“What else, Leon?”
“Someone massacred a group of bandits who were attempting to rob the Trans-Siberian near Yekaterinburg. A retired colonel named Plestov claimed to have organized the resistance there, but our man on the ground didn’t believe it was possible. This Plestov is practically senescent, and the train’s other passengers were no soldiers. We didn’t have any Red Guards in the area at the time, nor were any of the White Army formations, as far as we can tell. So who would have done it?
“And then there was a ship that blew up, taking one of our destroyers with it. The timing is too good, too precise. I think the Germans have already introduced some people to thwart the revolution by raising a counterrevolution. Ten men here, twenty men there, and pretty soon the kulaks are in arms against us, with competent leadership and maybe weapons.”
“That could be troublesome,” Lenin agreed. “A series of sparks that ignite a forest fire.”
Chapter Twenty-three
Great Lake Shishkarym
It’s very hard, thought Lieutenant Babin, to just wait for something, in the bitter cold, in the open, with no real expectation of the thing you’re waiting for ever showing up. Turgenev said they’d be here by between three and five, but…
The lieutenant’s thoughts came to a sudden halt, as a bright star burst in the heavens, illuminating the underside of what could only be a gargantuan airship.
Germans, thought Babin, they overbuild everything.
“Corporal Koslov,” the lieutenant cried out.
“Here, sir.”
“Blow the charge in the ice.”
“Sir!”
“Novarikasha?”
“Here, sir.”
“Start lighting the northern signal fires. I’ll get the southern ones.”
“Sir!”
Babin trotted over to the southernmost of the beacons and picked up a can of kerosene waiting there. Taking the top off, he poured half the contents onto the wood piled four feet high, a mix of tinder, small sticks, and more substantial logs. Then he pulled from a container in his pocket a wooden match, one of perhaps a score. Bending his leg to lift a boot, Babin struck the match on the sole. Instead of tossing it, he knelt and gently moved the flaming lucifer to the kerosene-soaked tinder. He was quickly rewarded with a fireball, rushing upwards into the night, and then, shortly after, a good deal of tinder alight and moving to light fire to the small sticks.
There was a great boom roughly centered between the pyres. Shortly after the explosion, bits and pieces of ice, smaller and larger, began pelting down.
Immediately, Babin set off for the second southern bonfire. As he ran to it, he saw one of the northern pair spring to life. Within no more than five minutes, they had all four lit.
Looking up, he saw that the airship had lined itself up in the open space between the fires, and was gracefully descending.
I will tell my children about this sight. Assuming we live, of course.
Along the sides of the airship, the crew let down the leads that had been used to guide the ship out of its hangar at Jambol. Inside the passenger and cargo compartment, the ship’s exec issued a coil of rope each time as he let out one man at a time to meet with Mueller or Machinist Proll. These then led each debarked passenger to one of the leads used by the handlers on the ground, tied one end of the rope coil to the lead and, in broken, recently learned Russian, directed the former passenger to find a tree to tie the rope off to, “Tightly!”
They alternated the tying off, forward-rear-center-center-rear-forward.
It took a good deal of stumbling and no little amount of cursing before Mueller could go and stand under the control gondola to tell the skipper, “She’s tied off, sir.”
“Very good. Lieutenant Colonel Kostyshakov seems to be on the ground somewhere. Please find him and advise him that his men can unload the materiel.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Oh, and Mueller?”
“Yes, sir?”
“After you find Kostyshakov, pack your bag in a hurry; you’ll be staying here with them. Next time we show up, I want them trained to tie us down in mere minutes. Work out useful signals with the exec. Also, make sure Kostyshakov understands we’ll need all his people to set us free once unloading is completed. And you are to make it happen.”
Mueller’s heart sank a bit. He tried to think of an objection but, No, he’s right that we need a more rapid and efficient tie down. And I’ve got everything I need, probably better than the Russians have, to be honest, to keep from freezing to death here. But… shit.
“Yes, sir.”
Tobolsk, Russia
Natalya walked along a section of rope laid out in the southeastern rented warehouse. She counted off, “… fourteen, fifteen, sixteen… window here… seventeen, eighteen, nineteen… stairs down to the basement here,” she stopped to point, “door leading to the kitchen over there.”
As she recited the latest findings from her spying in both the Governor’s House and the Kornilov House, Turgenev, Mokrenko, and Sarnof tied colored pieces of rope and cloth to the sections of rope already laid out, marking the windows in white, stairs in red, and other features in other colors. Furniture was outlined in black, but, since it tended to get moved around, was less precisely located than the walls, windows, stairs, and doors.
“Wonderful,” congratulated Lieutenant Turgenev, meaning it. The girl preened and then flushed pink. The others affected not to notice.
“There’s something else going on,” said Natalya, “but I’m not sure what to make of it.”
“Go on,” said Turgenev.
She hesitated, then began, “Two of the guards, Chekov and Dostovalov—Chekov’s the senior of the two—are involved with two of the Romanov girls, Tatiana and Olga, respectively. Anyone with eyes to see could see it. But that seems to rule out men, generally.” Because yours is a dumb sex, my very dearest. “The tsar does not see it. The tsarina is usually bed-bound, so has never had a chance to see it. But the other two girls, Maria and Anastasia, most definitely do see it. If they rolled their eyes any harder they could see the backs of their own skulls from the inside.
“It’s not a romantic connection with Tatiana, but it’s something complicated—and powerful. But for the other two… well… they’re in love. Obvious as the nose on my face. No, that’s not good enough; it’s as obvious as the hill leading to the Kremlin of Tobolsk. But…”
Again, Turgenev prodded, “Go on.”
“Something terrible happened to Olga, I think. Something like… what happened to me. And if guilt were heat, Dostavalov could heat the whole building on his own.”
Turgenev inclined his head to one side. “You don’t think that he…?”
“No, I don’t. It was someone else. I overheard a couple of the guards talking about Chekov killing someone who, and I quote, ‘was in desperate need of a good dose of killing.’ But somehow it was Dostovalov’s fault, or he believes it was, even if he didn’t do it. I can’t tell you how I know, but I do know. It’s part of being a woman.” And stew on that “woman” word for a while, Maxim Sergeyevich.
Natalya glanced at Turgenev, eyebrow raised, but he didn’t challenge her self-designation.