The Romanov Conspiracy (78 page)

Constance “Connie” Ryan is a sprightly woman in her late sixties, and the youngest of Finn Ryan’s four daughters—Lydia Ryan’s nieces. When I saw her for the first time I felt stunned. Life sometimes offers up the near-same faces, generation after generation, and hers was no exception. It was as if I were looking at an older version of the young Lydia in the photograph taken with Uri Andrev all those years ago at Briar Cottage.

Connie Ryan had the same eyes, the same dark Celtic beauty. She was enthralled to hear my request to discuss the aunt for whom she had a lifelong fascination.

After we’d finished our introductions, she ushered me into a parlor, the walls covered in family photographs. “You said you were interested in Lydia’s time in Russia as a governess to the Romanovs. That her name came up during your research into the period, Dr. Pavlov?”

“That’s right. And I’d be grateful for anything else you can tell me.”

“Let me show you some photographs that may interest you.” She
pointed to one of the snapshots with obvious pride. “This is Finn, my father.”

I saw a young man with a mop of fair hair, and a freckled Irish face.

Connie said, “He sailed into New York harbor from Ireland on December 14, 1918, having lost his leg while gun-running for the Irish republicans. Quite a few Irish-Americans went back to the land of their forefathers to help in the fight for freedom, you know.”

“Did your father talk much about those times?”

“He never really did. It was almost a taboo subject.”

“Why’s that?”

“I guess because of the fact that Lydia disappeared, presumed dead. It was something he never truly got over.”

“Did he ever discover what happened to her?”

She frowned. “If he did, he never said. Toward the latter years of his life, he toyed with writing a book about their years together in Ireland. I even helped him type up some notes. But sadly, he passed away before he had too much written. I still have the notes somewhere. I kept them as a memento.”

Connie moved along a wall covered with photographs: some in frames, others on shelves. She picked one up and passed it to me. “This is Lydia. She was quite a gal, apparently. Her father always called her
mo cushla
. That’s Gaelic. It means ‘the beat of my heart, the very breath of me.’ My father loved that expression. He always said it summed up how he felt about Lydia. They were that close.”

She handed me another snapshot, of Lydia in some sort of palace setting with the pretty Romanov children: the four girls, Tatiana and Olga, Maria and Anastasia, in white cotton dresses with satin ribbons. And Alexei, no more than eight, wearing his sailor’s uniform, mischief in his smile. A stab of grief went though me; their image still hauntingly tragic when I thought of the savagery of that night.

Connie said, “My father always had a strong interest in the Romanov tragedy.”

“Really?”

“I guess because of Lydia’s connection to the family. In fact, he traveled to Russia shortly before he died, in 1977.”

“Why?”

She handed me another photograph. It was of Finn as an old man, the snapshot obviously taken in Russia: a golden cupola in the background. “Ekaterinburg seemed to hold a particular fascination for him. This was before glasnost, of course, but he managed to get a tourist visa. The visit seemed important to him. I still miss him, you know.”

I stared at the photograph, heard the pain in her voice.

Connie replaced the photograph on the shelf. “Perhaps you’d care to see the family plot where my father’s buried?”

“I’d like that.”

On a coffee table was a vase of yellow roses. She plucked two and led me on a short walk across some fields—the same fields where Lydia had learned to ride and shoot—until we came to a small, wire-fenced graveyard. It was the kind of family plot you often see in rural America, and in the afternoon sun it looked very peaceful, with a dozen or so granite headstones.

“This is my father’s grave.”

The black granite was inscribed simply, “Finn Ryan. A proud American who helped in the fight for Irish freedom. 1900–1977. Gone to lie in the arms of the Lord.”

Next to it, another slab was inscribed: “Lydia Ryan. Born 1894. Died 1918.” At the bottom of the stone it said simply, “Love never forgets.”

I stared at the stone, stunned, and Connie said, “My father wanted to erect a memorial to remember her. What was it Freud once said? All depression is caused by the loss of someone’s love. To tell the truth, he had his share of dark days after he lost her. He never stopped missing her.” She knelt, placed a yellow rose on each of the two slabs.

I was tempted to tell her all I’d discovered, but something held me back.
Not yet. Not until I finally know everything
. “So he never knew what became of her?”

Connie stood. “No, but my father’s cousin Frank spoke about some U.S. government men who came to visit my father in 1919. He claimed they told him that Lydia had perished and her body was never found. After the men left my father was pretty shaken. Whatever else they may have told him, he never spoke about it.”

“Do you know anything more about the men?”

“Only what I recall among the notes I typed. One of them had an Irish name—Boyle, I remember that.”

It was a cold morning in Dublin when I took a cab from my hotel to the Blackrock Private Clinic, near the city’s southern coast. When I’d called Yakov’s home number his housekeeper answered and said he’d returned to hospital. I found him in a private room overlooking the sea.

He shook my hand warmly. “Dr. Pavlov. It’s a pleasure to see you again.”

He seemed in good spirits, even if he did appear more gaunt, his eyes sunken, his bruised arms hooked up to drips. “Well, how did you get on?”

“It all fits together, everything you’ve said, each part of the puzzle fitting nearly into place. I’ll give you that.”

“But?”

“It’s just … I don’t know … mind-boggling. Don’t get me wrong. All those strands you talked about. They fit, almost too perfectly. In fact, I’ve discovered amazing coincidences—about Boyle, Andrev, Lydia Ryan, and other players in the rescue that completely flabbergast me.”

“Tell me.”

I removed a thick notebook from my briefcase. “Take yesterday, for instance. I spent it checking archives in Dublin and reading up on Lydia Ryan.”

“And what did you learn?”

“She certainly ran guns for the Irish republicans. And was much admired by the Irish rebel leader Michael Collins. In June 1918, after a skirmish with the British army, she vanished, and was never seen again. I’m still waiting for you to tell me what happened to her.”

“We’ll come to that. Please continue. What else did you discover?”

“Trotsky got what he deserved in the end. He fell foul of Stalin, was exiled, and later assassinated on Stalin’s orders. Lenin didn’t escape punishment, either. Six weeks after the events in Ekaterinburg, a woman
named Fanya Kaplan shot and severely wounded him. Lenin’s health was badly affected and he later suffered a stroke and died in 1924.”

“And his assassin?”

“Lenin had her executed. And here’s another remarkable coincidence—the woman, Fanya Kaplan, was believed to be one of Joe Boyle’s Russian agents.”

Yakov nodded. “Perhaps another reason why Boyle got that DSO, and never admitted his involvement. Lenin’s Cheka would have hunted him down.”

“The coincidences don’t end there. In 1920 a book titled
Rescuing the Czar
was published in the United States. It claimed to tell the real story of the Romanovs’ disappearance and detailed a rescue using the tunnels that ran under the Ipatiev House, and even made vague references to Ireland.

“But here’s the astonishing thing: a deal was in negotiation for the film rights when the U.S. Secret Service had them mysteriously withdrawn from sale. As someone close to President Woodrow Wilson put it at the time, the withdrawal was ‘a matter of great importance to the nation.’”

“It gets stranger and stranger, doesn’t it?”

“It sure does. And then there’s the aircraft, the Ilya Muromets.”

“I was wondering when you’d get to that.”

I checked my notes. “One crashed thirty miles from St. Petersburg on July 8, 1918. Turns out it had the same chassis number as one of the aircraft taken by Igor Sikorsky when he fled Russia. Sikorsky emigrated to America, where he died in 1974, a successful aircraft manufacturer. And guess what? He knew Boyle.”

Yakov seemed faintly amused, but then his face became more serious. “And the nuns at Novo-Tikhvinsky—what did you learn about them?”

“The two young novices, Maria and Antonina, were later executed by the Reds. Sister Agnes was later murdered, too. The convent was closed and all the other nuns either shot or banished to labor camps.”

“Did you discover any motive for their murders?”

“None that made any kind of sense, except their involvement in the rescue.”

“And Hanna Volkov?”

“She survived her injuries but later sold her Irish estate.” I checked my notebook again. “For decades, each anniversary of Boyle’s death, a mystery woman would leave flowers on his grave. Some said it was the queen of Romania, with whom Boyle had a close relationship. Others suggest it was Hanna Volkov. She died of cancer in London in 1939.”

I flipped ahead a few pages. “And now it gets
really
interesting. A Philip Sorg joined the U.S. State Department in 1912. A man of the same name spent six months being treated for laudanum addiction in a private Swiss hospital near Lucerne, until he was discharged in February 1919.”

Yakov nodded silently and I went on. “A month later Sorg was listed as a passenger on the White Star Line, bound for New York. After that, he vanished off the face of the earth, never to be seen again. Just like Anastasia Romanov.” I looked at Yakov. “But I think
you
know where he went. You know how it ended, don’t you?”

“Yes, I know how it ended.”

Questions tumbled impatiently off my tongue. “Did Anastasia live? What became of her? How did Lydia die? And what’s the truth about Anna Anderson?”

Yakov put up a hand. “One question at a time. First, I should explain about Anna Anderson.” He sat back. “After Anastasia escaped, the Brotherhood was fearful the Cheka would learn the truth and hunt her down. So one of their members, a psychiatrist, came up with a simple but brilliant plan. What if they had a substitute, someone expendable they could pretend was Anastasia? That way, if anyone tried to kill her, the real Anastasia would be safe.

“It took many months of scouring the mental hospitals of Europe, until finally they settled on a suitable candidate. The woman the world eventually came to know as Anna Anderson. She matched their criteria in terms of looks, and certain bodily features, like her ears and feet, that she shared with Anastasia.

“Scars were deliberately inflicted on her skull during surgery, to be consistent with wounds Anastasia suffered at the hands of the Bolsheviks. After that, it was a case of making an impressionable, mentally
ill woman believe that she was Anastasia Romanov. Their deception began with Anna Anderson’s supposed suicide attempt in a Berlin canal, and her amazing story was born.”

“Anna Anderson was a
decoy
?”

“Pure and simple. To deflect the world from the truth.”

“Do you really believe that?” I asked incredulously.

“My dear doctor, in over ninety years of mystery and intrigue concerning Anna Anderson, it’s the only explanation that makes perfect sense. Consider this: the woman was a simple, mentally disturbed peasant. How could she have challenged and confounded some of the best legal minds in the world, as well as the most experienced investigators and journalists, for six decades, if not with powerful help?”

“The Brotherhood?”

Yakov nodded. “Only they could have drilled into her such intimate knowledge of the royal family—details known only by the real Anastasia, that convinced so many that she was the real royal princess.”

“You’re saying Anna Anderson was programmed by them, brainwashed?”

“Exactly. And many of the former Russian nobility who sheltered her during her life were part of the deception. There’s no way she was just some insane imposter acting on her own.”

I felt stunned. Yakov’s proposition had a simple, but profound logic to it.

“And Anastasia? What became of her?”

A nurse appeared, ready to replace the drips.

Yakov hesitated, as if reluctant to speak further. “Perhaps you could meet me at my cottage this afternoon?”

“You’re being discharged?”

“For a few days, to get my affairs in order. My housekeeper’s coming to pick me up. I’m afraid the next time I leave here, it’ll be in a box.”

I felt jolted by Yakov’s frankness, but he merely smiled. “Please, don’t feel sorry. I’m an old man, ready to meet my maker. This afternoon, I’ll tell you how this mystery ended.”