mauser pistol with polished walnut grips. “Something to help you if ever you find yourself in a difficult situation.”

Lydia accepted the pistol. “I’ll take all the weapons I can get. You certainly know how to impress a lady, Colonel. Most men do it with flowers or chocolates, but you Germans are nothing if not kind
and
practical.”

Ritter touched her arm fondly, then stepped back, clicked his heels. “I mean it, I’d hate to lose you. Bon voyage, until the next shipment.”

“If the devil doesn’t get me first.”

Ten minutes later, from the stern of the
Marie-Ann
, Lydia watched Ritter standing on the harbor wall. He gave her a final wave before he disappeared like a ghost into the sea mist. She shivered, a hollow ache in the pit of her stomach after hearing Ritter’s news.

A noise sounded above the brittle clanking of the engine and she turned. Her brother stepped out of the wooden wheelhouse, where the captain was busy steering his way out of port.

Finn came up beside her and removed his cap to reveal a head of thick black curls, innocence in his youthful features that made him so appealing to the girls. “Well? What did the German officer say? It was about Sean, wasn’t it?”

“Is it that obvious?”

“It’s written all over your face. Did he have any news or hold out any hope?”

“No news. But there’s always hope, Finn.”

Her brother shook his head. “He’s not coming back now, Lydia. You have to face up to it. I know Sean was the love of your life, but he’s been missing in action for over three years. You’d have heard by now if he was a prisoner.” He touched her arm, more than genuine fondness in the gesture, a reverence almost. “You have to move on with your life.”

“Sean was reported as missing, not dead. They’ll find him one day, I know they will.”

“But Lydia—”

A sudden anger rose up inside her and combined with all the pent-up tension of the last week at sea. “No, I won’t accept the worst. We know nothing without the proof. Now go tell Dinny that we’ll have a German U-boat shadowing us all the way home; it’ll be a comfort. And be quick about it.”

Finn hesitated. “You really need to get some rest, you know that? You’re on edge. You haven’t had a proper night’s sleep in almost a week. Go down below and try to shut your eyes while you can. One more thing.”

“What?”

“I love you, Lydia Ryan, despite your faults. You’re still
mo cushla
, as Dad always says.” Finn winked impishly, using the old Gaelic term of endearment that always softened her heart.
Mo cushla—
“You’re the breath of me, the beat of my heart.”

She smiled back despite herself, her anger diminished. “Go on with you. I’ll be along shortly.”

Finn moved toward the wheelhouse. She watched him go and was immediately sorry for her outburst. There was a time when her heart was large and gentle and kind, but the war, of course, the war with all its ravages and deep valleys of hurt, had made her temper quicker and her heart much smaller and harder.

She became aware of something heavy in her right hand—it was the small black Mauser that Ritter gave her. She hitched up her skirt, exposing her legs, and tucked the Mauser into the top of her right ankle boot.

Just then the
Marie-Ann
cleared the harbor and a wind gusted out of nowhere, making her shiver.

The fog disappeared and the infinite gray enormity of the Baltic stretched to the horizon. For some reason she felt utterly and completely alone. “Where are you, Sean Quinn? Curse you for not being here when I need you most.”

As quickly as it came, her grieving plea was snatched away by the wind, lost in the cold, uncaring vastness of the Baltic.

Lydia wiped her eyes, straightened her skirt, and went down below.

4

ST. PETERSBURG

The city looked like hell on earth, a place gone mad.

It was spring but winter’s glacial hand still clutched the streets of the ancient settlement built by Peter the Great—huge, dirty chunks of frozen water clogging every avenue and pavement.

There were plenty of signs of war, of course, and Philip Sorg missed none of them as his hired horse-drawn droshky headed west, past the chaos of St. Petersburg’s sprawling slums and their endless lines of dirty gray laundry hanging from balconies.

Sorg took mental note of the piles of sandbags outside important public offices and the propaganda posters that adorned lampposts and walls. He paid attention to which streets were pockmarked with holes from artillery shells and where the bloodred flags of revolution fluttered from the tsarist buildings that once managed the vast Russian Empire, stretching from the Baltic to the Pacific.

He observed the number of motorcars and trucks—very few apart from those commandeered by rowdy gangs of Red Guards—and the numbers of dead horse carcasses and bodies on the streets. He counted people in queues outside grocery stores—they always numbered in the hundreds, if not thousands. He even noted slogans daubed on walls: “Land and Freedom.” “Long Live the Workers.” “Victory or Death.”

In a country in the grip of revolution’s turmoil, racked by fighting between Bolshevik Reds and tsarist Whites, each trying to gain supremacy, Sorg noticed that children avoided school just as much as civilians avoided making unnecessary trips, for there was more than the occasional boom of artillery and the crack of sniping in the streets.

Sorg noticed such things. He was far more observant than the average foreign businessman who had made St. Petersburg his home in hope of prospering in the chaos of a civil war.

But then Philip Sorg was no ordinary businessman.

“Less than two hours if we’re lucky, sir.” The coach driver cracked his whip on his horses’ flanks as they picked their way along the slushy highway leading out of the city, the snorts of the huge animals misting the air.

“Thank you, comrade.” Sorg tipped his Trilby hat and pulled up the thick collar of his long black Chesterfield coat against the freezing March morning.

His journey should have taken no more than forty minutes by steam train but the previous night the train drivers’ union declared a strike until midafternoon, so Sorg was forced to hire a carriage for the outward journey. As it passed a bakery with a long queue of hungry people, his attention was drawn by screams and shouts of angry pain.

Sorg stared in horror as two starving women tried to kill each other over a loaf of bread. The brawl lasted only long enough for the women to punch and bite, and tear out hair, until the pitiful loser left the street in tears, clutching a sore head and dragging her two crying children behind her.

They were gone into the crowded backstreets before Sorg could climb out of the carriage and pursue them—he wanted to give the pitiful woman a handful of coins. Everywhere in Russia, it seemed, starving people were scavenging for survival.

It was easy to understand why. A pound of butter cost a day’s wages. A loaf of bread—if you could find a bakery open—cost almost as much. Trams ran only intermittently. Among a hungry population, prostitution and theft were rife. Sorg included all this in his secret reports to Washington, the minute and intimate details of a city’s life, the kinds of things that mattered to a spy in a foreign country.

Unusual things—like the fact that despite the revolution, or because of it, foreign visitors were everywhere. The hotels and backstreets were crowded with an odd assortment of people—well-intentioned aid workers come to help alleviate food shortages, and international revolutionaries and communists desperate to offer their support. Still others were
newspaper correspondents or foreign businessmen hoping to make a quick profit in the turmoil.

Over an hour later as Sorg’s carriage
clip-clopped
past a huge village mansion he witnessed more turmoil—the building being ransacked by a looting mob. Peasants dragged out their spoils: chairs and paintings, tapestries, even plumbing. One cackling old woman hauled out a wooden toilet seat, wearing it around her neck like fair-day prize, while the crowd fell about laughing.

It was common knowledge that Scandinavian antique dealers scoured the city for bargains as the great houses of the rich were plundered. The wealthy former occupants were gone, fled into exile with whatever jewelry and valuables they still possessed.

Those who didn’t care and still had money whiled away their time in the beer halls or nightclubs where gypsy bands played, or in smoky gambling casinos. St. Petersburg and Moscow had taken on decadent, wild atmospheres.

“We’re here, sir.”

Sorg came out of his daydream as the horses snorted and the carriage drew to a halt. He looked around him. Tsarskoye Selo never failed to awe him.

Whenever he thought of Russia, Sorg thought of this city built by Catherine the Great. It was a testament to her vanity, a stunning concoction of imperial grandeur. Cobbled lanes, postcard-pretty wood-framed houses painted amber and duck-egg blue, gilded Orthodox churches with cupolas. The kind of fairy-tale Russia his father used to get sentimental for when he drank too much vodka. This despite the fact that Sorg’s mother was only too glad to leave Russia when the tsar’s brutal pogroms slaughtered Jews wholesale and made countless millions of them homeless refugees.