The train consisted of a wheezy engine and four mostly empty carriages, all of which seemed far too grand for a dead-end branch line serving small forest villages and lumber camps. Miliutin led McColl to a compartment full of polished wood in the rear carriage, and stood leaning out of the window until the train began to move. Then, with a grunt of satisfaction, he sat back beneath the sepia photograph of Lake Baikal that McColl had been idly perusing.
“At first I could hardly stop laughing,” the Russian said, as if their conversation had not been interrupted. “Those dainty little aristocrats begging me—me!—to spirit them away from the Bolshevik monsters. I felt like telling them: ‘Believe me, children, you have far more in common with them than you do with me. They find the masses as troublesome as you did.’ But what would have been the point? You know what all ruling classes have in common? Luck and utter stupidity. All these aristocrats—they know nothing about anything. In Vyborg these days, you can have a countess for a few kopeks, which sounds like fun, but they don’t even fuck that well. Outside a ballroom they haven’t a clue how anything works. I almost felt sorry for some of them.” He paused to pick something from between his teeth. “But not for long,” he said, flicking the offending scrap away. “I lost too many comrades in the Peter and Paul Fortress while they were marking dance cards.”
“They’re not dancing anymore,” McColl murmured.
“I suppose you find that sad,” Miliutin sneered.
“Not particularly,” McColl said mildly. “I doubt I’ll be attending any balls on this visit.”
The Russian laughed. “I suppose you’re here to sell Lenin life insurance.” He laid himself out across the seats, feet at the corridor end. “But what do I care?” He pulled his cap down over his eyes. “The trip should take about three hours,” he muttered. “I’m going to get some sleep.”
That seemed like a good idea, but McColl’s brain refused to shut down. His Russian companion was soon snoring with irritating gusto, so he took himself into the corridor and watched the trees go by. The train stopped every few miles, but few got on or off at the small village halts.
He felt like a cup of strong coffee. He felt like a cigarette, though he hadn’t smoked since landing in prison. On his last trip into Russia, three years before, he’d felt traces of the old excitement, that adrenalin rush that went with pitting your wits and strength against whatever the enemy put in your way. That was what had induced him to join the Service—he hadn’t believed all the claptrap about King and Country since South Africa, and any residual illusions had been shredded by Caitlin and the war. But now there was no excitement either, just nerves and a grim determination. He might be working for Cumming again, but not for the Service and not for the fucking British Empire.
The trees gave way to a lake, the lake to a lot more trees.
He opened the lavatory door more out of restlessness than need and was astonished by the spotless luxury that greeted his eyes. There were even fresh towels on the rail.
He examined his unshaven face in the mirror. “Good morning, Anatoly Joseyevich,” he told his reflection. The grubby white blouse, the black leather breeches, the old leather cap with the fur brim—they all looked exactly right. As they should have—each had come from a warehouse packed with secondhand émigré clothing in Vyborg.
The train was jerking itself to a halt. Several voices became audible through the frosted window, indicating a larger-than-usual station. McColl waited for the train to clear the platform before flushing the toilet, remembering the day almost thirty years before when his father had pointed out a steaming pile of shit between the rails in Fort William station. “Most people are pigs” had been the observation.
You couldn’t buy memories like that, McColl thought sourly as he yanked the chain.
The rush of cascading water faded to reveal the thump of booted feet in the corridor.
McColl gripped the door handle and waited, ears straining for danger signals.
A shout turned into a high-pitched gurgle.
McColl launched himself into the corridor, and straight into someone who was scrambling out of his compartment. The collision knocked him backward into the vestibule, the other man on top of him.
For a second they looked at each other. The Russian was young, hardly more than a boy, and his eyes were wide with panic. He struggled to rise, to extricate himself, but the bandolier across his shoulder snagged on McColl’s arm, jolting the young man back and jerking free the cap with its gleaming red star.
McColl brought up a knee, eliciting a heartfelt groan, and then threw a fist into the boy’s throat. The young Chekist arched back on his knees, as if he’d just discovered which way Mecca was.
McColl glanced around in search of Miliutin, and the boy was on him again, the two of them clinched like drunken sailors in the swaying, rattling vestibule. McColl tried the knee again, following it with an intended pile driver to the stomach, which somehow caught the shoulder. The Chekist fell back across the handle of the outside door, opening it. He opened his mouth to yell, but his throat refused to obey. Then he just seemed to drop away, like someone who’d been horsing around on top of a wall.
McColl’s first reaction was to whirl around in search of witnesses, but there was none: Had the noise of the train drowned out the sound of their tussle? He leaned out of the open door and looked back: his otherwise prone assailant was flapping an arm in the air, as if keen to point out he’d survived the fall.
“Is he dead?” Miliutin asked over McColl’s shoulder.
“I doubt it,” he answered, pulling his head back in.
“A pity,” Miliutin murmured.
In their compartment the other Chekist had died holding the stomach that Miliutin’s knife had ripped open. A case of us or them, McColl told himself—capture would have ended with a bullet. It didn’t make him feel any better, but then, feeling good wasn’t something that went with the job. Or shouldn’t be, he thought, remembering times when it had.
Miliutin was folding the corpse in two. “Let’s get this one overboard,” he said.
After they’d bundled it out through the door and done their best to wipe away the blood, Miliutin laid himself out on the seat again as if happy to sleep through the rest of the journey.
McColl was astonished that no one had come to investigate. Admittedly they were in the last carriage, but they weren’t alone on the train—had nobody seen the Chekists ejected, or heard the dying one’s scream?
“They may have,” Miliutin said when McColl asked the question. “But they won’t know who screamed, and I doubt they got a look at the men we threw out. Where the Chekas are concerned, most people opt for discretion. Just being a witness can get you shot.” He closed his eyes again. “I don’t think we’ll have any trouble.”
He was right.
Two hours later they were staring across the silver-blue Neva at the cupolas of Smolny Convent glinting in the morning sun. If there had been a welcoming deputation at the Okhta station, they had managed to avoid it, getting out on the wrong side and cutting through the surprisingly busy goods yard.
On the towpath below, a succession of women were filling buckets from the river and carrying them back up the steps. “The Bolsheviks can’t even keep their city supplied with water,” Miliutin noted contemptuously. “This is where we part company,” he added. “You know where you are?”
McColl nodded. Across the road a pyramid pile of wooden wheels was reaching for the sky. It could have been rubbish, might have been constructivist art. You never knew in Bolshevik Russia.