The Ring of the Queen (The Lost Tsar Trilogy Book 1) Read online

We entered Red Square at the Resurrection Gate. As we walked through the gate, everything opened up in front of me, and I saw Red Square as a modern tourist and entertainment area. It was a far cry from the visions that I had of it from the Soviet stories that my grandma had told me. Instead of tanks and cannons being toted through the square by hundreds of troops, there was a giant Christmas Tree left over from the holiday, and an ice skating rink with lots of people skating around on it. Saint Basil’s Cathedral did stand at the far end of the Square, and Lenin’s Tomb was on my right directly against the wall of the Kremlin. The square was full of people milling about and there were Christmas lights all over the place. The atmosphere was festive, which was one thing that my grandma had never called Red Square. Off to my left was one of the biggest buildings that I’d ever seen. It looked almost like a giant palace, and it was all lit up with white lights. It was magnificent, and I wanted to go and see what it looked like inside.

  I didn’t realize that I had stopped and was staring in shock at the surroundings. “Stacey, come on!” Tania yelled at me.

  She was walking behind Dr. Zemecki toward the giant building of lights. They were standing, waiting for me to move, by the ice skating rink. I shook my head and walked quickly to where they were waiting.

  “Sorry, it’s all so impressive. I dreamed of seeing all of this,” I told them.

  “I’m so sorry that we couldn’t enjoy it more,” Dr. Zemecki replied. “I need to get you out of sight in case Kostov realizes who he was talking to a minute ago.” He motioned for me to follow him and Tania. “Come on.”

  “Is that the GUM?” I asked him.

  “Haven’t you ever seen pictures of it?” Tania asked.

  “Not really,” I replied.

  “Well, if you think you’re impressed now, just wait,” Dr. Zemecki said. “The inside is incredible.”

  He was not joking. We entered the GUM through the entrance behind the skating rink, from Red Square. What opened up before me was something that I immediately wished I had looked at pictures of on the internet. The building was at least three stories straight up and it was like an old shopping mall. There were possibly hundreds of shops along the main walkways of the building, like an average mall, but the décor was the real show. It was old, early 1920’s. There was a glass cover over it as though it had not been a single building originally. There were railings all along the way of decorative wrought iron. There were grand stairs as well as modern escalators. It was like a museum that you went shopping in.

  I was standing and staring again. “Stacey, come on!” Tania yelled at me. “You can be ADHD later. Right now you need to focus.”

  I shook my head again and followed Dr. Zemecki and Tania. We went through a couple of throughways inside the GUM until we reached a beautiful fountain. I wanted to stop and check out the remains of a Christmas display, but I didn’t want to get yelled at again. I looked up past the fountain and saw the sign. Articoli. Then I smelled the perfume.

  I sneezed. “Wow,” I said. The whole store smelled like a mass of perfume running together to make one overpowering foul stench.

  “This place does make me want to sneeze and puke,” Dr. Zemecki said. “I hope that one of the guys is here so we can authenticate that ring.”

  “No offense, but what would some perfume guys know about antique jewelry?” Tania asked.

  “A shop in the GUM pays better than archaeology,” Dr. Zemecki said.

  Tania and I followed Dr. Zemecki into the store. It was a big one. Most of the stores we had passed on the way had been small. I guessed that this was what we would call a hub in America. I couldn’t believe the smell. I was getting to the point where I had to get away from it or I was going to pass out.

  “Aloshya, thank God you’re here. I need to talk to you in private,” Dr. Zemecki said to an extraordinarily tall man with curly black hair and what appeared to be black eyes. He was wearing a big wool sweater and corduroy pants. The colors were bland; brown and a deep purple.

  Aloshya didn’t stop for a second. “Come with me to the back. I guess you do have something to discuss.”

  We all followed the tall dark man in the dark clothes through a curtain that led to an office type area away from the sales floor. There were four desks in the room, all of them decorative and large and made out of dark hardwoods. There was a giant safe in the corner and many filing cabinets along the opposite wall. In the back of the room was a metal door that had an exit sign above it. I presumed it led to the outside somehow. In the maze that seemed to be the GUM, I wasn’t sure where the outside was from there. Aloshya reached behind the curtain and pulled out a door from what appeared to be absolutely nowhere and closed it.

  “Are you telling me that you already know about this?” Dr. Zemecki asked him.

  “Peter’s programmers hack into the President’s information all the time. He’s been watching her since the plane landed. I was hoping that nothing would come of it,” Aloshya said.

  “Are you telling me this is all true?” I asked.

  Aloshya looked at Dr. Zemecki. “She didn’t know?”

  “No,” Dr. Zemecki replied.

  “Hello, I’m Aloshya,” he said. He shook my hand and then Tania’s. “I’m sorry that we didn’t meet under more ideal circumstances.” He looked at Tania. “I don’t know you.”

  “I’m Tania,” she said. “I’m Stacey’s friend.”

  Aloshya looked at me. “You go by Stacey. Interesting. Was that your idea?”

  I was feeling terribly uncomfortable. “No, my grandma called me that.”

  “Did it ever occur to you that there was a reason for that?” Aloshya asked me.

  “No.”

  “I’m sorry that you are learning about this in this way, however I think that it is time that you learned about your situation and learned why it is so difficult,” Aloshya said.

  “She’s a kid,” Dr. Zemecki told him. “She’s not really ready for this. It’s something that no one would ever think about. Even I never believed you guys until now.”

  “I guess we all are learning something today,” Aloshya said. He looked at me. “Stacey, you are a very special person. It’s not something that you can deny or avoid. You were born this way. Now, do you have the ring with you?”

  I looked at Dr. Zemecki, not knowing what to do.

  “We need to know if this thing is for real,” Dr. Zemecki said. “I think you should let him see the ring.”

  “Okay,” I groaned.

  I handed Aloshya the ring. He took it and got out a magnifying glass. He looked at it for several minutes. Each second that passed made me a little more uncomfortable. I could actually feel my life changing as the seconds ticked away on the clock on the wall. I wanted to scream. I wanted to run. I wanted this all to be a ridiculous miscalculation by a bunch of Russians who would grasp at any hope to get rid of a President that they didn’t like.

  Aloshya looked up and handed me the ring back finally. “Well, I have bad news.”

  “The ring is a fake?” I asked, hoping to God that it was. Then I could go back to school and act like none of this ever happened.

  Aloshya’s face went stone serious. “I wish I could tell you that. The date is inscribed on the inside of the ring.”

  “So?” Tania said.

  “So, there are maybe half a dozen people in the world that know that,” Aloshya said. “The settings appear to be handmade, the gems are real, and the metal is old. This is the real deal. I would bet any amount of money on it. Isn’t that what they say in America?”

  I took out my satellite phone and called my mom. She answered on the first ring. “Honey, I am so worried. Are you all right?”

  “I’m not all right,” I said, starting to cry. “You should have told me! How could you keep something like this from me?”

  “Honey, I’m sorry,” mom said. She was starting to cry too. “It’s not safe.
We thought that if you didn’t know, you would be safer.”

  “That’s stupid,” I said.

  “I realize that now. Please, come home,” she said.

  “I don’t even know if I can,” I replied. “The President is looking for me. I had to run from the dorm without my passport. I don’t know what we’re going to do. Tania came with me, so she’s in this mess too. There are people trying to help me, so hopefully they can figure something out. I wanted you to know that I’m all right. You may not hear from me for a while, so don’t go crazy. I’m mad, so don’t call me every five minutes. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes, dear,” she said. “I won’t bother you. I am here if you need me. I love you.”

  “I love you too,” I said. “I’m just angry. I’ll get over it, but give me some space. I’ll call again when I can.”

  “You are so nice,” Tania said. “I would have ripped her head right off for not telling me that I was a Tsar.” She looked at the two men. “So, now what?”

  “We need Peter,” Dr. Zemecki said.

  “That sounds like a good idea,” Aloshya said.

  “Why do we need this guy Peter?” I asked. “I think I’ve got enough people involved in this already.”

  “He has connections,” Aloshya said. “He may be the only one that can get you out of town.”

  “Great, then where do we find Peter?” I asked.

  “At my apartment in a couple of hours,” Dr. Zemecki replied.

  The Ring of the Queen