Fire Ice

Zavala watched Dodson's battered truck jounce down the driveway. He was surprised Dodson had entrusted the manuscript to a complete stranger. On second thought, Je

The first page contained a short paragraph: "This is the journal of Major Peter Yakelev, captain in the tsar's Royal Cossacks Guard. I swear to God on my oath as an officer that all I'm about to tell you is true. " Zavala turned a page. "Odessa, 1918. As I sit in my humble room writing with fingers crippled by frostbite, I think of all I have endured in the past weeks. Bolshevik treachery, unspeakable cold and starvation have killed most of my sontia, the band of loyal Cossacks originally one hundred strong, only a handful of brave men remain. But the history of this valiant band will be written in blood, as saviors of Mother Russia, guardians of the flame of Peter the Great. Our own privations are nothing compared to those suffered by the gracious lady and her four daughters who, by the grace of God, have come into our care. God save the tsar! Within hours we leave our country forever and will set sail across the sea to Constantinople. This is the end of one story and the begi

Zavala became totally engrossed in the pages. The captain tended toward rhetorical flourishes, but he told a compelling story that took Zavala away from the sunlight playing on the English countryside to the bleak Russian winter. Blizzards howled across the steppes, death lurked in the dark forest, and treachery lay in wait in the humblest shack. He almost shivered with cold as he read of the hardships the captain and his men endured as they traveled through a dangerous and unforgiving land toward the sea. A shadow fell across the pages. Zavala looked up and saw Dodson standing there, a bemused smile on his face.

"Fascinating, isn't it?"

Zavala rubbed his eyes, then checked his watch. Two hours had passed. "It's incredible. What does it all mean?"

The Englishman picked up the bell and rang it. “Teatime."

The housekeeper brought out a steaming teapot and a tray of cucumber sandwiches and scones. Dodson poured their cups full, then leaned back in his chair and tented his fingers.

"My grandfather was undersecretary in King George's Foreign Office in 1917. He and the king had been drinking and womanizing companions in their youth. He was well acquainted with all the royal heads of Europe, including Tsar Nicholas, who was George's cousin. Nicholas was a short, slight man, although his ancestors had been a race of giants, and his limitations went beyond the physical. My father used to say that Nick wasn't a bad sort but a bit of a dim bulb."

“That description could fit half the political leaders in the world today."

"No argument there. Nicholas was even more inept than most, totally unsuited by intelligence and temperament for the job. Yet he had absolute authority over a hundred and thirty million people. He was entitled to the revenue from a million square miles of Crown lands and gold mines. Technically speaking, he was the richest man in the world. He owned eight magnificent palaces and was worth an estimated eight to ten billion dollars. In addition, he was the head of the church and, in the eyes of the peasantry, one step removed from God."

"That would have been a crushing responsibility for anyone."

"Quite so. He couldn't govern worth a damn, hated being tsar except for the chance to play soldier, and would have preferred living out his days in an English country house like this one. Unfortunately, it wasn't to be."

"The Russian Revolution came along."

"Precisely. You probably know much of what I'm about to say, but let me pull it all together for you. The conservatives in his court wanted him out even before the revolution. They worried that Russia's battering in World War I would trigger an uprising, and they hated the mad monk Rasputin because he had his hooks into the tsarina. There were demonstrations, food shortages, rampant inflation, strikes, refugees and anger over the millions of young Russians killed in this senseless war. Like the autocrat he was, Nicholas overreacted to the protests, his troops turned against him and he abdicated after being told it was in the best interests of the country. The Provisional Government arrested him, and he and his family were kept prisoner in their palace outside Saint Petersburg. The Provisional Government was overthrown by the well-organized Bolsheviks under Lenin, and Russia began its long, tragic experiment with Marxism."

"So Lenin and the communists inherited the tsar and his family."

"That's a good way of putting it. Lenin had the royal family and some servants and retainers moved to a mansion in Ekaterinburg, a gold-mining center in the Urals. And there, in July of 1918, they were supposedly all shot and bayoneted. Lenin was under pressure from his hard-liners, who wanted the entire family eliminated, and his people were talking to the Germans, who insisted on the safety of the women, but regarded the death of the tsar as an internal Russian affair. Lenin ordered the limited killings, then shifted the blame from his people to leftist revolutionaries. The story was generally accepted."

"What was your father's role at the time?"

"The king had ordered him to keep a close watch on events. King George and the tsar were cousins, after all. My father dispatched a trusted Russian-speaking agent named Albert Grimley to determine what had happened. You might say Grimley was the James Bond of his day. He arrived in Ekaterinburg shortly after the White Army chased the communists out and talked to the army officer investigating the murders. He found bullet holes and blood – but no bodies. The officer confided to Grimley that at most only two of the Romanovs had been murdered: the tsar and his son, who was heir to the throne. The officer's superiors suppressed his findings."

"Why would they do that?"

"The Whites were commanded by a reactionary monarchist general on a divine mission to save Russia from ruin.

He wanted the public to believe that the Bolsheviks murdered women and children. The family were more valuable to his cause as martyrs than as living people."

"What happened to the women?"

"It's all in Grimley's report. He suggested that the Bolsheviks moved the tsarina and the four girls before the male Romanovs were disposed of. The communists were in military trouble, and Lenin may have wanted the family as bargaining chips in case he got himself into a hash. Some researchers think the tsarina and her daughters were taken to a city called Perm, and stayed there until Perm came under attack by the Whites. Witnesses say the family was moved out with treasure and gold bullion that the communists had accumulated, and they and their treasure supposedly vanished from the official record on a train trip to Moscow. The Soviets clamped the lid down on all further information. It would have tarnished Lenin's halo if it got out that he was dealing with the Germans over the fate of the Romanovs."

"What happened to the Romanov treasure?"

"Only a small fraction of it was ever found."

"Your father reported his agent's findings to the king?"

"He filed a report saying that the mother and girls were probably alive and asked for help in putting together a rescue scheme. King George washed his hands of the affair, although he and Nicholas were related. Remember that the hated kaiser was cousin to George and Nicholas as well. Family loyalty only went so far among the royals. The king was afraid that he'd stir up the British left if he gave the women asylum. The tsarina was German by birth, and Germany was the enemy."