The Third Section by Jasper Kent

and to be caught in the first rays of the dawning sun would be a foolish and unpleasant way to die. But he didn’t need clocks to tell him the position of the sun. Around dusk and dawn, he could feel its presence, like a wolf, lurking below the horizon, hoping that the laws of physics might momentarily change so that it could pounce unexpectedly and take him. But Yudin trusted the laws of physics more than anything in the whole world – more than his own instincts.
    Currently those laws dictated that the sun was somewhere on the far side of the Earth and so although Yudin might be late, he had little to fear from it. He looked up at the clock on the Saviour’s Tower, having to strain his neck since he was almost directly underneath it. It wasn’t the hour, or even the quarter, and the single stroke of the bell sounded nothing like the distinctive, newly restored chimes of the clock. Most likely it was from a church – one of the many inside the Kremlin.
    He tightened his grip on the wooden box under his arm and strode through the gateway beneath the tower, eager to make use of its contents. It was his most treasured possession: his microscope – one of the few things he had rescued when he had fled his laboratory in the caves deep beneath Chufut Kalye. Out there in the Crimea, the war had been going on for months, but he had heard of no action anywhere close to his old haunt. What would anyone find if they went there now, he wondered. He had fond memories of the place, but now he kept his scientific paraphernalia at his house. It was a place he rarely visited, to the south of the river in Zamoskvorechye, but it was useful. He stored most of his possessions there, and in the cellar was a coffin where he could lie during the day if unable to reach his more regular sleeping place beneath the Kremlin. It was not his only bolthole in the city.
    It had been almost a week since Raisa had handed him the sample of the tsarevich’s blood – a sample which she had so expertly drawn from him without his even noticing. Perhaps afterwards he had felt the cut to his lip, and connected it to his stolen encounter with her. But even if he did, he would put it down to unbridled passion overcoming her in the presence of so powerful a figure. But how much did he know about the Romanov Betrayal? His uncle and namesake, Aleksandr I, had understood it all. Surely that knowledge would have been passed down to those most in danger. Would the younger Aleksandr have made the connection when he raised his hand and discovered the blood on his lips? It did not matter. Yudin had his sample, and in a moment he would be able to examine it.
    Yudin had made most of his discoveries years before, when working in those caves. Zmyeevich possessed the Romanov blood – blood which Pyotr the Great had willingly allowed to be drunk from him. With that came the risk for any Romanov that, merely by drinking a few drops of Zmyeevich’s blood, they might become like him. With Yudin’s help he had almost succeeded with Nikolai’s brother, Tsar Aleksandr I. But Aleksandr’s death had saved him.
    And there lay the problem. Yudin had discovered that within each generation of Romanovs there was only one chance of success. Zmyeevich had attempted to exert his power over Aleksandr and had failed. That meant that he could not attempt it with Nikolai, or any of Aleksandr’s other brothers. The chance had moved to the next generation: Aleksandr, Konstantin and the others.
    Yudin smiled. Tsar Nikolai was a sentimental man. His father, Tsar Pavel, had had four sons and named them, in order, Aleksandr, Konstantin, Nikolai and Mihail. Nikolai had four sons and named them, in order, Aleksandr, Konstantin, Nikolai and Mihail. The first set of brothers bore the patronymic Pavlovich, the second Nikolayevich. It was to the Nikolayevichs that Zmyeevich would turn his attention – but not yet. Not until one of them became tsar. It would most likely be Aleksandr, but who could