“Murderers!” Rasputin was shouting. “The Tsaritsa shall hear of this! You are murderers!”

“Kill him!” Yussoupov was screaming. “Before he gets away!”

But even as Purishkevich stepped forward and fired, Yussoupov jostled his arm and the bullet clanged off the iron gates.

“Shoot him!” Yussoupov cried, and Purishkevich, pushing him away, took aim again.

The shot went wide, as did the next. Rasputin was fiddling with the lock on the gates. To concentrate, Purishkevich bit his own left hand, then fired again, and this time the bullet hit Rasputin in the shoulder. He slumped to one side, and the next shot struck the back of his head.

By the time the conspirators huddled around the fallen body, his blood was seeping out onto the snow, but his eyes were still staring up at the sky and he was grinding his teeth in pain and fury. Was there no killing this man, Yussoupov thought in horror? Would it never end?

Purishkevich, too, swore under his breath, then kicked the monk in the temple, hard. Yussoupov, for want of a better weapon, removed his heavy, hand-tooled leather belt with the silver buckle and lashed at the body until, at last, there was no further sign of life. Dr. Lazovert raised a hand to stop them. “Enough,” he said, “it’s done.”

The Grand Duke Dmitri emerged from the house, dragging the blue curtains, but before they could roll the body up in them, Yussoupov said, “Stop,” and kneeling down, he tore open Rasputin’s bloody shirt and searched his neck and chest for any sign of the cross.

“What are you doing?” Dmitri asked.

“The emerald cross — I’m looking for it!”

“Good Christ, Felix, aren’t you rich enough already?” Dmitri said, shoving him aside. “Have you lost your mind?”

A fair question, Yussoupov thought, as he sat back in the snow, watching as the others finished wrapping the corpse and tying a rope around the whole bundle. It was late on a cold and snowy night, so to Yussoupov’s relief, they saw no one, and no one saw them, as they carried the body down an alleyway, under a bridge, and out onto the frozen Neva River; there, they shoved it through a hole in the ice. In the moonlight, it appeared as nothing more than a dark shadow under the water, drifting slowly, silently, downstream. With it went Yussoupov’s dreams of glory. Suddenly it had dawned on him — and how could he have been so blind? — that far from being hailed as a savior, he might just as easily be labeled an assassin. It was hard work killing a man — he’d never done it before — and though the Tsar might secretly rejoice at being rid of the madman, the Tsaritsa would be enraged. Why hadn’t he thought these things through more clearly?

All he wanted now, with every freezing fiber of his being, was for the body to remain undiscovered beneath the ice until spring … or, better yet, doomsday.

Chapter 19

During the funeral service, Slater had received a running commentary, under her breath, from Nika. As one mourner after another took the podium, she told him who it was, how he or she was connected to the Neptune tragedy, how long the family had been working in these Alaskan waters. They were a hardy lot, and Slater felt the anguish of their loss. In a place like this, there wasn’t much to hold on to, and they had all just suffered a devastating blow.

But of all the people present, he had to admit that the most riveting bunch were the Vanes — Charlie wheeling in like a dignitary waiting for his ovation, attended to by the two whey-faced women in the long dresses. Harley scuffling along behind, like a kid about to perform at a recital for which he hadn’t practiced. Even seated in the pews, they seemed to create an air of turbulence around them, and he noticed that after Harley had made his remarks, and the service had concluded, none of the other congregants seemed all that anxious to hang out with them.

“Not the most popular kids at school, are they?” Slater said, as he and Nika made their way next door to the rec center and the refreshments. There was a wide, empty circle around the two women. Slater had never seen a pair of sisters who gave off a more witchy vibe.

“Most folks in Port Orlov know enough not to get mixed up with them.”

Already loaded down with donuts and coffee, Eddie and Russell made their way back outside again.

“With some exceptions,” she added.

Slater himself was an object of some interest, he could tell. Everyone in town had seen the Sikorsky by now, and although the mayor herself had backed up his story—“it’s a routine training mission for the Coast Guard,” he had heard her tell three people already — he was sure that there were other rumors circulating, too. It wouldn’t be a small town if there weren’t.

But as long as the rumors didn’t involve the Spanish flu, he was okay with it.

On the way out, he saw a blue van with what looked like a confab going on inside, among the Vane boys and Eddie and Russell. He wondered if he should post a sentry on the chopper that night or risk having its hubcaps stolen. He’d already been stuck in Port Orlov longer than he’d intended, but bad weather in the Midwest had grounded Eva Lantos’s plane, and military red tape had tied up some of the equipment scheduled for arrival on the second chopper. Murphy’s Law in action. Slater knew that every mission encountered problems like these — especially one like this, organized virtually on the fly — but it didn’t make it any easier to take. Patience had never been among his virtues.

When he got back to the community center, where he’d been bunking with Professor Kozak and the two Coast Guard pilots, he went straight to Nika’s office, where he’d set up his own little command post on a corner of her desk and the top of her file cabinet. It was the most secure office on the premises, and she’d been very accommodating, but he still felt a bit guilty about usurping so much of her space. She’d even given him the spare key.

“Don’t lose it,” she said. “The town locksmith is drunk most of the time, and it’s not easy to get another one made.”

With Nika off making official condolence calls, and Kozak exploring the local terrain, he sat down in Nika’s chair — instead of the stool he’d brought in for himself — and got to work, checking logistics, firing off email queries, figuring out how this assignment could be completed in the shortest amount of time and with the minimum amount of public scrutiny. The weather reports weren’t good — a storm was brewing — and he wanted to beat it to St. Peter’s Island, at least in time to get a few of the necessary structures set up. He didn’t much relish the idea of erecting lighting poles in the teeth of gale-force winds.

For a couple of hours, he managed to lose himself in his work, even phoning Sergeant Groves — and plainly waking him up — to go over the latest alterations to the plan.

“So what’s your ETA now?” he asked, and Groves, audibly yawning, said, “We should be able to load everything onto the second Sikorsky — including the good Dr. Lantos — by Thursday morning.”

It was only Tuesday night now, and Slater had to bite his lip in frustration.

“What time do you want to rendezvous on the island?” Groves asked.

“We’re not going to,” Slater said, having given it much thought since his aerial reconnaissance. “The colony’s on top of the plateau, but it’s hemmed in by trees and the remaining wooden structures. The graveyard is in an even trickier spot. There’s no room for two helicopters to off-load at the same time.”

“How’s the beach? We could use that, right?”

Again, Slater had to nix the idea. “The beach can handle no more than a Zodiac. It’s too narrow and sloped, and the only way up to the plateau, a considerable distance, is a staircase cut into the stone. I wouldn’t try to carry a kitten up those steps, much less a centrifuge.”