The Romanov Ransom Read online

  “Of course. Your fate is for the people to decide.”

  They were going to kill him.

  Pyotr’s hands shook and he tucked them at his side, stealing a glance at the man beside him, eyeing the pistol at his hip.

  The wagon wheels hit a rut, jarring the vehicle and throwing him against the driver. He grabbed the gun and pushed away, pointing it.

  The driver turned, trying to grab the weapon. “What—”

  Pyotr fired.

  The shot hit him in the chest. He fell to the side, letting loose the reins. Pyotr shoved him from his seat and he tumbled down to the ground. Grabbing the reins, he stopped the team, then turned them around, pausing beside the fallen man.

  He looked up at Pyotr, his face turning gray. “Why?”

  “Saving my life. And Maria Feodorovna’s.”

  “They’ll bury you right next to her. The moment they find you or anyone else with that treasure.”

  “They’ll never find it.” He shook the reins, then headed toward the castle. He knew of a hidden panel in the Amber Room. The Bolsheviks would have to disassemble the entire place to find it. Somehow, he’d get word to the Dowager Empress that she needed to leave, that they intended to kill her.

  And maybe one day they could come back for the treasure.

  II

  BUENOS AIRES

  DECEMBER 1947

  There must be something we can do. We’re not asking for much. I’ll pay it back. Every cent.”

  The desperation that twelve-year-old Klaus Simon heard in his father’s voice twisted at his heart and he edged closer to the kitchen door, straining to hear the conversation in the front room.

  “Please, Ludwig,” his father continued. “If you could find it within you to help us this once.”

  “Actually, there is something . . .” For several seconds, the only thing Klaus heard was the ticking of the kitchen clock behind him. Finally, his uncle said, “I’m in need of help during a short trip to Santiago. If you agree to my conditions, I’ll make it worth your while.”

  “I’ll do anything. Anything at all.”

  “Not you. Your boy.”

  Surprised, Klaus pressed his ear against the door. “I don’t understand,” his father said. “What would Klaus have to do?”

  “Nothing much. More companion than anything else. These trips can be tedious.”

  “How long would he be gone?”

  “A few days at the most. More important, we’re willing to pay well.”

  A long stretch of silence followed before his father answered. “I don’t know. Perhaps we’ll find another way—”

  Klaus pushed open the door, bursting into the room. “I can do it. I can.”

  His father’s brow furrowed. “I told you to wait in the kitchen.”

  “I’m sorry,” Klaus said, stealing a glance at his uncle. He barely remembered the man from when they’d lived with him in Germany. Only that his Uncle Ludwig Strassmair had argued with Klaus’s mother when he’d brought notice that Klaus’s older brother, Dietrich, had been killed in the war. Dietrich, apparently, was not fighting for Germany, as everyone thought, but for the resistance against Nazism. His mother never recovered from Dietrich’s death—or the scandal—and after selling everything to buy them passage to Argentina, she’d cut off all contact with her brother. “Let me go. Please, Father.”

  Uncle Ludwig smiled at Klaus. “See? Even the boy is willing.”

  His father, however, was not so quick to agree. “Let me talk it over with him. I’ll telephone to let you know my decision.”

  “Danke.”

  His father waited until Uncle Ludwig drove off, then turned a troubled glance down the hall toward the bedroom where his wife slept. With a tired sigh, he looked at Klaus. “You heard what he said. It’s only for a few days. To Chile and back.”

  “I heard.” Klaus watched his father, trying to figure out what he wasn’t telling him. “He only wants a companion. That doesn’t sound too hard.”

  “There’s something you should know . . .”

  “What, Papa?” he asked when his father didn’t continue.

  Again, that sigh. This one more weary than the last. “Your uncle . . . He’s a Nazi. As are his friends.”

  Hope fled at the realization that his mother would never allow this. It didn’t matter that Dietrich had chosen to fight for the resistance, she blamed the Nazis for his death.

  His father glanced down the hallway once more, then back at Klaus. “Still . . . the war is over. No need to tell her. Or your sister, who blabs everything.”

  “But—”

  “It would break your mother’s heart.” He put his hands on Klaus’s shoulders, looking him in the eye, giving a half smile. “If there was any other way, we would find it. Yes? But there isn’t . . . You understand?”

  Klaus understood all too well. He and his father could overlook the source of income if it bought the medicine his mother desperately needed. What did it matter if a few Nazis slipped into the country? And, as his father said, the war was over. Those men were simply Germans like him.

  Besides, it was only for a few days.

  Somehow, though, his mother must have overheard, because when he went to visit her, she tried to dissuade him. “I’m going to die anyway,” she said from her sickbed. “What good will that money be then?”

  “I won’t let you,” Klaus told her, trying not to see how frail she’d become. These days, she barely got out of bed.

  “Dietrich had no choice, fighting against Hitler. We didn’t leave soon enough. But I taught you to do what is right. In this, you have a choice.”

  “This is right. For you.”

  She said nothing, merely closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.

  That night, when he went to say good-bye, he thought she was still asleep. But when he turned to leave, she opened her eyes. “Klaus . . .”

  He came into the room, sitting on the edge of her bed.

  She reached out, took his hand in hers, her grasp weak, her skin cool. “Promise me . . .”

  “Promise what?” he asked, having to lean close to hear.

  “Follow your heart . . .” She reached up, touched his chest, then lowered her hand, closing her eyes. “Dietrich . . .” Maybe she was hallucinating, seeing his dead brother instead of him. Thinking she’d fallen asleep once more, he started to rise. But she opened her eyes, her soft smile melting his heart. “Do that, Klaus . . . You’ll be rewarded . . . Promise me?”

  “I promise,” he said, wondering if she even had two days to live. What if she died before he returned . . . ?

  No. He refused to think such a thing. He had to do this. If he didn’t get the medicine, she would die.

  With a heavy heart, he leaned down, kissed her forehead, seeing that she’d fallen asleep again. “I love you,” he whispered, then left with his Uncle Ludwig Strassmair to Buenos Aires.

  —

  “HERR STRASSMAIR. Good. You’re here. Come in. Come in.”

  Klaus, his uncle’s suitcase in hand, was about to follow him into the office when he thought he heard something behind them. He stopped and looked down the darkened hallway. The wind, he decided, then trailed his uncle into the office, where Herr Heinrich, a gray-haired man in a military-style jacket, sat behind a battered wooden desk, his hand lying atop a brown folder. A blond-haired woman about the age of Klaus’s uncle, mid-forties, stood behind him. She eyed Klaus. “This is the boy?”

  “Klaus,” Ludwig said. “My sister’s son. Good German stock.” He took the case from Klaus, then guided him to the door. “Wait outside. We’ll be just a few minutes.”

  Klaus walked into the hallway, remembering his father’s warning to mind his own business. But Ludwig had left the door open, and he couldn’t help overhearing the conversation.

  “Were you foll
owed?” Herr Heinrich asked.

  “No,” Ludwig replied. “I was very careful.”

  Klaus glanced down the darkened hall, suddenly worried about that noise he’d heard when they’d entered. What if they had been followed? He edged closer to the open door, wondering if he should say something.

  “So,” Ludwig said, “we’re proceeding?”

  “We are. But first I want to see what you’ve brought before it’s all sold. Open it.”

  A moment later, Klaus heard Herr Heinrich give a low whistle, while the woman said, “Amazing. I have only heard tales of their magnificence.”

  Unable to resist, Klaus peered through the crack in the door. Herr Heinrich held a bejeweled, egg-shaped object. The green iridescence reminded Klaus of a small jade pendant his mother used to wear. Gold filigree vines wrapped around the egg, and diamonds sparkled along the vines like bright flowers. “Which one do I have?” Heinrich asked, turning the piece back and forth, the light catching on the diamonds.

  “This,” his uncle said, “is the Empire Nephrite Egg.”

  “How many eggs do you have?”

  “Only three. But also several other chests that Maria Feodorovna managed to smuggle out of Russia when she fled to the Crimea. One contains many of the crown jewels belonging to the Dowager Empress, the others are filled with hundreds of loose diamonds, precious stones, and gold. It’s clear that she paid well for the release of her son and his family.”

  “And yet the Bolsheviks killed them anyway,” Herr Heinrich said. “Rather fitting that we’re using the Romanov Ransom to fund our strike against Russia.” He turned the egg about in his hands, the diamonds glinting in the overhead light. “A shame your men couldn’t have gotten the Amber Room as well. A sight to behold.”

  “Hard to play refugee while smuggling something that size. These were difficult enough to get out of Germany without leaving a trail.”

  “And that pilot? I heard he was working with the Allied Forces.”

  “Lieutenant Lambrecht?”

  “Yes. What if he talks? He could lead them right to us.”

  “Unfortunately for him, he’s dead. My men sabotaged his plane. The last word was that it crashed somewhere in Morocco.”

  “What if someone finds the plane? Our plans—”

  “—are in code. By the time someone does find them—assuming they ever do—we’ll be in Santiago, setting everything in motion. It’ll be too late.”

  Klaus had no idea what they were talking about, nor did he want to know. As he started to back away from the door, Herr Heinrich looked up and saw him staring. “What’s this? You! Come here.”

  He froze.

  Ludwig turned, saw him, then gave a sharp nod. “Klaus!”

  He entered, worried what his uncle would do, when his glance strayed to the egg, even more beautiful up close. “I didn’t mean to see. I just—”

  The woman laughed. “You want to hold it?”

  Klaus shook his head, afraid he’d drop it.

  Herr Heinrich handed the egg to Ludwig, who wrapped it in a square of gray wool cloth.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” the woman said.

  Klaus nodded, unable to look away, as Uncle Ludwig carefully returned the egg to its case. He saw two more egg-shaped forms beneath their wool wrapping.

  “Fabergé,” she said, though the name meant nothing to Klaus. “Do you know what they’re for? Why you’re taking them to Chile?”

  He shook his head. He only knew he was to dress warm because they were flying over the Andes Mountains. And that the money he would make would keep his mother alive. “No, fräulein.”

  “To bring in the Fourth Reich—”

  “Greta!” Herr Heinrich started to rise.

  Ludwig, clearly upset over the interruptions, or perhaps Greta’s revelation, snapped the case shut. “We should go. The hour grows late, and our plane awaits. You have the papers?”

  “Of course,” Herr Heinrich said, sliding them from the folder. Ludwig was reading the pages when Heinrich’s phone rang. He answered, listened, then said, “Yes. He’s right here.” Heinrich held the phone toward Uncle Ludwig. “For you.”

  Ludwig set the papers on top of the suitcase. As he took the phone, his coat brushed the topmost page onto the floor.

  It landed at Klaus’s feet and he reached down to pick it up, seeing the words Unternehmen Werwolf at the top. Before he got past the first lines, trying to figure out what Operation Werewolf was about, Greta took the paper from him, setting it facedown on the stack.

  “Hold on,” Ludwig said into the phone. He covered the mouthpiece. “Greta, I’ll meet you at the car. Take the boy and close the door.”

  The woman put her hand on Klaus’s shoulder, guiding him into the hallway. “Come with me, Klaus.”

  He followed Greta outside, where Ludwig’s sleek black Mercedes sedan gleamed beneath the bright moon. As she led him to the car, he glanced back toward the office, thinking of the papers that Herr Heinrich had given to his uncle. His father might be willing to overlook Uncle Ludwig’s past, but Klaus didn’t think he’d turn a blind eye to reviving the Nazi Party and starting the Fourth Reich. His mother, he knew, would be horrified.

  She’d want him to tell his uncle that he couldn’t go with him. Especially after what he’d read on that document.

  “. . . blame the Americans for a bomb strike on Russia . . .”

  Surely his father would understand why he couldn’t go?

  Someone shouted as the office door burst open. Ludwig raced out, suitcase in one hand, gun in the other. “Get in the car!”

  A shot split the air, and Ludwig turned, firing into the doorway.

  Crack! Crack!

  Klaus froze. Uncle Ludwig ran to the driver’s side, shot twice more, then threw the suitcase in. “Hurry!”

  Greta pushed Klaus toward the car. “Get in.”

  He jumped into the back, Greta the front, as Uncle Ludwig started the car, cursing as the engine sputtered, then kicked in.

  The vehicle sped off, making a sharp turn, throwing Klaus against the door.

  Heart thudding in his chest, he finally dared a look, seeing nothing but a cloud of dust behind them. “What happened?” he asked. “Why were they shooting at you?”

  Several seconds passed before his uncle responded. “Robbers. After the treasure. They came in from the back as I was leaving.”

  Greta said, “Herr Heinrich?”

  “Dead. They killed him.”

  “What about the papers?” she asked.

  “In the suitcase.”

  “Good,” she replied. “If they found those—”

  “Enough!” Uncle Ludwig looked at Klaus in the rearview mirror, then back at the road.

  “Take me home,” Klaus said, his voice cracking. “I don’t want to do this.”

  “No,” Uncle Ludwig snapped, driving even faster. “Too late.”

  “I—I don’t understand. Why do you need me?”

  Greta answered. “Because no one looks twice at a man and woman with their son.”

  The only reason that would make sense is if they knew they were being watched. They were using him as a prop.

  Klaus wondered what Dietrich would do if he were in this position. Was this why he’d died? Surely it was none of Klaus’s business. Besides, he was only twelve.

  Follow your heart . . .

  In his heart, he knew that his mother would choose death rather than allow the Nazis to come back into power. And if his presence made it easier for his uncle to succeed?

  He knew the answer.

  Keeping an eye on the back of his uncle’s head, he edged his hand toward the door. As soon as the car slowed for a turn, he threw the door open, jumped out, tumbling into the street. Ignoring the pain, he scrambled to his feet, then ran. Tires screeched as his uncle slamme
d on the brakes, bringing the car to a stop.

  “Klaus!”

  He didn’t turn, just barreled on. There was a light in the building at the corner, and he darted toward it, seeing an open door. Music drifted out—an Italian folk song—along with loud voices and laughter. “Help!” he screamed. “Please! Someone help me!”

  He reached the doorway just as his uncle grabbed him by the shoulder. “Klaus!”

  “Help me!” he said, trying to pull free.

  A man, holding a wine bottle, looked out at them.

  “Mio figlio,” his uncle said.

  The man nodded.

  “No!” Klaus shouted as his uncle dragged him away. “No mio figlio! I’m not his son! I’m not!”

  “Shut up!” Uncle Ludwig backhanded him across the face. “Do that again and I’ll kill you. Understand?”

  Pain mixed with terror as he read the anger in his uncle’s eyes. Klaus glanced toward the bar. The man who’d come to the door lifted the wine bottle to his mouth and took a long drink, then walked away. The street was empty, dark, and Klaus was utterly alone. He looked at his uncle and silently nodded.

  “Good,” Ludwig said, digging his fingers into Klaus’s arm, holding tight. “Now, walk quietly back to the car. Not a word.”

  Heart racing, Klaus nodded again. Somehow, he’d find a way out of this. For Dietrich. For his mother.

  “Get in,” his uncle ordered when they reached the car.

  The woman turned toward him as he slid into the backseat. “You shouldn’t run, Klaus. It’s only for a few days. And we know where you live.”

  After they arrived at the airstrip, his fear grew as they loaded the chests from the trunk into the hold, then boarded the four-engine Avro Lancastrian, Uncle Ludwig not letting go of the suitcase. The plane had been used as a bomber during the war, later imported to Argentina and converted for passenger use. Although there were nine seats, single file, there were only five passengers. His uncle directed Klaus to sit, then took the seat in front of him, setting the case with the eggs and the Operation Werewolf papers on the floor beside him.