Ermakov took the money. “You must understand, sir, there are no passenger trains. Only oil trains.”
“There must be one or you wouldn’t be talking to me.”
“When fighting was feared to break out in Baku, Baku send many oil trains.”
The result, Chief Agent Ermakov explained, was that so many oil trains had rushed out of Baku when trouble started that they were carrying more oil than the Batum refineries could cook and had to be held in Tiflis. Then revolutionaries cut the pipe line and suddenly stocks were running low in the refineries and shipping piers.
“Now every train west is oil train. But one special train tomorrow. Come back tomorrow. Show papers.”
“What papers?”
“You need special pass. Government train visas.”
“Where do I get them?”
“You get issued by my friend Feltsman, high official. Russian. You must pay him.”
“Where is Feltsman?”
“Government building. Erevan Square.”
“Where in Erevan Square? Which building?”
“Next to Russian State Bank.”
Isaac Bell stood to his full height and stared down at the Russian train official. Then he opened his coat just enough to allow a glimpse of the Bisley nestled in his shoulder holster. “If I can’t find the government building—or if I can’t find Mr. Feltsman—I do know where to find you . . . Is there anything else you want to tell me before I go back to Erevan Square?”
“I am remembering,” said the chief agent, reaching for his telephone, “that it would be best if I personally telephoned Feltsman to tell him to expect you. That way he would not be out to lunch or somewhere when you arrive.”
“A wise precaution,” said Isaac Bell. He waited for the call to be completed and left somewhat surer now that the papers would be forthcoming, but considerably less certain that tomorrow’s special passenger train would materialize in the chaos.
—
“Hold it!” said Isaac Bell.
They had just stepped down from the tram to Erevan Square and were hurrying across the busy plaza toward the government building next to the Russian State Bank when Bell saw the gleaming black pompadour that crowned the Social Democrat Josef.
“Is that who I think it is skulking at the tram stop?” asked Wish.
“Josef.”
With a furtive glance over his shoulder, revealing beyond a doubt that it was he, Josef ran to jump on the tram leaving for the railroad station.
“What’s he up to?” said Wish.
Rockefeller started to make a beeline for the telegraph.
“Grab him, Wish.”
Wish snared the plutocrat.
“What? What?”
“Just wait,” said Wish. “Something’s up . . . What is it, Isaac?”
Bell had spotted three or four workmen in the crowds whom he might possibly have seen with Josef earlier on the road. Aware that he was sensing more than seeing, he looked up and scanned the tops of the two- and three-story buildings that bordered the open space. He could feel stress in the air, almost as if every person bustling about his business was about to stop breathing.
Suddenly two enormous carriages raced into the square. Thundering alongside them, Cossack outriders brandished lances and rifles. Heavy as freight wagons yet high-wheeled and fast, they were pulled by teams of ten horses. Their coachmen, enormous three-hundred-pound men in greatcoats, hauled back on their reins and the carriages and outriders came to a banging, clashing halt in front of the elaborately decorated stone edifice that housed the Russian State Bank.
Bell motioned urgently to Wish.
Moving as one, they backed their people away.
The Cossacks looked formidable and others in the crowds retreated, too. But the men Bell had noticed a moment earlier edged closer. Others, dressed in urban working garb, converged on the carriages. Bell looked up again. Now he saw men on the roofs.
“Isaac!” said Wish.
“I see them,” said Bell. “It’s a bank robbery.”
Expropriation,” said Wish Clarke, “is the word favored in the revolutionary lexicon.”
“Bank robbers!” said John D. Rockefeller. “We must inform the police . . . Officer!” He stepped into the street, waving at a Cossack.
“No,” said Isaac Bell, blocking him and forcing his arm down. “They’ve got twenty men around the square and on the roofs. The cops can’t stop it. They’ll only make it bloodier.”
“You should not have given them that gun.”
“It would appear that way,” Wish said serenely.
“Speaking of the devil . . .” said Bell.
The tall detective drew his revolver and herded Edna, Nellie, and Rockefeller toward the nearest street out of the square as Wish forged ahead, clearing a path for their retreat.
“Here he comes.”
A two-horse phaeton charged into the square.
A gunner and a belt feeder hunched over the Maxim gun. They had perched the Sokolov mount up on the high back bench where the driver ordinarily sat. The revolutionary handling the reins had shifted to the lower front bench.
The gunner triggered the weapon with an unearthly roar.
Shooting over the driver and horses’ heads, he tried to aim at the bank carriage. People ran from the noise, which was amplified and echoed by the buildings, and fled the galloping horses, whose iron shoes threw sparks from the cobblestones.
The phaeton leaned into a sharp turn, tall wheels skidding. Bell hoped the weight of the machine gun would capsize the inherently unstable vehicle. But just as it seemed it would spill the attackers to the ground, the wheels slid on the cobbles and it righted itself.
A bomb sailed from a roof, trailing the smoke of a fuse. It detonated in the air with a flash and a loud bang that scattered the Cossacks on rearing mounts. A second bomb flew from a roof. It landed on the cobblestones, bounced under the team pulling the lead money carriage, and exploded, blowing open the doors of the carriage.
Men, women, and animals screamed.
The revolutionaries dove into the maelstrom. Firing pistols, they ran to the carriage. One man leaped into it and threw bulging bank sacks to his partners. The Maxim gun kept firing.
The phaeton lurched and skidded and the gunner and belt feeder held on by clinging to the weapon. Bullets aimed at the bank carriage raked the rooftops instead. Then the driver got his animals under control and pulled up short. Still firing—the weapon had never ceased roaring since they entered the square—the gunner lowered his barrel. The torrent of flying lead stitched a path down the building’s stone walls.
The Maxim exploded with a thunderous Boom! and a ball of fire.
“Darn,” smiled Wish Clarke.
Sheets of flame enveloped the gunner and the belt feeder, the driver and the phaeton itself. The horses bolted. The burning wagon raced across the square and tipped over suddenly. The traces parted. The horses galloped away.
“What happened?” shouted Rockefeller.
“Their gun blew up,” said Wish Clarke. The detective shook his head in mock dismay. “The medicos keep telling me that demon rum plays havoc with one’s powers of memory. I hate to admit they’re right, but it appears that when I filled the Maxim’s cooling sleeve, I must have mixed up the cans of water and gasoline.”
“Railyards,” said Isaac Bell. “Now!”
“But there is no train until tomorrow,” Rockefeller protested.
Bell gripped his arm. “Social Democrat revolutionaries just tried to rob a Russian State Bank. Soldiers were injured. The revolutionaries escaped. The authorities will surround the city and close the roads to capture the criminals and recover the money.”
“But there is no train—”