The Romanov Conspiracy (70 page)

But Andrev kept his hand on his revolver and grimly urged Yakov toward the entrance. “Inside, quickly.”

Boyle stumbled through the tunnel. He carried the sledgehammer and pickaxe on one shoulder, the lamp held high in his hand, shadows flickering on the walls.

Beside him, Lydia consulted Markov’s directions.

Boyle said, “Well?”

“The storeroom can’t be much farther.”

They heard a ferocious crack, like thunder. Lydia recognized a gunshot and at the same instant Boyle stiffened and their eyes locked. His face looked deathly as an eruption of gunfire echoed like an avalanche in the passageway.

“Dear God, no …” Lydia put a hand to her mouth.

Boyle’s face was desolate as he wrenched the pistol from his pocket and they hurried on.

The house seemed in chaos as Andrev followed Yakov through several rooms toward the basement.

A stench of gunpowder choked the air and there was mayhem as about a dozen guards appeared from one of the basement rooms, all of them armed and gasping for breath. Most carried pistols, but a few grasped long bayonets dripping blood. They covered their mouths and noses with their jacket sleeves and coughed and spluttered. There was no mistaking the stink of alcohol as the men staggered toward the guardroom.

The
komendant
looked badly shaken, his face bleached. He stuffed a handkerchief over his mouth, his eyes streaming red from the choking smoke, and he barely recognized Yakov and his comrade.

“What’s wrong?” An ashen Yakov gripped his arm.

Yurovsky gave a hacking cough and glanced over his shoulder toward the basement double doors, one of them half open, the view inside obscured by a gray cloud of fog.

“We couldn’t see for gunsmoke … there were ricochets everywhere. We had to stop shooting … it’s like hell in there. There’s blood everywhere.”

“Are they dead?”

Yurovsky looked ill as he fought to breathe, his lungs rasping. “As far as I could tell—I checked pulses. It was brutal—our shots didn’t seem to penetrate the children. It got very bloody toward the end, we had to use bayonets.” Just then the
komendant
threw up into the handkerchief, vomit spewing onto the floor and Yakov’s boots. The
komendant
wiped his mouth. “I—I’m sorry, Commissar.”

“Go to the guardroom and remain there with your men,” Yakov ordered. He pushed past, Andrev following stone-faced as they both strode toward the basement’s double doors.

EKATERINBURG RAILWAY STATION

Markov halted the hearse with a jerk of the reins. A couple of carriages were parked outside the station, the drivers curled up in the back, asleep, sheepskin blankets pulled over them.

Past the entrance archway, the platforms looked crowded, mostly with peasants hugging their belongings, some awake, some sleeping, all of them waiting for trains. A stench of stale food and sweaty bodies wafted out on the night air.

Sorg climbed down. “Wait here.”

A jittery Markov tied the reins to a tethering post. “Forget it. I can’t leave this town fast enough. I’m coming with you.”

Sorg moved through the crowded station and found the train parked in a siding by platform number three.

Markov said worriedly, “It looks deserted.”

They approached the carriage nearest the locomotive, and its blinds were down. Sorg tried the door. It was locked. He rapped on the glass. No response. He rapped again.

Finally, the carriage door snapped open. A short, stocky man stared warily at his visitors.

“I’m looking for Zoba.”

“I’m Zoba. What do you want?”

Sorg said, “I have a written order from Commissar Yakov. He wants the train made ready immediately for departure.”

The man named Zoba glanced over his shoulder, as if he had company, then finally said, “You better come aboard.” He stepped back, admitting them into a spacious private lounge with a bedchamber leading off. A woman lay on a cot at the far end of the carriage. Her eyes looked red from crying, a deadness in her, as if her senses had lost their sharpness.

A medic was kneeling over her, a black doctor’s bag beside him. He had an anesthetic gauze mask in his hand and he was holding it over the woman’s face, pouring drops of clear liquid from a bottle onto the gauze, the sickly smell of ether cutting the air. The woman’s eyes flickered and closed.

Sorg offered Zoba the written note. “You’ll want to see this.”

A voice from somewhere said, “Everything comes to him who waits.”

A door was slammed.

Sorg spun round. His heart chilled.

An armed, leather-jacketed man appeared out of nowhere to cover Zoba and the woman. Two others stepped from the carriage annex, and they roughly grabbed a frightened Markov.

Kazan followed, holding a pistol, a sly grin on his face. “Well, well. Will you look at what the cat’s dragged in?”

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The room looked like a slaughterhouse.

Through a fog and stench of gunsmoke, Andrev entered behind Yakov and closed the doors. Andrev’s voice choked with despair, “Dear God …”

It was a scene to shock the hardest of hearts. Eleven bodies lay in a twisted, pitiful sprawl—the family, their doctor, and their servants. A sea of blood covered the wooden floors. Bullet holes gouged the walls, which were spattered with crimson splashes and flecks of brain matter.

Two of the sisters, Olga and Tatiana, lay almost entwined together, as if in a last, pitiful embrace. Both had been shot and bayoneted, their white blouses drenched in blood still flowing from gaping head and body wounds.

The boy, Alexei, lay slumped on the floor beneath an upturned chair, his crippled legs twisted beneath him, the back of his skull shattered by bullets. Crumpled on the floor, the ex-tsar and his wife were covered in blood. Nearby were the family doctor and the maids, their eyes open in death, their agonized expressions testament to their brutal death.

Anastasia lay slumped against the wall on the right, near her sister Maria. Both had their arms outstretched, as if they had tried to fend off their killers until the very end. Anastasia’s head was bleeding, her skull slashed by cuts.

Yakov stared blankly at the spectacle until he was forced to cover his mouth with his sleeve.

As Andrev stood clutching his revolver, the fog of gunsmoke catching in his lungs, he felt completely revolted. The grisly scene was almost too much to take in.

A scraping noise sounded from behind the storeroom. He waded between the corpses, slipping on the blood-soaked floor until he managed to reach the doors. He gave three sharp raps and almost instantly the doors seemed to cave in.

Boyle appeared in the doorway, Lydia behind him. They gaped at the hideous scene. Lydia already had tears in her eyes.

Boyle dropped the pick he carried. Enraged, he stumbled through the carnage toward Yakov, as if to strike him. “I ought to shoot you here and now. You and your kind are nothing but butchers.”

An almost eerie groan sounded from the mass of bodies.

Boyle froze, they all did, nobody uttering a word.

And then another groan shattered the silence …

EKATERINBURG RAILWAY STATION

“You two showing up here may be the perfect end to my night.” Kazan had a sadistic look on his face. He nodded to one of his men, who wore a gray slouch hat. “Tie him. He’s a slippery customer, this one.”

Kazan’s man produced a length of rope from his pocket and tied Sorg’s hands together.

The medic, still kneeling beside an unconscious Nina, screwed the top back on the ether bottle and stood, ashen-faced. “Please—this is not my business. I’m only here to treat the woman. She lost her child—”

“Shut up,” Kazan said and strode over to Sorg. He held up Yakov’s note. “Where did you get this? Is it real or a forgery?”

Sorg was tight-lipped, his hands tied in front of him, unable to grasp the steel-bladed pen in his pocket.

Kazan leaned into his face. “Yakov’s one of you, isn’t he? A traitor.”

Zoba interrupted. “You’re out of your mind, Kazan. He’s no turncoat, not like you.”

Kazan’s mouth tightened and he aimed his gun at him. “If I want your opinion, I’ll ask for it. Speak another word unless you’re told to, and it’ll be your last.”

Zoba fell silent.

Kazan addressed Sorg. “I’m waiting for an answer.”

This time, Sorg actually replied. “I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about.”

Kazan’s expression was a cross between a sneer and a grimace. “Is that a fact? Violence may be wasted on you. But your friend here might be different.” He crossed to Markov, trembling as the two men held him up by the arms.

Kazan aimed his pistol at Markov’s left knee. “Tell me the truth. If you do, I promise to let you go.”

Markov stood rigid with fear, too petrified to even speak.

Kazan fired.

The round shattered Markov’s kneecap and he let out a terrifying scream. He jerked violently as he was held up by Kazan’s men, blood spewing from his wound onto the floor.

Kazan aimed his pistol at Markov’s other knee. “It seems you’re determined to become a cripple.”

“No, please,” Markov begged, agony beading his face with sweat. “I’ll tell you—”

“Everything. Or it’s your brains on the floor.”

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