He had a pocket mirror and he inspected his disguise. The coat and slacks were cut very generously to make him look heavy; the dress Oxfords had five-centimeter lifts in them. They’d remember him as a man of substantial bulk and height when in fact he was five-feet-nine and weighed just over 150 pounds.
The rest of it was more traditionally stagy. He had a partial skullcap spirit-gummed over his forehead to hide the widow’s peak of his natural hairline; they’d remember him as half bald. He’d darkened the rest of his red-brown hair with a dye-pomade designed to cover grey; it gave him a Mediterranean cast he had confirmed with a pencil-thin divided mustache gummed to his upper lip. His features were unexceptional: he had always had the benefit of an anonymous appearance and he had learned long ago to eschew striking disguises.
It was all nicely in place in the mirror. He switched off the light, adjusted the hang of his jacket over the Luger in his belt and eased the door open a crack.
The hallway was empty of servants. He went toward the front of the villa, ready to smile, pleasant-faced, nerveless, almost jaunty with businesslike confidence because this time he knew the quarry.
5
Heads turned when Irina entered the ballroom. She hardly noticed; she was used to it.
She smiled and gave her hand to a marquis; she presented her cheek for the tall marchioness’s ritual kiss and bussed the air two points to the starboard of her face. Voices rolled around her-hearty shouts in courtly French and Spanish and High German and the best St. Petersburg Russian; beneath them the orchestra played Chopin.
The wheeling dancers cut across her view of the crowd but she had a glimpse of a large man with a bald spot and her curiosity was stimulated: some vague familiarity perhaps.
Alex was approaching and she smiled when a dowager buttonholed him. Then a mutter ran through the crowd and the guests were turning in waves to stare toward the wide gallery doors. She heard the murmured name Devenko and felt several sudden glances whip toward her and slide away; then the doors parted and Vassily was there with his high austere eyes and stunning white mane. His handsome head dipped regally in acknowledgment of something someone said to him; he lifted one hard long hand as if in benediction to them all.
He had aged. Not the hair; that had been white since his twenties. But she saw deep vertical lines between his eyebrows and he looked tired.
She felt weight beside her. She didn’t have to look that way to know it was Alex. She found his arm and gripped it gently-pointedly.
Vassily’s hard grey stare struck her. He blinked, looked away, looked directly and expressionlessly at Alex and then returned his stare to Irina-and she thought she sensed an appeal.
He walked forward through the crowd ignoring all the rest: he still behaved with people he didn’t have time for as if they weren’t there at all.
He glanced again at Alex. Then he thrust out both arms.
Irina had a moment’s terror when Alex didn’t stir. But it was so brief an instant that she doubted anyone else detected the hesitation-then the two men were locked in the ritual masculine bear hug of Russia and Vassily’s deep voice was rumbling: “My brother-my good brother.”
Vassily turned and surprised her with a nicker of a smile. In a lower voice he said, “Surprise becomes you, Irina. It makes your eyes grow.”
She reached again for Alex’s arm. The Chopin continued in the back; around them some of the couples resumed dancing but she felt the continuing pressure of curious eyes.
Vassily had returned to Alex. “You look very well.”
“And you.”
“No, do not bother with that. I am old, aren’t I?” Vassily was forty-seven. Irina was fourteen years his junior; there had been a time when it hadn’t mattered.
“Vassily…”
“How is it in America?”-to Alex; he had cut her off deliberately. She became aware of the vivid gowns around them; she felt herself close up, become more guarded.
“… learning about twentieth century war,” Alex was replying, “but maybe not fast enough.”
“Really?” Vassily answered in an indifferent way. “Perhaps they need reprimanding by real soldiers, eh?” And back to Irina: “Has he looked after you properly? It is my duty as his brother to inquire.” He said it with dry scorn and she saw he forgave neither of them.
“They’re waiting for you both upstairs,” she said, very cool.
“Yes. Be kind enough to show us the way, would you?”
It was a little cruel of him but she had known far worse. “Come along then.” She led them away, threading the perimeter of the ballroom. Everyone watched and made way. Vassily’s commanding austerity kept them all at bay-even princes and the nephews of dukes. Vassily had no title whatever: he was a commoner. But there wasn’t a White Russian in the villa who didn’t owe Vassily his life.
They were watched with awe by eyes unused to awe-down the long gallery, the central corridor, the vast and opulent rooms in which Bourbon monarchs had entertained crowned guests. Vassily walked between them and a half-pace ahead now; out of the marbled turnings into the vast foyer. The sweeping stair made an elegant curve to the railed balcony above; the last of the day’s sun beamed down through the stained panels of the lofty domed ceiling.
Vassily laid his hand on the bannister and glanced back the way they’d come. His look was almost furtive. He knows fear after all. She touched Alex’s hand. “I’ll leave you here. They’re in the Grand Duke’s drawing room.”
Vassily said, “Walk up with us.”
“I don’t think I’d care to.” She turned away gracefully. There was the slight pressure of Alex’s reassuring fingers, then she was moving across the foyer, her face a study in composure. She did not hurry; nor did she look back to watch them climb the great stair. She didn’t need to. Their ascent was mirrored in the upturned faces of the people watching, like members of an audience awaiting a denouement.
The bald man appeared in the doorway, slipping past the edge of the crowd. It disturbed her: she couldn’t place him but there was something in the back of her mind, a sense that made her glide to one side in order to interpose herself between the bald man and the stairs. He tried to sidestep but a fat woman was in the way. She couldn’t explain it to herself. But she was sure the bald man’s eyes flashed bitterly-so briefly it might never have happened at all.
Very likely her imagination was betraying her. She went on along the gallery, greeting a few people-the ones who didn’t bore her. In the ballroom she accepted an old Kiev duke’s invitation to dance because he was her father’s cousin and had a good laugh which he hadn’t forgotten how to use. She whirled onto the floor holding the skirt of her long red gown.
6
Heavy drapes were looped back from the long gallery of windows. The inner wall of the upstairs corridor was hung museumlike with pictures darkened by age from which several generations of Romanovs brooded upon the scene. Vassily Devenko strode past them without a glance.
Alex kept pace with him, recognizing the dark formal portraits: Alexander II, Alexander III, Vladimir, Alexis, Serge, Paul, Cyril, Boris, Andrei, Dimitri; then the late Grand Dukes George and Michael and finally Nicholas II and Alexandra Fedorovna… The physical strength and magnetism of the family was evident in them all.
No one was in sight in the long wide hall. Vassily stopped abruptly. “A word with you.”
Through the bank of high windows the setting sun fanned the cloud bellies with marbled streaks of crimson and pink. A warm hint of cologne and tobacco smoke drifted under the tall arch-buttressed ceiling. Alex said, “Go on,” reserving a great deal.
Vassily shook his head. It emphasized the weary cast of his deep-lined features. “Doesn’t it strike you the way they all go on as if nothing’s changed? Living on the international scale, perpetuating this idiotic love affair with deluxe pleasures and genteel pastimes. And half the world’s blowing up just over the horizon.”