The Hunters h-1

by Chris Kuzneski

  Meanwhile McNutt was in the freight car, doing an inventory to make sure nothing was taken, added, or sabotaged. Sarah was in her compartment, recovering, while Jasmine tended to her. Team members can bicker all they want — that’s to be expected given the danger and their close proximity — but they’re there for each other when it counts. As they went about their various tasks, they were all continuously linked via their earpieces, eliminating the need for repetitious explanations later.

  ‘Any insight, Papi?’ Cobb asked.

  Papineau glared at Cobb. ‘About what, specifically?’

  Cobb was unfazed. ‘The intruder.’

  Papineau let Cobb’s veiled accusation hang in the air for several seconds. He was ready to lash back when Garcia broke the silence.

  ‘Well, I’ve seen him before.’

  ‘Where?’ Papineau demanded.

  ‘Well, maybe not him,’ Garcia corrected. ‘But someone who dressed like him. I figured he was some kind of priest. Russian Orthodox, or some religion like that.’

  ‘We’ve all seen his kind,’ Cobb said.

  Papineau looked at him with surprise.

  ‘Don’t play innocent,’ Cobb said. ‘It doesn’t suit you. There’s been one of his kind virtually everywhere we’ve gone. Walking close, passing through, talking to others. Nothing secretive like today, but they’ve been around. The first time they showed up was at the reception. You looked at him longer than the rest of us — like you’d seen him before.’

  Papineau pulsed with anger. He opened his mouth to ridicule Cobb, but he managed not to. He stood firm against the wave of emotion, realizing that it was anger rising to cover guilt.

  ‘I have seen him before,’ Papineau admitted carefully, staring into Cobb’s eyes. ‘Or at least, like Hector said, someone in similar attire.’

  Garcia found that he was holding his breath, as the two seemed to be deciding just how far they were willing to bend before one of them snapped.

  ‘Like you said,’ Papineau continued, ‘they’ve been hovering around the edges.’

  Cobb seemed to drop some of his military posture. He sighed and scratched his head. ‘Okay, if that’s the way you want to play this …’

  ‘What is “this”?’ Papineau asked irritably.

  Cobb folded his arms. ‘I said from the beginning that I’d bail if you ever countermanded my orders. Stupidly, I never said I required full disclosure, so I suppose we’re stuck with each other for a while. That said, I want to know what you know. All of it.’

  The Frenchman stared in amazement, then he honestly and wholeheartedly laughed, clapping Cobb on the shoulder. ‘Mon ami, you are truly something.’

  ‘Don’t try to flatter me,’ Cobb warned with a smile. He could play insincere as well as Papineau. ‘We could’ve lost someone today based on what you didn’t share. I’m giving you a chance to do that now. One time only.’

  Papineau grinned. ‘Do you really think you can threaten me?’

  Cobb rolled the man’s hand from his shoulder. ‘If putting your head under the wheels of a slow-moving train is a threat, then yeah, I do.’

  "Черные робы."blurted Garcia suddenly, defusing the confrontation in pitch-perfect Russian. He was smiling up at them as if expecting a reward. ‘Jasmine has been teaching me correct pronunciation, or is it enunciation? Anyway, she figured I’d need it.’

  They stared at him, waiting for his translation.

  ‘Anyway,’ he said as he filled the silence, ‘I’ve been sitting here trying to remember their name. They’re called the Black Robes.’

  ‘Black Robes?’ Cobb echoed.

  ‘Yeah,’ Garcia said, returning his attention to the computer screen. ‘As I was about to say before you guys started antler-banging, I saw one enter an Internet cafe that I was checking out. I was trying to find some like-minded hackers in Moscow, just in case. Guys, I’m telling you: if you combined Sarah and me, you’d get someone like those Russian hack kids. They really are incredible. Money-crazy, but totally smart.’

  ‘Back on topic?’

  ‘Yeah, sorry. Uh, which one?’

  Cobb shook his head. ‘One of those Black Robes looked into the cafe? He didn’t try to hide himself?’

  ‘Nope,’ Garcia said, getting back on track. ‘But it was weird. When the hackers saw him, they recoiled in obvious fear. Someone mentioned that phrase: "Черные робы."

  When I asked Jasmine about it, she translated it as “Black Robes”.’ He looked back at his team leader. ‘Apparently, they’re a sect of some kind.’

  ‘What kind?’ Papineau asked.

  Garcia shrugged. ‘Damned if I know.’

  Cobb looked at the Frenchman. ‘You really don’t know?’

  ‘I really do not.’

  ‘Where did you see them, then?’

  ‘The same places you’ve seen them,’ Papineau replied.

  Cobb turned his eyes on Garcia. ‘What about on the Web?’

  ‘Nyet. Nada.’

  ‘That’s disquieting in and of itself. The only things not on the Web are things that don’t exist,’ Cobb remarked.

  ‘Or things that cover their tracks faster than I can follow them,’ Garcia suggested. The concept didn’t sit well with him. He prided himself on his knowledge of technology. ‘What about you? Did you learn anything from the guy? Anything at all?’

  Cobb thought about it, and his expression did nothing to settle Garcia. ‘All I know is that they’re tough to kill. So when we step on them, we’d better step hard.’ He held Garcia’s gaze. ‘Check the entire train, inside and out, for anything he might have left behind. And get some security cams on the undercarriages. We’re vulnerable there.’

  Cobb started toward the door, then stopped. He hadn’t forgotten his confrontation with Papineau. He had merely benched it for the moment.

  ‘And Papi,’ he said, ‘you’re with me.’

  As Cobb and Papineau made their exit, Garcia ran another search on the Black Robes. His results were varied and irrelevant — with no mention of covert ops.

  Digging deeper, Garcia accessed a handful of ‘off-the-grid’ bulletin boards — websites on hidden networks that weren’t accessible to most. These sites allowed hackers to carry on discussion under the cloak of anonymity. It took several refinements to narrow his search and translation software to decipher the answers, but Garcia found what he was looking for.

  After scanning the information, he realized that Sarah was lucky to be alive.

  ‘What’s up?’ Jasmine asked as he entered the command center.

  ‘I was just doing a little research on the Black Robes,’ Garcia answered. ‘We think they’re responsible for Sarah’s attack.’

  ‘I know,’ Jasmine said, pointing to her earpiece. ‘I meant, did you find anything interesting?’

  ‘More like terrifying.’

  ‘How so?’

  Garcia summed up everything he had read. ‘If you believe the rumors, the Black Robes have been around for over a hundred years. And during that time, they’ve been growing in prominence throughout Eastern Europe. No one knows exactly when the cult took shape, but-’

  ‘They’re a cult?’ she interrupted.

  ‘Well, they certainly fit the description. Not that they’re overly religious — ‘cause they’re not. It’s more of a spiritual bent. Revelation through suffering, that sort of thing. The punishment for one’s sins serves to heighten one’s understanding of the world.’

  ‘What kind of sins?’

  ‘Judging from the accounts of rape and violence, I’d say they’re particularly fond of lust and wrath.’ He paused, but Jasmine said nothing in reply. ‘I know what you’re thinking: why couldn’t it have been sloth and gluttony? We could handle a bunch of lazy, fat guys.’

  Jasmine was suddenly thankful for their lethal supplies.

  ‘No,’ Garcia continued. ‘We get stuck with the guys who think the path to enlightenment is found through murder.’

  35

  Cobb ente
red the freight car with Papineau close behind. McNutt was in the far corner, going over the last of the equipment.

  The freight car’s walls, floor, and ceiling were armored, but with several sliding and slatted windows and doors so the gear could be moved, used, or launched in a thousand different ways. Along the west wall was an array of firearms of every shape and size, from handguns and sniper’s rifles to automatic weapons. Cobb noticed the Mark III back in its place between a Kel-Tec P32 and a Springfield Armory XD9 Sub-Compact.

  At Cobb’s insistence, McNutt had supplied everyone on the team with a sidearm that best fit their size, weight, and temperament, along with intensive training during their weeks together in Fort Lauderdale.

  Garcia got a Walther PPK or, as he called it, the James Bond gun. It was the one 007 used in most books and movies. McNutt chose it for him because it had good firepower in a nerd-friendly, twenty-ounce, six-inch package.

  Jasmine had grudgingly accepted a Ruger LCR.38 Special revolver. Light, sleek, hammerless, and practically unjammable, it was a perfect point-and-pull weapon for their pacifist-leaning, but obviously eminently attackable, historian.

  McNutt had wanted to give the similar Charter Arms.38 Special Undercover Model 13820 revolver to Sarah, but he knew she would balk at what she considered its traditional clunkiness. It was clear to him that she was ready to reject anything he offered, lest it weigh her down or hold her back. So he presented her with the Kimber Micro Custom Defense Package.380 automatic. At thirteen ounces and hardly bigger than her hand, she had almost grabbed it from his grasp before he could hand it to her.

  ‘Find anything?’ Papineau asked.

  McNutt looked up from the polymer crates and canvas containers that lined the east wall, then shook his head. ‘I checked every inch of this place for holes or punctures, even pinpricks. The only thing missing is some backup gear that would have been way too big to steal. My guess is it never made the original shipment.’

  ‘Anything essential?’

  ‘Nope. Just redundancies.’

  Cobb didn’t ask if the Black Robe could’ve slipped something through the slatted windows or rolling doors. They were created to both men’s specifications. Nothing would get in or out without their say-so. ‘Out of curiosity, how’d you get all this stuff in here?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ McNutt asked.

  ‘Not you, McNutt.’ Cobb turned toward the Frenchman. ‘Getting us supplies in Florida is one thing, but smuggling an armory into Russia is quite another.’

  McNutt furrowed his brow, perplexed, but Papineau just waved it aside. ‘Don’t worry, Joshua. This is just part two of something we started in the command center.’

  ‘You got that right,’ Cobb said. He began to walk around the compartment, taking in all the cutting-edge weapon technology that filled the car. ‘I can’t help feeling that we’re moving faster and faster toward a collision with something that only you know about. Seriously, look at all of this artillery. Yet you smuggled it here — into the capital of Russia — so easily.’

  ‘Hold up!’ McNutt said, as if a light bulb had just popped on above his head. ‘I think I know how the Black Robe got in here.’

  ‘Me, too,’ Cobb assured him.

  ‘Yeah, right,’ McNutt scoffed. ‘You’re just trying to steal my thunder.’

  Cobb pointed to the empty crate where the missing gear would have been stored — if it had made the shipment. ‘The Black Robe hid in the crate. One of our workers carried him in.’

  McNutt nodded his approval. ‘Shit, chief. That’s much more realistic than what I was gonna say. My plan involved giant birds.’

  Cobb ignored him and focused on Papineau. ‘Finding and refitting these train cars is one thing, since all of them came from Russia. But this?’ He pointed at everything around them. ‘By all rights, Russian customs should have been on this like beef on stroganoff. Alarms should have sounded if they even caught a whiff of this stuff!’ He marched up to Papineau and placed his face a few inches away. ‘How did you do it?’

  ‘Why do you assume that someone at Russian customs hasn’t already seen these crates?’ Papineau replied. The implication was clear: the Frenchman’s connections ran a lot deeper than Cobb had anticipated.

  ‘You might have friends in high places,’ Cobb shot back, ‘but every outsider that knows anything about what we’re doing here puts the whole mission in jeopardy. And not just the objective. You’re risking our lives.’

  ‘Um, I hate to interrupt …’ said a voice behind them.

  They turned to see Jasmine in the doorway between the armory car and the private quarters.

  Cobb glanced at her. ‘What’s up, Jasmine?’

  ‘Could I see you for a second?’ she asked.

  ‘I’ll be right with you,’ he assured her, before turning back to Papineau. ‘I’m kind of in the middle of something.’

  ‘I see that,’ she said, retreating. ‘I’ll be in Sarah’s quarters.’

  ‘Fine. See you soon.’

  Cobb breathed slowly and deeply, but the Frenchman could tell the difference between a man who was doing that instinctively and a man who was trying to keep himself calm.

  Of course, Papineau could see what was troubling Cobb. Despite their best efforts, two members of the team had already been attacked, and they hadn’t even left the station yet. What would happen once the train started picking up speed?

  Cobb leaned closer and whispered with menace, ‘Tell me, Papi, what makes you so damn confident that we can pull this off? What are you hiding up your sleeve?’

  Papineau stared directly into Cobb’s eyes. When he replied, he answered with total honesty and complete conviction. ‘You.’

  36

  Cobb made his way to their sleeping quarters where Jasmine was tending to their injured colleague. Since the car had been cannibalized from the first-class compartments of the Lev Tolstoy, it required very little improvement. There were six spacious cabins and two baths with multiple sinks and shower stalls.

  Cobb was amused by the dichotomy between this luxurious train car, which was known for first-class travel between Moscow and Finland, and the frugal man it was named for. Lev ‘Leo’ Tolstoy was one of Russia’s greatest writers, having written the monumental classic War and Peace. By the end of his life, Tolstoy was a fervent believer in nonviolent resistance and famed for his ascetic lifestyle. Cobb wondered if Tolstoy would be amused or outraged by the extravagant carriage that bore his name — especially since the other cars of the train were loaded with weapons. He also wondered which was louder: the rumble of the engine or the sound of Tolstoy spinning in his grave?

  In either case, each cabin had one large, square window that could be covered with a set of blue and white curtains for privacy or sealed shut with a bulletproof grate that slid from the top. Every compartment had a sitting section, which looked like a restaurant booth, and a sleeping section with a comfortable bed beside a small chair and table.

  Cobb knocked on the door of Sarah’s compartment. He was about to walk in when Jasmine opened the door. ‘How’s she doing?’ he asked.

  ‘She’s okay,’ Jasmine said in the doorway. ‘Embarrassed, but okay.’

  ‘Why is she embarrassed?’

  ‘Because someone got the best of her. She’s used to delivering blows, not receiving them.’

  Cobb smiled. ‘How’s her head?’

  ‘Her head is fine. It’s her neck that’s killing her. The guy didn’t knock her out. He choked her unconscious with some kind of death grip.’

  He glanced at the bruises on Jasmine’s neck. ‘There’s a lot of that going around.’

  She nodded. ‘I finally convinced her to get some rest. She wanted to go out and slaughter the first person she saw in a black coat.’

  Cobb shook his head, his mouth stretched into something that denoted both a grin and a grimace. ‘We have to assume they are all trained in Sambo. It’s the Russian equivalent of the Israeli Krav Maga.’

  ‘Rough-and-t
umble, result-oriented?’ Jasmine said.

  Cobb nodded. ‘Both were created by the military to be the most brutally effective self-defence systems they could think of. By the way he acted getting in and out, I’d guess he was ex-secret police. The KGB was big on organic infiltration like this, not break-ins. Let the inhabitants bring you inside with them.’

  Cobb studied Jasmine’s face. She was upset about something. He could see it in her eyes and the way she clenched her jaw. ‘So, what did you want to talk about?’

  Jasmine glanced away. ‘Jack, I’m worried.’

  ‘I can see that. What about, specifically?’

  ‘I remember all the drilling, all the lessons I was taught back in Florida, but … you saw me in the field. When that punk attacked me, it all …’ She tried to pinpoint the feeling the memory elicited. ‘It all went away. Just vanished.’

  Cobb smiled kindly. ‘Let me ask you a question.’

  She took a deep breath and met his gaze. It was clear from her expression that she didn’t want to back away or back out. She was looking for something to get her back on track.

  ‘Do you want to get attacked again?’ Cobb asked.

  ‘No!’ she blurted, her voice filled with anger.

  That was exactly what he wanted to hear.

  ‘There you go,’ Cobb said. ‘You said it yourself: you know how to prevent it. What you didn’t know was how it was going to feel. How you were going to feel. But now you do.’

  She nodded slowly, trying to absorb his message.

  ‘Pro athletes often talk about the speed of the game. It’s something you can’t fully grasp in a practice session. You have to experience it to understand it.’

  ‘Are you talking about adrenalin?’

  ‘Partly. But it’s more than that. It’s about making correct decisions under fire. A fist coming at you demands that you move or block. You don’t have time to remember complex moves, and there’s no need to. You just have to reply to whatever move is put on you. You’re being choked from behind? You know where your opponent’s eyes are for gouging, where the groin is for grabbing, where fingers are for bending back. Simply do what you’ve been taught.’