The Romanov Prophecy

THIRTY

MOSCOW MONDAY, OCTOBER 18 2:00 AM

Hayes studied the five faces gathered in the paneled room. It was the same room they'd used for the past seven weeks. Stalin, Lenin, Brezhnev, and Khrushchev were there, along with the priest whom Patriarch Adrian had assigned as his personal envoy. He was a short man with a frizzled beard the texture of steel wool and rheumy green eyes. The envoy had exercised enough foresight to dress in a simple suit and tie, showing no outward signs of association with the church. The man had been unceremoniously dubbed by the others Rasputin, a name the priest did not like.

All of the men had been summoned from a sound sleep and told to be present within the hour. Too much was at stake to wait until morning. Hayes was glad food and drink had been prepared. There were platters of sliced fish and salami, globs of red and black caviar heaped onto boiled eggs, cognac, vodka, and coffee.

He'd taken the past few minutes to explain what had happened the day before in Starodug. Two dead Makses, but no information. Both had stubbornly refused to say anything. Iosif Maks had merely pointed the way to Vassily, the old man leading them to the grave. Yet he'd said nothing, save for a shout to the raven.

"The grave was Kolya Maks'. Vassily Maks was his son," Stalin said. "Kolya was a member of the palace guard in Nicholas' time. He traded sides at the revolution and was in Yekaterinburg at the time of the imperial executions. He is not listed as having been on the death squad, but that means nothing, considering the accuracy of that era's record keeping. No statement was ever taken from him. He was buried in some sort of uniform that was not Soviet. I assume it was imperial."

Brezhnev shifted in the chair and turned to Hayes. "Your Mr. Lord obviously needed something from that grave. Something he now has."

Hayes and Stalin had personally gone to the grave late last night, after the men had returned with news of what happened. There was nothing to find, and the two Makses were left with their ancestor.

"Vassily Maks took us there so he could get that message to Lord," Hayes said. "It is the only reason he agreed to go."

"Why do you say that?" Lenin asked.

"He is a man who apparently took his duty to heart. He would not have revealed the grave's location, save for the fact he needed Lord to know something. He knew he was going to die. He just needed to complete his duty before that happened." His patience with his Russian associates was running thin. "Could you please tell me what this is all about? You have me parading across this country killing people, yet I have no idea why. What are Lord and the woman after? Are there Romanovs who survived Yekaterinburg?"

"I agree," Rasputin said. "I want to know what is happening. I was told the situation with succession was under control. There were no problems. Yet there is this sense of urgency."

Brezhnev banged his vodka glass onto a small table beside him. "For decades there have been rumors that some of the imperial family were not murdered. Grand duchesses and tsarevichs have appeared all over the world. After our civil war ended in 1920, Lenin became convinced that a Romanov survivor existed. He learned that Felix Yussoupov had perhaps spirited away at least one Romanov. But he could never verify the fact, and his health failed before he could determine more."

Hayes was still skeptical. "Yussoupov murdered Rasputin. Nicholas and Alexandra hated him for that. Why in the world would he be involved with the imperial family?"

Khrushchev answered him. "Yussoupov was a unique individual. He suffered from the malady of sudden ideas. He murdered the starets on an impulse, thinking he was freeing the imperial family from a devil's grasp. Interestingly, his punishment was merely banishment to one of his estates in central Russia. That move saved his life, since he was not around when the February and October Revolutions occurred. A lot of Romanovs and nobles died then."

Hayes was something of a student of Russian history, the fate of the imperial family having served as fascinating reading on a long plane ride. He recalled that Grand Duke Michael, Nicholas's younger brother, was shot six days before Yekaterinburg. Alexandra's sister, Nicholas's cousin Serge, and four other grand dukes were all murdered the day after, thrown down a mine shaft in the Urals. More grand dukes and duchesses died in the months that followed. By 1919 the Romanov family was devastated. Only a precious few escaped to the West.

Khrushchev said, "Rasputin predicted that if he was murdered by boyars, their hands would remain soiled by blood. He also said that if an imperial relative carried out his murder none of the family would live more than two years, and they would be killed by the Russian people. Rasputin was murdered in December 1916 by the husband of a royal niece. The imperial family was wiped from the face of the Earth by August 1918."

Hayes was not impressed. "We have no proof that this prediction actually occurred."

Brezhnev leveled a tight gaze at him. "We do now. The writing your Mr. Lord found, in Alexandra's own hand, confirms that Rasputin told the tsarina his prediction in October 1916, two months before he died. This country's great founder"-Brezhnev's sarcasm was clear-"our beloved Lenin, evidently thought the matter quite serious. And Stalin was petrified enough to seal everything and kill anyone with knowledge."

Hayes had not realized the significance of what Lord had found until this moment.

Lenin said, "The provisional government offered Yussoupov the throne in March 1917, after both Nicholas and his brother, Michael, abdicated. The Romanov family was finished. So the government thought the Yussoupov family could take over. Felix was widely respected for killing Rasputin. The people thought him a savior. But he refused the offer. After the Soviets took full control, Yussoupov finally fled the nation."

"If Yussoupov was anything, he was a patriot," Khrushchev said. "Hitler offered him the governorship of Russia, once Germany had conquered, and he absolutely refused. The communists offered him a job as curator of several museums, and he said no. He loved Mother Russia and apparently never realized, until it was far too late, that murdering Rasputin was a mistake. He could never have intended for the imperial family to be killed. He apparently harbored enormous guilt over the tsar's death. So he formulated a plan."

"How do you know this?" Hayes asked.

Stalin smiled. "The archives have yielded their secrets since the communist fall. It's like a matryoshky doll-each layer peeled away to reveal the next. No one wanted this to happen, but we all believed now would be the time of revelation."

"You suspected all along a Romanov survived?"

"We suspected nothing," Brezhnev said. "We simply feared that whatever was put into place decades ago might come to fruition with the reemergence of imperial rule. It seems we were right. The involvement of your Mr. Lord was not expected, but perhaps it is fortunate the situation has developed as it has."

Stalin said, "Our state archives are full of reports from people who participated in the executions at Yekaterinburg. But Yussoupov was clever. He involved the fewest individuals possible with his plan. Lenin and Stalin's secret police learned only minor details. Nothing was ever confirmed."

Hayes sipped his coffee, then asked, "From what I recall, Yussoupov lived a modest life after fleeing Russia."

"He followed the tsar's lead and repatriated most of his foreign investments when World War I broke out," Brezhnev said. "Which meant his cash and stocks were here. The Bolsheviks seized all his Russian property, which included the art and jewels the Yussoupov family had amassed. But Felix was smarter than he appeared. He'd invested in Europe, especially Switzerland and France. He projected a modest lifestyle, but he always had money. Documents indicate that he traded in American railway stock in the nineteen twenties and converted his investment into gold before your Depression. The Soviets searched for the vault where that gold was deposited, but found nothing."

Lenin shifted in his chair. "He may also have managed tsarist investments that escaped Bolshevik reach. Many believed Nicholas II secreted millions of rubles away in foreign banks, and Yussoupov made many trips to the United States until his death in the late nineteen sixties."

Hayes was tired, but there was adrenaline flowing through his veins. "So what do we do now?"

"We must find Miles Lord and the woman," Khrushchev said. "I passed an alert to all border stations, but I am afraid it is too late. We don't maintain checks at the Ukrainian border any longer, and that was the nearest exit point. Mr. Hayes, you have the capacity to travel wherever and whenever it is necessary. We need you to be ready. Lord will most likely make contact. There is no reason for him to mistrust you. When he does, act quickly. I think you now understand the gravity of the situation."

"Oh, yes," he said. "I see the picture real clear."