The world shrank to the dimensions of a steel box. The rhythmic, hypnotic clatter of the train wheels on the tracks was the only sound, a relentless metronome counting down the seconds of their lives. The air in the guard car was thick with the smell of old metal, stale tobacco, and the fresh, sharp scent of pure, undiluted fear. They were no longer escaping. They were trapped, hurtling through the countryside in a mobile prison cell, with their jailer sitting three feet away.
The Okhrana officer, who introduced himself with a chilling lack of ceremony as Captain Morozov, sat on the hard wooden bench directly opposite Koba. He did not seem tense or aggressive. He seemed relaxed, almost contemplative, which was far more terrifying. His eyes, a pale, washed-out blue, were intelligent and deeply, unnervingly patient. He was a hunter who knew the prey was in his snare; there was no need to rush the kill.
Pavel, Murat, and Ivan stood at a rigid, perfect attention, their faces blank masks of military discipline. But Koba could feel the tension radiating from them. They were coiled springs, wound to the breaking point. Pavel's massive hands, clasped behind his back, were clenched into fists so tight his knuckles were white. Murat's gaze was fixed on a point just past Morozov's head, but his body was angled slightly, ready to move with explosive speed. They were waiting for the signal, for the single word that would unleash a storm of violence in the cramped, confined space.
But Koba knew that violence was a losing move. A fight, a gunshot, would be a death sentence. Their only hope was the performance. They had to be soldiers. They had to be boring, unremarkable, and utterly convincing.
Morozov began to speak, his voice a calm, conversational baritone that was a jarring contrast to the frantic, hammering beat of Jake's heart.
"A strange business, yesterday's uprising," he remarked, his eyes fixed on Koba. "A nasty, brutish affair. Did your regiment see any action, Sergeant?"
The question was a scalpel, designed to probe, to test, to search for the slightest hesitation or flaw in their cover story. Koba drew on the persona of Sergeant Orlov, the weary, cynical veteran. He let out a long, tired sigh, as if the question bored him.
"The Semyonovskys were held in reserve at the barracks, Captain," he said, his voice a low, gravelly monotone. "Command thought the Preobrazhenskys could handle a rabble of factory workers. Seems they were wrong." He injected a note of professional resentment into his tone, the timeless grumbling of a soldier who thinks the generals are idiots. "We spent the day sharpening our bayonets and listening to the chaos from a distance. A soldier's lot."
It was a perfect answer, layered with authentic-sounding detail and a believable emotional context. He was drawing on his 21st-century knowledge, the deep well of historical facts he possessed about the rivalries and deployments of the Tsar's guard regiments. He was not just inventing a lie; he was inhabiting a historical reality.
Morozov nodded slowly, his expression unreadable. "A pity. A man of your experience would have been useful. Where did you serve before St. Petersburg, Sergeant?"
Another test. Another scalpel.
"The Caucasus, Captain," Koba replied without a moment's hesitation, embracing the irony. "Second Dagestani Regiment. Fought the bandits in the mountains for ten years. Trading potshots with Abreks is a damn sight more honest than chasing students through the streets, I'll tell you that."
He was building a legend, a history for a man who had never existed, brick by painful brick. He spoke of battles he had never fought, of comrades who had never lived, of the biting cold of a mountain pass and the oppressive heat of a summer campaign.
But with every perfect, plausible answer, Morozov's suspicion did not seem to lessen. It deepened. He was not looking for flaws in the story. He was looking at the man telling it. He leaned forward slightly, his pale blue eyes narrowing.
"It's your eyes, Sergeant," Morozov said, his voice dropping to a dangerously soft, intimate murmur. "That's what it is. I remember them now. You were the fireman. At the port. The one who screamed at the Prime Minister about a munitions fire that never was."
The blood in Koba's veins turned to ice. It was not his face. It was his essence. His intensity. The core of the Koba persona, the very thing that gave him his authority and his power, was the one thing he could not disguise.
"I don't know what you're talking about, Captain," Koba said, his voice remaining steady, but the lie felt thin and brittle in his own ears.
"I think you do," Morozov continued, his voice still a silken whisper. "I saw you then, and I see you now. You have the eyes of a man who is used to giving orders, not taking them. You have the eyes of an officer, perhaps. Or something else entirely." He smiled, a thin, chilling expression that held no humor. "A ghost, perhaps."
He was no longer probing. He was accusing. He was deliberately trying to provoke a reaction, to shatter the calm facade and see what lay beneath. The performance was over. He knew. It was no longer a suspicion; it was a certainty, a conclusion reached by a brilliant, analytical mind that had refused to let go of a single, discordant detail.
The tension in the car snapped. Pavel took a half-step forward, his massive frame seeming to suck all the air from the compartment.
Morozov's hand moved, a subtle, almost invisible motion, slipping inside his immaculate officer's coat.
"I think," the Captain said, his voice regaining its formal, authoritative edge, "that you and I will have a long and detailed conversation with Colonel Sazonov when this train reaches the Vyborg station."
That was it. The final move. The checkmate.
There was no other option. There was no more room to lie, no more space to maneuver. Koba gave a single, almost imperceptible nod to Pavel.
It was as if a dam had burst. Pavel, who had been a statue of coiled stillness, exploded into motion. He lunged across the narrow space, not with a roar, but with a terrifying, focused silence. The fight was brutal, ugly, and suffocatingly fast, a desperate struggle for survival in a space no bigger than a closet.
Morozov was not a bureaucrat; he was a trained Okhrana field agent. He was fast. He managed to draw his Nagant revolver, but before he could bring it to bear, Pavel's hand, a slab of meat and bone, clamped down on his wrist with crushing force. The gun clattered to the floor.
The Captain, with his free hand, let out a single, loud, desperate shout for help, a sound that was horrifyingly loud inside the steel box. At the same time, he slammed his other hand against the wall, his fingers finding and yanking down on the long, red cord of the emergency brake.
The train, which had been a symbol of their escape, reacted with a scream of tortured metal. The brakes locked, and the entire carriage lurched with a bone-jarring, violent shudder, throwing them all against the walls. Koba was slammed into the far bulkhead, his head connecting with a sharp crack.
Through the ringing in his ears, he saw Pavel, with a final, desperate surge of his immense strength, wrap his arms around Morozov and lift him bodily from the floor, slamming him into the ceiling of the car. There was a sickening thud, and the Captain's body went limp, sliding to the floor in a boneless heap.
Silence.
The train screeched to a final, shuddering halt. The silence that followed was absolute, deafening. They were motionless. Stranded. The rhythmic, hopeful clatter of the wheels was gone, replaced by the sound of their own ragged, desperate breaths.
They stood over Morozov's still form, his face a pale, waxy mask, a thin trickle of blood running from his temple. Koba didn't know if he was unconscious or dead. It didn't matter.
The emergency brake had been pulled. The signal would have been sent down the entire length of the railway line. In minutes, perhaps seconds, military patrols from both Vyborg and St. Petersburg would be converging on their position, racing towards the unexplained stop.
They had escaped the city. They had escaped the station. But they had not escaped the hunt. They were trapped in the middle of a vast, empty forest, miles from anywhere, with four crates of rifles, a dead or dying Okhrana officer, and the full, crushing weight of the Russian state about to descend upon them. Their ghost train had become their coffin.