Stuart Kaminsky: Murder on the Trans-Siberian Express

Boris did not pray. He watched till the men were no longer slodging ghosts in the mist. Then he quickly removed the package from his pocket.

The package was narrow, small, animal-skin-bound with strips of leather covering a metal box. Boris moved quickly behind the three rocks, searching for some safe place, some protected niche. He spotted it quickly. Luck was with him, though he had been prepared to make his own luck.

There was a thin opening in the rock on his right, a little above eye level. Boris knew his package would fit. It would be tight, but it would fit. He had a good eye for such things. He wedged the package into the space as far as it would go and then found a handful of small stones to cover the opening. He cracked through the permafrost with the heel of his boot and scooped up cold mud, filling in the cracks. He worked quickly and stepped back to assess his work. It was close to perfect. He knew it would be. He had planned, practiced.

He stepped away from the three rocks and the white corpses without saying a prayer. The dead needed no prayers. If there was a God, he would take those he deemed worthy. No entreaties from the living would make a difference. If there was no God, then prayers were only for the living who believed or wanted to protect themselves in case they might someday believe.

He moved quickly, straight, his boots no longer cracking the icy surface now that he had relieved himself of Yakov’s corpse. Boris knew exactly, within feet, the number of miles they were from the next planned station. He knew the range of hills and low mountains and had chosen this spot and this moment because of the distinct shape of one of those nearby mountains. He had seen the mountain the day before when there had been some sun and the mist had drifted away.

He had missed one opportunity a week earlier. There had been another burial detail scheduled. Boris could not volunteer. No one volunteered for corpse carrying, but he had known the detail was coming and had stayed near the weary section boss who usually simply looked up and pointed to the nearest men, assigning them the duty. The section boss, through dull heavy eyes, had simply missed Boris in spite of his proximity and size. So Boris, his dangerous package tucked deeply and safely inside the lining of his jacket, had to wait.

And then this morning’s chance had come and the signs had been there, the mountain, the location. He committed distance and signs to memory. They were not complicated. Later, if he lived, he would return. If he did not, he would give directions to his wife or his brother or whoever remained of his family, though he doubted anyone but he could find the place again.

Boris moved back toward the train quickly. He caught up with the five convicts, whose pace had slowed once they had left the dead comfortably behind in the clearing.

“You said your prayers?” asked Stem.

Boris nodded and grunted.

“If you have to carry me someday,” Stem said, suddenly solemn and very softly, “say the same one for me.”

“I will,” Boris said. “You have my promise.”

When they got back to the camp, they smelled something cooking. It was familiar and not welcoming-a huge vat of soup or gruel made from whatever stock might be on hand and whatever animals, if any, the hunters had found.

Boris had once found a whole mouse in his bowl. Others had claimed to find even worse.

There was a stir of activity among the men both outside the railroad cars and within. People were shouting. Armed soldiers, rifles in hand, hurried in pairs and trios alongside the tracks. Through the frosted windows Boris could see men being stripped naked, uniformed soldiers watching over them. He saw one man bent over, spreading the cheeks of his behind so a teeth-clenched soldier could examine his opening.

“What’s going on?” one of the convicts who had been on the burial detail asked.

“Search,” said a cook’s assistant with a big belly. The assistant was smoking a cigarette and glancing back. “Something’s missing. They won’t say what. They’ve torn the camp apart, gone through the train, everything. They decided I haven’t hidden whatever it is up my ass. Now it’s your turn.”

“Shit,” said one of the convicts. “I’m going to hide till they’re finished.”

“You cannot hide. Better get it over,” the cook’s assistant said. “Can’t serve food till they’re done. And they give you a red card when they finish with you. When they’ve gone over everything, we all stand in line and return the red cards.”

“What the hell is missing,” asked Stem, “the crown jewels?”

“How would the crown jewels get on a track-laying train in Siberia?” answered the cook’s assistant.

“Then …”

“Who knows?” said the cook irritably. “Maybe some government official or a general just went crazy, lost his wallet or his pocket watch. Just get it over.”

Boris stepped ahead of the group and moved toward a trio of soldiers who stood before a shivering quartet of naked men. One of the soldiers went through the pile of clothing. The other two soldiers were giving careful examinations of the naked men.

Boris looked up at the frosted window of the train car a few feet away. Inside the car, a thin naked man was dangling from a bar by a rope tied around his wrists. At his side stood a very short man in a heavy black-wool sweater. The short man was whispering to the dangling man, who struggled to keep his head upright. Boris’s eyes met those of the dangling man and Boris gave a small nod.

By the time the short man had turned to look out the window, Boris was but one of a group of more than a dozen men.

“You,” called one of the soldiers, pointing at Boris. “You are next.”

Boris moved dutifully forward.

Chief Inspector Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov stood at the window of his office with a reasonably hot cup of strong Turkish coffee warming the palms of his hands. The sun glowed like a dying bulb through gray clouds that hinted at a first snow of the season.

He looked at the two pine trees in the courtyard of Petrovka, the central police headquarters in Moscow. Petrovka was named for Petrovka Street, which runs in front of the six-story U-shaped white building, just as Scotland Yard in London and One Police Plaza in New York were named for their addresses.

He had ten minutes before the morning meeting with Igor Yaklovev, director of the Office of Special Investigation. He took a sip of coffee. It was strong, and that was good, because the cold gray winter sky of early morning suggested not even a hint of warmth.

The biggest unit of the Moscow Criminal Investigation Division is the Investigative Directorate, which includes fourteen investigative divisions, including theft, plunder, and murder. The fifteenth unit, the Office of Special Investigation, exists for one thing only, to deal with those cases which no one else wants because they are politically sensitive, unlikely to be solved, or offer little promise and much potential grief.

The young man seated in front of Porfiry Petrovich’s desk looked down at the sheet of paper in front of him. A name was written on the sheet. Rostnikov had not spoken the name aloud. His office was wired. Everything said within its walls was recorded on tape in the office of the director of the Office of Special Investigation. Rostnikov knew this, and Yaklovev, known as the Yak, knew that his chief inspector was aware of the recordings.

The Yak had survived the reshuffling of the former KGB, the fall of the Soviet Union, enemies, both political and personal, and had come out with information that could embarrass many leaders in government, the military, intelligence, and business.