Kane led him to the porter’s body. The man had been shoved under a set of steel bulkhead shelves. Judging from the bruising, he had been strangled to death.
“I’m sorry,” Tucker murmured.
He donned his jacket, gloves, and cap, then slung his rucksack over his shoulder. At the rear of the car, he used the porter’s keys to unlock the metal door. It swung open, and a rush of wind shoved him sideways. The rattling of the train’s wheels filled his ears.
Directly ahead was the caboose door.
With Kane following closely, Tucker stepped onto the open platform, shut the door behind him, then unlocked the caboose and stepped into the last car. He hurried across to the rear, through the last door—and a moment later, they were at the tail end of the Trans-Siberian Express, standing on a railed catwalk.
Beneath them, tracks flashed past. The sky was clear and black and studded with stars. To their right, a slope led to a partially frozen river; to their left, scattered snowdrifts. The locomotive was chugging up a slight grade, moving well below its average speed, but still much faster than Tucker would have liked.
He tugged the collar of his jacket up around his neck against the frigid night.
At his knee, Kane wagged his tail, excited. No surprise there. The shepherd was ready to go, come what may. Tucker knelt and cupped Kane’s head in both of his hands, bringing his face down close.
“Who’s a good boy?”
Kane leaned forward, until their noses touched.
“That’s right. You are.”
It was a routine of theirs.
Standing but keeping a grip on Kane’s vest collar, Tucker navigated the catwalk steps until they were only a few feet above the racing ground. He poked his head past the caboose’s side, looking forward, waiting, watching, until he saw a particularly thick snowdrift approaching.
“Ready, boy?” he said. “We’re gonna jump! Steady now . . . steady . . .”
The snowdrift flashed into view. Tucker tossed his rucksack out into the darkness.
“GO, KANE! JUMP!”
Without hesitation, the shepherd leaped out into the night.
Tucker waited a beat, then followed.
8
March 8, 11:24 P.M.
Siberia, Russia
Tucker immediately realized all snowdrifts were not alike, especially in Siberia. Having gone through weeks of thawing and freezing, the drift’s face had become armored by several inches of ice.
He hit the frozen surface hip-first, hoping to transition into a roll.
It was not to be.
He crashed through the top of the berm before his momentum flipped his legs up and over his head, sending him into a somersault down the drift’s rear slope. He slammed onto his back and began sliding on his butt down the long, steep surface, his heels stuttering over the ice-encrusted snow. He tried jamming his elbows into the drift, to slow himself, but got no traction. To his right, alarmingly close, rose a lizard-back of boulders.
Above him, he heard a growl. He tipped his head back in time to see Kane’s sleek form come galloping down the slope. The shepherd was there in seconds and clamped his teeth into Tucker’s jacket collar. Once latched on, Kane sat down on his haunches and lifted his head, his strong back muscles straining to take Tucker’s weight.
Ahead and a few feet to the right, a sapling jutted from the snow. On impulse, he swung his left leg out, curled it, and hooked the trunk with his ankle. The momentum whipped him around, dragging Kane along, too, before jerking them both to a sudden stop.
All was quiet.
Tucker lay perfectly still and mentally scanned his body. Nothing seemed broken. He could feel Kane’s weight hanging from his collar.
“Kane? How’re you doing, pal?”
The shepherd replied with a muffled growl that Tucker recognized as roughly, Okay, but now it’s time for you to do something about this.
“Hang on, give me a second . . .”
Tucker lifted his hips, freeing his right leg from under his butt, then extended it and hooked it around the sapling trunk above the other ankle. He set his teeth, flexed his legs, and dragged himself and Kane up the slope until he could reach out and grab the sapling with his left hand. He then reached back with his other arm and snagged Kane’s vest.
The shepherd unclamped his jaws, and with Tucker’s help, Kane scrabbled up the slope, his nails scratching on the ice until he reached the sapling.
Finally, Tucker let his legs uncurl and swung his body around, his feet again facing downhill. He slammed his heels into the ice several times until he had formed adequate footholds, then sprawled back to catch his breath.
Kane gave his hand a lick: relief and reassurance.
Tucker sat up and got his bearings. While plunging headlong down the slope in almost complete darkness, the angle had seemed precipitous. Now he could see the grade was no more than twenty-five degrees.
Could be worse . . .
To their right, fifty feet away, a line of skeletal birches and heavy Siberian pines snaked down the slope. Far below, a dark smudge ran perpendicular to the incline.
A river. But which one? For every charted stream and lake in Siberia, a dozen more were unrecorded and unnamed. Still, rivers meant civilization. Follow one and you’ll inevitably find the other.
But first he had to find his rucksack. All his supplies were inside it.
He looked around, scanning the snow, but saw nothing. It was too dark to make out any fine details. And unimpeded, his rucksack could have rolled all the way down to the river, taking with it everything he needed to survive in this harsh climate.
He had only one hope: to borrow someone’s keener eyes.
Tucker turned to Kane. “SPOT RUCKSACK,” he ordered.
Thankfully, rucksack was one of Kane’s thousand-word vocabulary. When traveling, most of Tucker’s worldly possessions—and survival tools—were contained in that pack.
After twenty seconds, Kane let out a low-key yelp.
Tucker twisted around and followed Kane’s gaze uphill and sideways, toward the tree line. Even with Kane’s guidance, it took Tucker another thirty seconds to spot it. The rucksack had become wedged into the fork of a white-barked birch tree.
He rolled onto his hands and knees, grasped Kane’s vest collar with his left hand, then began sidling toward the tree line, kicking toeholds into the ice as he went. It was slow work, eating up too much time. Halfway there, Tucker realized Kane needed no support. The shepherd’s nails worked as natural pitons.
Working together, they reached the forest of Siberian pines and birches. Under the shelter of the bower, the snow was powdery and soft. Leaving Kane propped against a trunk, he climbed upward and angled toward the tree into which the rucksack was wedged.