“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!?!?”