The Romanov Conspiracy (11 page)

“You trust me?”

“You saw my father set enough bones in his day.”

“True.” Yakov tightly twisted the cloth and thrust it at Andrev’s mouth. “Here, bite on this and roll onto your good side.”

Sweat beaded Andrev’s face as he clenched the cloth between his teeth and rolled onto his right side.

“Bite hard, dear friend.” Yakov gingerly felt the injured arm, probing for the bone’s joint. When he found it he shifted all of his weight onto Andrev’s shoulder, grunted and pushed hard.

The bone snapped into place with a sharp crack.

A surge of pain detonated through Andrev’s body, and then his eyes rose to the ceiling and he passed out.

Yakov crossed to a sink in the corner, grabbed a zinc bucket, and filled it with icy water. He took the cloth from Andrev’s limp mouth, drenched the towel in the chilled water, and slapped it onto his face. Andrev came awake, sputtering, his eyes filled with pain. “That hurt, darn you.”

“With luck, you’ll still be able to play the accordion.” Yakov winked and tore the filthy sheet from the rope, all that offered them a curtain of privacy. It exposed them to the patients in the other beds, a half-dozen skeletal-looking prisoners, ill and unshaven. They stared over at the black Cheka uniform. Yakov barked, “What do you think you’re looking at?”

The fearful patients looked away. Yakov ripped up the sheet to make a crude sling and draped it around Andrev’s neck and under his arm. “It’ll have to do for now.”

“The train I saw is yours?”

“It’s how I travel now, on Lenin’s orders. People say I’m his right-hand man. Would you believe it? Me, entrusted by Lenin himself.”

“To do what?”

“Hunt down and shoot enemy agents and spies, speculators, and counter-revolutionaries, and anyone who challenges Lenin’s authority.” Yakov picked up two worn gray blankets from an empty bed nearby and placed them around Andrev. “That should keep the heat in.”

“What are you doing in a prison camp miles from anywhere? This can’t be just a coincidence, Leonid.”

Near the door was a dented wheelchair with a square of rough-hewn wood for a seat and two wheels with rusted spokes. Yakov’s face was solemn as he crossed the room and pushed the wheelchair over to Andrev’s bed.

“Do you feel up to talking? It’s cold outside on the veranda, I know, but at least it’s private.”

“What’s bothering you, Leonid?”

Yakov removed an envelope from his pocket, snapped open a page from inside. The document was authorized at the bottom with an official-looking red-inked stamp and a scrawl. He lowered his voice. “I’ve been given an order by Lenin that concerns you, Uri.”

“What order?”

Yakov handed him the page. “It’s for your immediate execution.”

8

Yakov pushed the wheelchair onto the veranda. He sat on the edge of the wooden rail and took a dented metal cigarette case from his coat pocket. “Smoke?”

Andrev silently accepted a cigarette.

Yakov lit them both. He tossed the match in the snow with a faint hiss. They sat in the silence a long time, smoking, their breaths cloudy as they stared out at the camp’s ragged jumble of watchtowers, rusting barbed wire, and wooden huts. Wisps of wood smoke smoldered from chimneys; guards marched past with clusters of frail, exhausted prisoners, some in prison garb, others in tattered military uniforms of the tsar’s army.

Andrev scratched his stubble and said finally, “Am I permitted to know why I’m being executed? Or do you Reds need reasons these days?”

Yakov blew on the hot tip of his cigarette and stared out at the camp, all around them a wilderness of snow. “A White army battalion is only twenty-five miles away near Perm. They could liberate the prisoners to fight another day. Lenin sees army officers of your caliber as a threat if you’re liberated.”

“No trial, no military tribunal, just a firing squad. Is that it?”

“You Whites show no mercy to our men, either, Uri. This war is savage.”

“Will Lenin execute the tsar as well?”

“He and his family are under house arrest, but their day will come, too.”

“You’ll kill
all
of them? The entire family?”

Yakov said, “It’s inevitable. The party wants to be certain the Romanov bloodline can never hold power again.”

“So, you Bolsheviks are even killing children now?”

“Sometimes unpleasant things are necessary for the common good. But it’s no more brutal than the behavior of the tsar’s secret police in their day.”

“You know I despised that kind of thing. I was no blind lover of the tsar.”

“Yet you fought for him.”

“I was a serving officer. But take my word, your Bolsheviks will destroy this country.”

Yakov’s face twitched as he removed a photograph from his tunic pocket. “I found this among your clothes. You’ll want it back.”

Yakov handed over the photograph. Andrev tossed away his cigarette and eagerly clutched the picture of a woman and a young child.

Yakov said quietly, “Nina seems well. And little Sergey looks like you. Family is important to a man.”

Andrev looked up from the photograph, as if trying to fight his emotions. “You never remarried?”

Yakov flung away his unfinished cigarette, glanced out at the thick forest that rolled in all directions, and smiled. “An ugly sod like me? What woman would have me? Besides, the party is my mistress.”

“And your daughter?”

“Six next birthday, would you believe? The day we stormed the Winter Palace, her mother was one of the first to perish.”

“I heard. I’m sorry.”

“We all have our crosses. Since then, Zoba’s wife helps to look after her.”

Andrev studied the photograph of his wife and son and his eyes moistened.

Yakov said quietly, “Answer me a question, Uri?”

Andrev stared back, as if he had trouble holding himself together. “What?”

“If I asked you what would make you happy, what would it be?”

“I think you already know my answer.” Andrev looked past the camp, to where the thick woods faded like phantoms. “That I could be with my wife and son again. That I was a free man. That I could
wake up every morning next to them, in a place full of hope and not despair.”

“What else?”

“Isn’t that enough? What was it Chekhov once said? ‘We live for love, and for hope and dreams, and for the small things that please us and for little else.’ It would be pleasant too if the snow was gone and it was spring again.”

Yakov’s lips creased. “You’re still a romantic, Uri. No doubt you still read poetry. You haven’t changed.”

Andrev met his stare. “But you have, Leonid. This revolution of yours is a misguided experiment that won’t last. It’s taken a brutal turn.”

“Tell me what revolution hasn’t shed blood.”

“Lenin promised freedom and liberty, and yet I and countless others are in chains. He swore he’d rid this country of the secret police, yet he creates his own. That isn’t a man I can trust. All he craves is power.”

“What’s your point?”

“People will soon realize that it’s all one huge, bloodthirsty mistake. You Reds will kill more innocent people than all the centuries of tsars put together.”

Yakov shook his head fiercely, and his face flushed. “On the contrary, I believe that this will be Russia’s finest hour.”

“Then we must differ, Leonid. A man believes what he wants to believe.”

Yakov’s smile faded.

Andrev clutched the photograph, his voice thick with emotion. “Sergey is three. Yet I could count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen my son since the war began.”

Yakov softened, put a hand on Andrev’s arm. “This battle’s been hard on all of us. But what if I told you that you could have all those things you want? What if I told you that you could walk out of this camp a free man? Be with your wife and son and start your life afresh?”

“I’d say that you’ve been drinking too much.”

Yakov said, “I didn’t just come here to deliver your death sentence. You and I, we’ve long been like brothers. We served in the same trenches. My loyalty to you is as strong as ever even though we’ve chosen
different sides in this war. It’s a war that has turned the best of friends into the bitterest of enemies, but I refuse to let it do that to us.”

“What are you trying to tell me, Leonid?”

“The moment I learned that you were to be executed I went to Lenin. I told him how proud I was to have served with you. I told him how your father was a man of the people, a good doctor who never took a penny from his patients who couldn’t afford it.”

“Leonid …”

“I know, I’m impetuous, but hear me out. Your father was one of the finest men I’ve ever known. He fed my family, made sure Stanislas and I had proper schooling. He fought hard to save my mother until the TB took her, and then he cared for us like his own after she died. I told Lenin I owed you my life and I begged for yours in return.”

“What are you saying?”

“That I came here to offer you your freedom. Lenin agreed to pardon you from execution. But on one condition.”

“What?”

“That I convince you to join the Bolshevik cause.”

“Join the Reds? Are you insane, Leonid?”

“You don’t have to do it with a passionate heart. Pretend if you must. You can be one of my staff. I simply want you to survive. Others have changed sides. Surely you can agree if it means saving your life and that you can be with your wife and son again.”

“What about my men?”

A flurry of icy wind blew snow across the compound. Yakov pulled up his coat collar and shook his head. “I was ordered to force-march the prisoners to another camp, two days’ walk away. There’s nothing I can do for them.”

“But for heaven’s sake, Leonid, they only have the rags on their backs. They’d never survive the march in this weather.”

“I believe that’s the idea. Bullets cost money, shoe leather is cheap. Comrade Lenin insists his orders are to be obeyed. He ordered that this camp be burned to the ground when we leave.”

Andrev considered. “How did you learn I was to be executed?”

“Nina heard that your lines were overrun near Perm and you and
your men were captured. She could find out nothing from the authorities so she made contact with me. When I inquired, I learned about the execution order. Then I went to see Lenin.”

Andrev fought his emotions. “How is Nina? And Sergey?”

“Things are not easy for them, naturally, with this war. But your wife and son are surviving. I’ll try to help them, with food, or whatever I can.”

“I’m grateful.” Andrev fell silent for a time. When he spoke again, anguish braided his voice. “How can I turn my back on my men, Leonid? How? They’ve fought alongside me for years. It’s not just my uniform I’d betray, it’s my own honor.”

Yakov grimly tugged on his cap, leaned close into Andrev’s face, his hand on his shoulder. “I know you’re a principled man. I know you’re loyal. But please, this time you must think of yourself. Think of your family, I beg you, Uri.”

“How long have I got?”

“You’re to be executed at dawn.”

9

SIBERIA

Andrev sat on the bed, snow falling beyond the window. He stared at the photograph of his wife and son that lay on his sackcloth pillow.