The Romanov succession

He had memorized the contour map in long weeks of study but the habit of thoroughness made him unfold it and confirm his bearings. There was no one within earshot or sight-most likely there was no one within miles of this place-but their discipline was ingrained and he gave all his orders with hand signals. No one spoke. Sergei made a tour of their positions-at the edge of the trees on both sides of the cut-but there were only four men on the opposite side and they were not to act unless anyone tried to escape the train on that side.

When Sergei returned across the tracks he came slowly and swept his footprints with a clustered branch; he settled down beside Alex, his face very ruddy and his eyes agleam.

Alex peeled back a fur-lined cuff to check the time; he looked both ways along the silent empty rails and then there was nothing to do but wait for Stalin’s train.

6

Felix’s casualness had been deliberate and studied at takeoff. He knew an emptiness in the pit of his stomach, a taste like brass on his tongue, a dry feeling of heat on the surface of his cheeks that had nothing to do with the coldness of the air in the cockpit. He had to blink away dryness from his eyes. All his life he had gone through the same ritual each time he rolled down the flight line, gathering air pressure under the cambered wings; at the moment of takeoff, no matter how many thousands of times he had completed this lift from the ground, he knew fear.

The late-morning sunrise caught him already in the air. Drops of blood seemed to form on the frosty canopy-glass in that strange light. Above them coasted the high wraiths of cirrus clouds. The false horizon moved with the plane. He glanced at the ASI-155 knots-and the outside temperature gauge: its thin needle stood at 14 degrees Fahrenheit. Altitude 800 feet-low enough to let the Reds count the rivets in the airborne leviathan’s belly. The unique throaty song of the B-17’s thrashing Wright engines was heavy in his bones and he was acutely conscious of the tons of sudden death that squatted like a brood embryo in the airplane’s abdomen.

Rostov’s bomber floated free a few yards beyond his port wingtip and fifty feet behind him. When they got closer to the target Rostov would pull ahead: they had rehearsed it and timed it until it was engraved into habit. Felix would hang back at cruising speed while Ilya Rostov boosted to combat power and put a distance of exactly three and one-half miles between the two B-17s. Rostov would attack, putting his first stick of bombs on the track a quarter of a mile ahead of the train. He would then fly straight over the train and make his turn behind it. The train would have its brakes on by then, trying to stop short of the destroyed roadbed. The debris of the first explosions had ample time to settle down-a little better than seventy seconds-before Felix’s bomber would pass over that point and attack the cars on either end of the one with a hospital cross painted on its roof. Felix’s one-hundred-pound armor-piercing bombs were filled with incendiary and high explosive charges; they would be dropped in sticks of twenty-a full ton at a shot. They were fused for a time delay of six seconds-sufficient to allow the bomber to pass beyond the danger zone; otherwise at deck level the B-17 would be hit by its own bomb blast. There were eight tons of bombs aboard: enough for four passes at the train.

Over the water of Lake Ladoga he pressed the intercommike button. “Test-fire your guns.”

In the machine-gun positions-spine, dorsal and belly turrets; nose and tail-the gunners exerted hand and foot pressures to swing their turrets around. The motors set up a grind ing like electric hand drills. The guns cleared their throats with short bursts and tracers arced toward the water.

“Report.”

“Nose gunner-all in order, Highness.”

“Waist one. All in order…”

Beneath the thrumming plane the broad cleats of tank treads had crushed the snow. They droned over a lambchop-shaped lake. Ulyanov had the chart in his lap. “On course, on time. Eight minutes to I.P.”

Felix waggled his wings in signal to Ilya Rostov and throttled back while Rostov’s bomber moved ahead, shooting away at full power. The earth was white and endless, the forests covered with snow. The sun struck Felix’s left shoulder. “We’re going to do it.” He turned and stared at Ulyanov. “Do you know that?”

“Yes sir,” Ulyanov said quietly. “We are.”

“Pilot to bombardier. Seven minutes to I.P.”

“Acknowledge, Highness. Ready to open bomb-bay doors.”

“Good bombing weather,” Ulyanov observed. He looked out at the sky. Felix glanced to his left through the perspex-and froze in every muscle.

Then he stabbed the intercom button. “Bandits. Coming out of the sun. Gunners…”

The sky was full of them. Against the sun it was hard to count them but there seemed to be dozens-possibly as many as a hundred of them-peeling off in streams and diving: specks that grew rapidly into the distinctive stubby shapes of Red Air Force I-16 fighters.