He pulled out of the hole just as another bullet creased his trouser leg, then he scrambled to his feet, took two quick steps and was over the side, falling for what seemed an eternity. He landed hard, fell forward, and rumbled.
Shouts in German pierced the air. It wasn't the guards. He raised his head a few inches over the top of the weeds. Two flashlight beams moved jerkily down the train, stopping now and then and darting in among the wheels.
It was the brakeman and the Russian engineer. There was nothing wrong with the train, the brakeman said, but he'd heard gunshots. In very bad German the engineer told him they were none of his business.
The two examined the entire length of the train, then came hurriedly up the other side. After a pause the whistle blew, indicating the steam was up, and the big pushrods put the giant steel wheels into motion. A short time later Carter stood alone on the tracks, and the air held nothing but the night wind and the distant pounding of the train as it gathered speed away from him.
Rodya Alexandrovitch Zemin, a stoop-shouldered, paunchy man in a well-cut, custom-tailored suit, handed Tatiana a glass of water, then watched grimly as she drank. He clasped his hands behind his back, a posture that drew apart the panels of his jacket, making his large stomach all the more noticeable.
She studied him over the rim of her glass. He had changed, she mused. The man had helped forge the new KGB from the old Cheka. By sheer force of his will and determination he had risen, along with her father, to the top echelons of power. He had been a veritable living legend at Moscow Center. But now? Hair fashionably styled and blow-dried, sleek like the polished surface of an American automobile. Heavy jowls giving him a prosperous look, complementing his huge middle bulging with good food and fine wines. Well-oiled and fat, she decided, like one of Caesar's generals. In America wealth corrupted everything.
"Feeling better?" he asked, taking the empty glass and placing it on the desk.
"Some, thank you, Comrade. I am tired and weak, but I still have a long way to go."
"I imagine you are most eager to return to the homeland and see your father."
"Yes, I am. I have failed in my mission, but I am sure he will still want to see me."
"Yes," said Zemin, and a nervous silence followed during which he gazed at the floor, still working his hands together behind his back. Finally he pulled a chair across the bare parquet floor and sat down facing her. "Comrade Kobelev, may I speak freely?"
"Address me as Tanya, please. It reminds me of the old days when you tossed me on your knee at my father's dacha."
"Tanya," he began, his hands now resting on the desk in front of him, looking like two pink starfish, "things have changed at home since you have been gone. Your father has, how shall I say it, fallen from grace. They have confiscated his dacha and his Moscow apartment. There have been unfavorable articles in Pravda. Directives have been issued restricting his security clearance. His position, I am afraid, is in grave jeopardy. Even Nerchinsky, his most avid supporter on the Presidium, has been questioned, particularly in regard to this last operation in the United States. Charges may be forthcoming."
"Is this why I was told I was not welcome here in the embassy of my own country?"
"We had to make a quick decision, Tanya. Of course we did not realize how much the Americans themselves wanted to be rid of you. But you must understand our position: turmoil at home over what you and your father have done; our negotiations with the West in a shambles; official Washington turning a very cold shoulder to us. There was a time a few weeks ago when I greatly feared we'd be expelled!"
"You put too much stock in relations with these Western hedonists." Tatiana said sullenly. "They are unimportant. Coexistence itself is unimportant. That is the message my father brings to all the Russian people."
"Perhaps, my dear," said Zemin with a sigh, "but perhaps, too, the Presidium has decided to take a more liberal course."
"Perhaps again," said Tatiana, "but it may also be another ploy of my father's to consolidate his power. It would not be the first time he's acted in secret and in such a way as to keep the entire world, even Moscow Center, guessing. Where is my father now?"
"Aboard a train. The Orient Express. The Americans very much want to see your father dead, it seems. They engineered a trap using an actress impersonating you. He rose to it, took the actress and an entire trainload of people, and is now demanding your release. I might add we would know nothing of this if it weren't for the diligence of the train's engineer who realized your father was acting without Moscow's consent and phoned our contact in Rheims."
"My father is a daring man, is he not? An entire train at gunpoint, across Europe. Imagine! And no less prestigious a train than the Orient Express! All those bourgeois Europeans in their tuxedos and evening gowns! What greater proof of a father's love could a daughter ask for? I must see him! I must!"
"That may be difficult to arrange, Tatiana Nikolaiyevna, although I understand he is keeping the train's original schedule. At least he has some sense of the embarrassment he is causing us, one and all."
"But I must see him! You must arrange it, Comrade."
Zemin's plump features compressed in an unpleasant way.
"But you must! We are old friends, let us not forget that. Surely my father would do as much or more."
Zemin sighed heavily and looked hard at the young woman in front of him. "I will see what I can do," he said at last. "The Americans seem willing to let you go, and the dust at home has not yet cleared. I am not sure where your father stands…"He would have finished, but in her excitement Tatiana had already leaped from her chair and was squeezing him in an affectionate bear hug that made talking difficult.
"Easy, dear child, easy," he said with an indulgent smile, extricating himself from her embrace. "It may very well be I'm cutting my throat by helping you."
"Yes, Rodya Alexandrovitch, I understand. But thank you! Thank you!"
"So," he said, standing, "I will arrange your transportation. But you must leave immediately. I fear any minute a directive will come forbidding me to extend aid in any way." He went behind the desk and picked up the phone. Tatiana watched him dial, but then a thought occurred to her.
"Did they mention if an agent named Nick Carter happened to be involved in any attempt to kill my father?"
Zemin shook his head. "I don't remember the name. Hello?" he said into the phone. "Gregoriev? Do you still have that contact in Havana? Good. I have a job for you…"
Tatiana sat back into her chair, considering. If there'd been a plot to kill her father, it was possible Nick Carter was in on it, she thought pleasantly. And if it had gone awry, he couldn't be too far away. No further, say, than the range of a pistol shot. She smiled at the prospect.
It seemed to Carter that he'd been walking for hours. The grassy embankment below the railroad track had given out onto a vast marshy plain covered by a ground fog, which at times extended no higher than his knees and at other rimes churned around him in the wake of a gust of wind, obscuring his vision altogether. Occasionally, when the fog cleared, he saw the moon dance on a body of water in the distance, and although it was difficult to make out, he guessed it to be rather large. No lights were visible on the opposite shore. There had been lights earlier, however, much closer, and although they'd gone out more than an hour ago, he still walked in that direction, hoping to find some sign of habitation.