Professor of History Moscow State University He was beginning to understand. "So my meeting him was not coincidental?"

"Hardly. Professor Pashenko realized the great danger both of you were in and directed us to keep watch. That was what I was doing in St. Petersburg. Apparently, I did not do a good job."

"I thought you were with the others."

The man nodded. "I can see that, but the professor instructed me only to make contact when forced. What was about to happen back in the theater, I think, would qualify."

The car wove through heavy evening traffic, its windshield wipers clunking back and forth, not doing much good. They were headed south, past the Kremlin, toward Gorky Park and the river. Lord noticed the driver's interest in cars around him and surmised that the many turns were designed to avoid any tails that might be lurking.

"You think we're safe?" Akilina whispered.

"I hope so."

"You know this Pashenko?"

He nodded. "But that means nothing. Hard to know anybody around here." Then he added with a weak smile, "Present company excepted, of course."

Their route had taken them away from the blocks of anonymous high-rises and neocla.s.sical oddities, the hundreds of apartment buildings little more than trushchoba- trushchoba-slums-and life there, he knew, was a tense daily grind, noisy and crowded. But not everyone lived that way, and he noticed they'd turned onto one of the un.o.btrusive, tree-lined streets that radiated from the busy boulevard. This one ran north toward the Kremlin, linking two of the ring roads.

The Mercedes veered right into a lighted asphalt lot. A guard watched the entrance from a gla.s.s booth. The three-story apartment building beyond was unusual, fashioned not of concrete but of honey-colored bricks laid straight and true, a rarity for Russian masons. The few cars in the lined s.p.a.ces were foreign and expensive. The man in the pa.s.senger's seat pointed a controller and commanded a garage door to rise. The driver steered the Mercedes inside, and the paneled door rolled shut.

They were led into a s.p.a.cious lobby lit by a crystal chandelier. The smell was pine, not the horrid scent of mud and urine most apartment lobbies wafted-The smell of cats, one Moscow journalist had called it. A carpeted stairway led up to a third-floor apartment. one Moscow journalist had called it. A carpeted stairway led up to a third-floor apartment.

Semyon Pashenko answered a light knock on a white paneled door and invited them inside.

Lord quickly took in the parquet floor, Oriental rugs, brick fireplace, and Scandinavian furniture. Luxuries in both the Soviet Union and new Russia. The walls were a soothing beige, broken periodically by elegantly framed prints depicting Siberian wildlife. The air smelled of boiled cabbage and potatoes. "You live well, Professor."

"A gift from my father. To my dismay, he was a devoted communist and afforded the privilege of rank. I inherited the amenity and was allowed to purchase it when the government starting divesting. Thankfully, I had the rubles."

Lord turned in the center of the room and faced his host. "I guess we should thank you."

Pashenko raised his hands. "No need. In fact, it is us who owe you thanks."

Lord was puzzled, but said nothing.

Pashenko motioned to upholstered chairs. "Why don't we sit. I have dinner warming in the kitchen. Some wine, perhaps?"

He glanced at Akilina, who shook her head. "No, thank you."

Pashenko noticed Akilina's costume and told one of the men to fetch her a bathrobe. They sat before a fire and Lord removed his jacket.

"I chop the wood at my dacha dacha north of Moscow," Pashenko said. "I so like a fire, though this apartment is centrally heated." north of Moscow," Pashenko said. "I so like a fire, though this apartment is centrally heated."

Another Russian rarity, he thought. He also noticed the driver of the Mercedes take up a position at one of the windows, periodically peeking out through the closed curtains. The man peeled off his coat, exposing a handgun nestled in a shoulder harness.

"Who are you, Professor?" Lord asked.

"I am a Russian who is glad for the future."

"Could we dispense with the riddles? I'm tired, and it's been a long three days."

Pashenko bowed his head in an apparent apology. "From all reports, I agree. The incident in Red Square made the news. Curious there was no mention of you in the official reports, but Vitaly"-Pashenko motioned to the man from yesterday in St. Petersburg-"saw it all. The police arrived just in time."

"Your man was there?"

"He went to St. Petersburg to make sure your train ride was uneventful. But the same two gentlemen with whom you are, by now, intimately familiar interfered."

"How did he find me?"

"He saw you and Miss Petrovna together and watched while you jumped from the train. Another man with him followed your actions farther down the tracks and found you at the grocery using the telephone."

"What about my bodyguard?"

"We thought he might work for the mafiya. mafiya. Now we are sure." Now we are sure."

"Could I ask why I am involved?" Akilina said.

Pashenko leveled a gaze at her. "You involved yourself, my dear."

"I involved nothing. Mr. Lord happened into my compartment on the train last night. That's all."

Pashenko straightened in the chair. "I, too, was curious of your involvement. So I took the liberty of checking on you today. We have extensive contacts in the government."

Akilina's face tightened. "I don't appreciate you invading my privacy."

Pashenko gave a short laugh. "That is a concept we Russians know little of, my dear. Let's see. You were born here in Moscow. Your parents divorced when you were twelve. Since neither one of them could receive Soviet permission for another apartment, they were forced to live together afterward. Granted, their accommodations were a bit better than most, given your father's usefulness to the state as a performer, but it was nonetheless a stressful situation. By the way, I saw your father perform several times. He was a marvelous acrobat."

She acknowledged the compliment with a nod.

"Your father became involved with a Romanian national who was a.s.sociated with the circus. She became pregnant, but returned home with the child. Your father tried to obtain an exit visa, but the authorities denied his requests. The communists were not in the habit of allowing their performers to leave. When he tried to leave without permission, he was detained and sent to a camp.

"Your mother remarried, but that marriage ended quickly in divorce. When she couldn't find a place to live after the second divorce-apartments were quite scarce, I remember well-she was forced to once again live with your father. By then, the authorities had decided to release him from the camp. So there, in that tiny apartment, the two of them languished in separate rooms until both died an early death. Quite a statement for our 'people's republic,' wouldn't you say?"

Akilina said nothing, but Lord could feel the pain radiating from her eyes.

"I lived with my grandmother in the country," she said to Pashenko, "so I didn't have to see my parents' torment. I didn't even talk with them the last three years. They died bitter, angry, and alone."

"Were you there when the Soviets took your grandmother away?" Pashenko asked.

She shook her head. "By then I had been placed in the special performers' school. I was told she died of old age. I only learned the truth later."

"You of all people should be a catalyst for change. Anything has to be better than what we had."

Lord felt for the woman sitting beside him. He wanted to a.s.sure her that things like that would never happen again. But that wouldn't be true. Instead, he asked, "Professor, do you know what's going on?"

A crease of concern laced the older man's face. "Yes, I do."

He waited for an explanation.

"Have you ever heard of the All-Russian Monarchist a.s.sembly?" Semyon Pashenko asked.

Lord shook his head.

"I have," Akilina said. "They want to restore the tsar to power. After the Soviet fall, they used to hold big parties. I read about them in a magazine article."

He nodded. "They held big parties. Monstrous affairs with people dressed as n.o.bles, Cossacks in tall hats, middle-age men in White Army uniforms. All designed to garner publicity, to keep the tsarist issue alive in the hearts and minds of the people. They were once thought fanatics. Now, not so."

"I doubt that group could be credited with the national referendum on restoration," Akilina said.

"I would not be so sure. There was far more to the a.s.sembly than met the eye."

"Could you get to the point, Professor?" Lord asked.

Pashenko sat in an almost unnatural pose that communicated no emotion. "Mr. Lord, do you recall the Holy Band?"

"A group of n.o.blemen who pledged their lives for the tsar's safety. Inept and cowardly. Not one of them was around when a bomb killed Alexander II in 1881."

"A later group took that same name," Pashenko said. "But I a.s.sure you, it was not inept. Instead, it survived Lenin, Stalin, and the Second World War. In fact, it still exists today. The public division is the All-Russian Monarchist a.s.sembly. But there is also a private portion, which I head."

Lord's gaze tightened on Pashenko. "And the purpose of this Holy Band?"

"The safety of the tsar."

"But there hasn't been a tsar since 1918."

"But there has."

"What are you taking about?"

Pashenko's fingers templed at his lips. "In Alexandra's letter and Lenin's note, you found what we have been missing. I must confess that until the other day, when I read those words, I harbored my own doubts. But now I am sure. An heir survived Yekaterinburg."

Lord shook his head. "You can't be serious, Professor."

"I am. My group was formed shortly after July 1918. My uncle and great uncle were both members of that Holy Band. I was recruited decades ago and have now risen to its leadership. Our purpose is to guard the secret and implement its terms at the appropriate time. But thanks to the communist purges, many of our members died. To ensure security, the Originator made sure no one knew all of the secret's terms. So a large part of the message vanished, including the starting point. You have now rediscovered that beginning."

"What do you mean?"

"Do you still have the copies?"

He grabbed his jacket and handed Pashenko the folded sheets.

Pashenko motioned. "Here, in Lenin's note. 'The situation with Yurovsky is troubling. I do not believe the reports filed from Yekaterinburg were entirely accurate, and the information concerning Felix Yussoupov corroborates that. The mention of Kolya Maks is interesting. I have heard this name before. The village of Starodug has likewise been noted by two other similarly persuaded White Guardsmen.' The information we lost was the name-Kolya Maks-and the village-Starodug. It is the starting point of the quest."

"What quest?" he asked.

"To find Alexie and Anastasia."

Lord sat back in the chair. He was tired, but what this man was saying sent his mind reeling.

Pashenko went on, "When the royal Romanov bodies were finally exhumed in 1991 and later identified, we positively learned that two may have survived the ma.s.sacre. The remains of Anastasia and Alexie have never been found to this day."

"Yurovsky claimed to have burned them separately," he said.

"What would you have claimed if you had been ordered to kill the imperial family and were two bodies short? You would lie because, otherwise, you would be shot for incompetence. Yurovsky told Moscow what they wanted to hear. But there are enough reports that have surfaced since the Soviet fall to cast great doubt on Yurovsky's declaration."

Pashenko was right. Affidavits gathered from Red Guardsmen and other partic.i.p.ants attested that not everyone may have died that July night. Accounts varied from the bayoneting of moaning grand d.u.c.h.esses to the stabbing and rifle-b.u.t.ting of hysterical victims. There were many contradictions. But he also recalled the snippet of testimony he found, apparently from one of the Yekaterinburg guards, dated three months after the murders.

But I realized what was coming. The talk of their fate was clear. Yurovsky made sure we all understood the task at hand. After a while, I started saying to myself that something should be done to let them escape.

He pointed to the papers. "There's another sheet there, Professor. From one of the guards. I didn't show you. You may want to read it."

Pashenko shuffled through and read.

"This is consistent with other testimony," Pashenko said when he finished. "Great sympathy developed for the imperial family. Many of the guards hated them, stole what they could, but others felt differently. The Originator made use of that sympathy."

"Who is the Originator?" Akilina asked.

"Felix Yussoupov."

Lord was shocked. "The man who killed Rasputin?"

"The same." Pashenko shifted in the chair. "My father and uncle told me a story once. Something that happened at the Alexander Palace, in Tsarskoe Selo. It was pa.s.sed down through the Holy Band, from the Originator himself. The date of the event is October 28, 1916."

Lord motioned to the letter Pashenko held. "That's the same date of that letter from Alexandra to Nicholas."

"Precisely. Alexie had suffered another hemophilic bout. The empress sent for Rasputin, and he came and eased the boy's suffering. Afterward, Alexandra broke down, and the starets starets berated her for not believing in both G.o.d and him. It was then that Rasputin prophesied that the one with most guilt would see the error of his way and a.s.sure that the blood of the imperial family resurrected itself. He also said only a raven and an eagle could succeed where all fail-" berated her for not believing in both G.o.d and him. It was then that Rasputin prophesied that the one with most guilt would see the error of his way and a.s.sure that the blood of the imperial family resurrected itself. He also said only a raven and an eagle could succeed where all fail-"

"-and that the innocence of beasts will guard and lead the way, being the final arbitor of success," Lord said.

"The letter confirms the story I was told years ago. A letter you found hidden away in the state archives."

"So what does all this have to do with us?" he asked.

"Mr. Lord, you are the raven."

"Because I'm black?"

"In part. You are a rarity in this nation. But there is something more." Pashenko motioned to Akilina. "This beautiful lady. Your name, my dear, means 'eagle' in old Russian."

There was surprise on her face.

"Now you see why we are so curious. Only a raven and an eagle can succeed where all fail. The raven connects himself with the eagle. I am afraid, Miss Petrovna, you are a part of this whether you realize or not. That is why I had the circus watched. I was sure the two of you would reconnect. Your doing that is further confirmation of Rasputin's prophecy."

Lord almost laughed. "Rasputin was an opportunist. A corrupt peasant who manipulated the grief of a guilt-ridden tsarina. If not for the tsarevich's hemophilia, the starets starets could have never wormed his way into the imperial household." could have never wormed his way into the imperial household."

"The fact remains Alexie was severely stricken and Rasputin could quell the attacks."

"We know know now that a lowering of emotional stress can affect bleeding. Hypnosis has been used for some time on hemophiliacs. Stress affects blood flow and vascular wall strength. From everything I've read, Rasputin would simply calm the boy. He'd speak to him, tell him tales about Siberia, tell him everything was going to be fine. Alexie would usually drift off to sleep, which also helped." now that a lowering of emotional stress can affect bleeding. Hypnosis has been used for some time on hemophiliacs. Stress affects blood flow and vascular wall strength. From everything I've read, Rasputin would simply calm the boy. He'd speak to him, tell him tales about Siberia, tell him everything was going to be fine. Alexie would usually drift off to sleep, which also helped."