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“Then what about the elder brother?”
“Ah, you mentioned age, Sir Nigel. The elder is sixty-four, outside your
guideline. The younger was fifty-seven this year. That’s almost all you asked for. Born a prince of a reigning house, cousin of the queen, one marriage, a son of twenty, married to an Austrian countess, quite accustomed to all those ceremonies, still vigorous, a former army man. But the killer is, he was in the Intelligence Corps, did the full Russian course, and is damn near bilingual.”
Dr. Probyn stood back from his multicolored chart beaming. Sir Nigel stared at the face in the photograph.
“Where does he live?”
“During the week, here in London. On weekends, at his place in the country. It’s listed in Debrett.”
“Perhaps I should have a word,” mused Sir Nigel. “One last thing, Dr. Probyn. Is there any other man who fulfills all the qualifications so completely?”
“Not on this planet,” said the herald.
That weekend Sir Nigel Irvine, having obtained his appointment, drove to western England to see the younger of the two princes at his country house. He was courteously received and gravely listened to. Finally the prince escorted him to his car.
“If half what you say is true, Sir Nigel, I find it perfectly extraordinary. Of course, I have followed events in Russia from the media. But this ... I shall have to consider carefully, consult my family extensively, and of course ask for a private meeting with Her Majesty.”
“It may never happen, sir. There may never be a plebiscite. Or the people’s reply might be the reverse.”
“Then, we shall have to wait until that day. Safe journey, Sir Nigel.”
¯
ON the third floor of the Metropol Hotel is situated one of the finest traditional Russian restaurants of Moscow. The Boyarsky Zal, or Boyars’ Hall, is named after the body of aristocrats who once flanked the czar and, if he was weak, ruled in his place. It is vaulted, paneled, and decorated with superb ornamentation recalling a long-bygone age. Excellent wines vie with iced vodka, the trout, salmon, and sturgeon are from the rivers, the hare, deer, and boar from the steppes of Russia.
It was here on the evening of December 12 that General Nikolai Nikolayev was taken by his sole living relative to celebrate his seventy-fourth birthday.
Galina, the little sister he had once carried on his back through the burning streets of Smolensk, had grown up to be a teacher, and in 1956, aged twenty-five, she had married a fellow teacher called Andreev. Their son, Misha, was born late that same year.
In 1963 she and her husband had been killed in a car crash, one of those stupid affairs in which a vodka-drunk idiot had driven right into them.
Colonel Nikolayev had flown home from the Far Eastern Command to attend the funeral. But there was more, a letter from his sister written two years earlier.
“If anything should ever happen to me and Ivan,” she wrote, “I beg you to look after little Misha.” Nikolayev stood at the grave beside a solemn little boy just turned seven who refused to weep.
Because both the parents had been employees of the state—under Communism everyone was an employee of the state—their apartment was repossessed. The tank colonel, who was then thirty-seven, had no Moscow apartment. When home on furlough he lived in bachelor quarters at the Frunze Officers’ Club. The commandant agreed the boy could stay with him on a strictly temporary basis.
After the funeral, he took the boy to the mess hall for a meal, but neither had much appetite.
“What the hell am I going to do with you, Misha?” he asked, but the question was more to himself.
Later he tucked the boy into his single bed and threw a handful of blankets onto the sofa for himself. Through the wall he could hear the boy starting to cry at last. To take his mind off things, he turned on the radio, to learn that Kennedy had just been shot in Dallas.
One thing about wearing the medals of a triple-Hero was that it gave the wearer a certain clout. Normally boys go to the prestigious Nakhimov Military Academy at the age of ten, but in this case the authorities agreed to make an exception. Very small and very frightened, the seven-year-old was fitted out in a cadet uniform and inducted into the Nakhimov. Then his uncle went back to the Far East to complete his tour.
Over the years General Nikolayev had done his best, visiting whenever he was home on leave and, when seconded to the general staff, acquiring his own apartment in Moscow where the growing youth could stay during vacations.
At eighteen Misha Andreev had graduated as a lieutenant and not unnaturally had opted for tanks. Twenty-five years later he was forty-three, and a major general commanding an elite division of tanks outside Moscow.
The two men entered the restaurant just after eight, their table booked and awaiting them. Viktor, the head-waiter, was a former tank man; he rushed forward with his hand out.
“Good to see you, General. You won’t remember me. I was a gunner with the One thirty-first Maikop in Prague in 1968. Your table’s over here facing the gallery.”
Heads turned to see what all the fuss was about. The American, Swiss, and Japanese businessmen stared in curiosity. Among the few Russian diners there was a muttered “That’s Kolya Nikolayev.”
Viktor had prepared two brimming tumblers of freezing Moskovskaya, on the house. Misha Andreev raised his glass to his uncle and the only father he could really remember.