Death Train to Boston

by Dianne Day

  Had the explosion been a part of that pattern? The culmination of it, perhaps? No, Michael didn’t think so. It wasn’t accidental, for one thing; for another . . . well, Michael admitted to himself, as he lay in his bunk with all these thoughts crowding his mind, he didn’t have another reason. He had only a hunch. A strong hunch, even if wildly improbable. He wished he could discuss it with Fremont—she was so good at providing reasons for his hunches. She could go into his thought processes, as it were, and insert the steps to fill in his intuitive leaps.

  Fremont. . . . Without her he felt as if an essential piece of himself were missing. It was not a good feeling.

  Michael grunted, swung his feet around abruptly, and stood up too fast, bumping his head on the luggage rack above. ‘‘Damnation!’’ he swore as he sat down hard on the edge of the bunk. He rubbed at his scalp furiously, as if to erase the pain. In this he had some success. Too bad he couldn’t rub all the fears for Fremont out of his head as well.

  He would find Fremont held under some kind of restraint, he was certain of that much. Whether physical or mental, compelled by some failing on her own part or by malevolence on the part of another, he did not know. All Michael knew was that Fremont was an extremely resourceful woman. She would have managed somehow to get a message to him, or to Wish and Edna Stephenson back at J&K in San Francisco. Or to her father, who had been waiting for them in Boston, at the other end of their ill-fated train ride. But there had been no messages from her anywhere.

  Slowly this time, Michael stood up and began to dress in the dark. Like any fine club, the club car stayed open around the clock. He would go there, have a drink and a smoke, and hope the company of other people (who at this hour of the night were quite likely to be as morose and strange as he) would help him gain control of his demons.

  As Michael Kossoff tucked in his shirt and fastened up his trousers, those demons planted in his brain a picture of Fremont Jones, dazed and battered, wandering away from overturned train cars in a mindless fog, wandering into a wilderness of forest, wanting only to get away from the fire and the noise and the destruction. . . .

  He knotted his tie by feel and shook his head. ‘‘No,’’ he said aloud. He had thought that at first, but no longer. He didn’t believe she would wander off, not even if she had been the only person conscious after being thrown clear of the wreckage. One passenger was unaccounted for; surely this one was Fremont Jones. Unless someone had made a mistake, and she lay among the dead, after all.

  ‘‘No,’’ said Michael again. He opened the door of his compartment and stepped out into the narrow passageway. After taking a moment to get the feel of the moving carriage, and to appreciate the fresh, cool air that flowed from an open window or door somewhere close by, he walked slowly, quietly back through the train to the club car. Steel-on-steel, wheels hummed over the tracks, clickety-clacking at every join, a marvel of engineering.

  And a monument to the fortitude of thousands of Chinese laborers, Michael thought.

  He realized he had passed Meiling’s compartment without even noticing. Yet how many times on the previous trip had he stood outside Fremont’s compartment door, hesitating, longing, deliciously waiting . . . for an invitation that had never come, and now might never come again.

  ‘‘No!’’ Michael said.

  8

  THE CLUB CAR was sumptuously furnished, its armchairs upholstered in the same rust-colored velvet that paneled the walls. The tables were of dark walnut, matching the woodwork around the velvet wall panels. A handsome walnut bar occupied the wall at the far end. The bartender, at the moment, was not in evidence.

  The air was pungent, but not unpleasantly so, with pipe and cigar smoke. The slap of cards, punctuated by mutterings, came from a gentlemanly game of poker being played at a table in the back, near the bar. Michael sank into an empty chair with a sense of relief. If one could not sleep, surely this was the best place to be —in quiet company, with smoking and drinking the prime order of business.

  When the bartender approached his chair, having quietly appeared it seemed out of nowhere, Michael asked for a brandy with a large glass of soda water on the side. While the drinks were being poured, he took from the pocket of his jacket a small book with tissue-thin pages, a novel that had been popular a few years earlier, The Wings of the Dove by Henry James, younger brother of the Harvard philosopher William James. As the book was small in size, its print was proportionally tiny, and Michael’s eyes were not as young as they used to be. He frowned, moved the book back and forth in an attempt to achieve the optimum distance for good focus, sighed, and wished for stronger light. But that would alter the ambiance, and was not available in any case. So with some regret he returned the book to his pocket. The bartender served his brandy and soda. Michael smiled, and somewhat awkwardly, due to the one-handedness enforced by his injury, dug a bill out of an inner pocket for payment.

  The first sip of brandy seared its way satisfactorily down his esophagus. He took another, which ascended nicely into his head. He crossed his legs, and with a small sigh was wishing he could afford to get blind, stinking drunk—when from the corner of his eye he saw movement. In his whole body he sensed danger. He did not move a muscle, but rather reached again for the book, opened it, and pretended to read.

  Soon a man came within visual range, so that Michael could observe him with the mere flicker of an eye. No wonder he’d sensed danger! The man who strolled past had once been Michael’s nemesis. His name was Hilliard Ramsey.

  My God, Michael thought, he’s supposed to be dead!

  What to do? Hiding behind The Wings of the Dove was not an option—the small book could not protect him for long. Leaving the club car immediately was of course one option. Yet that would be pointless, would it not, seeing as how a train is not that large a place and everyone on it is more or less consigned to remain aboard, at least between stops. They were almost bound to cross paths again.

  So Michael continued to read The Wings of the Dove, at least ostensibly. He wondered how long it would take Ramsey to recognize him. And what the man would do when he did.

  Michael took another sip of brandy.

  How long had it been since their last encounter?

  Once the memories started pouring back, the time seemed short indeed. Yet it had been six years, almost seven: 1902. The signing of the treaty that formed the Anglo-Japanese Alliance—they had both been covertly involved, on opposite sides of course, Hilliard Ramsey working for the Japanese and Michael Archer (as he’d called himself then) for the Tsar. Michael’s job had been to subvert the agreement, which was not in Russia’s best interest, and he’d found Ramsey—whose allegiance was only to whoever was paying him at the time, in this case Japan—working against him at every turn.

  The role of Russian spy was a family obligation that had fallen on Michael at an early age. He’d been only nineteen, flattered when both his mother and his grandfather had urged him to take over the clandestine duties the grandfather could no longer perform, and for which his father was temperamentally ill-suited. How could a boy with fire in his loins and a sense of adventure in his heart have resisted? And he’d been performing, playing that role ever since. Trapped.

  Michael felt only a faint loyalty to the Tsar, and none to Russia as a nation. He was an American through and through; he did not care to be a Russian duke, though being a duchess had meant much to his mother—if truth were told, she would have been glad to reside year-round at the Russian Court. His mother had been, before her death a few years previous, like a lot of Russian nobility—blind to anything but her own pleasure. Oddly enough this Tsar, Nicholas, was probably the best of an increasingly bad lot. Yet with his well-meaning nature went a weak ego and an even weaker will—a dangerous combination, especially for an emperor, allowing him, as it did, to be so easily misled.

  For a moment Michael again entertained a thought that had often plagued him during the months leading up to the Anglo-Japanese Treaty, when he’d been gathering i
nformation undercover in Japan: If Victoria were still alive, that treaty would never have been signed. Victoria would not have abandoned the kinsman she’d called ‘‘Nicky.’’ That shrewd little old lady would have seen the treaty for exactly what it was, a clever ploy on the part of one island nation (Japan) to obtain the support of another (England). But it was a dangerous entanglement, especially for Russia, because Russia needed Korea for access to the Pacific. Japan had coveted Korea for eons. And so in 1902 Michael had foreseen the war that in fact did break out three years later between Russia and Japan.

  It was a bad memory, causing him to move restlessly in his chair. Agony, a particular kind of hell, to see war coming and be unable to prevent it.

  At least Russia and Japan had ended that one rather quickly without the treaty being invoked, because if England had been obliged to enter a naval conflict in support of Japan—well, the consequences could have been worldwide.

  Thank God the United States had had the good sense so far to remain neutral. But Michael very much feared the time might come when all these tangled alliances would have disastrous results.

  So what the devil was Ramsey doing here now? Quelling a growing anxiety, Michael turned a page in his book and darted a quick glance toward the bar. Ramsey had taken a seat close by the poker players and appeared to be interested in their game. So much the better for Michael to escape observation a little longer, at least. Of course there was always the possibility that they were both perpetrating the same ruse. Ramsey might already have seen him and might also be hoping, by keeping a three-quarter profile focused on the poker players, that he too could escape notice.

  Michael’s nostrils flared as he took a deep but silent breath. He uncrossed his legs and put the book away, his movements slow and deliberate. From his other pocket he took out his pipe and silver tamper, and from an inner pocket he extracted a sealed leather tobacco pouch, then proceeded with an air of calm resignation to fill his pipe.

  The poker game grew suddenly lively when two players got into an argument and raised their voices. ‘‘I never!’’ one said indignantly, standing up so rapidly that his chair fell over backward but almost soundlessly, as it fell onto the heavy carpet.

  ‘‘I saw ya!’’ shouted the other, likewise jumping to his feet—but the man seated next to him quickly grabbed his elbow and tugged him back down.

  An accusation of cheating? Michael wondered. He continued to fill his pipe with more than the usual care. In order to light it, he slipped his left arm out of the black broadcloth sling that kept it immobilized. Carefully holding the pipe by the bowl in his left hand, and keeping that arm clamped close to his chest, he gripped the pipestem between his teeth. He lit the sulphur-tipped match, which flashed and flared up, then applied burning match to waiting tobacco.

  That was when Hilliard Ramsey slowly turned his head . . . and Michael’s body seemed to make a decision for him independent of his mind. He dropped the match, still lighted, onto the floor and quickly bent down to retrieve it. The action shielded his face from view. Now was the time to leave, to run, if that was what he chose to do.

  It wasn’t. Instead he shook the match out, deposited it in the ashtray, slipped his arm back into the sling, raised his head, and smiled toward the poker table. Not a smile of pleasure, but a genuine one nonetheless, the rather grim smile that accompanies acceptance of the inevitable. A smile of masculine pride at a battle considered and joined. Michael raised his good arm and beckoned with his fingers: Come to me, you bastard, come on!

  Hilliard Ramsey stood. He was of average height and average weight, with regular, unremarkable features, which made his exact appearance hard to recall. Because of this he never bothered to go in disguise, but he did have to guard his eyes. Those eyes were hard to forget, if ever they’d looked directly at you: almost colorless, entirely without expression. Looking into the eyes of Hilliard Ramsey was like being impaled on a spear of ice. His smile, which he was smiling now in return, had a reptilian quality. Ramsey came on.

  With a quickening pulse Michael watched the man approach step by step. He was beginning to welcome this encounter, to want it, to enjoy in a rather perverse way the heightened course of blood through his veins, the exquisitely enhanced impulse of nerves along the skin.

  ‘‘As I live and breathe,’’ Ramsey said in Russian, ‘‘Mikhail Arkady Kossoff. I hadn’t expected you to be quite so easy to find.’’

  Michael stood up. He was taller than Hilliard Ramsey by half a head. Choosing to speak English, Michael replied, ‘‘I hadn’t expected you to be found at all. I was told you were dead, fallen overboard into the Sea of Japan and drowned. Let’s see, how long ago was that . . . ?’’

  Both men were masters of the slow move, seeming languid and unconcerned while beneath their casual surfaces a thousand calculations ran. Ramsey lowered himself into the chair directly opposite until he was sitting on the edge of the seat, thighs spread, weight shifted forward, elbows on his knees. Taking Michael’s cue and keeping his voice low, he shifted to English, which he spoke with a British accent: ‘‘Six years and not true, as you may see with your own eyes.’’

  ‘‘Hmm,’’ Michael commented, stroking the silver streaks in his beard, which ran downward from the corners of his mouth. He pressed a subtle advantage by not sitting down but leaning instead against one of the wide arms of his chair and crossing one foot over the other. The advantage was psychological only, as it required the other man to look up; physically Ramsey already had the advantage due to Michael’s injury, which he must surely have noticed by now. And with his weight forward, solidly balanced on both legs, Ramsey could bolt up to attack in a heartbeat. Well aware of all this, Michael played his mind game, saying in a drawl, ‘‘Since you thought me easily found, you can’t have been looking too long. Where’ve you been hiding all these years, old boy?’’

  Ramsey dismissed the question with a well-manicured gesture. ‘‘None of your concern. I’d still be there if I hadn’t run out of money.’’

  ‘‘Living high off the hog, were you?’’

  ‘‘Not exactly. But I heard you were. In fact, Misha, I’ve heard a number of interesting things about you.’’

  Michael continued to stroke his beard. ‘‘Such as . . .’’

  ‘‘That you were leading a dissolute lifestyle in some bohemian artists’ colony.’’

  ‘‘True enough.’’

  ‘‘That you’d publicly taken back your Russian name.’’

  ‘‘A matter of record.’’

  Silence. Hilliard Ramsey merely inclined his head.

  Michael wondered what he was playing at. Then a new and fascinating thought came to him. He said, probing, ‘‘Then perhaps you also heard I’ve retired from the game. What about you? Maybe you faked your own death. Maybe you also wanted out. How about it, Hill? Am I on the mark?’’

  Both eyebrows rose in that unremarkable face, and the pale, pale gray eyes, the color of water, sharpened in their intensity. ‘‘You know people who have done what you and I do for a living never get to retire.’’

  ‘‘Michael Archer did.’’ The man who no longer went by that name shrugged his good shoulder.

  ‘‘Is that so.’’

  ‘‘Absolutely.’’ It was quite true that Michael Archer no longer existed, that his name had been expunged from the U.S. Government payroll. It was Michael Archer who had been the double agent. Michael A. Kossoff was, however, another matter.

  ‘‘The people who hired me to watch you think differently. They think you’re up to something. Have a care, old boy.’’ On these parting words Hilliard Ramsey shot up from the chair and strode without haste from the club car.

  ‘‘Hmm,’’ Michael said, stroking his beard. He had not moved a muscle, not flinched at the other man’s sudden movement, not even so much as uncrossed his ankles. Yet his blood, which had felt the heat of challenge only moments earlier, now felt a paralyzing cold.

  I felt as if I’d been chosen by the hive to become queen b
ee, which as we know from scientific study is not an honor but a lifetime sentence to do nothing but reproduce. For a few more weeks I could lie encased in my pupa—or whatever queen bees are encased in before they emerge full-blown to replace the one who has worn herself out and died—but after that I’d better get out there and lay those eggs, produce those children, or else. No matter how I tried to find the absurdity in this, I failed—because there was no one to laugh but me. And I was not amused.

  I allowed myself to sink into melancholy.

  When I had been in this funk for about two weeks, that is to say, around the beginning of the month of November (in my melancholy I’d lost precise track of the days), Selene came to see me. For the most part up until that time Melancthon Pratt’s youngest wife had ignored me, and when she appeared at my bedside looking rather like an angel herself, with her long cornsilk hair and wide light blue eyes, I felt a bit of my old curiosity stir. It was like a tickle, or an itch.

  Not only was Selene in my room, beside my bed, but she also spoke to me. ‘‘Father thinks you may die. He is convinced it is his fault, that he has failed to heed the angel’s direction in some way,’’ she said. ‘‘He is a good man, and so I have come to see what I may do.’’

  A rather remarkable statement, coming from a girl of fifteen who had been subjected to the barbaric custom of polygamy, bedded God knew how many times by a man old enough to be her grandfather—well, almost— not to mention that she was a tiny thing and he a very large man. It had to be one of the Wonders of the Western World that he did not simply crush her in The Act. Yet here she was, gravely lovely and sweet, standing up for him, which made my heart go out to her.