Chapter Seventeen
The First-Class Parlor Car
Train to Tyumen, Russia
The cooked-brain corpse on the parlor car floor would serve as a reminder to the prisoners.
“I’ll take care of the questioning, sir,” Mokrenko assured Turgenev. “You may not care for what I’ll have to do.”
“After what they tried to do to Natalya,” said the lieutenant, “you can do what you like with the filthy swine. Including”—the lieutenant pointed with his chin at the brain-cooked corpse on the floor—“toasting them.”
The rear door to the parlor car opened.
“Here’s two of the bastards, Sergeant,” announced Koslov, prodding, at bayonet point, two bound prisoners as he entered the parlor car. Goat wrinkled his nose at the stench of burnt flesh.
“The rest?”
Goat simply smiled, then drew his thumb across his throat.
“And the cost to us?”
With a deep sigh, Koslov answered, “Shukhov was shot, but Timashuk says it’s not bad. He’s patching him up now. But . . .”
“Yes?”
Goat gave a deep and regretful sigh. “I’m afraid to say that Visaitov didn’t make it.”
“I see.” Mokrenko turned his attention to the two prisoners, neither of whom looked much hurt. “I’ve less than no reason to bear you two shits any good will. So here’s what’s going to happen. We’re going to separate you. Can you smell that stink? That’s the smell of someone’s face pushed against a red hot steel stove until the face burns and then the heat cooks his brain. We’re going to ask you some questions. If your answers match, then you don’t get your face burnt. If they don’t match, then you do. Note that there are two sides to your face, and when those are used up, you’ve still got arms, legs, chests, backs, feet, and genitals.”
Without warning, Mokrenko kicked one of the prisoners in the balls, causing him to give off an agonized moan before bending over and then sinking to the floor of the car.
“That’s just so you know how much trouble you’re in,” he said, before telling Goat to, “Take the other one back to our car. We’ll take care of this one. Novarikasha?”
“Yes, Sergeant?”
“You and Lavin get control of this one. I am going to ask the other one a question or two. Then I’m going to come here and ask the same question. If they don’t match, faces to heaters; got it?”
“Got it, Sergeant.”
With that, Mokrenko went to the second-class cabin and asked of the prisoner, “What is your name and patronymic and what is the name of the other one?”
The prisoner gulped, but answered unhesitatingly. “I am Vladimir Boroslavovich. My comrade is Stanislaus Fyodorovich.”
“All right, for now.” Mokrenko then went into first class and asked the same question, receiving the same answers, inverted. He then explained again, that if the answers didn’t match perfectly, there would be pain.
“Now, how were you going to get away from the train after completing your robbery?”
“We have horses waiting about an hour further up?”
“How many horses? How many men?”
“Four men, twenty-four horses.”
“Why the extra horses?”
“If we found a girl we wanted to keep, or if there was a substantial pay chest on the train. And for the food, of course.”
He then went back to second class, asking the same series of questions. One answer was different: “Six men, twenty-seven horses.”
“Cook his face for a count of five,” Mokrenko commanded, then went forward again, giving the same order. When the screaming subsided, he explained, “One of you lied to me. You will both suffer for it. Face to the heater for a count of five,” he ordered Novarikasha.
“Twenty-seven horses!” the prisoner blurted out. “Six men! Please don’t burn me. Please.”
“Count of five,” Mokrenko repeated. The screams went on for a lot longer than five seconds.
“How will they hold the horses?” Mokrenko asked, once the screaming subsided.
“They won’t,” said the prisoners, through gasps and tears. “They’ll be tied to a rope and that to two trees.”
Mokrenko went back to second and got the exact same answer.
“Where is your camp?” he asked Vladimir.
“Not too far, maybe twelve versta; that’s the truth.”
“Do you have any captives there?”
“A dozen women, last I counted. No, wait, the chief had two for himself, so fourteen women. Well . . . some are more girls than women.”
“Very good.”
Back in first class the answer was substantially the same, except that Stanislaus had no trouble remembering the correct number of women and girls.
“How many men are back at the camp?” Mokrenko asked.
“Just two,” Stanislaus answered. “The women and girls get locked up when we go on foray, except to cook and . . . well . . . you know.”
What a shitty fucking world, thought Mokrenko.
Once the robbers’ rifles and pistols were passed around to willing men who gave a reasonably convincing story of previous shooting experience, and the Strategic Recon Section’s were assembled, there were twenty-five rifles and nine pistols manned and waiting for the word. Strat Recon kept their pistols in their belts.
Mokrenko asked the old colonel if he’d be so kind as to tell the locomotive’s engineer and brakeman that, if they didn’t stop, he’d certainly shoot them.
“But why, Rostislav Alexandrovich?” the colonel asked. “You can . . . ah, you don’t want them to see your faces or ask any questions?”
“Even so, sir. As a matter of fact, I’d appreciate it if you would take complete credit for all of this, for having tackled and shot the robbers yourself, plus organizing the passengers.”
“I don’t really understand,” said the colonel.
Mokrenko thought quickly, coming up with a suitable tale. “Well, sir, the Reds have put a price on our heads. If they have any inkling of where we are . . .”
“I see,” said Plestov. “Well, I don’t know how believable I will be, but I’ll try.”
“I’m a much better liar than you are, dear,” said the colonel’s wife. “You will be a little confused by a blow you took to your head, so I will tell them in Tyumen of your fierce courage and how you led the passengers of the train to victory.”
“Flatterer,” said the colonel, a warm and loving smile spreading across his face. “No wonder I’ve stayed with you for the last fifty-five years.”
Wonderful woman, thought Mokrenko.
After Mokrenko briefed him on the situation, Lieutenant Turgenev covered his face and walked the length of the train, giving orders to his own men and the newly armed passengers. “By order of Colonel Plestov, acting commander of the train, put on as much of the robbers’ garb as you can. When we start to slow, open the windows no matter how cold it is. As soon as we stop, rifles out the side and kill anything human that looks armed. Shoot the ones right in front of you, first, then look to the sides. Try not to hit the horses. When the rifles go out, all unarmed civilians drop to the floor and cover your heads. By order of Colonel . . .”
Six men, wondered Mokrenko. Odd that there should be six men for twenty-seven horses. I’d have expected no less than seven, really. Because, after all, the robbers—the mostly late robbers—didn’t walk to the station where they boarded from here. They must have ridden and then these six brought the horses to this stop. But there should have been seven or even eight men for this. Unless . . . .now damned, what was that breed of horse . . . the one’s the Tatars’ cousins use? Short . . . furry . . . survive out in the open in the worst weather . . . find their own . . . ? Hmmm . . .
Mokrenko went over to the bound robber with the seared face. Kicking the man lightly, he asked, “What kind of horses do you people use?”
“Yakuts,” the thief answered. “Well . . . related to them anyway.”
“Aha; that’s the name I was trying to remember. Where did you acquire Yakuts?”
“Where else; we robbed a train that had them.”
“I see.”
“What’s going to happen to us?”
“Probably nothing very bad, if you cooperate,” Mokrenko replied. “You’re going to lead us to your camp. Once we’ve freed your captives, I see no reason to kill you.”
I also see no reason to keep you alive, either, but that’s for another time.
Colonel Plestov got up and walked, slowly and carefully, to the locomotive. A few minutes later, Lieutenant Turgenev felt the train begin to slow, causing him to be pressed back into his plush seat.
Turgenev wore a mask taken from one of the thieves. His rifle, sans bayonet, had its muzzle resting on the seat opposite him. As soon as he felt the train start to slow, he reached up and unlatched the window, then opened it. After that, leaning forward, he took control of the rifle, while still being careful to keep it below the level of the windows. Up in first class only Colonel Plestov was armed, though each other car, plus the dining car and first-class sleeper car, had three or four armed men to it, each under one of the men of Strat Recon.
Turgenev didn’t have much hope for accurate fire from the civilians, but at the very least, They’ll draw fire from my men. Shame about Visaitov. Can’t afford to lose any more. And at least he wasn’t a specialist. I don’t know what we’d have done if Sarnof had been killed. Note to self, for the future any team dispatched like this must have redundancy.
Mokrenko, standing on the small platform outside of his car, saw the horses all lashed to a single rope stretched between two trees. Never ridden a Yakut before. Should be interesting.
Natalya stood with him.
As soon as he caught a glimpse of the getaway party, he began to wave furiously. He also held up Natalya by one arm and shook her, to show the remaining thieves that the foray had been most fruitful. Her head hung down and her hair swished on her neck as if all the will had been beaten or raped out of her. He couldn’t hear them cheering the prospect over the shrieking of the train’s brakes, but he saw it well enough.
“Thanks for going along, Natalya,” he said. “Good acting job. Now I’m going to pretend to throw you to the floor. As soon as I do, crawl to cover inside.”
“Kill them all, Sergeant Mokrenko,” she said, as soon as she was out of sight.
Mokrenko started counting and evaluating. Only one man by the horses—his life is mine—and the other five . . . five? . . . yes, five . . . waiting roughly mid-way between the train and the horses. He looked more carefully at the horses. Hmmm . . . no, they’re not all tied to the rope. There are two sleighs, two horses each, also.
Before the train quite stopped he walked over to the prisoner in second class, kicking him hard enough to break ribs. The prisoner cried out, then bent over with clutched arms nursing cracked ribs.
“I told you to tell me everything. You should have mentioned the sleighs.”
At that, Mokrenko went back to his window, bent, and, like Turgenev, got control of his rifle.
The train slowed . . . slowed . . . slowed . . . and finally stopped. As soon as it did, Mokrenko’s rifle was the first to emerge from the open window. His shot, too, was the first. The robber nearest the horses threw up his arms and fell straight back.
As soon as that shot was heard, twenty-four more rifles opened up on the remaining five robbers. Most shots missed, of course, they always do. But few magazines were quite empty before the one hundred and fifty-odd rounds in the twenty-five magazines and chambers had felled the last of the robbers.
Immediately, all but four of the Strat Recon team charged out, followed by Babin and Natalya. The latter looked on without pity as a few shots finished off the wounded.
Moments after that, the remaining four men came out, or five, if one were to count the corpse of Visaitov, slung across the shoulders of Timashuk. They pushed ahead of them the two remaining thieves, one of whom was still bent, clutching his ribs.
The horses were a bit spooked. Instinctively, the Cossacks of the team went to calm the equines down and ensure they were all in good health.
“Fascinating beasts,” said Novarikasha, gently stroking one of the Yakuts. “They’ve got fur at least three inches long and thick, and they’re fat, fat, I say, despite this weather.”
With the train still stopped, the men went back and began to unload their personal baggage, to include Visaitov’s. This was carried to the two sleighs and deposited, more or less evenly. They left the rifles for the passengers who had joined the fight, but collected back the pistols and Visaitov’s rifle, less the pistols previously given to the colonel and the dining car attendant.
After Mokrenko reported they were ready to move, Lieutenant Turgenev went to stand by the locomotive. He rendered Colonel Plestov a flawless salute, which was as flawlessly returned. Plestov then told the crew to continue on the journey, that he was sending the other men out to hunt down the robbers at their camp.
There wasn’t a lot of discussion. “What the hell,” the lieutenant said, “we’re five days ahead of schedule now and there are fourteen women and girls enslaved and needing rescue.”
And that’s why I follow you, Lieutenant, thought Mokrenko. I am probably ten times the soldier you are but you have the heart of a true and worthy gentleman.
Natalya’s thoughts, expressed rather differently, were, I wish I could be a virgin for you. You deserve that.
The two remaining robbers were mounted on horseback, hands bound behind them. Mokrenko was careful to tie a rope around the neck of each one, lest they decide to escape and warn the others. A few horses were tied in the string to the back of each of the sleighs. The remainder were not tied in a string, but led by five of the men of the team. Visaitov lay tied flat in the back of one of the sleighs.
“Now, you dickheads,” said Mokrenko to the prisoners. “You will lead us to a covered and concealed position about half a verst short of your encampment. If you try any games, the ropes around your necks go over trees and your horses leave you behind, kicking and choking. Hanging’s said to be a slow, hard way to die. Am I clear enough?”
When they’d reached a suitable position, Turgenev called a halt. The two prisoners were then removed from their horses and bent into C shapes, with the ropes leading from their necks being tied to their ankles. Turgenev and Mokrenko led four other men forward, leaving Natalya, Babin, Timashuk, and the wounded Shukhov to guard the horses and the prisoners.
There was a small snow-covered hill—or perhaps a snowdrift with delusions of grandeur—behind which the men with the lieutenant sheltered while he and the sergeant scoped out the encampment, perhaps one hundred arshini away. That consisted of half a dozen buildings, all of them made of logs, and two of them, at least, inhabitable and, based on heat shimmer above chimneys, apparently inhabited. In a fenced snowfield, a couple of dozen more of those marvelous horses hooved their way through the snow to eat the grass beneath.
“Fucking rabble,” Mokrenko said.
“What was that, Sergeant?” the lieutenant asked.
“Was I speaking aloud? Shit, sir, I thought I was just thinking it. But look, sir; there’s smoke coming from two chimneys. There are people there, but no guards. Even if there are only two of them, as our prisoners said, one of them should be on guard. So, yes, fucking rabble.”
“Yes, rabble,” the lieutenant agreed. “Unfortunately, they’re rabble with fourteen women and girls as hostage. What do you want to bet they’ve got two or three with them in one of those buildings, for obvious reasons, while the others are locked up in the other one? Do we want to risk the females?”
“Not if we can avoid it, sir, no.”
“Then . . . we need to entice them outside. Who are the best two shots among us?”
“Myself and Lavin.”
“Not counting you.”
“Lavin and . . . oh, Koslov, I suppose.”
“Okay, leave those two with me. Go back and mount up everyone else. Keep dressed like the train robbers. Come riding in—put Natalya on display like a great prize—and entice the two remaining out. Koslov, Lavin, and I will then shoot them, once they’re away from the women.”
“I kind of like that idea, sir. How much time for you to get ready?”
“We’ll be ready in a couple of minutes. We’ll be right here, so make sure that you and the rest are not in line between us and the remaining robbers.”
“Do my best, sir.”
“I know you will. Keep your pistols where you can get at them.”
“Yes, sir.” With that, keeping low, Mokrenko and the rest returned to the covered and concealed position where waited the rest of the party.
The horses weren’t loud and the snow and trees tended to muffle what sound there was. Mokrenko expected this, and so came in with Shukhov, disguised but otherwise prominently in front, bent but showing a bloody bandage around his midriff. Behind him rode Mokrenko, himself, leading a horse on which was perched Natalya, with her hands behind her. She wasn’t tied but, rather, had an unsecured coil of rope loose around them. Only one sleigh had been taken and the four remaining men of Strat Recon led only a few of the available horses.
On the way, Mokrenko passed them by where the lieutenant, Goat, and Lavin hid behind the snowdrift with delusions of grandeur. He’d already explained about leaving the three a clear field of fire.
Some things, thought the sergeant, are just too easy. Fucking rabble.
On cue, two men came out, only one of them armed and the other doing up his trousers with both hands. The armed one observed, “It went badly, this time, eh? Well, I warned the chief, more than once . . .”
Three shots rang out in an instant, their bark preceded by the sharp snaps of near-passing thirty caliber bullets. Two hit the armed man, one in the belly, one in the chest, laying him flat on the ground, lifeless and oozing bright blood onto the white snow. The other, Mr. Just-Got-Finished-With-A-Girl, as Mokrenko mentally dubbed him, was not so lucky. He took one in the throat, causing him to clutch it, hopelessly and helplessly, while blood gushed out. In mere moments, though, he, too, lay lifeless on the snow.
Mokrenko and the others dismounted, quickly. Two went for the other building from the chimney of which poured smoke, while two more, including the sergeant, drew pistols and stormed through the half open doorway.
Inside they found two women. One, an aetherially beautiful eastern Tatar or Yakut woman, or a close cousin to them, tended the fire in the masonry stove in the middle of the room. The other, young—far too young, thought the sergeant—clutched a fur blanket to cover her chest. He didn’t think she was wearing anything underneath.
“Who are you?” asked the Tatar or Yakut girl, looking up warily.
“My name doesn’t matter,” the sergeant replied. “Think of me—of us—as your liberators. At least we were given to understand that you women and girls were held captive here.”
“For about six months,” the woman replied. “Some of us a little more, some a little less. And our captors?”
“Dead, all dead, except for two.”
“And my horses?”
“Those we have. We don’t need them all or, at least, not all the ones we have plus the ones in the field. We’ll pay you for what we take. Why, by the way, horses? Why you?”
The lovely woman sighed sadly. “We were told the tsar was paying a good price for stout horses for the war. My father tallied up the extras we had, matched that to the price, and decided we could spare fifty. So he sent my husband and myself, with our children, west to Yekaterinburg to sell them. Our train was robbed. My husband and son killed. My daughter, like myself, was forced to become a whore for the scum who robbed us and murdered my man and boy.”
“You’re not a whore unless you both charge and do it willingly,” Mokrenko corrected. “Even the fucking Moslems know that much. Neither you nor your daughter are whores. How much were you expecting to get from the tsar for your horses?”
“Eight hundred rubles, in gold, apiece,” she said.
“I’m a little surprised the Imperial Army was willing to buy Yakut horses. They don’t really meet the standards, even though I am sure they’re fine animals.”
“The representative who came to town said that the casualties among horses had been so high that the standard was being dropped for many of them, or there would be no new horses at all.”
“That makes a certain sense,” Mokrenko agreed. “It’s a little high, but we can pay that for what we’ll need. Up to the lieutenant, though.”
“What’s up to me?” asked Turgenev, coming through the door, rifle in hand.
“What we’ll pay this woman for her horses. They belong to her.”
“I see. Well, yes,” agreed Turgenev, “of course we’ll pay a fair price.”
“Perhaps,” said the woman, “you are our liberators, indeed.” She thought for a moment, then said, “Come, there is something you must see.”
“See to it, would you, Sergeant? I want to check out the other buildings.”
“Sure, Sir. Lead on, Mrs. . .?”
“Saskulaana. That’s my given name.”
“Saskulaana,” repeated Mokrenko, savoring the sound. Truly, there is beauty to be found in every corner of the Earth. “Very lovely, if you don’t mind my saying so. Now what was it you wanted to show me?”
Leaving the large Russian stove, she led the sergeant over to a separate chamber, just off from the main room. It was something of a treasure trove, he noted, with stocks of fur, warm clothing, heavy cloth, tools like shovels and axes, and all manner of useful things stolen from the railroad.
“This was their chief’s quarters. Mishenka was his name. I don’t know his family name.
“There,” she said, pointing. The object at which she pointed was a mid-sized iron safe. “No matter how hard he tried, he could never get it open.”
“Where did it come from?”
“They took it from a train. I think it was heading east from Yekaterinburg.”
“Indeed? Well, I have someone . . .”
There was something else in the room, a large pile of baggage and clothes.
“And this is?”
Saskulaana answered, “It’s part of how they kept us here, when they were generally too lazy to post guards. We were allowed a single garment apiece, exchanged as needed. All of our warm clothes, though, were kept here so that it was death to escape, most of the year.”
For the moment the prospect before him took Shukhov’s mind off the pain of his still fresh and recently outraged bullet wound.
“If only I had some nitroglycerine,” he muttered. “Well . . . make do or do without,” he decided, heading to one of the sleighs to recover his mini demolitions kit.
Mokrenko accompanied the engineer because, after the miscalculation with blowing up the Loredana, only partially mitigated in the sergeant’s mind by the fortuitous destruction of the Kerch, he didn’t entirely trust Shukhov’s abilities, demolitions-wise.
It had taken all of them, including the fourteen freed women, to both round up the horses and get them in shelter and to drag the thing on rollers out of the building, and then on sledge to a spot the engineer had picked for his first attempt at—oh, be still, my heart—safecracking. How much did it weigh?
I’d guess a bit over a ton, thought Turgenev, straining to move it with the rest.
“I need a pot and a good fire,” Shukhov had explained. “ ‘Why?’ you ask. Because while I don’t have nitroglycerin, I do have TNT, and it has a low melting point. Oh, and I need some fat or grease.”
“Are the fumes toxic?” asked the sergeant.
“Yes, but they won’t be bad outdoors if we don’t go out of our way to breathe them.”
Saskulaana brought one pot and a tripod in one hand and, in another, a pot with coals from the big Russian stove in the main room. Several of the other women brought armloads of wood, small enough gifts, they thought, for the men who had freed them from slavery. One girl, small and slight, brought a pot of fat, since the engineer hadn’t specified how much he would need.
“Perfect, ladies, perfect,” the engineer assured them. “Now go back to the building where it’s warm and safe.”
The safe lay on its back, door to Heaven. A close inspection told Shukhov that, The door is tight enough to the frame to make sure the TNT stays in the crack, rather than going into the interior of the safe. This is good.
It’s also good—better than good, really—that the Germans gave me TNT rather than hexanite. I wouldn’t dare try this with that toxic shit.
Carefully, using the sticks, logs, and kindling provided by the women, Shukhov nursed the coals into a fire. On this, he placed the pot, then tore the packaging from the TNT. He recognized that the letters and words on the paper packaging were in English, but whether they were American or British high explosive he couldn’t say.
Free of its packaging, the two blocks of TNT were dumped into the pot.
“Sergeant,” asked the engineer, “could you find us a longish twig about the width of the blasting caps?”
This wasn’t especially hard to find. He broke the twig in two, dipped each in the fat, and then jammed each one at an angle into the crack between safe door and wall.
Humming, but making sure he stayed upwind of the pot, Shukhov stirred the explosive as it liquified.
Once it was a liquid, yellow and still fairly thick, he picked up the pot by the handle and, using a gloved hand, then carefully began pouring the contents to fill the crack. He could only do this on three sides, as the side by the hinges was quite tight and flush to the wall.
The liquid TNT filled the crack in a safe that was, by now, ice cold. One effect of this was that the TNT tended to freeze in the juncture of door and safe wall. This helped ensure that none of it, or so little as not to matter, would leak into the hollow of the safe even if there were a gap somewhere.
Pouring done, the engineer left things to cool while he went a distance away to prepare the blasting caps. These he held lightly in the fingers of one hand, then tapped, wrist against wrist, to ensure that there were no contaminants or debris inside. Then he laid them aside.
From his meager store of fuse, he selected a length of about two arshin. This he torched off with a match, counting slowly until the fuse burnt to the end. From that, he judged, I need two—well, no, I’m slower than I would normally be, so double that—four minutes to make it to the cabin. Lots of protection is that stout log roof. So . . . I need about an arshin and a half per cap.
Cutting these lengths off, and taking care to make them exactly the same length, even though they were not all that precise, one after the other the engineer fed the fuse into the caps as far as they would go. He then crimped the cap to the fuse with his fuse crimper.
Returning to the safe, Shukhov worked the twigs out, replacing them with fused blasting caps.
Picking up a burning stick from the fire, he took the fuses in hand at their very ends, then lit them.
“Time for us to go, Sergeant.” After that, they began to run as quickly as the snow and his wound allowed for the shelter of the main cabin. He could feel it beginning to ooze blood again.