The Romanov Legacy (26 page)

The BMW turned onto Bolshaya Nikitskaya.  Constantine
looked up at the bureau building and prepared a shopping list in his
head.  Then he turned to Vadim.  The old man’s eyes were still red
and puffy, but a little color had returned to his cheeks. 
He has hope
now
, Constantine realized. 
And so do I.
  “Thank you,” he
said. 

Vadim held up his right hand with the first two fingers
raised in blessing.  “God be with you, my boy.” 

July 2012

En route to Moscow, Russia

“Define ‘nothing,’” Viktor said. 

Fear and uncertainty dappled his bright black eyes with
shades of gray.  He held his jaw so tight that the muscles at the bottom
of his cheek flexed and clenched as he swallowed. 
I can use this
,
Natalie thought.  “I want another drink.  And I want this jerk to let
go of me.”

Viktor snapped his fingers.  The goon holding her
dropped her onto the floor.  She stayed there, resting her palms on the
carpet. 
Beth
,
I’m here,
she thought.
 I’ll get you
out.

“Now then,” Viktor said, “what’s this nonsense about fake
letters?”

He brought her another inch of Scotch in a glass.  She
snatched it from his hand and drank it quickly.  “Yuri’s letters were
fakes.  They were just copies of the real thing.”

“Ducky, if they’re copies, the words will be the same.”

“Not these.  The real ones have two extra lines written
in pencil that aren’t anywhere on the copies.  I’m assuming you read
them?”

“A bunch of rubbish about soldiers, sailors, and dancing girls.”

“It’s a code.  I have to see complete translations of
both letters, the real ones, before I can even start to figure it out.”

He nodded, flopping his hair into his eyes.  He reached
up and shoved it back, black eyes sparkling dangerously.  “And your dearly
beloved has both letters in his possession?”

She watched the way he held himself, the way he braced his
shoulders and tilted his nose into the air, and wondered why she didn’t see it
before.  “You hate him, don’t you?”

“It’s not that I hate him, pet.  It’s that I love
me
. 
As long as he’s in the spotlight, I get nothing.”   

“Why do you want to be in the spotlight?” 

“Because that’s where you get money, fame,
respect….everything you want in life.”

“You’re wrong.”

“Really?” he snapped.  “Then what
is
it for?”

She blinked quickly to help block out the vision.  In
the hospital, after Treblinka, the doctors had hooked her up to electrodes and
shone a spotlight on her, trying to induce another seizure and record her brain
waves.  They left it on her for hours, until she could see nothing but
painful bursts of red when she closed her eyes.  Sweating, she passed
out.  When they revived her, they kept her awake for three days straight,
still trying to induce a seizure.  Then they tried strobe lights and forced
hyperventilation.  After five days, they simply shocked her with a 500 mC
current.  In the end, she had learned a valuable lesson.  “The
spotlight,” she said, “is where you learn to give them what they want.”
     

“Mere hair splitting.”  Viktor rose to his feet and
pointed at the largest guard, with thick brows and a scarred face. 
“Sergei, did you see Dashkov in the library?”

The man frowned.  “You told us to bring you the girl,
not to look for Dashkov.”

“I sense a rebuke coming on.”

“Starinov needs to know Dashkov has the real letters. 
He’s expecting us to give him the password as soon as we land.”

“I will handle this, Sergei.”

“The way you handled the order to bring the letters to
Moscow?”

“Insubordination doesn’t suit you,” Viktor snapped.  He
pointed at the man sitting next to Sergei.  “What do you think? 
Shall we take a vote and pretend this is a democracy?”

“I agree with Sergei,” the second burly man said. 
“Call Starinov.  Tell him we don’t have the real letters.” 

“And you?” Viktor asked, turning to point at the blond
thug.  “I suppose you also think he’s right?”  When the blond man
nodded, Viktor raised his hands to the ceiling like a convert at a prayer
meeting.  “Consensus!  The majority has spoken!”

Don’t let him do it
,
little one,
Belial
warned. 
Not if you want to see Constantine again.
     

“What?” she cried.

All the men turned to her.  “What now?” Viktor
moaned.     

She bit her lip.  “Don’t I get a vote?  Or are you
just another antediluvian misogynist who disenfranchises the weak and
downtrodden?”

“By all means, princess, cast your vote.”    

“I agree with you.  Don’t call Starinov.”

Viktor straightened, as if he hadn’t expected her to
approve.  “I appreciate the vote of confidence, my dear, but I’m afraid we’re
still outvoted three to two.  You know what that means.”  He reached
into his pants pocket. 

“No,” she said.  “Don’t call him, Viktor, please…the
less he knows, the better.”

“I’m sorry, princess, but the majority rules.”  He
whipped his hand out of his pocket, wrapped around a gun that looked just like
Constantine’s.  He squeezed the trigger and a spray of liquid exploded
against the cabin wall.  The man called Sergei slumped against the far
side of the bench, his head trailing a stream of red as it fell.

Natalie screamed and covered her head with her hands.

“What the fuck!”  The man sitting next to Sergei jumped
up and cast a wide-eyed look of fear at Viktor.  “What the fuck are you
doing?”

“Evening the odds,” Viktor replied.  “Now it’s two
against two.  Anyone want to change their vote?”

Natalie looked up in time to catch the wary look that passed
between the two remaining Vympel men.  Neither said a word.

July 2012

Moscow, Russia

Vadim slid his access card through the reader and waited for
the keypad to unlock.  When the system recognized his card, the number pad
lit up in green.  He typed his ten-digit code and the electric door
unlatched.  As soon as he grasped the door handle, the number pad glowed
red, indicating it would lock him in his office once the door shut behind
him.  It was the first time he’d ever used the intruder mode on the
bureau’s security system.

He left the lights off and made his way down the long
private hallway to his office.  The message light on his office phone was
blinking but he ignored it.  He didn’t trust any of the building’s phone
lines, nor did he trust any of the computer VoIP accounts.

Vadim turned the phone over on his desk and removed the back
panel, inspecting it for listening devices.  When he found none, he
replaced the panel and switched on his computer.  Anyone monitoring office
activity would now be able to see he was on the network, but it couldn’t be
helped. 

He accessed the bureau’s database of dossiers and pulled up
everything coded with the threat level white—world bankers, businessmen, and
prominent individuals who posed no direct threat to Russian security but who
warranted monitoring simply because of the wealth or resources at their
disposal.  The system asked for a username and password before displaying
the contents of the files. 

Liliya had written him a program he usually only used when
working from home—a software map that scrambled keystrokes, creating unique
associations for each login attempt.  Anyone monitoring his keystrokes
would be able to tell which keys he pressed, but they wouldn’t match up with
his actual password and it would appear as if he entered a different login and
password with each access attempt.  He activated the program from a flash
drive.

A mock keyboard appeared on screen with random letter
placement.  Before he typed anything, he activated a second program of
Liliya’s.  This one scanned the machine and his network connection for
cloaked users, alerting him if anyone was using a remote function to view his
screen.  The keyboard-scrambler program was only effective as long as no
one saw the mock keyboard’s letter distribution.  When the scan came up
clean, he proceeded.

The system pulled up a list of all the requested files, with
a search box above the pages of results.  He typed “Bank of
England.”  Immediately, the database brought up a list of dossiers on the
governor, executive directors, and monetary policy committee members.  He
clicked on the governor’s name and scanned the contact information.
   

His computer’s clock read 8:15 a.m. and London was three
hours behind that.  Vadim grimaced and dialed anyway. 

The phone rang four times before a man’s deep, scratchy
voice answered.  “What the devil do you want at this hour, Berkeley?”

“Mr. Perry, I apologize for the ill-timed nature of this
call.  My name is Vadim Primakov and I am the Director of the Bureau of
Classified Intelligence of the Russian Federation.  I need to speak with
you about a very urgent matter regarding the account of Tsar Nicholas II.”

The Englishman did not respond.  The line crackled with
awkward, frozen silence.

Vadim took a deep breath.  “Sir, I beg you, don’t hang
up.  This is not a training exercise.  You may be contacted shortly
by Prime Minister Maxim Starinov.  I wish to explain what is happening
here, and how it affects your bank.”

The man still didn’t reply, but Vadim could hear the
rustling of bedclothes, as if Perry were now sitting up and paying
attention.  He decided to continue, relaying what Constantine had told him
in the car.  “We have recently come into possession of information written
by the Tsar’s daughters—Olga and Maria, to be exact.  The daughters each
wrote down your bank as the source of the Tsar’s funds.  These letters
also include the name on the account and the password,” he lied.  “We will
need to access this account very soon.”

“I’m terribly sorry, sir, but I don’t know anything about—”

“Yes, you do,” Vadim interrupted, pulling the Rumkowski file
up on his screen.  “We are well aware of the defensive maneuvers your bank
has used over the years to deflect scrutiny from this account.  Bark and
Peacock hid it well, but the money does not belong to you.  It belongs to
the Russian government, according to Soviet decree.  In the interests of
European solidarity, I advise you to forgo any further defensive action.”

“Sir, I will need proof of your allegations.  I will
need proof of your identity.  And our Prime Minister will need to be
notified, as will the bank’s executive directors.”

“I will get you anything you need as long as the necessary
people are informed and in place for the account’s opening later today.”

Perry sputtered, as if he’d choked on his morning tea. 
“But that’s impossible!”

Vadim grit his teeth.  “People are going to die unless
this can be solved.”

“I’m sorry, sir.  I don’t even know where the paperwork
for such an account would be, if it exists at all.”

“Find it.”  Then he switched tactics, deciding to up
the ante.  “I don’t think Prime Minister Starinov wants to be kept
waiting.”

“He’s coming?”

“He is in the air as we speak,” Vadim lied.  “Bringing
the Grand Duchess’s letters straight to you.”

“But…but we might have to get clearance from Buckingham.”

“I suggest you do so now.  You will be contacted again
shortly.”  Vadim replaced the phone in its cradle and put his head in his
hands.  He could hardly concentrate on the task at hand; his mind
tormented him with images of Marya, bound and gagged, tossed into the back of a
van.  He pictured tears running down her face, soaking the gag.  He
pictured her choking on her own sobs, gasping for air and believing everyone
had abandoned her.  Vadim smacked his forehead with the palm of his hand
to force the images away. 

How could Starinov do it?
he wondered. 
How
could a little girl’s life, or any life, be worth a few bundles of tsarist
rubbish?  Who, other than God, claims the power to decide such things?
 

Jarred loose by his panicked smack, a memory began to
surface deep in the recesses of his brain:  a day at Sokolniky’s School
Number One when he’d been paired with Maxim for a geography drill.  The
two of them, no older than six or seven, had been given a map of the Soviet
Union and told to label as many cities, rivers, and mountains as possible in
two minutes.  The entire class had been paired up to compete, with the
winner to be awarded a pair of gold-trimmed fountain pens.  He remembered
Starinov’s eyes, cold and ruthless as they watched the pens, held up for
display in the teacher’s hands.

“I want that pen,” Starinov had said to him.  “We have
to win.”

Vadim turned up his nose.  “It’s ugly.  What do
you want it for, anyway?”

“I don’t, but look at all that gold.  I can sell it to
someone and get what I really want.  Hurry.”  The boys had set to
scribbling, their pencils flying over the map: the Urals, Sverdlovsk, Lake
Baikal, Irkutsk, Kamchatka, Arkangelsk.  In the end, they had won. 
The teacher beamed proudly when Maxim clasped the pen to his chest and sighed
contentedly, a perfect facsimile of a proud winner.  Anyone would have
believed he had wanted the pen all along. 

Is that what’s happening here?
Vadim wondered. 
Is
there more than the tsar’s account at stake? 

He looked back to his computer screen, still filled with the
contents of the Rumkowski file.  There were at least two levels of
clearance he did not have, each of which presumably contained more information
about the tsar’s account.   There was only one person who could get
that information for him.  Unfortunately, she had locked him out of the
house and was no longer speaking to him.  Still, he had to try.  He
reached for the phone and dialed his own home.