The Romanov Conspiracy (59 page)

Andrev scrambled over the fuel tender toward the engine cabin, trying to avoid the plume of hot smoke overhead.

The engine driver and his young boiler man had their backs to him, busy shoveling fuel into the raging furnace.

“Shut that furnace, gentlemen, and drop those shovels.” Andrev eased himself down to join them, raising his voice above the clatter of the engine wheels. “Do anything more than that and you risk a bullet.”

Terror lit the men’s faces when they saw the gun. They shut the furnace door with their shovels before tossing them on the floor pan.

“Good. Stay sensible and everyone ought to come out of this still breathing.”

Andrev gestured with the gun to the engine’s array of steam indicators and valves. “First, you’re going to show me how this thing works. Then you’re going to do exactly as I tell you.”

In the bedchamber, Yakov looked close to having a fit, his face crimson as he stared at Lydia.

“Who are you?”

“Why don’t we keep you in suspense?”

“Listen to me: this can have only one outcome—your deaths. Why not save yourself? You have my word you’ll be spared.”

“If you want to keep your kneecaps, I’d keep my mouth shut if I were you.”

The door near the coal tender burst open and Andrev came back. In his blackened hands he carried a sledgehammer and a long, thick steel rod. With him was the boiler man, a nervous beanpole of a young man with a coal-dirt face and soot-blackened clothes.

“Meet Pavel, the train driver’s son. He’s going to be my helper.”

Pavel was quaking as he wrung his cap in his hands. “He threatened to kill me and my father, Commissar. We … we had no choice.”

“What are you up to, Andrev?” Yakov raged.

Andrev held up the Trans-Siberian Railway map. “Have you any idea where we are? About three miles from the Menski Tunnel. It seems there’s a station crossing just before the tunnel, and it has a siding—a parallel track that veers off to a mining depot after a mile or so. The perfect opportunity for us to part company.”

Yakov’s face stiffened as he suddenly realized what was happening.

The train began to slow a little, and Andrev nodded to the boiler man. “You may as well tell him, Pavel.”

The young man anxiously licked his lips and nodded past the bedchamber door, toward the far end of the carriage. “He wants me to separate the rest of the train from the engine and your carriage.”

Andrev explained: “We’ll shunt the other carriages onto the track that runs alongside. It has a downward slope so they ought to keep moving for a distance. With any luck you’ll be stranded there while we travel on.”

Yakov was beside himself with frustration, struggling desperately to get out of the chair. “No … you can’t! You don’t know what you’re doing.”

Andrev grabbed a towel from the washbasin, put a hand on Yakov’s shoulder, and pushed him back down. “Don’t I?”

“No, you don’t understand—”

Andrev gagged Yakov’s mouth, tying the towel around it, as he continued to struggle, muttering behind the gag. “I understand all I need to, Leonid. And now I’ve heard enough.”

He nodded to Lydia. “The same rule applies. Shoot him if he tries to escape.”

The engine’s air brakes hissed, and the engine slowed almost to a trot.

Andrev jerked his gun at Pavel. “All right, let’s get this over with. Take the sledgehammer and the steel bar.”

Pavel hefted them both and moved to the door. Andrev readied his
weapon as Pavel opened the door to the passageway beyond the carriage. It was deserted. “Get to work,” Andrev ordered.

Pavel used the steel bar as a jimmy, unhooking the safety linkage, then he went at it with the hammer, knocking out the iron tie that bound the wagons together. The tie separated and clattered away under the tracks, hanging on a metal chain, as the engine and Yakov’s wagon started pulling ahead of the other carriages.

Pavel peered out. “The points are coming up.”

Andrev grabbed the bar from him and indicated the carriage steps leading down. “Off you go, I’m right behind you.”

Pavel jumped down, running ahead of the slow-moving train, the engine hissing. Andrev followed and they reached a set of points.

With Pavel’s help he inserted the bar into the points switch. When the engine and carriage passed them, they changed over the points.

Andrev removed the bar and they raced after Yakov’s carriage and struggled aboard.

They watched as the remaining carriages shunted onto the parallel line, then began picking up momentum on the downward slope.

Troops began to stare from their carriage windows. A few scratched their heads, wondering what was going on, seeing the engine and carriage on the other line.

Andrev said to Lydia, “Any moment now someone’s going to realize what’s happening and start shooting. Close the shutters just in case.”

Lydia began to slam them shut.

Yakov was still struggling in the chair, eyes bulging and face crimson, as if he were having a seizure.

“Time for us to part company, Leonid.”

In her compartment, Nina watched Sergey with growing dread. His breathing was shallow, his voice rasping, his coughing harsher with every passing minute.

Fraught with worry, she dabbed his sweat-beaded face with a cloth.

“Mama, it hurts …”

“I know, my love. We’re trying to get you to a hospital soon.”

“But it hurts
really
bad, Mama—” Sergey began coughing again, a terrible hacking sound that shook his entire body.

Her distress was beyond agony. One hand clutched Sergey’s fingers; her other wrung the cloth in the basin of cold water by her side, as she tried to cool his fevered brow. “It’ll be all right, my love. Mama’s here. Try to rest, Sergey. Try to—”

Her attention was caught briefly by a surprise movement beyond the window—another train slid slowly past her carriage on an adjoining track.

She paid it only the briefest attention because at that moment Sergey began to cough violently, and then to her horror she saw he was coughing up blood, crimson spewing onto his chest.

She stifled her scream with her hand so as not to frighten him, but then she jumped to her feet. As she yanked open the door in wild panic, the guards came alert, stared back at her. “Find the medic—please—my son needs help urgently …”

With Yakov still seated, Andrev yanked round the chair. He dragged it out through the bedchamber and into the carriage office. He halted by the exit door. “This is where we say our good-byes.”

Yakov resisted, muttering incoherently behind the gag, the veins on his neck bulging.

Andrev released the sheet that bound him to the chair but he left the gag in place and his hands tied. He yanked out his pistol, hauled Yakov to his feet, spun him toward the door, and opened it. A flight of metal steps descended, the tracks rushing away beneath.

“The tunnel’s coming up soon. Get moving.” Andrev yanked him by the scruff of his neck. “Ease yourself backward down the steps, unless you want to lose a leg in the fall.”

Yakov didn’t budge. The carriages with his men were already slowing to a walking pace, troops peering from the windows in curiosity, others coming out onto carriage steps, fingering their rifles, unsure what to do as they stared in utter confusion at the sight of the engine, coal tender, and Yakov’s carriage chugging away separately.

Andrev said, “Get off now, before I change my mind.”

The engine shuddered, then began to pick up speed.

Andrev forced Yakov at gunpoint to back down the steps, the tracks speeding away beneath him. “Now jump, before it’s too late.”

Andrev went to kick him away with his boot but even with his bound hands Yakov managed to cling on desperately, his protests mute behind the gag.

The train picked up more speed and the engine thrust forward with a powerful surge. Yakov lost his balance. He fell backward, tumbling away onto the darkened tracks.

Almost at once a ferocious volley of gunfire erupted as Yakov’s troops realized what was happening.

Andrev was forced to retreat into the carriage.

“Stay down!” he screamed at Lydia and Pavel, as a withering hail of bullets struck the carriage. The engine roared into the tunnel and was swallowed by the pitch darkness.

Yakov rolled along the tracks until he slammed into a hard wooden railway sleeper and grunted, the breath knocked out of him.

He struggled to his feet but immediately he bent double, coughing up bile. A clatter of feet sounded behind him as a handful of his men rushed up, carrying storm lamps, Zoba leading the way. One of them tore off Yakov’s gag and untied his hands.

Yakov was furious. “Andrev’s duped us again. He’s stranded us. The fool, what about his child?”

Zoba raised his lamp, his face grim. “It’s too late, Leonid.”