Page 129

Sir Nigel nodded.
“Yes, I think it would. The Duma alone wouldn’t suffice. Too many allegations of corruption. It would have to be the nation’s decision.”
“Then whom have you in mind?”
“That’s the problem, Dr. Probyn. No one. From what you’ve told me, a playboy or an itinerant pretender won’t work. Look, let’s think what qualities a restored czar would need to have. Do you mind?”
The herald’s eyes sparkled.
“Much more fun than my usual job. What about age?”
“Forty to sixty, wouldn’t you say? No job for a teenager, nor a geriatric. Mature but not elderly. What next?”
“Have to be born a prince of a reigning house, look and behave the part,” said Probyn.
“A European house?”
“Oh, surely yes. I don’t suppose the Russians want an African, Arab, or Asian.”
“No. Caucasian then, Doctor.”
“He’d need a living legitimate son and they’d both have to convert to the Orthodox Church.”
“That’s not insuperable.”
“But there is a real stinker,” said Probyn. “His mother would have to have been a member of the Orthodox Church at the time of his birth.”
“Ow. Anything else?”
“Royal blood on both sides of his parentage, preferably Russian on one side at least.”
“And a senior or former army officer. The support of the Russian officer corps would be vital. I don’t know what they’d think of an accountant.”
“You’ve forgotten one thing,” said Probyn. “He’d have to speak fluent Russian. George the First arrived speaking only German, and Bernadotte spoke only French. But those days are gone. Nowadays a monarch must address his people. The Russians wouldn’t take kindly to a stream of, say, Italian.”
Sir Nigel Irvine arose and took a slip of paper from his breast pocket. It was a check, and a generous one.
“I say, that’s awfully decent,” said the herald.
“I’m sure the college has its overhead, my dear doctor. Look, would you do me a favor?”
“If I can.”
“Cast your eye about. Run through the reigning houses of Europe. See if there is any man who fits all those categories.”
¯
FIVE miles to the north of the Kremlin in the suburb of Kashenkin Lug lies the complex of the television centers from which are transmitted all the TV programs beamed across Russia.
On either side of the Boulevard Akademika Koroleva are the TV Center (Domestic) and the International TV Center. Three hundred yards away the needle spire of the Ostankino TV tower juts into the sky, the highest point in the capital. State TV, very much under the control of the incumbent government, is broadcast from here, as are the two independent or commercial TV stations that carry advertising to pay their way. The buildings are shared, but on different levels.
Boris Kuznetsov was deposited at the domestic center by one of the UPF’s chauffeur-driven Mercedeses. He carried with him the videocassette of the hugely impressive rally at Vladimir that Igor Komarov had conducted the previous day.
Cut and edited by the young genius of a director Litvinov, it had emerged as a triumph. To a wildly cheering crowd, Komarov had trashed the itinerant preacher who was calling for a return to God and the czar, and treated with thinly veiled sarcasm posing as regret the maunderings of the old general.
“Yesterday’s men with yesterday’s hopes,” he roared at his supporters, “but we, my friends, you and I, must think of tomorrow, for tomorrow belongs to us.”
Five thousand people had been at the rally, which Litvinov’s skillful camera work had made to look three times that number. But broadcast across the nation, despite the awesome cost of buying an entire hour at commercial rates, the rally would reach not five thousand but fifty million Russians, or a third of the nation.