Chris Kuzneski - The Hunters

‘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?’

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.