Bulletproof Jewels Chapter 24: A very clever civilian, an anastasia fanfic

August 1st, 1918.

Vladimir Konstantinovich Gorlinsky.

Their contributions are unquestionably necessary, but sometimes, I endeavour to respect certain civilians, as smart as they may be. I must admit I didnʼt like comrade Turov very much at the beginning. He is the literal definition of a civilian.

While I was fighting in the Russo-Japanese War, he was solving murder cases and tracking down common criminals. As I organized mutinies, the life of Igor Pyotrovich went on as usual.

While I fought the tsarʼs army, he kept working as a private investigator for those who could afford one.

While I was serving my time in Siberia, his life remained as comfortable as ever.

While several other comrades and I struggled to keep the movement alive in exile, he was still investigating murders and tracking down common criminals.

His life remained undisturbed even as we planned to storm the Winter Palace last October.

The only resource Igor Pyotrovich Turov ever offered the party before he was tasked with this investigation was capital. What could be more cynical?

I didnʼt like his dishonesty either. Claims to be a loyal Bolshevik and yet knows only the basics of Marxist theory. I still have the impression that he is slightly opportunistic, for the loyalty to the party he so much brags about seems to depend on the success of better comrades.

Despite my reservations, he did most of the job, and I only contributed to the mission with my new men and the speed in which I could and still can get them to follow orders. I always inspire respect, and in some ways, fear.

Injured on the right leg while fighting the counterrevolutionaries of the south that were trying to capture Yekaterinodar, I had been recovering at a Moscow hospital for several weeks when I received the notice that I would not be able to return to the front.

As a general, learning that my men would be left under a strangerʼs command was painful, but at least I have requested the transfer of my recently deceased friendʼs son from the eastern to the southern front, putting him forward so that he can get a promotion. There is no one else I would trust my men with. The young man is a bit strange and somewhat insufferable at times, but unlike Turov, he has been completely devoted to the cause pretty much since birth and is the furthest opposite from a civilian there could be. Even more, he is one of the few soldiers who, I bet, could fulfill both the role of a military expert and that of a political commissar successfully. With ten more men like him, the war would be won in days.

I guess I was needed for this office job. It may be a bit duller by comparison, but my leg hasn't fully healed yet anyway. I still need a cane to walk properly, and my white hair and mustache only accentuate my fragile appearance despite being well built even at 56. And yet, I would never wear anything but a khaki soldier uniform, black leather boots, and a green coat if it gets chilly outside. The cap with the red star at the front completes my daily attire.

I am visiting Turovʼs office today. He is slightly older than me and way skinnier, but taller. His eyes are hazel, as opposed to my own blue ones, but this trait of his was hard to tell at first, for he is always wearing glasses. As any good civilian, he dresses in black trousers with gray straight lines, shiny shoes, white shirt, black vest, and tie. If it gets cold, I guess he may put on that black coat he always hangs on the hat tree one sees just entering the place where his office is located.

His secretary Dina answers when I ring the doorbell. She is a tall and skinny brunette with bright green eyes in her late thirties who is now wearing a simple brown dress. It is really none of my business, but I think she and Turov may be having an affair.

I greet her and enter the living room as she fetches Turov for me. I sit on the couch and marvel at how quick everything was.

I was put in charge of a special-assignment unit consisting of several hundred local red guards, most of them party workers. They would be operating along with the Cheka, over which I have authority.

The first thing I did after learning of the case and the mission I had been tasked with was to order the liquidation of every prisoner the threatening letter had asked for. A radical decision I first had to ask permission for, as there were little less than 70 men and women on that list.

My course of action was also dangerous, but it would have been more so to appear weak and malleable to the whims of blackmailers. As the sword and shield of the revolution, the Cheka needed to show strength. It needed to show they would not be bullied by anyone, not even those with cards to use against us. Nothing would have been more dangerous than weakness, not even the former tsarevich being ransomed to the monarchists, a different type of problem we could have dealt with later.

I informed Turov of my decision on the 27th of July, the very same day we met. He was infuriated, which only increased my initial antipathy towards him.

"Fool!" He cried in a womanish way I still laugh about in private. "All brawn and no brains! What makes you think they wonʼt go through with their threat? What if they ransom the tsarevich to foreigners and he is sent away? And how are we going to get in contact with the kidnappers now? We have nothing to allure them! Is there at least a chance one of them hasnʼt been killed yet?"

I was left with no choice but to inquire with the Cheka about that. In the meantime, Turov examined the prisoner list yet again. He kept telling me about how surprising its contents were. He had investigated the identities of the people it asked for, and they seemed to come from all walks of life. Anarchists, common criminals, a Menshevik, and one or two Kadets, among others, but most of all members of that moderate Socialist Revolutionary branch, the Right SRs. They did not belong to any particular social group or party. Some of them must have been nothing but the relatives of true enemies of the revolution, taken by the Cheka only to investigate their family members. Some were just entitled bourgeois landowners who had resisted the seizure of one or two dwellings they used to call theirs.

If we didnʼt have a specific party or criminal syndicate as a lead, we had nothing. At that point, we were growing further and not closer away from finding the truth. To make matters worse, I felt completely useless.

"How can I help you in the meantime, detective Turov?" I asked him once. "Do you want me to ask the Cheka to interrogate any Socialist Revolutionaries arrested recently? They may know someone involved in the plot, maybe…"

"Stop bothering me", the smug know-all replied. "That is how you can help me."

When Turov leaves his office, he and I toast to our success again in the living room, clashing the two small glass cups of vodka Dina provided us with. I think about what we have gone through these past few days as we chat. We resemble friends now. Despite our initial clash, the circumstances forced us to work together.

Wall designs. Who would have thought? But a detail that was insignificant to my eyes, and yet apparently not to those of the detective, helped us solve the case.

In the background of the photograph where the former tsarevich holds the newspaper, an impressively complex and elegant pattern carved on the white wall can be discerned. Turns out that for some reason, a reason related to his profession is my best guess, Turov had a photo album collection of the most prominent country house mansions of the nation and its interiors.

"Want to be useful?" The detective asked. "Help me look for that wall, will you?" He then handed me over half the albums.

I can't say I liked his conceited tone of voice, but I did as I was told.

We searched for more than an hour and found only a single house with walls vaguely similar to the one in the picture. This was enough for Turov to do magic. The names of the designers had been carefully written down in the side notes of the album, and all the detective had to do was consult the census records, which he had fortunately been provided access to.

Once we found the address, I telegrammed one of the posts of my unit and ordered my men to detain the designer temporarily. I took a cab and got there a bit earlier than them.

Luckily for us, the man in question hadnʼt left the country yet, as he planned to do. After a brief interrogation, he consulted his diary to provide us with the location of every mansion he had designed.

After making sure the designer remained under Cheka custody, just in case, I put my men to work and went back to Turovʼs office. The place where the former heir was being held would be found in no time. A sacked, damaged, abandoned, and sad residence that had belonged to a family of landowners before the revolution.

By the evening of the 28th of July, only one district Cheka had sent a telegram back confirming they had not yet executed all of the prisoners on the list that happened to be under their custody. The survivorʼs full name was Igor Borisovich Cherepanov. A middle-aged Kadet who had belonged to the Duma. The Constitutional Democrats or Kadets were nothing but spineless centrists, most of whom would have loved the prospect of an English-style constitutional monarchy. This… other Igor, had stupidly decided not to leave the country, not even after we had taken over and suppressed his already-dying movement, banning all of their newspapers.

I telegrammed the Cheka again and asked for the prisoner to be spared, doing so solely for the detectiveʼs sake. I genuinely considered this pointless. We would very soon know where the former heir was being held, and I had more than enough men, weapons, and ammunition to overwhelm any resistance from the kidnappers. Turov, however, suspected that the plot involved the angry family members of several people who had been arrested, and he wanted to lure one of them to work as an informer so that we could investigate the kidnapers in question and make sure all of their accomplices were arrested.

I bet my comrade Igor Pyotrovich merely wished to impress Sverdlov and Lenin. Well… if that is what he wanted, he succeeded, but back then, all I knew is that the case was turning out to be far more complex than I ever thought possible. When I first received the assignment, my mind immediately concluded that the kidnappers surely belonged to the Black Hundreds, the far-right monarchist movement. Sore losers. That is what I thought of them.

Despite my now-friend's confidence in his "Outraged Relatives Leaving Political Differences Behind to Come to the Prisonersʼ Rescue" theory, I personally couldn't conceive how in Marxʼs name all of these polar opposites had managed to work together as efficiently in so little time. And how had they even found out about the former heirʼs escape? How had they known where to look? It seemed crazy impossible and scary at the same time. All of those people leaving their differences behind to plot against us? Turov had a simple explanation:

"Don't be silly, General Gorlinsky", he almost scolded me while we were resting in the living room, smoking. "I am in no way implying that the prisonersʼ relatives came together in a happy reunion full of friendly political debates with tea and cookies included all in order to hatch a plot to blackmail the Cheka by finding the secretly spared tsarevich they somehow knew about for whatever reason."

"Former tsarevich", I corrected him.

"All I am saying is that maybe a member of some sort of gang or even complex criminal organization with experience doing these sorts of things, and by that I mean kidnapping and extorting people, randomly came across the party the boy was traveling with and decided to take advantage of the opportunity presented to him", Turov shrugged. "Maybe they had connections to the families of the prisoners as well. I am thinking of one of my men in particular. I donʼt know if I have told you this, but one of my guards was killed recently." He paused when he saw my reaction. "Yes", he puffed his cigarette. "And I suspect another one of my guards did it, because I haven't seen the suspect, Bogdan, ever since," Igor then sighed melodramatically. "I tried to find out more about him, but you have no idea how many criminal records were burnt during the riots of February and March. He was probably a gang member who planned to steal weapons from the armory to sell them later or something."

"The men of my new unit would do nothing of the sort", I assured him. "Mine are all from the party, real revolutionaries."

"Eh, don't be so sure", he waved his hand in dismissal. "What is a real revolutionary anyway? Someone who defies authority. You know how it is."

No, I do not "know how it is." We are not anarchists. We have plans to improve peopleʼs lives, reasons as to why authority should or should not be defied. His comment infuriated me back then, as it confirmed my preconceptions about him. The fact he kept exposing his bourgeois sensibilities by lamenting the destruction of the relatively efficient Criminal Police and thousands of its records didnʼt help.

"No contact between the different political factions involved necessary", he continued. "They werenʼt the brains."

"But if the kidnappers were nothing but common criminals, why demand the release of those prisoners?" I ask. "Why not simply sell him to the highest bidder?"

"That is what we need to look into", he replied. "We need complying witnesses, and for that, it would be better if you stopped suggesting we violently break into the country mansion as soon as we find it."

I interrogated Igor Borisovich Cherepanov myself. He was a widower whose eldest son had been killed two years ago fighting the Turks. His next child, a daughter, had fled with her husband and children to Finland, and his two youngest sons were missing, although I tried to extract a confession from him because I suspected they had actually escaped south to join the Volunteer Army, or worse, that they were spies for them. I wasnʼt particularly successful, and I must admit that my slaps and punches only managed to take away the prisonerʼs ability to speak for a few minutes. I didn't tell Turov any of this, of course. I didn't think he was particularly squeamish or feared he would file a complaint against me. I still don't, but he would have definitely said something like "I told you so."

Igorʼs youngest child was nothing but a flirty unmarried teenage girl who had found work as a cook at a restaurant after the revolution, so other than his two youngest boys, I only suspected his third child and second eldest son.

Boris Igorevich Cherepanov was in no way a Kadet.

We would, in time, be made aware of his story. The young man is 27, the same age as my recently deceased friendʼs son. Gleb. I still wonder if the two boys ever met while they were students at Imperial Moscow University, which is now known as the Moscow State University. The subject has never been brought up, although it is unlikely that they were ever anything more than acquaintances. Gleb was a prodigy and star student, while Boris dropped out due to his morphine addiction.

While still a student, Boris got deeply involved in a Socialist Revolutionary organization. He was a firm believer in his cause, quite unlike those Right Socialist Revolutionaries who went on to ally themselves to the ineffectual and reactionary Provisional Government. The father and son's different political leanings caused a rift between them. A dramatic situation seemingly taken from a Tolstoy novel.

Unfortunately, as many other Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, Boris was part of the July uprising against the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. It is unbelievable that there are so-called revolutionaries who still think of nationalism as a virtue.

When the Brest-Litovsk agreement was ratified on March 1918, Left SR delegates pettily withdrew from the Council of People's Commissars, the Sovnarkom, leaving the government mostly in our hands, as they still continued to participate in the Congress of Soviets.

Later, during the Fourth Congress of Soviets, they lobbied to have the treaty nullified and for the war with Germany to continue. Nothing came out from this because Bolsheviks were the majority.

Not content with this, the Left SRs sent agents to assassinate Count Mirbach, the German ambassador in Moscow, which put the safety of our new and fragile government in jeopardy. Subsequently, more and more soldiers loyal to the Left SRs started refusing orders and defying us until they outright revolted.

Even Felix Dzerzhinsky, the head of the Cheka, was detained for a while. They made a mockery out of our institution, which is why I was so insistent on not allowing this sloppy attempt at blackmail to go unpunished.

The rebels, Boris among them, outnumbered the loyal soldiers in Moscow. For some reason, even the city's workers seemed unwilling to defend the Bolsheviks. The Left SR troops were very close to successfully sweeping into the Kremlin and arresting Lenin. Everything seemed lost, but they were fortunately not as organized as the Red Army was.

In the aftermath of this embarrassing event, most Left SRs were treated with a leniency we wouldn't have indulged any other party with. They had been, after all, our allies for a very long time before that ugly affair took place. Once the show trial was over, many even retained their positions in several institutions and remained part of their respective Soviets. A necessary evil. Boris didn't even get a slap on the wrist. He is, to this day, a member of the Cheka.

Disillusioned with our government, however, and apparently not completely strangled from his arrested father either, Boris had more than enough motives to participate in the disgraceful blackmail plot while retaining his position and ability to sleep at night.

Convincing Igor Borisovich to provide me with a recent photograph of his son Boris was easy enough.

"If we find him through any other means", I threatened the father, "we may not be as gentle with him."

I sent this picture to the Cheka headquarters, and the young man was arrested by the morning of the 29th as he walked out of the mansion where the former tsarevich was being held.

It didnʼt take much persuasion to convince Boris to tell us the whole story either. We had his father. We had him alive. We even encouraged a meeting between them before I started the interrogation. They sobbed and apologized to each other countless times for having been distant. The scene was moving even for me.

We were incredibly lucky. Unlike most of the people related to the prisoners the blackmail list demanded, Boris was indeed involved with those guilty of keeping the former tsarevich hostage.

The main kidnappers were, as the detective had suspected, members of an old criminal organization that illegally sold drugs, alcohol, and a semi-poisonous substance the criminals fabricate themselves that acts as a surrogate for alcohol. Either way, the most desperate drunkards couldn't care less.

The criminals call themselves the rysi, and they usually have this Siberian cat tattooed on their backs. Not very smart if you ask me, as we will now be able to identify most of them without trouble.

When Moscow started restricting weapons, the rysi started selling them. As suspected, they had people infiltrating the red guards to steal them from the armory. They also had experience robbing and kidnapping members of wealthy families for ransom already, so when Bogdan, the infiltrated rys in question, came across the tsarevich, he didn't hesitate.

The rysi were the ones who contacted the families, friends, or allies of the prisoners and, in exchange for a sum of money they could pay later by indebting themselves to a criminal organization that would definitely not have forgotten the sum owed to them, the names of their loved ones would be added to the list of the blackmail letter, which at the time seemed to guarantee the freedom of the prisoners. Too bad I was smarter than all of them combined.

This explains why the prisoners belonged to so many different social and political groups. They were not in contact with each other, which is a true relief.

Among the few political members of the rysi were Boris and a couple of anarchists, although the latter is doubtful.

I don't like the anarchists very much. Soon after the February revolution broke out, the tsarist police was disbanded and replaced by city and workersʼ militias. It was then that many anarchists belonging to several of those newly formed organizations started robbing people by pretending to be searching them legally. Some other militiamen began robbing under the guise of expropriating property in the name of one party or another. Most were in fact doing so for their own gain. It was not only anarchists or people claiming to be anarchists who committed these types of robberies, of course. Men from all walks of life took advantage of the chaos. Criminals, anarchists, Social Revolutionaries, deserters, new criminals who would have never done the same in different circumstances, and I am ashamed to say even a few undisciplined Bolsheviks might have partaken in that foolishness.

Either way, the guise of anarchism was and still is a favorite among criminals, so much so that it has become hard to distinguish a true anarchist from a criminal pretending to be one, and I can't say I believe genuine anarchists have a right to be outraged. Who are they fooling? Many of them are criminals without a well-thought-out plan for doing what they do.

Their values prevent any sort of serious organization because anyone can say they disagree and do whatever they want in the name of freedom. What a childish and ineffectual ideology! The people must be guided on the right path for their own good.

It is no wonder they are now a disorganized and dispersed group with no power at all left, at least not in Moscow. Refusing to obey anyone in power is their sole consolation. Well, apparently, so is blackmailing people they hate.

Boris turned out to be a very loyal and loving son. He immediately agreed to name every single one of his coconspirators, also providing us with the information he had on them.

Turov wanted him to go back to the mansion where the boy was being held and sneak him out discreetly, in part so that we could carefully identify him before shooting him, as several of my guards had become emotional by the prospect of killing some other child. My men would then storm into the house before the kidnappers realized the boy was missing and arrest the survivors to interrogate them. The two were now different missions the detective wanted to deal with separately.

We were successful in both, and only one of my men and four of the rysi were killed or wounded during the shooting.

Boris said fetching the boy would be hard, as there were always gang members inside and around the mansion, but I assured him that if anything happened, he would be protected by my guards, who would be hiding right outside.

Boris came back with the boy, but he also brought Bogdan along.

I wasn't able to recognize the former tsarevich at first, not even using pictures for guidance, but Boris and Bogdan assured us that the boy in front of me was him.

Bogdan. He is the man Turov suspected of having infiltrated the guards to steal from the armory, of having murdered his own commander, Davydov, in order to kidnap the former tsarevich and take him to the rysi. The detective had very good reasons to suspect him. Bogdan and another guard had been searching for Alexei under Davydovʼs command just a day before the first threatening letters were slipped under the Cheka buildings. Not only that. The bodies of Davydov and the other guard had been found the morning of the day the blackmailing began, and yet Bogdan didnʼt show up to work again nor was his body found anywhere. Boris even confirmed Turovʼs suspicions.

The fat and ugly old man had a story though. Bogdan claimed to have been threatened by the rysi to do something for them. He claimed that the other two guards had both been killed, not by him, but by the people traveling with the Romanovs. He dramatically recalled having been terrified of both the monarchists and the rysi as he escaped the shooting with his life and the former heir in his arms.

He didnʼt have a rys tattoo, Bogdan argued. It was true. Neither did Boris, who was merely a recent ally of the gang, although he had also bought morphine from them before with regularity.

I didnʼt believe Bogdan. Turov didn't believe Bogdan. But after almost being caught, the stinky rat had been spooked into learning his lesson. My display of strength at the beginning had fully worked. The snitch also had lots of useful information he was more than willing to provide us with, so after a brief discussion with Turov, we agreed to have him back without even punishing him first.

Bogdan knew more about the rysi than Boris. So much for having been threatened.

Our new informer knew about its members. He knew about many other secret criminal and political organizations they had frequently interacted with.

He knew which of the criminals had been in contact with the different political groups. They already had a big web of supply and demand, which is how they had managed to contact so many people as quickly with the purpose of formulating the prisoner list. Bogdan knew where those underground organizations kept the weapons they had bought from the rysi. He knew where they kept their propaganda.

The reason they hadn't ransomed the former tsarevich to the monarchists and had instead chosen such a strange and uncertain way to make money is that Bogdan, being a loyal Bolshevik at heart, had convinced them that his idea would produce more earnings. It is rubbish of course. The rysi simply wanted to squeeze the milk cow as much as they could before giving up on the boy for good, but they were indeed planning to sell him or at least extort one or two monarchists by making them believe they were willing to.

Boris knew about this, and after we promised to release his father, he gave us all of the information he had on the would-be buyers in question. Having captured the former tsarevich, Turov easily managed to design a trap for them by finishing what those criminals had started, only we were definitely not planning to do "business" with anyone. The dying Black Hundreds might not have had the boy, but several of their members surely paid for trying to. Three members of a Cossack host who planned to rescue him paid as well.

By sparing Bogdan and negotiating with Boris, Turov obtained more than he could have ever bargained for. My men ended up arresting more than 80 individuals of diverse allegiances, several of whom were active threats we stopped just in time from following through with the plots they were hatching against our state. All of them enemies of the people though. That is for sure something they all have in common, even the family members who were desperate enough to pay the rysi for their loved ones' names on the prisoner list. Nothing justifies caring more for a single person than the good of the people.

My men and I will probably arrest even more individuals once we are done with the interrogations. About 160 is my best guess if each prisoner names two suspects.

Earlier today, Lenin thanked us by sending a congratulatory telegram which said that any resources needed we would have, and that our promotions were secured. This is precisely what Turov and I are celebrating.

As quickly as we had lost him, the tsarevich was back in our hands before the sun even rose on the 30th. They may be rare these days, but I am a man of my word, so I released Igor Borisovich after giving him a stern warning about his politics. Everyone got what they wanted, although we will, of course, keep an eye on both Boris and Bogdan from now on.

At the end of the day, Turov may be a civilian, and he is definitely not as committed to the cause as he likes to pretend he is, but he is also incredibly smart. Finding the tsarevich less than two weeks after he was lost is no small deed. The detective is a valuable ally and friend.

August 2nd, 1918.

I turn to look at the clock and gasp. Three hours past midnight already? Time has truly flown.

Turov and I have spent the night celebrating and talking about our families and friends, telling each other silly anecdotes about them. We haven't drunk much, not really. A couple of small glasses is enough for me, and Turov can't take more than two. We have eaten way more of those patties Dina makes.

"What a moving thing Boris did for his father", I remark. "Don't you think? It made me miss mine. He was a shoemaker, and I was a mischievous boy believe it or not. I would break his newly made shoes on purpose."

"I never got along with my own father", Igor shrugs as he takes a patty from the small wooden table between our two armchairs. "A mean drunk. I definitely wouldn't have done what Boris did for him."

"Neither would I", I say. "But not because I didn't love mine. I genuinely did. I just wouldn't have sold my ideas away for anyone. If I thought the Bolsheviks were betrayers of the revolution as this Boris seems to think, I would have never helped them. Not in a thousand years, not ever."

"Never?" Igor raises his eyebrows in disbelief. "Not even if you were interrogated by yourself, general?"

"Never", I glare at him, suddenly reminded of his worst traits. I quickly change the subject. "I hope I have not been an indulging enough father to guarantee such devotion from my own daughters."

I wasn't joking, but Turov laughs for some reason.

"What do you think, General Gorlinsky?" Turov asks. "Did your friend Stephen betray the revolution as well?"

Yesterday night, a letter arrived from comrade Stephen Vaganov's son informing me of the passing of my friend. I have been saddened by the news all day long, and only Lenin's telegram has managed to cheer me up.

The letter is somewhat old, from the 18th of July, which is understandable considering the war going on. I don't understand the detectiveʼs comment though.

"Why would you say that?" I frown.

"Oh, please, comrade Gorlinsky!" Turov exclaims. "So, just a minute after Gleb left his father alone someone broke into the office and shot him… really? Do you really believe that story?"

"Stephen might have been a distant father, yes. He spent a lot of time away from his son, sure. He did it because he was dedicated to the cause, but so was Gleb, and the boy would have never…"

Turov laughs again. This time, I become irritated.

"That is not what I was implying", Turov cackles louder, putting a hand on his stomach. I change my mind. I despise him. I will never stop despising him. I don't care about how smart he is. Igor seems to have perceived my rage, because now he is trying to compose himself and stop laughing. "Don't be mad, comrade Gorlinsky, just think."

"Think what?" I am beginning to lose my patience.

"Your comrade was part of the execution squad that liquidated the former emperor and his wife, and just a day later, he dies under the most unlikely of circumstances, now, why could that be?"

"A Romanov sympathizer living nearby took his revenge."

"Maybe, or maybe your friend killed himself."

I am about to argue against the detective's preposterous idea when we hear a knock on the door.

The newcomer is received by Dina, who allows him to enter the living room. This reveals the fact he is one of my guards.

"General Gorlinsky", my man salutes. "The tsarevich…"

"Former tsarevich", I correct him.

"He is dead."

"Already?" I raise my eyebrows.

"Just minutes ago."

"The body?" Turov inquires. "I was thinking of having an autopsy performed just in case."

"Two of the guards already went to drop it off at a common grave", the guard admits in an apologetic tone. "We didn't know there were other instructions."

"Damn you, child!" I exclaim, and as I lean forward to stand up, the guard flinches.

"It is fine," Turov seems calmer. "Can you tell those guards to bring it back once they return?"

The young red guard nods and leaves.

"This is more for us", Turov explains, "to have the body tagged in the morgue should we ever need proof that we did our job. It would be an interesting curiosity for me as well."

"Yes, but… well, you may be right", I wave my hand dismissively. Either way, we informed comrades Sverdlov and Lenin of the former heir's liquidation in advance. As we sit here, our leaders have one less nuisance to worry about. "Shame we managed to obtain no more information on the sister and her accomplices though!" I lament.

"We have her possible locations", my optimistic comrade soothes me. "Let's recap, shall we? There is Crimea…"

"Didn't your informers say she is not with the extended family?"

"That information is old, it barely travels these days, and she may be keeping a low profile either way. It is not like our spies can enter Ai-Todor and have a chat during tea time with the dowager empress and her daughters to see for themselves whether the woman is there or not."

"You are right", I say. "Do you think we could ask for permission to send some disguised assassins?"

"Too dangerous with the Germans there", he argues. "I am not trying to re-start the war by doing something that could be considered an attack on their territory, and besides, if we did that, why not kill all of the Romanovs left there and be done with it? The sons of the former grand duke Alexander Mikhailovich and the former emperor's sister are technically more dangerous alive than any of the female children of Nicholas anyway. They actually have a claim to the throne."

"Absolutely", I sigh. "If she is in Crimea, I am afraid the only thing we will be able to do is inform Lenin."

"If she is there. If not, I am thinking she could have gone back to Perm."

"I didn't even come close to that conclusion after any of the inquiries," I lean forward, surprised. "Now, why would she do that?"

"Think about her as an acquaintance, Gorlinsky, I know what we just did requires us to think of the Romanovs as deer, but do you know any women her age?"

"Well, of course, my daughters." I have talked to Turov a lot about my family since we met. He is a shameless womanizing bachelor even in his late fifties, but I married quite young to my childhood sweetheart and have remained faithful throughout all of these years. I love her and my three daughters almost as much as I love the cause. Unlike comrade Stephen, I took my family with me abroad.

"What would your eldest daughter do if the youngest was kidnapped and she knew where the kidnapper had gone with her?" The detective asks.

"She would tell me."

"Letʼs assume you are dead and that there is no one else who could help her", Turov rolls his eyes condescendingly.

"Well, I guess she would follow the kidnapper."

"Touché. She may have returned to Perm."

"But why Perm? Why not stay in Moscow to look for her brother if this is indeed the case of a loving relative?"

"She had no clue where the criminals had taken the former tsarevich and might have thought him a lost cause, but she did know exactly where her sisters were being kept."

"Well then, we have to team up with the Cheka in Perm. Sending them some of our guards would help them enormously. My men already know what they will be looking for."

Turov grunts, which now makes me roll my eyes. He is so ambitious. This little rivalry he has in his head with the Perm Cheka is hardly professional. I bet he hasn't even sent them a telegram or letter informing them of our progress, some of which may be vital to their case. They probably think that the former heir is still missing.

"So it is settled then", Turov sighs. Even he knows there are things more important than himself.

I have come to realize there is something else I don't like about Turov. The fact he is not my subordinate.

I return to the apartment I am staying at late. I can't sleep. Turov's implication haunts me. Could Stephen really have done that? Have I put him on a pedestal all of these years?

Did Stephen Vaganov feel remorse for having killed that bloody tyrant and his German bitch? In Marx's name… why? He wasn't even made to shoot his daughters!

Or maybe… maybe that is precisely it! My friend killed himself because he was ashamed of having followed through with the order to spare Bloody Nicholas's spawn!

I can't help but turn on the light and open the drawer to search for that damned letter. I need to read it again.

Comrade Vladimir,

I know receiving a letter from me may be strange, as we never really talked much, but I know you and my father were close.

It is with the greatest sorrow that I am informing you of my father's death. He was shot and killed earlier today in my office, where I usually worked whenever I wasn't at the laboratory. He had recently taken a liking for my workroom, a cozy and comfortable space, especially when trying to concentrate. His death was completely unexpected. We were together, discussing my impending departure and arguing over what to do with the house, among other things. I left the room just for a few minutes to check on my mother only to hear a gunshot. The murder is still being investigated, but so far they have found no signs of forced entry.

You have no idea how much my mother and I have suffered. She is still very ill, you see. We thought she was getting better, but Dr. Egorov says there is little hope for a full recovery. I am thinking of sending her to a hospital in Moscow to protect her from the whites, as I don't know what they would do to her if they learnt of my father's actions. That may mean I won't be there during her final moments though. I don't know what to do, and if you don't mind me sharing, I feel alone.

By the time this letter reaches you, you will probably have heard of the execution of the tsar and the removal of his family to a place of greater safety. This is a lie. The tsar was shot along with his entire family. My father was part of the execution squad.

I was patrolling outside the house where the Romanovs were being held when the shooting started. Looking up, I could even see the window of the cellar in which they were all slain. I saw the flashes of light.

The daughters' screams were so loud I had nightmares last night. A few of the guards who were outside with me confessed to similar feelings of distress today.

While the execution was still going on, comrade Medvedev, who was part of the squad as well, went outside, passed by, and asked us if the shots could be heard. I thought he was joking at first. Even mama heard the shots from our house across the street. When I went back home, she was so anxious and agitated I started worrying for her heart.

I didn't see them take the bodies out, as the executioners were very secretive about this, but looking through the window, I got a glimpse of some of them inside the room. They were being covered by sheets. Minutes later, Medvedev described to us how the doctor, the maid, and two waiters had also been shot. He said that the heir was still alive and moaning a little when he came back into the cellar, but then Yurovsky had gone up and fired two or three more times at him, which was enough to kill him.

Long after I had returned home, the other Stephen Vaganov knocked on my door. I don't know if you are aware of him already, so I am telling you just so there is no confusion. Stephen is Ermakovʼs assistant and papaʼs second cousin. He told me that my father had asked for me to help them dispose of the bodies. I hesitated. I was far too busy caring for my mother, but he immediately replied that they hadn't asked for me to come, only for advice, as the acid they were using didn't seem to be working as well as they thought it would.

I told him that the best chemical for dissolving bodies was actually

I always skip this part. I could hardly believe my eyes when I first received the letter, but four entire pages are wasted explaining in great detail why a magic acid I don't remember the name of fucks the so-called "organic" shit and whatnot. Half another page explains why the first acid they used was slow. What made him think I would understand any of that crap? The point is that Gleb went to his laboratory, and working throughout the rest of the night, he provided the executioners with a better acid. Next!

It was hard to leave my mother alone in her sorrow, but they really needed help.

The next morning, I talked to some of the other executioners. They told us that the daughters had suffered terribly before dying because they had jewels sewn in their clothes that made the bullets bounce off whenever they were shot at. They couldn't even pierce them with the bayonets. The oldest two were shot in the head, but the youngest had to have their skulls crushed using the backs of the rifles. This must have been a complete nightmare to witness and I feel sorry for my father just thinking about it. Please don't judge him too harshly.

Why makes him think I would? This kid is soft.

I know that the execution could have been carried out in a much more humane way. I am still trying to figure out why they killed the servants. I have inquired with the Ural Soviet about it but received no response. I feel bad for the sick boy in particular, but putting them all to death was necessary. We couldn't keep moving them because sooner or later the family would have been rescued, especially given the shameful way in which some of the guards fraternized with them. The counter-revolutionaries were moving closer and closer, and any of the Romanovs could have been used as a figurehead for their reactionary government, even the women.

The Romanovs lived fulfilling and happy lives. They lacked nothing and were treated better than they deserved up to that day. Now they are gone, but gone for a reason, not due to senseless butchery. A revolution is a simple thing. The slow, cruel, and unyielding violence of the old order is not. Who mourns the miners shot at the Lena goldfields? Who remembers the Kishniev pogrom? Who grieves for the thousands of childr

Dear Marx. He and I are on the same side. A better question is, who exactly is Gleb trying to convince?

It is the peopleʼs turn to rise from their misery. As I write to you, I am preparing to leave for the front to fight the Czech. My hands are shaking, yes, but I feel nothing but peace when I think of the future. The men leaving with me come from all walks of life. Their stories have many times made me shed tears. Some have grown up in rags, and their uniforms are the first new garments they acquire in years. Some seem so happy for their small children, who will grow up in a world without hunger or pain. I met a woman working at the

Moving stories, the next few pages, but not what I need to read again right now.

I hope I am not being too familiar, but still, I can't help but share with you a beautiful poem from the poet Sergei Esenin:

Come, Russia, proud wings plying,

a different order found!

And different steppe is rising

where different names resound

Where does this man get the idea I enjoy poetry? Yes, he is being too familial.

Enough of pain and ruin and praising infamy indeed. Russia has already awakened. I was also inspired to write my own poem after I observed the way the red guards, no longer under anyoneʼs yoke, elected their own commanders at

I stop reading. One poem was bad enough. Does he think I am his writing partner? What does he want me to do now? Reply with suggestions?

I must confess that not all of my comrades in the army feel as I do. Many are pessimistic. They have a problem with the commissars in particular. Too strict, they say. We cannot make everyone happy, but I have been trying to improve their morale, to make them see how important structure is. I would appreciate any recommendations you may have to give in order to deal with these sorts of situations.

Now that my father is gone, I hope you take some comfort from the fact I am more willing to kill and die for what he believed in than ever. He died, but not for nothing.

Your friend had a deep affection for you and admired everything you had done for your country, so if there is anything you need, I am indebted.

Yours,

Gleb.

That. There. The paper is stained by tears. He thinks his father died only after having successfully eliminated the tsar and his entire family. He finds comfort in the idea Stephen fulfilled some important purpose when he only got the job half done.

Gleb must never know. I hope his transfer cheers him up instead of depressing him further. He seems to have gotten attached to his brothers in arms rather quickly.

Sorry to the ones I succeded in making them love Alexei or already did before but it is very worth it to keep going I promise.

To be fair, as I am no expert, I dont know what month of 1918 exactly political commissars being sent to units in order to make sure the Red Army and its many ex-tsarist officers were loyal became a thing but let us say for the purpose of Gorlinskyʼs inner monologue occurring this chapter that in this "world" they were already around, at least in theory, by late July. Same with special assignment units that appeared somewhere around 1918-1922. They were already there in theory in this timeline, ok? lol

I updated because it had been long, people had been asking me to, and I did promise I would update every time I reached certain milestones in my other story, but I remind you this is still on hiatus.

From now on I will try to set myself more realistic milestones in my other story though, so I can update this more frequently. Because I am working on the first revolution in my other story, which is full of stuff happening and thus a bit harder to write about and needing of longer chapters, I will be posting one chapter here and one chapter there intermittently for a while starting now. I am so sorry for this short "exposition" chapter where none of the main characters appear and the cliffhanger from last chapter isnt resolved, but another one is coming soon after I update my other story! A good one!

Here is a small preview that hopefully will soothe you for the time being:

The girls plan wont go as intended and two characters who had been separated for a while will meet again. Theorize in the comments if you like (Dont worry I am not going to pettily change what is going to happen if by chance anyone guesses right lol).