We drove around anxiously.
We did a lot of block circling and clock watching. We did a lot of silent praying and nervous fidgeting. We did a lot of slow driving past large warehouses, peering deep into shadows hoping to see a red van and finding none. We did a lot of wasting time.
The one thing we didn’t do a lot of was talking.
It was 11:00 p.m. The sky was clear and the air was chilly. The Red Square on a Saturday night was as social as anywhere, except that we were in the business area and it was dead. No trucks unloading. No cars parallel parked. No decision makers pacing the sidewalks. Anything out of the ordinary would have been spotted easily.
“This is a waste. We need to head back and wait with Belsay,” Frank suggested bitterly.
“No. Not yet.”
“We’re doing nothing. Turn around.”
“Not yet.”
“Now.”
“No.”
Frank’s huge form turned to me. He looked like a bull ready to charge. “Let me tell you something right now. I don’t give a damn about you and whatever wrongs you need to right. That’s done and over. You can’t change history. This is not about you! So turn this junk-wagon around and do something right for once in your life!”
I locked on the brakes. We skidded to a halt. I stared Frank down hard. “Shut up, Frank!” He made a fist the size of a coconut. “Turning back now only gives them another hour or so to do with them whatever the hell they want. And even if I don’t love Sally the way you do, I am not going to give them another minute with her. Or Palo. Or anyone else that someone tomorrow is going to be missing. So sit back and shut up or get out right now.”
Stare down. Neither of us blinked. Neither of us budged. Frank was mad enough to punch my head through the window. I was mad enough to take it.
Finally Frank turned back to his sitting position. He looked forward and said, “She’s out here. I can feel it. Keep driving.”
“We’re going to find them, Frank. Before it’s too late.”
I stomped the gas again and left some rubber on the pavement. We were quiet again. I felt the same way Frank did. Palo was somewhere close by. Scared. Maybe being abused. Maybe waiting another hour would kill her. I could almost hear her whispering my name like a prayer. My Hitman. I could see the twinkle in her eyes clouded over by tears.
I pounded my hands against the steering wheel. My heart ached. It was like the first week after Pamela had gone missing. It was hell all over again. I was out here searching in vain while she was busy being transported for sale, for slavery to a monster. Palo and Sally would suffer the same fate. Or worse.
I began yelling at God in my head for letting this happen again, for not giving me the right direction this time around. It wasn’t fair. Good people were going to suffer and I couldn’t stop it. I was going to fail again. Dirty Rotters were going to get away with murder again. And again and again. It was a viscous cycle that someone needed to stomp to death. I couldn’t take it anymore. I hated the whole world. I hated life itself. I’d rather be dead than to live in a world where there was no hope. Where the helpless went unavenged.
My thoughts were dark and fast. My blood was boiling. I wanted to scream. My foot sank down hard on the gas pedal. I turned a corner sharp and Frank’s bulky form slid almost in to me. He groaned something. But I was mad and I did it again at the next block. It reminded me of driving Palo around the previous night.
You are a crazy driver, Hitman.
Then it hit me.
“Train station!”
“What?”
“The train, Frank. He’s taking the train.” I did a U-turn in the middle of an intersection and backtracked with my lead foot. “A midnight run. The train runs behind the warehouses throughout the Red Square. He’s using the train!”
Frank said nothing. He held on tight. I threw caution out the window.
A sense of relief flooded through me. I knew I was right. It was going to be different this time. My hands wrapped tighter around the wheel.
God, thank you.
Frank saw the red van first. He pointed it out and sat poised like a viper ready to strike as we pulled into the train station and killed the lights. The van was parked off to the side, away from the tower and close to the yard. The parking lot had two trucks in it. It wasn’t well lit either. It wasn’t regular business hours. I assumed anyone there was finishing up for the night, heading home within the hour.
I parked in the dirt at the edge of the yard. The ground had a thin layer of mist hovering over it. There were a dozen rail tracks sweeping into the yard and eight of them were full of railcars, shot-gunned and facing north, towards the tower. Past the yard, there were two sets of tracks with a train on each, lined up in front of the tower and towing at least twelve railcars. Most were single door boxcars, covered hoppers, and tankers smothered in graffiti, but there were a few flatbeds mixed in hauling nothing.
We exited the warmth and comfort the SS had to offer and stepped silently into the chilly night air. Midnight was looming like the tower far to our left. Frank’s feet moved faster than I thought possible towards the van and I followed. It had no lights on, inside or out.
Our guns were drawn. Frank’s badge was on his jacket. Less conspicuous this way. He took the driver’s side, I went around behind it and came up on the passenger side. We pulled doors open at about the same time, thrusting our guns into the black interior. It was empty.
We wasted no time turning around and heading towards the tracks. We cut through the yard, away from the lights of the parking lot lampposts, and clung to the shadows, hoping to take them by surprise. The boxcars created somewhat of a maze. They were connected in long segments, leaving open gaps on the rails at sporadic intervals. Tracks connected to switches leading either off into the yard or to the terminal a football field away. We skipped looking with any interest at the railcars stationed in the yard. We crept as quietly as we could around the lines of them, heading towards the tracks. We could hear voices ahead, somewhere in the dark. A yardmaster speaking with a captain, perhaps.
Other voices came and went, lost in the gentle breeze. None were close enough for us to make out any words. But they were speaking Russian and this wasn’t a Russian owned territory.
We crouched down and moved quickly alongside a long line of tankers when one of the trains began coming to life. We couldn’t see it just then, but we knew we were close. I motioned with my head towards the sound of the train to Frank. We moved at a faster pace.
Then a figure materialized out of the night, heading right for us.
Frank and I turned towards him just about the same time he saw us. It was an odd meeting. The guy seemed more than just surprised. He stopped and stood motionless, wide eyed with a guilty look. He wasn’t Russian. He had a blue Detroit Tigers ball cap on and dingy blue uniform. His eyes looked at our weapons drawn then to Frank’s badge, then very obviously at the large manila envelope in his right hand. His hand pressed the envelope to his side gently. Out of sight, out of mind.
Then he stepped backward.
It was a universal sign for I’m getting the hell out of here. But he wasn’t. Frank’s arm extended real fast and the cannon in his hand aimed at the guy’s head. He put his hands up and didn’t move again. Another guilty submission.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
His eyes shifted around nervously. He said nothing.
Frank said. “You got two seconds.”
The guy looked like he had a giant secret he didn’t want to share. “Look man, you would’a done the same thing. Don’t give me that holier than thou treatment.”
“What are you talking about?” I said.
His face changed then, as if it dawned on him that we didn’t know what he had done. He wasn’t caught. Yet. He said nothing.
Frank grew angry. “Tell us who you are!”
“I run the yard.”
“What’s in the envelope?”
I answered for him. ??
?Money.” Frank looked at me. The other guy said nothing. “They’re paying him to look the other way.”
“Look, I ain’t got nothing to do with it. Okay? They paid us for the train, we took the money, no questions asked. Okay? I don’t know nothing.”
“Where’s the Russians now?” I growled.
“On the train.”
He said it like it was the only obvious answer. I supposed it was. “How many are there and where are they going?”
“I don’t know and I don’t know. They never say. They just show up, hand me the money, take the train for a ride and that’s it. When I come back in the morning, everything is here and everything is fine. So I don’t see the point-”
“Drop the money and get the hell out of here,” Frank said in cold breath.
No response. He didn’t budge.
“Now!”
The guy bolted. He was lost in the dark before Frank could exhale in anguish. Frank gave me a hard look. I shrugged it off. “We have bigger fish to fry.”
“It’s not smart to let him go,” Frank growled.
“I don’t care. We need to get to the train.”
Frank took a second, calmed a bit, then agreed.
We crept away at a fast walk along the railcar, staying in the shadows. About twenty yards somewhere in the dark past our line of vision, the engine of the train grew louder and there was a gasping of pressurized air releasing and a groaning of steal lurching forward. The train was moving.
“Go, Frank!”
No more secrecy. We ran. Our footsteps were loud as we raced away from the sitting railcars into an open area where the ground was covered in larger gravel rocks. Bubble wrap would have been quieter. We moved straight to the trains.
Two trains were on the tracks. The one closest to us was longer thus blocking the one behind it, the one in motion. We had to run around it. Running across the rocks was sloppy and awkward and slow. Almost like running in soft sand. I could feel time slipping away with every step. But we were making ground on the train. It was long and not up to speed yet. We were going to catch it in time to jump aboard.
We cleared the first train and I saw a shadow out of the corner of my eye moving towards me. I turned in time to react. I ducked quickly as a man dressed in all black swung a pipe at my head. It missed and his momentum sent him nearly spinning to the ground.
Frank was a step behind me and tore into the attacker instantly. Huge arms swung massive fists faster than I could follow. The guy went down and didn’t get up. I turned away from the beating and walked into my own. There were three guys wearing dark clothes. I was tackled and sent down hard into the loose gravel. A guy sat on my chest and I fought to get him off. I heard the sounds of footsteps sinking into the rocks racing away, quickly followed by Frank’s voice, then the smacking sound of bone against flesh. The guy on my chest had plans on hitting my face but I had enough of that already. I blocked his assault and fought him back with everything I had. He was tough. He was probably used to working on engines or something. I heard Frank cursing like a drunk sailor somewhere behind me. The Russians had taken him down.
I grabbed the Russian’s wrists as he sought to strangle me and planted my thumbs into the center hard. His fingers relaxed their grip. I grabbed his hands then and twisted them around until I heard bones snap. He screamed. Frank screamed too. It was ugly. I sent my right knee up into the groin of my attacker and then tossed him off me. He spun around on his back crying, cuddling his broken wrists to his chest. I stood up and realized that I had dropped my gun. In the dark, I didn’t see it anywhere. I walked over to the guy on the ground crying. My foot hovered over his face. Lights out. His crying stopped.
Frank yelled, “Get on the train!”
I turned back and saw Frank fighting hard. He was about twenty yards away, on his back with two Russians on him, whaling away. I hesitated. He yelled at me again. I could hear the train a few yards away picking up speed. Frank was screaming at me.
“Get on the train!”
Out of the darkness two more figures appeared, piling down upon Frank. I recognized one of them as the guy holding the envelope filled with cash. I lost Frank in the mess of flailing limbs. I started towards him when I saw the flash of light and heard the boom from his cannon. Frank emerged, tossing off him the dead Russians. One shot. Four dead. Frank was furious. He was yelling at the dead, praising his gun, and urging me to catch the train before it was too late.
So I did.
I turned from him and ran. The nose of the train was driving past the stationary train beside me. I saw boxcars in motion, then a flat bed. I ran hard in the loose gravel, but it felt impossible. More and more cars were passing as the train was picking up speed.
I looked back for Frank then. He wasn’t much farther along than where I had left him, fighting two more men. Russians, I guessed, by their kicking attacks. Frank was getting beat.
“Frank!”
Then Frank went down, lost in a pile of thrashing limbs and shadowy movements. I started to run back to him, when he screamed to me. “Get to the train! The train!” Then Frank was back on his feet, fighting for his life.
The train was picking up speed now. If we didn’t get on it now, we wouldn’t be able to. I stopped where I was and did nothing. I could see Frank fighting three big figures, his hands were full. And then there was the train, slipping away. I had a hard time leaving Frank to fend for himself. Indecision was costing me precious seconds.
“The train! Go! Do it!” Frank pleaded. He fought hard. I saw the other figures punching and kicking him, and just as quick as he sent one sprawling to the gravel, another was up and going in for the kill. “Save Sally! Do it! Do it for me!”
Left alone, Frank could die. The train leaves and Sally and Palo would be as good as dead. Frank was right. The train. I had to go. I turned my back on a guy in need and ran my legs as hard and fast as they could go. I felt guilty right away. But I didn’t look back. The train was picking up speed and I was losing ground fast.
I cleared the stationary train and then had a clear view of the train I was pursuing. About a dozen railcars were ahead of me pulling away and four were left, steadily passing me. I knew right away that I had no chance at the third or fourth car. I cut sharp to the left and angled my sprint, hoping to catch the second to last car at about ten yards ahead. It was like a quarterback throwing a touchdown pass, leading the receiver. It was about precision. I ran like hell and breathed in the cool night air until my lungs ached and I thought I would vomit.
The rocks were sloppy and my feet sank with every step. It wasn’t easy. And I wasn’t fast to begin with. The car I had planned on intercepting was moving out of range. The further away from the station, the less their lights shined and the more the night consumed. I saw ladders at the front and ends of the cars rung up to the tops, right above the set of steel wheels and the graffiti. I angled to the left and grabbed a handle on the ladder of the last car. I had to speed up my pace, then make the jump, planting both hands on the ladder and stepping onto the bottom rung inches away from the wheels.
I was sweating hard all over. I looked back and saw a blur of bodies in motion.
Frank!
Suddenly a shot fired. It was loud and it scared me. I saw the muzzle blast bright in the darkness. I figured the worst—Frank was outnumbered and they shot him. I was wrong. Three more shots followed, small bursts of light in the night. Bodies fell into the mist. Then the lone figure broke into a sprint, heading for the train fleeing the stations. I knew it was Frank. He was coming for his woman. I pictured his face to be a mask of determination and anger, sweat and blood. He wouldn’t give up. I understood. I held on tight and watched his dark form slowly fade back into the night. He was too late.
The train was really moving now. The wind was blowing in my face and it was cold. It dried my sweat within seconds.
I climbed up the ladder onto the top of the single door boxcar. I stared forward, into the cold wind. My eyes watered. I squint
ed. The train stretched out in front of me like a black anaconda. Somewhere in its belly was a vermin.
Time to go.
Vladimir was waiting.
Chapter 23