The Romanov succession

But it wasn’t any of those things that had decided him.

He said, “If you’ll trust me with it then I’m prepared to accept it.”

Leon said, “I don’t have any reservations about trusting you with the command. My reservations have to do with the practicality of continuing without Vassily-without what was in his head. It doesn’t seem possible for you to reconstruct his plan from the hints and clues he gave us-and even if it were, would we have enough time?”

Alex shook his head. “He was right about the time limit. If it isn’t done within a hundred days I doubt it can be done at all. But I wouldn’t like to waste five minutes trying to retrace Vassily’s plan. It wouldn’t have worked. If I take command the plan will be mine, not Vassily’s.”

Leon’s answer was a long time coming. “I think perhaps you had better tell me what it is that would not have worked.”

“The Kremlin’s a fortress. The rock underneath it is honey-combed with bunkers and tunnels-miles of them. The Soviet High Command uses those bunkers for its main headquarters because they’re protected from air raids. This is all common knowledge, Leon-it’s been in the press. The rooms underground are sealed off from one another by armored doors like the waterproof compartments in a modern freighter.”

“I am sure Vassily was aware of all this.”

“If he was it was a bad mistake to ignore it. The idea of storming the Kremlin with a regiment of shock troops just isn’t workable-they’d never get near Stalin. He’s too well protected.”

“He must have had more to his plan than that. More than he told us. He would not have made so obvious a mistake.”

“Probably not. I have an idea of what he had in mind.”

“Then I should like to hear it, Alex.”

“He’d have put his people in Red Army uniforms. Infiltrate them into the Kremlin like saboteurs. Take the chance a few of them would be caught out-count on some of them getting close enough to the Red leaders to be able to assassinate them before there’d been a general alarm.”

Leon watched him in surprise. “Are you clairvoyant, then?”

“It’s a plan he wanted to use once before. In a different context.”

“It sounds brilliant to me. Ingenious.”

“Any wild scheme may work. But that one overflows with risks. Vassily didn’t have much of a head for security-how can you expect to infiltrate a thousand men into one place and be confident that not a single one of them will be captured and reveal what he knows?”

“I see,” Leon said dubiously.

“His idea was to take the Kremlin. He told us that much. It wasn’t a sound objective-the Kremlin isn’t the White House or the Houses of Parliament. It’s an enormous place-a small city in itself, really. You’d have to expect a drawn-out pitched battle. It would take incredible luck to secure the fortress before Red reinforcements arrived. There are divisions-army corps-preparing defenses on the outskirts of Moscow. They could reach the Kremlin within half an hour of the first alarm.”

The cigar had grown a tall ash. Leon tapped it off. His eyes were half-closed, his lips pursed-the expression of a man formulating an argument.

Alex said, “There was a chance. The odds were against it but there was a long chance it might work. Vassily wanted to take that gamble.”

“Are there better odds to be found?”

“Yes.”

Leon said slowly, “You believe he knew this.”

“Yes. He wasn’t a fool.”

“Then why, Alex? You must tell me that.”

“Because if you do it the way it should be done, it won’t produce heroes.”

“You maintain he deliberately chose the less likely alternative because if it worked at all it would make him a hero.”

“I rather suspect it would have made him dictator of Russia in the end. I think he was willing to risk losing the whole packet for that.”

“That is a harsh judgment, Alex. He was arrogant, yes-he was in love with being in command. But I never knew him to show the slightest spark of political desire.”

“A dictator’s not a politician. He’s a conquering general.”

“Vassily’s favorite general,” Leon said slowly-pushing the words out with reluctance-“was Napoleon.”

There was a clatter of china from within-servants clearing up. It seemed to distract Leon; he put the cigar in his mouth and crossed the veranda to shut both doors. He returned slowly to the balustrade and Alex realized he had been using the time to compose his thoughts. He limped to the corner and stood there leaning on both palms, looking toward the dim heavy shadows of the mountains.

Alex said, “Vassily’s out of the picture-it serves no purpose to keep talking about him.”

After a while Leon nodded. “You have hardly had time to formulate a tactical scheme but I infer that you have a strategy in your head. Can you outline it for me?”