Trans-Siberian Express (36 page)

Vladimir rubbed his lips with the back of his hand, and Tania could see all the gluttony of his heritage.

“If he saw such brutality,” Voikov whispered, “he would remember.”

“Are you sure he was there, Comrade Romoran?” Sokolovich asked. Tania thought hard. Her own credibility was in question now. She remembered the boy coming at her, looking backward over his shoulder. When he had collided with the charcoal bucket, he had stopped for a brief moment, looking up at her in panic and pointing in the direction from which he had come. The picture came to her clearly now. She knelt quickly and grabbed Vladimir by the shoulders.

“He will come after you now,” she hissed. “He will do the same to you.” She had acted on impulse, but it worked.

“You must not let him,” Vladimir cried, his lip quivering.

“See,” Tania cried, exhilarated by her vindication.

“What did you see?” Voikov asked.

“The funny man.” He enacted an attack, flaying his arms in the air, twisting and gyrating, enjoying his own exhibition.

“Who?” Voikov asked. He was still patient, gentle, the candy bar poised in his hand.

Vladimir stopped and looked at the floor. Then he slowly lifted his head and pointed toward the compartment door, smiling and reaching out his little hand for the chocolate. Voikov broke off a piece and put it in his grimy hand. Vladimir stuffed the entire piece in his mouth.

“Now you will show us,” Voikov said.

The boy darted into the passageway. He stopped outside the compartment shared by the Jew and the cripple. Then he put out his hand.

Voikov gave him the rest of the chocolate and the boy skipped away down the passageway.

“Miserable brat,” Tania whispered.

“We will bring him back later,” Voikov said.

“The key,” Sokolovich whispered, touching Tania’s arm. She felt her heart stop, her throat constrict.

“One moment,” she managed to say. She rushed to her quarters and violently shook the old woman awake.

“Your master key, please.”

The woman automatically patted her pockets, then looked up warily.

“Where is yours?”

“Give me the key or I shall tell them that you took bribes from the Jew.”

“Who?”

“Chief Inspector Sokolovich. He is outside.”

The old woman reached into her pocket and drew out her master key. Tania tore it out of her hand and ran back into the corridor. Both men were poised at either side of the compartment. She eased the key into the hole and stepped back. Sokolovich turned it slowly, then threw the door open and burst into the compartment.

The two men inside looked up in surprise, then immediately turned to each other. Tania felt certain that in that glance, some message passed between them. One of them was surely the culprit, she told herself. It hardly mattered which one.

THE
train bounced forward, rattling the glasses and agitating the borscht in its stainless-steel bowl. Zeldovich, Anna Petrovna and Alex were in the almost deserted restaurant car. Alex squinted into the declining sun, missing the warmth as the sun sank over the horizon. The train moved along the river’s edge, through tunnels, over bridges, past stations with odd incomprehensible names—Ksnevkskaya, Mogochur, Amazar, Yerofey Pavlovich—names that hung on the tongue like thick syrup.

Time was topsy-turvy and his watch, still running on Moscow time, was useless. They had spent the day, or was it night, sitting in the compartment speculating and debating. He felt as if he were in the dead center of a prism, so that with each new position he took, he saw the world in a different light.

He sat facing Anna Petrovna. Her skin was glowing in the suffused light, growing softer as the sun dropped below the horizon. He had been watching her face all day, studying it as if his eye had been a microscope, watching the ripples of sunlight wash over it. Yet it was Dimitrov who dominated his thoughts—Dimitrov!

Was Dimitrov dying? Alex’s conversation with him at Chita had hinted at what his own intuition told him. He had felt Dimitrov’s strength ebbing and, over the distance of thousands of miles, had sensed the imminence of death.

“What do you think?” Zeldovich had persisted.

“You heard him,” he had answered testily.

“His voice was weak.”

“It is probably a flu.”

“Probably.”

“How can I be sure? He’s thousands of miles away.”

“Only a flu, eh?”

“Must I repeat it all day?”

“It is essential that you be accurate. You are not holding something back?”

“You are one pain in the ass,” Alex said in English, exasperated by the probing.

He had held out throughout the day and night while Zeldovich probed relentlessly, demanding a prognosis. A quick death for Dimitrov would save Anna Petrovna’s life, at least over the short term. Eventually, after Zeldovich used her testimony, they would have to destroy her. Like Alex, she simply knew too much of Zeldovich’s machinations.

Alex had no illusions about himself. Certain death. They would never let him go back to America and alarm the President and his Secretary of State with tales of Russian intrigue. His only chance of survival was to alert the Americans somehow, to telegraph his danger. Sighing, he felt helpless.

He speculated on the condition of the blood, the diminishing red corpuscles, the invasion of white blood cells, weakening the body’s defenses. Tomorrow, he knew, Dimitrov would have no more illusions.

He should, of course, be back at the dacha easing the way for Dimitrov’s last passage. That was an essential part of his ministry, and he recognized his own abdication of responsibility. The old fox would certainly understand, even appreciate his unwillingness to return. They would use his presence, he knew, perhaps to make the United States a viable suspect in the General Secretary’s death. That he could even think of such a strategy confirmed his suspicion that he was becoming as paranoid as the Russians. Sorry, he apologized in his heart to Dimitrov. There is really nothing I can do now, anyway. But he could not shake his sense of guilt. It was ironic. He might be letting Dimitrov down, but a good case could be made for his heroics. Wasn’t he saving a continent?

Dimitrov would not think so. “Power is absurd,” Dimitrov had told him one day as they strolled on the dacha’s grounds. “It needs constant illustration since it is based primarily on fear.”

“Fear?” Remembering the conversation, Alex was ashamed now of how unwilling he had been to act.

“What good is a nuclear arsenal if people do not remember what it represents? People must be reminded of its terror, of its force. Power rests with those who have the will to use it. The day is coming when the weapon itself can be carried on the back of a single man. In a knapsack or a suitcase. Every conflictng ideology in the world will have an arsenal capable of destroying millions of people. That will be the ultimate chaos. The end of order.”

“What do you suggest?”

“One system. One order. One power to administer the world, the uniting of mankind under a single banner.”

“Whose?”

It was intellectual gymnastics, speculation. He remembered his surprise at Dimitrov’s answer, which came slowly, after he stood for a few minutes watching the river’s flow.

“Those who have the courage to accept the responsibility of world domination, the courage to display their power, the courage to use it.”

“And who has that?”

Dimitrov had continued to look into the river. Then he looked up. By an odd reflection of light, Alex could see the river’s flow in Dimitrov’s gray eyes.

“I have,” he had said. It was the final confirmation of what Alex had begun to suspect. The memory shocked him back to his sense of place.

“What is it, Alex?” Anna Petrovna asked.

“Nothing.” But it was hardly nothing. He felt a sudden chill and reached for a glass of tea that stood cooling on the table. He sipped it, but felt no warmth.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes,” he lied. He reached over and took her hand. He sensed Zeldovich’s discomfort in seeing the uncommon display of emotion. Pretending to ignore the gesture, he dipped his black bread into the gravy of a greasy stew and hunched over the plate.

The restaurant was coming to life again. The noise level began to increase as new people entered. Alex heard silverware tinkling on plates, the cacophony of voices speaking different languages. Behind him, he could hear the pedantic voice of Miss Peterson sharing her knowledge of the railroad’s history with an elderly American couple who had recently boarded the train.

“It is the longest railroad in the world,” she was intoning. Turning sideways, he could see the elderly couple listening eagerly. Apparently Miss Peterson’s fund of facts had not yet become boring.

“Czar Nicholas turned the first spade of earth in Vladivostok in 1891. This is the second time I have come this way.”

“Has it changed?” the elderly man asked.

“Yes,” she said primly, obviously relishing his attention. She had found her audience at last, grist for her mill. Alex was glad for her.

Anna Petrovna’s eyes peered through the window into the darkness.

“What do you see?” he asked.

“China. It is just beyond those hills.”

He wondered again what her real motives were. Was it really compassion for all the possible victims, the innocent millions, or only the instinct for self-preservation?

“Is it possible that what he intends is the right course?” Alex whispered.

He could see Zeldovich’s fork stop in midair. A flush, like round dabs of rouge, mounted to Anna Petrovna’s cheeks.

“That is utterly preposterous, inhuman,” she said.

“Is it?”

“I can’t believe it is you saying this, Alex. The idea is unthinkable.”

Zeldovich grunted, looking about him, his instinct for secrecy operative. Apparently everyone was absorbed in other matters, food, conversation. The little man in charge of the restaurant was talking to a tall, thin man, whom Alex recognized vaguely as someone he had seen in the hard-class carriage.

“He has an unbroken streak since his defeat,” the man was saying loudly.

“He rides back and forth on the train. I have never seen him sleep,” the man in charge of the restaurant said.

“He has won back his right to be the champion,” said the other man.

The train bounced through the declining daylight. Alex could begin to see their images in the mirror of the window. He studied his own reflection. Was that really him? He appeared remote, unconcerned. Was it because, in the end, he could not go against his grain? As a doctor, as a scientist, he was not conditioned to consider any factors except the prolonging of life. Despite all that they had told him, all that he had deciphered for himself, all the passion and commitment that he felt for Anna Petrovna, all the visible and invisible evidence of an impending holocaust, he persisted still in his narrow interest, the life of his patient. He had followed the progress of the disease and knew Dimitrov’s condition to be hopeless, yet he saw his duty clearly.

But Zeldovich would never let him leave, unless he could persuade him that his objective was to speed Dimitrov’s death. Would Zeldovich trust him?

“I must go back,” he whispered. Zeldovich’s fork stopped again in midair.

“Where?” Zeldovich asked, putting down his fork, bending his head lower to assure the privacy of his words.

“To him,” Alex said firmly. “He is failing.”

“Dying?” Zeldovich asked, the word barely audible. His face was ashen.

“Perhaps swiftly. I cannot tell without tests. It is a good bet that the condition has returned. In the absence of confirmation, I can only guess what is taking place.”

All pretense was over now. Zeldovich rose and placed a handful of kopeks on the table, nodding at the manager who nodded back nervously. As they rose, Alex saw the soldier at the end of the train stiffen and reach for his machine gun, turning his back to prevent the diners from observing the weapon. Alex waited for Anna Petrovna, then followed her in the direction of the soft-class carriage.

Zeldovich led the way, the soldier following behind. As they passed through the icy space between the cars, Alex saw the boy Vladimir in the shadows munching greedily on a piece of chocolate. His hands were filthy and his lips were stained brown. As they passed, he turned away quickly like an animal, as if afraid they might snatch away his feast.

“You’ll freeze out here,” Alex muttered in the direction of the boy as they moved through the door.

Back in their compartment, Zeldovich threw the bolt and confronted Alex.

“When did you decide this?” he demanded, a droplet of spittle showing at the side of his mouth. Anna Petrovna stepped toward him, touching his arm.

“In the restaurant, at the moment it was expressed.”

“Why did you wait so long?”

“That is my business.”

“You think you can save him?” Zeldovich asked.

“I didn’t say that.”

“Then why would you go back?”

“I owe it to him.”

“You owe him nothing,” Anna Petrovna said.

“I’m sorry,” he said gently. “I must go back.”

“Are you serious?” Zeldovich sputtered.

Alex could remember the pride with which he had taken his oath, his absolute belief in its rightness. It exactly fit the way he viewed the world and his role as a doctor.

He looked at Anna Petrovna, felt the strength of his love for her. Its power over him was enormous, beyond all the conditioning of his previous life. And yet, he could not be commanded by it. One life for a million, perhaps millions.

“Is it possible that we are all mistaken?” he asked suddenly.

Zeldovich looked at him, then shot a glance at Anna Petrovna. “What does it take to convince him?” he said with annoyance.

“Surely there are checks,” Alex said.

“In theory, yes,” Zeldovich responded. “I grant you that. Others are supposed to be consulted. There is a definite procedure. Quite different from your own country where the nuclear trigger is in the hands of a single man who cannot be countermanded. But don’t let that lull you into believing that Dimitrov would not be able to find a way to do it.”