by Tom Hron
“Where can we hide?” asked Molly. “You said Lake Baikal doesn’t thaw until the middle of June, and that’s weeks away. Do we dare leave this early?”
“We can travel over the ice to the dacha I rented. Fishermen drive on it to catch omul, one of Russia’s favorite fishes. The people around the lake eat them almost every day. When we reach the town of Severobaikalsk, on the Baikal-Amur Mainline, we can ride the bus to Baikalskaye, a fishing village forty kilometers south on a road running along the shore. The man in Novosibirsk who rented me the place said the villagers keep to themselves, which is important to our plans. I hope Jake and Simon are waiting for us.”
Frowning, Molly wondered if both were waiting as well. Hadn’t Simon said one night in Las Vegas, during their pillow talk, over 3,000 miles lay between Anchorage and Lake Baikal, reaching across the greatest wild place on earth, also the coldest outside Antarctica? Had they managed to survive? Had radar seen their Super Cubs and jet fighters shot them down? Doubts began building in her heart. What had she gotten herself into, at her age, as her grandson’s grandparents had said?
“I’ll be ready in less than an hour, but don’t you think everyone will wonder why we left in such a hurry? The moment the godfather hears we’re missing, I’m sure he’ll chase us, wondering if we aren’t the ones who shot him.”
“I know. . . . But what else can we do?”
That’s a good question, Molly thought. Surely, they’d be sitting ducks if they stayed around Akademgorodok any longer. Sasha was right in wanting to leave for Baikal. It made sense making a run for it now, rather than letting the Mafiya, in their own good time, figure out that Sasha and she’d set up the godfather and then meant to flee down the mainline much later. Besides, she still had one Glock left . . .
“Sasha, after we pack, let’s leave your Volga at the airport and take a taxi back to the train station. Maybe they’ll think we flew to Moscow.”
They packed and left, after retrieving the three diamonds that Sasha had hidden for so long, one in the middle of her makeup jar, since most men kept away from cosmetics like poison; another smeared with blackened grease and stuck below a stove burner, like fried food that had fallen; and the last one sewn inside some faded fabric and tossed in the middle of a button box.
Wrapping all three in tissue, she shoved the priceless stones in her blazer and stuck her pistol in the small of her back, inside her waistband, like she’d seen make-believe agents do on film. The Glock felt good, ready for instant use, and she was becoming an old pro at this spy stuff.
They parked the car at the airport and caught a cab back to the rail terminal, busy with countless thousands of passengers like them, moving east and west on the Trans-Siberian Railway, the lifeline of Russia, ending in Vladivostok on the Sea of Japan, not far from Tokyo. But, they would not be taking the train that far. Their destination lay only one day away, just beyond Krasnoyarsk, Kansk, and Tayshet, the beginning of the BAM, the only access to the north side of Baikal. That vast region was still remote and unexplored, and hadn’t seen any civilization until the completion of the rail line in 1984. Now it was being abandoned again, because of hard times, making it ideal for people who wanted to hide.
They waited for an eastbound train to depart for almost half the night. Molly couldn’t believe what she was seeing—workers wandering around, eating pirozhki, drinking tea, and idly chatting for hours. Trains roared westbound, but not one locomotive passed the station eastbound. Finally, she heard loud booms in the background. Were cars being assembled for the Far East? She had heard the thunder-booms before, when her father had taken her as a child to a Fort Worth switching yard still using steam engines. Jeez, she felt old sometimes.
At midnight Sasha and she boarded a first-class carriage on train 206 and found their two-berth compartment, midway down a long corridor running along one side of the car. She explored and discovered smoking areas and samovars and toilets on both ends, beside the exits. Had she slipped back in time? The walls were dark wood, gilded mirrors hung all over, and baroque lampshades dangled from the ceilings, just like passenger cars she’d seen in photographs of the Old West. Again, she wondered what she had gotten herself into, and a prickle crawled along the nape of her neck.
She had always dreamed of riding the Trans-Siberian Railway. Who in the world hadn’t wanted to tour Siberia? But this looked more like the mysterious Orient Express, and she’d miss Siberia because of the darkness, besides. Why was Russia always so incorrigible? Then she felt the car jerk ahead and rock sideways. God, the railbed was no better. Holding onto a wall hook, she stared at Sasha and laughed, partly for the frustration of waiting so long and partly for the fear she felt. Countless hollow-cheeked mobsters had watched them while they’d waited back at the station. Where were those bad guys now . . . or had her imagination completely taken over?
They locked the door on their berth, put away their bags, and laid down, getting swayed to sleep by the rocking train running on uneven tracks.
Sasha told about life on the Trans-Siberian Railroad—the provodniks and provodnitsas, fearsome male and female attendants who cleaned the carriages, guarded the Titans, stoked the heaters with coal, and chopped ice off the steps and water lines in the wintertime. She told about the clouds of coal dust that coated everything, and the windows that wouldn’t open for fresh air until some magical day in May every year, chosen by some mad person in Moscow, who the Russian people bitterly hated. Then she explained the food menus, dining cars, and endless station stops along the way, over eight hundred between Moscow and Vladivostok. At last she sighed and fell asleep.
Molly lay there, listening to the rattling and lonely whistles of the locomotive . . . until the noisy sounds began soothing her. Then longings for her Texas home and grandson brought wetness to her eyes, but only because she loved both, not because she wanted to give up the life she’d chosen. She wouldn’t turn back . . . ever.
Screeching brakes woke her. She peeked out the grimy window of her berth and saw the train stopping at a large city. Krasnoyarsk, she guessed. The smoke and steam of several long factories and a hydroelectric plant rolled above the gray skyline, darkened by the early dawn and the dead brown of the spring. Dirty snowbanks lay scattered about. She could see new buds on the birches lining the streets. Warmer weather was coming.
Daybreak was much too early, she thought to herself, and she should go back to sleep. Undecided, she sat up and gazed at Sasha, sleeping like a child in her bed. She dressed and crept out for breakfast, down the corridor and past the smokers’ corner, through the double doors and into the dining car, vacant because it was so early. She ordered coffee and watched the city come alive.
Less than an hour later she saw the misty light of the sun brighten the east, then restless passengers gather on the platform of the train station. Time to go back to her berth, she told herself. Sasha had said the layovers ran anywhere from two minutes to two hours. She’d wait in their car until her friend woke, then sightsee to Kansk, maybe get off and buy something from the babushkas who always hawked their homemade goodies along the rail terminals. She loved watching the wrinkled old women of Siberia, dressed in their bright scarves, aprons, and thick sweaters, carrying their buckets of buns, cakes, and apples, earning rubles for their families. God bless them. Maybe she’d drop a few C notes here and there and make their day.
Suddenly, on the walk back, she smelled it—the rotten odor of the tobacco smoke she’d sniffed the day she’d shot the godfather. Horror ripped through her.
Her training kicked in—stay calm, think, pull out your pistol, keep it hidden under your coat by crossing your arms—walk normally, smile, and keep your eyes open. Maybe it was a false alarm. Her imagination had always been too lively.
Strangely, she remembered the pretended engine failures in the Bell helicopter her instructor had taught her to practice. If that maneuver didn’t teach you to keep your wits under stress, nothing would. Emergency autorotations were like jumping off skyscrapers, heli
copters fell so fast, and you had only one chance at the bottom to save yourself. Those lessons had taught her to keep her head, no matter what happened. She knew how to stay cool. She snapped off the Glock’s safety, reached for the doorknob, and kicked open the door of the berth she’d left a little while before.
Empty. Now what? Stay calm and think again. They couldn’t be far. Did she have extra money if she missed the train? Yes, tucked away in her money belt. Did she need a coat? Yes, so she could hide her pistol while she searched for her friend.
She grabbed her coat and ran down the passageway, pushed her way outside, shoving aside the people waiting to board the car. Slowing, she stepped inside the station and looked around. Where were they? How many would she be facing? Well, what difference did that make? Her Glock held fifteen rounds, and there would be only two or three bad guys at most. What would Dirty Harry do under the circumstances . . . tell them to make his day?
Minutes passed. No Sasha, no crime boss. Where had they gone? Why hadn’t Sasha screamed or put up some kind of fight? Then light bulbs went off. They must have gone to the airport, and Sasha would have stayed quiet, trying to protect her. Her friend knew very well what she’d do if she saw the godfather again. Sasha hadn’t wanted her getting into a wild shootout on the trip to Baikal, knowing she was crazy enough to do it. Well, hang on, Sister, because here I come, ready or not.
She ran to the street beside the station and waved for a taxi. Screech. Instantly, four stopped. She jumped into the one with checkered stripes, knowing it was an official cab, whatever that meant in Russia, anymore. The driver turned and looked at her.
“Airport,” she said.
The cabby blinked and shook his head.
My God, she thought, get real, you’re in Russia. Her mind spun for the right pronunciation. She pulled out a hundred dollar bill from her purse, flagged it under his nose, and screamed, “Aeraport. Aeraport. Hurry, damn you!”
He tore off, slamming her against the back seat. Once she had ridden with a drug-crazed cabby from La Guardia Airport to downtown New York City in the late hours. Eighty and ninety miles an hour, hub caps flying off, down the expressways and streets the madman had driven, a wild gleam in his eyes and sneer on his lips. Now she saw the same lunacy on the face of this man when she looked at the rear view mirror. Had a hundred dollars meant that much to him? What on earth was going on in the motherland?
Buildings flew by as he raced down the streets. He sideswiped another car changing lanes, swerved around a corner, almost ran over a police officer standing in an intersection, and tore off again through the city. She hung on, praying. What would happen if the authorities found her carrying a loaded gun and a secret money belt stuffed with $50,000? It would be the gulag for her, for sure. She’d tell him to slow down but had no idea how to say the words. After a few minutes she saw the airport and thanked the merciful Lord above.
The instant the cabby stopped curbside at the terminal she pulled out two more one hundred dollar bills, ripped them in half, handed over the first bill she’d shown him, then the other halves. She saw him swallow and his eyes widen. His face turned cockeyed.
“Wait. Do you understand? Wait. No matter what happens, wait for me.” She crooked her right index finger and pumped her forearm up and down, pointing at the floor of the cab. Then she saw him grin.
“Da. Da. Yah panimayoo.”
Next, she watched him lean over and pull out the biggest crowbar she’d seen in her life, step out, and stand by the front of his car, swinging it like he meant business. Well, she thought, suddenly the odds looked better. At least it was two against the world. She opened her door and ran inside the noisy building, crawling with thousands just like her, all searching for something or someone.
What now? Then it hit her, check the ticket counters. Whoever had snatched Sasha couldn’t have purchased a ticket for her beforehand, and the queues were always slow in Russia. She pulled her pistol again, folded her coat so it covered everything but the laser sight, and started walking along the counters, watching for a blond woman standing beside two or three men. She had a plan . . .
Halfway down the airport terminal she saw Sasha ahead, standing between the godfather on the near side and a fat man on the other, holding onto her arms in a line of people waiting to buy tickets. She had guessed right. Now came the hard part—how to get Sasha away from the two mobsters—one with gauze covering half his face, like a mask, and the other surely carrying a pistol of his own. At least they had no idea she was within a mile of them. She snapped on the Glock’s laser sight and stopped a few feet away.
“Sasha, turn around and look at me.”
She moved the red laser to the crime boss’s head, between his eyes, as he turned also. One good thing about lasers, she told herself, no one could see them except the one in their aim, and that individual always knew he or she was within a millisecond of death. One wrong move and your brains would be blown to bits. She saw the fat man start pulling his pistol. Nonetheless, she stood still.
The godfather stood motionless as well, but quickly whimpered, “Nyet. Ya eta ne hachu.” The fat man froze.
She took a deep breath, exhaled, then said, “Tell them to let you go. Say I shot off his nose on purpose the first time, and I surely won’t miss his entire head now.” She saw everyone around them had fallen silent. They sensed the danger.
Sasha spoke to the men, barely above a whisper, and then walked away. Both stayed where they were, watching the red beam. Molly knew they realized it wasn’t worth it, and there would come another day. Then, they’d torture her to death, given the chance. She started backing away, holding her aim, and Sasha joined her.
“Guide me through the door so I can keep an eye on them. Hurry, there’s someone waiting, the guy with a crowbar. You can’t miss him.”
“How will we get away?” Sasha asked.
“Don’t worry. In a moment you’ll see the biggest riot ever, and we’ll have plenty of time.”
Sasha’s voice pitched higher. “What are you going to do?”
“Fire a few rounds into the ceiling, and then the whole place will panic. A thousand people will run right over the godfather and his fat friend. They won’t have time to chase us because they’ll be fighting for their lives.”
She heard the door swing open behind her and felt the cold air rush past her. She lifted her pistol and pulled the trigger three times. The building shook with the blasts. Women screamed, men yelled, then everyone ran at once, none with any clear intention in mind. They had no idea where the shots had come from, with the echoes bouncing off the walls. She turned and ran as well, following Sasha to the cab, the driver still clutching his crowbar, but now bug-eyed because she’d forgotten to put away her pistol.
“Tell him to get out of here, say the Mafiya is chasing us.” She dove through the back door and heard Sasha yell. The cabby raced away again, faster this time. She started shivering. Maybe she was crazy . . .
“Ask him if he’ll take us Kansk. We’ve missed our train.”
Sasha stared at her, round-eyed, then hugged her, laughing and crying simultaneously. Both rolled around the back seat because they felt so happy. Their quest had become very dangerous, but their love for each other had won the day, and together they’d conquer the world.
They calmed themselves, and Sasha began bargaining with the driver for the trip to Kansk, so they could once more ride the Trans-Siberian Railway. Yes, he had the time. It was just a matter of money. He must buy extra gasoline from the black market for the long drive. Commercial supplies were tight in Siberia.
He settled for a thousand dollars, a sum that Molly thought must seem like a king’s ransom to him. But what difference did it make? If not for him, she might have missed saving Sasha, and that would have meant her death. They weren’t playing patty-cake with the boy scouts. The Mafiya had earned a worldwide reputation for their passion for cold-blooded murder, without mercy for anyone. Pay up or get blown to eternity, that was their motto. Th
e Mafia of America paled in comparison.
They bought gasoline from a back-alley garage on the outskirts of Krasnoyarsk and got underway. Molly relaxed and eyed the cab driver, who now drove at a sensible speed and acted serious about getting them to Kansk. In a few hours Sasha and she would be back on the train and again heading for their rendezvous with Jake and Simon, if both, in fact, had made it to Baikal.
The more she pictured their cross-country, the more she envied them, imagining their success. What must it be like flying with such freedom, soaring over a world without end? She had learned, first hand, the sky had no boundaries and the earth looked like your very own when you piloted an aircraft. To journey all the way to Siberia seemed magical, a rite of passage for angels. Someday she’d buy her own airplane, and a helicopter, too.
She watched the landscape slip by, farmland near the city, the Yenisei River with giant power plants standing along its shores, sending rolling white clouds riding on the wind, power lines running everywhere, to the east, the taiga, the forest she’d read so much about before she’d come from Texas. The hills and mountains were covered with birch, pine, and larch as far as she could see, and, according to Russian fable, as distant as the wild birds could fly. No one knew how far the woods ran, only that it was living, waiting, and dangerous. She stared at it, remembering its great size, feeling it power.
The driver’s shout snapped her back to reality. “Astarozhna!” She felt something slam against the rear of the car and heard Sasha scream. She spun around, looked out the back window, and saw a green car coming at them again, though the cabby had floored his own vehicle.
Thik! Thik!
What were those strange sounds? Why did the front and rear windows have spiders webs in them? Then it dawned on her. They were being shot at, and two bullets had barely missed them. She watched the cabby shimmy down as far as he could, without losing sight of the narrow road ahead. The look on his face looked maniacal again. He was racing for his life, mumbling odd consonants to himself.