After two hours she had sunk into something close to a stupor, her mind and body numb with cold. But at a little before ten o’clock she caught a glimpse of a small grey cloud on the dark horizon. It disappeared for a few seconds then reappeared a little closer, and her heart leapt into her mouth. There was no mistaking it now: a pillar of smoke and steam rising from an engine. It was the first train at last and it was gusting towards her, four, five, six seconds and she could see a snake of ten carriages. It disappeared into another cutting, but only for a moment. Closer and closer, just as she had imagined it, the snow plough at the front with the plume of smoke trailing back along the train. And as the ground began to tremble beneath her feet she wondered if it was really possible to dislodge such a force. On to the railway embankment it rumbled, past the little cottage and over the tunnel they had excavated over so many difficult weeks. The driver’s face was lit by the demonic orange glow of the firebox. Blazoned on the side, the symbol of oppression — the black eagle of the Romanovs. The curtains were drawn in the carriages but she could see soldiers on the plates between and more in the guards’ van at the rear. Then with a whoosh of steam it was gone, powdery snow swirling in its wake, and Anna was shaking with excitement for surely the tsar was only minutes away. Minutes.
She could imagine those two pieces of wire trembling in Hartmann’s rough hands. A small electrical impulse that would change Russia for ever. The tension was unbearable. She felt nauseous and struggled to check a desperate urge to jump up and pace up and down. She must be calm. The moment for action was almost upon them. The only way to free the people. Free Russia. She wanted to shout and jump and run to release the agony of waiting, and, pulling off her gloves, she dug the nails of her right hand into the back of her left, pinching herself, distracted for a moment by the pain. She could not say how long she waited, with every minute an hour, staring into a darkness broken only by pinpricks of light. Once, she was sure she saw something grey on the short horizon and sank back further into the thicket only to realise she had been tricked by her fevered imagination. And slowly the fear began to creep into her mind that the imperial train had been stopped and the sacrifices and hopes had all been in vain. So when at last she saw what might be a spiral of steam — lost for a few seconds then found — she would not accept it was the train until its shadow was quite unmistakable. And with certainty came a cold stillness. As if in a trance, she watched it draw closer and listened to the rails singing close by. Through a junction, across the river and, as it approached the long embankment, its klaxon split the night with a bellow like a wounded buffalo that chilled her to the marrow. Sh-sh-sh. On it came, the two-headed eagle just visible now on the carriages. Courtiers and guards, the kitchen, the dining car and the fourth carriage was the tsar’s saloon. Around the last corner. Seconds from the cottage. The yellow lamp at the front of the engine like a giant’s eye searching the track. The sh-sh-sh filling her mind. Thirty yards, twenty yards. Unblinking and breathless. And the engine rumbling over the gallery packed with dynamite. Now. Now. Do it now. And she bent her head, pressing her hands to her ears. One second, two seconds, three…
The white blast sucked the air from her chest and left her confused and completely deaf. For a few seconds she stared senselessly at the dense cloud of acrid smoke hanging over the track. Slowly she became aware of a distant whooshing like an Arctic wind. The engine had ground to a halt close by and the driver was releasing steam from the boiler. Where was the cottage? It was as if she were viewing everything through the bottom of a bottle. Dazed soldiers jumped from the train and half ran, half fell down the embankment into the snowy field below. As the smoke began to drift she could see the train twisting off the track with the ragged silhouette of a carriage on its side. A splinter of rail rose at a right angle to the embankment, and beneath it the raw earth rim of the smoking crater. It was as if a hand had scooped the train from the track like a toy then dropped it carelessly back. And she felt a warm rush of pride. They had done it! The tsar was dead. No one in the fourth carriage could possibly have survived the explosion. Debris spotted the snow beyond the embankment as far as she could see. Railwaymen and soldiers were still stumbling from the train and a small group was gathering at the lip of the crater. Rising to her feet, she eased her way back through the thicket and away from the hissing engine. Before long they would find the remains of the gallery and follow the trench back to the cottage. Her comrades would be waiting anxiously to hear what she had seen: what news she could bring them! What joyful news. The tyrant was dead.
15
Not content with ringing the new electric bell, the clerk from the Justice Ministry was banging his fist on the door and making enough noise to wake not only Dobrshinsky’s respectable neighbours in Furshtatskaya Street but the devil himself. The bleary-eyed porter opened it in his nightshirt. Certainly, His Honour was at home but, like every good Christian, in his bed at such an hour. The clerk was insistent: he was required to deliver his message at once. It was a matter of the utmost importance.
The long case clock in the hall was chiming half past three as the young man was shown into the special investigator’s study. Anton Dobrshinsky was standing at his desk in a flamboyant Chinese blue silk dressing gown which would have surprised those familiar with his sober public persona. He had just struck a match and was on the point of lighting a cigarette.
The clerk stepped forward at once with the letter: ‘Compliments of His Worship Count von Plehve.’
Dobrshinsky examined the handwriting on the envelope for a second, then picked up a paperknife and with a single easy motion slit it open. Five polite but deliberately vague lines that left him in no doubt the count had received serious intelligence:
My Dear Anton Frankzevich,
I am sorry for the lateness of the hour, only a matter of the greatest importance to the Fatherland would lead me to request a meeting. I have sent a carriage with instructions to bring you to my home. My dear fellow, please make haste, there is much of a confidential nature that we must speak of at the earliest opportunity.
An attack? Dobrshinsky wondered. This new terrorist organisation, the arrest of the Jew with a suitcase of dynamite: he had warned the head of the Third Section there would be an attempt on a member of the imperial family or the government. The dogs had been barking a warning in the streets.
‘I’ll be down shortly,’ he said, slipping the letter back in the envelope.
It was only a matter of a few minutes’ drive through the empty streets to von Plehve’s home on the Moika Embankment. The count greeted Dobrshinsky in the hall and, with the face of an undertaker, led him to his study.
‘My dear fellow, terrible news,’ he said as the polished mahogany doors closed behind them. ‘It concerns His Majesty…’
Dobrshinsky looked at him impassively for a moment then said: ‘I warned General Drenteln the imperial train was in danger.’
‘How did you know?’ demanded von Plehve.
‘The gendarmes arrested a Jew called Goldenberg at Elizavetgrad Station eight days ago. He was carrying a large quantity of dynamite.’
‘You mean this could have been prevented?’ The count gestured angrily towards one of the English armchairs in front of his desk. ‘The Emperor’s Council will want to know why the train wasn’t stopped.’
He slumped heavily into the chair opposite Dobrshinsky and with his elbows on the arms, placed his fingers to his lips and stared coldly over them at the special investigator: ‘The second attempt on the tsar’s life this year. It will be me who has to answer for this.’
That was not, strictly speaking, true. Dobrshinsky knew the names of half a dozen ministers and more senior civil servants who would be asked to account for a failure in security before the count — the head of the Third Section, General Drenteln, for one.
‘It would be helpful if Your Worship told me what has happened.’
‘As you’ve clearly surmised, the emperor has not been hurt,’ said the count dryly. ‘But the imperial baggage train was derailed by an explosion outside Moscow this evening. The order of the trains was changed, the emperor’s was to have been the second train but at the last minute it was agreed he would travel before the baggage.’ The
