Read the Romanov Prophecy (2004) for Free Online Page B

limped close and asked him, “Do you know what’s happening?”
    “The Whites are nearby.”
    Her tired face showed wonderment. “Could this be?”
    “This way, please,” a familiar voice said from the stairway.
    Nicholas turned and faced Yurovsky.
    The man had arrived twelve days before with a squad from the Bolshevik Secret Police, replacing the previous commandant and his undisciplined factory-worker guards. At first the change seemed positive, but Nicholas quickly determined that these new men were professionals. Perhaps even Magyars, prisoners of war from the Austro-Hungarian army, hired by the Bolsheviks for jobs native Russians abhorred. Yurovsky was their leader. A dark man with black hair, black beard, and an unhurried way in his manner and speech. He gave orders calmly and expected them to be obeyed.
Ox Command
was the name with which they’d christened him, and Nicholas had quickly concluded that this demon enjoyed oppressing people.
    “We must hurry,” Yurovsky said. “Time is short.”
    Nicholas signaled for quiet and the entourage followed a wooden staircase down to the ground floor. Alexie slept soundly on his shoulder. Anastasia released the dog, which scurried away.
    They were led outside, across a courtyard, to a semi-basement room with one arched window. Dingy striped wallpaper covered the plaster walls. There was no furniture.
    “Wait here for the cars to arrive,” Yurovsky said.
    “Where are we going?” Nicholas asked.
    “Away,” was all their jailer said.
    “No chairs?” Alexandra said. “May we not sit?”
    Yurovsky shrugged and instructed one of his men. Two chairs appeared. Alexandra took one, Maria positioning the pillow she held behind her mother’s back. Nicholas sat Alexie in the other. Tatiana placed her pillow behind her brother and made the boy comfortable. Demidova continued to clutch her pillow close with crossed arms.
    More artillery rumbled in the distance. The sound brought Nicholas hope.
    Yurovsky said, “It is necessary that we photograph you. There are people who believe you have already escaped. So I need you to stand here.”
    Yurovsky positioned everyone. When he finished, the daughters stood behind their seated mother, Nicholas stood beside Alexie, the four non–family members behind him. Over the course of sixteen months they’d been ordered to do many strange things. This one, being awakened in the middle of the night for a picture and then being whisked away, was no exception. When Yurovsky left the room and closed the door, no one said a word.
    A moment later the door reopened.
    But no photographer with a tripod camera entered. Instead, eleven armed men paraded in. Yurovsky came last. The Russian’s right hand was stuffed into his trouser pocket. He was holding a sheet of paper in the other.
    He started reading.
    “In view of the fact that your relatives are continuing their attack on the Soviet Russia, the Ural Executive Committee has decided to execute you.”
    Nicholas was having trouble hearing. A vehicle engine was revving outside, loud and clamorous. Strange. He looked at his family, then faced Yurovsky and said, “What? What?”
    The Russian’s expression never broke. He simply repeated the declaration in the same monotone. Then his right hand came from his pocket.
    Nicholas saw the gun.
    A Colt pistol.
    The barrel approached his head.
    SIX
    A weak feeling always came to Lord’s stomach when he read about that night. He tried to imagine what it must have been like when the shooting started. The terror they must have felt. Nowhere to go. Nothing to do but die horribly.
    He’d been drawn back to the event because of what he’d found in the Protective Papers. He’d stumbled onto the note ten days back, scrawled on a plain brittle sheet in outdated Russian script, the black ink barely legible. It was inside a crimson leather bag that had been sewn shut. A label on the outside indicated: ACQUIRED JULY 10, 1925. NOT TO BE OPENED UNTIL JANUARY 1,