CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

THE FINAL BREAK AND NEW LIVES

In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: It goes on.

—Robert Frost

The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which bridge to burn.

—David Russell

Tarasova House, No. 71 Pekinskaya Street, Vladivostok, Far Eastern Russia, October 28, 1882, Midnight

The straw that broke the camel’s back for Boris came in the form of orders from General Staff Headquarters on October the 27^th. He was ordered to board the Imperial Navy Ship The Potemkin for transportation back to Port Arthur two days hence to assume the position of post commander and director of military operations in Manchuria. This was to be for the duration of hostilities, and he was directed to bring his entire family with him to occupy permanent quarters on the naval base. He had only two days to determine what the rest of his life was going to look and feel like. He had long since ceased even to have thoughts about reuniting with his stubborn and unforgiving wife. His previous passionate love for her had turned to ashes and evolved into an equally passionate hatred. Boris had promised to cause Alexandra to rue the day she threw him away. No one did that to a Yusupov. Now, his goal was to inflict a hurt that would not heal.

It was approaching midnight when Boris and two of his sergeants major approached Tarasova House. The first—and most important obstacle—to getting into the mansion was to get control of Abram’s borzois [lit. fast]. He had a generally affectionate relationship with the Russian wolf hounds—very much like greyhounds–which were ferociously protective of the house and its occupants whom they knew by smell. He had prepared in advance. The three men cleared the back fence and cautiously approached the rear entrance to Tarasova House. There were no human guards; neither Abram nor Irina considered that necessary in those times of peace and plenty.

Twenty yards before the men reached the rear entrance, Boris heard the borzois tearing towards them, and knew that the thin, powerful, and fleet of foot animals would be upon them in a matter of seconds. The two sleek creatures reached the three men hell bent on tearing them to pieces. Boris held out thick steaks–dripping with fresh blood–one for each dog. Before taking the steak, both dogs rushed up to Boris and took his hand gently in their mouths, thus conveying smell and taste of one of the people who belonged in the house. They devoured the steaks, ripping and tearing the meat apart and swallowing large chunks whole. Boris had laced the beef steaks with small pellets of opium and soaked them in tincture of chloral hydrate. In a few minutes, both dogs were drowsy and stumbled about aimlessly. Shortly, they lay down on the hard ground fast asleep, a condition Boris had been assured with persist for hours. He only required minutes. There was a soft snoring coming from the dogs and a steady susurrous whispering of the white birches in the gentle breeze. Otherwise there was silence.

The three men surreptitiously made their way through the unlocked servants’ entrance and into the dimly lit lower floor hallway. Like their opinion that armed guards were unnecessary, the lord and lady of the house—like all of their neighbors–were conspicuously lackadaisical about other simple security measures like locking doors. The intruders removed their boots and padded on the shining parquet and stone floors in their heavy stocking feet. Boris knew the way to his sons Nikita and Orals’ bedroom so well that he could have made it there in pitch dark. He had his sergeants major move slowly and as silently as humanly possible past the governess’s bed chamber next door to the twins’ nursery.

The soldiers were relieved to hear nothing but the soft puffing breaths of little boys who were fast asleep. Boris and one of the sergeants major picked up the boys gently and cuddled them in their strong arms. The three men and their precious cargo slipped back out the way they had come in and exited the rear door without making a sound or disturbing the sleeping household. The dogs remained where they had dropped from the sleeping potions they had eaten–alive, but dead to the world in slumber.

Neither child awakened as the three kidnappers lifted them over the back fence of Tarasova House and into Boris’s droshky. He held them on his lap while one of his men drove to the wharf. The other took the gig in which they had ridden from Balagansk back to the prison. Sergeant Major Ustrefski helped Boris and the two children onto The Potemkin along with the copious—perhaps excessive–personal possessions the general mayor had brought along for his prolonged stay in Lyushunkou District/Port Arthur and Dalian City on the tip of Liaodong Peninsula of Manchuria–for all intents and purposes–a planetary distance away from Alexandra and the Tarasovas in Vladivostok. His important assignment was a state secret and would not be divulged by anyone who knew about it, and that was a precious few anywhere and no one in Vladivostok or the Irkutsk oblast. There were no written records in the oblast.