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set off an explosive which destroyed the house and killed everyone inside, including the agents who hadgone in to arrest him. Meanwhile, Grodek and Balka fled out the back, where Pekkala was waiting in case they tried to escape. Pekkala pursued them along the icy cobbled street until Grodek tried to cross the river on the Potsuleyev Bridge. But Okhrana men had stationed themselves on the other side of the bridge, and the two criminals found themselves with nowhere left to run. It was at this moment that Grodek had shot his fiancée rather than let her fall into the hands of the police. Balka’s body tumbled into the canal and disappeared among the plates of ice which drifted out towards the sea like rafts loaded with diamonds. Grodek, afraid to jump, had tried to shoot himself, only to discover that his gun was empty. He was immediately taken into custody
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    The Tsar had ordered Pekkala to arrive at the Alexander Palace no later than 4 p.m. that day, in order to make his report. The Tsar did not like to be kept waiting, and Pekkala had raced the whole way from Petrograd, arriving with only minutes to spare. He dashed up the front steps of the Palace and straight to the Tsar’s study
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    There was no answer, so Pekkala knocked again. Still there was no answer. Cautiously, he opened the door, but found the room empty
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    Pekkala sighed with annoyance
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    Although the Tsar did not like to be kept waiting, he had no trouble making others wait for him
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    Just then, Pekkala heard the Tsar’s voice coming from the room across the hall. The chamber belonged to the Tsarina Alexandra and was known as the Mauve Boudoir. Of the hundred rooms in the Alexander Palace, it had become the most famous, because of how ugly people found it. Pekkala was forced to agree. To his eye, everything in that room was the color of boiled liver
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    Pekkala stopped outside the room, trying to catch his breath from all the rushing he had done to be on time. Then he heard the voice of the Tsarina and the Tsar’s furious reply. As their words filtered into his brain, he realized they were talking about him
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    “I am not going to dismiss Pekkala!” said the Tsar
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    Pekkala heard the faint creak of the Tsar’s riding boots upon the floor
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He knew exactly which pair of boots they were—they had been special-ordered from England and had arrived the week before. The Tsar was trying to break them in, although his feet were suffering in the meantime. He had confided to Pekkala that he had even resorted to the old peasant trick of softening new boots, which was to urinate in them and leave them standing overnight
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    Now Pekkala heard the Tsarina speaking in her usual soft tone. He had never heard her shout. The Tsarina’s low pitch always sounded to him like a person uttering threats. “Our friend has urged us,” she said
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    At the mention of “our friend,” Pekkala felt his jaw clench. That was the phrase the Tsar and the Tsarina used between themselves to describe the self-proclaimed holy man Rasputin
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    Since his first appearance in the court of Tsar Nicholas Romanov, Rasputin’s hold upon the Imperial Family had grown so strong that he was now consulted on all matters, whether about the war, which was now in its second year and moving from one catastrophe to the next, or about appointments to the Royal Court, or about the illness of the Tsar’s youngest child, Alexei. Although it was officially denied, Alexei had been diagnosed with hemophilia. Injuries which would have been laughed off by any healthy boy confined him to his bed for days at a time. Often he had to be carried wherever he went by his personal servant, a sailor named Derevenko
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    The Tsarina soon came to believe that Rasputin held the cure to Alexei’s disease
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    Disturbed by the power Rasputin held over the royal family, the prime minister, Peter Stolypin, had ordered an investigation. The report he delivered to the Tsar was filled with stories of debauchery in Rasputin’s Petrograd