The Distant Chase

by Cap Daniels

  Clark slapped me on the shoulder. “See, good things do happen to bad people sometimes.”

  As the train left the main track onto the sidetrack and began slowing, the door behind us slid open with enough force to make me fear Stalin himself was coming through. Clark took a knee and drew his pistol while I drew my fighting knife and pinned myself to the wall, ready to plunge my blade into the chest of whoever came through the door. Clark was looking up to make sure I was in position. We’d been in plenty of fights together, but never one on the back of a train approaching Moscow.

  A black, glossy brim of a uniform hat broke the plane of the door, and my heart stopped. I was about to be forced to kill an innocent train conductor to keep him from blowing the whistle on us.

  I grabbed his gloved hand coming through the door, and forcefully pulled the rest of him through, propelling his body toward the iron railing of the platform. He hit it with such force that he bent at the waist, and the upper half of his body hung off the back of the train while his legs and feet remained aboard.

  “Wait!” he yelled in English.

  English? Why did he yell in English?

  When humans yell out in fear or surprise, they do so in the first language they learned as a child. I wasn’t the only one to notice the discrepancy. Clark reacted by grabbing the man’s belt and stopping him from continuing over the railing, though I didn’t believe Clark was entirely sold on the man’s act. The instant he grabbed the conductor’s belt, he also aggressively sent the barrel of his pistol between the man’s legs, leaving no room for doubt that he would send a 9mm round straight through his goozle if he misbehaved.

  Winded and still bent over the railing, the conductor said, “Ginger said you might like to leave the train before we make the station. Will this little sidetrack fiasco do?”

  With that, Clark holstered his pistol and pulled the man upright. I lowered my knife but didn’t sheath it yet.

  The conductor straightened his coat. “It’s nice to have friends all over the world, isn’t it?”

  The train had almost come to a stop when I decided the small talk was over. I nudged Clark and then followed him down the pair of slick metal steps and onto the snow-covered gravel of the railbed. I picked up the conductor’s hat from the snow, dusted it off, and tossed it toward the train.

  He caught it, inspected it, placed it back on his head, and then pointed to the south. “Less than two kilometers that way, follow the stream. You’ll find what you need.”

  We never looked back as we scampered down the embankment toward the stream. When we reached the bottom, I was pleased to see the train and tracks were invisible through the trees and falling snow.

  “Why didn’t Ginger tell us she had a contact on the train?” I said.

  “Maybe she didn’t know he’d be on the train until the last minute. I don’t know, but never look at a horse’s teeth if you’ve got a gift cat and some rocking chairs.”

  “What’s wrong with you?” I asked, trying to suppress my laughter. “Do you know any sayings?”

  “I know all the sayings,” he said. “I just can’t always keep them straight.”

  I pulled the handheld GPS from my pack, hoping it wouldn’t take long to initialize. “What do you think the conductor meant by, ‘You’ll find what you need’?”

  “I don’t know, but I hope it’s got four-wheel drive.”

  We followed the stream and found it frozen where the water slowed and the banks widened. I didn’t like being in a place where ice was part of the natural landscape. I belonged in the Caribbean where ice came in the form of cubes under scotch or froth in a daiquiri. I’d never been more distant from everything I considered my home in either geography or my heart.

  Clark had, no doubt, been trained to operate in arctic conditions, but I had not. I’d never let him hear me complain, but the unbearable cold painfully penetrated my body and soul. It all but destroyed my will to continue and left me longing to feel the sun on my skin. I ached and trembled more violently by the minute. The only things driving me onward were my limitless loyalty to Dr. Richter and the obligation I felt to repay the debt Anya had so willingly paid on my behalf.

  The GPS came to life and delivered a dose of terrible news. We were heading directly toward a heavily populated suburb, and worse, the Moscow River was less than half a mile away. Crossing a river of any size in those temperatures would lead to hypothermia in minutes. Our friend, the conductor, had sent us in the worst possible direction.

  “We need to come up with a better plan,” I said. “This way is going nowhere fast.”

  “It’s starting to look that way, but maybe we should push on until we know for sure he screwed us.”

  I agreed, and we continued southward, careful to stop every few steps, listening for any movement in the trees. The snow was dry and crunchy, so we would easily hear anyone walking nearby. Fortunately, it was snowing hard enough to cover our tracks within minutes after making them, so we would be difficult to track. I just hoped we weren’t walking into an ambush. The closer we got to the river, the fewer avenues of escape there would be. Getting arrested or killed within our first twelve hours in Russia was not in the plan.

  There were sounds of traffic in the distance. We needed to find transportation and orient ourselves enough to find Norikov’s house, but I wasn’t looking forward to trying to blend in with the locals. The traffic sounds soon gave way to the sound of falling water. I didn’t know if that was good or bad, but it was definitely new.

  The trees began to thin as we approached the river, and we could see a hundred yards or more in every direction. That made us more vulnerable than I liked, but the walking was getting easier.

  When the Moskva came into view, my heart sank. There were no roads between us and the river. That meant we would either have to find a way to cross the thirty-three-degree water or follow it either east or west.

  Clark pointed to the southwest. “That’s it!”

  “What’s it?”

  “That’s exactly what we need, and it’s definitely not four-wheel drive.”

  I moved beside him so I could see what he was pointing at. “I guess the conductor was right after all.”

  Lying at anchor, just off the riverbank, were four pilothouse workboats bobbing in the slow current of the Moscow River. Driving a stolen car, in the snow, eight thousand miles from home, in a city I’d never seen, was not on the list of things I understood, but boats and water…they were a different story. If we could get to one of the boats and stay dry while we did it, our day would look a whole lot brighter.

  “Whoever put those there had to get ashore somehow,” Clark said.

  “I was thinking the same thing. Let’s find ourselves a launch.”

  We scanned the riverbank for anyone who might catch us. I doubted the snow and temperatures were keeping Muscovites inside, but luckily, there wasn’t a living soul in sight.

  “That’ll work,” I said, pointing toward a dinghy lying upside down near the bank of the river.

  I grabbed the bow to flip it over, but it was frozen to the ground. Clark found a wooden plank and began prying at the gunwale to free it from its icy bonds. After several attempts, the tundra-like earth gave up and surrendered the boat to us. The drain plug was missing, so I drove a broken limb into the hole and snapped it off, hoping it would keep the boat dry for the fifty-foot trek.

  With no paddle in sight, Clark said, “It looks like my pry bar is going to have to do for a paddle.”

  “Let’s do it,” I said.

  We slid the boat into the edge of the river and managed to stay mostly dry as we climbed aboard. The current was stronger than it had appeared, and we started downstream faster than Clark could paddle with his makeshift oar. It soon became apparent the current would be impossible to overcome, and we would likely float past all four boats before we could reach any of them.

  Clark dug at the water, paddling as hard as his arms would allow. “This ain’t lookin’ good, cowboy
. Do you have any ideas?”

  I yanked the board from his hand and beat it violently across my knee. Clark look bewildered, but soon realized what I was doing. Seeing that my plan was flawed, he grabbed the board and propped it against the gunwale, immediately giving it a swift, well-aimed kick. The board cracked in half. Two short paddles were better than one long paddle, so we each grabbed a piece and began digging furiously into the frigid water.

  It was working, and we made slow progress toward the anchored boats, but we’d never reach the first boat in time. We focused our efforts on boat number two and kept digging. As we came alongside, I reached out to grab the railing of the anchored boat and dropped my board. I instinctually grabbed for and recovered it, but soaked my gloves in the process. I quickly threw the board into the bottom of the dinghy and reached back for the metal rail of boat number two. I squeezed with all my strength, but it wasn’t enough. The combination of the water on my gloves and the temperature of the rail made gripping it impossible. My hand slid down the railing as if it were greased, and we soon drifted past.

  I shed my dripping wet gloves into the bottom of the dinghy and started paddling again. The near-freezing water stung my hands and left me shivering in spite of the sweat forming on my brow. Boat number three was only feet away.

  “Let’s aim for the stern,” I said. “If we can get behind the boat and out of the current, we can paddle right up to it with no problem.”

  Clark shrugged. “Okay, let’s give it a try. Nothing else is working.”

  We aimed for the port stern quarter of the anchored vessel and paddled for our lives. The line was looking good, and our speed was perfect. Our plan was strong, and our odds of pulling it off were improving with every stroke. Motivated by our progress and impending success, Clark and I paddled harder, driving our dinghy faster through the water. We hit the sweet spot perfectly and slipped behind the boat. The current immediately died in the shadow of the much larger boat, and I dug my paddle in to turn our bow toward the boarding ladder hanging over the stern. At that instant, I realized we’d been a little too zealous with our strokes. We’d built up enough speed to shoot past the stern and back into the current on the other side.

  Discouraged, and with hands on the verge of frostbite, I started paddling toward boat number four—our last hope.

  “I’m going to steer for the bow,” Clark said. “Grab whatever you can, and get aboard no matter what it takes. If I can’t make it, I’ll head for the bank, and you can come get me.”

  There was no time to come up with a better plan, so I nodded my agreement. We headed directly for the bow, and I planned to grab the anchor chain, even if I had to wrap both arms around it since my hands were becoming more useless by the second.

  “Get ready!” Clark yelled. “We’re going to hit pretty hard. You just make sure you get on that boat, no matter what.”

  I leaned over the bow of our dinghy, stretching for the anchor chain. I missed it by inches, and we collided with the hull of the boat in a colossal crash, sending us listing and shuddering. As we came to an instant stop, the dinghy began filling with water that would, in minutes, suck the life from our freezing bodies if we didn’t get aboard the larger boat.

  I threw my pack aboard the boat and turned to reach for Clark’s, but I was too late. He launched his over my head and sent it sliding across the deck of the workboat. The water rose in our dinghy, and I lunged for the railing above my head, landing with both arms across the bar and my feet dangling above the surface of the river. The dinghy broke free and drifted again, half full of the deadly water.

  Clark grabbed my thigh and shoved me up and over the rail. I landed on the frozen metal deck and spun, quickly thrusting my right arm toward Clark, who was standing in the dinghy’s knee-deep water as our hands met. He shoved his arm up my wrist and clamped onto my forearm. I squeezed at his arm with what I hoped was all the grip I had.

  “Jump,” I yelled as I forced myself backward, pulling as hard as I could. I fell onto the deck just as Clark came soaring across the rail.

  He landed with a thud beside me and moaned, “Go to Moscow, they said. It’ll be fun, they said.”

  Chapter 20

  Anchors Aweigh

  We sat up as our abandoned dinghy drifted downstream in the coldest water I’d ever touched.

  “You know we’re screwed if this thing doesn’t start.”

  Clark watched the dinghy. “We were screwed when we got on the plane to Greece. If it doesn’t start, we’ll find another way. That’s kinda what we do.”

  My hands had gone from cold, to tingling, to burning, and finally to numb. “Why don’t you see if you can get this tub started? I need to find a way to get some feeling back in my hands.”

  He climbed to his feet and headed for the pilothouse. Of course it was locked. Clark turned to me as if I was supposed to have the key.

  “I’ve got a pick set in my bag,” I said, “but you’ll have to do it. My hands are glaciers. I couldn’t pick my nose, let alone that lock.”

  He glanced at my bag and back at the door before delivering a powerful kick to the handle. The lock gave way, and the door flew inward on its hinges until it crashed into the bulkhead.

  “It would’ve been nice of them to leave us a set of keys,” Clark said as he scanned the instrument panel and empty ignition switches. He pulled off his gloves and lay on the deck beneath the helm station. After two minutes of touching wires together and cursing, he slid from beneath the console. “It’s dead. There’s no power at all.”

  I maniacally rubbed my hands together. “Maybe the battery switches are off.”

  We searched for the switches and finally found them inside the engine room, mounted high on the forward bulkhead. Hanging from small, brass hooks beside the battery switches, were two sets of keys on chunks of brown cork.

  “Nice.” Clark pulled the keys from the hooks and flipped the battery switches. Lights illuminated, and several small fan motors whirred. Those were encouraging signs.

  We looked for the through-hull ball valves that would allow river water to be drawn into the engines for cooling. Opening the valves proved more challenging than expected since the mechanisms were nearly frozen shut. I just prayed the water in the lines wasn’t solid ice.

  Back in the pilothouse, Clark reconnected the wiring to the ignition switch and slid in the keys. One counterclockwise turn of the port side key illuminated an orange light above the switch, indicating the glow plugs in the diesel engine were warming up.

  “Here goes nothing.” Clark turned the key to the right. The port side diesel slowly turned over, battling against the cold. The RPM gauge rose, and the engine coughed its way to life. “One down, and one to go.” He turned the key to warm up the glow plugs for the starboard engine, and just as number one had done, the second engine initially resisted but finally opened its eyes.

  The pressures and temperatures were settling into the green arcs, and a quick scan of the riverbank revealed no unwanted attention being cast our way.

  Still rubbing my hands furiously together, I made my way to the head and opened the valve for hot water. The boat’s plumbing system was designed to allow flow through a heat exchanger on the port side engine, delivering hot water to the sink and shower. The head was filthy and smelled as if something had recently died in there, but the water pouring from the spigot was clean, and it was definitely warm. I adjusted the cold water flow to avoid scalding my nearly frostbitten hands and let it cascade over my knuckles. I slowly decreased the stream until the feeling came back to my fingertips.

  When I returned topside, I found Clark cranking the manual windlass on the bow to raise the anchor. I was surprised it wasn’t electric, but Clark was making short work of the job.

  Just as the anchor came to rest on its roller, he turned to me. “Anchors aweigh. Now let’s go house hunting.”

  One more scan of the engine instruments reassured us that everything was running as it should. If the rest of our day would f
ollow suit, we’d be on our way back to the Western world in less than twenty-four hours.

  I found a cigarette lighter plug that actually worked, and used it to maintain the charge in our GPS. The handheld unit wasn’t designed for navigation on the water, but as long as it would show our position and Norikov’s house, we could manage the nautical work.

  “Uh, Chase. You might want to take a look at this.”

  I joined him at the helm where he was pecking on the fuel gauges. There were three of them, presumably for three different tanks somewhere aboard the boat. One indicated nothing in the tank, and the other two were oscillating between an inch past full and an inch below empty in random, swinging arcs.

  “No way can that can be good,” I said as I joined him in tapping on the gauges.

  He dropped to the deck and shimmied beneath the console again. “Maybe I screwed them up while I was trying to hotwire it.”

  I watched the devices closely as he tinkered with the wiring. The gauge indicating empty went dark, and the others kept dancing.

  “The wiring for the one on the left is falling apart, but the others look fine,” he said, crawling from beneath the console.

  “I guess it’s time to find and dip the tanks.”

  He agreed, and we scoured the bowels of the boat for the aluminum fuel tanks. As it turned out, they weren’t challenging to find. They were arranged neatly and conveniently beneath a deck plate near the stern. As is almost always true of rigidly installed fuel tanks, there was no easy access to open up the tanks and look inside. Each had circular inspection plates on the top of the tank with twelve screws in each.

  “I don’t think we should do this here,” I said. “Let’s get someplace a little less conspicuous. One of us can work on the screws, and the other can drive. Which job would you prefer?”