“Have you ever seen a photograph of Czar Nicholas the Second and George the Fifth standing together?”
Another crazy question that didn’t seem to have anything to do with anything. “Not that I can recall,” answered Holliday, irritated and exasperated by Genrikhovich’s pedantically convoluted speeches. The man could have been a professor droning along in a lecture hall filled with bored students. The thought brought him up short; he’d done just that for more than ten years at West Point.
Genrikhovich cleared his throat and began speaking again. “Many people commented that they looked like brothers. Wearing the same clothes they looked like twins, although there were three years between them.
“The truth is that, while certainly not twins, the two men were half brothers, both sired by Edward the Seventh but birthed by different mothers. In the czar’s case the woman was Empress Consort Maria Feodorovna, the wife of Edward’s cousin, the czar Alexander the Third, while George’s mother was Alexandra of Denmark, Edward’s wife at age seventeen.”
Holliday sighed. “Does all this information lead somewhere?”
It was Genrikhovich’s turn to sigh. “Of course it’s leading somewhere, Colonel. If I wanted to give lectures just to hear myself think I could do so at St. Petersburg State University, nyet?”
“Sorry,” apologized Holliday, not quite meaning it. “Go on.”
“The point I am endeavoring to make is that the two royal families were closer than even history tells us. The generally accepted reason for George the Fifth’s not rescuing his cousin the czar and the czar’s family during the 1917 revolution is that he feared just such a revolution in his own country. The facts offer a much simpler reason for King George’s inaction-he was afraid that with his half brother in England there would be a dispute over the line of succession for the throne of the British Empire. There were already grassroots rumors of the two men’s common father, and being the elder son, Nicholas would have had a legitimate claim. Had the czar shown any indication after his arrival in the British Isles of wanting the throne, there would have been chaos. The war was already bankrupting England; scandal over the monarchy would’ve been a disaster.”
“And this relates to the four swords how?” Holliday asked.
“Both the czar and King George were members of the Templar order, and both were well aware of the dangers presented should anyone discover the secret held by the upper echelons of the Order of the Phoenix. Unfortunately, the czarina, Alexandra, became smitten with the monk Rasputin. In exchange for the key to the Phoenix secret, he promised to cure young Alexi, her young hemophiliac son.
“When King George learned of this he ordered his director of military intelligence, Sir Matthew Smith-Cummings, to-and I am quoting His Royal Highness here-‘deal with the problem of the Russian monk.’ Smith-Cummings then contacted the British ambassador in St. Petersburg, Sir George Buchanan, who dispatched three agents, Oswald Rayner, Captain Stephen Alley and Captain John Scale, to do the deed.
“All three men had close ties with Prince Felix Felixovich Yusupov, who organized the plot to rid the czar of Rasputin. Rayner and Scale had known Yusupov at Oxford. Stephen Alley had been born at the Yusupov Palace, where his father was one of the prince’s tutors. He was a boyhood friend. Although most witness reports mention Rayner as being present, all three agents were present.
“It was Rayner who fired the fatal shot, however; of that there is little doubt. Rasputin took the key to the Phoenix secret to his watery grave in the Moika Canal, and for a hundred years it has been assumed that the secret was safe. It is only recently that a number of facts have come to light that would seem to indicate otherwise.”
“Quite the story,” said Holliday. “The king of England, the czar of Russia, Rasputin the Mad Monk, Vladimir Putin’s grandfather, Joseph Stalin, George Bush’s great-grandfather. . who’s next, the president of the United States?”
“No, Colonel Holliday, your president at the time, Woodrow Wilson, was only peripherally concerned,” Genrikhovich said blandly. “However, William McAdoo, secretary of the treasury and the first chairman of the board of governors, was deeply involved. His actions in 1916 and 1917 are still having repercussions today.”
Holliday gave a dull laugh. “You make this sound like one of those new world order conspiracies the Internet prattles on about.”
Genrikhovich shook his head. “There is nothing at all conspiratorial about it, Colonel. No one is trying to take over the world. Vladimir Putin simply intends to buy it, piece by piece; what he cannot buy he will subvert through power, fear or threat. He has begun the process already by co-opting the Orthodox Church in Russia to consolidate his power within the Federation. His next step is to find the key that was lost-the key that was known to Rasputin, the key that was the reason behind the creation of the four swords of Pelerin.
“Prime Minister Putin was once in the KGB, and much of his internal power stems from his control of the present-day FSB. I’m sure he is aware that you are the owner or at least caretaker of Hesperios, Sword of the West. I have no doubt that this is the reason for the pursuit following our meeting with Brother Dimitrov. He knows you are in Russia and he is hunting you; this is certain. One way or another you have very little choice. Either you help me find the location of the Great Declaration and destroy it before Putin gets it, or you will almost surely be killed.”
“People keep on telling me that.”
“It is a very simple truth, I’m afraid, Colonel.”
“All right.” Holliday sighed. “Where do we start?”
“At the Hermitage,” said Genrikhovich, pride in his voice. “The largest single museum in the entire world.”
10
Genrikhovich and Holliday walked west along the wide sidewalk of the Nevsky Prospekt with Eddie a full minute behind, watching for any close surveillance. It would be a hard call; even in October, St. Petersburg was full of strolling locals, tourists and other pedestrians window-shopping, stepping in and out of stores, appearing and disappearing in and out of metro stops, even walking dogs.
The broad avenue itself was crowded with cars and trolleybuses, their connectors crackling and flashing overhead as they passed. Nevsky Prospekt had been designed in the seventeenth century by Pyotr Alexeyevich Romanov, otherwise known as Peter the Great. Planned as the beginning of the road from St. Petersburg to Moscow, the avenue had always served as the city’s main street, but its grandeur had become tarnished over the centuries by war, Soviet rule, overhead wires, thousands of streetlamps and the near-Vegas glitz of countless neon signs on storefronts from Gucci and Tiffany to Pizza Hut and McDonald’s.
“Your friend is wasting his time,” said Genrikhovich, happily sipping a Starbucks Frappuccino.
Holliday himself held a plain black coffee. “You don’t think you might be under surveillance?”
“It is very doubtful. Not yet, at least. The discovery I made almost a month ago was accidental; the material was not classified.”
“You came across the border with us.”
“You give the Bulgarians far too much credit, Colonel Holliday. As far as bureaucracies are concerned things have changed little since the old days. If anything it is worse. In Bulgaria as in Russia we are still ruled by mediocrity, I can assure you.”
“Those men who came after us didn’t come out of nowhere,” said Holliday. He could feel an itch between his shoulder blades as hypothetical crosshairs targeted him.
“They were watching Brother Dimitrov.”
“And if they interrogate him?”
“He will tell them nothing, Colonel.”
“Everybody talks eventually,” answered Holliday.
“He is a man, like his grandfather. He would die first and take at least one of his interrogators with him.”