The Romanov Prophecy

FORTY-SIX

GENESIS, NORTH CAROLINA 4:25 PM

Lord was impressed with where Michael Thorn lived. IT was a lovely neighborhood of older homes with forested lots and deep lawns. Ranch style was the description he recalled appended to the design, most of the houses single-story brick structures with gabled roofs and chimneys.

They'd driven over so Thorn could tend to his dogs. The lawyer's wooded backyard was dotted with pens and Lord immediately recognized the breed. The males were noticeably larger and all of the animals, about a dozen, varied in color from sable red to tan and black. The heads were long and narrow and slightly domed. The shoulders sloped, the chests narrowed. They stood about three feet tall, each animal a hundred pounds or so, and muscular, the fur long and silky.

They were in the sight hound family and their name, borzoi, meant "swift." Lord smiled at Thorn's choice of breed. These were Russian wolfhounds, bred by nobility for the demands of coursing wild game through open terrain. Tsars since the 1650s had raised them.

This one apparently no exception.

"I've loved these dogs for years," Thorn said as he walked about the pens, filling water bowls with a hose. "I read about them years ago and finally bought one. They're like chocolate-chip cookies, though. Can't have just one. I ended up breeding them."

"They're beautiful," Akilina said. She stood close to the cages. The borzois stared back at her through oblique brown eyes encased by black rims. "My grandmother cared for one. She found him in the woods. He was a fine animal."

Thorn opened one of the cages and dumped scoops of dry food into a bowl. The dogs did not move and had yet to bark. The animals' gazes followed Thorn's movements, but they did not otherwise advance toward the meal. The lawyer then motioned with his forefinger to where the food bowls lay.

The dogs pounced.

"Well trained," Lord said.

"No sense having beasts like these unless they obey. This breed trains well."

Lord noticed that the scene was repeated in the other cages. Not one of the dogs challenged Thorn or disobeyed a command. He knelt in front of one of the cages. "Do you sell them?"

"By next spring this litter will be gone, and I'll have puppies again. Each time I breed the best of the lot. Only those two, there, stay continually."

Lord stared at two dogs in the pen closest to the back porch. A male and female, both sable red, coats like silk. Their pen was larger than the others and included a wooden enclosure.

"The best of a litter from six years ago," Thorn said, pride in his voice. "Alexie and Anastasia."

Lord grinned. "Interesting choice of names."

"They're my purebred show dogs. And my friends."

Thorn moved toward the cage, unlocked the gate, and gestured. The two animals immediately smothered him with affection.

Lord watched his host. Thorn appeared levelheaded and genuinely in awe of his ancestral responsibilities. Nothing like Stefan Baklanov. He'd heard Hayes speak of Baklanov's arrogance and the fear that Baklanov was far more interested in the title than actually ruling. Michael Thorn seemed quite different.

They returned to the house and Lord examined Thorn's library. The shelves were filled with treatises on Russian history. There were biographies of various Romanovs, many from nineteenth-century historians. Most of the titles he recognized from his own reading.

"You have quite a collection," he said.

"You'd be surprised what you can find at secondhand bookstores and library sales."

"Nobody ever questioned the interest?"

Thorn shook his head. "I'm a long-standing member of our historical society, and everyone knows my love of Russian history."

On one shelf he spied a book he was quite familiar with. Felix Yussoupov's Rasputin: His Malignant Influence and Assassination. Yussoupov had published the account in 1927, a scathing attack on Rasputin that repeatedly tried to justify the murder. Beside the volume rested the two memoirs Yussoupov published in the 1950s, Lost Splendor and En Exil. Vain attempts at raising money, if Lord recalled what later biographers had concluded. He motioned to the shelf. "Yussoupov's writings were anything but flattering to the imperial family and Rasputin. If I remember, he particularly attacked Alexandra."

"All part of the deception. He knew Stalin was interested in what he was doing and didn't want to do anything that might raise suspicion. So he kept up the facade till his death."

He noticed a few volumes on Anna Anderson, the woman who maintained to her death that she was actually Anastasia. He pointed to the books. "I bet those were amusing."

Thorn smiled. "Her real name was Franziska Schanzkowska. Born in Prussia. She wandered in and out of sanatoriums until Yussoupov learned of her resemblance to Anastasia. He taught her everything she needed to know, and she was an eager student. By the time she died, I actually think she believed herself Anastasia."

"I read about her," Lord said. "All spoke of her in loving terms. She seemed an exceptional lady."

"A fitting stand-in," Thorn said. "One I never really minded."

The faint sound of car doors slamming could be heard through the front windows. Thorn stepped over and peeked out plantation shutters. "A sheriff's deputy is here," he said in English. "I know him."

Lord stiffened and Thorn seemed to understand. The lawyer moved to the double doors leading to the entrance foyer. "Stay here. I'll see what this is about."

"What is it?" Akilina asked in Russian.

"Trouble."

"When is your employer due?" Thorn asked at the doorway.

He checked his watch. "Anytime now. We really need to get back to the inn."

Thorn closed the double doors, but Lord crossed the room and cracked them open just as a doorbell chimed.

"Evening, Mr. Thorn," a deputy said. "The sheriff wanted me to come over and talk with you. I tried your office, your secretary said you were home."

"What's the trouble, Roscoe?"

"Has a man named Miles Lord and a Russian woman come to see you yesterday or today?"

"Who is this Miles Lord?"

"How about you answer my question first."

"No. I haven't had any visitors. Much less Russian ones."

"Kind of strange to hear you say that. Your secretary said a black lawyer named Lord and a Russian woman were at your office last evening and with you all today."

"If you already knew the answer, Roscoe, why'd you ask?"

"Just doin' my job. Care to tell me why you lied to me?"

"What's the big deal about these two?"

"A Moscow warrant for murder. They're both wanted for the death of a city cop there. Shot in Red Square."

"How do you know that?"

"Those two there in my car told me. Brought the warrant with 'em."

Lord raced from the door to the study's front window. He glanced out just as Droopy and Feliks Orleg climbed out of the police cruiser.

"Oh, shit," he whispered.

Akilina was instantly by his side and saw what he did.

The two Russians started their march from the curb. Both reached under their coats and guns appeared. Shots popped like firecrackers in the distance. Lord bolted for the double doors and yanked them open just as the deputy's body crumpled forward into the front doorway. Apparently the first salvo had been meant for him.

He leaped forward and grabbed Thorn, jerking him back and slamming the wooden door shut. He clicked the lock just as bullets pounded the outside.

"Down," he screamed.

They lunged to the tile floor, rolling toward a far hall. Lord glanced at the deputy. Three large holes were spewing blood. No sense wasting time with him. "Come on," he said, springing to his feet. "That door won't stop 'em long."

He sprinted down the hall toward sunlight at the far end. Thorn and Akilina followed. He listened as the front door was rattled, then more shots. He entered the kitchen and yanked open the back door, motioning Thorn and Akilina out onto the terrace. More shots echoed and, in the instant before he followed, he heard the front door splinter.

He watched as Thorn raced for the nearest dog pen, the one harboring Alexie and Anastasia. He heard Thorn tell Akilina to move toward the others and open the gates. Thorn pointed to the back door leading into the kitchen and screamed to the dogs, "Move. Strike."

Akilina had managed to open only a couple of pens, but the two dogs in each, along with Alexie and Anastasia, responded to the command and galloped toward the back door. In the second that Orleg appeared in the doorway, one of the borzois pounced and the Russian screamed.

Three more snarling dogs followed the first inside.

Shots came in rapid succession.

"I don't think we can hang around to find out who wins," Lord said.

They sprinted toward the gate that led to the front drive, back to where the rental Jeep was parked, and climbed inside.

Lord held the ignition key.

More shots came from the back of the house.

"My poor dogs," Thorn said.

Lord gunned the engine and jammed the gearshift into reverse. He wheeled out of the drive and spun around, ending up beside the police cruiser parked at the curb. He caught a glimpse of one of the dogs loping down the drive.

"Wait," Thorn yelled.

Lord hesitated before slamming his foot onto the accelerator. Thorn popped open the back door. The dog leaped inside, panting hard.

"Go," Thorn screamed.

Tires peeled off the asphalt as the Jeep lurched forward.