The Romanov Legacy Read Online Free PDF Page A

Vadim.”
    “There is no choice, I’m afraid.  Let me
explain.”  Constantine’s gut churned as he listened to the ludicrous story
spill out of Vadim’s mouth:  the blackmailer in San Francisco, his
professor accomplice, and the favor Vadim could do nothing but repay.  “I
wouldn’t ask this of you unless it were for him,” the older man finished
weakly.   
    “Goddamn it, Vadim.”  Constantine suppressed the urge
to hit something.  He imagined slamming his fist into another man’s face
just to feel the satisfying crunch of cartilage.  This was the fifth time
he’d been promised leave, and the fifth time it had been revoked.  He
hadn’t seen his family in one year, ten months and thirteen days.  Hurry ,
his father’s email had said.  We’re losing her.   “Get someone
else,” he said.  “I can’t do it.”  
    “This is not a request, my boy.  It must be handled
quickly and quietly, before it comes to the Prime Minister’s attention.”
    “Not this time, Vadim.  She’s waiting for me.”
    “I’m very sorry, my boy, but you leave in an hour.  The
file is on the plane.”
    He opened his mouth to protest but the line was already
dead.  Behind him, the shopkeeper held out the wrapped package. 
Constantine shook his head.  “ Lo siento, senor .  I’m not going
home after all.”
    *
    The Global Express XRS sat fueled and ready when he arrived
at Velazco Astete.  The bureau fielded a fleet of private jets, keeping
its agents out of public terminals and off traceable passenger manifests. 
Each jet had radar scramblers, missile defense, a private stateroom, and a
freezer full of Russian Standard.  The flight crews consisted solely of
retired Soviet Air Defense Force pilots.  Sometimes they would open the
door to the flight deck and tell their passengers stories about shooting down
Korean planes by accident. 
    Constantine saluted his pilot and co-pilot as he stepped
into the cabin and grabbed a bottle from the freezer.  He’d emailed his
father from the cab, informing him of the delay.  Tell Lana to hang on ,
he wrote.  One more stop and I’ll be home . 
    His eyes drifted down to the file on the seat next to
him.  It bore the bureau’s seal—a double eagle clutching a scroll in one
talon and a saber in the other.  He slit the sealing tape and sifted
through the contents: a summary of the Romanov murder, snippets of an old case
file with a Soviet locator number, and dossiers on two people, Professor
Elizabeth Brandon and the letter writer, Yuri Voloshin. 
    The information on Voloshin came from the Russian consul in
San Francisco, a man named Kadyrov.  Voloshin had apparently contacted the
consul that morning; on Vadim’s instructions, the consul set up a meeting for
tomorrow.  Yuri Voloshin’s background check read like a petty crime
novel.  His father died when he was eight, after which he lived with his
immigrant grandfather.  Since the age of 19, he’d been in and out of
prison for theft and drug charges, with no steady jobs, education, wife, or
kids.  Aside from his minor connections within the vory zakone ,
there was nothing to mark his presence on earth. 
    Professor Elizabeth Brandon proved slightly more compelling
as a subject.  A tenured professor at a liberal arts university, she had
an impressive public record—six books, two Pulitzer nominations and occasional
editorials in The New York Times .  She was divorced with one child,
and the legal guardian of a younger sister who was a hair’s breadth away from
being institutionalized.  He grunted, feeling an unwilling kinship with
his victim.  Svetlana’s doctors had done nothing but shake their heads and
give her more pills.  All he realized was that they didn’t understand a
goddamn thing about what was going on in Lana’s mind.  How could anything
like that be fixed by a pill?
    He flipped to the summary of the Romanov murder.  All
seven members of the deposed imperial family were imprisoned in