“Thank you so much, O Tsar of all the Russias.”
Ouch. Sarcasm, too. And in textbook Russian. He sighed. “What kind of cover did Langley give her? What’s her embassy rank?”
The chief of station’s toothy grin grew even wider. “That’s another reason to be nice to her, Alex. On the books, Miss McKenna’s a deputy economic attaché. Your boss.”
Banich felt a headache coming on fast. This was not starting out to be one of his better days.
Lieutenant Vladimir Chuikov staggered upright as the train slowed abruptly, air brakes squealing over the roar of its diesel engine as it shuddered and slid to a stop. He stuck his head out a nearby window, his breath steaming in the ice-cold air. Why had they stopped?
Nothing he could see answered that question. They were on a siding off the main track, deep inside a forest of birch, fir, and pine. A rutted dirt track paralleled the tracks for several hundred meters before vanishing among the trees. Shadows and tangled undergrowth made it impossible to see very far into the still, silent forest. He shivered. In the stories his grandmother used to tell, woods like these were always the haunt of ghosts and evil witches.
Chuikov yanked his head back inside the passenger compartment.
“Trouble, sir?” The bandy-legged little sergeant who was second-in-command of the train guard detail was on his feet, one hand on the Makarov 9mm automatic at his belt. Most of the other soldiers were still sleeping, propped up on the car’s hard wood benches. One or two were awake and had their Kalashnikov assault rifles close by.
“Maybe.” Chuikov moved toward a wall phone. He picked it up and jiggled the hook. The men driving the train should have some answers.
“Chief engineer.”
“This is Lieutenant Chuikov. What’s going on up there?”
“Who can say? Central routed us off onto this spur and now we’ve got a stop signal showing. Perhaps there’s a snarl up ahead… or they need the tracks for higher-priority traffic.”
Chuikov could practically hear the trainman’s uninterested shrug. Of course, he thought angrily, these lazy swine were being paid by the hour, not the trip. Delays put rubles in their pockets. That wasn’t all. The man was starting to slur his words together. They were drinking up there. “I’m coming forward.”
“Suit yourself, Lieutenant.” The engineer yawned noisily. “But we’re likely to be stuck here a long while. You’ll stay warmer inside.”
The young army officer hung up without offering any parting pleasantry. Sod the buggers. In the old days, they’d have shown more respect. He glanced at his sergeant. “Some kind of traffic foul-up. Stay here. You’re in charge until I get back.”
“Want me to wake the boys up?”
Chuikov shook his head. “No point in that right now. But we’ll post some sentries if we’re going to be here much longer.”
He went through the forward door of the passenger car onto the platform between it and the freight car ahead. His teeth were already chattering. Mother of God, the trainman had been right. It felt cold enough to freeze fire.
The lieutenant dropped down onto the railroad roadbed, swearing as his brand-new boots sank into a mix of gravel and half-frozen mud. He looked both ways, scanning the length of the freight train. Everything seemed all right — from the single rust-stained diesel engine at the front to the caboose at the back. In between were twenty freight cars full of food and military hardware and the lone passenger car carrying his ten-man guard unit.
Chuikov understood his orders to protect this shipment from St. Petersburg’s supply center to the army garrisons near the capital. In a land racked by growing shortages and ethnic violence, small arms, ammunition, light antitank weapons, and luxury goods were worth their weight in gold. Still, he was more worried about the danger posed by thieving cargo handlers at the Moscow freight yard. Lone trucks often vanished somewhere on the highway between the two cities — easy prey for bandits and black marketeers who were growing bolder. But trains were a different matter.
He started slogging his way toward the engine, increasingly irritated at this unforeseen delay. He’d wanted to be in Moscow before nightfall. Darkness would only make it easier for workers at the yard to “lose” valuable crates.
His irritation turned to open anger when he swung himself up and into the engine’s crew compartment. The two trainmen manning the big diesel were both bundled up against the cold, and both were well on the way to being blind drunk.
“Hey, General! Welcome aboard!” The bigger of the two men waved a flask at him. “Want a snort? Only the finest for one of our motherland’s brave defenders, eh?”
Chuikov wrinkled his nose in disgust. The stuff smelled more like brake fluid than vodka. He scowled. “Get that out of my face!”
The big engineer pouted. “All right. All right. No need to get stuffy. Right, Andrei?”
His coworker nodded once or twice, already so glassy-eyed that Chuikov wasn’t sure he’d even understood what the big man had said.
“What the hell are you two playing at? Pull yourselves together, damn it!” The lieutenant brushed past both drunks. “Where’s your radio?”
The first trainman pointed with his flask, sloshing liquid out onto the steel floor. Chuikov glanced at the boxy wireless set. Its dials were dark. Idiots! They’d switched it off. What the devil was happening around here?
His speculations were cut short by a sharp buzz from the intercom phone. He picked it up. “Chuikov.”
It was his sergeant. “Sorry to interrupt, sir. But we have company. Vehicles moving up the road.”
“On my way.” Chuikov dropped the phone, feeling more and more bewildered. It was just one damned thing after another on this trip. He pushed past the two engineers again on his way outside. “Get this train ready to move. And turn that bloody radio back on!”
His first fears were soothed by the sight of an army jeep leading a long column of canvas-sided URAL trucks up the muddy track. Maybe competent higher authorities were bringing some order out of this sudden chaos. He hurried toward the jeep, slipping and sliding down the embankment onto the dirt road.
“Lieutenant Chuikov, train guard commander, reporting.” He snapped a salute to the captain riding in the jeep’s backseat. “It’s good to see you, sir.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant.” The captain returned his salute, stood up, and hopped out onto the road, landing lightly on his feet. He was a tall man with a narrow face and a thin-lipped, cruel mouth. “Danilov. 55th Motor Rifles. I take it the dispatchers passed on our warning?”
Puzzled, Chuikov shook his head. “No, sir. Not a word.”
The captain muttered a curse under his breath. Then he calmed down. “One of my patrols spotted some suspicious activity about ten kilometers down the main line. Bandits, I think. We’ve been hearing rumors that some of the local criminal gangs were gathering for a big hit. This train could be it.”
Chuikov sucked his breath in, amazed. “So some of these sneak thieves really have the balls to take the army on?”
Danilov seemed amused. He smiled dryly. “So it appears, Lieutenant.” Then he turned serious. “Your men are all in that passenger car?”
The young army officer nodded.
“Excellent.” Danilov lifted a silver command whistle to his lips and blew three short, sharp, loud notes.