The Hunters h-1

by Chris Kuzneski

  She would need it again in less than a minute.

  Darting through the apartment with the grace of a ballet dancer, she deftly avoided the floor lamp that cast a dim light on the apartment’s only chair. The scene struck her as sad, and she couldn’t help but wonder how many nights the old man had sat alone in the dark, staring at his treasure. But it was a thought she quickly dismissed when she spotted the coin on a small wooden table near the door, right next to the closet where Dobrev had grabbed the saddle-bolt spanner from his toolbox. With gloved hands, Sarah tucked the coin into a zippered pocket, then scampered back to the open window. She reattached her harness to the rope, closed the window behind her, and began her descent.

  Anyone who happened to be looking up at the side of the building as Sarah made her way down would have been forced to choose between two, equally unlikely scenarious: Catwoman exists, or the laws of gravity had changed. Dressed from hood to booties in another black catsuit, Sarah literally ran down the edifice. The muscles in her arms burned as she pulsed her grips to keep her pace. It was not a beginner’s move; it required practiced balance and unbelievable strength. But once Sarah had gotten the hang of it, she preferred it over the standard, backwards dismount. Today it actually served a purpose, as it was the fastest way to reach the ground … other than a freefall.

  True to her word, it had been little more than a minute since Sarah had entered the apartment. As she hit the ground, she reached inside her suit and withdrew a credit-card-sized remote control. Sliding back the cover to reveal the buttons beneath, she entered the combination. On the roof, the electromagnet that held the loop of rope in place around the fire escape ladder decoupled instantly. Sarah could feel the slack, moments before the full length of the rope hit the pavement. It was the latest in climbing technology, a gift from McNutt.

  This is too easy, Sarah thought as she spooled the rope around her arm.

  ‘How we doing?’ Cobb asked as he slammed the door of the SUV behind Jasmine and Dobrev. She was doing her best to keep the old man calm.

  ‘Satellite says you’re clear for about forty seconds,’ Garcia said in everyone’s ears. ‘Cops are converging from the north and east.’

  ‘Look to your left,’ McNutt said.

  Cobb glanced and saw a glimmer of light where the roadway curved. It could have been a small mirror, a pair of glasses, or a watch face, but he knew it was McNutt.

  ‘On my way,’ Cobb said as he climbed behind the wheel.

  Cobb pulled the SUV into the street and started his U-turn. As he did, Sarah appeared from the shadows and ran to join them. She jumped into the passenger seat as Cobb pressed the accelerator to the floor.

  ‘We’re golden,’ Sarah said. ‘Literally.’

  Cobb smiled. ‘Jasmine, tell Andrei we got his coin.’

  They drove forward as the faint red glow of police lights illuminated the horizon. Nearly a block away, Cobb slowed just enough to allow McNutt to climb into the rear of the truck.

  ‘About time,’ McNutt joked. ‘I almost caught a cab.’

  He slammed the tailgate shut as Cobb floored it.

  Jasmine stared at the lights ahead. ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘B to A,’ Cobb answered as he turned off the main road to avoid the flashing lights. It was the second time he had used that expression in the last five minutes.

  McNutt, who was familiar with the term from the military, leaned back and smiled. ‘B to A — music to my ears!’

  ‘B to A?’ Sarah asked. ‘What does that mean? You keep saying it.’

  ‘It’s an exit strategy,’ Cobb explained as he looked for lights in his rearview mirror. ‘You’ve gotten to where you wanted to go, now you gotta get back to where you started.’

  McNutt laughed as he closed his eyes for a quick nap. ‘B to the fuckin’ A.’

  Their destination was the Moskva-Kazanskaya train station, the depot furthest southeast from Moscow’s center and the one with the biggest train yard.

  Andrei Dobrev watched in amazement as Cobb drove past the security booth and into the private parking lot. The wonderment did not subside as Cobb led him and Jasmine through the Venetian-style, green-tinted glass entrance beneath the four-tiered spire. The structure had been modeled on the glorious seventeenth-century Soyembika Tower in Kazan, supposedly built by Ivan the Terrible’s artisans.

  Cobb walked beneath it as if he had built it himself, and he led the two through the chandelier-lined, arched-ceiling lobby, along the tile-stoned floor, past the arched train platforms and granite columns, and around the advertising kiosks. He sauntered as if he owned the place; much to Dobrev’s surprise, no one stopped or questioned him. Cobb walked them past the waiting areas and up to the door that separated the passengers from the workers.

  He looked back at Dobrev with a knowing smile, then pushed open the door.

  Stretching out before the veteran railroad man was a scene out of his dreams. It was the rail yard, lit up like it was a Spartak-CSKA match in the Russian Premier League. The lights illuminated four linked train carriages.

  The first one was from a Grand Express, which was essentially a hotel on wheels. But Dobrev knew that this was one of the conference cars, designed for moving meetings of top-level businessmen, politicians, and dignitaries. It came complete with Wi-Fi, LCD TV screens, toilets, showers, and air conditioning. It was taken from the country’s first private train company.

  The second was a flatbed car, with a staging surface dotted with bolted-down handles and hooks. The third was a modified freight car with a new, dull gray, armored exterior and what looked like movable window slats at every level. Its ceiling also looked as if it were outfitted with tracking and surveillance devices.

  The last was a classic first-class compartment car from the train Lev Tolstoy, which made the first direct trip between Moscow and Helsinki in 1975. It had sleeping quarters for six as well as a galley and restaurant area. As Dobrev watched, a four-man team was painting over the artful blue, white, and red exteriors of the once famous cars with a uniform dark gray.

  He only managed to look away when Jasmine touched his arm.

  Cobb stood behind her with an encouraging smile on his face. ‘Please ask Mr Dobrev, what engine would he want if he had to drive this train through any condition?’

  26

  Monday, September 17

  Moskovskaya, Russia

  (18 miles southwest of Moscow)

  Colonel Viktor Borovsky, a member of the senior supervising staff of the Investigations Special Branch, leaned against the doorway of Anatoli Vargunin’s tiny office in the Moskovskaya police station. The warrant officer became aware of Borovsky’s presence before he saw his face.

  ‘Who’s there, and what is it now?’ Vargunin asked irritably, pecking with stubby, inexperienced fingers on the keyboard of his relatively new computer.

  Borovsky smiled at Vargunin’s tone. The Moskovskaya station was in much better shape than most in the Moscow suburbs. Although the plain exterior of the station was ominous, the interior had been freshly painted in a cheerful sunflower yellow, and freshly redecorated with wide, white tile floors that were geometrically divided by glass and steel cubicles.

  Borovsky remained silent as he studied Vargunin’s office. He noted that the cramped space bridged the old and the new: the new being his computer, the old being everything else, most prominently the building’s walls that seemed to loom more than stand.

  ‘I asked you a question,’ Vargunin said. ‘Who’s there, and what is it now?’

  ‘What is it now?’ Borovsky growled. ‘That’s what I was about to ask you, comrade.’

  At the sound of the unfamiliar voice, Vargunin’s large head snapped up. His eyes rose slowly, widening, but the annoyance fled like a rat when he saw the polished military bearing of his visitor. His blood-stained eyes, stinging from the new computer monitor and reddened by increasing amounts of drink the past few years, took in the visitor’s proud, polished belt buckle, his gray jacket, the
three-starred epaulettes, and the decorations over his upper left jacket pocket.

  Vargunin had not yet reached the visitor’s face when he jerked up to attention, sending his old wooden office chair banging into the wall behind him.

  ‘Excuse me, comrade Colonel,’ Vargunin said crisply. He kept his eyes straight ahead, focused on the wall, as he had been trained to do. ‘No one told me of your visit!’

  ‘Ana, Ana, Ana,’ Borovsky laughed, fully entering the office now. ‘Do I have to make appointments to see an old friend?’

  Finally, Vargunin’s tired eyes made it to his visitor’s face. At that precise moment, his own face relaxed and broke into a welcoming smile.

  ‘Viktor!’ he exclaimed. ‘Viktor, is it really you?’

  ‘I hope it’s really me. Who else would I be then?’

  The two met at the front of the desk and gripped each other’s forearms.

  Borovsky looked his old militia friend up and down. ‘Still in the blue-shirted, black tie and slacks uniform, just as I remember,’ he said. ‘Maybe a bit thicker around the middle and a bit thinner in the hair — but, yes, still the same old Anatoli.’

  ‘No,’ Vargunin said. ‘I am a crabbier version, out of alignment with the modern world.’ He dipped his head toward the computer. ‘I hate that thing.’

  Borovsky laughed. ‘There was a time when everything was new. People adjusted.’

  ‘They had time to adjust,’ Vargunin countered. ‘You had time to adjust to an electric light before there was an automobile. Today, it’s one thing after another after another.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Borovsky said, smiling. ‘You are crabbier.’

  Both men were silent for a moment, then they laughed.

  ‘How long has it been?’ Vargunin wondered, mentally counting backwards.

  ‘Close to three years,’ Borovsky informed him. ‘Well before “the Bill” was introduced.’

  Vargunin sneered. ‘The Bill. I hate that thing, too.’

  ‘I know,’ Borovsky said. ‘A plague on it.’

  ‘It ruined enough people to qualify as one.’

  ‘It was necessary.’

  Vargunin shook his head. ‘So is a tooth extraction. One doesn’t hate the dentist, but don’t ask me to cheer the decay.’

  Borovsky laughed at the comment. It was the same debate that they’d had three years ago, mercifully reduced to this shorthand.

  ‘The Bill’ was the Bill on Police, one of the first major reforms of the department since 1917. It had previously been the People’s Militia, but after almost a hundred years of growing corruption, President Dmitry Medvedev had introduced sweeping reforms in 2010. They were ratified by the State Duma in early 2011 and put into effect on March 1st of that year.

  Borovsky had been one in the group of officers whose responsibility it had been to reduce the one million, twenty-eight thousand police officers to one million, one thousand. Most of his peers found it either an odious or vengeful task, but Borovsky approached it with the same professional pride he had brought to every aspect of his life.

  In fact, he found it relatively easy. One recent study had maintained that twenty percent of the force routinely took bribes as well as extorting money from tourists and locals alike. Borovsky understood that the police department’s poor pay contributed to that, but he felt more sympathy for the reported sixty percent who sought more work rather than affiliations with local mobs. The police officers that he and his confederates found worthy got salary increases of up to thirty percent. Those that they found unworthy were now, more than likely, part of the criminal organizations they had taken money from. The ranks of the criminals were swelled by the reforms.

  Then there were the men like Vargunin. Men who were better suited to life in an office. Men who were not corrupt but who believed that confessions beaten from suspects were just as valid as those obtained by detective work.

  Vargunin changed the conversation with a dismissive wave of his hand. ‘Just two old war horses, eh?’

  ‘War horses, yes,’ Borovsky agreed. ‘But not so old.’

  ‘My spirit feels as if it fought the Mongols in the thirteenth century.’

  ‘Maybe it did,’ he teased. ‘I think this office was here, too.’

  Both men laughed, and Vargunin took a step back, finally taking the time to look his old friend up and down. If Anatoli were a workhorse, it was clear that Borovsky was still a thoroughbred. No thickening of his middle. And while his slicked-back hair may have had a little more gray on the temples, it was still enviably substantial.

  The healthier life of the optimist, Vargunin thought.

  In fact, age seemed to make Borovsky look even more impressive, from his angular face, probing light brown eyes, and sharp chin, all the way down to his long flat feet. Encased in specially made boots, they were one of Borovsky’s only concessions to personal comfort.

  ‘The changes to the uniform become you,’ Vargunin decided, releasing his friend’s forearms and turning back to the desk. ‘Apparently, so do the changes to the force.’

  ‘It’s not that,’ Borovsky said. ‘I have just never been a pessimist like you.’

  ‘That’s anti-Russian,’ his old coworker said. ‘So. What brings you down here?’

  ‘Couldn’t it be a friendly visit?’ Borovsky asked innocently, pulling forward a seat.

  ‘Couldn’t Lenin rise from his tomb and take a stroll around Red Square?’ Vargunin shrugged. ‘I suppose it is possible.’

  ‘I was wrong,’ Borovsky said. ‘You’re not a pessimist. You’re a cynic.’

  Vargunin barked out a laugh. ‘Years after “the Bill”, you come to say “hi” to one of the officers who notoriously escaped your net and then slipped through another at the Forensic Expertise Center? I am not so old a detective as to consider your arrival merely a coincidence.’

  ‘We were friends, despite the task that was given to me.’

  ‘We were, yes,’ Vargunin said. He hoped he hadn’t emphasized the ‘were’ when he spoke it. ‘Would you like a drink?’

  ‘Why not?’ Borovsky decided. ‘For old times’ sake.’

  27

  Andrei Dobrev didn’t ask for a single train engine; he requested two — back to back, like a Siamese twin attached at the spine. ‘The better to power it,’ he explained.

  Less than a day later, Dobrev watched with pride as the massive, red-and-black engine that he recommended lumbered up the sidetrack at the Moskva-Kazanskaya station. ‘The Lugansk 2TE116,’ he said to Jasmine. ‘The true beast of the RZD.’

  ‘RZD?’ Cobb inquired.

  Jasmine waited until Dobrev had finished explaining.

  ‘It’s what they call the Russian railways,’ she simplified.

  Cobb nodded and continued to watch the behemoth approach. He couldn’t help feeling that this must be what a tyrannosaurus looked like when it tried to sneak up on its prey. He glanced over at Jasmine while Dobrev continued to speak. But for some reason, she didn’t translate.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Technical specs,’ she said. ‘I don’t quite understand.’

  ‘All Greek to you, eh?’ McNutt teased.

  ‘No,’ she clarified. ‘If it were Greek, I’d actually understand.’

  ‘Let’s have it anyway,’ Cobb told her.

  ‘All right. Let’s see. Diesel engine, fifteen-twenty millimeter gauge, three thousand horsepower at one thousand rpm-’

  Cobb let out a low whistle of appreciation. That would be a very powerful dinosaur.

  ‘Thirty-six meters long, twenty feet high, twelve feet wide, axle weight of twenty-three tons, full weight of two hundred and seventy-six metric tons-’

  ‘My head hurts,’ McNutt complained.

  ‘Wait,’ Jasmine said. ‘He’s off the details, talking about something else now.’

  Cobb waited for Jasmine to catch up. Dobrev didn’t seem to care, or even notice her translation. He seemed to be lost in his own railroad world.

  ‘He’s telling us
what else we’ll need,’ she said, reciting the list to Cobb, who did not take notes but remembered every word she said.

  Finding Dobrev a standard railroad worker’s green shirt, green pants, green cap, black belt, black boots, and orange vest was not difficult — what with all the locker rooms within the station. In fact, the whole team except Papineau was dressed that way, so as not to draw unwanted attention. The Frenchman was in one of his suits as always. Jasmine had minimized her conspicuousness by pinning her hair into a bun, wearing sunglasses, and raising her shirt collar to cover the bruises that Kadurik had given her.

  The team was gathered beside the massive vintage locomotive — all except Sarah and Garcia, who had disappeared into the first train car.

  ‘According to Andrei,’ Jasmine said, ‘this engine was easy to obtain. The modernization of the Russian railways started around 2008, and they’ve been rolling out a thousand new locomotives a year. This vintage one was in a storage facility about an hour out of the city.’

  Dobrev took a second to spit onto the track.

  Cobb smiled. ‘Apparently our friend doesn’t think much of the new engines.’

  ‘He does not,’ Jasmine agreed. ‘“Give me this old beauty anytime,” he says. With all the new trains running around, there were plenty of these vintage engines to pick and choose from.’ Jasmine looked up at Cobb. ‘He actually knows this one in particular. He says he could take it apart and put it back together blindfolded.’

  ‘Good to know if we break down at night,’ McNutt said.

  Cobb stared at the monstrosity. It was an ambitious claim to make, but he wouldn’t put it past Dobrev. The beast was a big, thundering mobile home on large metal wheels. Essentially rectangular with a slightly curving arched roof, it had two big rectangular windshield ‘eyes’ and a round spotlight ‘nose’. Its ‘mouth’ was a low, broad cowcatcher — a plow-like attachment that pushed rocks, debris, and occasionally an animal from the track before it could cause damage to the wheels. This was framed by two more square headlights that looked like shining dimples.