Chris Kuzneski - The Hunters

The looks on their faces said it all.

They were a happy group.

Amid the daydreams, Cobb allowed himself a moment to admire the contents of the cave before he began to assess the condition of the train. The engine was in solid shape and the cars looked sturdy enough. They clearly housed royal compartments, though the filigree on the exteriors was cracked, chipped, or broken. Obviously, the train had gone through storms and trials to arrive before being seized by what appeared to be the craggy, gripping fingers of the cave. Some of those fingers were gloved and mossy, some were skeletal and crystalline, and some looked as if hard, fleshy sponge had grown over them.

‘When I was a boy,’ Decebal explained through Borovsky and Jasmine, ‘my great-grandfather told me that when the train first arrived, they simply drove the cars inside and left them. They are safe in here. It is dry.’

Borovsky added, ‘They are kept in good repair but have not moved a millimeter since then. The prince took only what he absolutely needed and departed.’

‘Where are the rest of them?’ Sarah demanded.

Her sense of awe had passed like a total eclipse. She was now the thief, cataloguing inventory. She stood defiantly with her fists on her hips and looked to Jasmine for an explanation. ‘There were supposed to be twenty cars, right? Where are the others?’

Cobb smiled apologetically at Borovsky. ‘The prince was exiled by the tsarina, but he still had to be guarded on this dangerous trip.’

‘So?’ Sarah demanded.

‘If you were one of those guards, would you have done it for free?’

She groaned in understanding. ‘Jesus,’ she said. ‘Twelve cars?!’

‘No, not twelve,’ Borovsky informed her through Jasmine. ‘The Romanian treasure had already been looted by greedy politicians. That was one of the main reasons the prince wanted to take it away from Moscow. They were — they are — corrupt as the Devil. The prince personally selected the most important Romanian art, artifacts, and archives, then consolidated them in as few crates as he could.’

‘But what about the gold?’ Sarah demanded.

Borovsky seemed unhappy with her tone and opened his mouth to speak, but Cobb jumped in before the situation deteriorated.

‘Cool it, Sarah.’

She looked indignantly at Cobb, then another realization seemed to splash over her. They don’t know we’re here for the treasure . Her jaw shut with an audible click.

Cobb looked to Jasmine, who nodded with understanding in her eyes. Thankfully she had not been translating.

‘She is upset that the historical valuables have been lost,’ Jasmine told a dubious Borovsky and equally distrustful Anna. She glanced apologetically at their Romanian host, who was behind them, and then looked to see where Dobrev was. He had gone over to the train, where he was muttering words of comfort to the poor, old girl.

‘Viktor, Alexandru,’ Cobb said through Jasmine. ‘What did the prince do then?’

‘He left,’ Borovsky answered.

‘How?’ Cobb wanted to know. They looked at him in confusion. Cobb put his arm out toward the first car — the one farthest into the cave. ‘You said they drove them in. Did he drive any out?’

Decebal spoke from behind them, cautiously watching everyone.

‘He says his great-grandfather told him that the prince simply left,’ Jasmine reported. ‘He didn’t say how.’

Cobb looked to the train cars with a growing sense of curiosity. He motioned again at them. ‘May we?’

Jasmine passed on the request, adding her own declarations of respect, responsibility, and honor. Borovsky looked to Decebal, who nodded once. Borovsky turned back to Cobb and seconded the nod, adding, ‘We will examine it together, then we are leaving.’

Cobb smiled tightly. Both men clearly knew that was not going to happen. At least, not without a disagreement.

‘All right,’ Cobb said, turning to the eight railroad cars. ‘Calmly, respectfully, professionally. Let’s see what we have here.’

Cobb heard what sounded like someone cracking his knuckles behind him. He didn’t have to look back. He knew the sound of a gun hammer locking when he heard one.

None of the group looked back.

‘That’s Decebal, and a revolver,’ McNutt said through clenched teeth.

Cobb saw McNutt’s pinkie tap the handle of the duffel bag, just once. It was almost unnoticeable, but it was in no way an accidental twitch. He said, ‘It was just a warning to behave. Otherwise we’d all be face down. Let’s go.’

Decebal had positioned himself between the treasure train and the cave’s exit. He didn’t understand English enough to bother joining the others inside the cars. Even if he was right beside them, they could easily talk amongst themselves in secrecy. Frankly, he didn’t care. All that mattered to him was ensuring that no one made it past him with any of the treasure.

‘Please,’ Borovsky said, ‘come with me.’

He led the group toward the first car. The lights in the cave gave them enough eerie illumination to make out shadows, and they used their flashlights for clarification. Cobb suspected the only reason they didn’t stop him was because there was still a veneer of entente in place. And Cobb knew there were two major reasons for that: arresting or killing them might bring others to the area, in even greater numbers; and they still had the Black Robes to worry about.

Against either foe, Borovsky would surely need reinforcements.

‘We’re up,’ Garcia said in their ears. ‘I can see everything you see.’

Without asking aloud, Jasmine, Sarah, and McNutt turned to Cobb for answers as to what Garcia meant. Without drawing attention, Cobb purposefully tapped his thumb against his flashlight, letting the others know that they doubled as high-definition video cameras. Even from almost a mile away, Garcia had isolated the signals being transmitted by the flashlights.

McNutt glanced down at the flashlight in his hand.

‘Damn, that’s slick,’ he murmured under his breath.

Seven thousand miles to the east, Jean-Marc Papineau watched on his laptop in his compartment on the decoy train that he had taken to Vladivostok. Garcia had looped Papineau into the broadcast with Cobb’s express permission — the images captured by the video cameras were being relayed through a satellite uplink. Cobb wanted the Frenchman to know that despite his treachery, Cobb’s personal code dictated that once he accepted a job, he finished it.

‘You’re getting the audio and video feeds?’ Garcia asked in the shrunken video chat window in the corner of Papineau’s screen.

‘Perfectly,’ Papineau replied. ‘Who am I watching?’

‘This is Jasmine’s cam,’ Garcia informed him. ‘She’ll be the first one inside.’

‘And what of your image recognition software?’

‘We’re about to find out if it works,’ Garcia answered.

The program Garcia had designed would use computer-generated silhouettes to match any objects they encountered with known objects in the database. He had already uploaded images of countless artifacts into the system. If any of the Romanov treasures were here, they would know soon enough.

Papineau watched anxiously as Jasmine approached the train. From the video, he could see they were dealing with a sad necropolis of semi-gutted cars. It appeared as if the prince and his men had torn the interior asunder to make room for additional cargo. Their primary obstacles were apparently the passenger benches, most of which had been removed, mainly by means of brute force or being chopped into bits.

Why the hasty renovations? he thought. What were they trying to hide?