John Schettler - 9 Days Falling, Volume I

“As you wish…” The innkeeper was still staring at the young man as though he were seeing a ghost.

“Very well, let’s go down and find this guide of yours.” Volkov gestured to the stairwell, waving the young man on.

“Oh, you won’t want to use this stairway, sir.” The innkeeper seemed very flustered. “As I have said, it is not used any longer. There is no light and the dust and cobwebs—”

“Don’t be stupid, this man obviously just came up those stairs.” Volkov gave the innkeeper a discerning look. He dropped all pretense of civility now. The man was very edgy, nervous, ill at ease, and now he seemed to be trying to impose himself between Volkov and the stairwell.

“Please, let us all use the main stairs, and I’ll get this old drafty stairway locked up again, eh? The boards on the steps are loose with rusty old nails. It isn’t safe.”

“Stand aside!” Volkov raised his pistol. “What are you hiding old man? I think I had better go and find out.”

Volkov pinched his collar to activate his jacket microphone. “Jenkov. Meet me in the dining room—and get a man on the main stairway at once. Keep an eye on the innkeeper.” He looked at the innkeeper with a snide smile. “And you can meet me at the front desk, old man. I’ll have a guard there to interview you further. Something is going on here, and I intend to get to the bottom of it.”

Volkov flashed a toothy grin at the young man now. “We can begin by getting to the bottom of these stairs.”

The innkeeper could see there was nothing to be done, so he raised his hands in frustration and walked off toward the main stairway, very agitated. Volkov waved his pistol at the young Englishman. “Get moving, down the stairs, just the way you came.”

“Of course. My guide will explain everything. I meant no harm, sir. In fact I was just going to my room to fetch my belongings and check out.”

Volkov waited while the man turned and started down the stairs. He followed, close behind, watching the man’s hands carefully in case he tried anything. The shadows enfolded them as they descended, and he heard a distant rumble, like the sound of artillery firing, which alarmed him. Half way down the stairs there came a strange sensation, a light-headedness that made him feel faint, and he reached for the wall to steady himself, his hand brushing against old cobwebs there. The sensation passed, and they reached the bottom of the stairs, stepping into a small alcove.

“Just a moment…” Volkov edged past the man, peering cautiously around the edge of the wall as if he might find someone waiting in ambush. It was the dining room, or so he thought, but perhaps a lower level. This room seemed very different, cold and cheerless, lit only be the fire from the hearth. There were no lights, no chandelier, and the table settings and linen were all gone, leaving him more suspicious than ever. A secret room, he thought. This old stairway leads down to another room—perhaps a hidden cellar.

He turned to the Englishman, a gleam in his eye. “Well? Where is this guide you speak of? Be quick man, I don’t have all day here.”

“I…Well, I don’t know…” the young man seemed very confused. Then they heard the sound of heavy footfalls on the hard wood floor and Volkov turned, expecting to see Jenkov coming as ordered.

Three men came stomping in, all dressed in military garb, olive green uniforms, blue caps with red hatbands and insignia, and they all held weapons. A fourth man followed them, moving with a slow deliberate gait, a cigarette in one hand, a pistol in the other. “Stand where you are!” he said sharply. “Get his weapon!”

The men all trained their guns on Volkov, two with submachine guns and the third, a shorter man in a leather military jacket with black boots and faired trousers also held a pistol. He walked slowly up to Volkov, extending his hand slowly to reach for his weapon.

“What is the meaning of this?” Volkov was immediately angered, but he could see he was out gunned here, and surrendered his pistol. This was most likely a military security sweep, he thought. He would straighten matters out directly.

“Do you know who I am?” he said indignantly.

“That remains to be seen,” said the fourth man, obviously an officer, with flat shoulder board insignia inlaid with blue stars. He turned to the short man with the odd glasses. “Is this the man?”

The shorter officer leaned in close, squinting behind small round wire frame spectacles as he looked at Volkov. It was Lieutenant Mikael Surinov, the NKVD man Fedorov had cowed and chastised at Irkutsk for mistreating the detainees on his train. He looked Volkov up and down, rubbing his chin.

“His uniform is suspicious,” he said. “Somewhat familiar….I don’t recognize him, but there were others. Perhaps this man is one of them!” He smiled, stepping back from Volkov and the Englishman, a smirk on his face. “We had better question them both.”

The officer dropped his cigarette, crushing it slowly under his boot. “Well, well, well,” he began. Then he came out with the line that had opened interrogations the world over for generations.

“Your papers! Both of you. I’ll get to the bottom of this soon enough.”

Fedorovslept for a long time after they reached the train, weary in a way he could not explain. He was plagued by strange dreams, visions of Mironov’s face, a city at the edge of a vast inland sea, and high on a hill the prominent statue of a uniformed man, arm raised in a proud salutation. Then he slowly awoke to the gentle rocking of the train, the monotonous sound of the wheels on the rails growing louder as he regained consciousness.

He opened his eyes, realizing where he was again, in the enclosed kupe compartment at the back of the coach car. The provodnits, saw him stir and he went forward to heat water on the samovar. Troyak was sitting across from him, looking fresh and alert. Zykov was sleeping on the upper bunk.

“How long?” said Fedorov.

“A good long while,” said Troyak. “We’re puling into Omsk in ten minutes.”

“Omsk? Then I must have slept all day!”

“We all did,” said Troyak. “Listen…Zykov is still snoring.”

“We leave the main line here,” said Fedorov. “We must take a spur heading west through Chelyabinsk to Orsk on the Kazakh border. From there we cross into Kazakhstan and take a local rail line from Aktobe to Atyrau on the north Caspian Sea. After that we’ll have to see how we get down south, but we must steer clear of Astrakhan.”

“We’ll need to eat,” said Troyak. “Sleep is one thing, but the food on this train leaves something to be desired.” He gave Fedorov a long look, a question in his eyes. “Colonel… what happened back there, at Ilanskiy? You seemed very shaken when we boarded the train. You wouldn’t speak a word.”

Fedorov thought for a moment. “I… well I’m not exactly sure. We were all up stairs in the room when we heard that sound, like an avalanche, distant thunder. The two of you started your sweep, and I was at the top of that old back stairway. It was very odd, probably just an echo, but I had the firm impression the sound was coming from that stairwell.”

Troyak gave him a knowing look, but said nothing, listening with a serious expression on his face. Fedorov sat up, the memory of that harried awakening returning.

“I went down the stairs—into the dining hall, but it was…different, strangely different. All the tables had linen and ornate oil lamps, but the windows were shattered and I heard sounds of people shouting outside.”

Then he told him how he had gone outside to see the massive glow on the horizon, the brightness of the sky, and the ominous sound of explosions, far away. “That’s what woke us, Troyak, that terrible sound. When I ran outside I encountered a group of men, Mironov, an Englishman, and his guide, a man named Yevchenko, or so I was told.”