The Kremlin Games(138)

The czar himself was looking a bit conflicted about the rescue. The dogboy still under Bernie’s gun was looking very angry. But the confrontation was over, obviously. The man could be as angry as he wanted, he had no chance against the odds he was facing.

So, Bernie turned toward Natasha and began re-holstering his gun. But she was staring past him looking at Dogboy and the czar. Then her expression changed. Bernie turned back to see Dogboy pulling out a pistol of his own and pointing it, not at him or Natasha, but the czar. The czar was looking back at Dogboy with a half-frightened, half-resigned expression on his face. As though the fate that he had been dodging all his life had caught him at last.

Then Vladislav Vasl’yevich jumped, knocking the czar out of the way.

Bernie fired, Dogboy fired. Vladislav Vasl’yevich went down, spraying the czar with his blood.

Dogboy went down, too. Wounded in the shoulder, not dead, but he’d lost his gun.

A couple of the other dogboy guards took the gunshots as a license to resume hostilities, but Vladislav Vasl’yevich’s men began firing at them immediately. Numerically, the two groups were about evenly matched, but the Gorchakov guards were equipped with the brand new AK4.7 cap-lock repeaters. The .7 modification was only partly to the gun. The center fire chambers could be fit into a clip that was shifted right to left, one chamber every time the lever-action was opened and closed so that it was fire, cock, fire, cock. The dogboys, on the other hand—with standard Sheremetev pecuniary habits—were equipped with the cheaper AK3 flintlocks.

It was a damp day, too. The only dogboy gun that came to bear squarely on its target misfired. The end result was a simple massacre. After seeing Vladislav Vasl’yevich gunned down, his men were in no mood to take prisoners—any prisoners, not just the two who’d raised their guns.

Two of the dogboy guards survived, but they were badly wounded. Meanwhile, another group of Natasha’s guards had rescued the czarina, the nurse, her husband, and all the children.

* * *

They questioned the chief dogboy who was, as it turned out, an Oprichniki of the Boyar Duma. So this was the form that Sheremetev’s political officers were to take. Ivan the Terrible’s Oprichniki had been his personal secret police and ultimately had proven to be more trouble than they were worth. But they had included many people that would, in later years, prove very important—including Patriarch Filaret and Boris Godunov. So the Boyar Duma, also in need of a force to put down dissension, had created an updated version.

A contingent of that new organization had been given the job of guarding the czar. Their commander, the one with the dog’s head clasp, was under orders to kill the czar, but only if it looked like the czar might escape. The same orders were in place for the czar’s family, but only if the czar was dead first. The Boyar Duma didn’t want Mikhail free and after revenge for a dead family. They didn’t, even Dogboy insisted, want Mikhail dead. Just out of the way while they did what was needed to keep Russia safe from the corrupting influences that Mikhail and his father had allowed in. Russia needed a strong hand. The Russian people tended to become bandits and brigands if they were given too much freedom.

* * *

“Look, folks,” Bernie said after a while. “This is all very interesting and I’m sure quite socially relevant, but is this really the time for a debate on political philosophy? They were going to kill you, Your Majesty. Maybe not now, but once they were sure of themselves. At best, they would keep you and your whole family prisoners for the rest of your lives. Meanwhile, the bad guys are after us and I don’t want to stick around to find out what they’ll do if they catch us. It’s your country, Your Majesty. If you want to stay here and trust to the good offices of the Boyar Duma, and that fink Sheremetev, that’s your choice. But we need to leave.”

The nurse, Tami Simmons, spoke up. “We’re going with you! I’m sorry, Your Majesty, but I don’t want my kids here when these guys’ friends show up.”

The czarina agreed, and then so did Mikhail. So, the czar and czarina and their kids would ride in the Dodge with Bernie and everyone else they could fit would ride in the trailer. That still left half a dozen of Natasha’s guards without transport. They took the horses in the paddock. All of them. They would need remounts and didn’t want to leave the dogboys with transportation. There was serious talk about killing the dogboys. And as a sort of compromise, Czar Mikhail had them swear on pain of death not to serve the Boyar Duma anymore.

Bernie didn’t figure the oaths would last past the time it took them to get over the horizon, but he didn’t really care either. Natasha’s guardsmen were to make their way back to Murom as fast as they could and if Natasha wasn’t there when they arrived, at the very least orders would be.