Then his huge hands reached out and began groping Carter's clothes. Carter held his breath while large fingers closed almost completely around biceps and thighs. He felt them on his legs and shoulders, even his ankles, but they missed by some miracle the V-shaped pouch at the small of his back where Wilhelmina lay hidden.
The man stood, looking down with beady, dull eyes from about the same height as an adult looks down on a child, and jerked his head in the direction of the train.
Carter saw no reason to wait to be asked twice. He climbed hastily up the stairs, opened the door, and went inside.
As it turned out, he'd found the rear of the dining car on the first try. The assistant chef and two waiters, who were standing and talking in a gleaming white, although very compact kitchen, looked at him when he came in, their eyes registering puzzlement and fear. Partly because they had no idea who he was, thought Carter, and partly because after all that had happened in the last sixteen hours, they'd come to fear everything.
Seven
Although Nick was considered, among some of his friends, to be a pretty fair gourmet cook, he had never prepared a meal for such a large group before. The situation was further complicated by the presence of Vasili Shurin (which Carter soon learned was the Russian giant's name).
He stood like a huge piece of misplaced furniture at the end of one of the preparation counters, hands behind his back, grinning a ragged-toothed idiotic grin, blocking the flow of traffic so that whenever a tray of dishes or a pan of food needed transportation from one end of the narrow kitchen to the other, the transporter had to yell to Shurin to stand back, a situation made even more difficult by the fact that the man understood neither French nor German, and his Russian vocabulary seemed to be limited to the simplest words. Still he stood, smiling moronically and nodding in a mockery of understanding whenever spoken to, and watched pop-eyed as each new ingredient was added to the main dishes.
Fortunately, Carter had arrived late, and the assistant chef had taken it upon himself to prepare coq au vin casseroles in case the chef were delayed or unable to board for some reason. It was upon this contingency that they now fell back, fixing the accompanying French-cut string beans almondine and thin, buttered noodles, and crepes filled with pureed chestnuts for dessert — all in all, an admirable dinner, although Carter was able to convince the assistant chef to sabotage it in small ways to keep Kobelev from sending for the chef to thank him in person.
As far as the actual cooking, Carter's role consisted of running back and forth tasting and clucking his tongue and watching others do the work, mostly for Shurin's benefit, and cornering each waiter, porter, and anyone else who had been outside the kitchen to learn as much about the layout of the train and the habits of the guards as he could.
The salon car where Cynthia was being held was the second car forward from the dining car. In between was a club car with a small bar and some additional seating for diners. At the bar sat a hatchet-faced man with a submachine gun on his knees. The weapon seemed to be a physical part of him; no one had seen him put it down, even to eat.
The salon car itself consisted of another small bar, some swivel chairs, tables, and a piano. A guard stood at either door and allowed entrance to no one, not even to the waiter with the dinner cart, so what was going on inside — what condition Cynthia might be in, and the mood of Kobelev — was unknown.
After Carter had learned everything he could, he decided to do a little exploring on his own. Swearing loudly in French, which startled everyone, he said he'd forgotten some indispensable, very special ingredient for the beans almondine. Begging his pardon, he squeezed past Shurin and slipped into the storage area at the back of the car. He watched for a moment to make sure Shurin was occupied elsewhere, then opened the rear door and stepped out into the narrow enclosure over the coupling between the cars.
Here the smell of exhaust and engine oil was strong. On either side was a hinged half door that opened inward. Carter opened it, stuck out his head, and looked up and down the track. Southby had not exaggerated about the age of the cars. A narrow ladder ran up the side to the roof of each of them, as it did on most passenger cars before the advent of streamlining and as it still did on freight cars.
Carter closed the door and went back inside. In the roof of the kitchen was a small square portal for ventilation such as were used before air conditioning. Through the pass-through be could see there was one in the dining area as well.
His mind began to churn, formulating a plan, as he walked toward the front of the kitchen. He'd turned sideways and was slipping between Shurin's enormous chest and the counter when Wilhelmina knocked against the Formica with a metallic clunk. Anxiously Carter looked up to see if Shurin had heard, but the little apelike eyes were fixed on the other end of the car where the assistant chef was checking on the chicken.
Safe this time, thought Carter as he slipped through and nodded an "excuse me," but it was always a dangerous business banking on another man's stupidity. From now on he'd have to be more careful.
Early dinner service ended at eight o'clock. At nine-fifteen a heavy jolt signaled the train had begun to move again. At the back of the kitchen, where clean-up was just ending, everyone was apprehensive. They wondered where they were going and how it would all end now that this trouble had thrust itself upon them. Ultimately, each pair of eyes fell upon Carter, who could do no more than shrug impatiently and move off down the aisle toward the refrigerators.
Steam from the cooking and dishwashing hung in the air, and coats, which had been removed, were slow to be replaced. The small area soon seemed full of red suspenders and T-shirts, all but Carter's portion of it, whose jacket, much whiter than the others, remained where it was.
Shurin, too, stood off to one side, separated from the others by a gulf of language and circumstance, the outsider who seemed to want to join in so much, whose face wore a permanent silly, childish smile, fun-loving and stupid. He'd been the butt of occasional jokes while the men were working, never to his face, of course, and never in Russian, but good-naturedly, as though some zookeeper had stopped by and dropped off a potentially dangerous but playful great ape for everyone to enjoy.
Only he wasn't smiling now. His lips were compressed and thoughtful, and his eyes rather cold as he stared at Carter. "Take off your coat," he said in Russian. His voice was calm, but Carter sensed it was the calm before a storm.
The master chef pretended he hadn't heard.
"Remove your coat." Shurin said again, louder and this time in halting French.
The sound of the big man speaking French caused everyone to stop and look at him. Eyes went from Shurin to Carter and instinctively every man in the room shrunk back as far as he was able in the narrow confines, opening a path between the two.
For a moment no one said anything. The only sound was the clack of the wheels and the creaking of the old car as the train made its slow way out of the station. To Carter it seemed as though someone had suddenly turned up the heat. Beads of sweat sprouted on his forehead.