Mirror Image

CHAPTER FORTY

The pre-War steam locomotive had a rusting boiler plate, dented cowcatcher, and a smokestack blackened with decades of soot. The coal tender was full. The cab was littered not only with coal dust but with souvenirs of previous trips across the breadth of Russia. There were pieces of dry, brittle leaves from the forests of Irkutsk, sand from the plains of Turkestan, smudges of oil from the fields in Usinsk.

Then there were ghosts. The shadows of the countless engineers who had worked the throttle or shoveled coal into the boiler. Junior Lieutenant Nikita Orlov could see them in the whistle's wood handle, dirty with age, on the iron floor whose studded surface had been worn smooth by the scuffing of shoes and boots. When he looked out the window, he could imagine the peasants who had looked at this engine in wonder and thought, "At last, rail travel has come to Siberia!" The long treks by ox or horse across the Great Post Road were a thing of the past. Now the hundreds of small communities had a lifeline of iron, not mud.

But history was one thing, and urgency was quite another. Orlov would have preferred a diesel engine to this relic, but it was all the transportation director in Vladivostok had been able to spare. If there was one thing Orlov had learned about government and the military, it was that a car or train or plane in hand, whatever the vintage, was more negotiable than nothing. You could always try to swap for something better.

Not that the engine was bad, he thought. Despite six decades of wear and tear it was in relatively good repair, Nikita concluded. The main rod, connecting rod, and driving wheels were strong, the cylinders solid. In addition to the coal tender, it was pulling two cars and a caboose. It traveled at a good speed, over forty miles an hour in the driving snow. At that speed, and with two soldiers stoking the boiler in shifts, Lieutenant Orlov expected to clear the storm within sixteen or seventeen hours. According to his aide and radio operator, Corporal Fodor, that would put them between Khabarovsk and Bira.

Nikita and the blond, baby-faced Fodor sat on opposite ends of a wooden table in the first boxcar. One third of the wooden crates were stacked pyramid style, six rows deep in the far side of the car. The shutter on the right side of the train was open with a parabolic dish clamped to the ledge, facing out. Two cables ran from the dish to the briefcase-sized secure telephone sitting beneath it on a blanket on the floor. Fodor had tacked a canvas sheet over the open portion of the window to keep the wind and snow out. He had to get up every few minutes to brush the wet snow from the dish itself.

Both men were wearing heavy, white, fur-lined winter coats and boots. Their gloves and a lantern sat on the table between them. Nikita was smoking a hand-rolled cigarette and holding the backs of his bare hands next to the lantern. Fodor worked on a battery-powered laptop. They had to yell to each other in order to be heard over the screaming winds and rattling wheels.

"It would take, sir, three fifty-mile round-trips by an Mi-8 to carry the cargo to the nearest spot where a jet could land," Fodor said as he studied the green and black map on the screen. He turned the computer so it was facing the officer. "That's here, sir, just northwest of the Amur River."

Nikita looked at the screen, his thick, black brows pulled together in thought. "If we can get a plane, that is. I still don't understand the trouble in Vladivostok, why there was nothing available but this train."

"Maybe we're at war, sir," Fodor joked, "and no one bothered to tell us."

The phone beeped. Fodor leaned back and answered it, poking a finger in his other ear so he could hear. A moment later, he moved the lantern aside and handed the black receiver to Nikita.

"It's Korsakov, relaying a call from General Orlov," Fodor said, his eyes wide, a trace of awe in his voice.

His expression stony, Nikita got on and shouted, "Yes, sir."

"Can you hear me?" the General asked.

"Barely! If you'll speak up, sir—"

General Orlov said slowly, distinctly, "Nikita, we believe that an Il-76T controlled by a foreign government may try and intercept your train late tonight. We're trying to determine who or what is on board, but to do that I need to know what your cargo is."

Nikita's gaze shifted from his lap to the crates. He couldn't understand why his father didn't just ask the officer in charge of the operation. "Sir," he said, "Captain Leshev did not share that information with me."

"Then I'd like you to open one," General Orlov said. "I'm entering the order in my log and you won't be held responsible for inspecting the shipment."

Nikita was still looking at the crate. He had been curious about the contents and, acknowledging the order, asked his father to hold the line.

After handing the receiver to Fodor, Nikita pulled on his gloves and walked across the car to the crates. He slipped a shovel from a hook on the wall, wedged the blade under the lip of the wood, put his foot on thee shoulder of the shovel, and pushed. The edge of the crate squealed and rose.

"Corporal, bring the lantern."

Fodor hurried over, and as the orange light fell on the crate they saw the bundles of American hundred-dollar bills, tied with white paper bands and stacked in neat piles.

Nikita pushed the lid back down with his boot. He told Fodor to open another crate, then walked across the rattling car to the table and picked up the phone.

"The crates contain money, Father," he shouted. "American currency—"

"Here too, sir!" yelled Fodor. "American dollars."

"That's probably what all the crates contain," Nikita said.

"Money for a new revolution," General Orlov said.

Nikita covered his open ear with his palm. "Excuse me, sir?"

The General spoke up. "Has Korsakov informed you about Ukraine?"

"No, sir, they haven't."

As General Orlov briefed him on the movement of General Kosigan's armies, Nikita found himself growing irate. It wasn't just that he felt cut off from the real military action. Nikita didn't know if his father and General Kosigan had had any contact in the past, though he could tell they were on opposite sides of the incursion. And that presented a problem, for he would rather be working alongside the dynamic and ambitious General Kosigan than with a highly decorated test pilot… one who remembered he had a son only when Nikita embarrassed him.

When his father finished, the young officer said, "May I speak openly, sir?"

The request was extremely irregular. In the Russian Army, even speaking informally to a komandir or nachal'nik— a commander or chief— was unacceptable. The answer to any question was not da or nyet, yes or no, but tak tochno or nikak nyet— exactly so or in no way.

"Yes, of course," General Orlov replied.

"Is this why you sent me to chaperon this shipment?" Nikita asked. "To keep me from the front?"

"When I first contacted you, son, there was no front."

"But you knew it was coming," Nikita said, "you had to. At the base, we've heard that where you are now there can be no surprises."

"What you're hearing are the death throes of the propaganda machine," General Orlov said. "The operation took many high-ranking officials by surprise, myself included. And until I find out more about it, I don't want the money leaving the train."

"What if General Kosigan plans to use it to buy cooperation from local Ukranian officials?" Nikita asked. "Delaying the money may cost Russian lives."

"Or save them," General Orlov pointed out. "It costs money to wage a war."

"But is it wise to second-guess him?" Nikita asked. "I've heard he's been a soldier since he was a boy—"

"And in many ways," General Orlov said sternly, "he is still a boy. You'll deploy your troops with round-the-clock watches in the train so that none of the cars can be approached, and admit no one without clearing it through me."

"Yes, sir," said Nikita. "When will I hear from you again?"

"I'll let you know more about the money or the Il-76T when I do," Orlov said. "Nikki, I have a feeling you're closer to the front than either of us realizes. Be careful."

"I will, sir," said Nikita.

The lieutenant pressed the button to the left of the mouthpiece and clicked off. He asked Fodor to clean the snow from the dish, then turned to the map on the computer. His eyes drifted along the route on the map, from Ippolitovka to Sibirchevo to Muchnaya and northward. Then checked his watch.

"Corporal Fodor," he said, "we should be arriving in Ozernaya Pad in approximately a half hour. Tell our engineer to stop when we do."

"Yes, sir," said Fodor, who went to the front of the car to use the intercom they'd rigged from the locomotive.

Nikita would see to it that the train was safe. This was for the future of Russia, and no one— not even his father, the General— was going to stop it.