the Romanov Prophecy (2004) (3 page)

The
prospekt
was filled with squad cars and ambulances, light bars flashing, a multitude of uniformed officers everywhere. Traffic was at a standstill. Officers had secured the street at both ends, all the way to the McDonald’s.

Lord was led to a short, heavy-chested man with a bull neck and close-cropped reddish whiskers sprouting from fleshy cheeks. Deep lines streaked his brow. His nose was askew, as if from a break that had never healed, and his complexion carried the sallow pale all too common with Russians. He wore a loose-fitting gray suit and a dark shirt under a charcoal overcoat. His shoes were dog-eared and dirty.

“I am Inspector Orleg.
Militsya.
” He offered a hand. Lord noticed liver spots freckling the wrist and forearm. “You one here when shots were fired?”

The inspector spoke in accented English, and Lord debated whether to answer in Russian. It would surely ease their communication. Most Russians assumed Americans were too arrogant or too lazy to master their language—particularly black Americans, whom he’d found they viewed as something of a circus oddity. He’d visited Moscow nearly a dozen times over the past decade and had learned to keep his linguistic talent to himself—garnering in the process an opportunity to listen in on comments between lawyers and businessmen who thought they were protected by a language barrier. At the moment, he was highly suspicious of everyone. His previous dealings with the police had been confined to a few disputes over parking and one incident where he was forced to pay fifty rubles to avoid a bogus traffic violation. It wasn’t unusual for the Moscow police to shake down foreigners.
What do you expect from somebody who earns a hundred rubles a month?
an officer had asked while pocketing his fifty dollars.

“The shooters were police,” he said in English.

The Russian shook his head. “They dress like police.
Militsya
not gun people down.”

“These did.” He glanced beyond the inspector at the bloodied remains of Artemy Bely. The young Russian was sprawled faceup on the sidewalk, his eyes open, brown-red ribbons seeping from holes in his chest. “How many were hit?”

“Pyát.”

“Five? How many dead?”

“Chet´yre.”

“You don’t seem concerned. Four people shot dead in the middle of the day on a public street.”

Orleg shrugged. “Little can be done. The roof is tough to control.”

“The roof” was the common way to refer to the
mafiya
who populated Moscow and most of western Russia. He’d never learned how the term came into being. Maybe it was because that was how people paid—through the roof—or perhaps it was a metaphor for the odd pinnacle of Russian life. The nicest cars, largest
dachas,
and best clothes were owned by gang members. No effort was made to conceal their wealth. On the contrary, the
mafiya
tended to flaunt their prosperity to both the government and the people. It was a separate social class, one that had emerged with startling speed. His contacts within the business community considered protection payments just another facet of company overhead, as necessary to survival as a good workforce and steady inventory. More than one Russian acquaintance had told him that when the gentlemen in the Armani suits paid a visit and pronounced,
Bog zaveshchaet delit’sia—
God instructs us to share—they were to be taken seriously.

“My interest,” Orleg said, “is why those men chase you.”

Lord motioned to Bely. “Why don’t you cover him up?”

“He not mind.”

“I do. I knew him.”

“How?”

He found his wallet. The laminated security badge he’d been given weeks ago had survived the cement bath. He handed it to Orleg.

“You part of Tsar Commission?”

The implied question seemed to ask why an American would be involved with something so Russian. He was liking the inspector less and less. Mocking him seemed the best way to show how he felt.

“I part of Tsar Commission.”

“Your duties?”

“That confidential.”

“May be important to this.”

His attempt at sarcasm was going unnoticed. “Take it up with the commission.”

Orleg pointed to the body. “And this one?”

He told him that Artemy Bely was a lawyer in the Justice Ministry, assigned to the commission, who’d been helpful in arranging access to the Soviet archives. On a personal level, he knew little more than that Bely was unmarried, lived in a communal apartment north of Moscow, and would have loved to visit Atlanta one day.

He stepped close and gazed down at the body.

It had been a while since he last saw a mutilated corpse. But he’d seen worse during six months of reserve duty that turned into a year in Afghanistan. He was there as a lawyer, not a soldier, sent for his language skills—a political liaison attached to a State Department contingent—present to aid a governmental transition after the Taliban was driven out. His law firm thought it important to have someone involved. Good for the image. Good for his future. But he’d found himself wanting to do more than shuffle paper. So he helped bury the dead. The Afghans had suffered heavy losses. More than the press had ever noted. He could still feel the scorching sun and brutal wind, both of which had only sped decomposition and made the grim task more difficult. Death was simply not pleasant. No matter where.

“Explosive tips,” Orleg said behind him. “Go in small, come out large. Take much with them along way.” The inspector’s voice carried no compassion.

Lord glanced back at the blank stare, the rheumy eyes. Orleg smelled faintly of alcohol and mint. He’d resented the flippant remark about covering the body. So he undraped the blanket from around him, bent down, and laid it across Bely.

“We cover our dead,” he told Orleg.

“Too many here to bother.”

He stared at the face of cynicism. This policeman had probably seen a lot. Watched how his government gradually lost control, himself working, like most Russians, on the mere promise of payment, or for barter, or for black-market U.S. dollars. Ninety-plus years of communism had left a mark.
Bespridel,
the Russians called it. Anarchy. Indelible as a tattoo. Scarring a nation to ruin.

“Justice Ministry is frequent target,” Orleg said. “Involve themselves in things with little concern for safety. They have been warned.” He motioned to body. “Not first or last lawyer to die.”

Lord said nothing.

“Maybe our new tsar will solve all?” Orleg asked.

He stood and faced the inspector, their toes parallel, bodies close. “Anything is better than this.”

Orleg appraised him with a glare, and he wasn’t sure if the policeman agreed with him or not. “You never answer me. Why men chase you?”

He heard again what Droopy said as he slid out of the Volvo.
The damn
chornye
survived.
Should he tell Orleg anything? Something about the inspector didn’t seem right. But his paranoia could simply be the aftereffect of what had happened. What he needed was to get back to the hotel and discuss all this with Taylor Hayes.

“I have no idea—other than I got a good view of them. Look, you’ve seen my security clearance and know where to find me. I’m soaking wet, cold as hell, and what’s left of my clothes has blood soaked into them. I’d like to change. Could one of your men drive me to the Volkhov?”

The inspector did not immediately reply. He just stared with a measured mien Lord thought intentional.

Orleg returned his security card.

“Of course, Mr. Commission Lawyer. As you say. I have car made available.”

THREE

Lord was driven to the Volkhov’s main entrance in a police cruiser. The doorman let him inside without a word. Though his hotel identification was ruined, there was no need to show it. He was the only man of color staying there, instantly recognizable, though he was given a strange look at the tattered condition of his clothes.

The Volkhov was a pre-revolutionary hotel built in the early 1900s. It sat near the center of Moscow, northwest of the Kremlin and Red Square, the Bolshoi Theater diagonally across a busy square. During Soviet times the massive Lenin Museum and monument to Karl Marx had been in full view from the street-side rooms. Both were now gone. Thanks to a coalition of American and European investors, over the last decade the hotel had been restored to its former glory. The opulent lobby and lounges, with their murals and crystal chandeliers, conveyed a tsarist atmosphere of pomp and privilege. But the paintings on the walls—all from Russian artists—reflected capitalism because each was marked for sale. Likewise, the addition of a modern business center, health club, and indoor pool brought the old facility further into the new millennium.

He rushed straight to the main desk and inquired if Taylor Hayes was in his room. The clerk informed him that Hayes was in the business center. He debated whether or not he should change clothes first, but decided he could not wait. He bounded across the lobby and spotted Hayes through a glass wall, sitting before a computer terminal.

Hayes was one of four senior managing partners at Pridgen & Woodworth. The firm employed nearly two hundred lawyers, making it one of the largest legal factories in the southeastern United States. Some of the world’s biggest insurers, banks, and corporations paid the firm monthly retainers. Its offices in downtown Atlanta dominated two floors of an elegant blue-tinted skyscraper.

Hayes possessed both a MBA and a law degree, his reputation that of a proficient practitioner in global economics and international law. He was blessed with a lean athletic body, and his maturity was reflected in brown hair streaked with gray. He was a regular on CNN as an on-camera commentator and cast a strong television presence, his gray-blue eyes flashing a personality Lord often thought a combination of showman, bully, and academician.

Rarely did his mentor appear in court, and even less frequently did he participate in weekly meetings among the four dozen lawyers—Lord included—who manned the firm’s International Division. Lord had worked directly with Hayes several times, accompanying him to Europe and Canada, handling research and drafting chores delegated his way. Only in the past few weeks had they spent any prolonged time together, their relationship along the way evolving from “Mr. Hayes” to “Taylor.”

Hayes stayed on the road, traveling at least three weeks every month, catering to the firm’s wide array of international clients who didn’t mind paying $450 an hour for their lawyer to make house calls. Twelve years before, when Lord joined the firm, Hayes had taken an instant liking to him. He later learned Hayes had specifically asked that he be assigned to International. Certainly an honors graduation from the University of Virginia Law School, a master’s in Eastern European history from Emory University, and his language proficiency qualified him. Hayes started assigning him all over Europe, especially in the Eastern bloc. Pridgen & Woodworth represented a wide portfolio of clients heavily invested in the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, the Baltic states, and Russia. Satisfied clients meant a steady rise within the firm to senior associate—and soon, he hoped, junior partner. One day, maybe, he was going to be the head of International.

Provided, of course, he lived to see that day.

He yanked open the glass door to the business center and entered. Hayes peered up from the computer terminal. “What the hell happened to you?”

“Not here.”

A dozen men dotted the room. His boss seemed to instantly understand and, without another word, they moved toward one of several lounges dotting the hotel’s ground floor, this one adorned with an impressive stained-glass ceiling and pink marble fountain. Over the past few weeks its tables had become their official meeting place.

They slid into a booth.

Lord grabbed a waiter’s attention and tapped his throat, the sign he wanted vodka. Actually, he
needed
vodka.

“Talk to me, Miles,” Hayes said.

He told him what had happened. Everything. Including the comment he heard one of the gunmen utter and Inspector Orleg’s speculation that the killing was directed at Bely and the Justice Ministry. Then he said, “Taylor, I think those guys were after me.”

Hayes shook his head. “You don’t know that. It could be you got a good look at their faces, and they decided to eliminate a witness. You just happened to be the only black guy around.”

“There were hundreds of people on that street. Why single me out?”

“Because you were with Bely. That police inspector’s right. It could have been a hit on Bely. They could have been watching all day, waiting for the right time. From the sound of it, I think it was.”

“We don’t know that.”

“Miles, you just met Bely a couple of days ago. You don’t know beans about him. People die around here all the time, for a variety of unnatural reasons.”

Lord glanced down at the dark splotches on his clothes and thought again about AIDS. The waiter arrived with his drink. Hayes tossed the man a few rubles. Lord sucked a breath and gulped a long swallow, letting the fiery alcohol calm his nerves. He’d always liked Russian vodka. It truly was the best in the world. “I only hope to God he’s HIV-negative. I’m still wearing his blood.” He tabled the glass. “You think I ought to get out of the country?”

“You want to?”

“Shit, no. History is about to be made here. I don’t want to cut and run. This is something I can tell my grandkids about. I was there when the tsar of all Russia was restored to the throne.”

“Then don’t go.”

Another swig of vodka. “I also want to be around to see my grandchildren.”

“How did you get away?”

“Ran like hell. It was strange, but I thought of my grandfather and ‘coon hunting to keep me going.”

A curious look came to Hayes’s face.

“The sport of local rednecks back in the nineteen forties. Take a nigger out in the woods, let the dogs get a good whiff, then give him a thirty-minute head start.” Another swallow of vodka. “Assholes never caught my granddaddy.”

“You want me to arrange protection?” Hayes asked. “A bodyguard?”

“I think that’d be a good idea.”