Cauldron

by Larry Bond

  Her voice was scathing. “Maybe you didn’t notice, but the cold war’s been over for six years now, Mr. Banich. We’re in a new kind of war now. One that’s being fought with weapons like imports and exports, subsidies and tariffs. Maybe you ought to wake up and get with the program before the next century arrives.”

  “Subsidies don’t kill people and conquer countries. Tanks and missiles do. Maybe you should remember that — ”

  “There, there, children.” Kutner broke in, not even bothering to hide his amusement now. “No more fighting. You’re both stuck with each other no matter how much you squawk.”

  Banich saw McKenna roll her eyes upward in disgust at the situation. He nodded to himself. At least they could agree on that much. And maybe he really could find some use for her. At least until he could convince somebody higher up the ladder to pull the plug on this half-assed idea. Besides, coping with all the red tape Washington tossed their way might even cool her down. He turned back to Kutner. “All right, I give. She’s on the team. For now.”

  “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.

  OCTOBER 11 — FAST FREIGHT EXPRESS, ON THE MOSCOW — ST. PETERSBURG RAILROAD, OUTSIDE TVER

  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 gatheri
ng 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.

  Before the whistle blasts faded, men began boiling out of the first three trucks. All were armed. But none were in uniform. Instead, they were clothed in a motley assortment of leather jackets, jeans, and cloth caps. Some were bearded, others clean-shaven. In seconds most of them were fanning out along the length of the train while one group of ten or so scrambled up the embankment toward the passenger car.

  For what seemed an eternity Chuikov stood rooted in shock. Then he fumbled with the flap of his holster, trying desperately to free his service automatic.

  “I wouldn’t do that, young sir.” Danilov’s quiet voice was accompanied by a soft click.

  “I can assure you it would be a fatal mistake.”

  Chuikov turned slowly. The taller man already had his own pistol out and it was pointed straight at him. My God. He raised his arms above his head, careful to keep his palms out and open.

  The crackling rattle of an AK-74 burst broke the silence. Both men swung round to face the passenger car. The bandits who’d been charging forward were down, in cover beneath the boxcars to either side or lying prone near the tracks with their rifles aimed and ready to fire.

  Seconds dragged by, each one seeming longer than the last.

  Suddenly Chuikov’s sergeant appeared on the platform between the two cars. He was lugging a bloody corpse wearing army brown. “Hey, don’t shoot, you bastards. It’s only me, Vanya!” He threw the dead man off the train and straightened up. Then he unslung his AK-74 and patted the assault rifle’s folding metal stock fondly. “Unfortunately Private Kaminsky just tried to become a hero of the republic! Maybe they’ll bury him with a medal, eh?”

  The bandits laughed.

  Danilov seemed to relax. He waved one gloved hand toward the sergeant. “Vanya, you old son-of-a-bitch! For a second there you scared the shit out of me!”

  The bandy-legged little man grinned from ear to ear, jumped down to the tracks, and came over to them. “So sorry, Comrade Danilov.” He nodded toward Chuikov. “I see you’ve already met my gallant leader.”

  “Indeed. He’s been the perfect gentleman. A rare credit to our glorious armed forces.” Danilov holstered his pistol. “Well, I’d better get the lads to work. We’ve got a lot to unload and not a lot of time to do it in.”

  “You won’t…” Chuikov choked off the rest of his sentence.

  “Won’t what, my dear fellow?” Danilov asked politely. “Get away with it?” He smiled again. “Of course we will. By the time anyone realizes this train hasn’t just suffered a routine breakdown, my friends and I and the goods you’ve been guarding so efficiently will be halfway to Moscow. And Moscow is a very big city. You’d be surprised at how easy it is for people and merchandise to disappear there.”

  The bandit chief glanced down at the bandy-legged sergeant. “Look after the lieutenant, Vanya.” Something bleak and cold appeared in his eyes. “Take care of him for me, won’t you?” He strode off toward the waiting line of trucks.

  “Why, Sergeant? Why?” Chuikov asked bitterly.

  “Money, why else?” The sergeant laughed, a harsh, braying sound. “My cut of this one job will be worth a year’s pay. And I don’t have to kiss any ass wearing an officer’s shoulder straps to get it, either.”

  There wasn’t any good answer to that.

  Chuikov watched his surviving troops being herded out of the passenger car at gunpoint. They stumbled down the embankment, hands clasped to their heads, pale with shock and shame. He could feel his own anger growing. By God, he’d make sure these bandits didn’t escape justice. He’d help the military police hunt Danilov and this bastard sergeant down wherever they tried to hide. Their smirking faces were burned into his memory.

  Their faces… Chuikov suddenly shivered. They’d let him see their faces.

  The little sergeant read his mind. “That’s right, Lieutenant. This is as far as you’re going.” He raised the assault rifle he’d been cradling so casually.

  Chuikov whirled in a panic, running for the forest.

  The other man let him get just ten feet before he fired.

  Three burning hammerblows threw Chuikov facedown into the mud. His fingers scrabbled vainly in the dirt as he struggled to lever himself upright, trying desperately to breathe. He was still gasping when a final crashing blow sent him spiraling down into darkness.

  OCTOBER 14 — YAROSLAVL

  One hundred and fifty miles northeast of Moscow, the mighty Volga River meandered past Yaroslavl’s domed churches and silent smokestacks. Pollution-stained chunks of ice swirled southward with the current — visible signs of a winter arriving weeks before its normal time. Patches of black ice and sudden, blinding snowstorms were already making travel along the Moscow highway a dangerous and uncertain enterprise.

  There were other signs of trouble in Yaroslavl.

  The line of weary men, women, and children clutching empty shopping bags wound past all the Government Milk Store’s bare shelves and stretched far out into the main city square. Dour workers in stained white smocks and hair nets stood behind a wooden counter at one end of the store, dispensing small ration packets of powdered milk and moldy cheese at a glacial pace.

  The tired faces of those at the front of the line tightened as a worried-looking worker emerged from the store’s back room and went into a whispered conference with the store’s portly, bearded manager. Just to get this far, they’d already been shuffling forward an inch or two at a time for hours. Supplies of even the most basic goods were running low as the oddly early winter closed its icy grasp around the city.

  “Friends, friends! Please listen to me!” The manager waved his hands, seeking their attention. “I have a most unfortunate announcement to make.”

  He shook his head sorrowfully. “Because of unexpectedly high demand, our stocks have fallen below emergency reserve levels. Accordingly, I am forced to close this store until new supplies arrive… perhaps tomorrow.”

  Muttered curses rose from the waiting crowd. Some of the younger children, frightened by their parents’ anger, began crying.

  One of the men closest to the counter, a big ironworker, stepped out of line and glared at the manager. “Stuff this ‘emergency reserve’ garbage! You’ve got milk and cheese left back there. Now, start handing it out!”

  “I’d like to oblige you, friend. Honestly, I would.” The manager’s plump fingers plucked nervously at his beard. “But regulations require me to keep — ”

  “Regulations, hell!” an angry voice shouted from near the back. “These bastards are hoarding the milk for themselves!”

  Others in the crowd growled their agreement with that outraged assessment. They began pushing and shoving their way forward. A rack of empty shelves toppled over with a thunderous crash.

  The manager paled and backed away from his counter. “Hold on! Hold on, friends! Don’t make this a police matter.”

  Jeers greeted his plea. “Fat pig! Bloodsucker! Exploiter!”

  Led by the big ironworker, shouting men and women climbed over the counter, urged on by those behind them. Others even further back began smashing the store’s plate-glass windows, hurling shelves and signs they’d torn down out onto the pavement. Some started chanting, “Food! Food! Food! We want food!”

  As the crowd surged over the counter several clerks tried to block the stockroom door with their bodies. That was a mistake. In seconds, heated words turned to violent acts. The clerks went down under a sudden barrage of flying fists and boots. Pieces of wood torn from splintered shelves and now used as clubs rose
and fell, thudding into skulls and smashing ribs. Blood stained the store’s tile floor and splattered across its yellowing white walls.

  Shaking with fear, the milk store manager turned to flee. But powerful hands dug into his plump shoulders and yanked him backward.

  “No, pig. You don’t get away so easily!” The ironworker’s face was a hate-filled mask.

  The manager screamed in terror. He was still screaming when the big man hurled him into the midst of the howling mob.

  OCTOBER 17 — THE KREMLIN, MOSCOW

  The big black ZIL limousine swept past the guards manning the Borovitskaya Tower gate without stopping. Command flags flying from its hood identified the car, and no soldier with any sense delayed Marshal Yuri Kaminov on his way to a meeting with the Russian Republic’s President. Plenty of the dirt-poor and isolated border outposts near Kazakhstan were full of officers and men who’d done something to annoy the notoriously bad-tempered chief of the general staff.

  Gearshift grinding, the ZIL followed the steeply rising road, roaring uphill past the elegant nineteenth-century façade of the State Armory building and into the main Kremlin compound. Still moving at high speed, the black limousine flashed past the domed palaces, cathedrals, the old headquarters of the Supreme Soviet, and the Russian Senate building. Flocks of startled birds and well-dressed bureaucrats scattered out of its path.

  Kaminov’s staff car stopped in front of the massive yellow brick Arsenal — once an army museum and now used as an office building by the President and his advisors. The driver, a young sergeant in full dress uniform, climbed out quickly and opened the rear driver’s-side door. Then he stiffened to rigid attention, still holding the door open.

  The marshal, stocky and squarely built with a rough-hewn peasant’s face, nodded to the young man as he emerged from the ZIL. “Wait here, Ivanovskiy. I won’t be inside long.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Another officer followed the marshal out of the limousine. The three stars on Valentin Soloviev’s shoulder boards identified him as a full colonel in the Russian Army. Everything else about him, from his straw-colored hair, ice-cold gray eyes, and high, aristocratic cheekbones down to his immaculately tailored uniform and brightly polished boots, seemed to separate him from the older, plainer Kaminov.