Брайан Гарфилд - The Romanov Succession

“What do you mean a bad propeller?”

“Metal fatigue. There’s a hairline crack in one of the blades. It could bust off any time.”

“Can you do anything about it?” Sudden alarm: they’d already lost one aircraft; they couldn’t do without one of the precious transports.

“Sure,” Calhoun drawled. “That’s essentially the same Wright Cyclone engine they’ve got on the B-17S. I already told my boys to take a prop off that one that wrecked in the trees. We’ll have it bolted on by this afternoon. But I thought I’d better tell you about it.”

“Next time see if you can give me the news without inducing cardiac arrest, will you Calhoun?”

On December fourth a daring Russian counterattack broke through the German lines to Shimki and halted the Wehrmacht’s advance on Moscow.

That night it snowed more heavily than before. The Germans were still falling back under attack by fresh Siberian regiments. Radio news broadcasts from Moscow were hearty with gusto: the announcers could not keep the excitement from their voices and there was no doubt this victory was more than mere propaganda.

But the signal that came from Vlasov at half-past eleven that night—when Alex’s transports were filling with troops—was to say that the tank trials had been put off.

A major storm was tracking northeast across Europe at twenty-five knots. It was expected to blow for the next three days in the Moscow area.

The tank trials had been postponed to Monday morning.

Vlasov’s last signal came late Saturday night.

KOLLIN X WEATHER CLEARING X PROJECTION FOR EIGHTH IS CLEAR X SCHEDULE AFFIRMED FOR EIGHTH X WILL NOT SEND AGAIN UNLESS CHANGE IN SCHEDULE X GOOD HUNTING X KOLLIN X CARNEGIE

It was strange to see them in these surroundings. They belonged against the luxurious backgrounds of villas, gaming rooms, lofty tapestried chambers, works of art of millennia. In the stark Suomi flying-officers’ dayroom they were uncomfortable strangers. They had endured twenty years’ exile and months of recent tension but now the time that you measured in minutes was attacking their composure. General Savinov had drunk himself to the point of glazed paralysis. Anatol and Oleg occupied opposite corners of the room and at intervals their white-hot glances locked across it. Old Prince Michael had gone very vague and loquacious: most of what he said made no sense to Alex in the snatches he overheard. Baron Yuri Ivanov sat bolt upright on a wooden chair with his straight-armed hands perched on his knees, staring at nothing. Leon sat with his cane hooked over the arm of his chair and a glass of vodka which by now had gone warm with neglect; he was talking in earnest low tones to Prince Felix who kept shoving a lock of hair back from his forehead. And Irina said in a voice calculated to reach no farther than Alex’s ears, “Do you think any of them will make it through the next twenty-four hours?” Then she made an impatient gesture. “I mustn’t laugh at them—it’s so unkind.”

“They wouldn’t notice.”

“Are you rattled too?”

“I suppose I am. I keep craving a thick American steak with all the trimmings.” But abruptly and unaccountably he had an image of Carol Ann’s melancholy frown in a flyspecked El Paso café; and he said, “Or maybe a big plate of chili and beans.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” he said. When this was over he would write to her. Just a polite note: how are things?—the sort of thing that couldn’t do her harm if her husband happened to see it. It was something he owed her: acknowledgment that she hadn’t been forgotten. She’d seen him through the worst of it, the months he’d thought he wasn’t going to see Irina again. Suddenly he brought her into the semicircle of his arm and gripped her shoulder.

“It’s all right,” she said, very gentle. “Do you want to come to bed?”

“In a little while.”

In the beginning the challenge had stirred him and made his juices run; he had formulated the plan in quick broad strokes with brilliant speed and then he had filled in the fine touches with careful foresight; he’d been confident he’d got the composition right, drawn every line and every dot where it had to be. Wherever there had been a conflict between methods or means he’d chosen the alternative that had the best odds of success. It was a plan worthy of the masters but now he began to believe in all the things that could go wrong and he knew he had to shake that off. It was the delay that did it. They’d keyed themselves up for a specific hour; it had been put back seventy-two hours and that was more than enough time to ruin the edge.

Buckner and Cosgrove entered the room: an odd pair—the gaunt one-armed brigadier, professionally reserved; the blunt cheerful American with his foolish facade of amiable buffoonery. They’d hit it off without any of the competitive rivalry he’d half expected to see.

Irina said, “Our two referees seem to be fast friends. Last night I caught them talking with feverish excitement about murder mysteries. Can you believe that? They’re both fanatical admirers of Dashiell Hammett. It’s incredible. They’re like two small boys who’ve just met and discovered they’ve got the same passion for backgammon and toy airplanes.”

Felix came toward them arching an eyebrow. “You two look disgustingly cozy and domestic together. Under the circumstances it’s hardly sporting.”

Alex smiled a little. “You’re nervous.”

“It’s probably a good thing. When I didn’t begin to get nervous the day before a race I knew I wasn’t going to win.”

“Keep it under control,” Alex said. “You’ve got nearly thirty-six hours before you take off.”

“You’ve got only twenty-four. How do you feel?”

Alex shook his head. “That’s a military secret.”

“You’re scared half to death like the rest of us.”

“Of course he is,” Irina murmured.

Alex dropped his voice. “I don’t like losing that third bomber. It doesn’t leave you much margin for error.”

“We’ll manage,” Felix said. “We’d manage with one if we had to.” His teeth flashed. “It’s only one train, isn’t it?”

“Don’t be cocky,” Irina said.

“Still trying to change my character, aren’t you.”

“Felix, I adore your character.”

Felix drifted away and Irina said in her soft way, “Did you know he was up half the night composing letters to the families of the men who died in that bomber crash—Vinsky and the others?”

“No—”

“Compassion is a quality Russia’s not used to in her leaders. Felix will be something new to all of them. I wonder how they’ll take to him.”

“I wonder how he’ll take to them,” Alex answered. “I hope he doesn’t get bored with it.”

“He’ll find ways to make it interesting. Trust him.”

“I do,” he said. “In the beginning I wasn’t sure they’d made the right decision. There was no way to see what he was like under the bravado. He might have been a smaller man you know—he might have let it go to his head. It’s the small ones who turn greedy and arrogant when you put power in their hands.”

“Like Vassily.”

“Yes…”

“Do you still dream about him?”

“No. Not since that night we talked about it.”

“Sometimes the answer’s that simple—talking it out. It gets the poison out of your system so that it can’t stay and fester.”

The room was a sea in which animate islands floated, each of them absorbed in its own storms and troubles. He turned and a trick of acoustics carried to his ears a soft exchange between Anatol and Baron Ivanov; Anatol was saying, “… unprecedented to say the very least. We are not a society that is accustomed to having its opposing views aired in public forums.”