Alexander II_ The Last Great Tsar - Edvard Radzinsky [139]
On the platform where Avdeyev was waiting for his train, he saw a military unit disembarking. The sight of unfamiliar armed men greatly disturbed him. He counted fifteen cavalry and twenty infantry. This was a time of furious hostility between Omsk and the Urals, which made him think another Omsk detachment had arrived, so he decided to ferret out information about what kind of soldiers they were.
He walked over to the train, asked for the officer in charge, and was led to a man wearing a sheepskin coat over a sailor’s shirt and a big fur hat. Avdeyev presented the man his papers from the Tobolsk Soviet. The man read them, got very excited, announced, “You’re just the man I need,” and showed the Ekaterinburg man his mandate with the signatures of Lenin and Sverdlov. He also showed him the written instructions signed by Goloshchekin ordering all Ekaterinburg Bolsheviks in the Tobolsk Soviet to obey Central Executive Committee plenipotentiary Yakovlev without question.
Avdeyev had to return to Tobolsk with the detachment.
Avdeyev and Yakovlev were on horseback. Yakovlev was asking Avdeyev about Freedom House. Avdeyev replied listlessly: he did not know the details, the guard would not let them inside the house.
After traveling some 20 versts (13 miles), they noticed chains of soldiers up ahead. At first they thought: White Cossacks! Fortunately, matters did not go so far as firing: through binoculars they saw a red flag and red ribbons on fur hats. The horsemen galloped toward one another.
It turned out to be the detachment sent from Ekaterinburg to Tobolsk … for the Romanovs!
This was Ural Military Commissar Goloshchekin’s first surprise. Yakovlev was shocked to realize that Ekaterinburg was controlling him.
Now they proceeded together, the two detachments. Yakovlev galloped on his horse flanked by two Ural horsemen—Avdeyev and the detachment commander, the Uralite Busyatsky.
One of the Miass robbers recorded in his memoirs their amazing conversation en route. Busyatsky suggested a plan to Yakovlev: when Yakovlev took the tsar and his family out of Tobolsk, en route, near the village of Ievlevo, Busyatsky’s detachment could stage an ambush on Yakovlev’s detachment, as if they were trying to free the tsar and his family. In the crossfire they could do away with all the Romanovs. “We should be finishing off the executioner, not wasting our time on him,” said the Ekaterinburg man.
In reply Yakovlev silently showed Busyatsky his mandate: that all should obey him, the plenipotentiary of the Central Executive Committee, in everything. Busyatsky only chuckled. He was silent the rest of the way.
Thus, on April 22, 1918, both detachments entered the town of Tobolsk.
In Tobolsk there was one more surprise: another detachment from Ekaterinburg, led by the Bolshevik Zaslavsky, was waiting for Yakovlev.
Thus from the very first day Yakovlev found himself surrounded by two detachments of Uralites. Goloshchekin had prepared for his encounter with the Central Executive Committee’s plenipotentiary.
Yakovlev stayed in Kornilov’s house, where the Nicholas’s “suite” was housed. That very night he went to the Tobolsk Soviet to present his mandates.
The Ekaterinburg Tobolsk men listened to Yakovlev’s short speech. He informed them of the goal of his secret mission: to take the tsar and his family out of Tobolsk.
To the natural question, Where? Yakovlev replied that “it was not for them to discuss that, as prescribed in the mandate.” In response Yakovlev heard the furious words of Zaslavsky, the Ural detachment’s commander: “We shouldn’t be wasting our time on the Romanovs, we should be finishing them off!”
From Yakovlev’s memoirs:
“I told him just one thing: all your detachments must obey me and fulfill my instructions! I hope you understand?”
Zaslavsky muttered through his teeth: “Yes.”
In conclusion Yakovlev announced a change of the guard for tomorrow. Local Red Guards were to take up all