Chris Kuzneski - The Hunters

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.’

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-tumble, 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.’