The Romanov Conspiracy (6 page)

JANUARY 1918

It was the coldest winter in twenty-five years.

In Paris, a foot of snow fell in a single night and fourteen homeless vagrants perished, their frozen bodies stuck to the city’s sidewalks. The tragedy forced the capital’s mayor to throw open the metro stations to shelter the destitute from the cruel weather.

Parisians joked grimly that the winter would claim more fatalities than the German shells. The bloody war that raged all over Europe had already claimed seventeen million lives and was being made even more brutal by the freezing climate.

A newspaper reported that on the Western front, ravaged by battles and snowdrifts, a squad of German artillery cut off for three weeks without rations roasted their horses to survive. When the horse meat was devoured, the soldiers boiled and ate their leather saddles.

In Siberia, where the temperature was twenty-five below, Uri Andrev was fighting a different battle as his hunters closed in for the kill.

Shouts and
cracks
of rifle fire echoed as shots ripped through the trees left and right of him. They smacked into the birch trees and kicked up tiny exploding puffs in the snow, but Andrev kept moving, his body racked by exhaustion, his weary legs like rubber in the bone-numbing snow.

He struggled through the woods, fighting for his life, the sound of dogs growing louder, yelps and barks as the animals picked up his scent.

He sucked in frozen lungfuls of air, his chest ablaze, and with every agonizing step he prayed that he would reach the train track. His coarse
prison uniform and boots, his only protection from the freezing cold, rubbed like sandpaper against his skin.

A rifle cracked, then another, and shots zinged inches from his head. Gasping for breath, Andrev glanced back. At least two dozen armed guards zigzagged through the woods behind him.

Up ahead he saw the rail tracks curve through a bend in the woods. The shrill whistle blast of a train sounded. Andrev focused on the tracks as the whistle screamed louder. He was less than a hundred yards from the line. He knew that the train was his only hope of freedom. If he could only clamber aboard when the engine slowed rounding the bend.

Eighty yards.

Seventy.

Shots buzzed past him like crazed bees.

Sixty.

Fifty.

Andrev kept moving, each footstep an agony in the heavy snow, his body on fire with so many pains that it felt as if a thousand daggers slashed at his flesh.

Another volley of shots slammed into the trees to his right.

And then it happened.

One moment Andrev was running, the next his legs threaded air as the ground disappeared beneath his feet and a vast hole appeared in the earth. He let out a cry, lost his balance, and sank into the abyss like a rock.

He landed hard on his shoulder in an open pit and heard the crack of bone. Andrev’s shoulder was on fire with raw pain. He struggled to untangle himself from what felt like branches of deadwood.

To his horror Andrev saw that the tangle of branches was a mass of frozen human corpses.

He was lying in a huge pit where the camp guards disposed of the dead—hundreds of rotting bodies, their limbs meshed in an obscene tapestry. He struggled to haul himself out of the pit as the forest again thundered with gunfire and barking dogs. As he climbed out, agony in his shoulder, Andrev again heard the shrill whistle.

A black train with a huge red star on its front belched steam as it thundered round a bend in the woods, like a massive steel snake on tracks. His heart lifted and he started toward the tracks.

Behind him in the woods he never saw the guard kneel and take aim.

A rifle exploded and the bullet punched Andrev like a hammer blow, sending him flying forward into the gruesome pit, and then there was only darkness, silent, empty, painless darkness.

The black train with a red star painted on the front and red flags fluttering from its carriages screeched to a halt with a squeal of brakes.

Steam billowed from its engine as one of the carriage doors snapped open. A stern-faced man with hard blue eyes and blond hair jumped down, brandishing a Nagant revolver. He wore an ankle-length leather trench coat, scarf, gloves, and an officer’s leather peaked cap.

He saw the guards run forward out of the woods, readying their rifles as they approached the pit. One was a brutal-looking sergeant with a Slavic face, a Cossack
nagaika
whip coiled from a leather uniform belt around his waist. He aimed his rifle at the unconscious prisoner and his finger fastened on the trigger.

The officer brought up his right hand and the Nagant exploded once, hitting the sergeant in the left arm; the rifle snapped from his grasp.

“Stop firing. That’s an order.” The officer raced up to the sergeant and barked, “You idiot. What’s your name?”

“Sergeant Mersk, Commissar Yakov.” The sergeant wore a grubby sheepskin hat and had a drooping black mustache.

“I gave strict instructions that the prisoner was to be taken alive.”

The sergeant, a big, powerfully built Ukrainian, clutched his bloody arm and struggled to his feet, examining his flesh wound. “I—I’m sorry, Commissar. I thought he would escape.”

“If he’s dead you’ll pay with your life.” Yakov thrust the Nagant back in his holster and trudged over to the pit’s edge. The prisoner was sprawled in the snow among a tangle of rotten corpses. His eyes were closed and fresh blood seeped from a bullet wound in his side. In his
filthy prison clothing, his body emaciated and his face unshaven, he was a pitiful sight. Yakov noticed a faint cloud of breath rise from the man’s lips.

He snapped at the guards, “He’s alive. Get him out of there and be careful. If he dies I’ll hold you all responsible.”

Half a dozen guards slid down into the pit, their breaths fogging as they lifted out the prisoner and laid him on the snow. Yakov knelt, felt the man’s faint pulse. He said to a guard, “Give me your trouser belt.”

“Commissar?”

“You heard me. And someone give me a bayonet.”

The guards obeyed the order and Yakov used the bayonet to cut away the prisoner’s clothing, exposing a bleeding wound. Yakov tore the scarf from his neck, folded the cloth neatly in a square, and used it to compress the bullet wound; then he tied the belt around the prisoner’s torso to stem the bleeding.

He snapped his fingers at the sergeant, saying, “Take him back to camp on board my train. And find the medical orderly. I want this man kept alive.”

The Ukrainian sergeant sourly clutched his wound. “But the prisoner tried to escape. That’s a crime punishable by death.”

“I’ll say whether he lives or dies. Obey the order or it’s you who’ll get a bullet.”

“Yes, Commissar Yakov.”

The sergeant instructed his men and they carried the wounded man to the train. Yakov stared back at where the prisoner’s blood stained the snow. He knelt, touched the crimson with his gloved fingers. Anger flushed his face as he stood up again.

The confused sergeant said, “I don’t understand, Commissar. Why did you intervene to help this traitor? He’s nothing but trouble.”

Yakov watched as the man was lifted on board by a group of Red Guards from the train. “The prisoner has a name.”

The sergeant’s eyes flashed with contempt. “Uri Andrev, an Imperial Army captain and convicted enemy of the state. Do you know him, Commissar Yakov?”

“You could say he’s my brother.”

3

GERMANY

Nearly two thousand miles away that same morning, the entire north coast of Bremerhaven was smothered by a curtain of mist.

The young woman looked striking as she stood on the bow of cargo frigate
Marie-Ann
and it chugged out of the fog into Bremerhaven harbor.

With her long auburn hair down around her shoulders, in another age Lydia Ryan might have passed for a pirate queen standing at the prow of her ship, were it not for the sensible, warm clothes that she wore—a long, black woolen skirt, leather boots, and a waist-length jacket and blouse that hugged her figure.

She had the Spanish look you see so often in the west of Ireland—pale skin and green eyes. An interesting throwback to the Basques from northern Spain, who settled on the country’s western shores thousands of years ago.

The
Marie-Ann
prepared to dock, its propeller dying as the captain cut the engines. The harbor was sealed off by German army troops. Lydia Ryan’s work that morning required complete secrecy.

She spotted Colonel Horst Ritter, of German military intelligence, as he watched from the harbor wall. He was about fifty, dressed in an immaculate pressed uniform and pigskin gloves, his knee-high boots polished like glass. Ritter took a deep breath of salty air, twirled his waxed mustache, and allowed himself a smile as he waved to her.

Lydia waved back.

Ritter gave a signal and two trucks with canvas tops reversed toward the edge of the harbor wall. German soldiers jumped down, rolled up the canvas tops, and unloaded wooden crates of arms and munitions onto the quayside.

As the
Marie-Ann
’s crew docked, Lydia climbed up onto the harbor wall using a ladder of metal rungs. “Colonel Ritter, don’t they ever give you a holiday?”

Ritter clicked his heels, all charm as he took her hand and kissed it. The young woman had a firm figure and a vivacious look that Ritter always found enticing. “Not when I have important work to do, such as helping you Irish republicans defeat the British. A great pleasure to see you again, Fräulein Ryan.”

“The pleasure’s all mine, Colonel.”

Ritter’s English was impeccable and he sighed good-humoredly. “Ach, if only that were really true and I was thirty again. You had a pleasant voyage?”

“Not exactly, considering we spent five days changing flags to avoid the British navy. Still, it had its moments.”

“No matter, you made it safely. Your cargo’s ready. Two hundred rifles and a hundred thousand rounds of ammunition. There are even a half-dozen Bergmann machine guns thrown in for good measure. Compliments of the Kaiser.”

“Colonel, I could kiss that man. I’m even tempted to kiss you.”

Ritter threw back his head and laughed. “And I might be inclined to accept, fräulein.”

A youthful crew member from the
Marie-Ann
clambered up the metal rungs, clutching a bottle of Jameson whiskey. He had the same handsome dark looks as Lydia and he was no more than eighteen, his cloth cap set jauntily on his head, his cheeks spotted with freckles. He handed the bottle to Lydia. “Paudie says we shouldn’t be long loading. Ten minutes at most.”

“Good. Go help with the boxes, Finn.”

The youth scrambled back down the ladder.

Ritter said to Lydia, “There’s a certain resemblance, if I’m not mistaken?”

“My youngest brother.” She handed Ritter the Jameson. “A small gift by way of saying thanks. I hope you like Irish whiskey, colonel?”

Ritter examined the bottle and gratefully touched his cap in salute. “I certainly do. I’ll enjoy it.” He nodded toward an empty stretch of the
harbor, his face more solemn. “You’re in a hurry so I’ll not detain you long. Will you join me for a brief stroll?”

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say that invitation sounded a touch ominous.”

Ritter took her arm. “I’m afraid so. I have some bad news.”