The Hunters

‘I’m not even sure what you’re talking about,’ the Frenchman said in his ear.

He sounded genuinely puzzled.

‘Jack,’ Jasmine said, frustration in her voice, ‘what are we doing?’

‘You saw the track we were on earlier, outside,’ Cobb explained. ‘It ended. Decisively. No hidden rails that would’ve let us push farther. Isn’t that right, Garcia?’

‘There was no iron anywhere up ahead,’ he agreed.

‘But this train got in here,’ Sarah stressed in their ears, ‘so there had to be more track at some point.’

‘And after they drove this train inside, that track was pulled up and removed, probably melted,’ Cobb said. ‘Getting the treasure out again would take a small, properly equipped army to replace a missing kilometer of rail — all the while being picked off by the members of the honor guard.’

‘Wait,’ Jasmine said. ‘Are you saying there’s another way out? That the Romanovs never had any intention of going back, but they gave themselves the option of going forward?’

‘I’ll let you know soon enough,’ Sarah offered.

Cobb checked his watch. ‘Garcia, is that Papi-cam dried out yet?’

A moment later Garcia replied. ‘Nope. Still not online.’

Cobb heard a snort from Papineau. Cobb felt a pinch of anger — not at the Frenchman’s reaction but about his secrecy. If he had told Cobb that there was a camera in the command centre, Cobb wouldn’t have short- circuited it and they could be getting valuable intelligence on the Black Robes right now. That was Papineau’s error, not his.

Cobb motioned for Jasmine to follow as he went to confer with Borovsky.

Grigori Sidorov, the leader of the Black Robes, was not happy.

‘I told you not to shoot at them!’ he shouted, banging the flat of his hand on the table in the command center of the train.

Vladimir Losovich held the Heckler amp; Koch 91 sniper rifle he had taken from the freight car. He cradled it as if it were his child. ‘We weren’t shooting at them,’ he grunted. ‘We were shooting at the horsemen.’

The Black Robes were crawling all over the train, looking for whatever they could use, examine, or loot. After they had piled up their dead and removed the net to make sure it wouldn’t get underfoot, a group of six went into the woods and tried to follow the trail. There was distant gunfire in the woods, but no indication of whose it was or what the result might have been. The majority of the Black Robes went back to the train.

Sidorov twisted his head toward the big, metal bracket holding the array of computer screens, where three Black Robes toiled. ‘Any progress breaking their security?’

The one on the right, watching the actions of the one hunched in the middle as if he were playing a video game, shrugged noncommittally.

Sidorov sat down heavily where Papineau and Cobb once sat. He dismissed Losovich with a wave of a hand. He let the hackers continue to click away as he surveyed the situation.

They were close. The body he had sought all his life was out there, just beyond his reach. But not for long. The biggest danger, if not the biggest impediment, was his own desperation.

He finally admitted it to himself. He wanted it so badly that he had been reckless in his attack. Over-eager. Part of that, too, was that he felt alone. He drew strength from the knowledge that Rasputin must have felt the same way. But I am just an aspirant, a pilgrim, a strannik.

Sidorov missed Kazan: not just the city but the people. He missed his palace. He had been feeling the withdrawal from sin more and more, the same way an addict felt the absence of drugs. He needed a fix soon, and the shooting of a few villagers and horses had not sufficed.

A slaughter, he thought distractedly. That would do. Finding these horsemen, their women, their children. Where were the six men he had sent out? Why had they not called, or sent a messenger, or returned? Could this golden opportunity be slipping away?

Sidorov pulled his phone from his coat pocket and pressed the button that immediately linked him with his offices. ‘Where are my reinforcements?’

‘They’ll be there soon, starets. We’ll double your numbers before dawn.’

Sidorov smiled. Although they were based in Kazan, the Black Robes were a powerful organization with recruiting posts in Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, and Romania. As luck should have it, one of their largest armories was located less than two hundred miles away.

‘And the vehicles I requested?’

‘We got you everything you asked for — and more.’

57

Cobb and Jasmine approached the Russian colonel, the woman police officer, the village elder, and the train engineer — who had joined them at the entrance of the cave.

'Я сожалею.' Cobb said in Russian. ‘I’m sorry.’

Jasmine was openly surprised at the preciseness of his accent. She would not have been surprised to learn that wherever Cobb went he filled his head with the basic vocabulary of the place, but speaking with the effortless tongue of a native was a different matter.

Borovsky sighed, his chin sinking to his chest. Decebal turned away and stared through the close-knit branches of the protecting trees, as if seeing the past, present, and future of his village. Only Dobrev and Anna didn’t understand the full import of what Cobb was saying.

‘Why?’ Anna asked through Jasmine. ‘What’s the matter? What have you done?’

‘I’ve brought an end to their obligations,’ he answered as Jasmine translated. He nodded toward the old men. ‘They feared it when they decided to talk with us rather than fight us. They knew it when the Black Robes appeared.’

‘It’s the war we’ve always prepared for, but one we’ve feared,’ Decebal said.

‘But can’t you just go?’ Anna pleaded with Cobb. ‘You are honorable people, are you not? Can’t you just lure the Black Robes away and let these people be?’

Borovsky shook his head. ‘He could lure them to the other end of the earth, but it would not be enough.’ He turned to Decebal and put a heavy hand on his shoulder. ‘It is time, my friend.’

Decebal hesitated.

Borovsky continued. ‘The treasure is no longer safe here.’

Decebal looked away from all of them, his face in his hand.

Borovsky turned to Cobb. ‘We will deal with the treasure later. But first we must protect these people, yes?’

Cobb nodded. ‘Yes. But first, a few questions. The train and the locomotive are still here. How did the prince and his entourage get out of here? Out of this region?’

Jasmine translated as Borovsky revealed, ‘The loyalists took the prince and four personal bodyguards by horse cart to a waiting boat, where they went to Bacau, Odessa, and finally Yalta.’

‘Why Odessa?’ Jasmine asked. ‘That was one of the hearts of the Revolution, the mutiny on the battleship Potemkin-’

‘It was chaotic, occupied by no fewer than five competing armies,’ Borovsky agreed. ‘They were too busy fighting each other to worry about another small, nondescript group of refugees making their way through the city.’

Jasmine paused, no longer translating. Her eyes were wide with wonder. ‘This is amazing, truly amazing historical information.’

‘Second question, Jasmine,’ Cobb said firmly. She closed her open mouth and nodded. ‘Those cauldrons back in the village, the ones they used to make our dinner. Pretty big. Where did the metal come from?’

Borovsky grinned. ‘The melted iron of train tracks. You have a good eye. Would you care to work for the Moscow police department?’

‘Maybe someday,’ Cobb said, smiling. ‘I’m guessing the village was here before the prince arrived. They