As he ruminated, Petronov spotted a tall bearded man, one of the soldiers, Shafir, ambling down the aisle. There was something about him today — the way he walked, the way his eyes darted about the car. Petronov had been working this run for over a year now. He knew all of the soldiers… better than he knew his own wife, it appeared. Shafir was likeable enough, quiet, a bit shy. He was unmarried and a devout Muslim. His mother had died recently after a short illness.
Petronov yawned, got up from his uncomfortable wooden seat, and followed Shafir back through the car. The train was practically empty. In addition to the engineer, only a dozen soldiers guarded the shipment, and seven were dozing in the first car, waiting out the journey to Kurchatov City. Three guarded the rear car in which the HEU was stored. And then there was Shafir and Altynbayev, the old cook.
Shafir retreated down the aisle, and vanished through the door that led into the dining car. Petronov followed, glancing down at the sleeping soldiers as he walked. They were kids mostly, barely old enough to shave. They were dressed in heavy woolen coats, pea green, drawn tightly around their bodies to ward away the cold. Petronov opened the rear door of the car and felt a frigid wind cut through him. He shuddered. The noise of the old diesel was deafening. It was amazing the train moved at all, given the condition of the engine. She had been overhauled so many times that it was fair to say none of the parts had been together very long. Like a new brigade, he thought. The pieces grated against each other. They heaved and groaned, trying to find their proper place within the jumble of machinery.
Petronov stepped into the dining car; it was really more of a baggage car with a makeshift galley in the rear. Altynbayev, the old cook, lay on the counter, a pair of dirty towels stuffed underneath his head for a pillow. He was snoring so loudly that Petronov could hear it over the groaning of the engine. His huge belly heaved and jiggled as the train climbed through the pass. Petronov looked down at him for a moment, at the stubbly beard, the bushy eyebrows, and resisted a sudden urge to heave him from the counter. This is where the men ate their meals. It was disgusting to see the old cook sleeping on this surface, with his filthy boots and grimy hair. Petronov had reported Altynbayev so many times that it hardly seemed to matter anymore. Nobody cared. Nobody gave a damn, so why should he?
He looked up and noticed Shafir only a few feet distant through the door. He was standing on the flatbed car, directly in front of the turbine, looking down at something by his feet. Then Petronov heard a dull explosion. The train rocked underneath him. He almost lost his footing for a second. He looked up and saw Shafir look back… and grin. The flatbed car began to pull away. Petronov cursed. He opened the rear door and almost tumbled from the train.
Shafir had blown the coupling. The last two cars were slowing down. Without even thinking, Petronov leapt across the chasm, across the glistening rails, and landed roughly on the open car.
The wind almost threw him from the train. It was blisteringly cold. Petronov turned to see the engine and the first two cars speed off, climbing through the narrow pass now at a startling speed. Then he felt a sharp blow on his back. He stumbled to his knees. Shafir was standing over him, a shovel in his hand.
The bearded soldier swung at him again, but Petronov shimmied to the side, and the shovel deflected off the surface harmlessly. Petronov kicked, connecting with Shafir’s stomach. The soldier staggered backward, tripping on one of the metal cables that held the giant turbine in place. Then he went down.
Petronov leapt to his feet. He felt the wind propel him, toss him like a piece of paper across the flatbed car. He crashed against the soldier and Shafir punched him hard in the face — once, twice. Petronov punched back. Suddenly, a second explosion, much louder than the first, reverberated through the pass.
Petronov caught a vague glimpse of flames as first the engine, and then the first car and the dining car skidded from the rails. There was a mighty crash as they ground against the stone embankment.
Shafir staggered to his feet. He started running but Petronov caught him by the ankle and the bearded man went down. Petronov leapt on top of him. He pummeled his back, his neck. He grabbed him by the chin. Shafir began to crawl away but Petronov wouldn’t let go. He rode him like a horse. He twisted the mighty neck, one hand around the soldier’s forehead, the other clasping his beard. He pulled and pulled until he heard a brittle snap, and the soldier slumped to the deck.
Petronov collapsed on top of him. They had only fought for a minute or two, but he was completely exhausted. He felt his chest heave, struggle for gasps of freezing air. He pushed Shafir aside. The dead soldier’s body rolled across the flatbed car, over the edge, and vanished out of sight. The car began to crawl. Without the engine, the steep grade of the mountain pass was acting like a break. Petronov sat up. He breathed a huge sigh of relief, then turned and saw another bearded man beside him standing on a rock, immediately beside the train.
The man was short and squat and held an automatic weapon in his hand. Petronov opened his mouth to shout something but the sound never made it past his lips. Before it had even formed inside his throat, a bullet had entered his mouth, passed through his neck, and blew out the back of his head. Petronov collapsed onto the flatbed car, remembering his wife, at last, remembering the blue and yellow dress she’d worn that first day he had seen her in the market square, the way she’d turned her head and looked at him, with the conception of a new world in her eyes.
Chapter 9
Jerry Johnson, Decker’s boss, was furious. He had been dragged away from Otto Warhaftig’s lecture — which had been cut embarrassingly short. He’d rushed across the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge, all the way to Long Island City, without any direction from headquarters, mind you, to check out the situation personally. And he’d arrived just in time to see Bartolo being hoisted up into the Coroner’s meat truck.
Special Agent in Charge (SAC) for the Joint Terrorism Task Force in New York, Johnson was the kind of boss who believed that each mistake his agents made was a personal affront to him. He had no patience for imperfection, least of all in himself. And his penchant for intolerance had only grown worse since 9/11. The stakes were higher now, he told his men. Sloppiness was a greater enemy than Al Qa’ida. It was “the enemy within.”
So it came as no surprise to Decker when the SAC began to reprimand him publicly, in front of Williams and Kazinski, in front of Warhaftig too, as Bartolo’s body was being lifted up into the meat truck. “What the fuck happened?” Johnson kept saying.
Decker didn’t know where to begin, so he didn’t. He was pondering why meat trucks were always made to look like ambulances. No hospital could ever fix their grisly occupants.
The Coroner was anxious to get going. He wanted nothing to do with Jerry Johnson. The SAC looked as though he would lash out at anyone who happened across his path. The Coroner slammed the doors of the meat truck shut, muttered something indecipherable, and scurried back into the cab. A moment later, the meat truck disappeared around the block.