41

June loosened the grip of winter upon Siberia, but with the warm weather came even more uncertainty and disruption to the land of Russia. Lenin’s government was starting to bend under assault not only from outside and the challenge of the Whites, but also from within, among rival socialist parties. As Lenin began to expel more and more critics from his government, he desperately began to look toward the Urals as a place of retreat for his beleaguered government should he still fail.

In the midst of this rose another unexpected threat that would not only cut off Lenin’s hope of a retreat but which would prove most significant for the Romanov family imprisoned in Ekaterinburg. Before the end of the war, forty thousand soldiers of the Czech Legion had surrendered to the Russians. They had been coerced into the Austrian army and no longer wished to fight for the Imperialist nation. They now hoped to rejoin the Allies by getting out of Russia via the Trans-Siberian Railroad, east to Vladivostok. The Bolsheviks tried to induce them into staying and supporting the revolution. Eventually disputes flared between the two sides until finally the Czech Legion mutinied altogether.

With lightning speed, the Czechs began to overwhelm the disorganized Siberian Reds, taking town after town along the railroad and cutting off the flow of desperately needed supplies to Moscow and Petrograd. Ekaterinburg lay on a northern spur of the rail line, but because of its strategic importance, it, too, became a target of the invading Czechs. And inch by inch they began to close in on the city.

“What’s that?” hissed Bruce, pointing toward a dim light.

“Maybe it’s the one,” whispered Daniel. There seemed no reason to speak in such hushed tones except the ambiance of the night invited it.

Tentacles of fog reached into the sultry air along the waterfront of the Miass River in Ekaterinburg. Daniel was thankful for the covering of the mist because there was little darkness to be had in this season of White Nights. All these weeks in Ekaterinburg, he and Bruce had managed to remain fairly anonymous. Luckily, the center of Russia’s platinum industry, with a population of seventy-five thousand, was practically a metropolis compared to the sleepy little Tobolsk.

And there were many other more prominent figures for the Cheka to watch here besides the two quiet guests at the Palais Royal Hotel. Daniel continued to successfully pass himself off as a fur trader from Vladisvostok, while many thought Bruce was his mute secretary. It was under this guise that Daniel arranged to meet with the steamship skipper, Serge Plautin.

As Daniel and Bruce searched for the steamer Ural Queen, where Daniel had arranged to rendezvous with Plautin, he hoped what he had heard about the skipper was true—that he was a loyal monarchist. Daniel had been vague in his own introductory remarks when he met briefly with Plautin a few days ago, but the skipper was no fool and thus must have quickly surmised Daniel’s true intent. If the man turned out to be a Red informer, he and Bruce would no doubt soon be walking into a trap.

The taverns along the waterfront were busy, testimony to the truth of the stories that Russia’s peasants were distilling hundreds of thousands of tons of precious grain into moonshine vodka while people starved. But pulling his attention from that side of the street, Daniel continued to peer through the fog toward the dim light he had noticed.

They turned down a finger of the wharf where about half a dozen boats, mostly fishing scowls, were anchored. The area fit Plautin’s directions and, sure enough, the boat with the dull light coming from a lantern in the cabin was the Ural Queen. Even in the foggy night it looked as if the fifty-foot steamer had seen several decades of hard service on the river hauling iron ore or coal from the many mines in the area.

“Plautin,” Daniel called in a low voice.

A head poked out of the cabin hatch, and, illuminated in the eerie light, appeared to be just as hardened as the boat itself—leathery skin, scored with wrinkles, peppered with a dingy beard, with dull light coming from dark eyes.

“Come aboard,” said the skipper in a discordantly refined voice. He came off as a man of culture in the skin of a derelict.

Daniel and Bruce scrambled aboard, and Plautin ushered them into the cabin, a cluttered, unkempt place with books crammed into every corner that wasn’t filled with other odd debris. Daniel tried to picture the tsar of Russia and his proud tsaritsa traveling in these quarters.

“May I offer some refreshment?” asked Plautin. He reached for a bottle of vodka and three glasses.

“We’d rather not mix vodka with business,” said Daniel.

With a shaky hand Plautin filled only one of the glasses. “I mix vodka with everything!” He grinned and sipped his drink. “So you intrigued me earlier when we spoke. What exactly do you want from me?”

“Passage out of Ekaterinburg for about a dozen passengers, as I said,” Daniel replied. “Preferably in a very covert manner.”

“Destination?”

“We would head north, eventually merging with Irtysh River and traveling north to the Barents Sea.”

“A long journey. Who are your passengers?”

“Is it necessary for you to know?”

“If they were nobodies named Ivan Ivanov, it would mean nothing. But if the surname were . . . say . . . Romanov—well, you can see that it would make a great difference. The risks would be multiplied immensely.”

“Then let’s just factor in the maximum risks.”

Plautin smiled, drained his glass, and quickly refilled it. “This will not come cheaply.”

“Does anything in this land?” Daniel replied, then translated for Bruce.

“Tell him money is no object,” said Bruce in English.

“That’s all he needs to hear,” said Daniel ruefully. “Let me barter just a little.”

“I swear,” countered Bruce good-naturedly, “you are becoming more Russian than American.”

“It was bound to happen.” Then Daniel turned back to the skipper, hoping that he could be just as canny as any Russian. “A thousand rubles,” he said in Russian, “before we leave town and a thousand rubles when my party is safely at the destination.” That was a total of just over two thousand dollars. Probably more money than the hapless Plautin had seen in years.

Plautin only laughed in response. “First, I want dollars—U.S. dollars. Nice new ones, no wrinkles. Twenty thousand of them—ten before we leave and ten when the job is done.”

“You must be joking!” Daniel exclaimed. “Why, that’s a king’s—” But he stopped short of the word “ransom,” realizing he was indeed bartering literally for a king’s ransom. He interpreted the proposed deal to Bruce.

“I thought this man was a loyal monarchist,” said Bruce.

“Loyal capitalist monarchist.”

“Make the deal,” Bruce conceded.

“I’m sure I can talk him down—”

“Don’t bother. I am willing to pay a lot more.”

Daniel hoped the refined skipper didn’t speak English, for he might decide to raise his price upon hearing that. Daniel said to Bruce, “It’ll take time to get that much money in dollars.”

“See if he will take pounds.”

“You have that much?”

“Perhaps we can work something out with the British consul here. It would be faster and safer than trying to work through the American embassy in Petrograd.”

Daniel made the proposal to the skipper.

“I’d rather have dollars,” said the skipper obstinately. “I plan to retire to America after this job.”

Daniel threw up his hands. “Never mind! We’ll find another skipper.”

“The only other decent skippers in this town are Reds,” argued Plautin.

“I’ll take my chances.” In a huff, Daniel turned, nudging Bruce to follow him.

He had started to climb through the hatch when Plautin called out, “All right. I’ll take the English money, but it must be good and new!”

With a victorious wink at Bruce, Daniel turned back. “Okay, when can we leave?”

“There is much to be done. Provisions must be procured, enough fuel to get us to the next port—and all in complete secrecy. This will not be easy.”

“It had better not be, for twenty thousand dollars,” Daniel grumbled under his breath in English. Then he added in Russian, “We’ll take care of the provisions. You do the rest.”

“Then as soon as you can get the money and provisions . . .” the skipper said casually.

And, of course, the skipper knew that would be the most difficult part of the deal, besides getting the passengers away from their present lodgings and to the boat.

Getting the money would be the most time-consuming. A backwater consul simply did not have that kind of cash lying around. Couriers had to be sent to Moscow. Because of this both the British and American embassies were contacted, and each was given written assurances by Daniel and Bruce for prompt repayment. The Trent and Findochty names hopefully would be enough to guarantee the loan. Whichever embassy came up with the money the fastest would determine if Plautin would be paid in dollars or pounds. Even at that, a departure in less than a week would be impossible. The Czech control of the railway also posed a problem. Some passenger trains were getting through, but there were long delays.

In addition to procuring the money, arrangements had to be made for the transportation of the Romanovs once they reached the mouth of the Irtysh. Daniel wished they could have begun the preparations long ago, but it was only recently that their final destination could have been decided. It had only been a couple of weeks since the British took control of the port of Murmansk, providing the perfect escape route for the royal family. A few coded telegrams from the British consul would get things rolling on that front.

Daniel decided to set an estimated time of departure for two weeks—July fourteenth. Not without a sense of irony did he note that it would be Bastille Day, the day that had launched the French Revolution.