The Bald Man pursed his lips, but to her surprise he then spoke. “Of course you know the story of Anastasia Nikolayevna,” he said.
“Anastasia?” she asked. “The daughter of Tsar Nicholas?”
“Yes,” the Bald Man said. “When Nicholas II was killed for his crimes against the people, the entire family shared his fate; his wife; his son, Alexei; his daughters, Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and also Anastasia. Four others died with them.”
Katarina felt as if she were in a dream.
“For a century, there have been those who claim that Anastasia survived,” he said.
She knew this. It would have been hard not to. “I remember hearing about a woman who claimed to be her years ago.”
“Yes,” the Bald Man said dismissively. “Some German woman suffering delusion or outright madness. But she has not been alone, there have been dozens of claims. Perhaps because of what really happened during the executions.”
The Bald Man’s statement begged a question that Katarina would not ask: What did happen?
The Bald Man continued to explain anyway. “At the time, those who had carried out the orders were afraid the Romanov supporters would find out before they had a chance to solidify power. So stories were circulated that the Tsar’s family had been moved to a safer location to keep them from the mobs that were forming. Orders were given to bury the dead in separate locations so that no one would suspect what had occurred. The bodies of Anastasia and her brother Alexei were taken away. Their remain
s were recently discovered and their identities confirmed by DNA evidence.”
“But what does this have to do with an American plane in the middle of the ocean?”
“At the time of their executions, the Romanovs were still under the delusion they could bribe their way to freedom. They were moved into a room, lined up, and shot at point-blank range. Incredibly, some of them survived the initial volley, and even a second round of shooting.”
Katarina knew this part of the story. “They had jewels sewn into their clothes, along with small plates of melted gold,” she said.
Major Komarov leaned forward and added, “A very expensive bulletproof vest.”
“Da,” the Bald Man said. “They were eventually killed with shots to the head and bayonets, but naturally the guards were in shock. No one knew where this treasure had come from since it was believed all the Tsar’s wealth had been confiscated. A search was begun, and a manservant who was allowed to live led the soldiers to trunks filled with jewels and coin. But before these items reached the Bolsheviks, they vanished. Thirty years later, a defector who had been one of those soldiers dug them up from a hiding place and tried to take them to America.”
Now she understood. “Tarasov.”
The Bald Man nodded. “The Americans would have been happy to take him, but they would not do it officially unless he could make it to America,” he said. “They sent a man named Hudson Wallace, a freelance agent of theirs, to pick him up. The aircraft was his. Tarasov boarded it in Sarajevo and was flown out overnight.”
“What does this have to do with the discovery in the Azores?”
The Bald Man grinned, and his round face wrinkled like a hound dog’s. “Wallace could not fly from Sarajevo to the United States in a single leg,” he said. “He didn’t have the range.”
“He went to the Azores,” she said.
“While most of our agents foolishly watched the skies over Paris, Madrid, and London, one of my more prescient forerunners guessed that Wallace would choose a less obvious location to refuel. Somewhere friendly and out of the way. He sent a message to our agents in Santa Maria. Hudson’s big silver plane landed several hours later. When Wallace and Tarasov tried to escape, our agents shot them, killing Tarasov. Unfortunately, the American managed to reach his aircraft and fly away, out into a storm.”
“Unfortunate,” Major Komarov added.
“Very,” the Bald Man agreed.
“Wallace didn’t make it to the United States,” he continued. “Or Newfoundland or Canada. He lasted precisely nine minutes before radioing a ‘Mayday’ and then crashing into the Atlantic. Miraculously, he survived. He was rescued a week later by Portuguese fishermen, and he told a strange story about electromagnetic interference, all his instruments failing, and a sudden loss of electrical power. A story we, naturally, did not believe.”
“You don’t think he crashed?”
The man across from her smiled, no doubt pleased by her curiosity.
“For years we thought it was a lie,” he said. “Either his lie or the CIA’s. The United States did not look for the plane, and our own search turned up nothing. It seemed a good cover story to brush the entire situation under the rug. But now we feel differently.”
She cocked her head to the side.
“Look at the bottom photo, Ms. Luskaya.”
She turned her attention back to the page. She saw a murky, somewhat blurred image. For a moment she couldn’t figure out what she was looking at. And then it hit her: three metallic fins sticking up out of the sediment. Connected to them she saw what had to be the fuselage of a plane.