Free Romanov Succession by Brian Garfield Page A

shake off his premonitions he drew himself up to a parade-ground posture, hands behind him. “When they reach me there must be someone to pick up the baton.”
    His face came around swiftly. “It is not a favor to you. It may make you their next target. But you are the best choice to succeed me.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œBecause I trust you. ”
    â€œHow can you know that when I haven’t even heard the plan yet? I may think it’s drivel.”
    â€œYou will not.”
    â€œOnce before you thought I’d go along with your plans.”
    â€œIt was different. You must believe me.”
    It was the closest he’d ever seen Vassily to begging.
    Vassily said, “Do not fight me in there, Alexsander. It is too big a thing for personal quarrels. And the decisions may be yours soon enough—you would be a fool to shoot it down before you’ve had a chance at it yourself.”
    â€œYou’re talking as if they’ve already killed you.”
    â€œI won’t make it easy for them.”
    â€œKill them first.”
    â€œI would have done. If I knew who they were.”
    â€œYou have no hints at all?”
    â€œOnly suspicions and too many of those; they cancel one another out. We are getting off the subject. I want your backing in there. Have I got it?”
    â€œI can’t promise it. If I can’t support the plan I won’t support you.”
    Vassily brooded at him and the humanity evaporated from his hard face. “Then we shall have to persuade you of the Tightness of the scheme, won’t we? Come on then.” He swung with an abrupt snap of his big shoulders and strode across the gallery to a huge door. With his back braced as if against an awaited bullet he rapped his knuckles on the oak and almost immediately the door pivoted on oiled hinges and Irina’s father was there: Count Anatol Markov with his impeccable clothes and his urbane countenance.
    Count Anatol gave them both a quick unemotional scrutiny and then averted his eyes as if he regarded them both as applicants for a servant’s job who had arrived for an interview at a time when the Count had more important things on his mind. It meant nothing at all, it was only his habitual manner: aloof, contained, distracted, ascetic. It was always off-putting at first and you had to get back into an almost forgotten gear to deal with these people: their lives were overwhelmingly opulent and until you acclimated yourself you didn’t see how anyone who lived in such surroundings and with such mannerisms could have any substance. The fact was that Anatol Markov had one of the cleverest minds Alex had ever encountered.
    â€œWe have been waiting for you. Please come in.”

    The drawing-room furniture was elegant with intricate fragile curves. The heavy velvet draperies reached from ceiling to floor and they were drawn shut to keep out the waning daylight; electric lamps made the big room richer and warmer. It could have been a calculated effect, shutting out the Spanish vista so that they could have been anywhere: the old villa in France or even the drawing room of the Imperial dascha put-side St. Petersburg from which the Grand Duke Feodor had brought most of these furnishings in 1918.
    The chairs were drawn up in a conversational circle and Prince Leon Kirov sat at its focal point beside a table on which was heaped a litter of documents in open folders.
    There were eight chairs in the circle; three of them were empty. The five men sat back with their legs crossed, smoking cigars and pipes, watching Vassily and Alex. They nodded and lifted cigars in greeting but they didn’t erupt in customary Russian expansiveness. The seriousness of the occasion was an evident weight.
    Count Anatol shut the door behind them and nodded toward the farther doors. Alex paced Vassily across the room; put his hand on the latch and went through.
    In his high four-posted bed the Grand Duke raised eyes