Finally he said, “He meets the qualifications.”

“Then can we agree on this? I impress upon all of you the seriousness of this decision. Once taken it opens the way to the fulfillment of every dream we have harbored for twenty years.”

Eight men in a closed room, seated comfortably on expensively upholstered chairs, stared at one another in a silence that was broken only by the throbbing of a balalaika in a distant part of the palace.

Baron Oleg Zimovoi was the one to break the spell. “I am not thrilled with the idea of restoring even a semblance of the old order. But Leon has the rectitude of inevitability. If the rest of your factions can stretch a point to find this scheme acceptable the socialists will not be the ones to block it.”

“We need more than your indifference, Oleg. We need your active support.”

“You have it.”

“Very well.”

A shiver ran through Alex: his eyes widened. It was done: as simply as that it was done.

11

In the massive dining hall the banquet was laid on for half-past nine-an early hour to dine in Spain but many of the guests had distances to travel home.

The assassin found himself seated between a pair of very old men who accosted each other with delight: “My God, Leonid, I thought we were both dead.” One of them wore the white uniform of an admiral in a navy that had not existed for twenty-one years.

The table sat six guests at each side and one at either end; there were four rows of four tables each with white-draped serving tables along the walls. The White Russians were serving a seven-course meal to more than two hundred people and the assassin was mildly impressed by the sheer dimension of it.

There were empty seats at the favored tables and that confirmed his expectation that the men in the drawing room did not intend to interrupt their closed meeting to attend the dinner. He had ample time and it would be an excellent meal; there was no reason for concern. He laid his napkin across his lap and masked his face with a benign politeness when the vintner across the table addressed him.

The room was yellowed by the warm glow of crystal chandeliers and tapers and brightened by the spectacular coloration of the ladies’ gowns. It all made a pleasing contrast to the drabness he had left four days ago-the rubble and dust of London’s blacked-out streets.

There was a cheer and a standing toast when the Grand Duke was wheeled in to take his place at the head of the main table. An Archbishop took the dais, dressed in rich vestments and swinging a censor, flanked by bearded priests in black robes and caps and a pair of nuns in black habits and white babushkas. One of them handed a triple-barred Byzantine cross to the Archbishop and the holy man began to chant in the Slavonic archaisms of the Old Church. The assassin understood none of it but a word now and then; his Russian was passable but this was the Latin of the Orthodox Church, the language of ritual and antiquity. When the ceremony was finished, the next ritual began-the drinking of a great many toasts in vodka. They began with the memory of the Czar and the health of the Grand Duke and went on from that to whatever came to mind: the Admiral beside him lifted his glass toward the vintner’s wife and proclaimed with gallant cheer, “To the purest and holiest of Russian womanhood!” And the woman who was nearly as fat as her husband acknowledged it with a polite dip of her head and a twinkle. Occasionally the assassin heard the smash of a glass although the practice had dwindled because of the in creasing difficulty of replacing crystal.

The Luger was a hard pressure against his rib. He shifted his seat to ease it.

12

Prince Leon spoke to Alex: “Do you think we’re completely mad then?”

“No. If there’s ever going to be a time it’s now.”

“We must be sure it hasn’t been merely the warped judgment of old men living in the past. We need your young view. For God’s sake do not patronize us-do not humor us.”

“No.”

“You honestly believe it can be done?”

“It could be done.”

Count Anatol said through his teeth, “Remember how the Bolsheviks did it twenty-three years ago-remember how few they were?”

Leon said, “Vassily has formulated a military plan. I think it is time we heard it.”

Vassily inhaled. “In outline we need three things. One, a distraction to occupy the Kremlin guard and the Red Army units in the area. Two, a major force to occupy the Kremlin and defend it while key commando squads neutralize the leadership-Stalin, Beria, Malenkov, Zhukov, Vlasov, perhaps a dozen others. Three, a cell of practical leaders prepared to take over the mechanisms of high government and the centers of communication and propaganda.”

General Savinov blinked owlishly in his chair. “Excellent,” he muttered. “Superb.”

Alex said slowly, “How large a force have you got in mind?”

“Regiment size,” Vassily answered promptly. “You can’t do it with less.”

“How do you plan to get them into Moscow?”

“It can be done-that’s all that needs to be said.”

“You’re talking about a fairly large-scale combat operation then.”

“I am,” Vassily said flatly. “I can do it. But it will take a great deal of support and money. Preparation, intelligence, recruitment, training, planning, transport, ordnance, supply. And time. That is why it must be authorized right now without any further stupid debating. We have got to have it rolling before the Germans take any more ground. Even now we may be too late.”

Anatol said, “Putting us in the curious position of hoping that Stalin can hold out.”

Vassily ignored that; he was staring at Alex, “You don’t agree with it, do you?”

“No.”

“Why?”

The weaknesses he saw were as much in Vassily’s character as they were in the plan itself. But what he said was, “The time scale doesn’t permit it-you’ve said it yourself. It could take six months to prepare it and launch it. I don’t think we’ve got that kind of time. The war in Russia will be decided by the end of the year-either Hitler will take Moscow and Stalingrad ahead of the winter or he won’t make it at all. He knows his Napoleonic history-that’s why the panzers are rolling so fast. They’ve got a deadline and they know it. And that means we’ve got a deadline too.”

Vassily’s mouth hardened into a thin line. “Have you an alternative proposal?”

“No. Right now? No.”

“Give me the authorization and support I ask for,” Vassily told the council, “and I will have the Kremlin within one hundred days. I give you that pledge on my honor.”

Anatol’s eyebrows went up in black arcs. “Alex, could you promise a faster result than that?”

He had to be honest. “No.”

“Then it appears we must choose between Vassily’s plan and none at all.”

13

The assassin excused himself quietly and walked to the nearest door, some twenty feet from his chair. He stopped a servant and said, “Where’s the lavatory, please?” The servant gave instructions with jabs of his finger. That much would be seen by anyone in the room who might have been curious enough to be watching. It would explain his abrupt departure and it wasn’t likely the others at his own table would take much notice of his absence for quite some time.

He found himself in a narrow corridor that ran through the interior darkness of the villa. A turning brought him to a junction and he made an unhesitating turn to the right. The hall was narrow and plain-an access for the serving staff. It took him to the foot of a flight of unadorned wooden stairs: he climbed quietly on the balls of his feet into the housemaids’ wing of the building.

It made for a long and circuitous approach and it was not the route he would use for his escape; he had rehearsed the timing in his mind and it was based on a judgment of several factors, not least of which was the age and decrepitude of Devenko’s companions in the drawing-room conference. The room was architecturally the front sitting-room of a suite which contained the Grand Duke’s bedroom and two smaller bedrooms which presently were occupied by a doctor and two nurses. The doctor was at dinner in the dining hall below; the nurses would be no trouble.