The train is due in at Kansk today, probably bringing more tourists hoping to see a bit of the Great Race. The American team has already moved on, but the German team is still here. That will attract a lot of attention, along with all this other commotion. There are already security men here, and so the thing to do is head east, not west to the train at Kansk. If I slip off to the east, I can always board the train at another village down the line. But what if those men are on the train? So be it. I’ve done nothing wrong here—except that reporter. Yes, that could be it. I was talking with that English reporter, a foreigner, and a member of their press. That could land me in a bit of a stew. Is that why that man came over—Fedorov? And what did he mean with that whispered warning about St. Petersburg?
“…never come up this stairway again. Understand? Get as far away from here as you can.” He remembered the urgency in Fedorov’s voice, the look in the man’s eyes, as if all the world was at stake. Then that strange look of anguish, that moment’s hesitation, and the torment in his eyes as he leaned close, taking hold of his arm.
“Do not go to St. Petersburg in 1934! Beware Stalin! Beware the month of December! Go with God. Go and live, Mironov. Live!”
And the night…. The moon. How could I have left this red sky morning one moment, and found it so dark and quiet the next, and with that ghostly moon? Perhaps that was only the rising sun I saw, obscured by smoke from that fire in the east. What was that man saying about 1934, a year so far away in the future? Who was this Stalin he spoke of? Why should I be wary in December? What did he mean that I should not go to St. Petersburg? He was speaking as though… as though he saw some distant future in the world that had not yet come to pass, some far off doom, for his tone of voice clearly carried the edge of warning.
That only increased the rising sense of fear in his own gut. Yes, slip away east, he thought. That was what he must do now. The train will come east tomorrow after all this ruckus settles down. The German race team will leave, the tourists will have had their eyeful, and even that reporter will probably try to follow them as they head west to Khabarovsk and beyond. But I will continue east, wait for the train, and get on at the next town.
The nearest village was Staynyy, only ten kilometers east along the line. He could get there in as little as two hours, and he did. The little depot there wasn’t much, but that was where he stayed, sleeping on a bench. Tired and hungry the next morning, he was now looking forward to the arrival of the train, where there would be warmth, food and more comfort, but something else unusual happened that morning—something very strange.
The sky was still aglow to the northeast when he saw a gleaming shape emerge from a cloud. It hovered in the sky, drawing ever nearer, fixating his attention. Mironov had never seen such a thing, and to him it would have been like the arrival of a UFO in the skies, so he was quite curious. It was the second time that curiosity would get the better of him. He saw that the craft was lowering very near the ground, and only a few kilometers north of Staynyy, so he could not help himself. As he approached the craft, he saw something lower from the great shape, which he now surmised was a massive airship. Such craft would not begin to fly commercially for another two years, but Mironov had heard of them, and reasoned that this was what he was now staring at.
The small metal basket lowered, and a group of men got out, all carrying weapons, which prompted Mironov to crouch low behind a tree. Three men started off west, back towards Ilanskiy. The remainder began to fan out, eventually disappearing into the trees around the small clearing. Soldiers… What would they be doing here? Might they be secret agents of the Okhrana? Is this how they were able to suddenly appear in these isolated places, seemingly everywhere. Did they travel in those massive airships? How is it he had never seen anything of the kind before?
He would soon be even more confused, for some time after the three men departed east, he had decided to head back to the little depot at Staynyy. Just as he rose to head back, there came a whooshing sound, then two, then three explosions. He turned, amazed to see the airship burst into flames, terrified to see the massive ship come crashing down into the clearing, burning fiercely. He watched, spellbound, frozen in place by the spectacle of that disaster. It was a point of divergence, for this had never happened to him before, and the history of these moments was now being rewritten. Would seeing this event change him in some unfathomable way? What happened next surely would.
Just as Mironov turned to retreat to the rail depot, he was confronted by a dour looking man in a black beret and soldier’s uniform, and he was holding a dangerous looking rifle, aiming it right at Mironov’s chest.
“Stand where you are,” the man said coldly. Then he touched something at his collar and spoke again, seemingly to someone else. “Komilov to Zykov. We have a witness.”
After questioning the reporter, Thomas Byrne, Fedorov and Troyak had searched the entire inn, and all through the railway yard area. People were arriving from Kansk, where the train took advantage of the delay to re-coal. The visitors had come to see the German race team, hearing they had stayed at the inn at Ilanskiy, and hoping to see the grand sendoff that morning, before they started heading east. That complicated their search, but it also gave Fedorov a chance to question several people, asking them if they had seen a man by Mironov’s description heading west on the road towards Kansk.
Preoccupied with the persistent red glow in the sky, no one could help him, and he was beginning to think his mission would now become an impossible search for Mironov, who could be anywhere by now. No, not anywhere. He had to be close at hand.
Think, he told himself. He can’t fly. The train is still at Kansk, and that is his only way out of here. I doubt he would have secured a horse or carriage, so he must be somewhere close by, and we must keep an eye on that train.
Then he got word from Zykov and his heart leapt. The Marines had been cleaning up the wreckage site, and Zykov called on his service jacket radio to report they had a man in custody that looked very much like the one in the photograph Fedorov had shown them.
They had Mironov!
Chapter 11
There he was, the same man, Fedorov. He was just sitting there at the same table where he had thought to share his breakfast with the man the day before. Yet somehow he seemed different, older, quiet, a sullen mood on him, as if some darkness had fallen on him, a shadow of gloom. The soldier that had herded Mironov in saluted.
“Thank you, Corporal,” said Fedorov. “See that every entrance is secured.”
Mironov looked around the room, seeing the broken windows boarded up, and noting the lower door to the back stairway was closed. His heart beat faster as he eyed that door, remembering how he had crept up after this very same man the previous day. That was a mistake, he realized now, for this man was obviously Okhrana. Perhaps he had been following him all along.