Deadlock

you.' He glanced back at her. 'Actually, that's a lie. I do want to disturb you. But not that way, Emily.'

Damn him.

She watched him walk away toward the seats near the cockpit, where Dardon and Pauley were sitting. He did disturb her. Just notic¬ing the way he walked bothered her. Springy, catlike, athletic. What the hell was wrong with her?

She knew what was wrong. She had become too aware of him as her emotions had come back to life. That sexual magnetism was grow¬ing stronger the longer she was with him.

Ignore it.

Work.

Read about Mikhail Zelov.

GARRETT DIDN'T COME BACK until they were over Sweden. 'You've been working for hours. Am I permitted to talk to you now?' He dropped down in the chair beside her. 'And, no, Pauley hasn't gotten through yet. He says he's getting closer.'

'Good,' she said absently as she looked up from the transcript. She was glad to see him, glad to see anyone who would bring her out of Zelov's world. She moved her shoulders as if shrugging off a bur¬den. That's what she felt like, she thought. Heavy and carrying a crushing weight of evil and hatred. 'There wasn't much in his letters except arrogance and demands on his family. It's in his journal that he let's you see him as he is.'

'Was he as nuts as his family claimed?'

'Maybe. Like Hitler was nuts. He wanted to take over the world. He hated everything and everyone. He wanted to be emperor or the Pope. I can't tell you the contempt he felt for Tsar Nicholas. It's in¬credible that he managed to hide it from him. He worked there in the royal household and saw him almost every day.'

'What about his relationship with Rasputin?'

'He regarded him as a puppet, as we thought. They were both of peasant birth, and Zelov was able to feed Rasputin's ambition and push him toward being the figurehead he wanted him to be.'

'Why did he want a figurehead? If he had that kind of ego, I'd think he'd be willing to risk trying to take the power himself.'

'He would have risked it. There was nothing wrong with his nerve.' She flipped through the pages until she came to the one that she wanted. 'Here, read this. It's one of the passages from when he and Rasputin were at the height of their power. It may give you an in¬sight into Zelov.' She leaned back, watching as he read the passage.

/ had to sternly chastise Rasputin today. His arrogance and woman¬izing are beginning to make the Tsarina suspicious of him. She is a fool, but she has eyes to see and ears to hear the gossip. How can I convince her that he is a holy man when he fornicates with half the women of the city? Holy man? He is a joke. He has a few meager talents, but I am the one who could shake their souls if I decided to unleash my powers. I am the holy one. I could heal that woman's puny young son if I decided to do it. Instead, I had to stop only one of his bleeding fits and give credit to Rasputin. Now she believes he is a god.

I am the god.

I was tempted to come forward on that day and tell them all what fools they were, how little they were in comparison to me. And then I thought of doing what Rasputin is doing and mesmerizing all this court with my power and personality. I could do it. I can do anything.

No, I must subdue this anger. I chose this role, and I must live with it. I set Rasputin to play the sorcerer and holy man of God for a reason. These fools are uneasy around me. I smile. I keep my hatred close to my heart. Still, they distance themselves from me. I believe they sense that they have a god in their midst.

Yet the women of the town spread their legs for thatfool, Rasputin. There are rumors that he may be sleeping with the Tsarina and I can¬not tolerate that stupidity. I have the Tsar within my sights, and I will soon have everything I wish from him.

I believe I will take Rasputin back to Jerusalem on a pilgrimage and get him away from the Tsarina. Then when he comes back with 'supposed' new holy powers, I can start fresh. If he's good and obeys me, perhaps I'll give Rasputin one of the grand duchesses to play with. They're pretty enough, and I can make them think coupling with Rasputin will get them closer to God. Much safer for me and Rasputin than his bedding the Tsarina. Though she's so enamored with the idea of his being holy that she probably thinks the Church would bless their fornication.

I think it's time I took aim at the Church. It has too much influ¬ence with the Tsar. I will have to break its hold on him even if it means destroying or discrediting those greedy bastards. Churches can fall even as monarchies can fall. Priests can be burned at the stake even as Tsars can be shot and bludgeoned.

I can do it. I can do anything. As long as I'm able to control that idiot Rasputin.

'Not exactly a sterling character,' Garrett said. 'Let's see, he had it in for the monarchy, the Tsar, the Tsarina, the Church, and Rasputin. Have I left out anyone?'

'Not in this passage. You should read the rest. He's quite a piece of work. He did go back to Jerusalem, and I don't know if he arranged to give one of those pretty daughters of the Tsar to Rasputin for sex, but he was trying to choose which one was safest for seduction.' 'Shades of Anastasia,' Garrett murmured.

'No, she was too young. She might talk,' Emily said. 'Olga was in contention, but he was leaning toward Maria.' She shook her head. 'It nearly made me sick. All that evil. All that corruption. And those royal children caught in the middle of it.'

'It's clear he truly believed he had psychic powers.' Garrett said. 'Maybe he did.'

'Why do you say that?'

'This was written years before the Tsar's death, but that was how he died. He and his entire family were shot, then bludgeoned with ri¬fle butts.'

'Coincidence.'

'Maybe.' He gazed down at the transcript. 'Zelov said he was near getting what he wanted from the Tsar. What did he want?'

She shrugged. 'The throne? Money? Influence?'

'He was practical. He'd know that a throne would be out of the question for a peasant.'

'But power wouldn't be impossible. The revolution was right around the corner. Maybe he was a Communist?'

'If he was, then it was an ideology of convenience. And he had in¬fluence through Rasputin. No, it had to be money.'

'And judging by that castle he built in Connecticut, he must have gotten all he needed. How?'

'The Tsarina and her daughters were vulnerable. I've seen photos of their jewels. They're fantastic. More opulent than the crown jewels of England.'

'But he specified something from the Tsar. The Tsarina and her daughters were merely an annoyance he had to tolerate. Does he men¬tion anything specific later?'

'No. He talks a lot about Rasputin. He gets pretty vicious toward the end of this ledger. Evidently Rasputin could be charming, if a lit¬tle mad. Zelov resented that side of him. I suppose he wanted him un¬der his thumb. He goes off on diatribes about the Church and how he was going to usurp its power. The venom got worse as the Church in¬creasingly turned on Rasputin and tried to influence the Tsarina to forbid him to come to court.'

'And at what point does the ledger end?'

'A few months before Zelov left for America. He makes some kind of enigmatic comment that the time had come for his words to be put forth surrounded by the light cast by his Book of Living. So he must have continued his ledger in the book itself.'

'The Book of Living again. No threats toward Rasputin? No dire plans of murder?'

She shook her head. 'Just the same contempt he always felt for him. No change at all.'

'What about any of the other letters? Any connection?'

'He seems to have cut the ties to Russia entirely once he left.'

'Yet he built a Russian castle and wanted his children to speak Russian.'

'Arrogance. He was always right, remember? Including his lan¬guage.'

'And we're back to the question of where he got the money to build that castle.' He gathered the pages and put them back in the en¬velope. 'If you don't mind, I'll take a look at these.'

'I don't mind. But you're not going to find anything.'

'Probably not. But, like you, I want to get a handle on Zelov. For instance, he hated the Russian Orthodox