The Romanov Rescue

Chapter Twenty-four

Safe House, Yershova Street, Tobolsk

It took until noon to find and bring back the reconnaissance parties. By that time, Sarnof had gone to the hotel where they’d first stayed to pump the telegrapher for information over lunch.

“Time and tide wait for no man,” said Kostyshakov. “We strike tomorrow night. The third zeppelin load should be down by the time I get back to the lake camp. We won’t need the fourth load for this, but only for after this.”

Cherimisov nodded, then said, “We can do this. The men will have been practicing the assaults on both buildings for some time now on that rope schematic Lieutenant Turgenev so thoughtfully produced. All the rest need to do is contain the Reds. If you send one company less one platoon after the Omsk men, to hold them in place, one platoon after the Tyumen men, and one company less one platoon after these newcomers, then use one platoon to seal off the area of the two houses, we can clear the buildings, guard the people we’ve rescued with one platoon, then reinforce the group keeping the weakest group of Bolsheviks pinned, eliminate them, then all of us go after the next weakest, and so on.”

“So think I. But we’ll need a couple of things. Lieutenant Turgenev?”

“Sir?”

“We’re going to be coming in a column, mostly on skis, with those stout little Yakut horses pulling the infantry cannon, the machine guns, and the sleighs. Might have to put the heavy weapons on the sleighs, actually. We’ll be very quiet. We’ll need an easily identifiable release point from our column of march to lead us to assembly areas, just after dusk. That means you need to meet us with… well, probably four men, two to lead us to each warehouse.”

Turgenev shook his head, doubtfully. “Don’t think we can, sir. We’ve still got to kidnap the two guards and Shukhov has to blow the telegraph lines. That’s everybody I’ve got.”

“I can lead one party,” said Natalya.

“Give me Shukhov,” Mokrenko added, “before he sets off to blow the lines down. He and I and… let me see… Timashuk, I’ll need him to make sure the prisoners don’t die on us. But it would be better to present them with really bad odds, so they don’t try to resist.”

“Two more men, Sergeant Mokrenko,” said Daniil, “because you’re right that more numbers will help with a kidnapping.”

Turgenev thought furiously, then said, “Mokrenko, Timashuk, Sarnof, and Shukhov for the kidnapping. Myself, Natalya, and Lavin to lead the companies to the warehouses. That leaves us one spare for that.”

“That works for me,” said Kostyshakov. “Best of the bad hand we’ve been dealt. Now, I hope I remember how to drive a sleigh.”

“Doesn’t take much skill, sir,” said Mokrenko. “The Yakuts are surprisingly gentle horses.”

“Do we know,” asked Turgenev of Natalya, “if those two special guards will be going to the Gilded Lark tonight?”

“They’ve the night off,” she answered. “I know that much. I also know that’s where they usually go. I think Chekov, who isn’t much of a drinker, takes Dostovalov there to keep him away from Olga.”

“All right, then,” finished Kostyshakov. “Gentlemen… if we’ve neglected or forgotten anything, we’re just going to have to pull something out of our asses. If someone would set up one of the sleighs for me…?”

“I’ll take care of it,” said Mokrenko.

“Now where,” asked Kostyshakov, “should our link-up point be?”

“You wouldn’t have seen it,” said Turgenev, “covered as you all were on the sleigh, but there’s an island south of the town, formed by the Tobol and Irtysh Rivers. Nobody lives that way. The trees of the island block any view of the lower town and vice versa, while the upper town is too far away to see much. We’ll build a small fire and put up something to keep it from being seen in the upper town, either from the walls or the towers of the Kremlin of Tobolsk. We can meet there and then split, with one group going for the warehouse by the docks, and near the royal family, while the other goes for the warehouse south of town. We could, if you want to try it and think the men of Fourth Company could be as quiet as mice, billet the company here, in the safe house. There’s a basement the size of the first floor, and half the rooms above are unoccupied. It won’t be comfy and it will be tight, but it puts you within a few minutes of the Romanovs.”

“Let me mull that over,” said Kostyshakov. “But I think that with that reinforced company of Reds across the intersection it’s too risky. I like the advantage of proximity but dread being seen before we launch our attack.”

“From our point of view, sir, it wouldn’t make any difference. You can tell us where you want people when we link up. Just remember that the warehouses can fit hundreds, easily, while we will be a little pressed to squeeze under a hundred into this place.

“What’s our sign and countersign?”

Kostyshakov considered this briefly, then decided, “We only need a running password. Make it Liberty or Death. One other thing.”

“Sir?” asked Turgenev.

“People get lost in strange terrain, especially at night. You, young Lieutenant, will come with us to guide us back.”

The Gilded Lark, Tobolsk

Although it was just a hole in the wall, and somewhat sparsely furnished after the fights that had taken place, the tavern was warm, had sufficient rough wooden boxes and crates for tables and seating. Also, despite the generally poorly washed clientele, the smell of food was as thick and hearty as the food itself, and went a good way, if not all the way, toward covering up the stench of people.

Those people were almost entirely soldiers, though whether they were ex- or current was a hard call, since clothing shortages had an amazing number of men wearing their old uniforms, sans insignia, or, perhaps in some cases, someone else’s cast-offs.

Mokrenko really hadn’t had a good look at the surroundings, the previous night, since he’d plunged immediately into a riot. Most especially had he not noticed, since they’d likely fled at the first sign of trouble, the waitresses hauling glasses of vodka, mugs of beer, and trays replete with bread and soup, plus the occasional plate of pelmeni.

There were no photos of the pair but Natalya had described them well. “One is short and stocky, but very graceful and quick. You will be surprised at how much so. That’s Chekov and he looks—and is—far more intelligent than his comrade. The other one, Dostovalov, is tall, strong, and has his head currently bandaged against a rather bad blow he took. You won’t have a hard time getting the latter to drink himself insensible, but with the former you might.”

Looking around upon closing the tavern’s leather-hinged door behind him, Mokrenko didn’t see either man, and certainly not such an oddly matched pair together. He let a waitress—blonde, almost pretty, and remarkably large-breasted—lead him to a bench. She introduced herself as “Xenia.”

“Bottle of vodka and a glass,” he replied, when she asked him what he’d be having. Then he looked at the menu over the bar and asked, “What’s in the pelmeni?”

“Oh, today is special,” she replied. “Then owner came back with a nice deer, so it’s venison pelmeni. They’re wonderful. I can say that because I snatched a couple when the cook wasn’t looking.”

“I predict you’ll go far,” Mokrenko said to the girl, inciting a saucy answer, accompanied by a knowing wink, “I’ll go further than any of the other girls here; faster, too.”

That got her the laugh she expected.

“Let’s try the pelmeni, then.”

After the previous night’s festivities, it seemed no one was willing to talk politics and risk another fight breaking out. Indeed, it seemed no one was willing to get so close to anyone else they didn’t already know. This left Mokrenko alone with four empty chairs while the other chairs filled. Two of those chairs, after polite inquiries, found their way to other tables. When someone asked for a third Mokrenko answered, “Ah, no, sorry; I have a couple of friends coming to join me.”

Fortunately, no fight broke out over the matter.

Or at least no one is fighting yet, thought Mokrenko. But, needs must when the devil drives, and I’ve got to get them somewhat inebriated and outside.

The vodka and pelmeni arrived before the two guards did. So intent was Mokrenko on the food that he almost missed them when they came through the door. He found Natalya’s description spot on, except for one thing. She never said what an air of sadness and doom surrounds the bigger of the two.

Chekov and Dostovalov walked silently, side by side, down the street leading to their current favorite hole in the wall, after the Reds taught the old butcher a nasty lesson. Dostovalov, himself, was the very picture of misery. He wouldn’t even be here, but would have been with his beloved Olga, except that the newcomers had relieved the guards of their duties and forbidden them from coming into the main or second floor of the house. At the same time they’d locked down on the Romanovs, hard, even as they were stuffing several dozen more aristocrats and staff into the house.

“Don’t worry, don’t complain,” the chief of the new men had ordered, “you won’t be here for long!”

No, not long… not here… not anywhere, thought the short noncom.

Chekov had his own issues. Tatiana was his friend, one of only two in the midst of this terrible world. And despite his best efforts not to, he cared for her sisters and brother as well.

What will we do? What can we do? I don’t give a shit about Nicholas or his hypochondriac loon of a wife, but his children deserve to live. I’ve spent years trying to isolate and harden my soul, and now if Tatiana and her siblings die, a part of me will die with them. And Anton is likely to kill himself in a futile attempt to save them if I don’t sit on him. Tatiana will still die, Olga, Maria and Anastasia and the boy, Alexei, will all still die.

And then I will be alone with only the coldest, blackest pieces of myself for company.

Chekov stopped at the tavern door and listened. Ah, good, no riot tonight. Helps, I suppose, that the Tyumen mob have been run out of town.

How will I even earn my bread, after this? Fighting for the Reds? Murderous bastards, and when they’re not murdering innocent children, they’re starving the commoner in the name of progress. I could join the White Army—but they prey upon my mother’s people as readily as they do the communists. If the God of my forebears does order the universe, He must be little more than a sadistic puzzle-maker.

He turned the latch and pushed the door half open, just enough for him and Dostovalov to get through while letting as little heat out as possible. Now to find a seat in this mess.

The tavern had filled up quite a bit since the sergeant’s arrival. Both Chekov and Dostovalov searched left and right, near and far, for an open couple of seats. Since no one else invited them over, Mokrenko waved and made an expansive “come on down” gesture.

Seeing his friend hesitate, Dostovalov said, “Oh, for Christ’s sake, cut it out. We’ve got no secrets to spill. We’re about to be unemployed. I cannot see my one true love before she leaves and you are about to lose your arguing partner, student… and friend. We’re about as important as the horse turds we passed getting here. Nobody is a threat to us, my friend, because we just do not matter.”

Ordinarily, thought Chekov, I’d sit outside rather than share a table with a gregarious stranger, but he’s right. What difference does it make now? No future, no job… no Tatiana. So what difference?

Gratefully, the two made their way over and took rough, uncushioned boxes for their seats.

Introductions proceeded apace, “Rostislav Alexandrovich Mokrenko… Sergei Arkadyevich Chekov… Anton Ivanovich Dostovalov.”

“Gentlemen,” said Mokrenko, pointing to the vodka, “please, help yourselves. I just got paid by my company and am pretty flush at the moment. Oh, my manners; Xenia? Couple more glasses.”

“What company is that?” asked Chekov, innately suspicious at any show of generosity from a stranger.

“Pan Siberian Import-Export Company. Originally started in Vladivostok, I understand, but branching out to the west now.”

“You haven’t been with them long…” At that point, Xenia arrived with a couple of apparently clean glasses, which she set down on the table.

“Oh, hi, Anton Ivanovich,” she said to Dostovalov. “Haven’t seen you in a week or two.”

“Old friend?” asked Mokrenko, after the girl had left to see to another table.

“Something like that,” Dostovalov replied.

Mokrenko nodded, then answered Chekov’s question. “No, not long. They were recruiting good shots who could ride and didn’t mind living rough when I was discharged from the army. I had nothing better to do and the pay promised to be a lot better than the army had ever given me.”

“I knew you were a soldier,” Chekov said. “Don’t ask me how.”

Mokrenko reached for the bottle of vodka and poured a couple of mid-depth drinks. “Probably the same way I recognized you two as soldiers. It wasn’t the uniforms without any insignia; half the men of the town are wearing old uniforms. It’s in the walk, in the voice, in the mannerisms, and in the way you look around suspiciously. It’s me sitting here with my back to the wall and you two taking turns looking to see who comes in the door. If you’re one of us and halfway observant you just know. Though I suppose you could have been sailors, too.”

“There are, in fact, a couple of sailors who work around us,” said Dostovalov. “Good men, devoted to the… ouch! What the fuck was that for?”

“I’m sure Comrade Mokrenko isn’t interested in our work or who we work for,” said Chekov. “I kicked you so you wouldn’t wear out our welcome.”

“Not especially interested, no,” Mokrenko agreed. “Though if you ever get discharged look me up; the company always has openings, as far as I’ve been able to see. And they pay in gold and silver, none of this paper crap.”

The sergeant noticed that Dostovalov had tossed off his vodka rather quickly after being kicked under the table. He refilled the glass without being asked.

“I hate eating alone,” said Mokrenko. “You guys hungry?”

“We can’t impose…” began Chekov, before Mokrenko cut him off with, “I told you; we get paid in gold, and good wages at that. I can afford it. Hey, Xenia!”

Three and a half hours later, the first bottle of vodka was gone and the second was more than half finished. Both Mokrenko and Chekov were pretty sober or, at worst, mildly tipsy. Dostovalov, on the other hand, despite the food he’d eaten, was utterly drunk, slovenly drunk, crying in his arms drunk.

“He acts—he drinks—like a man who knows his soul is damned,” said Mokrenko. “What could he have done…”

“It’s not what he did,” said Chekov, “it’s what he failed to do. Long story, and ugly. And I don’t have the right to pass it on.”

“I understand. Well… can you carry him on your own? He’s a big boy, after all.”

“Oh, I can get him home eventually,” was Chekov’s reply, repeating, “Eventually.”

“Tell you what,” said Mokrenko, “you take one arm, I’ll take the other, and we’ll both port him home….ummm… where is home, by the way?” He reached into a pocket and then put some small coins on the table.

“For the nonce, it’s the basement of the Governor’s house. A basement suddenly a lot more crowded than it used to be.”

Mokrenko forced his eyes to widen. “You’re guarding… mmm… you-know-who?”

Chekov nodded, then said, “For another day or so, maybe two. Well, not guarding, exactly, since we’ve been relieved. They’re being taken away by some Bolshevik fanatics soon.”

“You don’t sound happy?” Mokrenko said, standing, pulling first one, then the other, of Dostovalov’s arms through his army-issue coat. Then, he pulled the drunken Dostovalov up well enough to get control of an arm.

Chekov, walking around the table to take the other answered, “I’m not quite happy about it, no. He, on the other hand, is devastated.”

“You sound rather less happy than ‘not quite happy.’”

“Honestly, I don’t know how I feel. I am… fond… yes, fond… of one of them, and like most of them… even the tsar is more ignorant than evil….okay, all together now…”

With a pair of grunts, they pulled Dostovalov up and away from the table, the triple discrepancy in height making the exercise a lot more difficult than one might have expected. To get him through the door would have been impossible without either dropping and dragging him or, as was offered, the assistance of Xenia.

With Xenia’s help, in any case, they got through the door and into the street. Down it whipped a bitter wind from above the Arctic Circle. Its force, fury, and frigid bitterness brought Dostovalov to a limited degree of consciousness. He began to weep and muttered the name “Olga,” more than once.

They reached a point at which the sergeant could see the two men and sleigh he’d posted by an intersection. They began to walk toward the trio.

“Oh, that’s his problem,” said Mokrenko.

“The center of his problems,” Chekov said, “but he has still others.”

“Well, one is that he’s going to catch pneumonia with his coat opened up.” Without a word, Mokrenko slipped out from under Dostovalov’s arm, leaving the entire weight of the man to stagger Chekov. As he did so, he pulled his M1911 from under his own coat.

“Friend,” he said to Chekov, once the latter could see the pistol under the streetlights, “while it would pain me to shoot you, still I will shoot you at the first peep above a whisper or act of resistance.”

“Bastard,” spat Chekov, albeit quietly. He was still struggling to hold Dostovalov up. “And stupid bastard at that; I haven’t enough money to even pay for the vodka and meal.”

“This isn’t a robbery,” Mokrenko said. “Moreover, I am doing you a number of favors at the moment, even if you can’t see them. Now let the drunk down and you lie down on your belly as well.

“This would have been easier if you’d drunk your fill. I should have listened to Natalya.”

“You know the new servant girl?” Chekov asked, as he lay Dostovalov on the ground.

“She works for us, for my… mmm… organization, yes. Now get on the ground.”

About that time, Timashuk, the medic, left Shukhov and the sleigh behind, and trotted up the frozen street.

“Tie their hands and feet,” Mokrenko ordered, “starting with the short one. Don’t be any rougher than necessary. Search them for matches or anything that might be used to start a fire.”

“The short one has a pistol,” Timashuk said, tucking the pistol into his own pocket.

“Who are you people?” Chekov asked, as he felt his wrists being bound behind him.

Mokrenko leaned down and whispered, “We’re the people who are going to save your girlfriend and her family.” Turning to Shukhov, he said, “Bring the sleigh here. We’ll load them on, cover them up, and take them to the safe house.”

The safe house had never been designed to be a prison. Even so, there was a kind of storage area in the basement, unheated but at least dry, with a strong door with a lock on it. Chekov, feet untied, was marched down to it by Timashuk, pistol at the ready. Meanwhile, Mokrenko and Shukhov carried Dostovalov down. Down below, two pallets had been made up as beds, with hay for bedding and several blankets each. Between the pallets stood a wooden box with an assortment of food and a couple of jugs of water. A chamber pot, courtesy of the owner of the place, stood to the right of the stout door.

“I wish I could take your parole,” said Mokrenko to Chekov, “but, under the circumstances, I really can’t. You could try to make noise to attract attention but—and I’ve already tested this—from down here nobody can hear you outside.” Here Mokrenko decided that a brazen lie was in order. “Indeed, I tested it also by shooting into the floor there; if you dig you can find a couple of Amerikanski bullets. Nobody heard those, either. You might contemplate the implications of that, before you decide to make trouble. I regret the lack of light but you might just be dumb enough to start a fire. We’d leave the house and let you burn alive, of course, so no skin off my dick, but I’d really rather you stay alive.”

Chekov scowled. “You said you were going to ‘save my girlfriend’ and that the new serving girl, Natalya, was in on this. In the first place, while Tatiana isn’t ‘my girlfriend,’ we are friends. I’d help save her if I could while Dostovalov would gladly die for his Olga. Let us help!”

Mokrenko shook his head. “Don’t be silly. The teams that are going in to rescue the royal family have been training for months. Even we are not fit to go in with them. They’ve rehearsed the assault dozens—no, scores of times—on an outline of the actual houses…”

“Not houses,” said Chekov.

“Of course, houses, plural; the Governor’s House and the Korni—”

Chekov cut his words off. “No, the newcomers under that Bolshevik fanatic, Yurovsky, have taken over the Kornilov House. All the aristocrats, the staff, and the guards have been booted over to the Governor’s house and the wooden one just to the north. They’re stacked in like cordwood, and it would be worse if about twenty-five of the guards hadn’t elected to follow their proletarian sensibilities and to just walk off the job. And why not, since the Romanovs aren’t going to be there to be guarded for much longer?”

“I didn’t see—”

Again, Chekov cut him off fiercely. “Of course you didn’t. I was paying attention to the turns; you completely avoided Great Friday Street and went down Slesarnaya, didn’t you?”

“Correct,” said Mokrenko, impressed.

“How many men are coming?” Chekov asked.

“About five hundred.”

“It’s not enough.”

At that point, Sarnof came down from upstairs. “Has anyone seen Rostislav Alexandrovich? Has anyone… oh, there you are, Sergeant. We have a problem.”

Like we need more problems. “What’s the nature of it, this time, Sarnof?”

“Took me a while to decode the message, but the airship has a problem with one of its engines and will be delayed for a couple of days. Third lift is delayed.”

Oh, shit. Not five hundred men. Not even three hundred. Not even three hundred including us. Oh, shit. Oh, fuck.

Camp and Landing Zone, South of Tobolsk

Kostyshakov nearly screamed, “They what!?!?”

“The zeppelin carrying Lieutenant Lesh’s Third Company,” said Captain Basanets, from on high, “it never came. We’ve got no way to contact them from here, either.”

“So what have we got, then?”

“One rifle company, Second, the heavy machine guns and the light infantry cannon, the antitank rifles, most of the engineer platoon, plus the Fourth Company. In all, there are two hundred and eighty-seven men on the ground, or two hundred and ninety-five if we count strategic recon.”

Mentally Daniil recited what he knew was waiting for them in Tobolsk, Two hundred original guards, two hundred and fifty thugs from Omsk, fifty worse thugs from Tyumen, and soon another hundred and fifty fanatical cavalry from Yekaterinburg. I’ve got to take on six hundred and fifty men, with less than half that many? God, I know You like to test men, but I don’t think…

“We can still do it, sir,” said Cherimisov, from the back of the sleigh. At Daniil’s doubtful glance the captain said, “Well, we still have to try. We’ll never get another chance. They may be cold and rotting corpses in the ground before we find them again. Sir, it doesn’t matter what the odds are; we have to go anyway.”

And that much, at least, I know is the merest truth. We don’t have a choice.

“Get me Romeyko,” Kostyshakov said to Basanets. “No, wait; he’s still in Camp Budapest, isn’t he? Instead get me the senior man from the quartermaster’s shop. In fact, get me the senior man present from each staff section, and supporting platoon… and get me that coal miner’s son… mmm… Ilyukhin.”

“Well, sir,” said the coal miner’s son, “while, yes, you can make acetylene explode—indeed, it will on its own under some circumstances—you really don’t get much rumble for your ruble. A full pound of the calcium carbide only makes about a half a cubic arshin of gas or maybe somewhat less. Now that, of course, spreads out and mixes, but it’s still not all that much. And we only have…” Ilyukhin shot a glance at the representative from the quartermaster’s office.

“We’ve got a hundred pounds, sir, plus every man with a lamp is carrying a bit under a pound of his own. It’s not much.”

“All right, then,” Daniil agreed, “we’ll skip that idea. You may return to your unit,” he told Ilyukhin. “How are we fixed for regular high explosive?”

“That’s in the engineers’ bailiwick,” said the logistics NCO.

“About eight pood TNT, sir,” said the engineer platoon leader.

Kostyshakov just nodded, then said, “Let me mull that one, then,” said Daniil. “Now, one hour, every man ready, the sleighs packed, the lanterns charged with their fuel. Meet me here, everyone; I want to address the men.

“Oh, and Dratvin, Cherimisov, before you go, we need to have a little talk.”

The hour passed not so much swiftly as furiously, as the men raced to pack themselves, fit their skis, and get the heavy weapons ready for movement. For now, the few tents would be left behind.

As the men assembled in the now familiar semi-circle, Kostyshakov thought, I need to put on a performance that would credit an actor at the Mikhailovsky. The important thing, here, is to let them know—well, think—that I’m not worried. They won’t fret over how literal my words are, but will take the grand jest to heart.

“Very well, gentlemen—at ease!—it seems that God has said we’re just too good, and the enemy too weak and contemptible, for us to need every man to take them on. It’s on us, one short company of grenadiers, one rifle company, heavy on the light machine guns, plus two heavies, two antitank rifles, and two infantry guns. Plus engineers with flamethrowers.

“Moreover, since they are stinking Bolshevik rabble, they needed to be reinforced. At about six-hundred and fifty of them, and a bit under three hundred of us, I still think God is being generous to us. Why, as it is, we’ll have to hang our heads in shame for the rest of our lives that it took three hundred men of the Guards to destroy twice as many Bolshevik rabble. We will have to console ourselves, when telling our families and friends, in the future, that, if the job was too easy… well… it was a mark of God’s favor on us, and nothing else.

“But… you know… then again… Second Company? Captain Dratvin—Ivan Mikhailovich—would your men be too upset if I left them behind, to even up the odds with the Reds? I mean, seriously; they’re fellow Russians, however misguided they may be. They deserve at least a chance, don’t you think? What say you, Captain Dratvin?”

Dratvin folded his arms across a compact torso, and scowled, “I say, sir, and I speak for every man in the company, that if you try to leave us behind you will have a mutiny on your hands. Now, if you’ll take me, alone… yes, sir, yes, I know; that would too thoroughly disadvantage the Reds. But, you know… if my men can’t go, well, I am still going.”

Daniil scowled and said, “Mutiny, do you say? Mutiny? There is no more serious crime in the military! What say you, men of Second Company? If I leave you behind what will you do?”

The chorus was most impressive. “MUTINY!”

Daniil sighed. “So you really all insist, do you?”

“YES, SIR!”

Daniil theatrically put his forehead into the crook of his right arm, while exclaiming, “Tsk… all these long months and I find myself in command of nothing by lowly mutineers, practically Bolsheviks themselves. Oh, the shame of it.”

The laugh that followed told him the men understood the little play he was engaged in.

“Fourth Company, since those mutineers of Second Company insist on going, surely you will voluntarily stay behind, so that at least some of us will have bragging rights in the future. Captain Cherimisov?”

“Not a chance, sir. As little glory as there is to be had on this trivial excursion, we’re not letting Second Company have all of it!”

“Grenadiers? What say you?”

“NO, SIR. We’re going!”

Act over, Daniil smiled and said, “By the three hundred, then, shall we save them. Follow me.” With that, Daniil pivoted left, skied to the right flank, and began the long trek to the north.

When the sun fell, about halfway to Tobolsk, it could be seen that they were ghosts, phantoms, sliding across the often bleak and snow-clad Siberian landscape without a sound. Of course they were phantoms, the more obviously so from the few eerily bright lights that led the way. Eyes, they must have been, eyes from some hell-spawned demons.

No, no, might some have insisted; they were a monster, a millipede but composed only of snow and ice and demon-frost, as their legs flashed, driving their skis onward. Of course the assemblage was a monster, nothing ever seen in historic memory in frozen Siberia resembled this, though some of the old legends may have spoken of it.

But, no, they were neither ghosts, nor phantoms, not even an icy millipede. Rather the glowing eyes told of the biblical monster, Leviathan. They were, thus, a snake, a landbound leviathan almost straight out of Psalms.

They are my men, thought Daniil, feet sliding as fast as any of his men, following me into danger and death… and I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy or proud in my life.

The ground fell behind quickly as they slid at a steady five miles—eight versta—an hour, heading to the north. The moon rose on their right, within twenty versta of setting out. It was a waning gibbous moon, bright enough to cast ghostly shadows across the land and across the sleigh- and ski-borne column. Given their white smocks and trousers, they remained approximately as invisible as if they had been in complete darkness. The lights were soon put out, as unnecessary, Leviathan sleepwalking to take a nap.

The column pushed on, unheard, unseen. Oh, occasionally a voice might be heard by those very close: “Pick it up, Blagov; you’re falling a little behind” or “Next break, Isayev, check your bindings. Looks like they’re getting loose to me.”

Breaks were simple and infrequent. Indeed, there were only three. One was after going about half an hour, precisely to let the men check and adjust their bindings and their packs. The other was not quite midway in the trek. The third came at about midnight. And then, finally…

“Liberty or Death,” said a small, female voice.

“Natalya?” asked Turgenev, up front with Kostyshakov.

“Yes, it’s me, Maxim,” the girl replied. “Lavin kept nodding off, so I told him I’d take the watch. Get up, Lavin; they’re here.

“But things have changed a bit,” the girl said, more to Kostyshakov than to Turgenev. “In the first place, your third load for the zeppelin is delayed. I supposed you must know that they didn’t show up. But at least they’re not crashed and dead.”

“That is welcome news,” said Kostyshakov. “Go on.”

“Yes, sir.” The girl continued, “The layout of the enemy and our… mmm… friends is different too. All the prisoners and their staffs are now stuffed into the Governor’s House. The guarding has been taken over by the newcomers from Yekaterinburg, and they are mostly alert, mean, and tough. They’ve also taken over the Kornilov House for their own barracks. The old guard company is still stuffed into the basement of the Governor’s House and the wooden building just north of it but now they’re overstuffed. They’re not allowed into the upper story, nor even the ground floor. Colonel Kobylinsky made his objections and only shut up when the leader of the Yekaterinburg men said he would be shot if he uttered another word.

“On the plus side, the Tyumen men left in a huff. And Sergeant Mokrenko has the two guards locked up in the basement.”

Kostyshakov digested that, then sent word back, “Orders group, up to the point.”

Interlude

Lenin, Sverdlov, and Trotsky: The Troika

“Ilyich, look at the facts,” Sverdlov recapitulated. “We know Tobolsk is full of counterrevolutionaries and their sympathizers. Our friends are reporting a training camp in Hungary where the Germans have been training Russian traitors, and two days ago someone massacred a large and well-armed group of bandits in Siberia. Shortly before that a sailing ship blew up in the Black Sea, taking one of our loyal destroyers with it. We didn’t do either of these and our scouts cannot find any White element in position to do so either.”

Lenin leaned back in his chair. Trotsky sat silently.

“Move the royals as soon as possible,” Lenin said. “And reiterate to Yurovsky that at the first sign of trouble, he is to execute the Romanovs.”

“That may be too late,” Sverdlov insisted. “We should liquidate them now.”

“Yakov, Britain, France, America, all the Imperialist powers only leave us be because they are busy elsewhere and because they cannot sell the idea of all out war against us to their people,” Lenin said. “Would you so easily hand them a propaganda coup? I can see it in their newspapers now, ‘Communists Murder Innocent Romanov Children.’”

“Comrade Lenin has a point,” Trotsky said. “I lived in America for some time. They are not without their virtues, but as a people they are highly prone to emotional decision making. They can be quite easily stirred to outrage, and their capitalist masters would love any excuse to direct that outrage at us.”

Sverdlov frowned at the shorter man. He would have a word with the defense commissar about the ill-considered act of contradicting him in front of Lenin.

“I still think leaving the Romanovs alive is dangerous,” Sverdlov said. “But I will not bring it up to the full committee now.”

I hope you’re both right. But I am still going to tell Yurovsky, in your name, that he is also to frame the lot for counterrevolutionary activities, so we can get rid of them at an opportune time.

Chapter Twenty-five

South of Tobolsk

Briefly, Daniil laid out the changed enemy situation to the orders group.

“Turgenev,” asked Kostyshakov, “are either of the warehouses big enough to hold us all?”

“Both of them, really, sir, though it might be a little cramped.”

“We can live with cramped.” Kostyshakov pulled up a mental map of the town. “The west one, then, by the river docks. We’re all going there. Now, Ivan Mikhailovich?”

“Sir?” asked Dratvin.

“Can you hold the Omsk people in place—might be for several hours—with two platoons?”

“I’ll need both heavy machine guns,” Dratvin replied. “Plus one of the antitank rifles.”

“Why?”

“I can plug them on the north and south, but that’s not enough to hold them north, south, east, and west. The two heavies, firing up the avenues to east and west, maybe supplemented by a Lewis Gun, each, can hold them, and, while there might be a few leakers, they won’t be many and they won’t be organized. The antitank rifle is to panic them into trying prematurely, by showing there’s no cover in the building.”

“All right,” Kostyshakov agreed, “both heavies to you, plus one 13.2mm. Now figure out a time you have to leave to get from the western warehouse to the target. I’ll take your third platoon.”

“Yes, sir.” Dratvin then coralled the section leader for the heavies and took him off to one side.

“Cherimisov?”

“Sir?”

“You’ve still got two targets, the Governor’s House and the Kornilov House. I don’t think I want to send thirty or so of your men into a building occupied by five times that in Bolsheviks. So what I want to do is surround the place with one of your platoons and, I think, the two infantry guns. Get flamethrowers up and start fires in the basement and maybe the upper floors, too. Shoot them as they try to escape. Use the infantry cannon and snipers to break up organized concentrations in the fenced yard behind, plus any firefighters that may arise, insofar as they can be seen… also to panic the horses they’ve probably got there.”

“Can we add some explosives to the mix?” Cherimisov asked.

“Engineer?”

“Yes, sir?”

“How much of your platoon is here.”

“Just two squads, sir.”

“Fine. One of them is to be attached to Fourth Company, to reinforce the engineers already there. You are attached, with the other squad, to Lieutenant Turgenev and Strat Recon, to take down the power plant and shut off the town’s lights. Turgenev, can you do this?”

“Yes, sir, though I’m glad to have engineers along to keep me from fucking up the plant. Can the engineers come to the safe house? Less chance of being noticed that way.”

“Yes, they can. And good. Now back to you, Cherimisov.”

“Sir.”

“So one of your platoons, a squad of the engineers, and the infantry cannon section are to surround the Kornilov House, set it afire, and destroy the Bolsheviks inside it. Let none of them escape.”

“Prisoners, sir?”

“None. Accept no surrenders.”

“Yes, sir.”

“The other platoon is to assault the Governor’s House to free the prisoners there. Lastly, the platoon I stripped from Dratvin is to be used to neutralize the original guards in the log building north of the Governor’s House, some of whom have likely had to move from the Kornilov.

“Now, coordinating measures. We’re mostly worried about timing. Everything needs to kick off at the same time. There is only one signal we can use that will reach everyone at once. This is the killing of the town’s electrical power with the dousing of the lights.

“Turgenev?”

“Sir?”

“I want the lights down and the attack to commence at zero-four-thirty. Plot when you must leave the safe house, navigate to the power plant, take down any guard, and prepare to kill the power based on that.”

“Sir. That’s also when we’ll want Shukhov to take down the telegraph lines, yes?”

“Correct. I don’t know that they have their own power source, for a back up, but they might.”

“Dratvin?”

“Yes, sir?”

“You have a longer distance to go than Cherimisov. Calculate how long to get to the Girls’ School and set up in the buildings around it.”

“Sir.”

“Also Cherimisov; I’ll be with you along with the command group. We’ll be the last to leave the warehouse. At the warehouse, Second Company, minus, plus the heavy machine guns have the left side. Fourth Company reinforced, with headquarters, has the right.

“Finally, each company grouping can send up to one squad, early, to neutralize exterior guards, if they can be absolutely sure of doing so silently but, even if they cannot, to cover their occupation of assault positions.

“Now prepare to synchronize watches… at the mark it will be zero-two-zero-seven… five… four… three… two… one… mark.

“Now, Natalya, since you were awake to greet us, lead off. Turgenev, take your engineers and lead them to your safe house as you think best. Everyone else; pass the word; drop skis and packs here… complete silence from here to the attack.”

Fortunately, because the Tobol and Irtysh rivers were prone to flooding, nobody had built any houses within about two to three hundred meters of the rivers’ banks, much farther south than the promontory on which stood the Kremlin of Tobolsk.

Moreover, the moon was now at an angle that cast a shadow down onto the rivers’ ice, but didn’t illuminate the men from one side. The men, having changed to more familiar boots taken from their packs, leaving their Austrian ski boots behind, made barely a sound on the thick pad of ice. Only the sleighs made any noise, and that not much.

In short, the passage to the warehouse was as secret and quiet as anyone might have hoped for.

Recognizing a landmark, Natalya whispered to Kostyshakov, “We turn right here, sir.” The column duly cut right, crossing just south of the little river port. From there, the column filed by twos into the warehouse standing just west of Zavodskaya. Lavin was there first, and opened the wide double doors facing the river.

Kostyshak stopped, listening carefully, once he reached the door. There was no sound from the town other than the distant hum of the power station and the occasional barking of a dog.

Inside, in the relative darkness, the senior noncoms manhandled the men into something resembling an orderly arrangement for sleeping.

Will anyone sleep? wondered Kostyshakov. I certainly won’t. Which reminds me…

“Natalya?” he whispered.

“Here, sir,” came the reply from the darkness.

“You and Lavin need to get back to the safe house. Can you lead me and a couple of guards there, along some route that won’t be hard to retrace our steps with?”

“No problem,” she replied. “Though… now that I think about it, the best way lies through a park with no road, with Ulitsa Yershova dead-ending on either side.”

“That will be fine. Sergeant Major Blagov?”

“Here, sir.”

“Couple of pistol armed guards, no white smocks, as soon as you can drum them up.”

“Five minutes, then, sir. Maybe a little less.”

Cherimisov then asked Daniil, “Sir, I’ve got three platoons that are going to be stretched out a good distance. Do you mind if I send three three-man teams to secure up to the last position with concealment? And my first sergeant to run herd on them?”

“Mayevsky plus nine? Sure, go ahead.”

“Also, sir, I was thinking.”

“Go on.”

“We’ve got those ladders, but are they the right tool? The rope diagram Strat Recon brought us shows two sets of perfectly useful stairs, and from the side we’re coming from. I think we can get more combat power to the second floor using those, quicker, than we could with twenty ladders. Sir, we’re presuming we’ve got surprise, anyway; let’s use it. Besides, we’ll need the ladders for the stockade.”

“Do it.” Note to self, we need a way to inculcate more individual initiative, at least among our leaders. Cherimisov should not have had to ask me a question like that, but just should have gone ahead and done it.

The sergeant major returned, saying, “Your guards are ready and standing by, sir.”

The only dangerous spot on the route was in the relatively open area south of the Governor’s House. There, Daniil elected to take a right, and then a left, before turning north again at Ulitsa Volodarskogo. A knock on the back door and they were face to face with Turgenev and Mokrenko.

“I want to see the two prisoners,” Daniil said.

“Take him to them, Sergeant,” the lieutenant said.

The lights still worked, so there was no problem getting down to the storage room. When the door was opened, both Chekov and Dostovalov sat up, squinting against the sudden light. The latter had a worse problem than light sensitivity, though, and held his head against a cosmic scale headache.

“I need to ask you two a few questions,” said Daniil, without identifying himself. “It would be better for you to answer, if not…”

“If not, we separate them and apply duress,” said Mokrenko, “until the answers are forthcoming and match.” He then added the lie, “I have the iron pokers, in the fire, all ready for that eventuality.”

“Why not just shoot me and put me out of my misery?” Dostovalov groaned.

“I’m not especially interested in putting anyone out of their misery,” Daniil said. “What I am interested in are your feelings toward the Romanovs. And the Bolsheviks.”

Chekov answered, “Fuck the Bolshviks. We don’t care all that much for the tsar, and the Nemka can go to hell, as far as we’re concerned, but the children…”

“… are wonderful,” Dostovalov finished. “I would die for Olga, and he, though he is loath to admit it, would fight for Tatiana.”

Daniil raised an eyebrow. Would he, indeed?

“Yes,” said Chekov, “I suppose I would.”

“Why should I trust you?” Daniil asked.

“In your shoes, I would not,” Chekov replied.

“That’s an honest answer, at least.”

“I’m an honest man,” said Chekov.

“Could I trust your parole?”

“You couldn’t trust mine,” said Dostovalov, “but, then, you don’t need to. If you’re trying to save my Olga that is all the trust you need. His word, on the other hand, you can trust. And I generally do what he tells me.”

Daniil nodded, “I’ll trust you this far, if you accept. You can come with my headquarters group, under guard, with your hands bound and your ankles tied a single arshin apart. Any false move whatsoever and your throats will be cut on the spot. I only needed you two out of the house so that when we go in, you don’t get killed and set the girls to hysterics. But whether you are alive or dead when we’ve brought them out safe doesn’t really matter, we can chivy them along at that point. Accept or refuse, now.”

“I accept,” said Chekov. “So does he.”

“Sergeant Mokrenko, bind them please.”

As his hands were being bound, Chekov’s eyes adjusted enough to take in the submachine gun in the hands of one of the guards. “What is that?” he asked.

“Think of it as a short range machine gun that can carried and operated by one man,” Kostyshkov replied.

“My,” said Chekov, “isn’t that a very nice idea?”

Warehouse, Tobolsk

One of the squads, rather, a squad sized composite, from Fourth Company, left the warehouse early, as Daniil had allowed. One of the squads from the remainder of Dratvin’s Second Company had left ten minutes before. Already, Dratvin’s men were lining up at the warehouse door nearest the river, to begin their slightly longer trek to the Girls’ School and the communists from Omsk. As they left, Daniil thought, Maybe we should have left the heavy machine guns covered on the sleighs… nah, if a hundred and eight armed men aren’t enough to excite suspicion, a couple of Maxims aren’t very likely to, either.

The little Yakut horses seemed as excited as the men, but no more fearful. I suspect they pick their cues for fear up from us. If they’re not skittish, it’s probably because they can’t smell fear off the men. I can only consider that a good sign.

In a column of twos, Dratvin leading and with the T-Gewehr and the Maxims in between his first and second platoon, that company left out the rear door and began their movement to action. They had bayonets fixed and orders to try to kill anyone potentially hostile that they encountered with cold steel, rather than hot—and noisy—fire.

Daniil consulted his watch just as the last member of Second company disappeared through the door.

Twenty-five minutes and we start to move.

Safe House, Tobolsk

If we don’t leave now, thought Turgenev, there’s a small chance we’ll run into Dratvin’s crew somewhere. This would be what we call a “bad thing,” at least potentially.

“Are we ready, Sergeant Mokrenko?”

“No, sir,” the sergeant replied. “We’re eager.”

“Engineers?”

“No less than Strat Recon,” the young officer replied. He and his men had a single large log perched on alternating shoulders.

Natalya ran out and threw her arms around Turgenev. “I won’t try to stop you,” she said, “but even if I am too young, if you don’t give me a kiss for your own good luck, you’re a fool.”

“You’re not too young for a good luck kiss,” he said, and then delivered on the statement. “Now stay here and keep down in the basement, even if it’s miserably cold. There’s going to be a good deal of firing from many points and in all direction, especially from that nest of communist vipers across the corner. Will you promise me?”

“I promise.” She stood back, freeing him to leave. “But you should have let me go to the house to get everything ready.”

“With those fanatics on guard? With all that lead flying around? Oh, no; you, my girl, stay here.”

Well, at least he called me his girl.

Turgenev raised a hand, with his middle and index fingers projecting, and the rest forming an O with the thumb. As he said, “Then at the double, let’s… go!” he brought them down, pointing north, then led the way out the side gate of the safe house yard.

If there was a guard on the back of the Girls’ School he hadn’t been paying much attention.

The men quickly took up a trotting pace. Once on the street, Turgenev turned left and led them almost two blocks to Christmas Street. From there the group went right, travelling two more, but double, blocks to where a little footbridge crossed a corner of the sharp-turning River Kurdyumka. At Epiphany, the street that on a different timeline might have been named for Rosa Luxemburg, they turned left again. With a one hundred and thirty or so meter dash, they reached the main door to the power plant. The engineers took their log off their shoulders and prepared to beat the door in.

“Just one second,” said Mokrenko, who reached out, turned the knob, and found the door completely open.

“Well, fuck,” said the engineer officer.

In through the open door they poured. They found one guard, asleep, and butt-stroked him off his chair and onto the floor. Lavin dropped out to tie the man’s hands and feet. Moving inward, they came to a very hot open area, glowing with fires from the coal that ran the steam turbine. There were two sweating men there, shoveling coal into the open maw of the furnace. As soon as those men sensed the presence of Turgenev’s little task force, they turned. When they saw the red glow reflecting from ten bayonets and almost a score of rifle barrels they dropped their shovels and raised their hands.

“Who else is in the plant?” asked the lieutenant. “Your lives depend on the honesty of your answers.”

“Just one, the night shift manager,” the fire stokers answered. “Well, two, if you count the woman with him.”

“Where are they?”

Both of the men pointed at a room on the upper level, at the head of a flight of steps.

“Sergeant, see to them.”

“Sir.” He came back shortly with a man and a woman, both trying to get dressed in a hurry. At the same time, Lavin dragged the now well-trussed guard in by his heels.

“Did my wife send you?” the man demanded, while being trussed up.

“Ummm… no,” said Turgenev. The lieutenant consulted his watch. “And now we wait a bit.” Addressing the night shift manager, he added, “But in the interim, you are going to explain to us how to shut off all power to the town, or we’ll try to put out the fire by stuffing you into it.”

“Well, if you will promise not to tell my wife? Yes? Then the first step…”

Daniil consulted his watch again. Three minutes. He felt his heart rate begin to pick up as it had not on the strenuous ski trek to the town. Under three hundred against over six hundred. Bad, yes, it’s bad… but I’ve got better men, better armed and trained, and total tactical surprise. They don’t know we’re here or there would be firing by now.

Was it smart to let Cherimisov use the ladders for the stockade? Yes, I think it was. It made sense to be ready for a second floor ascent without stairs but with the stairs and surprise? Yes, I think it made sense.

Should I have told Turgenev to put the power back on after a period of time, maybe ten or fifteen minutes? I don’t know. But I do know that with the headlamps and the flash grenades we’ve got an advantage in the dark the enemy can’t deal with. I think… yes, it was better to leave the power and lights off. And Dratvin and Cherimisov have flare pistols if they need a little short-term light.

What have I missed or screwed up? Dear God, I know I haven’t thought of everything.

Two minutes now. The three platoons under Cherimisov are already forming in three columns. Too dark to make out faces. I wonder if any of them are reconsidering their claim they’d mutiny. Maybe one or two, but they’re good men and not afraid of much.

I know I’ve screwed up something. What is it? Can I fix it in the… ninety seconds left to me? No, not a chance, even if I knew what.

One minute. Blagov and Mayevsky are opening the front doors, the ones facing the town. It’s still lit… AHA! That was something I missed. While the town is lit, the guards’ eyes will be used to light and less likely to see us. No lights between here and our assault positions.

And another thing; why the hell didn’t I arrange to get some vodka smuggled to the old regiment of guards to put them at ease or asleep? Am I going to lose men and Romanovs because I didn’t?

Ten seconds… nine… eight… seven… good luck, boys… five… four… God go with you… two… this is a holy cause!

The three columns left at the same time, with Dratvin’s detached third platoon peeling off half to the left and Cherimisov’s first peeling off to the right. They had the longest way to go, since they had to get at least one squad and the platoon’s Lewis gun all the way around the Kornilov House without alerting the guards.

In the center, behind Second Platoon, following Lieutenant Collan, the short Finn, Daniil and his command group trotted along, to the east-northeast. Behind Daniil, under a couple of guards, Chekov and Dostovalov simply could not keep up, given how their legs were bound. Even so, they crouched as low as possible while shuffling forward, an approach that set the guards to wondering if perhaps they could be trusted.

Daniil and his party passed across barren fields, over a thirty-foot wide patch of ice, then more fields before entering some woods. They they veered slightly to the right, following the woods to an open field.

Looking east, illuminated by street lights, he saw an open field and Cherimisov’s men past it, hard up against a building that stood perhaps ninety or so arshini west of the target. Daniil held up one hand and whispered, “We wait here.”

Still looking, Daniil was able to discern single guards, none too alert, at the corners of the stockade around the Governor’s House, plus two men at the gate. He’d seen earlier that this pattern was repeated to the east.

Well, we’ve got the ladders to get men over the stockade quickly.

After some minutes, Chekov and Dostovalov joined them.

“Now keep quiet,” Kostyshakov reminded them.

“Yes, sir,” they both said, almost as if they considered themselves part of the rescue effort.

Well, thought Chekov, maybe I do.

“Take their bindings off them,” Kostyshakov told their guards, “but watch them even so.”

South of the Kornilov House

Lieutenant Molchalin had never been the overly talkative type, anyway. Tonight, this was an advantage. He led his reinforced platoon due west, across the same barren fields and frozen streams Kostyshakov had crossed. Before reaching Great Friday Street he detailed off the infantry cannon west of Little Pyatnitskaya Street.

“Federov, your two guns and the antitank rifle here. Is there any problem with firing on the Kornilov House?”

“Not the ground and upper floors; they’re easy. I can displace forward as the enemy gets suppressed to engage the basement windows if I need to.”

“Right. Shouldn’t. You’ll know they’re suppressed by the amount of screaming you hear as the fire reaches them.”

“Now wait a minute,” Federov said. “Did you just tell a joke? The ever so silent and serious Lieutenant Molchalin told a joke? I can’t wait to write my parents …”

He stopped his quiet little tirade only because he realized that, without a word, Molchalin had simply left him behind.

At Great Friday Street, by the opposite corner from the Cathedral of the Annunciation, Molchalin halted them, gathering the lot into a very tight lump of humanity.

“Nomonkov?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Anyone looking our way from the Kornilov House?”

The sniper, with his remarkable vision, looked northward, scanning carefully left to right and then right to left again. “No, sir.”

Taking the sniper’s word, Molchalin led his platoon pell-mell, charging across the street and into the cover provided by the church.

“Nomonkov?”

“Here, sir.”

“You and your spotter, up into the bell tower. The church is open. Don’t ring any bells. Your orientation is generally to the north.”

“Yes, sir. Come on, Strelnikov.” Without another word, his spotter and guard in tow, the sniper went to the main church door to find that it was, indeed, open.

From there, Molchalin led the rest of his platoon north. Just shy of Tuljatskaya Street he dropped off two squads and two of the flamethrowers with his platoon sergeant. He then, with his headquarters, one squad, the Lewis Gun, the other sniper team, and the other two flamethrowers, skirted wide around the Kornilov House before taking up a position to its northeast.

They found a single guard, armed but passed out apparently drunk, in the lee of one of the buildings. Without another word, Molchalin cut the man’s throat. No sense taking needless chances.

“Ladder, here,” Molanchin ordered, then stood by as the squad with him erected one ladder on the far side of a building from both the Governor’s and Kornilov houses. That squad, with the Lewis gun team, scrambled up then took station behind the peak of the roof.

Sergeant Oblonsky and Corporal Panfil went through the routine of unlimbering their guns, maneuvering the limber, and getting the ammunition chests opened. Though they’d done it for speed, and silently, many times before, this time was different.

This time, thought Panfil, we might just get our fucking heads blown off.

“Gunner,” Panfil whispered, “take aim at the northernmost window on the upper floor. Once this circus starts, we’ll put a round in every window, then start again at the northern one. Unless of course, someone shoots back when he gets his own little donation of shells.”

Meanwhile, Sergeant Oblonsky was giving slightly opposite instructions to his gunner: “Main floor, southern window.”

“And now we wait for a bit,” said Federov.

Girls’ School, Tobolsk

Billeting troops in a place that doesn’t have barracks, and where it’s too cold for tents, even if available, is a problem. Occupy the government buildings? This brings government to a screeching halt. Occupy factories? The economic costs of this can be devastating. Occupy hospitals? Not a great idea, actually. Put them in peoples’ homes? Ask the British how badly that can turn out.

So… schools. Education may be delayed, but that can be made up by shortening vacations. They’ve got offices. They’re almost always well heated. Commonly they’ve a kitchen suitable for feeding large numbers. There will be gymnasiums and nearby open fields for physical training.

It was never entirely clear if the commander of the men from Omsk, A. D. Demyanov, really understood any of this. Expelled from a seminary, his military credentials were vanishingly tiny. But he had seen the Girls’ School as a place out of the cold. This was enough.

Of course, his men ran riot in the town, creating one incident after another. He not only lacked any clue as to how to control them, Demyanov also had no interest in controlling them.

His assistant, Degtyarev, was a former cavalry ensign. Thus, while he did have some military training, he—the current Bolshevik—had formerly, some years before, in university, been a member in good standing in the Union of Archangel Michael, one of Russia’s more reactionary groups. Having held membership in both tended to indicate a certain fecklessness and lack of principle in former Ensign Degtyarev.

The Girls’ School, itself, sometimes knows as the Girls’ Gymnasium, lay just east of the Slesarka River, on the opposite corner from the safe house. It had buildings, houses, mostly, east and west, in lines parallel to Great Archangel Street, on the east of the school, and Slesarka Street, to the west. Additionally, to the west, and for which the double street was named, was the River Slesarka, now a ditch with a narrow line of ice in the bottom, plus a number of low fences of dubious obstacle value.

North of the school was the Church of the Archangel Michael, with a hundred-foot gap separating it from the school. South were a few houses and a couple of wooded areas, with a considerably narrower gap.

Dratvin winced as a woman’s scream emerged from one of the houses east of school. The scream was over quickly, and hopefully without bloodshed.

But what is it that can cause a woman to scream, yet create not the slightest curiosity among the Reds from Omsk. Maybe… maybe, they became used to the sound of women screaming from frequent violations of all those around.

To hold the Omsk men inside the school until reinforcements could arrive sufficient to exterminate them, Dratvin had the two heavy machine guns, water cooled hence capable of firing for literally hours, half a dozen Lewis guns, and about seventy riflemen not otherwise needed to serve the Lewis guns. He was badly outnumbered, but probably had an advantage in firepower… up to a point.

If it were an open field, mused Dratvin, or even some woods with cleared fields of fire, it wouldn’t be a problem; we’d just eat them alive. But this close? We might get to bayonet fighting before we’re done, and for that, I really don’t have the numbers.

Bell Tower, Cathedral of the Annunciation

Nomonkov, the short, stocky sniper with the better than perfect vision, kept his back almost to the bell. He might have been able to see the ground and what was going on there without any artificial illumination, but between the streetlights and the moon, he could see extraordinarily well.

He took stock of the areas he could see well enough to engage, once the fight started. East side of the Governor’s House and the log house beyond it… south side of the Governor’s House… a little dead space behind the stockade… south side of the Kornilov House… some of the enclosed yard behind the Kornilov House… the whole street and the open area—I suppose it must be some kind of park—to my west. Roof of both houses. Past the dead space behind the Kornilov House, I can see all the way up Great Friday Street until it turns off to the right.

Kornilov House, Tebolsk

For the fortieth time, Yakov Yurovsky reread his orders. They contained no leeway and no doubt; the Romanovs and any who might have aided and abetted them were to be taken to Yekaterinburg. Then an excuse was to be manufactured, implicating them all in counterrevolutionary activities. And then, finally, I am to shoot them all, even the girls and the little boy. Even the servants. Even the teachers and doctors.

The signature on his orders said “Sverdlov,” but he knew where they’d originated. Ilyich, himself, has decreed that the royal family must die. Sverdlov I might have argued with, but Lenin? No, he is the father of the revolution, which makes him the savior of the world. If Ilyich says that the little boy must die, then die he must.

Still, it’s a hard duty. And I suppose I’ll have to do most of the dirty work myself; the louts I brought with me won’t be worth much.

In a notebook, Yurovsky began to sketch out his plan. Here to Tyumen, open sleigh or vozok… rail to Yekaterinburg… complete isolation there… except… mmmm… let me think. No, not complete. I’ll use one of my own to bring messages to the former tsar, saying there will be a rescue attempt… and… mmm… requesting Nicholashka’s cooperation as well as intelligence on the security arrangements. The message or messages… it or they should have a full menu of slurs against the revolution, to get Nicholas to do the same.

But what about the Nemka, the children, and the others. Can I get away with shooting them over the “crime” we will entice Nicholas into committing? No… no, that won’t quite do. So I’ll have to get him to comment on the readiness and morale of each of them, family and staff, so let him condemn them by his words. Yes, I think that works. Or, better, the “rescuers” can demand that every member of the family sign to prove they want to be rescued.

And, yet, it is still hard. It’s hard not to like them, yes, even the former tsar. They’re so simple and uncomplaining, so thoroughly pleasant, barring only the Nemka. And even she has her moments, I am told.

And, still, the Revolution demands they die, so they must… and shall.

Governor’s House, Tobolsk

There were four guards on each floor, plus a senior Bolshevik, a Latvian, Adolf Lepa, to run herd on them, plus one supernumerary to act as messenger and to relieve any man who had to relieve himself. In addition, another twenty-one men men slept on the floor of the dining room, the other two shifts for the twenty-four hours of guard duty.

One of the guards, one of those on the first floor, stood watching the stairs that led down to the basement. The previous set of guards were down there and were, under no circumstances, to be allowed up to mingle with the Romanovs.

Power plant, Tobolsk

The engineers manned the switches to kill the power. The night shift manager had been most helpful in explaining how to do so quickly, and without damaging anything. There were different switches, sending power to different parts of the town. Turgenev could have cut power only to the areas about to be attacked but had no orders to limit it that much.

And besides, who knows how many guards may be out getting laid, hence could return and interfere if they had light to see by? No, the whole town goes into darkness.

West of the Governor’s House, Tobolsk

Daniil was a little surprised that the streetlights and the lights inside the houses didn’t go out immediately. First he sensed more than heard the power plant’s hum dropping, four hundred and fifty or so arshini to the north. Then the lights began to dim out. And then it was all blackness, except for what light came from the moon, now well down in the west.

And here we go.

Interlude

The Tobolsk Soviet: “We’ve got to get out of this place.”

Amidst what sounded like a war, come to their doorsteps, three members of the Tobolsk Soviet met in the house of the leader of the three, Khokhryakov. The other two were Semyon Zaslavski and Alexander Avdeev.

“What the hell can it mean?” asked Zaslavski.

“It could be anything,” said Khokhryakov. “The old guards on Citizen Romanov resisting the new men under Yurovsky? The Omsk men trying to take control themselves? A bloody free for all? Or… you know… maybe even something else.”

Avdeev, who would miss his opportunities to steal from the townsfolk’s largesse toward their former ruler and his family, observed, “Whatever it is, it bodes no good for us. I think it’s time to leave.”

“Not just yet,” said Pavel. “Wherever we might go there are going to be questions, and we had better be prepared to answer them. Here’s what we’ll do: Alexander, your face is too well known to all the parties, and not well enough liked. You go beg, borrow, or steal us a good sleigh with horses. Bring them here.”

“Yes, comrade,” the former keeper of the Romanovs agreed.

“Semyon, you are not as well known. Get as close as you safely can to the sound of the fighting and collect whatever information is safe to collect. Even rumors will be better than nothing.”

“Agreed,” said Zaslavski. “And what will you be doing?”

“I’m going to empty my house of food, drink, and blankets. Then all of us together are going to trek to Tyumen and get the word to Moscow and Saint Petersburg.”

Chapter Twenty-six

Log House, North of the Governor’s House, Tobolsk

Lazarev, the platoon leader for Dratvin’s Third Platoon, attached to Fourth Company, was unsure of what to do. His men had spread out as they ran toward the log house. Only one guard had been encountered, and he’d been half asleep, leaning against the stockade with his eyes fluttering closed.

The bayonets of three men had pinned that guard to the stockade. He’d only awakened for a tiny moment before a rifle butt knocked him into next week. Half a second later, the first of three bayonets passed through his heart, cutting off even the chance to scream.

And now what? wondered Lazarev. Nobody’s awake in the log house. They’re going to wake up though, as soon as the shooting starts.

Hmmm… lights still on… maybe I have time to set something up.

“First Squad?”

“Here, sir.”

“You and your squad, take all three Lewis guns. Set up northwest of the house, facing generally east. Don’t let anyone escape.”

“Okay, sir.”

“Second and Third?”

“Here, sir.” “Here.”

“We’re going to go through that door,” the lieutenant pointed. “Fixed bayonets, regular grenades, minimal shooting, maximum shouting and screaming. I want to panic the men in there into running… and there go the lights.

“Follow me!”

Kornilov House, Tobolsk

It was weapons free as soon as the lights went off. As such, the reinforced squad above Molchalin, on the roof of the one story building northeast of Kornilov’s, opened fire on whatever they could see of the guards, on the north and east sides of the Kornilov House. As the firing began, the lieutenant slapped one of the flamethrower men on the back, shouting, “Follow me.” He and his assistant did. Another man, who hadn’t gone up on the roof, followed as a guard. All but the lieutenant bore extra donut-shaped fuel and spherical air tanks on their backs.

The four of them ran forward, as quickly as the heavy burden of the German flamethrower allowed. They came to the wall surrounding the yard where the newly arrived Reds had secured their horses. There was one guard there, who called out a challenge before Molchalin fired a burst at him. The lieutenant was rewarded with a scream, a groan, and a thud.

“Over the wall with the flamethrower, quickly,” the lieutenant ordered. He and the guard boosted the flamethrower operator to the top of the the wall. From there, the man swivelled himself around on his belly before gingerly letting himself down on the other side. The assistant quickly followed. In half a second, Molchalin dropped beside him.

“Let the horses escape!” were the lieutenant’s last words to his guard before dropping to the ground.

To their front, horses, panicked by the shooting, reared and stomped, ran the short distance available then turned to run back the other way.

“We’ll keep close to the wall,” Molchalin said. “Horses may be dumb but they don’t run themselves into walls. Come on!”

As fast as humanly possible, skirting as close to the wall as possible, the two dashed for the building. No guards barred their way, though Molchalin thought that he heard sounds coming from inside the building, Probably guards alerting from the firing.

When they reached the building the lieutenant kicked one booted toe through a basement window, knocking out a single pane that would leave a space for the flamethrower’s nozzle.

Ordinarily, a flamethrower is used to suffocate an enemy by burning up all the oxygen in an enclosed space. In this case, however, the objective was to burn down the entire building, preferably with the enemy inside. That meant they wanted oxygen to get inside. To this end Molchalin pulled a regular concussion grenade from his belt. He quickly unscrewed the cap letting the porcelain knob fall out. Grasping both knob and the stick handle of the grenade firmly, he pulled the knob down and the grenade up. Then he threw the grenade into whatever room in the basement was on the other side of the broken window. He and the flamethrower team pressed their backs against the wall as the grenade blew the remains of the window across the yard.

Shouts came from above. To Molchalin they sounded very panicky. Behind them, the horses screamed. Some of them had probably been hit by pieces of flying glass.

“Burn them!”

In half a second, the nozzle was inside the window, pouring out a couple of seconds’ worth of intense flame. They didn’t wait to see what had caught fire; something almost certainly would.

Somewhat distantly, Molchalin heard the twin booms of the infantry cannon, punishing the entire western face of the Kornilov House.

They’ve got to be shitting themselves in there, and hardly even imagining yet that we’re setting them afire.

From there, the two raced to the east to almost the halfway point on that side of the building. Once again, a grenade followed a booted toe and was, in turn, followed by flame. This time, screams came from the basement even as the panic-stricken shouts above grew.

“Now the next story corner!”

Kick-Boom-Fwooosh!

“All right,” said Molchalin. “Now the second floor.”

“Got to change tanks, sir.”

“Well, do it, but hurry!”

Once the tank was changed, with both machine pistol and flamethrower nozzle raised, the pair backed out and away from the building. This was risking being trampled by the horses, now outright mad with fear, but there was no help for it. Molchalin turned for a moment, ready to shoot any that came too close. He discovered that, dumb as they might have been, the horses were still not so dumb as not to recognize the source of the explosions and fire that had them panicked. They did their screaming and shrieking while doing their best to stay far away. Some were also escaping out the gate opened by the guard of the small flame party.

“Good enough,” said Molchalin. He took a not especially careful aim at the second window in from the eastern corner, then blasted it out with his MP18.

“Flame!”

Instantly, the flamethrower shot a jet of hot burning fuel through the shattered window. It bounced off the ceiling inside, then splashed down onto the rest of the room. This time there was no doubt; Molchalin heard intense screaming coming from inside. He changed magazines while the flame was ongoing.

“One more. Will that thing reach the top floor?”

“Yes, sir, no problem.”

“Good.”

Another window was shot out. Molchalin saw, illuminated in the glow of the rising flames, a man leaning out a window with a rifle. The Lewis gun firing from the roof to the north drove that Red back inside.

With a window open there was no particular need to shoot out another one. The flamethrower operator fired through the open window, once again splashing flame down. The scream that came from that was truly horrifying.

“Any fuel left?” Molchalin shouted.

“Maybe two seconds’ worth, in this tank, sir.”

“Good. Expend what’s left on this one.” Again, the machine pistol chattered, shattering wood and glass overhead.

Whoooooshshshsh.

“Now let’s get the hell out of here!”

“We’ve got one more fuel tank, sir.”

“Save it.”

Girls’ School, Tobolsk

Dratvin had only his second platoon, south of the school, open fire initially, as the lights dimmed out, and that with rifles only, and those with a deliberate effort to do no harm. The Lewis and Maxim guns he wanted to be the first of several surprises he had in store for the Bolsheviks from Omsk.

Given the trouble and bad blood between them, the Omsk Reds are most likely going to think we’re the original guards, come to settle some scores. They won’t take us too seriously, and may just come charging out. And for that…

For that, Dratvin had two Lewis guns, cross firing along the streets to the south and north, and a Maxim and a Lewis gun, each, sighted to fire up the avenues, east and west. He also had the two remaining flamethrowers from the engineer platoon, but was holding them in reserve as he absolutely did not want to cause a rush from the building greater than he thought he could handle.

He also had a flare gun, ready to illuminate the scene when they tried.

And, sure as hell, they’re going to do it.

In the muzzle flashes from the rifles Dratvin caught the image of a mass of men, maybe as many as a hundred, pouring out of the school’s main entrance and then charging down Great Archangel Street with wild shouts and cries.

He raised the flare gun and fired. The starshell arced up, then exploded into light approximately over the school’s eastern side. Instantly, the heavy machine gun on that side, plus the Lewis in support, plus the other Lewis that was intended to cross fire from east to west, all opened up.

The two Lewis gunners shifted their upper bodies, left and right and then right to left again, each emptying a forty-seven round magazine onto a street and open area less than seventy feet wide. In a couple of seconds the magazines were changed and the guns firing again, right to left and then left to right.

The Lewis guns were firing low. Few were killed by them, until the bullets shattering ankles and femurs brought their owners’ torsos to street level. Then shoulders and skulls shattered, too. Likewise were hearts exploded and lungs perforated. The worst were the kidney hits, that silenced the receivers for a moment, with the sheer agony of the thing, but then set them to screaming like lost souls, as they bled out there, into the street.

While the Lewis guns fired low, the heavy, water-cooled Maxim was sighted to fire at about crotch level. The gunner depressed the trigger, sending out a steady spray of bullets at a rate of something between nine and ten per second. With the trigger depressed, he began slapping the gun, also left to right and then, once it had swept all the way to that side of the street, after switching firing thumbs, right to left.

At the same time, the one squad stationed east in the houses along the north-south avenue added their little bit to the carnage.

By the time the overhead flare had burnt itself out, forty or fifty Omsk Bolsheviks lay dead and dying in the street, while the rest, among them a number of wounded, some badly so, had scampered back into the school in abject terror.

So now, wondered Dratvin, do they try to fight out to the west or to the north? I don’t think they’ll risk the east side street again. But what I don’t want is to give them much time to think.

“Antitank rifle?”

“Here, sir.”

“Start putting rounds into the center of the building. I want to try to panic them into trying another attack.”

“Yes, sir. Sir, have you any idea how much this is going to hurt? Not complaining, sir; just asking.”

“Just do it.”

“Yes, sir.”

Infantry gun section, Southwest of the Kornilov House

Both ends of the building were blazing merrily, now, with flames pouring out of the windows, north and south, and scorching the exterior walls. Even over the firing and the roar of the flames, it was possible to hear wounded men screaming as the fire reached them.

While the 37mm projectiles were blasting out windows and exploding against walls opposite the windows inside the rooms of the place, the antitank gunner, with his Mauser T-Gewehr, began putting rounds into the building more or less at random. The objective wasn’t actually to kill anyone, since the fire would take care of that part, but to frighten the occupants and disorganize or break up any firefighting parties that might arise.

It’s a damned good thing no one is expecting me to aim carefully, thought the gunner, because it’s all I can do to force myself to pull the trigger, knowing how much it’s going to hurt.

Trying to protect a thumb he suspected had been broken by the slamming of the pistol grip against it, the gunner slapped the bolt handle up with an open palm, then pulled it back with the four so far undamaged fingers of his right hand.

“Put another round in,” he told his assistant gunner, “I can’t hold it.”

With the round in place, he used his palm, again, to close the bolt and then rotate it down.

He was still praying for a blessed misfire when the gun section’s chief noncom, Yahonov, knelt beside the Mauser and said, “Put a couple into the area behind the door; the lieutenant thinks they’re getting reading to make a charge out.”

The first explosion was muffled enough to make Yurovsky think of a faulty heating system. The second one, however, left no doubt, That’s enemy action.

Instantly he’d tucked his orders into a jacket pocket and was on his feet. Bounding from his quarters, he began to shout for his men to take up their rifles and to defend themselves. It was good for him, at least for the moment, to have left his room when he did, because the place was lashed by machine gun fire coming from somewhere outside a bare moment later.

There were more explosions coming from inside the building, he heard. But they’re smaller, I think. Maybe not much more powerful than the muzzle blast from a rifle… okay, maybe two or three times more, but what could that be? Some kind of small hand grenade?

And then Yurovsky smelled smoke. He turned around and looked back through the door he’d just passed through. Through the now broken windows, he saw fire reflected from the buildings on the other side of the street.

Oh, shit. Those Omsk bastards!

Governor’s House, Tobolsk

Lepa was one of the first to realize an attack was in progress. He, however, also assumed it was coming from the Omsk louts. This was, in fact, a not unreasonable supposition, as the distance away of the platoon designated to seize the Governor’s House and free the Romanovs meant that, for the time being, there was nothing much—and nothing noisy—doing about the Governor’s House.

As de facto sergeant of the guard, Lepa was stationed at the southeast corner of the house, in a room previously designated “for officers.” Just to the north of that was the small room that normally contained Lili Dehn, now much overstuffed with Lili, plus Catherine “Trina” Schneider, and Countess Anastasia “Nastenka” Hendrikova.

Shouting the alarm, Lepa filled the officers’ room with the four guards on the main floor. They began firing at the large muzzle flashes coming from across the town park, to the due south.

“One of you,” shouted Lepa, “go rouse up the ones asleep in the dining room. I’m going to direct the men up above.”

With that, Lepa bounded north up the corridor, cut left, and then practically flew up the main set of stairs to the upper floor. He found there the four guards for that floor, looking through the windows at the fire in the Kornilov House.

“What are you idiots doing?” Lepa demanded. “Shoot back for fuck’s sake.”

“Shoot at what?” asked one of the men.

“Muzzle flashes, you idiot.”

Lepa turned and retraced his steps down to the main floor, then turned left again, heading for the dining room. There he found men half asleep, but fast awakening, pulling on bits of uniform and boots.

“Forget the boots and shirts, you idiots! All you need are your rifles and ammunition. The house with the commander and our comrades is under attack. Half of you… no, that’s wrong… the second shift, upstairs to the large hallway and return fire. The third shift, come with me.”

Meanwhile, Ortipo, Tatiana’s little French Bulldog, ran back and forth, barking excitedly at all the noise and confusion. Lepa thought briefly of shooting the animal, but, All things considered, he’s not as annoying as those three women shrieking behind the officers’ room.

South of the town park, Tobolsk

It’s the odd crack of a passing shot that tells one someone has become annoyed with him. Those shots started coming in, filling the air with a malevolent sound, like a nest of hornets on the rampage but smacking head-on into a glass wall.

Federov shouted, “Panfil and Oblonsky, get those guns on the…”

Crack. Down went Federov, with blood gurgling in his lungs and pouring from his lips to the ground.

The section sergeant, Yahonov, ran to his downed officer. He flipped him over, only to see a seeping hole in the lieutenant’s chest, by the flash of a firing cannon. There was no pulse, no sign of breathing.

A bullet cracked by, far too close for comfort, especially given the dead young officer on the ground.

Yahonov heard Panfil ordering his gunner to shift fire left. Even as he did so, another shot bounced off the steel gunner’s shield, setting it to ringing, long and loud.

“Goddammit,” Panfil cried, “that’s too close. Target: Main floor windows, right. Fire! Continuous fire!”

The infantry gun began pouring forth high explosive shells at a rapid rate, twenty shells a minute. True, they weren’t bunker busters, but twenty of them a minute made them nearly as good, especially exploding in a not very large room. On the other hand, the Governor’s House was very thick-walled, indeed; if a shell didn’t go through a window or explode on the inside of a window opening, it was pretty much useless.

A couple of seconds after Panfil’s gun switched, Oblonsky’s joined in, blasting at the upper floor windows on the southeastern corner.

It didn’t stop the firing from that corner of the Governor’s House, but it reduced it in both volume and accuracy by a good deal.

The problem of the Kornilov House, however, remained, and one antitank rifle could hardly be sufficient to solve it if the men from Yekaterinburg tried a breakout.

Still, thought the gunner, squeezing the trigger as his sights lay on the right side of the main door, I’ve got to try… no matter how much it hurts.

Governor’s House, Tobolsk

With the dousing of the street and house lights, the group with Cherimisov—his company Headquarters, battalion Headquarters, and his Second Platoon under Collan—lit their head lamps and leapt forward. One squad threw itself against the door leading to the kitchen, sending it crashing, while two more erected ladders against the stockade and crossed over by a mix of those and men boosting each other over. Collan’s Headquarters followed through the broken kitchen door.

Only one guard was present on that section of the wall, and he was distracted by the initial firing coming from the Kornilov House. He hardly noticed the clubbed machine pistol that split his skull and laid him out from behind. Slammed forward into the stockade, the guard crumpled at its base, alive but bleeding and insensate.

“Repin,” said Sergeant Bogrov, “kill him quietly.” Repin promptly drew his knife, knelt down beside the prostrate guard, lifted his head back by his hair, and then slashed his throat from ear to ear. The gushing blood made little sound in comparison to the hellstorm arising across the street.

From both sides of the kitchen, and through the door, Second Platoon converged on the passageway to the Governor’s House. Briefly, confusion reigned until Collan said, “Second Squad, take point,” physically pointing Sergeant Yumachev in the right direction.

Second Squad, under their sergeant, followed by First, under Tokarev, bounded through the door and up the stairs. The glow from their carbide lamps flickered and flashed in the cut crystal of the overhead dome light, just inside of the doorway. Ahead, they could hear firing to the right and the sound of men trying to organize and equip themselves, to the left.

We have to go into the hall to go upstairs, thought Yumachev. But that means instant fighting.

“Flash,” Yumachev said to the man following him. Then the sergeant pulled a flash grenade from his belt, unscrewed the cap, armed it, and tossed it down the hall in the direction of the dining room. The man following, Ilyukhin, the coal miner’s son, did the same thing in the other direction. They waited a few seconds until they heard two booms, in rapid succession. Then Yumachev shouted, “Romanovs down! Romanovs down!” while charging down the corridor toward the dining room.

It wasn’t entirely clear that the men in the dining room could see anything at. But Yumachev and Ilyukhin beside him could see well enough by the light of their carbide lamps. They began firing, spraying bullets as if water from a hose, cutting down the Yekaterinburg Bolsheviks with neither hesitation nor mercy. As the other four men of the squad showed up they came on line and likewise began firing into the mass of writhing, screaming, begging, bleeding, and—most importantly—dying communists.

“All right,” said Yumachev, “back to the stairs and up.”

Meanwhile, covered by the fire and bodies of Second Squad, Tokarev and First Squad entered the corridor, rounded it into the staircase, and continued on up.

First squad, third in order of march, came out of the stairwell and, recognizing that there were two kinds of fire at play, and only their side’s was going to be full automatic, entirely, turned right in the direction of the other. The Bolsheviks there were not so stunned. Yes, Ilyukhin’s grenade had stunned and half deafened them, but, because they’d been facing out, it hadn’t done nearly as good a job of blinding them.

Thus, when First Squad came south down the hallway, five Bolsheviks were waiting and almost ready. They fired first, taking down the squad leader, Bogrov, one of the men, Levkin, both dead or soon to be, and wounding a third man, Bok, before the automatic fire of the remaining three cut them down while they were trying to reload.

Lieutenant Collan, meanwhile, guarded by his runner, Lopukhov, stood in the main floor corridor shouting, “Romanovs here after freed! Romanovs here after freed!”

His platoon sergeant, Feldfebel Kostin began searching the rooms. This was done by a process they hadn’t rehearsed, but hit upon by Kostin once he realized the rooms were too small down here, most of them, for the flash grenades. Instead, he kicked open a door, then had his assistant place a flash grenade at the opening.

In this way, Kostin was able to evacuate first about nine maids, all still sound of health but deafened, blinded, screaming, and utterly terrified, back to the lieutenant, who pushed and prodded them towards the kitchen. For the next two rooms, a set of toilets and a bath, the platoon sergeant did throw flash grenades inside, before entering with the intent to kill anything moving. There was nothing, however, in either place.

In all three cases, Kostin chalked a large X on each door.

“Make sure they’re all dead,” he ordered the other two men, pointing at the corpse-littered dining room. Short bursts of machine pistol fire, methodically moving from body to body, rapidly followed.

At the other end of the hallway, the three remaining men of Bogrov’s first squad stood heaving over the communist corpses in the front room and the officers’ room. From inside the room behind the officers’ room came a woman’s voice. “This is Countess Hendrikova, a friend of the empress. For the love of God don’t shoot!”

“Come out,” said Corporal Turbin.

“There are three of us!” Hendrikova warned.

“Then come the fuck out, all three of you. We don’t have a lot of time to waste.”

Immediately three women, one older, two more or less of marriageable age, came out. All were in nightgowns but in the process of pulling on coats.

“Go to the lieutenant,” Turbin ordered. “He’ll direct you to safety.”

“Hey, Corporal?” asked one of the men.

“What is it, Repin?”

“You ought to see this.”

Turbin went to the window from which Repin could see out and said, “Shit.”

From the 37mm position, the platoon sergeant saw the flash of a grenade, saw the firing, very distinct from single shot rifle fire, of the MP18s, and made the proper call to the two guns. “Cease fire! Cease fire!”

“Romanovs down! Romanovs down!” shouted both Sergeants Tokarev and Yumachev, along with all their men, as their squads fanned out, north and south, from the head of the stairs.

Yumachev wasn’t taking any chances with this group of Bolsheviks, He had thrown six flash grenades into the open hall into which the stairs opened. In that sudden storm of thunder and lightning, all five Bolshviks, including Lepa, were stunned silly and blinded. The six men of the squad, per the usual drill, split along the walls, firing, firing, firing, until not a Red remained standing. They then fired some more, to make sure. Yumachev then kicked open the door of the ex-tsar’s study and, with only three men, cleared it as well, all the while shouting, “Romanovs down!” From that room came two assistant cooks and a scullery maid.

In the other direction, Tokarev and his crew started clearing northward, room by room, always half expecting a female scream. The first room clearance, however, caused no screams. It was the drawing room, normally abandoned for the evening, but now containing, mostly asleep on the floor and on the couch, a half dozen of the male prisoners previously held in the Kornilov House. A door kick, a flash grenade, a quick entrance by two men, identified that none of them were armed, and at least one was recognizable, Prince Vasily Alexandrovich Dolgorukov, the Marshall of the Imperial Court. It was probably the presence of the prince that kept the rooms’s occupants from simply being massacred on the spot, as being altogether too male to be trusted.

“Come out,” ordered Tokarev. “Hands up so you don’t get shot. Feel your way to and down the stairs. Our lieutenant will tell you where to go, downstairs. Go! Go! Go!”

“God bless you,” said Dolgorukov, as he led the way onward.

The next room on the hit parade was known to be Tsarevich Alexei’s. It was a no grenade room by previous orders, too. Thus the door was kicked open and a man in a sailor’s uniform was seen standing between the door and Alexei’s bed.

“You’ll take him over my body,” said the sailor, Nagorny.

“That could be arranged easily enough,” Tokarev replied, “but it really isn’t necessary. This is a rescue, not a kidnapping.”

“Oh.”

“Now, if he can walk, get him to walk. If he can’t, carry him. Where? Downstairs to the lieutenant. He’ll direct you to safety.”

Nagorny, stunned despite the lack of a grenade, slowly turned, bent, and picked up Alexei in his stout arms. Before he’d turned back, Tokarev was gone and there was a sound of shouts—“Romanovs down!”—and explosions from both the boudoir, next door, and the royal sleeping chamber, across the hall.

“Wait, Klementi Grigorievich,” said the crown prince. “I’ll leave when my sisters and parents do. Stay here until we see them.”

Once in my life, thought Alexei, oh, please, God, just once in my life to be able to do something as brave and grand. Is that too much for someone cursed with my disease to ask for?

Kornilov House, Tobolsk

With shouts just barely able to overcome the sounds of roaring flame, screaming and burning wounded, shots, and explosions, Yurovsky managed to get all but a handful of unwounded men, with arms in their hands, plus some with grenades, assembled at the main door, fronting Great Friday Street.

“This,” he shouted, to the mass of men standing and crouching ready to charge across the street, “is an attempt by the Omsk mob to seize control of the Romanovs, hence of the revolution. We must prevent them from doing so; the future demands it. Now are you…”

Before Yurovsky could say, “ready,” a single shot smashed through the door, sending wood splinters everywhere. It then butchered half a dozen crowded men, tearing off limbs, disemboweling some of them, exposing one set of lungs, and removing one head completely, before ricocheting off the far stone wall to take out four more.

Oddly, between the fire and the shooting coming from the other three sides, the single, devastating bullet didn’t panic the men and drive them back. Instead, it panicked them into opening the door and charging across the street for the stockade around the yard in front of the Governor’s House.

Everyone in the infantry gun section not actively involved in manning the guns turned their own rifles on the Yekaterinburg men. One squad among those left with Molchalin’s platoon sergeant, to the south of the Kornilov House, were likewise able to bring fire onto them. It was not enough. Roughly one hundred and twenty men had been in the Kornilov House. Perhaps ninety or even one hundred of them massed at the door. Eighty or ninety burst through the door to charge for the stockade. At least forty-seven managed to get over the stockade. Meanwhile, the bodies of the remainder littered the street and formed a mass at the foot of the stockade.

That left forty plus inside the compound, terrified, exhausted, and unsure for the moment of what to do. Yurovsky, himself, lay unconscious in the street, his life only spared by the effect of cold in helping to clot the stump of a missing leg.

Then one of the Reds had the presence of mind to shout, “Secure the Romanovs!”

Bell Tower, Cathedral of the Annunciation, Tobolsk

Nomonkov watched the scene playing out below, rifle at the ready but having little to shoot at. He tried to take out one guard on the stockade as soon as he heard the firing erupt from Molchalin’s platoon. Whether he’d hit anything, though, was a matter of conjecture; the lights died before the first shots rang out while the Kornilov House, itself, hadn’t yet truly caught fire enough for any useful degree of illumination.

Once it had caught, though, the sniper had a bit of a field day. Down went the guard of the stockade’s eastern gate. Down went another one, on the southern side. Inside the Kornilov House’s upper floor, yet another was thrown back as the sniper’s bullet tore out his throat in a misty red spray.

And then there weren’t any targets for a while, not until Nomonkov saw a human wave of Bolsheviks—charging or fleeing; it was impossible to say and it may not even have made any difference—moving across the street to the stockade.

He was as surprised as anyone by the charge, so didn’t have a chance for a fourth kill until the mass was at the stockade. Then, with ease, the sniper dropped two men at the base of the stockade, mere seconds apart.

It wasn’t until the mass turned on the main entrance to the Governor’s House that Nomonkov could really reap large. Into the backs of the mob—hell, one hardly needs to aim—he fired again and again. What he didn’t quite realize, however, was that this was actually driving them forward into the house.

Basement, Governor’s House, Tobolsk

With more than thirty men shouting “Romanovs down” in both Russian and English, and none of them shouting it together, it was probably inevitable that some of the guards in the basement should have heard it as “down with the Romanovs.” It was no more surprising that, having heard this, some of them would have inferred that, rather than being a rescue, or even a kidnapping, what they were hearing overhead was most likely an attempt at mass assassination.

A few of the men in the basement, loyal to their previous mission if not to the Romanovs, themselves, insisted they should intervene and save the family. The rest, almost a hundred of them, said “To hell with that,” and sat on those few, literally, while the storm raged overhead.

Interlude

The Tobolsk Soviet: Dashing through the snow…

Alexander Avdeev came back first, leading a two-horse team, themselves pulling a sleigh.

“Hide it in back,” Pavel Khokhryakov ordered. “Quickly, now, before we’re seen with it. I’ve assembled enough food for two weeks and enough blankets for bitter cold. Plus two pistols and three rifles. Start loading the sleigh, but keep the pistols and rifles where we can get at them.”

“Where’s Zaslavski?” Avdeev asked.

“Semyon’s not back yet and, yes, that has me worried.”

“No need to worry, or, at least, not about me,” said Zaslavski, suddenly appearing at the corner of the house. “Not that my little foray didn’t have its moments.”

“What the hell went on this morning?” demanded Khokhryakov. “Did the Omsk crowd try to take control of Citizen Romanov and his family?”

“Much worse than that,” replied Zaslavski. “Apparently a group of Imperial Guards has rescued them, or some of them. The details are fuzzy, though. I don’t know how many survived the experience.”

“We’ll need to stick around then,” said Avdeev. “At least until we find out more.”

Chapter Twenty-seven

Log house, north of the Governor’s House

Surprise, when achieved, can be a considerable force multiplier. The men of the old guard force, tired, out of sorts, humiliated by their treatment from the Yekaterinburg Bolsheviks, were just barely coming awake from the firing to the southeast when some of their windows were smashed in, followed by a flurry of concussion grenades, exploding in the air, on the floor and, in one case, on someone’s belly. He didn’t scream but the two men who saw him coming apart in the center certainly did.

This was followed by a chorus of banshee howls as two dozen men burst through the door, hacking, stabbing, shooting, and bludgeoning everyone they came in contact with. The limited light that came in with those men, from the couple of carbide lamps issued to the lieutenant and platoon sergeant, added to the terror.

Not that there were many casualties from this; there were not. As almost a single being, the men on the first floor ran outside through the northern door and windows, in their underwear, without even any boots on, where they were swept by the fire of three Lewis guns and ten rifles. The rifles hit nothing; one has to see to aim and, with the moon so low, there wasn’t much to see. Conversely, the Lewis guns, just maintaining a steady fire and not shifting in the slightest, let the fugitives run into their bullets. Perhaps a few escaped through that storm of lead, but they’d have been very few, and disarmed and quickly freezing rabble at that.

That still left the men on the second floor, of whom it could be well presumed that they would be armed and ready. The third platoon leader didn’t relish the prospect of charging up a tall flight of steps to try to winkle them out.

The orders are no prisoners, but, what the hell, it’s not like I’m a professional or anything. What do I know about orders? And we can always shoot them later, if necessary.

The lieutenant found his way to the stairs and shouted up, “You’ve got two choices. You can drop your rifles, bayonets, or any other weapons you have, and come down, one by one, to become our prisoners. Or you can stay here while we set the building on fire. If we set the building on fire, you will also have two choices. You can stay inside here and burn alive—and that’s going to really hurt—or you can try to escape, in which case you will be shot down without mercy. You’ve got five seconds to decide!”

“Don’t shoot,” came the reply. “We’ll come down. Don’t shoot and for the love of God don’t burn us. But let us get some boots and coats on.”

“Best be quick, then, we’re standing here with kindling and matches…”

Governor’s House, Tobolsk

The very last room to be cleared, on the upper floor, was the one on the northeastern corner containing the four grand duchesses, Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia, along with a few of the others forced out of the Kornilov House. Telling Olga to get the younger two, the “little pair,” as they were called, into the clothing with the jewels sewn in, Tatiana donned her own and then opened the door, shouting, “Romanovs here; we’re coming out! With friends!”

She emerged into a corridor lit by the strangest light she’d ever seen, a bright, sunny yellow glow that seemed to come from a dozen spots in the corridor and to drown out all shadows. Even without the benefit of the flash grenades, Tatiana was almost blinded.

“How many friends?” asked Sergeant Tokarev.

“There are seven of us, total,” answered Tatiana, still blinking against the light. This wasn’t exactly the answer to the question asked, but it was close enough.

From farther south, the tsar shouted out, “Tatiana, is everyone all right? Alexei?”

“I’m fine… we’re fine… scared but fine.”

“Thank God!”

“No time for chit chat, Your Majesty,” said Tokarev. “You and your family need to get downstairs. Lieutenant Collan will direct you from there.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” agreed Nicholas.

“First Squad,” shouted Tokarev, “positions around the royals!”

“Second squad,” echoed Yumachev, “fall back and cover the evacuation of the royals.”

Daniil noticed the build up of some kind of group, just to his north, west of the log house. Leaving Chekov and Dostavalov with their guards, he went to investigate.

“Sir,” said the lieutenant, “I had a choice. I could fight my way upstairs—maybe—and win over superior numbers and—maybe—come out alive with as many as two men, or I could tell them to surrender. I chose the latter.”

“It’s all right, son,” said Kostyshakov. “The no prisoners order was based on a set of circumstances that changed on us. You did exactly right. How many of them are there?”

The lieutenant gave an unseen shrug. “Dunno, sir. Haven’t had a chance to count them yet. Maybe about fifty.”

“Okay do you know where your company is?”

“Yes, sir; I’ve studied the diagrams and maps. They’re over by the girls’ gymnasium, northeast of the corner of Yershova and Slesarnaya.”

“Good, very good. Leave one squad to guard your prisoners and you take the rest of the platoon to reinforce your company commander. I suspect he’s having all he can handle.”

Girls’ School, Tobolsk

Three times the Omsk men had tried to break out, and three times Dratvin had been able to hold them. The last one, though, had ended up in hand to hand and at bayonet point to the south of the school. That had only been driven back with the aid of the cross-firing Lewis guns.

And, at that, thought Dratvin, half of the platoon here is down. We can’t hold another one, if they really try. May be time for the flamethrowers.

A shout came from the building. At first, half deaf from the shooting, Dratvin couldn’t make out the words. Eventually, he was able to hear, “We want a parley.”

Hmmm… I wonder if they can see where we are? Maybe time for…

“Engineer?”

“Here, sir.”

“Have one of your flamethrowers give a short spurt of fire, almost straight up. Just enough for them to know you’re here.”

That side of the school was suddenly lit up, almost as bright as day, by a long tongue of flame.

“No terms are offered,” Dratvin shouted back, “but immediate and unconditional surrender.” He decided to try a tactical lie or, rather, two of them in one. The lie was made credible, first by the sheer number of machine guns Dratvin’s company had in play, and second by the rather large battles and the amount of fire to be heard coming from the west. It was enough to make credible his tacit claim of having a battalion and that another one would be arriving shortly. “I am about to be reinforced by a second battalion. Once they arrive, there will be no mercy.”

“We’ve got a lot of wounded.”

Dratvin answered, “We’ve got limited medical capability, ourselves, but the town has its share of doctors. Bring your wounded out with you. Bring everyone out with you because when we go in to search the building we will give no second chances.”

Governor’s House, Tobolsk

It didn’t help any, when the Yekaterinburg Bolsheviks forced the front door open, that Sergeant Bogrov was dead and Third Squad had lost half its strength. One of them was shot down more or less instantly and, while a second one emptied a magazine into the horde pouring through the sundered doors, and it was not enough. The third, Vasenkov, inside the officers’ room, threw his back against the thick wall between the room and the corridor, waiting for an opportunity to… I’m not sure just what.

The Bolsheviks shot those two down, bayoneted the prone bodies, then knocked off their Adrian helmets and smashed their skulls for good measure.

Farther in, Lieutenant Collan, trying to direct the rescued prisoners, took one look and simply forced them bodily back through the door and into the staircase area. That cost him his life as his headlamp became a beacon for the fires of over a score of men who had not previously been blinded by flash grenades. Collan’s immediate guard, Lopukhov, dropped to one knee, firing into the mass charging down the hallway. He, too, was felled, just as his lieutenant had been, given away by both his muzzle’s flash and the light on his head.

The little French Bulldog, Ortipo, meanwhile, continued his running back and forth, accompanied by furious barking. He had no idea what was going on, but knew for a fact that he didn’t like any of it.

Farther up the main floor hallway, Sergeant Kostin, the Second Platoon Sergeant, and the few men with him, took cover in the doorways of previously cleared rooms. Shots then slashed back and forth, between Kostin’s men and the Yekaterinburgers.

Then two grenades—and not relatively harmless flash grenades—sailed out from the Bolsheviks. One landed in the hallway, not far from the dog. The other bounced off the doorframe leading to the stairwell, then fell to the stairwell’s floor.

His sisters, of course, made a great fuss over Alexei, borne in Nagorny’s sturdy arms, petting him and covering his face with kisses. He bore it with as much dignity as any hemophiliac crown prince could be expected to.

“I’m FINE, I told you,” he insisted, to absolutely no effect on his sisters.

The boy’s eyes darted around the little area. There was a press, he saw, by the door opening to the passageway that led to the kitchen. It created, in effect, a kind of traffic jam.

I’ve got to get one of those lights, he thought, as well.

In the light of the carbide lamps he saw something fly against the doorframe, then bounce off to land on the floor under his sisters’ feet. Not every adolescent boy would have recognized it, but Alexei did. Grenade, he thought. Grenade! My sisters!

I’ve lived as a mere shadow of a boy, a Pinocchio that bleeds…

The boy didn’t think about it, any further. Instead, he simply pushed and rolled himself out of Nagorny’s arms. The fall might have killed him to internal bleeding, anyway.

…but I die like a man.

Falling to the floor he pushed himself over the grenade and then lay on top of it. Just before the explosion came, with his body between it and his beloved family, Alexei’s last thought was, Thank You for my deliverance, Lord.

The pooch didn’t really need the light from the headlamps to see the stick thrown at his feet. His night vision was naturally better than any mere human’s.

Finally! The dog thought, something I can understand. Someone wants to play fetch.

The dog picked up the slightly more than one pound grenade with his teeth, then bounded in the direction from whence it had come. Unseen, he dropped it as the feet of the crowd of soldiers there, then ran back up the hall, expecting it to be thrown again. He was almost as far as Kostin when the grenade went off. After stunning the Bolshviks silly, the blast and shock wave roared down the hall. The dog was picked up bodily and tossed a dozen feet.

That, it thought, is the last time this little puppy plays fetch with anyone… ever.

The four girls and their mother let out a collective scream sufficient even to drown out the sound of firing. “Alexei!”

Nagorny, being closest, was the first one to get to the boy. On his knees, weeping, “My boy, my boy, my little prince,” the sailor rolled Alexei’s body over. “Oh, my God…”

The sight of that was sufficient to set the women to screaming again but, to be fair, even the normally placid former tsar joined them at seeing what the grenade had done to his only son.

As Nagorny lifted the corpse back up into his arms, blood simply gushed and splashed on the floor from the boy’s virtually disemboweled midsection. His skin was ghastly pale, even in the yellow light of the carbide lamps. One arm, his right, hung free, fingers lightly curled. His face was unmarked and smiling. In a way, that made it harder on his family, as, despite being so pale, he looked otherwise like he might have been merely sleeping. At least, he looked that way until one’s eyes glanced down at his abdomen.

Daniil finally found something to make himself feel useful during the rescue. Arriving at the door from the kitchen passageway to the main house, he began physically dragging some through and pushing—and punching—others back to make room for people to leave.

“Behind me to the kitchen!” he shouted. “My sergeant major is waiting with a security detail to escort you away! Behind me to the kitchen! No dawdling, now; run!”

He hardly noticed when Olga passed, one arm around Tsarina Alexandra, supporting her. Behind Olga came a flood of maids and other servants. After that came the tsar—or, technically, ex-tsar. Then came Maria and Anastasia, weeping profusely.

Oh, Lord, please no, don’t let Tatiana have been…

Kostyshakov was so relieved to see Tatiana pass by that he almost wept, himself. With the light shining above his head and in her face, she didn’t recognize him.

Or it could be that she was crying, too.

Then came the sailor, with the pale, torn form of the tsarevich cradled in his arms.

Daniil took a single look and thought, with sinking heart, And that’s why. I have failed, failed miserably.

Out in the hallway, he heard someone shouting commands.

With the explosion among the Bolsheviks—Where it came from I haven’t a clue—Sergeant Kostin saw his chance. Shouting, “Guards! Follow me! Urrah! Urrah!” he leapt from his position in a doorway and charged down the corridor, his men following and, likewise, shouting the old Russian battle cry, “Urrah! Urrah!”

They fired from the hip as they came on, ghost-clad and having an even more terrible effect on the Reds than actual ghosts might have. The twenty or so Bolsheviks still living and inside the hallway fled south, back out of the Governor’s House and into the open area.

By this time Molchalin had one squad, one Lewis gun, and the flamethrower in position along the stockade and at the eastern gate to it.

“Is that thing reloaded?” he demanded, when the Bolshviks began to run out.

“Yes, sir.”

“Then send them to hell.”

Almost at the same instant as the order, a long tongue of flame lanced out in an arc from the gate. The operator played it around, long and short and left to right, until every man among the Bolshviks trying to escape had been burnt. In some cases, the burning was so thorough that that they ran off, living roman candles, toward the opposite side of the stockaded compound, waving their arms and shrieking.

“Don’t shoot them,” said Molchalin. “Let the communist bastards burn!”

The lieutenant was to be deeply disappointed, when some Second Platoon men appeared at the doorway and began putting the burning Reds out of their misery.

“Well, hell,” muttered Molchalin, “go on and ruin everyone’s fun, why don’t you?”

His platoon sergeant then came running up, two squads in tow. “Sir, no chance anyone’s still alive in the Kornilov House now.”

Molchalin turned to see that, indeed, the entire building was a mass of flames and the roof shuddering as if it, too, was about to collapse.

“Right. Have all the bodies out here searched. If any of them are still alive, I suppose we can let them live for any intelligence we might squeeze out of them. But collect the living somewhere they can be watched and post a guard. Medic for their wounded; they might as well be healthy before we shoot them for treason. I’m going to go report to the company commander.”

Thought the platoon sergeant, That’s the most he’s ever said to me at one time in the last four months.

Vasenkov took a little, but only a little, satisfaction at not having killed any political co-religionists except in point self defense. That was something, he thought, but not much.

What am I to do now? I have helped to free the… the ex-tsar? No, I suppose he’s the real tsar again. And I helped free him and restore him to power. Great is my sin, vast beyond all accounting. The revolution is probably doomed now, and I’ll have helped kill it. What am I to do? What is to become of me?

“Vasenkov, you idiot,” shouted Sergeant Kostin. “Come join us, son; we still have a job to do.”

Church bells were ringing now all over the town. Whether they were ringing in alarm or in joy remained to be seen. Certainly few, if any, of the clergy could have any intimation of what had just transpired or who was in command of the town, now. Tobolsk being a hotbed of traditional monarchism, if the bell ringers had known, the bells would have been ringing in sheer joy.

The plan was to collect and organize all the royals, aristocrats, and other rescued people in the kitchen, surround them with security, and then move the lot to the warehouse before moving the force on to help out Dratvin at the Girls’ School.

That latter part seemed unnecessary; Kostyshakov could see and hear that the fight at the Girls’ School was over. But did Dratvin win or lose? If he lost we’ve still got to get the royals out of here.

Chekov and Dostovalov were let in, with their guards behind and keeping close watch. The kitchen was lit almost brightly as day, what with thirty or more carbide lamps spreading their golden light.

All six of the remaining Romanovs, as well as a half dozen of their friends and retainers—the distinction often blurred with them—were clustered on their knees around Alexei’s body. They wept; they prayed; they crossed themselves in Orthodox fashion, right to left. The Tsarina leaned heavily against her husband, head bowed and body trembling with what had to have been nearly the ultimate in psychic anguish.

Others stood around that small knot of grieving humanity, alternately looking at and turning their eyes away from the ghastly damage done to the boy’s midsection.

Kostyshakov, ashamed at the partial failure, stood back, leaving them to grieve for a moment in peace.

Over toward one corner, some of the men of Fourth Company were preparing stretchers, not only for Alexei’s body, but also for the tsarina and the few other wounded—all lightly so—in attendance.

Dostovalov exchanged glances with the guards, then inclined his head toward Olga. The senior of the guards, a corporal, shrugged his indifference. He walked over and took one knee down behind her. Leaning forward, he said, “I am so sorry, so terribly sorry, Olga. He was a fine boy.”

Spinning in place, she threw her arms around him, pressed her face into his chest, and redoubled her sobbing. He held her in one arm, stroked her hair with the other hand, and whispered whatever words of condolence came to mind, certain that none of them could possibly be adequate.

Chekov, on the other hand, just stood behind Tatiana, as a friend might, then reached down and patted her shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

For her part, Tatiana dried her eyes on her sleeve and then stood up. Crossing herself again, she then turned, took a single step forward, and leaned her head forward, into him… also as a friend might.

She then lifted her head and said, “We wondered where you two had gone to. We were worried.”

With a sigh, Chekov told her the very short version of his story. “We went to a place we know to think about how to rescue you. We were kidnapped from there by… the people who actually could rescue you—most of you—and did. They were afraid you and Olga would become uncooperative if we’d been shot down before your eyes.”

“How would they know that?” she asked.

“The new servant girl, Natalya, was working for them.”

“Ah.”

Chekov’s eyes widened. Shouting, “No, dammit, no!” he reached out and grabbed Tatiana by both shoulders. Shocked, she instinctively tried to draw back but was foiled by the strength of his grip.

Suddenly, when he arrived in the kitchen and saw the Romanovs under the yellow light, Vasenkov knew exactly what he had to do, the only way he could make up to the revolution the disservice he had done it. Arc of vision narrowing, he raised his machine pistol to his shoulder and took aim at Nicholas, the former tsar. He fired a short burst, two rounds of which entered Nickolas’ torso and one of which basically exploded his head. The former ruler of Russia fell in a heap.

Vasenkov didn’t even have to adjust his aim; as Nicholas fell Alexandra, now unsupported, fell on top of him. Another burst ended her medical complaints forever.

Sweeping left, he fired a long continuous burst at the two youngest Romanov girls, both of whom fell over at the force of the blows. Next he took aim at the older one. A large man in uniform tried to interpose himself between them, but he was too late. Olga fell over.

Exultantly, Vasenkov took aim at where the last of the Romanovs stood…

Chekov saw the white-clad, machine pistol-bearing soldier open fire. It was preternatural, how quickly he fired and then took up a new aim. He couldn’t stop the shooting; all he could do was grab Tatiana and spin them both around, so that he stood between her and the shooter. He was also able to push her down a bit—she was a tall girl—so that her head was below the level of his shoulders.

A half dozen submachine guns fired just as Vanakov squeezed the trigger on the last of the royal enemies of the people. Though he felt bullets tearing into him, none of that mattered. He kept the trigger depressed and his point of aim on the back of the traitor shielding the Romanov girl. Finally, though, with half his organs ruptured or simply gone, he fell backwards. Even as he did, the last few bullets in his magazine sprayed the high ceiling of the kitchen, knocking out chunks of wood and plaster to rain down on the scene of slaughter.

It was only sheer force of will that had kept Chekov on his feet as long as he’d managed to stay on them. The hits had come close together, but not so close that he couldn’t feel them as individual blows. He continued to stand, for just a few seconds after the murderer had been taken out. It was actually the absence of more penetrating body blows that told him he could let go now, and fall.

Letting go of Tatiana, he did fall, like a sack of wet noodles, sinking to the floor and then flowing outward in the direction of Alexei. For a moment, Tatiana tried to hold him up. Failing that, she did her best to ease him to the floor.

“The bells,” he said. “Mother, I can hear the bells. Mother! No! Don’t leave me again!”

“I won’t leave you,” Tatiana answered. “I’m here, Sergei.”

“You waited for me, Mother, all these years. I doubted… but the bells… the ang…”

Chekov’s breath rattled in his throat. His body spasmed, twice. And then he was no more.

Tatiana sat back on her haunches. It was just too much. Her parents were dead. All her sisters had been gunned down. Even her little brother was a bloody ruin. And now, Chekov had died for her. Chekov, who owed her nothing, but had defended her and avenged Olga. Chekov, whose family had been treated like vermin under her father’s rule, but treated her with kindness. Chekov, whose loyalty she had done nothing to earn and whose forgiveness she would never be sure of now.

She couldn’t scream anymore. What she could do, and did, was let her head fall onto her chest and the tears to flow freely.

“I am so alone now,” she whispered, but not so lowly as she couldn’t be heard by her surprisingly still living sister, Maria, who knelt down beside her.

“No, you’re not, Tatiana. Ana and I are still here.”

“Was I hit then, too?” she asked. “Am I dead and talking to spirits?”

“No,” said Anastasia, kneeling on her other side. The youngest of the Romanovs had something shiny in her hand. “It was this… or these,” she said. “The jewelry Mama had us sew into our clothes. That stopped the bullets that hit me. This sapphire, in particular; it was over my heart and stopped the bullet cold. And, yes, I’m sore, but I’ll live.”

“Same with me,” added Maria. “Olga’s didn’t save her because she was too busy getting us into ours to put on her own.”

None of the girls wanted to look at their dear dead. Maria, on one side, Anastasia, on the other, they closed in from the flanks, creating a troika, of sorts. And then all three, their arms about each other, buried their heads in each others’ shoulders, and then broke down into sobs and howls of pure grief.

The sun was rising as Dratvin deposited the more than one hundred and fifty hale and wounded prisoners he’d taken in the open area south of the Governor’s House. He put his men in a ring around them, sending a runner to inform the guards on the prisoners taken by his third platoon to bring their charges to join the larger group.

While this was going on, Cherimisov, just north of there, in the Governor’s House, shouted down the stairwell leading to the basement, “My orders are to kill you all, but I’m willing to take a chance on saving your lives. Come up with your hands in the air, your mittens or gloves, hats, coats and bedding, your mess kits and canteens, and nothing else. You will be searched. If we find a weapon on you, you will be shot on the spot. You have two minutes to get your gear and start coming up. After that, we burn you alive.”

With the example of the Kornilov House, across the intersection, plainly visible from the east side basement windows, none of the men in the basement of the Governor’s House doubted but that these men could and would do as they threatened.

Led by Ensign Matveev, they began filing up. On the main floor, Molchalin’s platoon took charge of searching them. The fourth man up was found with a sap in his pocket.

“You were told ‘no weapons,’” said Molchalin.

“Yes, but…” the former guard on the Romanovs began. He never got the chance to finish as Molchalin’s runner shot him through the midsection.

“‘No weapons,’” I told you,” shouted Cherimisov. “That one didn’t listen. He’s dead now.”

From the main floor, the company commander could hear the sound of what he guessed were between twenty and thirty metal implements, hitting the stone floor of the basement.

“What the hell are we going to do with all of these?” Cherimisov wondered aloud.

“The other warehouse,” said Malinsky, “since the former prisoners are being housed in the one we used as an assembly area until we’re done securing the town. It doesn’t have any heat, mind, but at least it’s out of the wind. There aren’t any windows and only the two doors, so it won’t be hard to watch from the outside. And the ground is way too frozen for them to dig out.”

“Makes sense,” Cherimisov agreed. “See to it, would you, Top?”

“Yes, sir.”

Molchalin’s platoon sergeant reported to him that the prisoners and bodies had been searched. He also passed over a sheaf of papers, saying, “And sir, you need to read the one on top. Why don’t you do that while I take over here?”

Molchalin read by the rising sun. His face remained cold and expressionless until he got to a particular passage. At that, his eyes widened and his lips curled into a rictus grin. He walked immediately to Cherimisov and pointed to that particular passage.

“Bring them to Kostyshakov,” Cherimisov said. “He’s at the warehouse to the west.”

The bodies of the Romanov dead, plus Chekov, cooled rapidly in the freezing siberian air inside the warehouse. It was the warehouse previously used as an assembly area cum assault position for the rescue. Fully conscious of the great weight of guilt now resting on his shoulders, Kostyshakov sought out Tatiana. He began to say, “I’m sorry…” but then she cut him off brutally.

“You beast!” Tatiana exclaimed, standing in the crowd of rescued people in the western warehouse. “You murdering monstrosity on two legs! You incarnate idiot! Yesterday I had a full family and a good friend. Now, thanks to you, I’ve lost two parents, my closest sister, my little brother, and my friend. Great job, Daniil Edvardovich Kostyshakov. Great job. You could have left things alone, but noooo, not you…”

Daniil simply stood there and took it. Nothing she said could possibly make him feel worse than he already did. Shoulders slumped, he turned away and walked off.

Lieutenant Molchalin, standing in the warehouse’s small personnel door, heard it all. He shook his head. Talk about ingratitude. He walked directly over to where Tatiana stood and, as was his wont, wordlessly passed her the pertinent document, the one taken from the now one-legged Yurovsky.

As Tatiana read her normally pale skin turned even whiter. “They were going to… oh, my God…”

“God had abandoned you all,” said Molchalin, speaking loud enough for everyone in the warehouse to hear. “Only one man had the guts and vision to try to save some of you. And you just insulted him. Well done, Your Highness! Oh, that was so well done.” As loudly as he’d spoken, Molchalin began to applaud and sardonically to bow.

Maria and Anastasia came up. “What’s…?”

Wordlessly, Tatiana showed them Yurovsky’s orders. They both read through, quickly.

“They intended to murder us all?” wondered Anastasia. “Even the children of the staff? What kind of monsters…?”

“I think maybe you owe him an apology,” said Maria.

“A private apology for the public wrong I did him?” asked Tatiana. “No.” She looked around and, in the light filtering through open doors and cracks in walls, she spotted a dozen hay bales, piled against one wall. She went to them and climbed.

“People… oh, God, do you have any idea how much I hate speaking in public? People, listen to me. Come here, gather round, and listen.”

When they had, all of them. She began to read from Yurovsky’s orders, with particular emphasis on framing the tsar and his family members, as well as on the open statement that all, and all witnesses, must die.

“So the only reason any of us will be alive in two weeks’ time is that some brave Guards, under a brave commander, risked their lives to save us. And I, I, Tatiana Nicholaevna Romanova, am a total and complete and unforgiveable bitch for insulting him.

“That is my public apology. Now I am going to seek him out for a private one.”

Tatiana found Daniil, sitting alone on a pile of logs, facing the Irtysh River, with his back to the warehouse and the town.

“I can’t tell you how sorry I am,” she began. “I can only ask you to…”

“I screwed it all up,” answered Daniil, before she could finish. “A million things I should have done differently and…”

Tatiana went and sat down beside him. “You got the important thing right.” She handed over the orders to Yurovsky given her by Molchalin. “Read. We’d all have been dead within a couple of weeks, anyway. If I have any family left at all it’s because of you and your men.”

He did read, muttering and cursing as he did. “Communist bastards!”

“I’m not just sorry,” Tatiana said. “I also owe you an explanation. Yes, of course I was—am… always will be—hurt by the loss of my parents, sister, and little brother. But there was something else going on, too. You see, I was—and, again, am—absolutely terrified of what it meant that I was now the senior Romanov.

“My father had, before Alexei was born, made up a new rule, countermanding the old rule against a woman succeeding to the throne. It was supposed to be Olga if there was no male heir. She never let on to anyone but me—we were extremely close, you know—but she did not want to be tsarina.

“Well, she’s gone; Alexei is gone; and the new-old rule remains. I am going to have to be tsarina if anyone is. And that scares me to death, Daniil. I am so frightened of it that I can hardly think straight. And half of the fear is knowing that my father’s huge mistake, worse than all the others, was in signing too many pardons and not enough death warrants.”

She placed a hand on his shoulder. “I think I was more angry at that than I was about the loss of my family.”

“I think you can do it,” Daniil assured her. “Moreover, though it pains me to speak ill of the dead… well… you can hardly fail to do a better job than your father.”

“I know,” Tatiana agreed. “He was a fine father but I don’t have any illusions about what a disaster of a ruling couple he and my mother were. But…”

“Yes?”

“Not all of my mother’s family were such complete… I’m not sure what the word would be. Idiots doesn’t cover it; my mother was intelligent enough. Is there a word to describe those completely lacking in wisdom? I confess; I don’t know it.”

He shook his head, not sure where the conversation was going.

“My aunt Ella. She is the best candidate for sainthood I know. And she is terribly intelligent. She is also, quite despite having become a nun, ruthless enough when the situation demands ruthlessness. She may have begged the tsar for the life of her husband’s murderer, and prayed for him, too. That’s because the deed was already done, no one would be deterred by the execution, and so it would do no good.

“But she knew they were going to murder Rasputin, knew it and let it happen because he did have to go.”

Daniil shrugged, not understanding.

“If I am going to be stuck with this job,” she explained, “I need my Aunt Ella’s shoulder to lean on, her advice to rely on. I need you to take your men and go save her. Quickly, because, if the Reds ordered us murdered, orders to get rid of her cannot be far off.”

“I’ll try,” he said. “We know she’s in Yekaterinburg, or was, a few weeks back. Now? Now it’s anybody’s guess. I’ll kick Strategic Recon out this afternoon. Third Company should be showing up here soon. But… no, there’s not a chance of catching the zeppelin before it goes back for the next lift. It’s supposed to come into Tobolsk with that final lift. We’ll stop it then and use it to get near Yekaterinburg. That’s the best chance we have.”

Interlude

Lenin and Trotsky: “What is to be done?”

Trotsky, Lenin and Sverdlov stood around Lenin’s desk in his flat. Trotsky had woken Sverdlov in the middle of the night with the catastrophic news. Sverdlov had dressed quickly and crossed the hallway to awaken Ilyich.

“Reports are confused,” Trotsky said. “But we are certain that Yurovsky and the bulk of our men at Freedom House are dead or captured. At least some of the Romanovs escaped… rather, to be honest, were rescued.”

Lenin slammed his fist into his desk, Sverdlov smoothed his mustache and glared out the window. They were arguably the most powerful men in Russia, they had sacrificed everything for the power to cast down the autocrats. Now that was all in danger, thanks to their leader’s indecision.

“How did they get there?” Lenin demanded.

“We don’t actually know,” Trotsky replied, “but I have a sneaking suspicion.”

“What’s that?”

“An airship, one of the big lighter than air jobs the Germans use, was spotted in a couple of places over the previous two weeks. It’s impossible to tell its direction from the spottings because literally nobody who saw it had a watch or a compass. But, for my money, it carried the Guards to Tobolsk.”

“Comrades,” Lenin said. “The Revolution has never faced more danger. We must do everything, everything to stop them. Right now as our enemies squabble among themselves, they give us time to prepare. A Romanov figurehead could unite them. This cannot happen.”

If only you had listened to us earlier, Ilyich.

“What are your orders?” Sverdlov said.

“Convene the Central Committee, meet me there,” Lenin said, reaching for his coat. “We will bring the full might of the Revolution against these imperialist traitors.”

Later, Lenin looked at Trotsky’s proposed deployments in and around Tobolsk for only a few seconds before handing the map and papers back to the Commissar for Military Affairs.

“I trust your judgment, Leon,” Lenin finally said. “But give your commanders one order directly from me—if they do not return with the Romanovs, they are not to return at all.”

“My judgment,” said Trotsky, “may be sound… at least when not dealing with rapacious Germans. The problem is that it takes information to have judgment and I don’t have much information. One small party of the town’s ruling soviet escaped, with a tale of monstrous airships, enemy battalions, incredible firepower, and a lot of killing. They had no idea how many of the Romanovs survived, only that some did and some didn’t. Oh, and that among those who didn’t was the small boy and one of the girls.”

Lenin felt an immediate tightening in his gut. Dead, sick boys and dead, beautiful girls were extremely bad propaganda for the cause.

Trotsky continued, “I’ve halted the battalion from Yekaterinburg before they could leave for Tobolsk and ordered the expansion to a regiment before they move. But will a regiment be enough? I don’t know. Nobody knows but the commander of the enemy at Tobolsk… whoever he may be.”

“How soon will that regiment leave?” asked Ilyich.

“If there were any competence there,” Trotsky answered, “they’d have moved out long before my halt order reached them. Obviously there isn’t much. So… a week? Ten days? Two weeks? Even a month? It’s impossible to say. I can say I’ve sent three trains with roughly two-thousand tons of food, arms, ammunition, sleighs, and horses to try to speed them on their way.”

As the rest of the Central Committee carried out the business of the Party, Lenin stood alone in a corner of the room, eyes fixed on the embers of the slowly dying fire on the hearth.

It’s too late. I should’ve listened to Sverdlov. Now the Whites have their figurehead and the bourgeois abroad have their propaganda coup. We’re not merely murderers, but bungling murderers, which is far, far worse. What future for the Revolution now? What future for Russia?

Chapter Twenty-eight

Tobolsk: The Coronation

A Russian coronation was a blend of the religious and the political. The ruler was believed to have been chosen by God, anointed by God, thus to be the link between the divine and the secular. It is also something of a marriage between the ruler and the Russian people.

Accordingly, the bells of all the roughly two dozen churches in the town rang out, but this time with joy, not with alarm. Tobolsk had never been a pro-Bolshevik city and could now, once again, revel in the fact.

From the Governor’s House, now well-heated, cleaned out, and guarded by Dratvin’s company—soon to be renamed as First Company, Semenovsky Regiment—Tatiana stepped out followed by her sisters and her makeshift retinue. On the frozen street east of the building, Fourth Company stood in ranks, still wearing their white camouflage smocks and helmets, and bearing their arms. Between the late lieutenant Collan’s platoon and Molchalin’s a space had been left. In this stood one of the sleighs and a brace of Yakut horses, all done up for the occasion, with ribbons and gilding, fragrant pine branches and a golden cloth canopy held on a frame lashed to the sleigh. A single seat in front held Sergeant Kaledin. Behind him a somewhat grander seat was tied in for Tatiana. Behind her, a bench for the two sisters completed the arrangements. Natalya, as a newly minted lady in waiting, would walk immediately behind the sleigh.

One of the Icons was of the Blessed Virgin. Ordinarily, a coronation would be held in Moscow and the first stop of the tsar’s party would be the Chapel of Our Lady of Iveron, home of the Icon of the Blessed Virgin of Iveron. Instead, in these constrained circumstances, a priest held forth the Icon, as Sergeant Major Blagov placed a kneeler on the ground for Tatiana to use, to avoid soiling her white dress.

Solemnly, Tatiana crossed herself, knelt, and crossed herself again. The icon was moved forward close enough for her to kiss it, then removed. She stood, crossed herself a third time, then proceeded into the sleigh.

The rest of the entourage fell in behind the sleigh, except for Kostyshakov, who stood to the left of it, Sergeant Major Blagov, to the right, and, just ahead of them, a color guard of three men, bearing and guarding a hastily done “Banner of State,” in this case mere painted cloth, as there had no been time for embroidery.

Ahead of the color guard and Banner of State, Father Khlynov stood, censer hanging by a chain from his right hand, with the slack of the chain taken up by his left. Behind the priest stood several other religious personnel, one bearing a cross on a staff, a “ferula” it would have been called by Roman Catholics. Still others bore icons of saints and relics in cases.

As far as I can tell, thought Daniil, nobody in this town has ever been to a coronation. What that means is we’re probably not doing it quite right, even accounting for not being in Moscow, but, on the plus side, who knows enough to criticize?

Cherimisov faced to the rear, watching for the signal from Kostyshakov. When it came, in the form of a deep nod of the head, he turned about and ordered First Sergeant Mayevsky to “March the men to the Cathedral.”

That Mayevsky could do this with a complete lack of invective surprised no one as much as himself. “Fourth Company of the Guards, Forward at the slow step… march!”

The procession began to move south to the intersection of Great Friday and Tuljatskaya. The slow march had the soldiers swaying left to right and back with each pair of steps. As they moved, the bells of the town were silenced, one by one.

Daniil mused, I wonder how the church arranged that.

At the intersection they turned left, following Tuljatskaya all the way to Archangel Michael Street. With another left-hand turn at Archangel Michael, they moved toward, and then stopped at the beginning of the long, long staircase leading into the town’s kremlin, which also held the place of the coronation, the Cathedral of Saint Sophia.

From before the first step the people of the town, in unprecedented numbers, had lined the way. They crossed themselves and knelt as Tatiana’s sleigh passed, bringing tears to her eyes. I am unworthy. I know I am unworthy. All I can do is try to become worthy. Even so, Tatiana, keep your head up and try, at least, to project confidence.

Soldiers from Third Company, arrived early the day before, were interspersed amongst the crowd, armed and ready to stop any assassination attempt by a hidden Bolshevik. Tatiana and her sisters, with the example of how well jewels sewn into clothing could serve as body armor, wore their own. Natalya wore Olga’s, tied in places to provide a snug fit on a thinner girl.

I thought it would be harder, thought Tatiana, rocking in her seat, with the pulling of the Yakuts, to get Hermogenes, the Archbishop, to override the Pauline laws on succession. But he had that argument down better than we did: “Your father overruled those the moment he designated Olga as his heir. And his was the unreviewable power to do so.” We didn’t even need to mention Peter the Great’s rule on the subject, nor the admirable record of Catherine.

But I think the real reason he decided to support us was, in the first place, sheer fear of the Bolsheviks. Then, maybe, too, he was tickled by the idea of presiding over a coronation. It’s never been done here, before, after all. And, unless we win and beat back the Reds, it will never be done anywhere, ever again.

Another horse was waiting, all saddled up with a side saddle, for Tatiana, at the base of the staircase leading to the kremlin. The sergeant major gave her his hands, fingers interlinked, to boost her up. Once seated, with her right leg hooked in the leaping horn, Tatiana automatically stroked the horse to calm it. With the mildest nudge, and a very light touch of the whip to the horse’s right flank, the Yakut began to follow Cherimisov’s first platoon up the way to the fortress gate.

Passing under the gatehouse and into the open area of the kremlin, Tatiana saw two preposterously small cannon, crewed and standing by. Needs must, she thought.

Just before the cathedral, Cherimisov took the reins of her horse with a strained smile, while Mayevsky helped her dismount. Bishop Germogen of Tobolsk stood in front of the church in all his finery, a beatific smile adorning his bearded face. Be of stout heart, the smile seemed to say to Tatiana. This will be long, but you and Russia deserve no less than the best I can offer.

Would he smile so benignly, wondered Tatiana, if he knew how many death warrants are going to be presented to me tomorrow? Not only many of the prisoners from the rescue battle, but every Bolshevik apparatchik in the town?

Germogen held out the crucifix for Tatiana to kiss. As she did, followed by her sisters, another priest sprinkled the lot with holy water. Turning, then, Germogen led the way into the cathedral. As he did, the chorus sang the One hundred and first Psalm—“I will sing of your love and justice; to You, O Lord, I will sing praise…”

Hundreds filed in after her: her soldiers, the town’s leading citizens, the pre-Bolshevik political leadership, and a youngish couple bearing a camera on a tripod and an old style flash. They would have one chance, as Tatiana was leaving, to make a record for posterity.

As the chorus sang, Tatiana advanced to stand in the front center of the cathedral. There, she was invited by Germogen to recite the Nicene Creed: “I believe in one God, the Father, Almighty, maker of Heaven and Earth, and of all things, visible and invisible….”

From there, Germogen went to the Ambon and read three pieces of scripture, drawn from Isaiah 49, Romans 13, and Matthew 22. From the rear of the church, two underpriests brought out a purple robe, the best they could do in the circumstances, and draped it over Tatiana’s shoulders and around her body.

“Bow your head,” commanded Germogen. He then laid hands upon her, and prayed, “O, Lord, our God, King of kings, who through Samuel, the prophet, chose thy servant, David, and anointed him to be king…”

With the end of that prayer, Germogen called out, “Peace be with you,” after which the deacon commanded the entire populace present in the church to bow their heads.

Another prayer followed, shorter than the first.

“I am sorry,” said Germogen, then, “that we lack a crown, scepter, and orb. But those things are merely material…”

Thereupon a young private of Second platoon, Fourth Company, stepped forth, hesitantly and shyly.

“I know… I mean… Your Majesty… well… ifyouhavenoother crown… well… take this and use it. It’s not much but it’s mine and you’re welcome to it.”

Tatiana smiled gently at the boy. Then she reached out, touching his arm and saying, “Thank you. Thank you so much. I will wear your helmet with pride.”

“Give it here, then, son,” said Germogen.

The young guardsman passed over his helmet over to the priest. To Tatiana he said, apologetically, “For what is ahead of you, Your Majesty, this may be more suitable than any crown.” The boy returned to his spot in the throng.

Kostyshakov, too, then came forward. He took off his machine pistol, saying, “This will likely serve you better than any mace.” The priest took this too.

Molchalin came forth next. He passed the priest a grenade, saying, “I took this from the body of a lieutenant who died defending the royal family. Lieutenant Collan, a Finn, would be pleased if she could use this in lieu of the orb. It’s live, so don’t unscrew the cap or pull the little bead unless you need to.”

Germogen accepted it, whispering to Tatiana, “The boy speaks absolute truth. And you can always have an orb fashioned around it.”

Finally Mokrenko then came forward, sua sponte, handing over his own shashka, or Cossack sword. “And she will need one of these, too.”

With the helmet, Germogen crowned Tatiana Empress, reciting with it her titles: “By the grace of God, I crown thee Empress and Autocrat of All the Russias, of Moscow, Kiev, Vladimir, Novgorod; Tsarina of Kazan, Tsarina of Astrakhan, Tsarina of Poland, Tsarina of Siberia, Tsarina of Chersonese Taurian, Tsarina of Georgia; Ruler of Pskov and Grand Princess of Smolensk, Lithuania, Volhynia, Podolia, Finland; Princess of Estland, Livland, Courland, Semigalia, Samogitia, Belostok, Karelia, Tver, Yugra, Perm, Vyatka, Bolgar and others; Ruler and Grand Princess of Nizhny Novgorod, Chernigov, Ryazan, Polotsk, Rostov, Yaroslavl, Beloozero, Udoria, Obdoria, Kondia, Vitebsk, Mstislav, and all of the northern countries Master; and ruler of Iberia, Kartli, and Kabardia lands and Armenian provinces; hereditary Sovereign and ruler of the Circassian and Mountainous Princes and of others; Ruler of Turkestan; Heir of Norway; Duke of Schleswig-Holstein, Stormarn, Dithmarschen, and Oldenburg, and many, many others.”

Then the archbishop slung over her shoulder the MP18—that it would, in time, become a holy relic, all who saw it knew—slung the sword over the other, and placed the grenade through her belt.

Shortly after this is where Tatiana, by her own will, violated protocol. Called upon to swear an oath that she would preserve the autocracy intact, she swore, instead, that she would preserve the monarchy and the Russian empire. These were subtly but importantly different things, and not lost upon either the priest, the soldiers, nor the witnesses filling the back of the temple.

Communion followed, after Tatiana passed through the Royal Doors, which she, as Tsarina, was the only lay person allowed through. There she received communion, bread separately from wine. Following communion, with the repeated words, “the seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit,” she was well anointed with the Holy Chrism, on her forehead, eyes, nostrils, mouth, ears, breast, and both sides of each hand.

The “many summers” still rang in Tatiana’s ears as she emerged from the cathedral. Instantly the bells of the cathedral rang, to be picked up by every other church in the town, to include the Catholic one at the foot of the hill. At her first appearance in the doorway, the two small cannon began a slow fire, one round, each, per five seconds. This salute went on for over four minutes, while the crowd outside cheered, the soldiery shouted “Urrah! Urrah! Urrah!” and the town’s small band struck up God Save the Tsarina, the voices of the townsfolk and soldiers joining in until the lyrics echoed from every wall and building of the Tobolsk Kremlin.

And now I am truly stuck with it, thought the new tsarina. God save us all.

L59, The Catastrophe

A few days later came the last lift of men and supplies from Bulgaria. They’d be on their own, now, with the airship returning to German service.

The men aboard would more than replace the numbers lost in the rescue. More importantly, though, the ammunition would be badly needed in the fight to restore the throne to Tatiana and the Romanov line. Still more importantly, Daniil Edvardovich Kostyshakov intended to use it to get Fourth Company and some reinforcements close enough to that city to rescue Tatiana’s Aunt Ella, even while the rest of the battalion, plus as many trained townsfolk could be trusted, engaged and destroyed the battalion alleged to be coming from Yekaterinburg.

Mueller stood by Kostyshakov’s side, with most of the staff and the commanders clustered about. He, however, had been the critical one in turning the deep cut into the southern face of the hill of the kremlin into a suitable temporary shelter and docking station for the airship.

Tatiana was there, too, though she was not wearing the helmet given her as a crown. The MP18, on the other hand, hung by her side.

“There it is!” shouted Nomonkov, the sniper, and the man with the best eyesight in the battalion. “Almost due east and isn’t she just grand?”

It was at least another ten minutes before anyone else could seriously claim to see the airship. It was another twenty before it began its graceful turn to port to line itself up on the cut.

“What the…” Nomonkov asked of nobody, in particular. He’d seen them first, two small jets of fire coming from the airship’s flank.

Wilhelm Mueller only barely refrained from screaming at the sight of the flames that rushed to envelop the ship. It was full, after all, of nearly every friend he had in the world.

So rapid and complete was the destruction that no one was seen to have jumped from the ship before it nosed down, smashing into and crumpling against the ground, just east of the eastern Irtysh riverbank. The flames expanded into a fireball as the gas cells and fuel tanks were ruptured, feeding their contents to stoke the flames.

“My God,” said Kostyshakov, in horror.

How the hell do we get to Yekaterinburg now? wondered Molchalin, still not much given to talk.

Tobolsk, The Court

“I want to save what—rather, who, they’re not merely dry goods—we can,” insisted Tatiana, to Daniil.

It wasn’t much of a court, but it was more than most thought the Bolsheviks deserved, especially as word of Yurovsky’s orders began to circulate. The stack of death warrants had begun almost a foot high.

“No,” insisted Tatiana, again, shaking her head forcefully, while seated at her father’s old desk in the Governor’s House. “I want separated out from these the irredeemables, whom I presume to include all Bolshevik commissars except Pankratov, if he’s still in town. I think I can work with him. Also, the leadership of the Omsk and Yekaterinburg mobs, to the extent we haven’t already… hmmm, what was that word Lenin or Sverdlov used in the order to execute my family? Ah, I remember, ‘liquidated.’ To the extent we haven’t already liquidated them.

“The world will not miss them and neither will I. Then I want to see our old guards assembled so my sisters and I can sort out those who made our family’s lives pure misery. After that, I’ll sign all of that crew’s death warrants, without further ado.

“But, no, no, NO! The rest I will not have shot. They can provide labor, here, of greater value than the cost of guarding and feeding them. Also I want to talk to them. I know there were good men among our guards, men who wanted only the best for Russia. I intend to give them the chance to see that, even if I’m young, I am still a better bet than the Red fanatics.”

“I’ll see to it, Your Majesty,” said Daniil.

“And another thing,” she said, shaking her finger at him, “that ‘Your Majesty’ stuff? Maybe it’s important in public. But when we’re alone, Daniil Edvardovich? Or in closed cabinet? Please make it simply ‘Tatiana’ or, if you’re trying to make me see reason on something, ‘Tatiana Nicholaevna.’”

“As you wish… Tatiana,” he answered. He said it in a soft voice, one suggesting that there was more meaning behind the simple phrase.

“Daniil Edvardovich?”

“Yes… Tatiana.”

“I have to have at least one friend in the world. Have to.”

“Yes, Tatiana.” As he said it, he dropped his eyes slightly. As he did, it made her feel as if a little of the light had left the world.

Daniil was gone, off to deal with how they were to rescue Aunt Ella, he’d said, leaving her alone.

I’m going to be alone, to some extent, for the rest of my life. I can’t even have a boyfriend, not even Daniil… or not yet, anyway, because my power as “The Virgin Tsarina” is greater than my power as the wife or anything else of so and so. Mama? Papa? Did you realize that, because you put your marriage before everything else, that your successor may never be allowed to marry in her life? I’m going to have…

There was a light knock on the door. It was her sister, Maria, serving as Tatiana’s secretary for the time being.

“There’s an ‘Anton Dostovalov’ here to see you, Tati. Was he Olga’s…”

“Yes”—Now there is someone who’s lost as much as I have—“please send him in.”

Dostovalov walked in and, as Maria closed the door behind him, immediately went to his knees and burst into tears, hands clasped in front of him in supplication. Between sobs and choking it was hard for him to say an intelligible word, but eventually she realized he was begging for forgiveness.

And he thinks, as the one nearest to Olga, that I am the only one who can give forgiveness in her place. He really did love her, didn’t he?

“Rise, Anton Ivanovich,” she commanded, in her best imitation of an imperious voice. “Do you believe in our faith?” she asked, once he’d risen to his feet.

“Yes, Your Highness,” he managed to get out, between sniffles.

“Then you know my sister is not dead. She is with God now and knows that you tried to save her.”

“I did… I really did… but I was too slow. Sergei wasn’t too slow.”

“Big men usually can’t move as quickly as smaller ones, and Sergei Arkadyevich was in a better position to see that madman before you could. You don’t believe me,” she said, seeing that he really didn’t.

“I… don’t know what… to believe,” he replied.

And he got those words out quickly enough, with less sobbing. Maybe…

“Would you like to take a little sabbatical?” she asked.

“Highness, I don’t even know what that word means.”

“It’s a kind of a vacation,” she explained. “it’s a period when someone goes somewhere where he or she won’t be harassed, and thinks, and studies.”

“Studies? Me?” The thought was almost enough to make him laugh. Almost.

“Maybe you’ve just never had the right teacher,” she said. “Let me make some inquiries.”

Dostovalov wiped his arm across his eyes to clear off the tears. “Olga always said you were the smart one. If you think…”

“I do.” She reached up to place one hand on his shoulder, saying, “And I think Olga would like for you to have the chance. She loved you, too, you know; she really did.”

Daniil was still gone, pursuing his duties. Anastasia and Dr. Botkin were in hospital, helping with the wounded. Natalya and all her retainers and ladies in waiting were away on various tasks at her behest. Tatiana sat alone at her desk in a moment of unexpected quiet, a stack of papers, and on a side table, her father’s chessboard.

Tatiana reached out and picked up the sandalwood queen, the queen with which Feldfebel Sergei Chekov had defeated her father all those weeks and lifetimes ago. Rolling the chess piece between her palms she allowed herself to slip into a reverie.

I never wanted this, and I don’t know what strength—or if enough strength—resides within me; but I will give every measure of what I have to serve all Russians. We will, God allowing it, save the empire from these madmen, and then, then I will make a country that venerates men like you, Sergei Chekov, regardless of birth or creed. I will earn your faith, and the faith of all the others who have and surely will have died for me. I will redeem my father and mother. I will avenge my brother and sister, or I will die in the effort.

“This I swear in the name of Almighty God,” Tatiana whispered. “May His divine will so bind me, now and forever.”

Epilogue

Volleys of rifle fire, often with codas of single, duller pistol shots, resounded in the prisoner’s warehouse from dawn unto the fading half light of dusk. Georgy Lesh’s Third Company was chosen for the executions. This was partly because they’d already been set to guarding all the prisoners, anyway, and partly to give them, too, a chance to bloody their hands in preparation for what would surely be a long and bloody civil war.

Yurovsky, now missing a leg, was not the first, indeed, he was not even among the forty-first, of the Reds to be shot. The doctors had argued that he was too ill to be put to death, a plea that moved nobody, though it did get a few laughs from the rank and file. Still, it wasn’t important when he would be shot, only that he was shot.

A party of four showed up at that portion of the prisoners’ warehouse serving as an aid station, bearing two stout poles. They laid four pieces of rope on the floor, then put the poles across the ropes. Tearing the blanket off of the Bolshevik’s bed, they folded it around the poles to form a stretcher. Then they lifted him bodily and laid him on the now folded blanket. A few quick and simple knots and the Bolshevik was secured to the stretcher.

Once the makeshift stretcher was lifted, it was a short walk to the execution site, nearer to the river. There were a few trees there, being used to hold the condemned prisoners upright for “processing.” A not particularly small pile of bodies was assembled to the west, atop a fairly large assembly of logs. They’d all be incinerated and their bones scattered and dumped in the river once the executions were finished.

Yurovsky seemed only dimly aware of his surroundings as he was carried out of the building and toward the execution site. He muttered odd phrases on the way: “But why… kill the boy’s playmate?… Citizen Romanov… corruption… the bodies… frame them…”

He became more aware when the stretcher was leaned against one of the trees. Perhaps it was the cold reviving him, perhaps something else. He knew, for example, when a rope was used to secure the head of the stretcher to that tree. He said, “Tie it tight, boys. If I fall over I might hurt myself.”

One of the stretcher bearers caught the humor of that. “That’s right, old man, take it well. Want to make a statement? Care for a cigarette? There’s a priest standing by, too.”

“I’ll take the cigarette,” said the condemned Bolshevik. “People who fail aren’t entitled to last statements. Besides, would anyone present even want to hear it? And I wouldn’t have any use for a priest. Nor even a rabbi.”

“Likely not,” said the soldier. He took out a pre-rolled cigarette, lit and puffed it to life, then placed it between Yurovsky’s lips. The Red drew deeply, then coughed so hard the cigarette flew away. The friendly stretcher bearer picked it up and replaced it. Then he patted the Bolshevik’s shoulder and, with the others, backed away.

“No need to hurry,” said Yurovsky, around the cigarette. “Stick around and chat for a while, why don’t you?”

He and the stretcher party both laughed.

Yurovsky’s eyes swam in and out of focus, several times. He thought maybe his stump had started to bleed again. At some point he became aware of nine men marching up to stand in front of him, plus one who followed behind. He searched his mind for an old, old memory, something from his boyhood, drilled into him by an overbearing father. It came to him in spurts.

“I acknowledge before the source of All that life and death are not in my hands.”

“Left… face,” sounded from the commander of the ranks of armed men before him.

“Something… something… something I don’t remember. Ah… I remember this: To all I may have hurt, I ask forgiveness… to all who hurt me… I grant it.”

“Ready!”

“Hear, O Israel…”

“Aim!”

“…is one.”

“Fire!”

The shots rang out so close together as to form a sound of a single, larger and more powerful shot. Five of them stuck Yurovsky’s chest, more or less exploding it. The force of the blows caused the stretcher to twist around the tree. The Bolshevik’s head flopped loosely to one side and downward.

Even so, the commander of the firing squad, a Sergeant Rogov, marched briskly to the body, removing his Amerikanski pistol from its holster as he did. Once there, he thought Yurovsky was about as dead as dead could be. Even so, in case there were some residual consciousness still in pain, he aimed the pistol at the head of the condemned. The shot that followed ended the possibility of any remaining consciousness, as it blew a fair chunk of Yurovsky’s brain out the other side of his skull and onto the snow.