The Fortuneteller’s Lie

It’s 1922 and the war’s almost over. Not the War to End All Wars. That one ended four years earlier. It’s the next war, the one that started after that one ended. The place is Vladivostok on the Pacific Coast of Siberia and this particular war, the Bolshevik war, is almost over. Ashwood Watkins isn’t a part of the war. It’s not his country, his fight or his cause but it is where he finds himself in 1922 and its where he finds her. She’s a countess, she says and she might be one for all he knows. There’re lots of formerly noble Russians bottled up in this little corner of Siberia. None of them have any place left to run to and all of them have a bullet waiting for them. Just as soon as it’s over, this next war after the War to End All Wars.Everybody wants out. The wolves, all wearing red stars, are literally at the gates. Offering somebody, somebody like a pretty Russian countess a way out of Vladivostok would be like offering a seat on the last boat leaving the Titanic. You don’t say no. Nobody in their right mind would say no. Unless you weren’t trying to get out but were trying to get in.