Runaway Red Soldiers

I woke up with a start. I wasn’t sure what woke me, but something was wrong. My neck was stiff from sleeping in a crooked position, using a navy peacoat as a pillow. The rumbling beneath my seat and the distinct chugging told me I was laying on the bench seat of a moving train compartment. My shoulders were sore. Rubbing my neck and wiping the sleep from my eyes, I looked slowly around the compartment.

I couldn’t say how I got here or where I was going. It was as if there were a fog in my brain; the answer was somewhere under the layers but unfocused. My body felt as if I had just stepped off a carnival ride in the heat of July. My head spun and the limbs attached to me were gelatinous. I felt a dry heave in the back of my throat. I swallowed hard.

Shake it off, I thought, as I searched the pockets of the peacoat pillow for an answer. A ticket, a passport, currency, anything to give me a clue. I checked for luggage in the racks. No such luck. I didn’t even know who I was.

The compartment was a series of brown hues. Brass hardware and luggage racks broke up the endless monotony of brown carpets, paneling, and framing. In the quest to figure out where the hell I was, the compartment itself wasn’t even remotely helpful. My stomach was in knots. The smell of stale cigarette smoke and dampness gave the impression the compartment was smaller than it was.

I tried to think back as far as I could, but everything had escaped me. I could add, subtract, and remember how to tie my shoes, but personal details- my own name, vocation, life story- these details are completely lost in the fog.

I lifted the brass clasp on the brown window shade to look outside. The magnificent countryside was whipping briskly across the windowpane, and a light mist of rain was speckling the glass. The sun was shaded by clouds, hiding information on the time of day, not unlike the clouds hanging over my psyche. Coniferous trees speckled the landscape, purple mountains held up the skyline, and sparse houses and barns dotted the greenery.

Great, I thought, I could be nearly anywhere in the northern hemisphere.

The train seemed only to pick up speed, nearly throwing me across the compartment at a turn in the tracks. I held onto the luggage rack, fighting the wrench in my gut.

This isn’t right, I thought. Passenger trains should be slowing down on these turns, they don’t throw people…

I breathed deep, grabbed the unhelpful peacoat, slid the compartment door open, and stepped into the hallway.

The commotion in the hall was immense. Something was wrong, and the other passengers sensed this as well. I made my way to the front, which opened into a room running the width of the train cart. People gathered in this corridor.

I looked to the gentleman on my right, “Excuse me, sir, can you help me?”

“Nein, fraulien, ich verstehe nicht,” he said, shaking his head.

“Alright, well, thanks, though.”

German! I recognized it immediately, am I in Germany?

I pushed through the groups of people around me, catching phrases of the Germanic language through the gasps and cries of the passengers. I understood little verbiage, but the collective energy was unmistakable.

“Does anyone here speak English?” I called out loudly, tiptoeing to peer above the crowd.

“Yes.” A man gently grabbed my arm and lead me to the door in the front of the cart. I followed, hoping for some answers. “You shouldn’t be here,” he said in a thick accent, gruff, but it wasn’t German.

I walked with him in a daze. We pushed through the door, stepping onto the rickety balcony between rail carts. The train thundered on the tracks, and the wind whipped my hair into my eyes. It was chilly, the raindrops were needles on my cheeks. The cool air steadied my stomach. The man lead me into the next cart, pushing me to the right into an empty compartment.

“Anya, you should not be here.” The man was angry. His chiseled chin was tensed, hard. His amber eyes were blazing with intensity. His arm muscles clung aggressively to his shirt.

“Who are you?” I shook my head, taken aback at the audacity. “…Anya?”

It didn’t sit right. This man knew me, though, somehow.

“You no recognize your own husband? What’s wrong with you? Do you break your head?” His thick accent spat the words quickly. He was fierce, but his eyes were giving away fear.

“I remember nothing. I don’t know how I got here. Or where I’m coming from…”

“Austria. We are in Austria countryside.” He grabbed my head, looking at my face and head, running his hands over my cheeks. “No bubbles, I see. You are fine, no?” His expression softened slightly when he spoke.

“Well, I don’t know.” I stammered. “I think so, I feel fine. I just…” The train suddenly shifts to cut me off and pulls us both to the compartment wall on the right.

“This train dangerous. We go now. You follow.” He slips out of the compartment. “We have few more carts to go.”

“But, where are we going?” I was overly aware that this man never told me his name.

“We stop it, no? We all will die.” He said, matter-of-factly. His pace did not decrease.

“Stop.” I pulled his hand. “What is your name? Can I trust a stranger?”

“Dimitri, your husband.” He shook my hand, laughing. “Nice to meet you, Anya.”

As we snaked through the crowds of compartment after compartment, the train seemed even more turbulent. It was still speeding up. I paused a moment to look out the window to the left. A glasslike lake reflected cloudy skies and mountainsides. Cottages were scattered near the rim of the lake. A railroad bridge was coming up in the distance, hovering over the glass lake.

“Dimitri, we can jump!” I exclaimed.

“No. They will all die.” He gestured towards the distraught masses. Mothers were shushing their babies and fathers were pacing anxiously. The panic was etched into their terrified faces. The worry hung over the room like gas, suffocating even the youngest. Train attendants encouraged peace, voices breaking from their own anxiety.

The train was going faster with every minute. My heart pounded in my eardrums. We finally reached the door to the final balcony; the handle was stuck.

“No, no, no!” Dimitri smacked the door, jiggling the handle.

“I’ll try.” I pushed and pulled and shook the door to no avail. Dimitri came up behind me with a fire extinguisher and busted out the tiny window from the center of the door. Pushing out the glass, he put his hand outside and pulled on the door handle.

“It’s gone! The handle is gone!” Dimitri cursed and spun around. I grabbed the fire extinguisher and went to work to try to bang off the hinges securing the door. Adrenaline fueled the action, but even still, it took several minutes between Dimitri and I. We were able to loosen and remove each of the bolts from their spots inside the industrial hinges. When the bolts were finally cleared, we tore the door off entirely.

“I must tell you about the danger behind that door, Anya. There was no handle, with reason. Who would lock people out of the front of a locomotive…” He trailed off. The wind howled, blowing his coattails behind him. Rain splashed into the train car. The balcony behind Dimitri was shaking violently, the metals of chains and parts clanging against one another.

I paused for a moment, heart racing. “I understand, Dimitri,” as I grabbed his hand as a consolatory gesture; the action shot a memory out of the fog.

“Anya, you are selected.” Dimitri said, raising a scotch to his lips.

“But I don’t want to, Dimitri.” I complained, staring solemnly into my whiskey. I bit my lip.

“It is duty. You will not fail.” He sat the glass on the table and smirked. “You are, how you say… the best, Anya.”

I looked up at this stranger crossing the balcony into the unknown with me. Strength was a brilliant aura around his thick frame. His face was contorted against the wind and rain. He pressed his face against the tiny central window leading into the conductor’s unit.

“There are guns, Anya.”

“I’m sure,” I said, unnaturally complacent with the whole idea. “We can fix that.”

Dimitri nodded, shoving the door open.

“GET DOWN,” he said, and quickly rolled to the far right, avoiding a spray of bullets from a handheld weapon. Two burly men were waiting for us on the other side of the door.

I dove into the area, rolling with relative ease to the far left. The man closest to me had a shotgun, and the man to the right had a handheld. Dimitri quickly fished underneath a small bench along the wall and retrieved two Glocks. He slid one across the floor to me.

How did he know they were there? I grabbed the Glock.

Without hesitation, Dimitri shot the other Glock directly into the center mass of the large male shooter nearest him. It was a perfect hit, and the man immediately fell backward.

The second shooter was quickly coming toward me carrying a shotgun. I lifted my glock and…

Click.

Oh, fuck! It misfired. I gritted my teeth.

I reacted suddenly and threw the Glock at the shooter’s head. It bounced off his skull like a cotton ball.

“Of course!” I exclaimed, getting more frustrated by the second. I pulled back my pant leg, revealing a sheath with a handful of sharp throwing knives. “Ohh, that’ll do.” There was quickly a knife lodged directly into the shotgun assailant’s forehead. I stared at the man in front of me, falling to his knees and gasping. His eyes were deadpan, his pupils dilated. Blood poured from his forehead, a crimson waterfall bouncing from the bridge of his nose. He finally fell to the ground, lifeless.

…I had just fucking killed a man.

“That’s my girl, Anya.” Dimitri laughed, pulling my blade from the massive heap on the floor. “Just like the good days, yah?” He wiped the blood from the knife onto his pantleg and clattered the weapon to the floor in front of me. I sat for a moment before collecting my blade and stuffing it back into its holster.

“This w-w-w-wasn’t my f-first?” I stuttered, still in shock, still staring at the heap of flesh before me.

“God, no, no, Anya, you are… the best.” Dimitri smiled. “We go now. The train goes faster, we die.”

He runs to the front of the engineering car, gun at the ready. There are no more assailants when we arrive at the control chair. In front of the chair, the conductor lay faceup on the ground, soaking in a pool of blood. He gasps for air as he’s slowly bleeding out. His eyes were glassy, unfocused.

“Poor soul. Tsk tsk,” Dimitri shakes his head.

I’m looking around the control panels. There must be a way to stop this thing. I try a large lever, assuming it’s the brake. Nothing happens. The radio wire was cut clean.

BANG!

“What the hell? Dimitri!” I stared at him, completely bewildered. This man just shot the conductor!

“He was pathetic, dying slow. This is better, more dignity.” Dimitri shrugged.

I turned my attention back to the control panel.

“Dimitri, I don’t see any way to stop this thing.” Dimitri looks over my shoulder, his expression stone.

“You know, my expertise, I only kill things. It’s cut, boom, or shoot.”

“We can’t just go pressing random buttons.”

“We must cut, Anya. We already shoot.” He waves his gun whimsically.

“What do you mean? The engine? The brakes?”

“Cut. We cut the other train from the engine train. This is the part that goes, no? ”

“Oh… Yes, we can do that. I rather like that idea.”

“Then, we jump at bridge, to save ourselves.”

We make our way back door again, stepping over the bodies of the two hijackers. The blood swayed with the train, a thick layer accumulating on the floor. There was a cabinet full of tools next to the bench that Dimitri had pulled the Glocks from.

The train made another sudden turn, knocking both of us into the right wall. I grabbed Dimitri’s arm to steady myself, and another memory played behind my eyes.

“If you won’t do it, I will, Anya.” Dimitri whispered right next to my ear, arms crossing behind my back. Our bodies were touching.

“There must be a better way. This is so much senseless death.”

“There is not.” Soft piano music punctuated the air. His light hair shone in the flickering light.

“But if the boy has the power to end Gorbachev rule, we need just kill the boy.”

“Anya, no. A mass incident kills also his family and looks like accident. He may have spread… information to them.”

“It kills 200 others that shouldn’t be in politics.”

“Anya, we are operatives, loyal to Russia. This is Austria. We do as ordered.”

“I kill for a living, and I am not afraid to, but this is not a good plan.”

I breathed deeply. He’s been in control this entire time. But, now what? It seems like he’s genuinely trying to save the people. We unload the tools from the cabinet and lay out a plan to begin decoupling the train. It’s a relatively straightforward procedure. We make quick work of detaching the chains and pulling the two sections apart with a crowbar and what looks to be a specialized tool just for the job. Fear mixed with exhilaration quickly accomplished our goal.

With a lurch, the train is officially detached and we watch as it slows on the tracks. Our car was now moving much faster.

The people are saved, and I’m filled with relief.

Except, when I turned to smile at Dimitri, he was smirking at me.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

One by one, the train cars explode, rolling from the tracks and into a deep ditch. The violence of the explosions shook my core. My heart sank. Tears welled up in my eyes. The noise from the explosions rang in my ears. The sick threatened in the back of my throat, throbbing between my clenched teeth. Smoke burned my nasal cavities

Abruptly, it clicked.

I was a KGB operative, trained to protect the cause of the Soviet Union. I never wanted this assignment, I was duped. Too many casualties, I told him. Dimitri was not my husband, just covering assignments we were working on together the past few years under Gorbachev’s rule. It was 1986, we were Red Soldiers in the silent war.

I remembered, when we ate our first meal aboard the train, a toast to our marriage… And I slowly lost consciousness. My wine was drugged, I had been too comfortable in national loyalty. I didn’t know who I was waking up because I was undercover already. My identity has always been a good question.

I didn’t know how I was already on top of him, my hands folding around his neck. I was screaming, “Why should you get to live?” I truly hated him, I wanted to kill him. He rolled me, hovering only centimeters from my face, having easily reversed my hold. He had snatched my arms away from his neck.

“Calm down, tiger,” he gasped, “You’ve killed more than that.”

“Not innocents, Dimitri! I thought I was saving them! I killed them!”

“It’s okay. I buy you drink. We go now. Ready for jump?” He stood up, reaching for my hand.

What choice do I have? It’s done.

The engine of the runaway train, still making headway down the track, approached the mouth of the bridge. I nodded at Dimitri, held my breath, and ran.

I was pitched into the water below, a cold hug embracing me on a dreary day. I felt refreshed bobbing to the surface and looking my “husband” in the eyes. The rain greeted my face, a welcome ricochet from the lake surface. My mind was finally clearing of the clutter, my gut settling. I knew who I was.

The train engine exploded above us. The frame, now a ghastly inferno, plunged into the water, now on the far side of the lake. That certainly takes care of the bodies.

“So how about that drink, Dimitri?”

He already had a car waiting for us, because, as always, we had finished a flawlessly executed mission. We drove about 20 miles north and had fresh and dry clothes waiting for us at a swanky hotel. Changing clothes after this ordeal felt amazing, like shedding old skin. I took my time getting ready.

At the local tavern, I drugged my husband just enough to have him staggering.

“This… not right, you did something, Anya.” He slurred his words.

“Dobroy nochi, goodnight,” I smiled innocently, kissing his lips.

That was the night my husband disappeared.