Chapter Four
Yekaterinburg, 1918
Yekaterinburg, Russia
The Reds are surprisingly thin on the ground in the town, thought Mokrenko.
Having left the captain and the rest behind, newly commissioned Guards Lieutenant Mokrenko and one of the junior enlisted men had found a suitable hotel and stables. They’d then gone back for the rest, where they were camped near the Perm-Yekaterinburg rail line, in the woods a few hundred meters northwest of the railroad bridge over the Iset River.
“It’s very quiet in the city, sir,” Mokrenko had reported, back at the camp. “Hardly any soldiery or police at all. There were a few—well, all right, a few dozen—frozen bodies hanging by the neck, here and there, which may account in part for why it’s so quiet.”
“Any sign of Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna?” asked Turgenev.
“I . . .” Mokrenko hesitated, “I really don’t know. There’s a house we saw—we saw it before, if you’ll recall, on our way to Tobolsk —with a stockade around it, and a few guards, but they’re so few I doubt anyone important is being held there any longer. The ‘Ipatiev House,’ the locals call it, and the locals didn’t seem to know anything about what’s inside either. It’s the only actual house I saw guarded, though there were some guards on the prison, and the Bolshevik headquarters had a couple, as well.”
“No chance of renting us a safe house?”
“I thought about it but once I got a feel for the town . . . no, I think we’re better off hiding in plain sight. With plainer red armbands.”
Turgenev had learned to trust his former sergeant’s judgment and insight over such matters; he let it go.
“I’ve got to warn you, sir;” Mokrenko said, “Yekaterinburg seems redder than Lenin. If there’s anybody in the city who’s not in sympathy with the Bolsheviks, they’re being very quiet about it, indeed. Except for the Czechs.”
“Czechs? What are they doing here?”
“Yes, sir, quite a few Czechs. Well, Czechoslovaks, but there are more Czechs than Slovaks. There’s a contingent of the Czechoslovak National Council staying at the same hotel we are. Some of them speak some Russian and a few speak it well. They’re setting things up for a convention of some kind, I think. Pretty optimistic, too, I think. But at least they’re not Bolsheviks.”
Turgenev chewed on his lip, thinking. “Hmmm . . . I’d bet the reason there are so few guards is that all the Bolsheviks are marching on Tobolsk.”
“Yes, sir,” agreed Mokrenko, “that was my guess, too.”
“And if it’s as red as you think, ser . . . Rostislav Alexandrovich, the Bolsheviks might be confident they can hold it without a substantial military force.”
“That, too, sir, yes, though the number of people they’ve strung up by the neck suggests they thought they needed that little something extra.”
“Yes,” Turgenev agreed, nodding. “Get the men of Strat Recon packed up and ready. We’ll go to the hotel you found and, as you say, hide in plain sight. Our story should probably be that we’re reinforcements sent from Moscow to the force marching on Tobolsk.”
Turgenev signaled for Garin to come over.
“I’m sure you believe that the men will do as they were told, Mister Garin,” Turgenev said. “However, they are mostly your friends, yes?”
“Yes, of course, sir,” the teamster agreed.
“You will never shoot your friends. We both know you won’t. I am, therefore, still leaving two men here, Bulavin and Gazenko, to relieve you of the burden of having to shoot your friends. They will do the shooting, should any be required.”
Outside the town was still strangely quiet as the men of Strat Recon rode, skied, and sleighed toward it. The teamsters, too, had been quiet, after several days of being forced to stay in camp. It had been long enough that Turgenev trusted them to stay there for at least a few more days, provided they had that little extra bit of motivation to do so. Inertia, after all, has a large place in human affairs, too.
As the section rode, the afternoon sun settled down behind them. They all wore the red armbands purchased months before in Tsaritsyn, plus a couple more made in Tobolsk, and, having skirted the town to set up their earlier camp, came in from the west. Even after turning over the bulk of the hoard from their safecracking venture, the section was still quite flush with both cash and gold.
The town itself, once they got inside of it, was noisy and dirty, the latter not from any habit of the people, but from the source of the noise, the factories whose intense pounding constituted an unending assault on the ears, as the smoke pouring from the chimneys assaulted the nose and eyes. An American of the day would have taken one look and asked, “When did Gary, Indiana and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania open a joint branch office in Russia?”
And yet it wasn’t the noise that made the greatest impression. Oh, no; the thing that truly assaulted the mind and heart was a different smell, different from the factory smoke. This was a mix of food poor to begin with and poorly cooked, of garbage long overdue for burning or burial, of rotten meat, some of it likely human in origin, of unwashed bodies, and, above all, of fear.
There wasn’t a man in the party who hadn’t smelled that very thing already, on the battlefield, in burnt-out towns, in vermin-filled trenches, and in hasty graveyards.
“Chekhov was right,” said Turgenev, looking at some of the people in the street. “This is a place where the people were ‘born in the local iron foundries and brought into the world not by midwives, but mechanics.’”
They passed a gallows just left of the road that had led them further into the town. On it hung by their necks five men and two women, hands tied, eyes bulging, mouths agape, and frozen solid. Another three women knelt at the uprights holding up the crossbeam, one to one, two to the other, all weeping.
I wonder what their crimes were, thought Turgenev, if any. I wonder, too, how many people the Reds have had to string up to keep the others in terrified submission. One suspects that the place is less red than Mokrenko thinks, but even more frightened. Maybe . . .
Shortly after passing the gallows they came to a train station in the Russian Revival style, a mix of Baroque, old Russian, Byzantine, and whatnot, done in a mix of white, brown, and red. On the whole, the effect was not entirely unattractive, but it still wasn’t a style designed to calm nerves.
“I’d have expected a bigger station,” said the captain, “for a place of this size, importance, and centrality.”
“That’s the old station, sir,” Mokrenko replied. Pointing with his chin, he added, “The current one’s up ahead.”
“Ah, I see; much bigger. What’s that out front?”
What Turgenev saw out front was a collection of about thirty women, or a few more, some sitting on the cold stone steps, some on litters covered with blankets, some staring off into space quietly but a couple who seemed continuously agitated, looking from side to side like frightened mice. A few were in uniforms little different from the one he wore. Two wore the habits of nursing nuns. One of them, the only one standing and fully alert, had on an officer’s cap, belt, medals, and epaulettes, and bore a holstered pistol by her side. Shockingly, the officer was a she. Even at a distance, she seemed remarkably unlovely and quite stout.
“Should we enquire?” he asked of Lieutenant Mokrenko.
“If you do,” replied Mokrenko, “you’d better be—at least seem to be—arguing with and denouncing her. And if you intend to slip her some cash or gold—sure, we can afford it, and we all know you by now—then you had better be subtle about it. Sir.”
“What’s the name of the hotel we’re staying at?”
“Forget it, sir,” said the sergeant. “We don’t want to be in the same building as, nor identified with, that lot.”
“Understood. You do know me uncomfortably well, Mokrenko. In any case, I intended to give it to her to look us up after she finds some place elsewhere to stay, assuming she needs it.”
“All right, then; in that case we’re in the Amerikanskaya Hotel, on Pokrovsky Prospect. One of these days, sir, your Christian and gentlemanly tendencies are going to get us in trouble.”
“You keep going, Rostislav; I’ll catch up. I’m going to have a chat with that woman.”
“What do you think you’re doing here, woman!” Turgenev shouted down at her. This was followed by a much gentler, though much more quietly spoken, “Pay no attention to the words I shout. Those are for the benefit of anyone who might be watching and listening.”
As he spoke, Turgenev glanced around and thought, Some of these are very pretty women. Prostitutes? No, they don’t have that look about them. So, I wonder . . .
It took her a moment to catch on, but then she shouted back, “What business is it of yours?” This was followed by a softer, “I’m waiting for more of my girls to arrive by train.”
“These diseased harridans should be in an asylum of some kind!” was followed by a soft, “Do you have a place to stay?”
“To hell with you, you accursed Red!” . . . “We have no money.”
“Parasitic drain on the people’s resources!” . . . “Gold goes a lot further than cash.”
Turgenev dismounted from his horse, then made as if to slap the woman. As he did, he dropped a dozen and a half gold ten-ruble coins on the pavement. He hoped the upraised hand would distract anyone from noticing the opening one, pouring its golden shower to the ground.
“When I strike, cry out and pretend to fall to the ground, stunned. It will give you a chance to grab the gold.”
With that, Turgenev brought his hand down. He pulled his slap, though. The female officer did as told, crying out as if in pain and then falling to the ground. He crouched down as if to chastise her further.
“Filthy swine!”
“Thank you so much. To whom do I owe . . . ?”
“I am Maxim Sergeyevich Turgenev, scourge of the capitalist oppressors and exploiters!” . . . “Look for me at the Amerikanskaya Hotel, you alone, early tomorrow. Buy civilian clothes and change into them. I can shunt you a little more money there.”
The woman pretended to flinch from the coming blow.
“I’ll come after I find a place to settle my girls in. I’m Maria Leontievna Bochkareva.” This last was said very softly.
“Bah! Begone with you.” With that, Turgenev remounted and spurred his horse to rejoin the rest of the party, further up the street. Once reunited, the party picked up the pace, heading for their quarters.
Ipatiev House, Voznesenski Prospect, Yekaterinburg
An even dozen open-topped carts, each pulled by a lone horse, clattered and swayed up to the stockade’s main gate, fronting the street. A senior Chekist, Pyotr Startsev, waited there for them.
Chekist? These were men—and some women—who worked for the Cheka, the newly formed, indeed, less than a year old, Bolshevik All-Russian Extraordinary Commission. Their mission was manifold, but the core was control through sheer terror. You want food confiscated so peasants would starve? Go to the Cheka. A royal family exterminated? That, too, was a Chekist job. You want someone crucified, impaled, burnt alive? All in a day’s work for the Cheka. You want to force a rat trapped in a pipe to eat his way through a human victim to escape a fire? That would count as mere. They were rape, murder, agony, terror, theft, starvation, and rape personified; yes, the Cheka really liked rape.
“Things are moving too quickly,” said the senior Chekist, Startsev, to his underling, Vasily Ryabov; “too quickly and not so well.”
“How so, boss?” asked Ryabov.
“It all stems from the rescue of the Romanov family in Tobolsk. Before that, we were, in the first place, supposed to collect the lesser Romanovs in the Hotel Atamanovska, here, yes? That would have been convenient and comfortable. But then Comrade Sverdlov, I am sure at Ilyich’s instigation, ordered almost all the revolutionary troops in the city to march on Tobolsk, leaving not much more than a company here. With so few guards, and so many places needing guarding—do Lenin and Sverdlov have any idea how much precious metal, gold, silver, and platinum is just sitting here, waiting for counterrevolutionaries to steal it; I wonder—an open place like the hotel was right out. So we brought them here, to this place, to keep a closer eye on them more easily. The collection of prisoners for this place then speeded up; there are a dozen in there now and only about that many guards, including the ones asleep. And there’s hardly enough food even for those, given what Comrade Goloshchyokin took for his column. Nor have the people of the city proven especially willing to cough up more for the cause, no matter how zealously they proclaim their revolutionary ardor and no matter how drawn out we make the hangings of profiteers and speculators.
“And now, before anyone is even settled in, we’re ordered to move them one hundred and fifty versts, more or less, to Alapayevsk, where nothing has apparently been arranged to receive or feed them.”
“I see,” agreed Ryabov. “So what are we going to do?”
“Carry out our orders, of course; the Party knows best. But here’s how I want it done . . .”
Ella was awaked by the scream of one of her companion nuns, Ekaterina Ianysheva, as she was unceremoniously dumped from her upturned cot to the floor below.
“Up, you bloodsucking swine!” shouted Ryabov. “Take only one set of clothing, one pair of shoes, one coat, one hat, and two changes of underwear. Anyone trying to take more will be beaten. If women, they will suffer worse than just a beating. ‘Up!’ I said.”
The threat of a beating or “worse” was enough to make Ella leave most of her clothing behind. She could not, however, leave behind a small bejeweled icon, given to her by her late brother-in-law, the tsar, and before which he had prayed before abdicating his throne. This she hid under her coat, knowing she’d be beaten and have it confiscated should the Reds ever find it.
Hustled out of the house, at bayonet point, and through the stockade gate with blows from rifle butts, the dozen prisoners were checked against the roster and then ordered into the waiting carts, two or three per cart. With Ella were her companions, Ekaterina Ianysheva and Varvara Yakovleva. Ella thought the other two looked even more terrified than she felt.
Hoping to calm them, she said, “I don’t think they mean to kill us; the basement of the house would do well enough for that.” She felt a sudden chill as she said the words, one that even the cold night air couldn’t quite account for. She forced the feeling away, then continued, “But if we are to die, let us go to our God with devotion and courage. Join me, sisters.”
At that, holding out her hands to the others, for their reassurance’s sake, Ella began to sing the old Russian hymn, immortalized by Tchaikovsky in his 1812 Overture, O Lord, Save Thy People.
“Spasi, Gospodi, syudi tvoya
I blagoslovi dostoyaniye Tvoyo
Pobedy pravoslavnym khristianom
na soprotivnyya daruya
I Tvoyo sokhranyaya
Krestom Tvoim zhitel’stvo.”
She hadn’t gotten past the first syllable when the other two took a hand each and joined her:
“O Lord, save Thy people,
And bless Thine inheritance!”
At that point, much to the annoyance of scowling Reds, the men in the carts joined in with:
“Grant victory to Orthodox Christians
Over their adversaries,
And by virtue of Thy cross,
Preserve Thy habitation.”
It was a hymn, a musical prayer, one to be repeated and then repeated, over and over and over again. As such, the musical strains echoed all the way up the long street leading to the train stations.
Princess Tatuyeva, Bochkareva’s adjutant from the war and the old Women’s Battalion of Death, had finally shown up with another one hundred thirteen women from the battalion. Almost all were in civilian dress, though a few sported scraps of uniforms that could have come from anywhere.
There were only forty rifles among them, most of those bought by the princess from her own means and stored in with baggage. Of ammunition there was a more generous allocation, amounting to roughly ten thousand rounds, plus a few hundred, in a dozen wooden crates.
Tatuyeva, what remained of the battalion being now together again where money could be efficiently spent, had also brought a good deal of money, tens of thousands of rubles, and in gold.
With Bochkareva in the lead, the ragged column trudged south along Voznesenskaya Street. Carrying the ones too sick to walk on litters, or helping those in somewhat better health with a supporting arm or shoulder, the one hundred thirty-four remaining women made slow progress toward a large barn of a house that Bochkareva had managed to rent with a portion of the money given her by that surprising Red, Maxim Sergeyevich. The house had, unsurprisingly, a good Russian stove in it, plus a fair supply of wood.
When Bochkareva had asked about the owners, the realtor had told her, simply, “Gallows, west of town, mother, daughter, father, four sons. The mother-in-law and two more daughters were out shopping; that’s how they escaped. I know the dead daughter was raped but don’t know about the mother. I am only able to rent it because I paid the Red commissar, Goloshchyokin, for the privilege.”
“What did the family do?” Bochkareva had asked.
“No one really knows. Maybe they did nothing at all, but the Reds needed some people to suffer and die—and they suffered a good deal before being hanged—to terrorize the town.”
“Are the Reds popular here?”
“They used to be, and still are with some. Don’t be fooled, though, the terror hasn’t won them any friends, just quiet enemies.”
Just quiet enemies, Bochkareva mused.
The march south continued. In a bit, over the ragged crunchcrunch-crunch of her women’s booted and shoed feet on the road, there came the sound of singing. It was soft at first, barely discernable, but the sound grew with every further step south, and every arshin the singers moved to the north. It wasn’t the sort of tune anybody could really march to. Even so, the girls unconsciously formed ranks, litters to the rear with the nuns and Princess Tartuyeva. When Bochkareva went to both knees and crossed herself repeatedly as the carts passed, the healthy ones, and even some of the sick and wounded, likewise joined in:
“Spasi, Gospodi, syudi tvoya . . .”
Once the carts had passed, Princess Tartuyeva was the first on her feet, racing to Bochkareva, along with both of the nursing nuns.
“Do you know who that was?” Tartuyeva asked. “I wasn’t sure myself, not one hundred percent, until the sisters confirmed it.”
Eyes still following the receding carts, Bochkareva answered, “Besides some brave people willing to risk the wrath of the Reds, no.”
“I recognized two of them to my certain knowledge,” the princess exclaimed. “Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna was in the third cart, while Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich was in the sixth one.”
“Yes, Captain,” exclaimed one of the nuns. “It was our own dear abbess. Imagine, finding her here!”
“Imagine, instead,” said the Princess, “all of us being shot if I hadn’t been able to restrain you and your friend from running to her.”
The chastised nun cast her eyes down to the road.
“Poor folk,” Bochkareva said. “After what the Reds did to us, I can’t imagine that those people have even a slight chance.”
Hotel Amerikanskaya, Yekaterinburg, Russia
The man at the desk had been very clear, “The only reason I can give your party rooms, Comrade, is because most of your fellow Bolsheviks who were here pulled out, heading east. You have to be prepared to vacate at a moment’s notice if and when they return. Indeed, I expect us to be taken over fully as soon as they do return.”
“So,” began Turgenev, to almost the entire section, in what was the most private and soundproof of the rooms he’d rented. Indeed, it was a lot more soundproof than basic construction allowed, since a thick blanket was hung over the door from the inside frame, every vent was stoppered with bedding, and the integral bath was likewise soundproofed, lest the pipes carry voices.
This was absolutely necessary, as the pounding and grinding of the many heavy industrial workshops all around made speaking well above a whisper utterly necessary. The great Russian writer, Chekhov, when he’d stayed at the same hotel twenty-eight years before, had said the noise had made sleep close to impossible.
“So, Koslov, somebody must remain here to guard our . . . materiel. That’s you. You will have Bulavin with you. The rest of us form four two-man teams, myself and Lavin, the lieutenant and Novarikasha, Timashuk and Shukhov, Sarnof and Popov.
“Anybody and everybody, see if you can find a good, up-to-date street map of the city. The one I was able to get at the front desk was poor and localized only. Also, remember we are looking for information of the whereabouts of Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, but we can’t ask just anyone—indeed, we just can’t ask anyone, not anyone at all—for the information. It all has to be indirect. All else failing, if you just strike up a conversation on unrelated matters you might learn something of use.
“Sarnof, while you’re scouting west of here, I want you and Popov to make a thorough scan of the telegraph and telephone system. I also need the exchanges’ locations, with an eye to either taking them over or taking them out.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I don’t want us all seen to be leaving at the same time, Sarnof. You two go to breakfast now, eat quickly, then move out. Small talk only in the restaurant. Now don’t forget your pistols or your cash, to include the fifty gold rubles for bribes. That goes for everyone. Also, don’t leave the hotel without your red armbands on.”
“Yes, sir.” With that and a nod, Sarnof and his fellow signaller, Popov, stood and left.
“Rostislav Alexandrovich,” the captain continued, “look around the train station area. There will be a telegraph station there, too, I am certain. Go to breakfast in about fifteen minutes. Shukhov and Timashuk? Downtown for you. If you do nothing but note where there are guards, that would not be a complete waste. You go to breakfast in thirty. Myself and Lavin will eat last. We’re going to scout Pokrovsky Prospect and for the upper-class areas, since those are the only areas I can open my mouth without sounding like an aristocratic spy.”
Turgenev and Lavin arrived just as Mokrenko and Novarikasha got up to leave.
He always was a fast eater, thought the captain. No sooner had he and Lavin sat down than an attentive, white-clad waiter was standing by to take their order. Is this because of the red armbands or because it’s just that kind of place? I can’t ask directly and I’m not sure how to ask indirectly.
The waiter laid menus in front of both men, but then said, shamefaced, “Sirs, I’m terribly sorry, don’t pay much attention to those. Most of what’s on them isn’t available.”
“Fair enough,” said Turgenev, “what with the . . . disruptions, shall we say? What is available?”
“Tea, of course,” answered the waiter. “Though it won’t have all the spices and juices you might normally expect. Also buckwheat porridge, for which there is at least some honey, syrnicki”—a cheesy kind of Russian pancake—“black bread, butter, and eggs. We used to have ham but then, just this morning, half a dozen people wearing armbands just like yours . . .”
“It’s no problem,” said the lieutenant. “We’ve been on the trail for a long time, coming here, and ate poorly for most of that. We’ll take two orders of everything, which is to say, an order each for both of us.”
“Very good, sir,” said the waiter, turning on his heels and heading toward the kitchen.
The dining room wasn’t especially crowded today. Separated from Turgenev and Lavin by an empty table, two men, both rather well-dressed and distinguished looking, and both rather biologically well-insulated against the Siberian cold, talked in a language Turgenev didn’t understand or recognize.
“I wonder what they’re speaking,” he said.
“Don’t know, sir,” said Lavin.
“It’s called ‘English,’” said one of the men in question, in perfect Russian, spoken with a bit of a Petrograd accent.
“Indeed?” said Turgenev, thoroughly nonplussed. “Ummm . . . thank you. And who do we have the pleasure of . . .”
“Henry Palmer,” said the English speaker, “and these are my colleagues, Seamus Curran and Jay Maynard. We’re Americans, by the way, not British. Our accents may account for your not being able to place the language.”
“Even so,” agreed the captain, though he didn’t think the accents would have made a difference. Hmmm . . . Americans in the Amerikanskaya Hotel. We might be able to gain a little intelligence.
“Have you gentlemen already eaten?”
“We’re still waiting,” said Palmer. “Shouldn’t be long now.”
“Would you care to join us?”
Maynard, Curran, and Palmer exchanged glances. Why not? they thought. We might be able to gather some intelligence.
Signaling to the waiter that they were moving tables, the Americans moved to the table held by Turgenev and Lavin and sat down.
“What brings you to Yekaterinburg?” asked Maynard, once he’d settled himself down into the cushioned chair.
“We were ordered here by Moscow, supposedly to make up for the comrades who have marched east, to Tobolsk,” answered Turgenev, managing several lies in a single sentence. “And why would a trio of Americans want to live in cold and ugly place like Yekaterinburg?”
“I’m the Vice Consul,” replied Palmer. “Jay here is with a branch office of one of our banks, which is officially affiliated with one of yours. Seamus is an advisor to one of the mining concerns.”
“An American bank, here?” queried Turgenev. “Why—”
“Gold, silver, platinum,” answered Maynard. “There is more precious metal pulled from the Earth here than you can shake a stick at. Some Americans—mining experts, like Seamus—help supervise the mines, or rather, did, since they’re mostly leaving for . . . ummm . . . health reasons. They need a bank. Or did.”
“I suppose I knew that Yekaterinburg is a center of mining for precious metals,” said Turgenev, “but I never really thought about it.”
“There are, my newfound friend,” said Maynard, “billions of rubles’ worth of refined metal stored here in the town, even as we speak. And that is real value, not inflated paper rubles. I wonder when your colleagues will come for it. I’m sure they know of it.”
“There’s still more waiting underground,” said Curran, himself bearded, tall, and a bit stout.
“Other matters are more pressing, I suppose,” said Turgenev. “Notably those matters in the east, Tobolsk, specifically. With the former Imperial family at large, civil war seems unavoidable at this time.”
“How did that happen?” asked Palmer.
“I know little more than you do, sir,” Turgenev replied, being highly economical with the truth. “A force attacked to free them, some lived, some died. This exhausts my knowledge.”
Conversation ended then, as the waiter returned, placing bowls and platters of food on the table. Turgenev seemed a little nonplussed; it was much more a Russian custom to bring already filled plates. Noticing this, Palmer said, “I think they take their name more or less seriously here, so distribute their food as it would be done in the United States, at least at home.”
Bowls and platters were passed around, while serving spoons flew. Just before digging in, Turgenev crossed himself, Orthodox fashion, while whispering something too low to hear.
Lavin looked at the captain, wide eyed and aghast.
Oh, crap, thought Turgenev. What if these three are in sympathy with the Bolsheviks?
But no one seemed to have noticed; the meal continued. The men ate as they conversed.
“What languages can you speak?” asked Palmer of Turgenev, between bites.
“Russian, of course, French, German. My French is better than my German. That’s it.”
Palmer immediately switched to excellent French, though he looked around for eavesdroppers and still kept his voice low.
“My friend, Jay, here, speaks it too, if not quite so well,” said the vice consul. “Seamus only speaks English and effective, albeit maybe crude, Russian.”
“What’s the town been like since the main column left for Tobolsk?” Turgenev asked.
“In shock, for the most part,” replied Palmer. “Before they took most of their men with them, your friends engaged in a reign of terror against the townsfolk, the better for the few Reds remaining to keep control.”
Turgenev could only nod somberly and observe, “It does make a certain sense. And has it worked?”
The question had been addressed to Palmer, but it was Maynard who answered. “For a while. Given half an ounce of inspiration, a couple hundred rifles and a hundred thousand rounds of ammunition—maybe less—the townspeople, now, would probably rise in rebellion.”
Palmer looked at his friend and colleague as if he were mad. One does not tell a Bolshevik that the people are set to rise against his cause.
Curran piped up with, “I know my miners would.”
Maynard ignored Palmer completely. “There’s a lot of gold and silver here, as I mentioned, Comrade Turgenev, along with platinum. Think of something on the order of four billion rubles. About half of that is gold; call it about fifteen hundred tons or nine thousand berkovets. The tonnage of silver is simply immense.”
“I can see why they didn’t try to move it,” said Turgenev.
“Indeed,” said Palmer. “When I saw the extra troops show up here, I initially assumed it was to move the metal.”
“We all did, along with half the town,” said Maynard.
“Where is all this gold and silver?” Turgenev asked.
“And platinum,” Palmer corrected. “Scattered about the town, in various bank vaults and ore refineries. Your comrades were guarding them but now it’s gone back to just civilian guards, mostly older.”
“I’ll give them this much credit for foresight,” Maynard added, “they got an inventory and the names of the guards, for each bank, as well as the addresses of their families before they left. They promised a terrible retribution if anything was missing when they returned.”
“Sound, very sound,” Turgenev observed. “Who is the senior Bolshevik in the town now?” he asked.
“I’ve no clue,” said Palmer. “They don’t wear rank and often issue contradictory orders—sorry, but it’s true—so it’s very hard to tell. I can tell you where their current headquarters is, though.”
“That would help,” said Turgenev. “I should be checking in.”
“It’s on what they call ‘1905 Square,’” said Palmer. “Go out the main door of the hotel, take a right. Cross over the bridge on the River Iset, then three more intersections and take another right. Go maybe a third of a verst and you’ll come to a large . . . well . . . a large rectangular open area, to your left. Your colleagues set up shop on the first floor of the lower floor of the building making up the south side of the square. That’s city hall. It’s still guarded, so you can’t miss it.”
Turgenev closed his eyes momentarily, engraving the directions directly onto his brain. He then thanked Palmer.
“Well,” Turgenev said, “on that note, and breakfast being finished, I’d probably best report in. Gentlemen, I thank you for your counsel. Comrade Lavin?”
“Yes, comrade?”
“Let us be off.”
“Stop by my office later,” Maynard said, scribbling an address on a piece of paper torn from a small notebook taken from his pocket. “I can tell you where the gold and silver are with rather more precision.”
“And I can tell you where the best remaining mines are,” added Curran.
“Thank you, comrades.”
Maynard and Palmer watched the two of them depart out the front door.
Still keeping to French, Palmer asked, “Are you insane, Jay, giving information like that to a Bolshevik?”
Maynard laughed softly, while Curran said, “Henry, my friend, we have been eating here nearly every morning since the Bolsheviks came. When did we ever see one of them cross himself before a meal? Or show decent table manners? Or fail to use his fork as a toothpick? Oh, no; red armbands notwithstanding, our newfound friends are as much Reds as we three are, which is to say not a bit.”
“Oh . . . so what are they?”
“My first guest would be spies, but they may have other goals, too.”
“Ohhhhh.”
“Yes, Comrade Lavin,” said Turgenev as they passed from the hotel to the street, “yes, I know I made a mistake. Did they catch it?”
“I’m not sure . . . comrade,” answered the Cossack. “It was pretty obvious, so if they didn’t see you cross yourself . . .” He left the thought hanging, having no answer for what it might mean.
“Did anyone else notice, do you think?”
“I’m not sure of that . . . hey, comrade, isn’t that the woman you were shouting at on the way in?”
It took a moment for Turgenev to recognize the woman he knew as Bochkareva, clad, as she now was, in civilian attire. The civilian overcoat didn’t make her look any more attractive, only a bit different.
He and Lavin kept their places, just outside the hotel, as she hurried across the street to them.
“It took longer than I’d expected to find suitable civilian clothing,” the female officer told them. “Please forgive my being late.”
“As it turned out, it’s fortuitous. Come with us . . . Maria? Is that what you said your given name is?”
“Yes, Maria, Maria Leontievna.”
“Come with us.”
“To where?”
“Bolshevik headquarters, which is to say, city hall.”
“I don’t want anything to do with the Reds,” she said.
“You won’t have to have anything to do with them,” Turgenev assured her. “But why the hatred I hear in your voice?”
Bochkareva’s eyes flashed. “You cannot imagine what your colleagues have done. In the first place, they ruined the Russian Army. It may never recover from their nonsense. In the second place, they raped and murdered at least a score of my women soldiers. In the third, they were in the process of tossing thirty of my sick ones out onto the street in the middle of a Moscow winter. In the fourth—”
“I think that’s quite enough,” said Turgenev, holding up one hand, palm exposed, to silence her.
“Of course,” she said, glancing at his armband. “Of course, you won’t hear any criticism of the Reds. And there I thought I’d found—”
“Shut up, woman; you have no idea what you’ve found. Now follow along; we can chat as we walk. But no sneering at the Reds, do you hear me?”