The question was. what would he do now?
Nikita got off his back, putting his weight on his left leg, and hobbled toward the throttle. The important thing was to stop the train and buy his troops time to catch them.
His eyes shifted from window to window as he crossed the cab, the barrel of his gun raised, his finger crooked around the trigger. The American would have to come back in to start the train up again, and the only way to enter was by one of the two windows.
And then there was another sickeningly familiar thud and the cab erupted with burning white light.
“No!” Nikita bellowed as he shut his eyes and backed against the rear wall of the cab. The roar of the flash/bang grenades was amplifed by the close quarters and metal walls of the cabin. He pressed his hands to his ears to protect them, cursing his helplessness. He couldn’t even fire blindly about the cab for fear of being struck by his own ricocheting bullet.
But it mustn’t end this way, he told himself. Staggering toward the front of the cab, Nikita tried to use the side of his left leg to nudge the throttle back. But he was unable to stand on his right leg and, dropping to his knees, he put his left hand on the throttle. Screaming from the pain of the earsplitting blasts, he pulled the throttle toward him only to be pushed away by a hard boot heel. Nikita made a futile attempt to grab whoever was there, but clutched only air and light. He swung the gun to the left and right, hoping to strike flesh, to find his target.
“Fight me!” he screamed. “Coward!”
Then the brightness died and the explosions stopped and the only sound was the loud buzz in Nikita’s ears and the banging of his heart.
Peering into the dark, the Lieutenant saw a figure slumped in a comer. The blood had crystallized from the cold, but he recognized the wound, saw that he had blasted several holes in the jacket but only one shell caught what appeared to be the outside edge of a bulletproof vest.
He raised his gun and aimed it at the man’s forehead, just above the goggles.
“Don’t. a voice to Nikita’s left said in English.
The Russian officer turned and saw a Beretta pointing at him from outside the window. Behind it was a. tall, powerful figure dressed the same as the wounded man.
He would be damned if a lawless raider was going to dictate terms. Nikita swung his gun around quickly, intending to shoot whether the other man fired or not. But the man lying in the comer suddenly came to life, locking his legs around Nikita’s torso, flopping him onto his back, and holding him there as the other man entered and disarmed him. Nikita grappled with the men, but the pain in his leg kept him from standing or putting up much of a fight. The newcomer knelt on Nikita’s chest, pinning g him, and used the bottom of his boot to kick the throttle forward, driving the speed of the train back up again. Still camped on Nikita’s chest, he pulled off what looked like a rappelling belt and lashed the ankle of Nikita’s good leg to a handle just below the window. The Russian could neither reach it nor escape, and for the second time that night he felt ashamed.
The two of them planned this together on the roof of the cab, he thought bitterly. And I stumbled into it like a sports club novice.
“Our apologies, Lieutenant,” the man said in English as he stood and raised his goggles.
A third man reached the cabin and, after shouting in, was told to enter. He swung in through the window.
The new arrival tended to his companion’s wound by the light of the coals, while the other man-obviously the group’s leader-bent to look at Nikita’s wound. While he did so, Nikita reached out with his left arm to try and push the throttle. The leader grabbed his wrist and the Russian tried to kick at him with his free foot, but the pain was too great.
“They don’t give medals for suffering,” the man said to Nikita.
As Nikita lay there panting, the leader pulled an empty rope bag from around his shin, used a small knife to cut off the strap, and slipped the band around the blood-soaked leg, just above the wound. He gave it a firm pull. He used another length of strap to bind his hands and tie them to an iron hook on the floor of the train.
“We’ll be leaving the train in a few minutes,” the man said. “We’ll take you off and see that you get medical attention.”
Nikita had no idea what he was saying, nor did he care. These men were the enemy, and one way or another he was going to stop them from doing whatever they planned.
His hands behind him, he used his thumbnail to dig the glass stone from his regimental ring. It had been designed to come free like that. It had also been designed so that a halfinch blade would pop up from beneath the stone when it came out. And with no one watching his hands. he began to saw against the leather strap.
SIXTY-FIVE
Tuesday, 4:27 P.M., St. Petersburg
After making their way through the strikers, Peggy and George had gone to the rest rooms at the Hermitage and changed into the clothes they carried, the Westernstyle jeans, button-down shirts, and Nikes favored by Russian youth. They folded their uniforms into their backpacks, then walked hand in hand up the large State Staircase to the first floor of the Large Hermitage, the home of the museum’s extensive collection of Western European art.
One of the gems of the collection, Raphael’s Conestabile Madonna, painted in 1502, is named for the city in central Italy that had been its home for centuries. The round painting is seven inches tall by seven inches wide, nestled in an ornate gold frame as wide on each side as the art, and shows the Madonna, in a blue robe, sitting in front of rolling hills cradling the infant Jesus in her arms.
Peggy and George had arrived shortly before Volko was due. Peggy acted as though she was looking at art when she was actually keeping an eye on the Raphael. George, who had never even seen a photograph of the operative, was holding her hand lightly as his eyes ranged from painting to painting. Because it wasn’t his wife’s hand, he felt guilty enjoying Peggy’s touch, the warmth of her fingers against his palm, the feathery lightness of her fingertips against the side of hiss hand. Thinking about how deadly that hand could be made her touch that much more electric.
At exactly 4:29 Peggy’s hand tensed though she didn’t break her stride. George glanced toward the Raphael. A man about six-two was walking slowly around the side of the room, toward the painting. He was dressed in loose white chinos, brown shoes, and a blue windbreaker that bulged around a spreading waist. As he neared the Raphael, Peggy squeezed George’s hand harder. The Russian cut across the room and was headed toward the right side of the painting, not the left.
Peggy gently tugged George around, then led him slowly toward the door. She hugged his arm now with both of hers, letting him support her. All the while her eyes searched the room, moving slowly instead of darting so as not to attract attention. Everyone else in the room was moving or looking at paintings, all except for a short man in starched brown trousers. His round face seemed out of place here, a dark cloud amid the many sunny, adoring expressions-
Peggy stopped by Raphael’s Holy Family. She pointed from the beardless Joseph to the Virgin as though discussing them.
“There’s a man in brown pants who seems to be watching Volko,” she whispered.
“I only saw a woman,” George said.
“Where?”
“She’s standing in the adjoining room,” he said, “the one with the Michelangelo. She’s reading her guidebook, facing this room.”
Peggy pretended to sneeze so that she could turn away from the painting. She saw the woman, her eyes in her book, though she was holding her head very steady and definitely watching Volko with peripheral vision.
“Good catch,” Peggy said. “They’ve got both exits covered. But that doesn’t mean they know who we are.”
“Maybe that’s why they sent Volko,” George said. “They’re using him as bait. And he was letting you know that.”
A minute had passed and, looking at his watch, Volko began walking away from the painting. The round-faced man began to turn away as Volko approached, but the woman only half turned. The way she was standing, she could still look into the room. The round-faced man stopped.