Ted Bell - Tsar

“On the contrary, helium is a natural fire extinguisher. And while it was once rare, it is available worldwide as a byproduct of natural-gas production.”

“Fascinating.”

Hawke smiled and let his gaze drift over the controls and the instrument panel. Fairly straightforward and a fairly simple craft to fly, he decided after watching the crew at work for ten minutes. The deck he was standing on was made of thick, clear Lexan, shaped like an elongated egg. In the center was a large round metal hatch with a stainless-steel wheel for opening and closing. About a hundred feet of coiled nylon line encircled the hatch.

“Escape hatch?” Hawke asked the captain.

“ Da, da, da. For the crew in an emergency. Also for the passengers on the decks above, should a fire break out somewhere aboard that blocked the normal exits.”

“Where do you head from Moscow, captain?”

“To Stockholm. For the Nobel ceremony. We are meeting our sister ship there. The great passenger liner Pushkin. Perhaps you’ve heard of her. She’s en route to Stockholm now, from Miami.”

“A magnificent vessel, from pictures I’ve seen. You should be very proud.”

“One day, the count hopes to see hundreds of these great airships crisscrossing the world’s oceans and continents. It’s a marvelous way to travel, as I’m sure you’ll agree.”

“It’s a very civilized mode of transportation. Captain, thank you. I’ll leave you to it, then. Pity about those chaps in the chopper, isn’t it?”

Hawke was still mulling over the downed helicopter when he returned to the observation deck, where Anastasia remained engrossed in her novel. He picked up an English edition of Pravda and scanned the headlines. Nothing hinted at the unrest inside the Kremlin walls. No surprise, since the government controlled all the media. He picked up an ancient copy of Sports Illustrated , pretending to read it, privately going over recent events.

He planned to call the White House as soon as he could. He needed to speak to the president himself, tell Jack McAtee what he thought was going on.

The rest of the short voyage was uneventful. Only the mooring inside the walls of the Kremlin brought Hawke out of his reverie. He went to the window and peered down at a snow-covered Red Square. “Red Square is such a surprisingly beautiful place,” Hawke said. “Pity it’s still saddled with that discredited old Commie name.”

“Red has nothing to do with Communism,” Anastasia said.

“No?”

“No. It’s been called that for centuries. Red, in Russian, means beautiful.”

“Beautiful Square. Well, that’s much better.”

The square was filled with throngs of people looking upward as the great airship descended slowly toward the mooring mast. They seemed to be cheering.

“What’s all that about?” Hawke asked Anastasia, who had joined him at the window.

“I’m not sure. There’s to be an emergency session of the Duma this evening. Papa was asked to appear. We’ll find out more after the ballet, I’m certain.”

“I’m sure we will,” Hawke said, gazing down at the cheering masses waving up at the airship. Near Lenin’s Tomb, on the periphery, a few protesters, mostly elderly Communists waving tattered red banners, were closely watched by OMON security forces in their trademark blue and black camo. Their armored personnel carriers were parked nearby. Tsar ’s mooring lines had been heaved, and a ground crew had taken control of the ship as she neared the mooring mast. Hawke felt a shudder aft and assumed the boarding staircase was being lowered to the ground.

He was still thinking about the burning chopper in the mountains. It figured in this, but how?

“What time shall I pick you up for the Bolshoi?” he said, stroking Anastasia’s cheek.

“Oh. Are you off, darling?”

“Yes. I’ve got to meet a friend at the Metropol. Sorry, I should have told you earlier. Blue Water is doing a new business presentation tomorrow, and I need to make sure we’re ready.”

“Who is your friend?”

“Simon,” he said, hating the lie but unable to say Harry Brock’s name. “Simon Weatherstone. An American. He’s staying at the Metropol. I’m supposed to meet him in the bar.”

“Meet me in front of the theater a few minutes before seven. Since we’ve got Papa’s box, we don’t need to arrive early.”

He said good-bye, kissing her lips, hating himself for lying to a woman he might be falling in love with, knowing he had no other choice, still finding it an utterly distasteful part of his chosen career.

War was hell.

With a side order of heaven.

Inside the lower house of the Russian parliament, the state Duma, the mood of the emergency session was initially somber and tense, then increasingly restive. Rumors were rampant. Supporters of the late President Rostov were already claiming privately that he’d been assassinated. His helicopter having crashed mysteriously en route to Moscow from Korsakov’s winter palace in perfect weather, there were many eager to lay the blame at the count’s feet.

The siloviki, the ten most powerful men in the Kremlin, and many more, were more than ready to defend Korsakov, angrily denying such blasphemy and implying political or even physical threats should these blasphemers not immediately cease such sacrilege against the revered man’s name.

Naturally, in such a power vacuum, there was an enormous amount of jockeying going on inside the chamber. Some of the Nationalist Party lawmakers, given to near-hysterical rhetoric, were eventually shouted down. Others, mainly Communist diehards, who threatened to turn violent, had been forcibly removed by Gennady Seleznyov, speaker of the Duma. The Ten, of course, sat silently, stoic, holding their cards very close to the chest.

Rostov’s most likely and logical successor, Prime Minister Boris Zhirinovsky, had been at the podium for more than two hours, striving for a ringing rhetoric that had fallen woefully short of the mark. He needed three hundred votes to secure his position. He had perhaps half that. And those numbers were going down, not up. He droned on, and a sleepy stupor descended over the ornate, rococo-style room.

Now, a fresh rumor swept the great hall. The airship belonging to the reigning hero of all Russia, Count Ivan Korsakov, had arrived in Moscow. Reports said he was even at this hour en route to the Duma to make a plea for reason and calm in the wake of the morning’s tragedy. A prescient few guessed he had other, far more ambitious agendas to place before the legislature.

The prime minister, oblivious to all this, droned on.

Suddenly, the wide doors at the rear of the chamber were flung open, and a large cadre of heavily armed OMON security forces in full camo regalia marched inside, their heavy boots marking quick time on the marble floors, half of the men moving rapidly along the far left aisle of the room and the other half going right. They positioned themselves exactly one foot apart, backs to the wall, weapons down, eyes forward as if awaiting further orders.

Entering the room like a conquering hero was General Nikolai Kuragin, resplendent in his sharply tailored black uniform, a black leather briefcase attached to his wrist. He strode alone down the center aisle toward the podium, head high, jaw thrust forward, his eyes on the prime minister.

Upon seeing his approach, the prime minister stopped his speech in midsentence, struck mute, unable to continue. The room erupted in pandemonium. After a moment, the speaker ushered the prime minister away from the podium and returned to call for order. When the four hundred legislators in the hall had calmed to a dull roar, he invited General Kuragin to the podium and asked him to address the assembly.