There Will Be War Volume VIII, page 15
Rostov returned the photo to his pocket and stretched, his back popping, tired muscles protesting. He had slept little in two days, and the bracing air had not stirred him as awake as he might have liked. When he stopped yawning, Zorin tapped his arm.
“Your radio, Aleksei.”
Rostov scowled as he fumbled with the walkie-talkie clipped to his belt as it beeped again. Some things appropriated from the stores found on this train were less welcome than others. “Rostov here.”
“Corporal Dyatlov, sir. Comrade Trainman Gyrich has found a problem he says you should know about.”
“I’ll be right there, Corporal. Come back and take over the rear lookout. Sergeant Zorin will be coming with me.”
Dyatlov acknowledged and signed off.
What now, I wonder? Rostov thought. Neither he nor Zorin had spoken much about the death of their commander, Colonel Podgorny; with his loss the full burden of command had fallen directly on Rostov. Zorin had assured the young Lieutenant that he was up to the job, especially since they would be in the West soon, anyway.
Rostov wasn’t so sure of either point.
Of all his worries, prime was the question of pursuit. Where was it? He didn’t doubt for a moment that they were being pursued. God save us, we’ve stolen a train from the KGB! Things had not fallen apart so much that the Committee for State Security would suffer such an insult as that.
But with luck, it would be a race. And if Rostov didn’t want to have himself and all his men strangled with piano wire, it was a race they would have to win. And that meant giving first consideration to any problems found by the conscript trainmen they had rescued, who kept the locomotive moving.
Serafimov opened his eyes in darkness. He held his hands before his face, feeling but not seeing them, and imagined them once again clutching the throat of the treacherous Army Engineer Colonel who had stolen his train.
The State’s train, he hastily corrected himself. He suppressed a giggle; one had to be so careful these days.
Serafimov lay on a cramped board that served as a bed, remembering—was it this morning? He could still smell the soot of the railbed, the vodka that had spilled over him when Podgorny had smashed a bottle of it against his skull. Mostly, he still smelled the blood, his own as well as Podgorny’s.
Too much of one, not enough of the other. Despite the vengeance he had exacted on Podgorny’s corpse, Serafimov still felt that a river of it would not be enough.
He sat up, listening to water trickle down the walls in the dark. His throat was still tender, but a few attempts at speech gave him hope that his voice would return. It might even sound human. He wrapped a thin, damp blanket over his shoulders and considered his situation.
He was in Lubyanka, of course. Or what remained of it. Overhead, a light bulb in a heavy wire cage struggled to life. It dangled insolently from a wire too short to hang himself from and too tough to bite through in a quest for electrocution.
For the first time since being put in here, Serafimov was able to see clearly. The room was even smaller than it had looked in his brief glimpse of it when they had thrown him in and left him in darkness. Rivulets of water raced fat roaches down the moldy walls to the damp concrete floor. The inheritors of the earth, Serafimov thought. The tarakaniy were the first well-fed creatures he’d seen in months. There was his pallet along the wall, and in a corner was a bucket for human waste; the bucket absurdly small to guarantee its constant overflowing.
The light could only mean that Serafimov was due to have visitors. He would be required to make a report, to confess his collusion in this morning’s banditry and explain how he had lost the last train of supplies to leave Moscow. And explanations, he knew, were dangerous things.
Many men, far more important than Serafimov, had gone to the Gulags and worse for poor reports, or even excellent reports of poor performance. But after the KGB had taken control of the ruins of the Soviet, liquidating STAVKA and the GRU, reducing the Party itself to mere symbol and inevitably stepping into the power vacuum—well, then the Gulags had become unnecessary. Far more expedient methods had been devised to deal with the State’s problems.
Problems like Serafimov, and problems like Serafimov’s men, one from every ten of whom had been executed before his eyes.
The bulb dimmed slightly, then brightened again. Serafimov thought about that. Somewhere in this building a generator labored, burning precious untainted petrol to power this one light. All the vast ruins of Moscow might be in darkness, but this prisoner was to know just how important his jailers considered him to be.
He smiled. Unspoken words in the alien tongue of the KGB; Serafimov knew them all. He began to think, planning his statement carefully.
For while these idiots were playing their games, a train full of traitors was escaping, with what was certainly an American spy! Serafimov had no intention of letting that happen. His motives were less patriotic than vengeful, but he would stop them whatever the cost, if it meant selling his soul to the Devil himself.
But for revenge, he must survive, and to do that began with convincing this Steinmann that he was more valuable alive than dead. The East German claimed to be in direct contact with Novaya Moskva; let him prove it. There was nothing to lose by calling his bluff.
Serafimov meant to have the rest of Podgorny’s men, and he thought he knew how to stay alive long enough to do it. He finished straightening his filthy uniform just as the bolt was thrown and the door opened.
There were two guards, both armed.
I am considered dangerous; how flattering.
Serafimov noticed that one of the guards wore a cavalry saber. Though obviously an antique, it was just as obviously not worn simply for decoration; indeed, it looked used.
Serafimov was beginning to see a disturbing pattern in the degeneration of the Soviet. In a month or two, I should start seeing mounted archers. And in a year: chain mail and shields. Still, the future that concerned him now was his own, not the State’s.
“Colonel Serafimov.”
“Da.”
“You will come with us.”
Serafimov followed them into the hall and up the stairs.
Rostov was in the commander’s car, a passenger coach once removed from the engine. Trainmen Gyrich and Pilkanis were seated across the desk from him, while Sergeant Zorin and the American naval officer, Wrenn, occupied the sofa along the far wall. A quantity of lumber had been found among the supplies aboard the train, and two of the men were fitting a large sheet of plywood over the broken window behind him.
Colonel Podgorny had gone through that window only this morning, taking the KGB man with him and giving Rostov and all the rest of the men a chance to survive. Now Podgorny’s sacrifice seemed to have been in vain.
Trainmen Gyrich and Pilkanis looked no happier to be presenting their report than Rostov was to be hearing it.
“Excuse me, Comrade Gyrich, but I don’t understand. How could we possibly have lost so much fuel from gunfire in the rail yard? Those KGB troops weren’t firing anything heavier than automatic weapons; how big a hole could a rifle have put in our fuel cells?”
Gyrich shook his head. “It wasn’t a leak, Lieutenant. Anything big enough to pierce our fuel cells would probably have ignited them, and that would have been the end for us. What Trainman Pilkanis found is that small-arms fire struck some feeder control lines. These are fragile and could easily have been damaged by a stray rifle bullet.”
“Feeder control lines?” The Russian inzhenérnoe sounded like “engineer,” but had no more to do with locomotives than its English counterpart; that is, very little. Rostov knew a little of steam power plants, but almost nothing about locomotives.
“Da, Comrade Lieutenant.” Pilkanis was Lithuanian, and his dislike for Russians in general and Russian soldiers in particular was no secret. But Rostov knew his mechanical expertise was indispensable; Pilkanis could fix anything, and what he couldn’t fix, he could probably build a better version of. He cleaned his steel-rimmed spectacles as he spoke. “When these lines were damaged, the stoker assembly—that’s a sort of locomotive fuel-injection system—this stoker assembly began flooding the lines with fuel to fire the boiler.”
Rostov had a glimpse of old burn scars behind the cuffs of Pilkanis’ shirt sleeves. “You mean we might have blown up?” he asked quietly.
“No, Lieutenant,” Gyrich assured him. “This locomotive is old, but not primitive. There are special fail-safe mechanisms to prevent that. And unfortunately, they worked perfectly.”
“Why ‘unfortunately,’ Trainman Gyrich?” Rostov’s tone said he’d guessed what was coming, but asked, anyway.
“These safety mechanisms activated a series of valves that rerouted the fuel away from the stoker feed, into purge lines along the side of the boiler. From there the fuel just poured out onto the tracks.”
“How long had this been going on before you caught it?”
Gyrich licked his lips. Rostov and his men had saved them from the KGB, offering to take them along to freedom in the West. Gyrich hoped the young Lieutenant felt the same way after he got the news.
“The stoker maintained a normal feed until the slow pressure increase in the lines activated the fail-safes; I would guess the emergency rerouting started about six hours ago.”
Rostov felt the walls closing in. “And how much fuel do you calculate we have lost?”
“I can only guess, Comrade Lieutenant. But I would have to say at least twenty-four hundred liters.”
Rostov could not conceal his shock. Nearly half their fuel was gone. He knew the locomotive’s appetite to be voracious simply to pull the cars, but it was also powering all the amenities aboard the train: heat, lights, warm water, cookstoves. Rostov and the rest of the men had gone without such basic comforts for weeks, and they had been indulging themselves to their hearts’ content.
“Comrade Trainman Gyrich, can you give me an estimate of how far we can expect to get with our remaining fuel?”
Gyrich thought a moment. “If we cut our speed back, keeping nominal pressure in the boiler, we should be able to make another seven hundred kilometers. That’s accounting for the fuel needed for idling with our steam up, to power the tools and equipment needed to repair the damage fully. Right now, it’s just patched up, and a hasty job at that.”
Rostov checked one of the dozens of rail maps left on the desk by the KGB Colonel who had previously commanded this train. Seven hundred kilometers.
“By the most hopeful estimate,” he said, pointing to an area on the map far east of the indicated Alliance forces, “that will leave us out of fuel right in the middle of the Free Ukrainian Republic.”
Sergeant Zorin let out a deep breath at that news, and Rostov nodded in agreement. Their chances of making it out of Svoboda Ukranyie were little better than their hopes of surviving capture by the KGB.
“What about cutting our weight?” Rostov asked. “Jettisoning equipment, detaching all but the few cars we’d need to carry our people?”
Gyrich smiled and shook his head. “Sorry, Lieutenant. This isn’t a plane trying to get over a mountain; it’s a locomotive, and a bloody great huge one at that. This P-38 is so overpowered for the load it’s pulling that we could detach all the cars and it’s likely this monster wouldn’t even notice.”
And anyway, Rostov thought, our heaviest cargoes are our own weapons and vehicles, and the containers of the precious Immunizer. One we need to have any chance of getting to the West at all, the other to make getting there worthwhile.
“Lieutenant Rostov?” It was the American, his left hand still bandaged from his run-in with KGB Colonel Serafimov.
“Da, Captain Wrenn?”
“Colonel Podgorny told me the KGB tolerated the Army Engineers because of their control of the Immunizer; but that only the KGB knew where the hidden caches of uncontaminated fuel were hidden.”
Rostov nodded as he remembered the rail maps in the desk and began pulling them out. “I see what you are saying. If the KGB planned to take this train all the way to Novaya Moskva, they must have been planning to refuel on the way.”
Rostov eventually found a map bearing only rail lines and code numbers. It lacked even the spidery traces of Cyrillic lettering labeling terrain. “Gyrich, have you ever seen one of these maps before?”
The older man squinted watery blue eyes at the paper. “I think—yes, I think so; Colonel Serafimov used this one often when he discussed train routes; sometimes he carried it around tucked under his arm. This could be what you are looking for, but I don’t know how to read it.”
“We’ll have to hope it reads: ‘Here, Tovarishchi, free fuel,’ and take our chances.”
Wrenn stepped up to the table to lean over the map. “There’s not even a compass rose; how can you tell where we are on it?”
“Maps are state secrets in the Soviet Union, Captain Wrenn. Security officers think everyone is a potential traitor, so topographers are allowed to put only as much information on a map as is absolutely necessary.” He picked up the map indicating their position on the rail net, carrying it and the coded one to the command car’s remaining intact window.
“Most units have Topography Officers, KGB liaisons who read the maps and consult with commanders for battle plans.” Rostov held the coded map against the window and laid the rail map with their position over it.
“But Combat Engineers move too quickly; we don’t have time to wait for some KGB flunky to pull his thumb out of his arse and let us know what we need to know to fight. So we’ve come up with a few ideas to save time.” Rostov turned the top map until the rail lines coincided with those of the map beneath it, clearly visible with the sunlight shining through the window behind it.
“Fortunately, security officers also think most people are stupid, so they try to simplify everything, usually by standardization. Such as printing most maps to a constant scale.” He grinned at Wrenn and spread the maps on the table before Gyrich.
“All well and good,” the American said. “But what would you have done if it had been raining?”
It was still a race, Rostov decided with a smile at Wrenn’s jest, and perhaps they had stumbled; but if the wolves were going to catch them, at least they would not catch them idle.
Serafimov stood at attention in an old Kremlin conference room with one long table and no east wall. Morning sunlight poured through blasted holes in the wall of the office, and onto the backs of his review board: four men in Soviet uniform, and Steinmann in the center. In contrast to their autumn-issue clothing, Serafimov had only his wet summer tunic as proof against the chill wind coming in with the morning sunshine. By an effort of will, he managed not to shiver. He stood at attention, waiting.
“Colonel Serafimov,” Steinmann began, “we have already met. For the record, I am Major Steinmann, Seventy-fifth Tank Regiment, Deutsche Demokratische Republik.” He gestured to the other officers seated with him. “These are Majors Grishin and Zimyanin, and Captains Tolkhunov and Adzhubei. Like all loyal soldiers of the New Soviet they are KGB, although their particular service branches are irrelevant to this inquiry.”
I’ll just bet they are, Serafimov thought. He wasn’t impressed by any of them. Admittedly, they looked like they’d seen a lot of action; who hadn’t? But as to brains… well, none of them put Serafimov in fear of a chess match.
Intentionally, Serafimov ignored them and focused his attention on Steinmann. These others are dogs, he thought. This is the one in charge. This is the wolf.
“We are here,” Steinmann continued, “to receive your report regarding the theft from this city of a State train by bandits.”
Serafimov was instantly on guard. Two days ago, he had been a conspirator; now he was simply a fool. The latter condition was theoretically survivable. But he did not allow himself to hope; hope took the edge from a man’s survival instincts.
Despite his national affiliation, Steinmann was a tool of the KGB as surely as was Serafimov himself, and that august body did not deal in hope. The KGB, now more than ever, was concerned only with the security of the State, and nothing else, nothing else mattered. Sensing thin ice before him, Serafimov proceeded accordingly.
He presented the facts to Steinmann as briefly as possible. This man was not interested in any pokazuka, any pretense for effect. Steinmann interrupted him only for clarifications, or when the rasping sound the American had left him for a voice was impossible to understand. When Serafimov had finished, the board was silent for some time.
“And you believe your English-speaking assailant to be an American spy, Colonel?” The man Steinmann had introduced as Grishin had the prissy inflection of a priest; Serafimov detested him instantly.
“I do. Early in the war I interrogated many captured American soldiers. They became a specialty with me; I pride myself on my ability to recognize the type.”
Steinmann smiled. “And just what ‘type’ is an American spy, Colonel Serafimov?”
Serafimov held his gaze. “Well fed, Major. Victors often are.”
Steinmann nodded, surrendering the point and ignoring the offended scowls of his fellow interrogators as he changed the subject. “Now what about this Colonel Podgorny’s staff; what do you know of them?”
Serafimov shook his head. “He had no staff as such, Major. The command ranks of his unit were much reduced. I saw only one Lieutenant and a Senior Sergeant. I believe that the unit only held together this long because of their training and the cult of personality fostered by this Podgorny. Also, Combat Engineers are generally regarded as semi-elite units, and these wore the uniforms of the Fifth Guards Armored Division; certainly an elite unit if ever there was one.”
“Do you believe the loss of their commanding officer will affect the unit’s cohesion?”
“Dramatically. Having no leader to rally to, and having obviously lost ideological integrity, I should expect their unit to begin dissolving within a week; two at the outside.”
