Free Rasputin's Revenge by John Lescroart Page B

it.”
    Paleologue chewed thoughtfully on his cigar. Finally an ironic glint appeared in his eye. “It’s galling, I admit. My only defense is that since last night we’ve had another murder. It’s changed things, at least for the short term. We’d be foolish to deny it, and doubly foolish to push Nicholas just at this time.” He looked at me across his desk. “We can only hope to get some hiatus between now and the next disaster.”
    “Or that the murderer is found.”
    “Yes,” he said, “or that.”
    Outside, the gray sky matched my spirits. Flakes of snow had begun to fall and the heavy clouds portended a major storm. I found myself wishing Lupa had accompanied me into the city. The more I was learning about Nicholas, the more these murders loomed as the major stumbling block to my mission, and no one was better equipped to get to the bottom of them than my friend Auguste Lupa.
    My thoughts turned back to our earlier adventure together in Valence. When that had begun, I hadn’t known the man at all, other than by reputation. But that reputation was impressive. Though working as a chef and not yet 25 years old, Lupa had already established himself as the best espionage agent in Europe. When my friend and fellow agent Marcel Routier had been killed, Lupa and I were forced to work together, to confide in and trust one another, and out of that experience was forged a mutual respect and—perhaps unlikely, but true—a friendship.
    Now, in this foreign setting, I felt that Lupa had been on the verge of confiding in me again while we talked at the train station, but that for some reason he had held back. That was cautious and reasonable, butgiven the importance of my role here, and the necessity to understand the Czar and his court, it is also frustrating.
    He must have his reasons. And, as everyone seems to agree, I must be patient.
    But walking back to the train in the swirling snow, thinking of the shopkeeper mentality of the ruler of one sixth of the earth, I once again encountered a crowd in the street. Everyone was rapt with attention, though unnaturally quiet.
    “What is happening?” I asked a woman who craned her neck to see over the heads in front of her. I could make out a phalanx of Cossacks on horseback but beyond that, nothing.
    “They’ve arrested four men for stealing.”
    She climbed to the parapet of a lamppost. Over the bitter wind, I heard a hoarse voice giving what sounded like military orders.
    “Who are they?” I asked.
    “Peasants,” she answered, then added with heavy sarcasm, “The Czar loves his peasants.”
    The voice of the commanding officer carried over the crowd, informing the people that theft in wartime is treason.
    “What did they steal?” I asked the woman.
    Then came the terrifying word. “Prigotov’tes’. Gotovy? Ready, aim …”
    “Bread!” the woman shouted down at me. “They stole bread.”
    “Ogan! Fire!”
    The volley shattered the afternoon’s peace.
    A moment of utter stillness was broken by the woman above me. From her perch above the street, she raised an arm into the air and let forth a call, thick with rage, that was taken up by the mob. As I backed away, the smell of gunpowder stinging my nose, my ears rang with the cries. “Long live the revolution! Down with the Czar! Down with Bloody Nicholas!”

5
    ( OCTOBER 15, 1916.)
    T he storm let up last night. I sat it out here at my little window desk in Tsarkoye Selo, trying with little success to fathom the first hectic events of my stay here. Communication with the outside world has been impossible, though I do have a telephone that connects me with the immediate community.
    I haven’t had to return to St. Petersburg. Rasputin was right about Alyosha’s bruises—they simply never developed, although Czarina Alexandra called me twice to tell me that the boy would not be able to take his lessons until it was determined there was no bleeding. Evidently the doctors are now satisfied, and I am