“Any steeper,” said Wish Clarke, “and it would be an elevator.”
Josef jumped down from his phaeton and strode toward them, gaze locked greedily on the Maxim gun. Wish kept his finger on the trigger.
Isaac Bell said, “Josef, order your men to place their weapons around that rock.”
Josef started to protest.
Bell cut him off. “The Maxim is ours until they lay down their guns and we drive to the funicular.”
Wish Clarke raised a water can in his free hand and called out in a friendly voice, “We just filled the barrel-cooling sleeve. Here’s more water when you need it.” He took a swig from the can and wiped his mouth. “You must remember to refill the sleeve every couple hundred rounds or the heat will steam it off and you’ll melt the barrel.”
“We are knowing gun.”
“I had an inkling you might.”
Wish jumped to the road, gathered the heavy weapon in his arms, heaved it off the Peerless, and laid it gently on the ground. He left the one remaining ammunition belt, then he got back behind the steering wheel and drove after Nellie’s car.
Bell watched with the Savage 99 braced against his shoulder. Before they reached the funicular station, Josef’s gang had pounced on the Maxim, loaded it into a phaeton, and whipped up their horses.
“What a pleasure,” said Wish. “The simple act of buying tickets compared to fighting across Azerbaijan and eastern Georgia while straying into stretches of Armenia.”
Isaac Bell was looking forward to buying more tickets: The train to Batum. The steamer to Constantinople. The Orient Express to Paris. And an ocean liner home.
The railway carriage from below climbed into the station. A smattering of tourists got off with curious looks for the road-weary, dust-caked travelers waiting to descend. Bell guided everyone into one of the passenger compartments and closed the door. The seats were pitched at an angle to keep them horizontal.
The carriage started rolling down the embankment.
“Isaac!” Nellie gripped his arm and pointed across the bare and rocky slope. With her sharp eye for terrain, she had spotted Josef’s phaetons struggling down a steep road a half mile away.
“You’ll regret giving them that gun,” said Rockefeller.
“We didn’t give it,” said Wish, “we traded it.”
It took six minutes to descend the funicular railway’s nine hundred feet to the lower station.
An electric tram waited at the bottom, which they rode through the old city to the big, central Erevan Square that Bell had seen from above. He sensed the instant he alighted that despite the presence of up-to-date shops, government buildings, and an enormous Russian bank, there was a palpable tension in the air. People walked hurriedly with their heads down and avoiding eye contact. There were many police and soldiers on patrol.
“The faster we’re out of here, the better,” he told Wish.
Rockefeller spotted a telegraph office. “I must send a cable.”
“Wait until we get to the train station.”
They found another electric tram, which took them across the river and up through newer parts of the city to the Central Railroad Station.
Mobs of Georgians, Armenians, and Russians milled in the concourse.
Rockefeller spotted the telegraph office and strode through them like a heavy cruiser parting the waves.
Bell said, “Wish, keep an eye on him. We’ll be at the ticket windows.”
The lines were long. Travelers shouted and gesticulated. Ticket agents shouted back and shook their fists.
“Five one-way tickets to Batum.”
“No trains.”
“What do you mean, no trains? The yard is booming.”
“No passenger trains.”
Bell already had money in his hand. He slipped it across the counter. The agent wet his lips. It equaled a month’s pay. “Go to booking office. Ask for Dmitri Ermakov. Tell him I sent you. It will cost.”
The booking office was next to the telegraph. Wish was at the door. “He’s still at it.”
“We’ll be in here.”
Dmitri Ermakov made them wait twenty minutes, by which time scores of people had stormed in and out of the office. At last Bell was ushered in. He held out three times as much money as he had given the ticket agent. “I need five tickets to Batum.”
Ermakov took the money. “You must understand, sir, there are no passenger trains. Only oil trains.”
“There must be one or you wouldn’t be talking to me.”
“When fighting was feared to break out in Baku, Baku send many oil trains.”
The result, Chief Agent Ermakov explained, was that so many oil trains had rushed out of Baku when trouble started that they were carrying more oil than the Batum refineries could cook and had to be held in Tiflis. Then revolutionaries cut the pipe line and suddenly stocks were running low in the refineries and shipping piers.
“Now every train west is oil train. But one special train tomorrow. Come back tomorrow. Show papers.”
“What papers?”
“You need special pass. Government train visas.”
“Where do I get them?”
“You get issued by my friend Feltsman, high official. Russian. You must pay him.”
“Where is Feltsman?”
“Government building. Erevan Square.”
“Where in Erevan Square? Which building?”
“Next to Russian State Bank.”
Isaac Bell stood to his full height and stared down at the Russian train official. Then he opened his coat just enough to allow a glimpse of the Bisley nestled in his shoulder holster. “If I can’t find the government building — or if I can’t find Mr. Feltsman — I do know where to find you… Is there anything else you want to tell me before I go back to Erevan Square?”
“I am remembering,” said the chief agent, reaching for his telephone, “that it would be best if I personally telephoned Feltsman to tell him to expect you. That way he would not be out to lunch or somewhere when you arrive.”
“A wise precaution,” said Isaac Bell. He waited for the call to be completed and left somewhat surer now that the papers would be forthcoming, but considerably less certain that tomorrow’s special passenger train would materialize in the chaos.
“Hold it!” said Isaac Bell.
They had just stepped down from the tram to Erevan Square and were hurrying across the busy plaza toward the government building next to the Russian State Bank when Bell saw the gleaming black pompadour that crowned the Social Democrat Josef.
“Is that who I think it is skulking at the tram stop?” asked Wish.
“Josef.”
With a furtive glance over his shoulder, revealing beyond a doubt that it was he, Josef ran to jump on the tram leaving for the railroad station.
“What’s he up to?” said Wish.
Rockefeller started to make a beeline for the telegraph.
“Grab him, Wish.”
Wish snared the plutocrat.
“What? What?”
“Just wait,” said Wish. “Something’s up… What is it, Isaac?”
Bell had spotted three or four workmen in the crowds whom he might possibly have seen with Josef earlier on the road. Aware that he was sensing more than seeing, he looked up and scanned the tops of the two- and three-story buildings that bordered the open space. He could feel stress in the air, almost as if every person bustling about his business was about to stop breathing.
Suddenly two enormous carriages raced into the square. Thundering alongside them, Cossack outriders brandished lances and rifles. Heavy as freight wagons yet high-wheeled and fast, they were pulled by teams of ten horses. Their coachmen, enormous three-hundred-pound men in greatcoats, hauled back on their reins and the carriages and outriders came to a banging, clashing halt in front of the elaborately decorated stone edifice that housed the Russian State Bank.