Of all the royal family, Maria Feodorovna’s life meant something. Unlike her son and his wife, she’d served Russia well. This war was her son’s making. His failure to lead.
But if, as he said, they came after everyone who supported the royals, Pyotr was bound to be high on that list, especially once they learned he’d left Maria with one of the eggs. The very thought frightened him, especially when he realized where they were going. The old barn where a number of royalists had been shot. “Are you going to tell them what I did?”
“Of course. Your fate is for the people to decide.”
They were going to kill him.
Pyotr’s hands shook and he tucked them at his side, stealing a glance at the man beside him, eyeing the pistol at his hip.
The wagon wheels hit a rut, jarring the vehicle and throwing him against the driver. He grabbed the gun and pushed away, pointing it.
The driver turned, trying to grab the weapon. “What—”
Pyotr fired.
The shot hit him in the chest. He fell to the side, letting loose the reins. Pyotr shoved him from his seat and he tumbled down to the ground. Grabbing the reins, he stopped the team, then turned them around, pausing beside the fallen man.
He looked up at Pyotr, his face turning gray. “Why?”
“Saving my life. And Maria Feodorovna’s.”
“They’ll bury you right next to her. The moment they find you or anyone else with that treasure.”
“They’ll never find it.” He shook the reins, then headed toward the castle. He knew of a hidden panel in the Amber Room. The Bolsheviks would have to disassemble the entire place to find it. Somehow, he’d get word to the Dowager Empress that she needed to leave, that they intended to kill her.
And maybe one day they could come back for the treasure.
II
There must be something we can do. We’re not asking for much. I’ll pay it back. Every cent.”
The desperation that twelve-year-old Klaus Simon heard in his father’s voice twisted at his heart and he edged closer to the kitchen door, straining to hear the conversation in the front room.
“Please, Ludwig,” his father continued. “If you could find it within you to help us this once.”
“Actually, there is something…” For several seconds, the only thing Klaus heard was the ticking of the kitchen clock behind him. Finally, his uncle said, “I’m in need of help during a short trip to Santiago. If you agree to my conditions, I’ll make it worth your while.”
“I’ll do anything. Anything at all.”
“Not you. Your boy.”
Surprised, Klaus pressed his ear against the door. “I don’t understand,” his father said. “What would Klaus have to do?”
“Nothing much. More companion than anything else. These trips can be tedious.”
“How long would he be gone?”
“A few days at the most. More important, we’re willing to pay well.”
A long stretch of silence followed before his father answered. “I don’t know. Perhaps we’ll find another way—”
Klaus pushed open the door, bursting into the room. “I can do it. I can.”
His father’s brow furrowed. “I told you to wait in the kitchen.”
“I’m sorry,” Klaus said, stealing a glance at his uncle. He barely remembered the man from when they’d lived with him in Germany. Only that his Uncle Ludwig Strassmair had argued with Klaus’s mother when he’d brought notice that Klaus’s older brother, Dietrich, had been killed in the war. Dietrich, apparently, was not fighting for Germany, as everyone thought, but for the resistance against Nazism. His mother never recovered from Dietrich’s death — or the scandal — and after selling everything to buy them passage to Argentina, she’d cut off all contact with her brother. “Let me go. Please, Father.”
Uncle Ludwig smiled at Klaus. “See? Even the boy is willing.”
His father, however, was not so quick to agree. “Let me talk it over with him. I’ll telephone to let you know my decision.”
“Danke.”
His father waited until Uncle Ludwig drove off, then turned a troubled glance down the hall toward the bedroom where his wife slept. With a tired sigh, he looked at Klaus. “You heard what he said. It’s only for a few days. To Chile and back.”
“I heard.” Klaus watched his father, trying to figure out what he wasn’t telling him. “He only wants a companion. That doesn’t sound too hard.”
“There’s something you should know…”
“What, Papa?” he asked when his father didn’t continue.
Again, that sigh. This one more weary than the last. “Your uncle… He’s a Nazi. As are his friends.”
Hope fled at the realization that his mother would never allow this. It didn’t matter that Dietrich had chosen to fight for the resistance, she blamed the Nazis for his death.
His father glanced down the hallway once more, then back at Klaus. “Still… the war is over. No need to tell her. Or your sister, who blabs everything.”
“But—”
“It would break your mother’s heart.” He put his hands on Klaus’s shoulders, looking him in the eye, giving a half smile. “If there was any other way, we would find it. Yes? But there isn’t… You understand?”
Klaus understood all too well. He and his father could overlook the source of income if it bought the medicine his mother desperately needed. What did it matter if a few Nazis slipped into the country? And, as his father said, the war was over. Those men were simply Germans like him.
Besides, it was only for a few days.
Somehow, though, his mother must have overheard, because when he went to visit her, she tried to dissuade him. “I’m going to die anyway,” she said from her sickbed. “What good will that money be then?”
“I won’t let you,” Klaus told her, trying not to see how frail she’d become. These days, she barely got out of bed.
“Dietrich had no choice, fighting against Hitler. We didn’t leave soon enough. But I taught you to do what is right. In this, you have a choice.”
“This is right. For you.”
She said nothing, merely closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.
That night, when he went to say good-bye, he thought she was still asleep. But when he turned to leave, she opened her eyes. “Klaus…”
He came into the room, sitting on the edge of her bed.
She reached out, took his hand in hers, her grasp weak, her skin cool. “Promise me…”
“Promise what?” he asked, having to lean close to hear.
“Follow your heart…” She reached up, touched his chest, then lowered her hand, closing her eyes. “Dietrich…” Maybe she was hallucinating, seeing his dead brother instead of him. Thinking she’d fallen asleep once more, he started to rise. But she opened her eyes, her soft smile melting his heart. “Do that, Klaus… You’ll be rewarded… Promise me?”
“I promise,” he said, wondering if she even had two days to live. What if she died before he returned…?
No. He refused to think such a thing. He had to do this. If he didn’t get the medicine, she would die.
With a heavy heart, he leaned down, kissed her forehead, seeing that she’d fallen asleep again. “I love you,” he whispered, then left with his Uncle Ludwig Strassmair to Buenos Aires.
“Herr Strassmair. Good. You’re here. Come in. Come in.”
Klaus, his uncle’s suitcase in hand, was about to follow him into the office when he thought he heard something behind them. He stopped and looked down the darkened hallway. The wind, he decided, then trailed his uncle into the office, where Herr Heinrich, a gray-haired man in a military-style jacket, sat behind a battered wooden desk, his hand lying atop a brown folder. A blond-haired woman about the age of Klaus’s uncle, mid-forties, stood behind him. She eyed Klaus. “This is the boy?”