The Romanov Legacy (24 page)

Constantine unfolded the two yellowed rectangles and spread
them out on the floor.  “What are we looking for?”

“That,” she said, pouncing on Marie’s letter.  “What’s
that?” 

At the top of the letter, someone with different handwriting
had written two brief lines in pencil above the date.  Her eyes jumped
back to Olga’s letter, the one he hadn’t translated yet.  “Look! 
It’s here, too.”  She pointed at two faint lines added to the letter just
below the signature.  “The added lines are in different places.  What
do they say?”

Constantine picked up Marie’s letter and held it closer to
his eyes.  “It’s so faded, it’s hard to tell.  It looks like…oh,
Jesus.”

Natalie reached for his arm.  “What is it?”

“It says ‘Bank of England.’”

“I knew it!”  She giggled and clapped her hands. 
“I knew those fuckers were lying!”

He kept squinting, turning the paper slightly.  “And there’s
a name.”

“What name?”

“It’s hard to read.  Let me spell it out.”  He
pressed out a fold in the paper.  “In English, it would be S, L, V, E,
V.  I can’t read all of the letters.”

“Oh my God,” she breathed.  “I think I know what that
means.”   

“What—”  Suddenly, Constantine’s phone vibrated in his
pocket.  He reached for it and glanced at the incoming number.  “It’s
Vadim.”

Natalie looked up at him.  “Do you still trust him?”

“Right now, you’re the only one I trust.”  He put his
finger to his lips then put the call on speakerphone.  “What the hell is
going on, Vadim?  Vympel took Viktor and the letters.”

“I know!”  Anger crackled like electricity in Vadim’s
voice.  “I had to hear about it from Starinov himself!  You made me
look like a fool!”

“Did he tell you where they took Viktor?”

“No.  Where are you?”

Constantine clenched his jaw and Natalie noticed a wavy vein
pop out against the flat plane of his forehead. 

Vadim sensed his hesitation.  “Listen, my boy, we’re
all upset.  But Starinov said he won’t recall Vympel until I bring you and
the girl in.”

“If he has the letters, why does he care about us?”

“Just tell me where you are.  The ambassador will send
an escort and it will all be over.”

Something in the older man’s voice set her on edge—a desperation
that sent a natural baritone pitch into a tenor.  Natalie felt her gut
clench. 
No
, she mouthed. 
Don’t do it.

“Please,” the older man begged.  “We’ll get Viktor back
and I’ll make sure they don’t hurt the girl.  I swear to you.” 

Constantine held the phone in both hands, squeezed until his
knuckles went white. 

“You won’t make it out of the country without help,
boy.  You know that.”

Constantine bent his head.  “I know,” he said
softly.  “We’re in the library.  Ninth Street.”

“Thank you, my boy!  Just stay where you are.”

“I’m trusting you, Vadim.  With my life and hers.”

“I know, son.” 

The line went dead and Constantine shoved the phone back in
his pocket.  Natalie touched his arm.  “Why didn’t you tell him we
have the real letters?”

“Something’s wrong,” he said, shaking his head.  “It’s
in his voice.”

“What happens when the ambassador comes to get us?”

“He’ll put us on a plane to Russia.”

“What?”  She scooted backward, bumping up against a
metal rack.  “I’ve never been anywhere, Constantine.  I don’t know
what Belial will do!”

He grasped her forearms and looked into her eyes.  “I
won’t let anything happen to you,” he said.  “I promise.”  The warmth
of his hands seeped into her cold flesh and she resisted the impulse to close
her eyes and press her face into his chest.  “We’re going to turn these
letters over to Vadim and let him fight Starinov over it.  End of story.”

“What about Viktor?”

“I won’t hand over the letters until Starinov lets him go.”

Natalie’s gaze fell to the pieces of paper on the
floor.  “But what if I can figure it out?”

“No.  All they want is the letters.”

“What happens when they can’t decipher them?  Will I
get kidnapped again?”  The thought of waiting for another Vympel squad to
break down her door made her feel sick to her stomach.  “I have to go to
the bathroom.  I’m going to throw up.”

“I’ll come with you,” he said, putting the letters back in
his pocket.

“I don’t need a babysitter.  I can hurl on my own.”

“Fine.”  He kissed her on the forehead.  “If
you’re not back in five minutes, I’m coming in there for you.” 

She nodded and clutched her purse to her chest as she walked
out of the closet to the restroom.  She wished Beth were here.  Beth
would calm her down and shoot holes in her theory wide enough for elephants to
stomp through. 
Soloviev
—the letters written in pencil must refer
to him.  He was Maria Rasputin’s husband, a man usually vilified for
stealing money and jewels collected to help fund the Romanovs’ escape from
captivity.  But what if he hadn’t stolen them?  What if the jewels
and money had ended up somewhere else?

No one would suspect it
, she thought. 
No one
ever has.

She pushed open the door to the restroom and something hard
struck her on the temple.  The world went black as Lucifer’s wings.

July 2012

San Francisco, California

While Natalie was in the restroom, Constantine finished his
translation of the second letter and re-read it quickly.  It made no
sense.  There was no password, and the girls didn’t even talk about the
same things.  One wrote to a soldier, the other to a sailor.  One
referenced America, the other a ship.  Nothing was constant except the two
penciled-in lines:  Bank of England, and SLVOV.  If Natalie couldn’t
make sense of the girls’ non sequiturs, this whole mission would end with
nothing.  

He glanced at his watch.  He’d given Natalie five
minutes and she’d already been gone ten.  “Shit,” he said, folding the
letters back into his pocket.  Something was wrong.

He ran down the hall to the women’s bathroom and
knocked.  “Natalie!  It’s time to go.”

There was no answer.

“Natalie!”  He flung open the door and saw five empty
stalls, doors swinging wide.  One of the silver faucets dripped like a
metronome, but there was no splash of water in the bowl to indicate it had been
used recently.  He sprinted back out into the hall, dashing from one end
of the floor to the other, looking for her purse or signs of a struggle—fallen
books, a shoe’s sole marks on the floor.  He found nothing.

Panic exploded in his veins.  There was only one person
who could have informed on them.  He wiped his sweaty palms on his pants
and reached for his phone.  As soon as the older man answered, he bellowed
into the speaker.  “Did you take her?”

“Constantine, what the devil are you talking about?”

“I know it was you, Vadim.  You’re the only one who
knew where we were!”

Vadim pounced on his use of the past tense, as he’d
expected.  “Where are you, boy?  I told you to wait for the
ambassador’s men!”

“Where are they taking her, Vadim?”

He could hear his boss shifting uncomfortably in his
chair.  It creaked beneath his weight, protesting at the new position he’d
taken.  “I don’t know.”

“Answer me or I’ll leave right now and you’ll never get
those letters.”

The older man refused to reply.

“Do you hear this?” he said.  He pulled the letters out
of his pocket and rustled them next to the phone.  “And do you hear
this?”  Then he took out his small silver lighter and flicked it open,
also next to the phone.  “If you don’t tell me what I want to know, these
letters burn the way you will in hell.” 

“Don’t be stupid, boy!  They’re bringing her to
Starinov.  He wants the password.” 

“He won’t get it.  Natalie’s only seen one of the
letters.  I have the other one.”

Vadim inhaled sharply.  “If that’s true, Maxim
underestimated you.  We all did.”

Constantine felt his lips curl, a leonine snarl that held no
joy or pride in his superior’s praise.  “You tell that bastard I’m
coming.  If they hurt her, I’ll burn the second letter before anyone has a
chance to see it.”

“Think about what you’re doing, boy.  You aren’t the
only one with something at stake.”

“But I’m the only one trying to do a goddamn thing about
it!  Can you help me or not?”

The air between them crackled with static.

He curled his fingers into a fist and slammed it into the
wall.  “Goddamn it, Vadim, I killed for you and lied for you more times
than I can count!  Now I ask one thing of you and you can’t find a goddamn
thing to say.”  He shifted tactics, zeroing in on the reasons his boss
believed himself different from men like Starinov.  “You treated us like a
family.  And we believed you were different, we all did.  None of
that has to change, Vadim.  But I need help.”

He heard the movement of Vadim’s left hand, crossing
himself.  “All right, my boy,” the older man sighed.  “There’s a
pilot on standby just north of you, waiting for another agent.  If you can
get to the San Rafael airstrip, the pilot and the plane are yours.”

“Thank you, Vadim.”  Constantine disconnected and
dashed down the stairs, out into the street.  He jumped in front of the
first yellow cab he saw and threw two hundred dollars over the seat.  “San
Rafael,” he said.  “Don’t stop for anything.”

July 2012

En route to Moscow, Russia

This time, her head ached from the outside instead of the
inside.  The pain radiated from a central point on the left side of her
skull and she reached up to touch it.  Her fingers slid over a bump as
raised and round as the Palatine. 

I’m sorry, little one.
  Belial tucked his head
to his chest and sighed, raising his wings until they tapped her skull. 
I
should have been there to warn you.

“Asshole,” she mumbled.  “Go away.”  A wave of
sickness crashed over her and she fought it, blinking until her eyes adjusted
to the light.  She lay on a leather-covered bench, facing the seat
back.  Above her was a tiny oval window, through which she head the whirr
of an engine.  She looked briefly at her hand, reassured that Grigori’s
ring was still on it.  A memory of the library restroom flashed before her
eyes and her cheeks burned with anger and embarrassment at how easy a target
she’d been. 
Constantine
, she thought. 
Where is he? 
Does he know what happened to me?

She rolled over and saw two men perched on a bench seat
across the aisle.  They were both dark-haired hulking men with small
features squished into faces pockmarked with scars and stubble.  Two more
men stood at the rear of the plane.  One was a gaunt blond and the other
had his back to her—a tall, lanky form with thick, dark hair and a broad,
familiar shoulder line.  “Viktor,” she mumbled.

At the sound of her voice, he turned around.  “You’re
awake!”  With a wary glance at the other three men, he came to kneel in
front of her. 

She searched his face for any signs of harm from the motel
attack, but he appeared intact.  “What’s happening?  Have they hurt
you?”  

“Don’t worry about me, lamb.”  He reached out to touch
her cheek and Belial flapped his left wing—the one closest to Viktor.  She
flinched at the sudden sharp pain. 

Viktor noticed and drew back his hand.  “What’s
wrong?  Are you hurt?”

“I—I don’t know.  I think I need a drink.”

“I’ll get it.”  Viktor went to the blond man standing
at the back of the plane.  The man opened a panel in the wall, pulled out
a bottle of amber liquid, and poured generously into an old-fashioned
glass.  Viktor brought the glass to her, making sure his fingertips
brushed hers.  At the moment of contact, Belial’s left foot
twitched. 

Natalie winced at the localized pain and Viktor raised an
eyebrow at her strange reaction.  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.  “I
don’t know what’s happening.”  Then Belial’s entire left side began to
vibrate, knocking painfully against her skull.  She downed the Scotch as
fast as she could and pressed her hands to her head, waiting for the alcohol to
send Belial to sleep.  But it didn’t.  His movements only grew stronger. 
She moaned and gritted her teeth against the ache in her skull. 

“What’s wrong?” Viktor asked, leaning over her.  “I
thought the alcohol helped.” 

The angel’s vibrations intensified, smacking against her
skull like a jackhammer.  “More,” she whispered.  “Hurry.”  

Viktor took the glass from her hand and went to refill
it.  As soon as he stepped away from her, the pain stopped.  It
lifted so suddenly that she gasped with surprise.  Then she looked up
slowly.  Belial never did anything by accident.

Viktor stood at the makeshift bar, dropping two ice cubes
into the glass and covering them with a generous pour of Scotch.  He had
shaved and changed his clothes since the abduction.  There were no bruises
or black eyes, no scratches or grazes visible on his hands or head.  She
thought about every time she and Constantine had escaped Vympel—one or both of
them bleeding, limping, bruised, broken, or unconscious. 

Do you understand now, little one?
Belial said.
 

“No.”

He already told you the truth, but you did not see it.

“See what?”

Philby.

“Philby,” she repeated.

Viktor looked up from his task, one dark eyebrow
raised.  “What was that?”

“Nothing.”

“Don’t be shy.  I’d really like to know what you
said.”  He moved towards her and handed her the drink, kneeling until he
could meet her gaze.  His eyes were dark and satisfied.  “You’re
afraid,” he said.  “As well you should be.”