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the hatch and climbed out onto the catwalk as the crowds swarmed across the vast parking lot toward the train.
    â€œFive minutes,” Chernov shouted.
    â€œCOMRADES, MY NAME IS YEVGENNI TARANKOV, AND I HAVE COME TODAY TO OFFER YOU MY HAND IN FRIENDSHIP AND HELP.”

THREE
    Tarankov’s Train
    â€œ H ave you had any sleep?” Tarankov asked.
    Chernov shook his head as he placed the last of three cases of Marlboros into the trunk of the Mercedes 520S parked beside the tracks. The top two layers of cartons actually contained cigarettes. He closed the trunk, leaned back against the car and accepted a cigarette from Tarankov, though he hated the things.
    â€œIt went well this morning,” Tarankov said. “Moscow is going to have to deal with power outages for a long time. It’ll make things worse for them.”
    â€œYeltsin and his cronies have access to emergency generators. And if things get too bad they can always escape to the dachas.”
    â€œYou don’t approve,” Tarankov said crossly. He was tired too.
    â€œOn the contrary, Comrade. I neither approve nor disapprove. But I’m a realist enough to understand that it’s the ordinary people on the street who
make revolutions possible. Once the leader is in power, he can do anything he wants, because he’ll control the guns, and the butter. But if he loses the people in the beginning he will have lost the revolution.”
    â€œA good speech, Leonid. But you failed to take into account the fact I was cheered.”
    â€œBy the people of Dzerzhinskiy who were afraid of the power station. By next winter when the snow flies again, and still there is not enough power in Moscow, the rest of the city will remember who to blame.”
    Tarankov smiled faintly. “By then the power will be restored.” An event, he thought, that Chernov would not be alive to witness.
    â€œThat’s as optimistic as it is naive, I think,” Chernov said.
    They were parked in a birch woods two hundred fifty kilometers north of Moscow. Tarankov gazed across a big lake, still frozen, his eyes narrowing against the glare from the setting sun, as he tried to keep his temper in check.
    â€œThroughout the summer I will divert military construction battalions from as many division as it will take to get the job done in ninety days,” he said.
    â€œYou do have a timetable,” Chernov said, flipping the cigarette away. “If you’re right, Dzerzhinskiy can be turned into an advantage. And Nizhny Novgorod can be important if the situation doesn’t become untenable after tomorrow. But you still need Moscow and St. Petersburg. We can’t kill them all.”
    â€œOnly those necessary.”
    â€œThey’re not stupid. They’ll figure out your plans, and try to block you somehow.”
    â€œIt’s already too late for them,” Tarankov said. “You’re close to me, have you figured it out?”
    Chernov smiled. “It’s not my job. I’m nothing more than a means to your end.”
    â€œWhat about when we come into power?”
    â€œI’ll leave, Comrade Tarantula, because I will no longer be needed. And we know what happens to people in Russia who are not needed.”
    â€œMaybe I’ll kill you now,” Tarankov said with a dangerous edge in his voice.
    Chernov’s gaze didn’t waver. “I don’t think that would be quite as easy as you might think,” he said in a reasonable tone. He pushed away from the car, and Tarankov backed up a half-pace despite himself. “I have work to do, unless you have second thoughts.”
    â€œYou’re confident you can do it?”
    Chernov nodded seriously. “Yeltsin could have been eliminated anytime over the past couple of years, but nobody wanted to take responsibility for it. He’s not been worth killing until now.”
    â€œAm I worth killing, Leonid?” Tarankov asked.

    â€œOh, yes.