Chapter Eleven.

Settling into their compartment, Karyn gazed out of the open window back along the platform. This, in itself was something of a novelty. Most of the windows were permanently locked, but their compartment actually had a key for opening them. As she watched, the Provodnitsas were slamming the coach doors, pausing briefly for the last few passengers to board. Here and there, a soldier leaned out of a coach window to give a farewell kiss to his girl, teetering on her tiptoes on the platform. Against the backdrop of the swirling steam, it was just like some scene out of the Englishman Noel Coward's recent one-act play: "Still Life."

At exactly 8pm, the huge iron and glass train-shed roof echoed with the shriek of the conductor's whistle as he waved his baton to the engineer, and a great hiss of steam billowed out as the locomotive regulator lever was thrown open, building steam pressure into the piston chests. Slowly; with the great piston rods thrusting the locomotive driving wheels forward, the Trans-Siberian Express eased out into the night, with the couplings complaining and shuddering as the coach bogie wheels began to roll. As the train gathered momentum, weaving a tortuous path through the spider web of tracks; clacking and clattering over the tangle of points and sidings cluttered with rolling stock; Karyn gazed out across the endless, ugly landscape of industrial sprawl hidden behind the beautiful old Terminal. How different to the face of the city that she had seen so far. This eyesore stretched for several kilometres to the north from Yaroslavsky Rail Terminal… no bright lights here… just the endless, dark heart of industrial Moscow. Here and there; she glimpsed the flash of a welding torch; the glow of a furnace shining brazenly into the night.

Gathering speed; the blast of exhausted steam settled to a deep, throbbing "chuffing" sound as it billowed out of the piston chests of the locomotive and escaped the engine through the locomotive chimney into the night. A curious sensation of bouncing, which, at first had been barely noticeable, was beginning to become more pronounced. Sacha said that it was due to the way that the permanent way was laid on the roadbed. In most other countries, the trains swayed... in Russia, they bounced. The story was that when the railway was being built, they didn't stagger the rail fittings, but laid them parallel; which was why the coaches bounced, instead of swaying. The click-clack of the wheels over the rail joints settled to a rhythmic, metallic drumming, broken only by the occasional clatter as the wheels passed over some odd set of points.

Karyn saw that Sacha was gazing pensively out of the window. Something was troubling him. She took his hand and asked,

'A kopek for your thoughts, Milaya moya; what's the matter?'

Sacha looked at her; she saw the worry in his eyes.

'Yezhov is playing a double-cross. He ordered me to kill you when this thing is over.'

Karyn smiled gently;

'I guessed as much. Von Herwarth informed me that Berlin expects me to do the same to you.'

Sacha sighed;

'So; what are we to do? Chernikova and Nikolin say they are with us, but how the hell can we make sure that neither Moscow nor Berlin get what they want? How can we trust anyone?

Their conversation was interrupted by a knock on the door of the compartment. Karyn reached into the brown briefcase and slipped the little Walther PPK out of its holster; flicking off the safety and easing back the hammer. Sacha opened the door carefully. There, stood Chernikova. He had changed out of his uniform into a plain linen, long Kosovorotka shirt; belted over baggy trousers, and felt boots. He looked every inch a Taiga farmer. He shouldered into the compartment and sat on the lower bunk. He smiled; a careful smile, saying:

'Anton and I have done a sweep of the train. We don't think there are any NKVD shadows on board, but you never can be quite sure about these "svolochi." Any one of these passengers might be trailing us. We just need to stay alert.'

Sacha and Karyn looked at each other. With Chernikova and Nikolin as their bodyguards, there seemed little to worry about. The GUGB was noted for its efficiency, and although Karyn and Sacha were unaware of the fact that they were anything other than Warrant Officers; Chernikova and Nikolin were attached to the Fifth Directorate, Third Department… the Internal Security Special Forces Section. The "Provodnitsa" of their coach was a twenty-five-year-old girl named Donya Jelavich. She was also a GUGB operative from the Fifth Directorate. She had been placed there specifically as support, by Chernikova. He had locked his PPD-34 sub-machine gun away in the service locker of the her coach and drawn a Bowden cable-operated Korovin TK pistol which she had brought from Moscow Headquarters, and was now concealed up the baggy sleeve of his Kosovorotka shirt.

He produced a bottle of Smirnoff vodka; took a deep swig and passed it to Karyn. She took a decent swallow; feeling the fiery liquid course down her throat, then passed the bottle to Sacha who copied her. He handed the bottle back to Chernikova who took another deep swig, and stood up. He moved to the door, saying that they should lock it behind him; and bidding them goodnight, stepped outside into the corridor. Sacha locked the door and turned to Karyn.

'Top or bottom bunk?'

He said, with a smile. She raised an eyebrow;

'D'you think we can both fit in the bottom one? It's sure to be a cold night, and a snuggle would be lovely.'

The lower berth of the compartment was placed transversely; and the upper one; on the side away from the corridor; was built longitudinally. This arrangement allowed for more than enough head and floor space in the roomy compartment. Undressing, they settled themselves into the narrow lower bunk. She lay, with her head on his shoulder and her arms about him. In a little while, she moved; easing her leg across his hips and rolling on top of him. Sacha smiled.

'I thought you said you wanted a snuggle.'

Karyn smiled as she traced her fingertips across his lips.

'I do… later.'

The express thundered on eastwards through the night. When they awoke the next morning, they were already between Gorky and Kirov, having crossed the Volga in the early hours of the morning. There was a soft tap on the door and the rattle of a pass key in the lock. Their Provodnitsa, Donya Jelavich slipped in with two tall glasses of tea. She smiled, and wished them good morning, saying she had reserved the washing facilities at the rear of the coach for them in ten minutes. The dining car would be open in half an hour for them to take breakfast.

A little later, there came another tap on the door. It was Anton Nikolin. He had come to escort each of them to the rudimentary washing facilities at the far end of the coach. Karyn went first, noting the bulge under Nikolin's loose shirt, where he had shoved his Tokarev into his waistband. These GUGB boys certainly didn't take any chances.

The corridor was strewn with passengers all doing what they seemed to do to pass the time… standing in the narrow passageways looking through the windows, gazing at the endless scenery; and occasionally discussing such profound matters as a hawk attacking a large unidentified bird; a shepherd on horseback; peasants fishing in some river; or the flash of a railroad sign in Russian and Yiddish; and log cabins and little wooden huts called "Izbas" built to withstand the sixty below zero cold of winter.

The washroom was a spartan affair; a steel sink and lavatory bowl with a steel seat, with a hole in the floor to drain away spilt water. The water supply for the sink dribbled tepidly from a creaking, clanking brass tap. It was piped from the little furnace built into each coach to a tank beneath each coach, and the icy slipstream cooled the water to a sort of vaguely warm temperature. And this was July!

The toilet flushed half-heartedly... perhaps in protest at the maintenance man who beat it with a sledgehammer every morning to clear any ice build-up. How the hell they managed to flush the lavatory in the dead of winter really didn't bear thinking about. The lavatory paper wasn't much better… a sort of coarse, cheap Russian sandpaper-like roll that looked as if it had been made out of mashed birch chippings. Karyn shuddered at the thought. However, there was the usual wad of cut-up newspaper skewered on a nail for the less adventurous types.

Ten minutes later, they were elbowing their way towards the restaurant car. Each coach connecting walkway was an adventure in itself. Each coach was connected by a draughty hull of slippery metal plates made more precarious by piles of coal which were shovelled on at station stops as fuel for the individual furnaces providing each coach with heat and hot water for the washrooms. These walkways swayed and creaked as if, at any moment, they would part company.

Seven coaches later, they arrived and entered the restaurant car. It gave off a vague hint of what could once have been stately Tzarist grandeur, hinting at culinary promise. The seats were battered and worn leather, the tables were dulled and stained mahogany. Washed-out silk curtains of some indeterminate colour festooned the windows, and there were wilting flower arrangements on the tables. Altogether, it was a brave effort to mimic what a restaurant car should be. Unfortunately, it didn't quite succeed.

Sacha and Karyn; together with Chernikova and Nikolin, were ushered to a table in the far corner of the restaurant car. There were few other passengers there. A young waitress presented them with a thick, lacquered menu printed in Russian. As Chernikova worked through the menu, she replied flatly to each item, "Da," or "Nyet," as to what was available. Eventually, he ordered Salami, curd cheese; boiled eggs, porridge and bread… no culinary delight, but necessary, heavy, calorie-rich food to ward off the cold, which even now, as they approached the Urals, was only a couple of degrees above freezing outside at nine o'clock in the morning.

Three hours to go, and they would arrive at Kirov Station... nine-hundred-and-seventeen-kilometres from Moscow. Chernikova and Nikolin decided to linger in the restaurant car, with tea and vodka, while Karyn and Sacha moved to the next car forward, where they passed some time in the corridor gazing out of the window at the endless grasslands unrolling before them. Chernikova had suggested this course of action. This way, they would blend in with the other passengers.

Anton Nikolin had said that the chef and waitresses in their tiny kitchen worked a twelve-hour shift. No one went hungry, but it was more practical to try for two, rather than three meals a day. He also said that he knew the chef, and had arranged that something special would be on the menu for them, tonight. Karyn and Sacha were curious; Chernikova had already said that evening meals were not a culinary high spot. What they were unaware of, was that Anton Nikolin; before he was recruited into the GUGB; had been Chief Sous-chef at the famous Savoy Hotel Restaurant in Moscow, on the corner of Rozhdestvenka and Pushechnaya Streets, just a stone's throw from the Bolshoi Ballet.

There were three stops between Gorky and Kirov. They had slept through the first one; and at the others, the train was only stationary for a couple of minutes… too short a time to leave the coaches. Karyn and Sacha stood at the window for a while, gazing at the interminable birch woods. Soon, these gave way to farmland and the first sprinkle of the rural outskirts of Kirov. Slowly, the urban sprawl thickened into ugly corrugated iron and wooden workshops, sidings occupied by freight trucks with rusty wheels that looked as if they hadn't been moved for years; and the odd, derelict locomotive. Kirov, it seemed, was not going to be an attractive place.

As the Trans-Siberian Express began to slow, the view changed to factories, petrol refinery tanks, and tall chimneys belching yellow and ochre smoke… another industrial wasteland sprinkled with ugly tenements looming over older, wooden dwellings. Karyn looked at Sacha; what a dump. But then; as if by magic, the industrial sprawl thinned. As they came into Kirov proper, the old, elegant buildings started to appear. The locomotive was coasting now as it approached Kirov station, steam hissing and venting from the piston steam chests as the engineer began applying the brakes.

Kirov station was big and busy. It was also an important railway repair centre on the European part of the Trans-Siberian Railway... the main line connecting Moscow with Vladivostok on the Pacific coast. The thirty or forty tracks beside the station all seemed to be occupied by trains. Only the first two railway tracks had passenger platforms. If a train arrived on the twenty-ninth track, then its passengers had no choice, but to cross twenty-eight tracks by crawling on all fours under the standing trains. Because the lavatories in both trains and station were few, primitive, and usually blocked, these tracks were usually covered with fresh or frozen excrement. The empty tracks were dangerous. On these lines, people were occasionally killed as they attempted to cross to the station building, by trains passing through the station at full speed.

The Station seemed to be in the process of re-construction. A further two storeys were being added to what must have been the original building. The platform was thronged with food sellers and Babushki… the old platform ladies peddling roast potatoes, boiled chicken, "Belyashi"… pastries containing meat and onion; and, if you were lucky… "Pryanik"… honey cakes. They were selling eggs at five kopeks each, and cans of sardines and other fish at what would be considered high prices in Berlin or Moscow. Dressed in headscarves, most of them had red faces, bright blue eyes, and strong, scarred hands. Many sold stews and boiled vegetables, cooked in their kitchens and kept warm on the engine of the communal lorry that picked them up for the trip to the station. Others walked the platforms with pale cheeses, brown curled sausages; smoked fish, and leather-skinned rye breads. The food itself and the rough and ready wrappings of brown paper looked unappetising.

Even before the Express had halted; their Provodnitsa, Donya Jelavich had thrown open the coach rear door, and Anton Nikolin had jumped down and was sprinting for the food vendors like a startled Snow hare. It seemed that "First come-first served" was definitely the order of the day, here! The other travellers swarmed out of the coaches after him, thronging, and shoving. Those who didn't would have to pay over the odds as the supplies diminished. The train would remain here for about fifteen minutes while they changed the locomotive and crew.

As the time to depart drew ever nearer, the more sprightly of the old Babushki came to the coach doors and windows offering hot food… potatoes, dumplings, meat and fish, pastries and biscuits; cursing the maintenance wheel tappers if they got in the way of making a sale. Tasha Chernikova said that if you were quick, you could get a three-course meal served through your compartment window, and it would be of much better quality than the offerings from the restaurant car! Anton returned; his arms piled high with the crumpled brown paper bags. He smiled,

'Got the lot; we'll eat well tonight'

He said with a laugh.

He stowed his booty away in Donya's locker and went to talk to the chef. Tasha had brought out another bottle of Smirnoff vodka. He offered it to Karyn and Sacha. They thanked him, but said it was a little early for them. Tasha shrugged.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

'I can see that I'm going to have to teach you two to drink like proper Russians. Out here, it's never too early to get pissed… there's fuck-all else to do!'

He was interrupted by the blast of steam escaping the locomotive steam chests. The monotonous clang of the wheel tappers hammers faded as they finished checking the last coach bogies, and with a creak of couplings, and the slamming of doors, the Trans-Siberian Express eased out of Kirov station. The old, elegant heart of the city soon gave way to industrial buildings and shacks as the train gathered speed. It wasn't such a wasteland on the eastern side of the city, but it was still a depressing sight. Sidings, rail complex junctions, gantries, and dingy rolling stock littered this side of the station, and endless workshops and sheds slipped past. Soon, they were rattling over the great iron bridge spanning the wide Vyatka River. The land on the other side of the bridge slowly became more rural; a scattering of Dachas and farms; slightly hillier, fewer towns; vegetable fields amid the woods, and few roads fading to the wide-open flat landscape dotted with the limitless birch woods. It would be three hours to the next real civilisation… Zuevka; and this was just a small non-stopping station with an ancient locomotive depot.

As the Express thundered on, Tasha re-appeared. He had worked his way through half the bottle of Smirnoff, but didn't seem too much the worse for wear because of it. Leaning against the corridor wall, he said,

'Six more hours and we'll be coming into Balezino. We can stretch our legs there for a while they change locomotives and crews again. We'll be in the next time zone there, and will be one hour forward of "train time."

The express was speeding through forests of towering fir and barren birches. They noticed that most of the line did not have the automatic signalling familiar on other railways. Instead, there were relays of signal huts. Suddenly, out of an immensity of space and brooding forest, there would appear a tiny wooden hut in the middle of nowhere, and for no apparent reason, the Express would slow to a crawl with the wheels emitting a monotonous "click-clack, click-clack," as it passed the hut with a man or woman standing just outside its doorway holding up a pole with either a plain yellow or red disk attached to the end. These were signals to the locomotive engineer announcing whether the tracks ahead were clear… yellow, if they were… red, if they were not.

Karyn and Sacha gazed out of the corridor window watching the countryside for a while, and then returned to their compartment to study the maps that had been put into the brown briefcase that she had been given at the Embassy in Moscow.

Balezino was one thousand, one hundred and ninety-two kilometres from Moscow. It was a smallish settlement, dependent on its railway and agricultural collectives. There were two station buildings; the first was the old wooden one, built at the turn of the century, and the new modern, ugly square concrete and glass one was still unfinished. Not much to see… apart from the sprawl of sidings, but at least a chance to stretch the legs and see what food the old Babushki might be peddling. The Express would remain here for about thirty minutes, and the high spot for the passengers would seem to be watching the locomotive being changed again, while a new crew was being allocated.

Tasha Chernikova had wandered off to haggle for more bottles of Vodka, and Anton Nikolin was deep in negotiations with the Chef. Karyn and Sacha strolled down the rudimentary platform in company with Donya Jelavich. She was a pretty girl with high, Slavic cheekbones, deep blue eyes, and blonde hair. She didn't say much about her GUGB affiliations; only that Chernikova and Nikolin were the best. She came from the little town of Sofrino, some forty-five kilometres to the northeast of Moscow.

She had joined the Trans-Siberian Express at Moscow-Yaroslavskaya, as a normal passenger, and assumed her role as "Provodnitsa" of their coach as the train passed through Mytishchi station junction, eighteen kilometres to the north of Moscow-Yaroslavskaya, where the Trans-Siberian line turned to the east. She had been thoroughly briefed by Tasha Chernikova, and had checked and double-checked the passengers on the entire train. She was certain there were no NKVD shadows on board at this stage, but you could never be absolutely certain.

She carried a Korovin TK pistol tucked into her skirt waistband, and, with a chilling smile, announced that she was also equipped with a supply of "Approved Special Equipment"... assassination tablets containing Ricin... derived from the Castor Bean which was grown in Southern Russia on the Kuban River around the city of Krasnodar, a little to the north of the Black Sea. This poison, which had no known antidote; was easily purified from castor-oil manufacturing waste. It was said to be six-thousand-times more toxic than cyanide. The tablets had been produced by the first poison laboratory within the Soviet Secret Services, which had been established under the name "Special Office" in 1921.

If she uncovered any unwelcome "guests," the poison could be administered in the tall glasses of tea served to them in their compartment. It was tasteless, and the tablets dissolved easily in liquid. The victims would take anything between two, and thirty-six hours to die… depending on their physical condition. They could be disposed of, by simply throwing them out of the coach door at night into some suitably wooded stretch where they would not be found for months, perhaps years. She said all this in an unconcerned, amiable tone that caused Karyn and Sacha to shudder. Donya Jelavich smiled,

'Time to start back. The train will be leaving in a few minutes.'

And moved unconcernedly back down the platform, calling her charges away from the food stalls to rejoin her coach.

At precisely seven o'clock… six o'clock Moscow time, the Trans-Siberian Express eased out of Balezino station and gathered speed as it headed east. There would only be one more station… Kez; before they reached the Urals and that was nearly fifty kilometres away. Karyn and Sacha were unnerved by what Donya Jelavich had said. These GUGB really were ruthless. Their thoughts were shattered by the appearance of Anton Nikolin calling them to the restaurant car. He ushered them in and led them to a far table where Tasha was already seated. The restaurant car was virtually empty, save for a couple of men snoring in the corner. Anton settled them and brought out two bottles of Moskovskaya Osobennaya vodka… that same brand that old Sergei had found in Minsk. Sacha laughed,

'Where the hell did you find that in this God-forsaken place?'

Anton laughed and tapped his nose with his forefinger.

'GUGB contacts, Comrade Sacha; GUGB contacts!'

He poured four charkas and made the toast. Then, banging the Charka upside down on the table, he went into the tiny kitchen to get his first surprise. He returned with a large tray of "Cheboureki"… small fried pies with meat filling. He placed four on each of their plates and sat down. He said they were a Caucasian dish, filled with finely ground beef and pork, and seasoned with onion, salt, and pepper. They were traditionally served with beer, but the beer on this train was as weak as mosquito piss, so a decent vodka was the order of the day. They were delicious, and soon, the plates were empty.

The next course was his speciality. He gave a secretive smile and moved towards the kitchen. In a little while, he returned carrying a huge, covered cast-iron cooking pot. Placing it in the centre of the table, he lifted the lid with a flourish worthy of his previous existence in Moscow's finest restaurant. A delicious aroma filled their corner of the restaurant car. One of the young waitresses followed him with a large bowl piled high with fluffy mashed potatoes. Anton smiled,

'Beef Stroganoff, as served at The Savoy. There's far too much for us, so I've invited the restaurant car staff to join us, if that's OK with the rest of you.'

The Chef and his two young waitresses came across to the table, having locked the restaurant car door behind them. The Chef, Valentin, and the two waitresses, Larisa and Yuliya, pulled another table up and sat down. The girls waited timidly for Anton to spoon great heaps of the creamy mash onto the plates, followed by a good helping of the Stroganoff. It was doubtful that they had ever tasted such a superior dish. Valentin stood up and moved to the kitchen. He returned with four bottles of Siberian vodka; and as the Stroganoff was consumed and the charkas filled, and re-filled, the two waitresses were becoming pink-cheeked and increasingly coquettish. By the time the dessert was due, they were all over Anton and Tasha.

Dessert was a Ukrainian speciality… apricot and walnut "Varenikis," stuffed with dried apricots and crushed walnuts, then sprinkled with a cinnamon-crumb topping drizzled with hot, melted country butter. After these were consumed, the gathering turned into a serious drinking session. The vodka flowed and the toasts showered around the table as the express thundered on into the fading evening light.

At length, with the chef Valentin dead drunk and snoring on the table, it was decided that they had better break up the party. Karyn and Sacha walked unsteadily to the door, followed by Anton and Tasha each supporting a giggling waitress. It seemed certain that neither would be collapsing into a solitary bunk, this night. Somehow, they all managed to accomplish their compartments without falling over. As Anton and Tasha helped the girls into their compartment, Karyn turned to bid them goodnight and glimpsed the dimly lit little wooden station at Kez flash past the corridor window. By morning, they would be through Perm, and into the Urals… and another time zone.

The following morning, 06.40am, Moscow time; Saturday, 30th July 1938, Karyn and Sacha were awakened by the clang of the wheel-tappers' hammers on the bogies of their stationary coach. With the changes in the time zones, it was actually 08.40am, local time. Feeling distinctly fuzzy from the previous night's binge, Sacha pulled up the blind on the compartment window and blearily gazed outside. They were at Sverdlovsk. Here, the locomotive and crew were changed yet again. They had slept as the express had crossed through the Urals.

No matter; Tasha had said they were paltry mountains at the point where the train traversed them; and completely unspectacular... nothing like the ranges that one would expect to separate Europe and Asia; just some snowy hillocks crowned by anaemic-looking spruce trees. The Europe-Asia border Obelisk near the town of Zlatoust would now be about forty kilometres behind them, to the west of Sverdlovsk. This marked the border between the two continents. A shame they'd slept through it, but Tasha had explained that it was not particularly impressive either; just a grey granite obelisk enclosed by a low, ornamental chain and post circle.

At Sverdlovsk, the Trans-Siberian line ran south as far as Chelyabinsk before turning east again. Sverdlovsk station was a pink brick, cream pillared, friezed affair stretching for some four-hundred-metres along the southern side of the rail complex. Pierced through with arched windows grouped in threes, with three flat-topped, hipped roofs separated by two groups of three dormer windows, it was actually pleasing to the eye… which was not the case with many Russian stations.

As usual, there were the throng of vendors on the platform, and, yet again; at the front of the train they were changing the locomotive. Across the tangle of tracks north of the station building, they counted six through tracks, with at least an dozen more further north that made up the maintenance and marshalling complex. A little further down the tangle of tracks were a sprawl of locomotive sheds and an actual locomotive turntable… the first one they had seen on the eighteen-hundred-kilometre journey from Moscow. It would be a twenty-minute stop here.

There was a soft tap on the door. Opening it, they were greeted by Donya Jelavich carrying a tray containing two glasses of tea and several rounds of "Grenki "… a favourite Russian breakfast item, which in the west, would be called "Eggy Bread," or "French Toast." This variety was sprinkled with melted "Tvorog,"… a rural curd cheese that she had picked up from one of the old Babushki out on the platform. She smiled and bid them good morning, then closing the compartment door behind her; said that two suspicious looking characters had boarded the train ten minutes ago. They held a "First Class" rail warrant… which was unusual for anyone who was not obviously official; and she had put them in the last compartment of her coach, where she could keep them under surveillance. She couldn't be sure if they were NKVD, but her instincts told her they were just that. She would report to Anton and Tasha when they untangled themselves from the embrace of their respective waitresses; but, in the meantime, she would keep a cautious eye on the two newcomers.

She asked if Karyn or Sacha were armed. Karyn showed her the little Walther PPK and the Nagant. Donya nodded and opening the door, reached into the corridor. When she turned back to them, they saw she held a PPD-34 sub-machine gun; the same weapon with which Anton and Tasha were issued. She said the drum magazine was the latest type, and was loaded with its content of seventy-one, high-power, Czech-manufactured, TT special rounds. Its rate of fire was eight hundred rounds per minute, and a two second burst would cut anyone in half at close range. If the two newcomers came visiting, an unobstructed burst into the corridor would probably blow them straight through the corridor wall out onto the tracks. She handed the sub-machine gun to Sacha who studied her with a worried expression.

'Is this really necessary? Won't the handguns be sufficient?

She replied that they would not. The NKVD didn't piss about. He should know all about that. She showed him how to cock the weapon, and said that he should put his supporting hand under the ammunition drum rather than around the slotted cooling tube that sheathed the barrel…unless he wanted to burn his fingers. Sacha carefully took the weapon and laid it gingerly on his bunk. Donya turned to leave the compartment, and with a bright smile, said that the next major stop would be at Tyumen, where the locomotives and crew would be changed once again. Tyumen was the oldest city in Siberia, three-hundred-or-so kilometres further east, and something like five hours away.

She closed the compartment door behind her, and they heard her banging on the door of Chernikova and Nikolin's compartment. Faintly, through the adjoining wall they heard bumps and thumps, sprinkled with several Russian profanities as the two men disentangled themselves from their respective waitresses. Sacha laughed…

'Well, they seem to have had a good night.'

Karyn smiled, and kissed him,

'So did we, Laskovaya moya… so did we.'

Later, having breakfasted, and washed in the cramped washroom, Karyn and Sacha joined Anton and Tasha in the empty restaurant car. Spreading the maps out, they began tracing their proposed route into the Taiga from Irkutsk. There would be plenty of time to finalise this… Irkutsk was still three-thousand, four-hundred kilometres to the east… another three days. Occasionally a non-stopping country station would flash past, Beloyarskiy… Bogdanovich… Kamyshlov; then Pyshma and Tugulym. Different styles of stations, large and small, stretched out across grassland and rising high ground as the express thundered on towards Tyumen, the first major city east of the Urals; the oldest town in Siberia, and a clearing centre over the years for millions of exiles being sent to the east.

Eventually; as the train began to slow, the maps were folded and put away, and Karyn, Sacha and their companions moved towards the door. Valentin the chef emerged from the cramped kitchen. He looked terrible. Anton laughed.

'Morning, Tovarishch; a little fragile, this morning?'

Valentin glared at him.

'You Cossack bastard. Why did you let me sink so much, last night?'

Anton laughed again,

'Remember the old saying: "The first charka comes like a stick in your throat, the second flies in like a falcon, the others just dive like small birds." Anyone would think I was forcing you to drink, you drunken old proletariat bugger.'

Valentin snorted,

'Fuck off. I feel rough!'

As they left the restaurant car, they met the two waitresses, Larisa and Yuliya, who had spent the night with Anton and Tasha. Karyn said good morning to them, which caused them to blush furiously. As Anton squeezed past Yuliya, he squeezed her bottom as she looked coyly up at him. Then they were past, with the girls scampering into the tiny kitchen, giggling. So, Anton had spent the night with Yuliya, and Tasha with Larisa.

Back at the compartment, Sacha called Tasha Chernikova inside. He held out the sub-machine gun.

'Lock this away for now, with yours, will you? I don't like the thought of leaving it in the compartment while we've stopped.'

Tasha gave a grin.

'A little something from Donya Jelavich, I suppose? She doesn't piss about, does she?'

Sacha smiled,

'Funny, she said the same thing about these supposed NKVD shadows.'

Tasha nodded,

'She would. Her family were exiled three years ago. There was some trumped-up charge against her father. He was a Deputy on the Central Executive Committee of The Supreme Soviet until Yezhov got him. She doesn't know if her family is alive or dead. Donya Jelavich is a "Facilitator" attached to the Fifth Directorate, Third Department of the Internal Security Special Forces Section… the same firm as Anton and myself. The difference is that we are the heavies, but she is the covert killer. I wouldn't want to cross her, even though we are with the same firm. She looks all sweetness and light, but she scares ten shades of shit out of me.'

The train was coasting into Tyumen station, a grand, turn-of-the century building to the north side of the tracks. Here, yet again, the locomotive and crew would be changed. Another twenty-minute stop. In contrast to the fine, stone-gabled station; what could be seen of the town looked as nondescript and down-at-heel as any other Russian city along the way. As usual, the platform was crammed with traders and lined with the eternal old Babushki. They stood by makeshift tables or tended battered old prams brimming with cabbage pies and boiled potatoes, collectively wrapped in blankets to keep them warm; and with radishes, raspberries, wild strawberries, blueberries; endless jars of succulent preserves and honey, little cakes, and home-made vodka. There were dozens more peasant food merchants, kerchiefs knotted tightly under their creased and wrinkled chins, their faces browned by the sun, and lined by age. Their hands, proffering their wares, were also brown and calloused, and often deformed by arthritis or years of hard use.

Donya Jelavich sauntered along the platform, as if she was appraising the stalls and tables looking for special treats for some favourite traveller in her coach. In fact, she was shadowing the two suspicious men who had recently joined the train. Her suspicions were confirmed when one slipped into the telegraph office while the other lounged against the office wall, seemingly idly smoking a cigarette as he watched the locomotive being uncoupled. Whom the man inside was contacting… and where; might be anyone's guess, but Donya was pretty sure she knew. There was nothing unusual in this... to the casual gaze… but Donya Jelavich's gaze was not casual.

She noted his eyes flickering up and down the platform; she noted the bulge under his coat. Their eyes met, and she gave him a friendly smile, which was not returned as she strolled past. He smelled of NKVD. She would get Anton and Tasha to do a uniformed papers check. These two would then have no choice but to identify themselves. If they proved to be what her intuition told her that they were; well, there would be two more places vacant on the train and two more NKVD operatives lost on active duty.