Romanov Succession Part 25

The two sentries came to atttention and Alex said, "One of you hike up there and see if you can help him on his way." But then the driver buckled the flap down and climbed back into the car and smoke spurted from the pipes when the engine caught. The Daimler moved away-quite slowly.

"If anyone else stops move them along."

"Yes sir."

The publican brought their steaks and Irina dimmed the little kerosene lamp on the table. Through the doorway there was a l.u.s.ty racket from the saloon bar. The velvet blackout curtains made the room stuffy; smoke hung against the low ceiling. It seemed to affect her eyes but she went on puffing at the Du Maurier. No one else was dining in the room. The walls were cluttered with the obligatory gimcracks-copper mugs, shotguns, a pair of flintlock pistols, emblems of highland regiments, photographs of hunting dogs and golfers in plus fours. Logs burned cozily on the hearth opposite their table.

Silence separated them. It was only in public formalities that she was capable of pretending an emotion she didn't feel. They cut up the Angus beef and ate it. Finally the awkwardness got too much for her. "What's the matter, darling?" A new Du Maurier; he struck the match for her.

"Getting close to the time, I suppose. Tense-you can't help it."

"That's not all of it. You used to look like this when-"

"When what?"

"I'm not sure. It's not a happy look. You know, darling, it's not hard to hide something but it can be very hard to hide that you've got something to hide."

"What do you suppose I'm hiding?"

"Whatever it is it's got to do with me-with us."

When he didn't reply to that she said, "I suppose it's still Va.s.sily."

"Perhaps it is. I had a dream about him-he was riding me down with a Cossack horde."

"You feel you've betrayed him, don't you?"

"It's d.a.m.ned foolish of me. But he might have made this work. His plan. The odds were against it-more than they are with mine-but he might have done it. It was possible."

"And he might have made me happy, isn't that it? Part of it?"

He brooded at her hand-smoke curling from the cigarette in her fingers on the table. Irina said, "Odd that we always seem concerned for other people's happiness. We want to make one another happy but we don't seek happiness for ourselves-it's too illusory. It isn't what you want, is it? To be happy?"

"I don't suppose it is. I haven't thought about it."

Then it was as if she changed the subject: "Va.s.sily wasn't cold. But he couldn't love. His heart was too acquisitive-he had too much ambition. It's a thing of the self, it doesn't make room to let other people in. He was the same with both of us, you and me-he wanted our loyalty, our good opinion; he wanted to be admired."

"I think we all do."

"To the point of obsession?"

"Va.s.sily was clever-he was shrewd, cunning. But he didn't have good sense." He wasn't sure why he said that.

She said abruptly, "It might be a good idea if you tried to stop thinking of him as if he'd been your father. You've put yourself in an impossible position. You thought of him paternally but he thought of you as a dangerous rival. If he were alive he'd never grant you his approval, you know that. He was jealous of you-more afraid of you than you were of him."

"Why?"

"Because he knew you had adaptability and compa.s.sion. I think he always knew you'd overtake him. He tried to keep you down with his thumb. When you broke with him and went to America he wasn't heartbroken; he was afraid."

She thrust her chair back. "It's something for you to think about, Alex. If he'd lived he'd have had to end up subordinating himself to you."

He held her coat for her. "b.u.t.ton up-it's a cold night."

"I'm a Russian woman." She left the fur collar open against her shoulders.

He seated her in the Austin and went around to take the wheel. Pale ribbons of light from the slitted blackout headlamps threw a meager illumination across the dark wet paving. The engine ran a little rough-perhaps the plugs were burnt; perhaps it was only the chill. He adjusted the choke and made the turns up through Inverness.

There was a car in the mirror: it kept a steady distance. There weren't many legitimate places for a vehicle to be going at this time of night under blacked-out curfew conditions. His muscles tightened, knuckles going pale on the wheel.

Irina turned around to look back. After a while they were on the open high road and she said, "I think it's a Daimler coupe."

It began to close the gap as they left the town behind-easing closer at a steady rate. The road ran up through swinging bends to a plateau inland from the sea; then it would be a reasonably flat run through eight miles of coastal plain to the gate of the base. The trouble was he wasn't sure enough of the road to have a full-out run at it in the dark; in any case the Daimler was a far more powerful car and if they meant to run him off the road he couldn't prevent their overtaking him.

He said, "Let me have the revolver," He'd left it under the pa.s.senger seat when they'd gone in to dine; it was nervy enough being a Russian officer here, it wouldn't do to walk into a public house festooned with weaponry.

He held his left hand out palm up and she fitted the hand gun into it; they were nearly at the top of the bends. "Slide down in the seat."

"Perhaps I should have the gun while you're driving."

"Can you use it?"

"Not very well. I could make noise with it."

"Let's make sure who they are first."

"We can't race them in this little car."

"I know," he said. "We'll do the opposite. Duck down now, Irina."

He remembered the Daimler coupe that had stopped outside the fence this afternoon. Too much coincidence. He laid his thumb across the revolver's hammer and slid forward on the seat until he could only just see over the wheel. The Austin chugged over the top onto the flats in third; he kept it in third and kept the speed down to twenty-five. The slitted lights of the Daimler bobbed over the crest and slid forward in the mirror, sinister and disembodied in the night. Alex crowded over against the left-hand edge of the road; the Austin whined along with a slight list because of the road's crown. Irina had a graceless posture, far down and sitting on the back of her neck. He was sure she was smiling at the ludicrousness of it. He dropped the stick into second and let the Austin coast with the clutch all the way to the floor; the speedometer needle dropped toward fifteen and the Daimler came along quickly, pulling out to the right to go by. "Keep your head down now."

It gave the Daimler several options but it was no good antic.i.p.ating which the Daimler would choose; he was as prepared for any of them as he could be. When the nose of the car drew even with his eye he ducked all the way below the sill and touched the brake gently because this would be the time they'd fire and his braking might throw off their aim.

The bullet caromed off something in front of him and slid away with a sobbing sound; the Daimler roared away ahead.

He straightened to see through the windscreen. There was a silver slash across the painted metal two feet beyond the gla.s.s. The Daimler was fishtailing with acceleration but it might be trying to gain a little distance before slewing across the road and blocking him: so Alex simply stopped the car.

Irina began to sit up but he said, "Stay down." He shifted the revolver to his right hand and put it out the window.

But the Daimler sped right on away, its single red taillight reappearing on a farther incline and then being absorbed into the night.

She sat up and adjusted her coat. "Wasn't that rather pointless?"

"I don't know."

"If they meant us real harm they certainly behaved halfheartedly. To say the least."

"They may be waiting for us. Up the road."

But it was the road he had to take. After ten minutes he put the Austin in gear.

Now he went fast because if they'd set up an ambush he didn't want to give them time for a clear shot. He got the Austin up to fifty and held it there in fourth; he couldn't go much faster because the narrow road had sudden turns between the stone walls of the Scottish farms. Irina held the revolver and he used both hands on the wheel. He went into the turns fast and came out of them slow because they might have chosen a blind spot to wedge the Daimler across the road.

"Did you see their faces at all?"

"No. But it was only one man-the driver."

"Strange," she said. "I wasn't frightened then. Now look at me, I can't stop shaking."

The Daimler was gone. He had to stop at the gate and be recognized by sentries and then he drove straight to the hangar and trotted to the phone inside: he got an outside line and rang through to Coastal Patrol. He had a piece of luck: MacAndrews was still in his office.

"It's a Daimler coupe, dark green, with a closed rumble seat. I couldn't make out the plate number but it's heading southeast-it can't be more than ten miles from here."

"I'll ring up the constabularies down that way. Afraid I can't promise too much you know-it might have turned off anywhere."

"I'd like to ask that driver a few questions. But tell them to treat him with care-he's got a gun. Probably a pistol since he used it one-handed from the car."

"We'll stop him if we can. Sorry about this, General-rotten hospitality, isn't it."

He cradled it and swiveled in the chair to find Irina in the door with one shoulder tipped against the jamb. She looked oddly young: her face was flushed, her slack pose a bit ungainly, like that of a young girl ready to sprawl. "Take me to bed, darling."

The Bentley dropped Anatol at the curb and went in search of a parking s.p.a.ce while Ivanov's manservant carried Anatbl's overnight bag into the house.

The diminutive Baron was in a rage because shrapnel from a five-hundred-pounder had chipped a corner off his house. It had razed the house two doors away but that wasn't what angered him. "You simply can't get that sort of cornice work done any more for any price. It can never be restored. It's time to put a stop to this. .h.i.tlerian nonsense."

"Yes well I suppose we are all doing our bit about that."

But Ivanov went on with his invective until he recognized how silly it was; finally he dragged a palm across the bald peak of his skull and went in search of a cigar. When he returned he had restored his composure. "I know it is petty. But one resents such a thing as if it were a personal affront. War should be a matter for soldiers and battlefields."

Anatol selected a chair. "What have you to tell me?"

"Nothing good. I have not been able to persuade Zurich to support us."

Anatol kept his face straight but his words were bitten off. "They are fools."

"Perhaps. Perhaps they are only apolitical men doing their duty. It is their responsibility to safeguard the Romanov fortunes regardless of what happens, regardless of who wins wars. If they were to back the Devenko plan it would require that the Romanov capital be depleted by vast sums. They have measured the risks and found them too dangerous. They are prudent men."

"Then we have no alternative but to support Alex Danilov."

"Yes-because he's acceptable to the Allies. We have no other source of funds but the Allies now."

"I detest being beholden to them."

"If we succeed in Moscow we can repudiate them at our leisure," Ivanov murmured.

"Perhaps. But what's to prevent them from withdrawing their support at any moment?"

"One can only be optimistic about that." Ivanov stared bitterly at a great jagged crack in the plaster ceiling. "The American Colonel has been in London for ten days. He finally obtained an interview with Churchill. Now I understand he is on his way to Scotland to be with General Danilov. Does that sound like the behavior of a man who is about to withdraw support?"

"Buckner is a nervous man. He jumps at shadows."

"Then all we can do is try to keep him calm."

"I don't like it," Anatol said.

Brigadier Cosgrove showed up in a dreary overcast with Colonel Glenn Buckner in tow. Buckner looked the same and it disconcerted Alex; somehow you expected people to look different in new surroundings but the American looked exactly the same as he'd looked in Washington the first time they'd met: he even wore the same bulky blue flannel suit. Alex was surprised to realize it had been only about eleven weeks since that first meeting.

Buckner was ebullient. "I hear you've been working miracles up here."

Cosgrove had with him an enormous case which must have weighed eighty pounds but he'd refused to allow anyone else to carry it off the plane. Now with his one arm he heaved it up onto Alex's desk and undid the fasteners one at a time and flipped the lid back. The case was filled with stacks of identical manila envelopes. "Your men's papers-the forgeries. We had the devil's own time getting it done this quickly. You'd better have a close look-they seem all right to the chaps in my office but of course they're not going to have to use them. You'll know what to look for."

"We'll go over them tonight." Alex peeled one of them open and shuffled through the cards and badges and oddments of paper. "I'm deeply grateful-it was fast work."

"Nonsense old boy. Had to be done-you did a good job convincing me of that."

Buckner said, "You're looking d.a.m.ned fit for a man who got shot at again."

"Shot at. Not shot up."

"You were wounded the first time. I feel like I ought to grovel-I was supposed to have tight security on you."

"No real harm done," Alex said.

"Any clues this time?"

"No. We found the car they'd used. Abandoned, no useful fingerprints. It had been stolen in Glasgow a day earlier." Alex went around behind the desk. "I suppose I'd better ask why we're being honored by this distinguished delegation."

Buckner looked around the room as if it had fascinating decor. "You're getting close to jump-off point. My boss asked me to be on the scene."

"You won't be going in with us. There won't be much for you to see."

Buckner shrugged. "You know how it is."

Cosgrove hadn't taken a seat. He scratched the stump of his arm through his shirt-he seemed to have a perpetual itch there. "I'll push off then. I only wanted to be sure those papers reached you. Didn't want to trust them to anyone else's care."

Buckner stood up. "Thanks for the lift, Brigadier."

"No trouble at all."

When the brigadier had gone Buckner went to the door and shut it and went back to his seat. "Now then."

"What are you really here for, Glenn?"

"To throw a potential monkey wrench in your plans."

A chill ran through him; he made his voice hard. "Would you like to explain that?"

"That's what it's going to take. Explaining. Have you got a few minutes?"