Алистер Маклин: Death Train

He hugged himself against the sudden freezing wind then scrambled to his feet as it whipped the first drops of rain through the open door. A storm was imminent. Over the years he had become as used to the rocking and swaying of a train as an experienced sailor is to the pitching and rolling of a ship. He made his way easily to the door and was about to close it when he caught sight of something tucked into the corner of the car between two wooden containers, out of sight from where he had been sitting earlier. A sage-coloured tarpaulin. It would come in useful. He braced himself against the now torrential downpour and grabbed the door handle with both hands, hauling the sliding door back across the opening but stopping short of banging it closed. Instead he pressed his foot against it while reaching over to pull a crate towards him. He took his foot away and pushed the crate into place where it acted as a stop to prevent the door from sliding back open again. The wind still managed to find a way through the hairline crack, whistling eerily around the interior of the freight car. He shivered.

When he removed the crates to get at the tarpaulin he realized it was covering something, further stimulating his interest. He gathered in the tarpaulin as a yachtsman might a spinnaker and dumped it behind him before peering into the semi-darkness. Beer kegs. No wonder they had been covered up. He counted them by tapping each with his forefinger. Six in all. They were made of metal and this presented him with a major problem. How to open them? He looked around for an implement to use and although his eyes were by now accustomed to the gloom he could see nothing suitable. Not that this deterred him; he was determined to break one open and quench his thirst. He only wished Hans were with him, not just as a drinking partner but also because he had always been the brains of the duo. Hans would have had an answer to the current predicament. A thought suddenly came to mind. The fire extinguisher!

He turned to the wall where it should have been hanging but there was only an empty bracket.

He cursed and was about to turn away when another idea sprang to mind. He inspected the bracket more closely. It had rusted and one of the three screws was missing. All it needed was a good tug. He gripped it in both hands and pulled. It held firm. He twisted it, trying to prise loose the remaining screws, but although brittle from corrosion they refused to snap. He gripped it again with both hands and yanked hard. It came away from the wall and he had to grab on to a crate to stop himself overbalancing. He held it up triumphantly as though it were a trophy then knelt beside the nearest keg and traced his finger around the seal of the small bung. It would have to be knocked out. When he had seen it being done by publicans a mallet and a stake had been used, but all he had was a rusty bracket. Nevertheless he steadied his aim and brought the bracket down on to the bung. All it did was leave a dent. The seal had been reinforced. He decided to change his tactics. Instead of striking the middle of the bung he would concentrate on the seal itself. If he could first weaken the seal, a solid blow to the middle might be enough to break it open.

For the next five minutes he pounded frustratingly at the seal lining, the task not made any easier by the rhythmic rocking of the train as it sped through the rain. Of the blows delivered, barely half found their mark. He finally slumped against the nearest crate and stared at the dimpled area around the bung. Had he made any sort of impression? He gripped the bracket in both hands and repeatedly pounded the bung. It suddenly buckled inwards, the bracket disappearing into the newly formed aperture. There was no splash. Instead, a cloud of luminous white powder blew up through the hole. Instinctively he waved it from his face before getting to his feet and brushing it from the lapels of his overcoat. He waited until the cloud had settled before returning to the keg to peer inside. It was full of powder. Baffled, he scratched his greasy white hair and wondered what it could be and why it should have been stored in a beer keg. Suddenly the train began to slow. He hurried to the door to see where he was and immediately recognized the goods yard. Strasbourg. Then he remembered the guard back at Wissembourg and knew he had only a limited time to cover his tracks. After pushing the open keg back into place he covered all six kegs with the tarpaulin and replaced the other crates around it. He then went back to the door to check for any sign of the security guards he was certain would be waiting for him. The area was deserted. His luck was in, at least for the moment, but he had already decided not to tempt fate again. The odds were stacked too heavily against him. He waited for the train to shudder to a halt before jumping from the freight car and closing the door as quietly as possible behind him.

The storm was over and he regarded that as a good omen.

Josef Mauer had been with the Austrian police for eighteen years, the last eleven as a sergeant stationed in Linz, but despite numerous attempts by his superior to change his mind he had never been interested in promotion, preferring the everyday excitement that came with riding the streets in a police car to struggling with a mound of paperwork in some closeted office. His original partner had been killed in a shoot-out four years earlier but instead of taking on a new partner Mauer now worked with the rookies, showing them the ropes and generally helping them to settle into the daily routine at the Mozartstrasse precinct as quickly as possible after their graduation from the Police Academy in Vienna. Ernst Richter was the latest recruit from the academy, having arrived the previous day, and he had been assigned to work with Mauer for the first month so that his temperament and personality could be assessed to ensure that later on he would be paired with the right partner.

‘What’s the drill for today, sir?’ Richter asked when the two men reached the police car.

‘Sergeant, not sir,’ Mauer said tugging the peak cap over his thinning blond hair. ‘Your main priority is to get to know the city as quickly as possible, so we’ll be acting mainly as back-up for the first few days. It’ll also help you to get to grips with police procedures.’ He held up his finger as Richter opened his mouth to speak. ‘I know, you’ve already learnt all about police procedures at the academy. You all say that but the truth is, the theory and the practice are worlds apart. It’s one thing to sit in a classroom writing down notes but it’s quite another to come face to face with an armed murderer or a cornered rapist, you mark my words.’

Mauer had barely swung the police car out into Mozartstrasse when the radio crackled into life.

‘Can I answer it, Sergeant?’

Mauer smiled to himself. Rookies were all the same in the beginning, eager to please and desperate to be judged favourably by their superiors, but within the space of a few months they had become as bitter and cynical as the seasoned policemen they had been trying to impress. Richter would learn soon enough: there were no heroes, only survivors.

As soon as Mauer knew their destination he switched on the siren and within minutes they had reached Landstrasse, drawing to a halt opposite the Landerbank. They scrambled from the police car and headed down a narrow alleyway, their hands resting lightly on their sheathed batons.

A bald man in a tuxedo was standing in a doorway halfway down the alley. Seeing the approaching policemen, he hurried forward.

‘He’s over there, amongst the dustbins,’ he said with a vague flick of his hand. ‘I can’t have him lying there, I’ve got a restaurant kitchen through that door. It’s not hygienic, is it?’

Mauer looked distastefully at the half-dozen overflowing bins and wondered where the man got the nerve to talk about hygienic conditions. Another two bins had been knocked over and a crumpled figure lay motionless between them, his right arm extended as though trying to reach out for something.