Trans-Siberian Express (43 page)

“I am not very far. Shoot me from there.” Alex spread out his arms. Zeldovich moved quickly. In a smooth fluid motion he reached out and grabbed Anna Petrovna from behind, holding her as a kind of shield. He put the barrel of the revolver to her forehead. Suddenly all movement stopped and for a moment the two men faced each other. Anna Petrovna seemed on the edge of collapse.

“Don’t harm her,” Alex urged.

“Get down on your knees,” Zeldovich ordered.

Alex dropped to his knees. Zeldovich took another step forward, but as he did so Anna Petrovna’s body began to sink. Zeldovich was forced to bend over, since he could no longer hold himself erect and grip the woman at the same time.

Then he gave up the struggle and, pushing Anna Petrovna away from him, he lunged forward, swinging the gun in a wide arc. But his balance was not secure and the intended blow landed on Alex’s shoulder. He grasped Zeldovich around the legs, feeling the bulky body totter and begin to fall. Zeldovich dropped his gun and gripped Alex’s throat with both hands. Alex thrashed and struggled, but could not pry the iron fingers loose. He felt the blankness descending, his strength ebbing.

On the brink of helplessness, he heard a shot ring out, then three more. Zeldovich’s body arched above him in a spasm. Slowly the fingers loosened and Alex was gasping for air, watching Anna Petrovna, the smoking gun still in her hand, the sharp smell of gunpowder in the air. Zeldovich’s body fell like a stone beside him.

The blood had drained from Anna Petrovna’s face and, although she still held the gun, she seemed on the verge of fainting. Alex staggered to his feet and took her in his arms. She let the gun drop. Her body was quivering, her cheeks wet.

“It’s all right, my darling,” Alex whispered.

Her quivering abated slowly as she clung to him. “It was to be an accident,” she whispered.

“Another fraud. Like Grivetsky.”

“Can you forgive me, Alex?”

“For what?”

“For entertaining the possibility of helping him.”

“Another appeal to your patriotism?”

“He insisted it was my duty.”

“Perhaps it was,” Alex said.

When he was satisfied that she could stand alone without his help, he released her and knelt over the body of Zeldovich, feeling his pulse. The bullets had blown away part of his head. “He is quite dead.”

Looking up at her, he said, “Now what? I’d say he was going to drive the car into the river. The idea, I suppose, was to make it appear as if the driver had slid off the road. It was necessary to leave me relatively unmarked. That’s why he wouldn’t shoot me. He reckoned on everything but you.” He held out his arm. She came toward him and took his hands. “Later he would have finished you as well.”

“I know,” she said quietly.

“I wish I had his sense of intrigue,” Alex murmured. “I would know what to do now.”

In the distance, he could see the lights of the airport. The car was well off the shoulder of the road, beyond the lights of the other cars which sped by at infrequent intervals.

“If only the American authorities knew you were in danger,” Anna Petrovna said.

“In the middle of Siberia. How the hell do I get word out?”

She shrugged, turned toward the rushing river. He looked down at it again, straining to see through the darkness. The alternatives seemed grim. If he reported himself to the Soviet authorities, they would know what to do. He would become a non-person. Making people disappear was their specialty. A missing American, especially one with his mission, could, of course, be an embarrassment. But considering what he knew, the risk of embarrassment would seem to them the lesser of two evils. Alex felt suddenly put upon, used by both sides. I will not roll over, he told himself. We will outfox the dirty bastards. He could feel his adrenaline surge.

The first thing to be dealt with was the two dead bodies. He reached into the car and dragged the body of the young soldier from the front seat by the lapels of his coat. The body was heavy, deadweight, and Alex could barely manage him. He realized how absurd he must look. What was he doing here? Dimitrov would be laughing at him now.

“The essential business is to survive with our goals intact,” Dimitrov had told him. He had been barely listening. Talk, talk, talk. The man refused to be quiet.

“Survive what?”

“Enemies inside. Enemies outside.”

“With you, everything is like a confrontation,” Alex had said impatiently, wanting to discourage conversation.

“That is life.”

“I don’t agree.”

“You should read your Darwin.” Dimitrov had smiled, then changed the subject to the state of the weather.

Now Alex knew what Dimitrov had meant. He dragged the body of the young soldier down the slope to the river’s edge and pushed it into the swift current. It slipped beneath the ice floes and disappeared in the foamy darkness. Dead was dead, he told himself, the manner of burial irrelevant. Somehow the thought gave him courage.

Groping his way up the slippery slope by handholds on exposed roots, he reached the road again. Anna Petrovna had watched him ascend, reaching out to help him up. The strain had tired him and he sat for a moment on the ground, fighting for oxygen in the thin freezing air.

“It is the Amur,” Anna Petrovna said listlessly, watching the river.

“What?”

“The Amur,” she repeated. “The widest river in Siberia. The bridge across was the last link in the railroad. It was finished in 1916.”

She sounded like Miss Peterson. The historical information was incongruous under the circumstances, and Alex hoped that Anna Petrovna was not losing control. When his heart had stopped pumping madly, he stood up, walked to the body of Zeldovich and began to drag it to the slope.

At the edge, he rolled it over like a log, watching it gain momentum, stopping short on the river’s edge. He followed the trail downward cautiously, stopping when he reached the body. Zeldovich’s eyes were still open, looking blankly into the darkness.

He pushed the body into the river, heard it slip into the water, a tiny note in the rushing symphony of the river’s movement. Then, without a glance back, he started his ascent again. A jet plane screeched overhead, the flashing red lights on its wings an eerie apparition in the lonely black expanse. Of course, he told himself, remembering Miss Peterson’s remarks on that very first day when his alertness had not yet been dulled by her avalanche of information. Miss Peterson will be at the airport.

“At Khabarovsk, I’ll go directly to the airport and pop back to Moscow and on to London,” she had told him.

Grabbing Anna Petrovna’s hand as he reached the road, Alex pulled her toward the car. They got in and he turned the ignition and gunned the motor.

“At least these damned shifts are universal,” he said, moving his foot heavily onto the accelerator. The large military car shot forward. As he drove, he felt his mind clearing.

“How long does it take to get from here to Moscow by air?” he asked.

“Ten hours.”

“And to Nakhodka by train?”

“Sixteen.”

“Good.”

Pulling up at the edge of light that ringed the airport building, he cut off the motor and they both got out of the car.

“Hurry,” he cried, grabbing Anna Petrovna’s hand as they rushed in the direction of the airport entrance. A line of passengers was moving through the luggage-processing operation. He could see the big jet on the apron, its silver wings gleaming in the floodlights. A group of passengers had begun to scramble up the entranceway.

He searched the crowd, hoping that Miss Peterson had not yet boarded. They walked down the line of people. Then her voice, sweet but audible, drifted above the voices of the Russians. She had apparently found a polite English-speaking couple and was initiating them into the history of Khabarovsk, with which they were surely already satiated.

“Oh, Dr. Cousins,” Miss Peterson said, turning from her victims, who looked at him thankfully. “We said good-bye. I had no idea your plans had changed.”

“Please, Miss Peterson, I must see you.”

She seemed confused at first, looking at him strangely, as her eyes drifted from his face to his mud-speckled clothes.

“Please,” he said again, as he moved away from the line of people.

She turned to the English-speaking couple. “Would you please mind my place?”

They nodded, stealing glances of obvious relief at each other. Alex knew they were being watched as he moved toward a kiosk. He bought several magazines, gave them to Miss Peterson and smiled for the benefit of the observers, whoever they might be.

“You must help me.” He felt the incongruity between his words and his grin. Miss Peterson opened her mouth to respond. “Please be casual,” Alex said quickly, watching her absorb his meaning, a nervous smile form on her lips.

“You are the only person who can help.”

“May I ask, what trouble—”

“You are entitled to an explanation, I know.” He looked at his watch. “The time.” He pointed for the benefit of anyone watching.

“What is it you wish?” she said, catching the sense of conspiracy.

“Do you know the American Embassy in Moscow?”

“Yes, indeed.”

“You must go there immediately upon landing.”

She frowned briefly, then remembered to smile. “But I’ll miss my London plane.”

“Please. Surely the Embassy will help you.”

“Not likely,” Miss Peterson said with the authority of experience.

“My life is in your hands.”

“My God! Your life?” She seemed to warm to the idea. Her eyes became animated.

“You will go?”

She bent closer to him. “In this place we Americans had better stick together,” she whispered.

“Talk only to the Ambassador. Insist on it.”

She straightened, indignation rising in her diminutive body. “I can be quite insistent, young man.”

It was dangerous, he knew. He wanted to warn her, but felt the limitations of their communication. Were they listening? Were they watching? Could she be trusted?

“Tell him that Dr. Cousins—Dr. Alexander Cousins—will be arriving—” He hesitated. Was it possible that he might simply board the plane? Hardly! Until the American authorities were notified, and his whereabouts exactly pinpointed, he was a non-person, easily removed from the face of the earth.

“Tell him I am on the Khabarovsk-Nakhodka train.” He remembered that it was scheduled to leave in a few hours. “Yes, tell them I am on that train.” The little woman looked at him.

“And will you be taking the
Khabarovsk?
”

“The
Khabarovsk?
”

“The boat that crosses the Sea of Japan. You will be quite seasick.”

“I have no plans beyond Nakhodka.” Alex said, wondering if he would even get that far.

“All right,” Miss Peterson said, “I will tell him you are on the train to Nakhodka.”

“Tell him, too, that he must inform the Soviet authorities as well. They must know that I am on that train. And—” Alex looked about him to be sure he was out of earshot of everybody—“and he must inform the President of my whereabouts—immediately.”

“The President?”

“Yes, of the United States.”

The little woman smiled broadly. “Now that is something.” She paused. “You must be quite important.”

“Not as important as you are, Miss Peterson.” He kissed her on the cheek and handed her the pile of magazines. She went back to her place in line and blew him a brief kiss.

“Will she do it?” Anna Petrovna asked as they moved slowly, with a cautious air of casualness, through the airport to the entrance.

“Lord help us if she doesn’t!” Alex said in English.

They drove in silence over the nearly deserted road. Occasionally another car, its headlights glowing, would pass them in the opposite direction speeding toward the airport. They passed the spot where they had dragged the bodies off the road.

“If only they can stay under for the next few hours,” Alex whispered.

“It is a wide river,” Anna Petrovna said. She had moved close to him, tucking her arm under his, leaning her cheek against his shoulder.

Speeding along the strange highway, Alex felt for the first time the elation of danger and with it a kind of macho heroism. He felt strong and protective. It was exhilarating, he admitted, wondering how long it would last. In the distance, the faint light of impending dawn silhouetted the tall buildings as the car moved closer to the city.

Finding the station again was not an easy task. He made a number of wrong turns before he recognized a landmark that he had seen earlier, a floodlit statue of a bearded man.

“Khabarov,” Anna Petrovna said idly. “The famous explorer who founded this city.” Then she sat up and pointed. “There.” They could see the station at the end of a well-lit street, a huge portrait of Lenin hanging on the station’s façade.

He pulled the car over to the side of the road, opened the trunk and removed their baggage.

“I’ll have to hide the car somehow,” he said. “Make the ticket arrangements. I’ll meet you on the platform.”

She nodded, picked up her suitcases, leaving his on the sidewalk, and moved toward the station. Alone on the deserted street, he felt a stab of loneliness. Getting back into the car, he drove it to the first cross street, turning off in the direction of the tracks, his eyes scanning the dark rows of low-slung buildings. He drove the car through a dilapidated alley. It was remarkable, he thought, how quickly one adapted to conspiracies when one’s life was at stake. He spotted a pair of wooden double doors standing open, loose on their hinges, and drove the car through them. The structure was, apparently, a musty abandoned warehouse filled with the rubbish of a hundred years. Getting out of the car, he felt the chill, sniffed the heavy smell of disintegration. He ran back through the alley to the main street.

He saw Anna Petrovna sitting on a shiny plastic seat in a dark corner of the huge station. She seemed fatigued, her eyes heavy and glazed. Sitting beside her, he put an arm around her shoulders.

“He deserved to die,” she said, her voice tense.

“Nobody deserves to die.”

“I am a murderer,” she said, her eyes wide.