Last Violent Call (Secret Shanghai, #3.5)(61)
Marshall felt around in his pockets.
Where is the gun, did it get put away this morning, oh wait, there it is—
Just before Kozlov could squirm his way out, Marshall drew onto the scene, pistol pointed. Slowly, Kozlov signaled that his hands were not going to move, staring at the barrel between his eyes. A single lamp at the side of the station lit their surroundings. Enough to catch every expression from the culprit held down in front of them, but not enough to differentiate the clumps of snow from the puddles of mud three paces away.
“Goddamn, it’s cold,” Marshall huffed. His breath was near opaque, blowing clouds with each word. Novosibirsk was already prone to below-freezing temperatures in the winter, but the snowfall earlier in the day had locked a frigid sensation into the air. Standing out here without a coat felt much worse than it needed to be. At least there was no wind.
“Speak quickly,” Benedikt said, still keeping Kozlov in his hold. “How did you know Danila Andreyevich Popov, and what was your reason for killing him?”
“For crying out loud,” Eduard Kozlov said. Then, to Marshall’s utter surprise, the fight left him, the snarl disappearing from his expression and his shoulders slumping inward. Benedikt blinked rapidly, looking uncertain if he ought to keep holding onto him.
“I didn’t kill him. I have no clue who he is. I only wanted to get out at Sverdlovsk, and now I will get punished for running late without a thing to show for it.”
He… what?
“The message, though,” Marshall guessed. “That was you. This whole investigation is messing with your plans.”
Eduard Kozlov nodded. “I am no killer. I am only a product runner who cannot afford to make a seven-day journey when I was only supposed to be on that train for two.”
Now Marshall knew how to make sense of this. The illicit substances in that empty room. He would bet that Kozlov had moved them into his own compartment when he saw searches being performed, afraid that the officer would stumble onto something.
His eyes darted to the side, where Kozlov’s briefcase had fallen. If they opened it to look inside, they would surely find it filled to the brim with the same substance.
“Christ.” Benedikt let go of him suddenly. “Gang activity?”
Kozlov looked hesitant to answer. “Well…”
That was a yes.
“So the syringe isn’t yours?”
This time, Kozlov’s hesitation was one of confusion, his brow furrowing as he gingerly got himself upright again. “What syringe?”
Benedikt cast a sidelong glance at Marshall. Marshall grimaced in response.
The illicit drugs on board had had nothing to do with Popov’s pharmaceuticals work. The syringe found in his room had had no relation to the smuggling that was going on concurrent to the murder, one carriage away.
“You may go, Mr. Kozlov,” Benedikt decided. “We believe you. Get to where you were needed before you are punished further.”
Kozlov seemed like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “I can… go?”
“We can say you ran off and we couldn’t catch you.” Marshall shrugged. He and Benedikt knew what it was like to belong to a larger network, moving at the whims and demands of the people above. They could hardly fault how some needed to make a living. The blood on their hands was thick and plentiful when it came to criminal behavior. At least Kozlov wasn’t responsible for the actual crime they were investigating.
Kozlov nodded, picking up his briefcase and taking a few steps back without turning around, just in case it was a trick. The train, meanwhile, howled into the night with another whistle of steam, and then Benedikt and Marshall were too distracted anyway to watch Kozlov leave, because the wheels were suddenly groaning on the tracks, moving the train forward.
“Oh, no no no,” Marshall exclaimed. “Is it moving—?”
A small head poked out the window from the soft-class dining carriage, a vast distance away from where Benedikt and Marshall currently stood. Though it was hard to see anything more than a vague outline, given all the lights were clustered near the station, the voice was easily identifiable as Lev’s.
“Mr. Sokov! Mr. Marshall! I can’t get communication through to the engineer! Run for the last freight carriage! I can make them pause at the next stop!”
The train was already speeding up. At once, Benedikt and Marshall sprang forward—Marshall cursing under his breath and Benedikt intently watching the last carriage.
“Ben, we can’t get in.”
“Yes, we can,” Benedikt said. “I see the latch. We only need to get it open.”
They drew up alongside the last carriage, running at a speed that kept them at pace with the train. In seconds, though, the train would accelerate and leave them in the dust. It didn’t seem possible to act that quickly.
“Pistol!”
Marshall tossed his gun over. Benedikt caught it smoothly, then shot the latch, sparks of silver cascading down the tracks as metal struck metal. The freight carriages were very different from the passenger carriages—nothing more than a very large sliding door that almost resembled a barn entrance. There were no stairs that took a person up, so when Benedikt slammed his fist onto the freight door and slid the heavy metal open a fraction, he threw the pistol in first, then dared to get as close to the screeching wheels as he could before hauling himself into the carriage.