“You expect me to believe that?” rasped Pekkala.

“I’ve told you before that it was never Moscow ’s intention to kill all of the Romanovs. The Tsar was to be put on trial and, yes, he would have been found guilty and, yes, he almost certainly would have been executed. But there was never any mention of wiping out his entire family. They were to be used as bargaining tools. They were too valuable a resource simply to kill them.”

“But Moscow already announced that the entire family were killed!” said Pekkala. “Why would Stalin acknowledge that he had made a mistake? It would make more sense for him to kill the Prince, rather than admit that he had lied.”

“Perhaps one of the guards took pity on Alexei. Perhaps he was saved from execution and hidden away until he could be smuggled to safety. If that was the case, there would have been no lie. Moscow could say they had simply been misinformed. For Stalin to let Alexei live means that we are no longer afraid of our past. The Romanovs will never rule this country again. There will never be another Tsar. Alexei no longer stands as a threat, and that is why Alexei is worth more to us alive than dead.”

Kirov had finished loading the tow rope into the car. He slammed the trunk and walked over to the brothers. He said nothing, but it was clear he had been listening.

“What do you think?” Pekkala asked him.

At first, Kirov seemed surprised to have been asked. He thought for a moment before he replied. “Alive or dead, Alexei is just another human being now. Just like you and me.”

“The Tsar would have wanted that for his son,” said Pekkala, “as much as he wanted it for himself.”

“Well?” Anton reached out and tapped his brother on the arm. “What do you say?”

In spite of his instinctive mistrust, Pekkala could not deny that an offer of amnesty was an important sign. Only a government confident in itself could make such a gesture to a former enemy. Stalin was right. The world would take notice of that.

Pekkala felt himself swept along by the possibility that Alexei might still be alive. He tried to stifle it, knowing how dangerous it was to want a thing too much. It could cloud his judgment. Make him vulnerable. But, at that moment, with the smell of the dead still bitter in his lungs, his hesitation was outweighed by the duty he felt to the Prince.

“Very well,” he said. “I will help you to find Alexei, one way or the other.”

“Where to now, boss?” asked Kirov.

“The Vodovenko asylum,” Pekkala told him. “Obviously that madman is not as crazy as they think he is.”

Although they were now within sight of Sverdlovsk, its gold-painted onion dome church rising above rooftops in the distance, they settled on a route which bypassed the main road into town and continued due south towards Vodovenko. On the outskirts of the town, they stopped at a fuel depot to requisition more gasoline.

The depot was little more than a fenced enclosure, inside which stood a hut surrounded by a barricade of dirty yellow fuel drums. The gate was open and when the Emka pulled in, the station manager emerged from the hut, wiping his hands on a rag. He wore a set of blue overalls, torn at the knees and tattooed with grease stains.

“Welcome to the Sverdlovsk Regional Center for Transportation,” he announced without enthusiasm as he shuffled over to them through puddles rainbowed with spilled gasoline. “We’re also the Regional Center for Contact and Communication.” The manager pointed towards a battered-looking phone nailed to the wall inside the hut. “Would you like to know the title they gave me to run this place? It takes about five minutes to say the whole thing.”

“We just came for some fuel.” Anton pulled a stack of brick-red-colored fuel coupons from his pocket. He flipped through them rapidly, like a bank teller counting money, then handed some over.

Without even glancing at them, the manager tossed the coupons into a barrel of old engine parts and oily rags. Then he turned to a fuel drum which had a pump attached to the top of the barrel. He worked the hand pump to pressurize the fuel drum, lifted the heavy nozzle, and began filling the Emka’s fuel tank. “Where are you men going? Not many people pass through here by car. They all take the train these days.”

“To the Vodovenko Sanitarium,” replied Kirov.

The manager nodded grimly. “Which route are you taking?”

“The road which runs south goes straight to it,” Kirov replied.

“Ah,” whispered the man. “An understandable mistake, seeing as you’re not from around here.”

“What do you mean ‘a mistake’?”

“I think you’ll find that road is… ah… not there.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Anton. “I saw it on the map.”

“Oh, it exists,” the manager assured him. “Only”-he hesitated-“there is no land to the south.”

“No land? Have you completely lost your mind?”

“Do you have your map with you?” asked the manager.

“Yes.”

“Then take a look at it and you’ll see what I mean,” he said.

With the manager standing beside him, Anton spread his map out on the hood of the car. It took him a moment of staring at the chart before he had his bearings.

“There’s the road,” said Anton, tracing his finger along it.

Now the manager dabbed one diesel-greasy finger at a large white space south of the town, through which the dark blue vein of road became a dotted line.

“I didn’t notice that before,” said Anton. “What does it mean?”

From the look on the manager’s face, it was clear that he knew but had no intention of saying. “Go around,” he said, pointing to another road which meandered to the south and then looped around, eventually trailing into Vodovenko.

“But that will take days!” said Anton. “We don’t have the time.”

“Suit yourself,” replied the manager.

“What aren’t you telling us?” asked Pekkala.

The manager lifted another fuel can and placed it in Pekkala’s arms. “Take this with you, just in case,” was all he would say.

15

IT WAS LATE AFTERNOON WHEN THEY ARRIVED AT THE EDGE OF THAT emptiness on the map. They came upon a roadblock made from a tree trunk set across the road at waist height, supported on either side by two X-shaped wooden structures. A small hut had been built beside the road.

A guard stood in the middle of the road, holding out his arm for them to stop. In his other hand, he held a revolver attached to a lanyard which hung around his neck. His ears were pressed back close against his skull, giving him a predatory look. On his collar he wore the red enameled rectangles of an officer.

Another man dozed in the darkness of the hut, arms folded and head lolling.

Pekkala noticed that beyond the roadblock, the fields were green and cultivated. In the distance, the thatched rooftops of a village seemed to glow in the midday sun.

Anton had seen it too. “According to the map,” he said, “that village does not exist.”

Kirov stopped the car but kept the engine running.

The officer stepped over to his window. “Out,” he snapped. “All three of you.” By now the second guard had emerged from the hut. He had wide, deep-set eyes and a dark beard which straggled across his face. He buckled on a gun belt and joined his companion at the car.

While Anton, Pekkala, and Kirov stood by the roadside, the two guards searched the vehicle. They opened the fuel containers and sniffed the liquid inside. They inspected the cans of army ration meat. They pawed through the coils of bristling hemp rope. Finding nothing, the first guard finally addressed himself to the three men. “You are lost,” he said.

“No,” replied Kirov. “We are on our way to Vodovenko.”

“I am not asking you if you are lost. I am telling you.”

“Why is there nothing on the map?” asked Anton.

“I am not allowed to answer that question,” the officer said. “You are not even permitted to ask it.”