Romanov Succession Part 9

"I rather suspect it would have made him dictator of Russia in the end. I think he was willing to risk losing the whole packet for that."

"That is a harsh judgment, Alex. He was arrogant, yes-he was in love with being in command. But I never knew him to show the slightest spark of political desire."

"A dictator's not a politician. He's a conquering general."

"Va.s.sily's favorite general," Leon said slowly-pushing the words out with reluctance-"was Napoleon."

There was a clatter of china from within-servants clearing up. It seemed to distract Leon; he put the cigar in his mouth and crossed the veranda to shut both doors. He returned slowly to the bal.u.s.trade and Alex realized he had been using the time to compose his thoughts. He limped to the corner and stood there leaning on both palms, looking toward the dim heavy shadows of the mountains.

Alex said, "Va.s.sily's out of the picture-it serves no purpose to keep talking about him."

After a while Leon nodded. "You have hardly had time to formulate a tactical scheme but I infer that you have a strategy in your head. Can you outline it for me?"

"I'll try. We've got to remember we're not going to war-we're trying to effect a palace coup. Our objective isn't military, it's political. We need to keep the Russian army intact so that it can fight the Germans. What I'm saying is it's no good trying to storm Moscow with a regiment of rangers armed to the teeth-we don't want to lose the loyalty of the generals at the outset."

"What is the alternative then?"

"Trick Stalin and his coterie into an entrapment. Draw them to a place where we can reach them." He drew a breath. "Then blow them sky high."

"How do you propose to get them in the open?"

"I'll need the help of Oleg's man inside the Kremlin. I can't explain it better than that before I've talked with Oleg."

"Then do so." Leon turned to stare him in the eye. "Consider it settled, Alex. I will deal with the others. You will want to move very quickly."

"I'll have to start in the States then."

"That is where the purse strings are. You have met this Colonel Buckner?"

"Yes."

"You have rapport with him?"

"I think so. As long as our objective is the same."

"Yes. Do not count on the Americans too much-they want us to do their fighting for them. They want to defeat Germany with their money and our blood. They are willing to fight to the last Russian, as Anatol puts it." He changed the subject abruptly: "There is something else I must ask you to do. Last night I spoke of installing young Prince Felix on the figurehead throne. But the truth is that I am not sure he will accept."

"I'm sure he will."

"He has never had much love for pomp and ceremony." Leon sc.r.a.ped ashes from the cigar against the stone. "Will you intercede for me with Felix? He has always respected you-he told me once he wished he could care about things the way you do."

"Leon, it's you who's respected. By Felix and everyone else."

"No-I am taken for granted. You are much closer to his own age. He can't pretend to regard yours as grandfatherly demands."

"I'm not a glib talker, you know that."

"You measure your words. That makes them more valuable. He respects you for that-he will listen to you. Will you do it?"

"If you're sure it's best."

"Thank you. Felix will be racing in Madrid tomorrow. You can be there by car in time to catch him at the end of the race. Then you can fly on from Madrid the following day-it should not delay your schedule."

He shaved with the great care of dulled concentration. The scars at his throat seemed livid; his face looked weary and very old in the mirror and he was startled by the image. Va.s.sily looked like that.

He put on fawn slacks and a white shirt and prowled the corridors tieless and throbbing as if with hangover. When he knocked at Baron Oleg Zimovoi's door the echoes of his rapping seemed to carom throughout the villa.

He heard a groggy mutter and finally the door opened just a crack and a suspicious eye glared at him.

"I'm sorry to wake you. It's important." He had chosen the hour deliberately because Oleg's defenses would be down.

"Well come in then." Oleg stepped back ungraciously, walking away from him in a satin dressing gown that flapped around his calves-a curiously elegant garment for a workingman's politician.

It was one of the smaller bedchambers in the south wing of the villa but it was nonetheless a s.p.a.cious room, richly furnished and carpeted. A valise lay carelessly open on the floor and last night's suit was strewn in rumpled disorder across a chair; Oleg had no valet. The room stank of strong pipe tobacco; moths crashed around the lamp.

Oleg sat down on the edge of the bed and lowered his face, grinding knuckles into his eye sockets. "Time is it?"

"Half-past five."

"In G.o.d's name, what is it you want at this hour?" Then he looked up, bloodshot but suddenly alert. "You have been fool enough to accept the job."

"Yes. There's something I need to know. This contact of yours in the Kremlin. How much can we count on him for? How highly placed is he?"

"Highly enough. The man is General Vlasov."

It took Alex completely by surprise and he made no effort to conceal it.

"Vlasov has been one of us since Stalin began the purges eight years ago. Actually his sympathies were always with us. By 'us' of course I mean the exiled democratic Socialist wing. Vlasov is far too liberal to suit most of my colleagues in this venture. That is one reason I did not expose his name in the meeting. Anatol-to him the difference between Socialists and Bolsheviks is not a centime's"

Alex knew of Vlasov; the Soviet general had been recently in the news. A wirephoto came to mind: a great slab of a man-very big ears and thick eyegla.s.ses, heavy nose and jaw. He'd had a Red Army in the Kiev sector when the Soviets were trapped there by German armor and Vlasov was the only commander to fight his way out of the trap: he'd used a clever tactic, a planned retreat in the center to draw the panzers in and then a flanking movement, snapping both wings shut behind the Germans to trap them inside the circle. Vlasov had kept his army intact while Budyenny had given up and now, a month ago, Stalin had appointed him Commandant of the Moscow Army. Vlasov had been described as Stalin's favorite general; he shared responsibility for the defense of Moscow and he was regarded as Zhukov's most likely successor.

Alex said, "How do you maintain contact with him?"

"The usual thing. A series of drops. Couriers-blind exchanges. There is no way for anyone to trace the chain."

"That's too clumsy-too slow. I'll need direct contact."

"My dear Alex, I am your only means of communication with him and the only one you are going to have."

"That's no good. Suppose you're arrested by the Spanish police? It could happen at any time."

"I am prepared to take that risk."

"I'm not."

"You have little choice."

"Vlasov's security is expendable." Alex spoke harshly for effect. "If the operation succeeds his cover won't matter; if it doesn't he'll probably be found out anyway. I've got to have direct contact with him. Not through you-not through anyone."

"Impossible. I am the only one he trusts."

"Then tell him he's got to trust me as well. Or doesn't he trust you enough to believe that?"

"Well riposted, Alex, but I have given him my word."

"Ask him to release you from it."

Oleg tried to argue wordlessly but it was the easiest thing in the world to meet and hold a man's stare until he got tired of the game. Finally Oleg went to the dresser where the contents of his pockets were strewn; opened a pouch and spooned his pipe into it, tamping with his thumb. "Does it matter that much-or are you only trying to prove who is in command now?"

"I've got to work directly with Vlasov."

"If you prefer not to work through me then perhaps you had better work out a scheme that excludes Vlasov."

It had always been exasperating to deal with Oleg; he fought out of stubbornness more than conviction.

Oleg said, "The reason Va.s.sily is dead is that too many people learned about it. I cannot put Vlasov in that jeopardy."

"He's already in jeopardy. I can't do the job without him," Alex said. "Your loyalty to the idea-the coalition-is it a sham?" He maintained an impa.s.sive facade and watched the determined resistance in Oleg's eyes change to sardonic self-deprecation when he saw he was going to have to surrender his control.

Finally with grudging logic Oleg said, "I suppose your intransigence is more reasonable than my own. Very well. But you must let me do it my way. I shall advise you when you may approach him. Do not attempt it until you have my clearance."

"It's got to be done quickly."

"It will be. We haven't much time, have we-or the Fuehrer will do our job for us."

He had got what he'd come for; he turned to go but Oleg's voice arrested him. "You need men-I can provide them. If I ask them a thousand men will enlist with you."

"I won't need a thousand."

"Va.s.sily wanted a regiment...."

"We're not using Va.s.sily's plan."

The room began to stink of Oleg's pipe. He gave Alex a long scrutiny. "I see. But you still need people. My offer is genuine."

Alex supposed his hesitation was obvious. After a moment Oleg said, "You are afraid of an imbalance in your force-too many rabid young Socialists-that would displease our conservative friends. But there is a risk in neutrality, young Alex-if things go awry you will have no strong allies among us. I know the hardships of working alone, remaining aloof from all the rest. Often it is the best way but it is never easy."

"I haven't heard anybody suggest the job's easy."

"Of course. All right-tell me how many of my people you can absorb without incurring the anger of Anatol and the others. Give me a number and that many young men will be on whatever doorstep you wish on the appointed date."

"They'd want training. It's better to use professional soldiers."

"You may find that the professional soldiers of the world are otherwise occupied at the moment."

"Then keep the offer open."

"Of course. But for your own sake do not take too much time-it is the one thing you haven't got."

At noon he waited in the garden for Irina. The others hadn't yet finished lunch and Prince Leon was on a trunk call to Zurich, something to do with the Romanov finances, the sort of call you had to make cryptic and reserved because the lines pa.s.sed through Vichy France.

A rickety airplane stuttered along the horizon to the south, possibly carrying mail to Barcelona. When Irina appeared on the terrace he climbed the steps and took her hand.

She looked wan but self-possessed. She pushed her hair back from her temples. "You're leaving right away then."

"As soon as a few things have been signed."

"I'll go with you to Madrid," she said. "I'll bring Felix back if he agrees to come."

"How much have they told you?"

"I've made a few surmises." She had one of her Du Mauriers going; she coughed on the smoke. "I'm very glad you've taken it on. Va.s.sily still had all his respect for you in spite of what happened between you."

She'd given him the opening but he didn't take it and he felt the distance grow: the violence of Va.s.sily's death had estranged them. He didn't know what it meant-what could be done about it.

She said, "I just want to ride to Madrid with you. We'll sit together and you'll hold my hand."

The day was blazing hot and tinder dry on the two-kilometer Madrid course. Felix swept his left hand from the wheel to downshift before going into the turn. His eyes judged the banked edge. He allowed himself a quick glance over his shoulder at the Alfa Romeo: it was gaining. Felix's grip whitened on the wooden wheel and he cut across the turn, wheels skittering, running in second with his foot flat down on the hard-sprung metal plate of the accelerator and the tachometer needle beyond the red line.

The thunder of engines and wind pierced the cotton stuffed in his ears; dust raveled high above the oval strip, high enough to turn the sky pale, caking the spectators who stood in knots around the track and the mechanics in their grease-black coveralls waiting by the impromptu pits.

The Alfa behind him dropped back on the inside of the tight turn and now, coming out of it, Felix allowed his outside rear wheel to skip along the dusty loose shoulder, freewheeling for the few seconds it took to build up engine speed in high gear. It was a winning trick, practiced into habit; he felt the engine take hold when he sideslid back onto the hardpan. The ripsaw-buzzing Bugatti shot into the straightaway, surging ahead sharply enough to snap his neck back. The bright exhaust tubes shimmered before him.

The wound-up 57SC engine pushed toward its deafening limit in the tach's red zone. The Bugatti's polished long snake of a gearshift lever whipped violently with vibration and wind howled across the stark square top of the windscreen.

It was a race for the big cars, not the limited-formula Grand Prix cars he was accustomed to; these were eight-cylinder monsters running at well over a hundred miles an hour. The smallest mechanical malfunction, the slightest error of judgment, a slick of dropped crankcase-oil on the track could smash you to pulp or cause you to be pulled out of the car without a single mark on you, but dead all the same.

A sheared brake-rod had cost him ninety seconds in the pit after the seventeenth lap. He still had nearly a full lap to make up: the pack was running twenty lengths behind him but in fact it was Felix who was behind. It wasn't the Alfa he had to beat; the Alfa was two laps back; it was the four Mercedes Benz 540K juggernauts, and the D8S Delage but he had a feeling the French car hadn't the staying power to make the hundred laps. There were three 4-liter Hispano-Suizas in the crowd and a 4-liter Talbot-Lago rushing the inside rail with a hard vicious uproar, and a pair of old Mercedes Benz SSKs; a Frazer Nash-B.M.W., an aging American Duesenberg supercharged SJ, an Invicta and a Daimler. But it was the swollen great Mercedes Benz 540Ks, pledged to win for the Master Race, that had to be caught-and Felix meant to do it.

Another lap and he'd gained a few lengths; he was calculating the ground he had to eat-a hundred and twenty kilometers before the finish: how many meters did he need to gain per lap?

There were drivers who liked running half a lap behind; they would sit there out of the dust and racket and coast until the last ten laps. They called it "stroking": conserving the delicate machinery for the last push, waiting for the pack-leaders to drop out. Felix was a charger, he pushed his car to its limit and relied on his pit crew and the tough Bugatti engineers who'd built the car. They hadn't built it for loafing-they hadn't built him for it either.

He always drove against the red line.

Fiftieth lap ... fifty-fifth ... sixtieth. The pack was ahead of him and he had their dust in his teeth; he slid forward among the stragglers. The Alfa was still right behind him but the Alfa had an extra lap to make up and wasn't going to do it. Up ahead one of the German team's cars had got into a long fender-crashing duel with the Talbot-Lago, wheel hubs screaming and cars lurching, and the rest of the crowd was veering away from that idiocy, some of them falling back for safety. The big red Mercedes made another pa.s.s at the Talbot-Lago and the smaller car broke away, giving in, losing ground into the turn because he had to go at it from a bad angle. The red Mercedes thundered ahead with his three teammates blocking the crowd behind him. That was going to be the one to beat-the red one.

The Bugatti's 3.3-liter engine powered him past a low grey Auto Union with dark smoke coming out of its exhaust. He went tight into the lap turn; the Bugatti's low heavy cha.s.sis kept it on the track and allowed him to cut inside a wide-swinging Hispano-Suiza and the old Mercedes SSK that was crowding its tail. He was against the rear of the solid pack now and had to make openings for himself. Coming out of the turn against the inside of the oval he shot across the front of the Invicta and went across the straightaway to the outside edge, losing half a car length but gaining an opening beside the Daimler which he squeezed through before the Paraguayan had time to try and block him. He had grit in his teeth and a mote in his eye; he blinked it furiously and found the shift k.n.o.b by laying his open palm forward and letting the whipping flexible lever slap into it. There was a slot to the left of one of the big Mercedes and he judged it without turning the car that way because as soon as the Mercedes saw him make that move the slot would be closed; he'd have to take it in the sharp turn, pry a path between the Mercedes and the Hispano-Suiza to its left before the Mercedes could find room to swing left. The Mercedes had all the b.l.o.o.d.y power in the world with its enormous eight-cylinder pushrod engine but it was an unwieldy behemoth and it wasn't going to be able to cut him off when it was in the middle of a turn that strained its cornering to the limit; the Hispano-Suiza was an older car with a smaller engine but it could hug the inside curve and gain lengths and Felix knew the Hispano-Suiza's driver would have to play it that way, outmaneuvering because he couldn't outpower. It would leave a spread between the two cars and he had to get the Bugatti into that-at the crest of the turn when it was too late for the Mercedes to antic.i.p.ate it and too early for the Mercedes to block it.

Now without really thinking it out his body made a rapid sequence of motions to convert theory into practice. The left foot went onto the brake pedal and lay there without pressure. The left hand gripped the shift lever and the right hand at two o'clock on the wheel locked tight, the right arm tensing for its antic.i.p.ated leftward turn. The left hand popped the gear lever into neutral, without use of the clutch, and the right foot slammed down on the accelerator while the left foot lightly applied the brakes to bring her down to cornering speed. She was in neutral, braking on the end of the straightaway, and now he revved the engine up far across the red line. If there was a weakness anywhere in a piston or a rod it would explode now.

Left foot hard and fast from brake to clutch, and ram the clutch all the way to the floor. Engine still revving: left hand shift into third. Swinging into the turn now with the Mercedes waddling toward the outside and the Hispano-Suiza predictably shearing toward the inside. You could drive a battleship through there now. Dust wheeling up, the awful whine of superchargers drilling through the cotton waste in his ears, the hard seat and the tight leather harness bucking and pitching him around on the Bugatti's drum-tight suspension. Tires chittering on the track surface and the stink of imperfectly burned gasoline in his nostrils despite the swift sucking wind that made it hard to breathe at all....

Pop the clutch.

The engine, freewheeling beyond its safe margin of operate ing speed, suddenly ran up against resistance from the transmission and the differential gear between the back wheels. Now either something was going to break or the twin-cam power of Ettore Bugatti's finest engine was going to hurtle him into the gap.

The wheels slithered and gripped. The seat surged forward, pushing him back hard. The rear end was breaking a little to the right but he had that under control and he knew how much room he had to slide toward the Mercedes. He came into the crest of the turn doing a good fifteen miles an hour better than the Mercedes.