The next week, Yevgeny stayed within the walls of his hidden canyon. He explored the narrow, winding trail until he ran into a blank wall that would take a major effort to climb carrying a heavy pack and rifle. At the base of the wall he found a small catchment basin filled with water from the melted snow fifteen feet above the canyon floor. At least that was something. He was at most two miles from his cave camp.

Feeling more secure than he had since leaving the cabin, he moved slowly back to his camp, day dreaming about his reunion with Katrina and Maya. Yevgeny was nearly back to his cave site when he smelled cigarette smoke that lingered on the light breeze blowing in his face. He edged around the last corner of the trail and could now see the opening to his cave. There was no sight of any movement or any sound but the smell of cigarette smoke was stronger. He edged closer to the hidden opening to the canyon. Now he could hear voices. With his back to the wall, Yevgeny slowly moved closer to the thicket that concealed the entrance to the hidden canyon. The voices were Russian and he was close enough to understand what was being said. Yevgeny stiffened when he heard the dominant speaker saying, “I’m telling you, there is someone out here. There are still enemies of the Revolution and deserters living in the forest.”

A second voice said, “Sergeant, we’ve been out here looking for ten days and have only found one partial footprint on the stream bank.”

A third voice said, “That’s true but there are few sources of water in this area now that the snow is gone. Anyone hiding out here has to get water from that stream. All we have to do is wait a few days.”

Yevgeny could identify the sergeant’s voice when he spoke again. “I’ve been hunting men in this forest for the last two years. I know someone is hiding near here. No one is trapping now and there is almost no game for hunters in this portion of the forest. Anyone here is hiding from something. Remember, just ten days northeast of here five local police men disappeared with no trace. The body of one of them was found two weeks ago with a bullet hole.

“The police believe the killer is well armed and a highly skilled woodsman. It is also believed he killed three local trappers who were armed. Now tell me, would an innocent man get water from a stream and leave almost no sign anyone was there and no tracks leading anywhere? No, the man who left the partial footprint is skilled in the ways of the forest and is not innocent. We will stay here until we find him. I don’t believe he is more than few hours from right here.”

“Sergeant,” one of the earlier speakers said, “I know this part of the forest. For more than 20 years I’ve hunted here. A few years ago one of the elders in the village told me there are stories about a primitive settlement in a small hidden place in the hills with ancient paintings on the walls of several caves. He said the last person to see the caves died many years ago. But he swore the story was true.”

“He might be right,” the sergeant said. “Remember when you told me you smelled smoke a week ago? I wasn’t sure then but that was before we found the footprint. I believe now you did smell smoke. We need to search in the rougher country. The way these hills and ridges fold together, there may be hidden caves all around us. Look at the way those two ridges come together, not 25 meters from our fire. Drink your tea and let’s begin right here to search for a way to look between those two ridges.”

Yevgeny felt trapped. He could feel the trickle of sweat running down his back. He couldn’t hold them at the entrance. He only had 15 rounds left for his .30-40 Krag, not enough to engage three well-armed men. Also he didn’t know if there were more men nearby. He judged he could only count on having 15 minutes before they found the entrance. They were practically drinking tea in the entranceway.

No matter how much he tried to erase all signs of having lived for weeks in the cave, it wouldn’t be enough. The smell of his now dead campfire, or a few scattered green pine needles, his human smell, marks in the dust, his latrine, and food smells would give him away. Maybe if he had several hours he could sterilize his campsite but not in less than 15 minutes. No, his only chance was to travel light and try to climb out of the canyon where the steep cliff made this a dead-end canyon. Taking his rifle, water bag, food, and the city clothes he would need, Yevgeny concealed his tracks as he left the cave using his distance running gait down the canyon.

All of Barry Kelly’s novels are available in print in digital formats from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or your local bookstore. Visit www.factsandfictions.com for more by the author.

March 1923

Ten days later, just before first light a sad Yevgeny left a tearful wife and a sleeping daughter as he slipped away into the night. Smoke wanted to come with him but seemed to understand when Yevgeny dropped to his knees, hugged the big shaggy dog, and told him he had to stay and guard the family. He took a southeast heading to take him into the mountainous region north of Irkutsk. He had hunted in the area but did not know it well.

Yevgeny carefully covered his trail until he was several miles from the village. He had seen some caves with grown over entrances. He planned to set up a camp in one of them. He would do just enough hunting and fishing for his food. The less travel in and out of his cave, the fewer tracks he would have to worry about.

For the next three days, Yevgeny moved like a ghost through the rolling, rough country north and east of Irkutsk. He kept off the wider trails used by villagers along streams and rivers and chose the numerous game trails in the higher, rough terrain. He seldom saw anyone. His fires were nearly smokeless and small. The snow and ice were melting. With his sheet of oiled canvass and bearskin, he could keep warm and dry. He still carried the beautiful furs Katrina wanted him to destroy. He just couldn’t do it. He had taken great risks to get the furs and carry them back to the village. Who knows, he might be able to sell them somewhere.

On the fourth day he judged he was within two days of Irkutsk. There was no use moving any closer to populated areas. He had nearly two months to live alone and stay out of sight. He wouldn’t even be able to pass the time hunting and trapping.

Yevgeny had passed several suitable caves in the last few days. He hoped he could find another one now that he was close enough to Irkutsk to wait. It was nearing dusk when he noticed a thicket where two pine-covered slopes came together in a near fold, forming a narrow passage that he only saw when he was preparing to set up his camp for the night. Stopping his search for dry firewood, he crawled under the tangled scrub growth for a closer look. As he pushed his way through, he saw a small clearing ahead. Once in the clearing he stood up, using his rifle barrel to part the remaining branches. Yevgeny saw a very old, narrow trail leading through the passageway between two adjoining cliff faces.

Going back and returning with his pack, he carefully moved through the screen of scrub fir trees. Moving along the twisting path, Yevgeny found a cluster of caves. Slipping his pack and checking his rifle, he went into the second cave of the five he could see. Inside he made a small fire. As the flickering light drove the shadows back, he saw signs that the cave had once been occupied. A series of elegant, primitive painted figures covered one wall of the cave. The cave roof was several feet over his highest reach.

He cut enough pine boughs to make a bed, being careful to hide the fresh cut marks. For the first time since leaving the cabin and Katrina, he slept soundly.

The next morning after a breakfast of smoked meat and tea, he explored the other nearby caves. All the caves had been occupied at one time, but very long ago. He could find no evidence that anyone had used the caves since the primitive people who drew figures in all the caves left. One cave smelled like a bear had used it but he couldn’t tell how long ago. The droppings he found were dried hard. He figured this was as good a place to hole up as he would find.

The only drawback was the lack of water. Now that the snow was nearly all melted due to the warm winter, he had to leave the small hidden canyon to get water. His goatskin bag would only hold two gallons. Every two days he had to make the two-hour round trip to a meandering stream to fill his water bag. He hated to keep going back to the same area but without venturing an additional unknown distance, he had no choice.

In the fourth week of waiting in the cave, he saw footprints along the small stream where he came for water. The tracks were all made with the same type of boot. These footprints were left by some kind of government unit. Maybe there are still small units of the remnants of the White Army subsisting in the forest. Moving carefully back into cover, Yevgeny studied the tracks. It looked to him that the tracks were left by men who came to get water and made a search of the area. Maybe in one of his many visits to the stream he had left some kind of a trail. He could see the men had searched both banks of the stream. They had to have seen something. If they were good trackers and really interested, they would eventually find his trail. A tracking dog could find him with no trouble.

All of Barry Kelly’s novels are available in print in digital formats from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or your local bookstore. Visit www.factsandfictions.com for more by the author.

By the time the few lantern lights of the tiny village showed in the cold stillness of the night, both man and dog were ready for warm food and a roof overhead.

Yevgeny knocked on the heavy plank door and called softly to Katrina. She swept the door open and ran into his arms. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. “I was so worried. You were gone so long.”

Smoke thrust his muzzle into her hand. Katrina looked down. “And who’s this big furry thing? A friend of yours?”

Yevgeny laughed. “This big furry thing is Smoke. He helped me get back here.”

“In that case, both of you can come in and get a decent meal. Smoke, you and I are going to be good friends.” Smoke licked her hand and brushed against her leg as he walked into the house.

Yevgeny went in to look at Maya. Katrina joined him. “She is doing better. She may not need that expensive medicine. She has no fever and is eating and sleeping much better.”

While Yevgeny and Katrina were watching over their first child, Smoke searched the room and lay down by the fireplace. He was sound asleep before Katrina was halfway finished putting a meal together. While she worked, Yevgeny told her the story of his trapping expedition and escape from the police pursuing him.

Katrina stopped cooking and took Yevgeny in her arms. “My love, you don’t understand Russian police. They will never give up. They will follow every little clue no matter the costs in money or time. They answer to no one. You cannot ever go back there again.”

“My Katrina, I must go back one more time. My traps are hidden nine days to the northeast.”

“If they find your traps they will wait for you to return. The police know how important traps are to everyone out here. And you cannot buy more, even if we could afford to. They will investigate every purchase of enough new traps to run a trap line. Your traps were all marked. If they find your traps, I think they will put up a reward for anyone who can tell them whose mark is on the traps.

“You cannot sell any furs unique to that area in our local fur market. The police will be looking for any stranger selling furs where you were trapping or anyone selling furs from outside their local area. My father traded in furs and he could instantly identify unusual quality and where the furs came from. He could even recognize the skinning skills of the trappers.”

“There is even more,” Yevgeny said. “The cops may find those thieving villagers were killed with a .30-40 Krag rifle. It is not unique here, but it’s not common, either. Ammunition is getting hard to find and our supply is getting low.”

“I know we’ve been happy here,” Katrina said. “But it is time to leave. I want Maya to have some decent schooling and a different choice of lives than she will have if we stay here.”

“Okay, but we don’t have to move right away.”

“Yes, we do. I have a fear and an appreciation of the tenacity of the police you will never understand. It comes with generations of living in a country where there is law but no justice. Where the accused are guilty before, during, and after trial. The sentence doesn’t matter. I know several people who have been sent to the prison camps. I know no one who has ever come back.

“Tomorrow we begin our planning. In thirty days we begin our move closer to Irkutsk and the services our children will need to survive in this society. You see, I believe things will get very much worse in the next ten years. The Bolsheviks will stop at nothing in their zeal to transform Russian society. The little people, like us, will pay the price. So accept there is urgency in our need to move.”

“But how will we live? Here I earn enough by hunting and trapping for our needs. What will I do in civilization?”

“We’ll become low-level party members and workers. I already have some of the documents we will need. Thousands of records have been destroyed in the war. With some forged documents and a few new ones from the government, we can establish ourselves with new identities. We must be careful to never stand out. Never be exceptional. Strive constantly to be a part of the masses. No one must be envious of us or our position. It is the Russian way to achieve equality by pulling people down. Not by everyone improving.”

“This is your country. I’ll follow your lead.”

“You must think, my husband, that this is also your country or your attitude will bring us all down.”

“Katrina! You have been planning this for some time.”

“Yes, I knew at some time we would have to disappear and emerge as different people. Your language is now good enough and the danger to us if we stay here in the village is real. Now, think hard. I need your advice. Parts of my plan you will not like, but let me finish before you comment. Agree?”

Yevgeny nodded and Katrina started to lay out her plan. “Thirty days is not an estimate. It is real. I will take Maya and Smoke and find a place to live near or in Irkutsk.”

Seeing Yevgeny getting ready to say something, Katrina held up her finger and stopped him. “Maya and I will change our names in this move. I’m taking Smoke because I don’t want him arriving with you a month later. A man arriving from the wilderness with a big white dog is too much of an identifier. No one will think twice about a woman and a child traveling with a dog.

“You will arrive wearing poor urban clothes like a migrant worker who is looking for construction work would wear. Your past as a trapper, hunter, and woodsman will not come with you. If the authorities come here looking for the trapper who killed five policemen, the villagers would eventually identify you and describe the dog as your constant companion. A trapper traveling with a big white dog is too easy to find. Smoke would give you away. I know you well enough to know you would not kill him as most men in your position would. I respect you for that but I will not let Smoke endanger Maya or you. So he comes with us.”

“And where does that leave me?”

“You, my love, disappear. In ten days you go on your last trapping run of the season. You find a well-hidden campsite, maybe in one of the many caves in the area, and wait two months before coming to find me. At noon every Sunday and Wednesday in the Irkutsk central train station I’ll be drinking a cup of tea.”

“So after two months I leave my hunting and trapping equipment behind and join you and Maya?”

“Yes. Leave everything behind, including your furs and rifle. An old Siberian saying is, ‘Leave everything behind except a trail.’”

“How long can you live on the money we have?”

“Many months. I’ve hoarded the money you had in your pockets at the train wreck and some more I got from other dead soldiers. Gold and silver coins are good anywhere. But you must be careful where you use them. The corrupt officials and thieves are always on the lookout for gold. You always earned enough money from hunting and trapping for us to live on without using my hoard. Even when Maya was sick I didn’t want to expose our treasure for her medicine. If she got worse I would’ve but I was sure you would bring in enough furs.”

“I’m convinced. What will my name be?”

“When you meet me at the train station I’ll give you your documents. I’m not even going to tell you what name Maya and I will use. It’s better you don’t know. If you are captured, they will make you talk before they kill you.”

All of Barry Kelly’s novels are available in print in digital formats from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or your local bookstore. Visit www.factsandfictions.com for more by the author.

Late February, 1923

 

It was just such a winter. Yevgeny was ranging far north of his normal trapping territory. Maya needed some costly medicine and he had to find good, quality furs. His cache of furs was nearly large enough. He judged he had a 40-kilo pack. Today he had added five very nice fox pelts. A few more runs and he would start for home. Yevgeny had noticed the tracks of other trappers the last several days and didn’t want to run into any other hunters or trappers. No wonder though, he thought. This is a great area to trap. He might have to come back next year.

As he pulled up his last trap, three fur-clad men stepped out from behind a growth of scrub fir trees along the game trail. One of them pointed a rifle at Yevgeny and in a dialect he could barely understand, told him to hand over his pelts and rifle.

“Who are you?” Yevgeny asked in Russian.

“Never mind,” said the man who was pointing the rifle at Yevgeny. “Just do as you’re told.”

The other men had knives out but were not acting like they knew the difference between killing an animal or an armed warrior. Yevgeny knew after killing him they would search for his hide and the rest of the pelts.

Yevgeny dropped his pelts and began to hand over his rifle, which had a round chambered and the safety off, as he always carried it when he sensed danger. The increasing appearance of tracks along his route had raised his preparedness.

As the armed trapper smiled and reached for the rifle, Yevgeny flipped the Krag up under his right arm and shot him in the chest. Two more quick moves with the bolt action and all three were down and dying. He knew there wasn’t enough time to hide the bodies. The men weren’t carrying packs. They must live close and people would be looking for them. People who knew this country better than he did. He decided his best option was to travel fast, pick up his furs, and put as much distance between himself and any pursuers. He was twelve days’ travel from the safety of his village. He had 15 rounds of ammunition left. Not enough to keep several armed men at bay.

On the morning of the third day, he was beginning to believe he had escaped. Then he faintly heard dogs howling. Yevgeny picked up his pace, still carrying his pelts. Maya needed the medicine so he needed the pelts. With the rifle, traps, supplies, food, and pack of pelts, he was carrying more than 100 pounds. There was no way he could keep ahead of the dogs carrying that much weight. By the sound, he figured his pursuers were three or four miles back. He was within an hour of the next river crossing.

There was sure to be some open water along the riverbank, Yevgeny thought, planning. A good place to hide the traps and maybe find a way to separate the men from the dogs. Dogs would go out on the ice. Men would not. Too much risk. When Yevgeny made his way down the ridge and got to the river, there were several places he could leave his traps.

Picking a spot marked by a light-colored boulder, he dropped his traps in the water. No one would find them under the shallow, murky water along the riverbank. The pursuers were now above him on the ridge. He couldn’t go back up. The only option was to continue southeast along the bank and find a place to cross the river.

The ice hadn’t broken into fast-moving floes yet but it looked weak. He knew ice from years of ice fishing in Minnesota lakes and the Mississippi River. With his pelts and gear, he still weighed nearly 300 pounds, even without the traps. He traveled due south down the river until he found a wide sweep where the current eased off. Without wasting any time, he struck out across the ice. He avoided snow-covered portions and dragged his pack and pelts behind him to spread out the weight. The river was a good 75 yards across and the ice was mostly firm. As soon as he detected any sponginess, he moved laterally until the ice felt firm again.

Yevgeny breathed easier when he reached solid land. This was a good place to make a stand. He dropped his load of pelts and gear behind a large, fallen log on the edge of the tree line, checked his rifle, the light, and wind. By now, his hunters would only be minutes from reaching the place where he crossed the river.

The dogs appeared first. The men came out of the forest, held the dogs in check near the bank while they discussed their next move. Yevgeny’s tracks were in plain view.

From his hidden position he could clearly see his hunters. They were all dressed the same. They gathered around the man Yevgeny assumed was in charge. The men were all carrying rifles and packs. Must be army or police. This is getting more and more serious, Yevgeny thought as he lined up his sights. That’s why the pursuit was so swift and well organized. These are experienced trackers. They may even have others coming behind them.

While he watched, the men leashed the dogs and started across the ice at intervals of 15 feet. When his hunters were all out on the river and the lead man was, he judged, more than halfway across, he fired, aiming at the ice in front of the lead pursuer. The man immediately stretched out on the ice and began to fire at the edge of the tree line. As Yevgeny had hoped, the others closed up with the dogs until the whole group was within a fifty-foot circle.

Leaving his heavy packs, Yevgeny moved down the river while staying within the edge of the forest. The men on the upper part of the group no longer had a good line of fire and moved down to form a new firing position. Now the men, dogs, and packs were all concentrated in a much smaller area.

Yevgeny picked a good line of fire with protection and fired his five-round magazine within 20 seconds. Now he was shooting to kill. He hit one man and caused the whole group to move and shift. Yevgeny dumped five more rounds into the magazine and fired one more round, hitting a second man, who had been moving and now fell to the ice. He went through the ice and the entire section of river ice began to break up.

The three uninjured men tried to run back across the river, but it was too late. With their heavy clothing, boots, weapons, and packs, all sunk under the surface after a brief struggle. One of the dogs made it to the riverbank but couldn’t get up the bank. Yevgeny ran up and reached down the bank and grabbed the leash to haul the heavy husky up on the bank.

The dog was exhausted after his time in the freezing river water and lay panting. Yevgeny rubbed him down with dry, powdery snow and wrapped the shivering dog in a blanket. “We both need to warm up and get some food,” he said aloud to the dog. The dog perked his ears and lifted his head up to look at Yevgeny. The dog watched as he built a hot but nearly smokeless fire and warmed some smoked meat.

“You know, maybe we can be good friends. Let’s call you Smoke,” Yevgeny said, offering the dog some meat. Smoke licked his hand then gently took the meat. “Someone has taken good care of you. You’re some version of a husky. Before your coat freezes, I’ll get you a bit drier. We have to move out, but not too fast. I’m tired, too.”

During the nine-day trip back to his home village, Yevgeny and Smoke bonded. It was almost as if the big husky mix constantly understood what his new partner wanted and tried his best to give it to him. He and Smoke avoided any trails that looked like they may lead to inhabited areas. At night, Yevgeny was able to relax and sleep for he trusted Smoke to watch over the campsite. In the morning at first light they were under way, leaving the campsite looking like no one had been there.

Yevgeny thought they would reach his village shortly before they had to camp again. The ground was still snow-covered and three light snows had fallen that covered any trail they left. Yevgeny was sure no one would be able to follow his trail. He had slowed the pace since his race against the men hunting him, and he no longer was carrying his load of steel traps. He knew he had to be careful. The word would be out. You don’t kill five government law enforcement officers and three trappers without expecting the search to continue.

All of Barry Kelly’s novels are available in print in digital formats from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or your local bookstore. Visit www.factsandfictions.com for more by the author.

 

July 1921

John Brandon, now called Yevgeny Roskovski, was dressed completely in animal skins and furs on a trapping and hunting trip deep in the forest 300 kilometers northeast of Irkutsk, still carrying his beloved .30-40 Krag. He liked the Krag and when the platoon was issued Springfields, he had kept it. Enough ammunition had been carried on the sled with him to last for years if he was careful. His leg wound had finally healed and now caused very little pain. The people of the village, themselves outcasts from the civil war, had convinced Lieutenant Brandon two years ago that there was no going back. The Reds were still hunting down and executing anyone who had helped the Whites in any way. His status as an American soldier would not mean anything except a quick execution. If he was captured and the Communists discovered his real identity, the entire village would be wiped out.

During his convalescence, Katrina coached him constantly on the details of his new life. Brandon was now speaking Russian well enough to pass in the linguistic polyglot of languages spoken in the village. Katrina became his wife shortly before their daughter Maya was born. With the help of a few of the villagers, Brandon had built a sturdy, three-room log cabin. He was a skilled woodsman, hunter, and fisherman when he was living in Minnesota and those skills came in very handy here. He was by far the best supplier of meat for the village. Some of the villagers joked about the treasure they had found under the snow at the battle for the train. To Brandon, that event seemed like ancient history. He loved Katrina and Maya. He would love to take them back to Minnesota and often found himself dreaming of ways they could get back to America. He was the last of the Brandon line. His parents depended on him to continue the family’s bloodline.

Instead, the Brandon line was beginning in Siberia. The village became John’s world. He now could think in Russian. He was Yevgeny Roskovski. When a son was born, he would be Peter Roskovski. As long as the Roskovskis remained in their remote village, they had as much freedom as people anywhere. Only very occasionally did any officials of the Communist Party travel anywhere near his village. There was no money and no tax collectors. The census takers didn’t care. It was easier to estimate a census from offices in Irkutsk. Occasionally, furs were sold for cash money but most transactions within the village used a well-understood barter system.

Lieutenant John Brandon became a very small shadow that occasionally emerged only to be chased away by the needs and risks of living in a subsistence economy at the mercy of the weather. A cold or dry summer and the land failed to yield its meager return for the village’s labor. A warmer than usual winter and the furs were substandard, and the river ice was not firm enough to allow trappers much time to service their traps along the river banks.

All of Barry Kelly’s novels are available in print in digital formats from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or your local bookstore. Visit www.factsandfictions.com for more by the author.

November 1919 

As a kid in St. Cloud, Minnesota, Johnny Brandon loved riding trains. He loved everything about trains. Their windows opened a vista beyond the structured world of school, church, family, and neighborhood. He loved looking out the window of a moving train and listening to the clickety-clack of the wheels as they sped over rails that narrowed to nothingness behind, and opened to the future as it moved forward to new adventures. It was as near to time travel as you could find in 1910 in the Midwest.

Now, nine years later, he would be glad to travel back to the certainty of a life he could count on. Lieutenant John Brandon stared through the clear circle he had rubbed in the frosted window. Outside, the bleak, frozen, forested land of Siberia swept by as the train from Vladivostok, laden with supplies for the White Russian Army of General Kolchak, moved closer to Irkutsk. In another hour they would be there.

Lieutenant Brandon knew the area around Irkutsk was especially dangerous and he was making sure his platoon was ready for action. The platoon had drawn train-guarding duty for the last three months. Once back in Vladivostok, they were scheduled for a change in duty assignments.

 Lieutenant Brandon had volunteered for train-guarding duty. Big mistake. Endless cold, bad food, and long periods of boredom broken by sudden and deadly firefights when bands of Red Army Communist soldiers managed to tear up sections of the track and stop the train. His platoon and other units of the Polar Bears managed to fight off all the attacks and the trains eventually got through but not without costs to the Polar Bears, a self-appointed nickname for the regiment. Most of the men were from Wisconsin and Michigan with a small percentage from Minnesota. Some of them could speak some Russian, German, or Polish. Many had been too young to have served in France, but when President Wilson decided to support the democratic Kerensky revolutionaries in their struggle against the Bolshevik party of Lenin, John Brandon and thousands of others found themselves on troop ships going to fight an unknown war in a frigid environment they were not prepared to fight in.

Their mission from President Wilson was to protect and recover the significant amount of war materials the United States had sent to Russia when they were fighting on the Allied side against the Germans. Now that Russia, under Lenin, had withdrawn from the First World War, Allied soldiers from Britain, France and America were sent to prevent war supplies from America from falling into the hands of the Red Army or the Japanese. American sympathies were with the democratic Kerensky Russian White Army of General Kolchak. To protect the supplies they had to fight off the Red Army and keep the Trans Siberian Railroad open.

Most of the men in Brandon’s platoon felt they were being treated unfairly. The war they had been fighting was over. They had expected to go home, not to Siberia. Not even the field grade officers could explain why they were riding trains across Siberia’s frozen landscape. Their hearts and minds were not in this backwash of questionable American interests.

Lieutenant Brandon was halfway through checking his platoon of train guards when the engineers sounded the alarm and applied the emergency brakes. Brandon knew it would take a half-mile to bring this train to a full stop. By that time, they would hit whatever caused the engineers to try and bring the speeding train to a stop.

“Hang on, men!” he yelled. “Get ready for action!” Nothing could be seen outside. The blowing snow and the late afternoon darkness made it impossible to see.

Lieutenant Brandon felt the train derail. He estimated they were moving at least 40 miles an hour. At that speed, several cars behind the two locomotives would leave the track and overturn. The car carrying his platoon was two cars behind the coal tender.

Even before the car overturned he heard an explosion, followed by raking small-arms fire.

At least half of the members of the platoon were struggling to their feet and moving toward both ends of the car to get out and set up firing positions to protect the platoon first and then the train. Lieutenant Brandon and his platoon sergeant, Sam Reilly, managed to get firing points set up. Nearly all the platoon was in action. Only a few were too severely injured in the crash to make their way out. The railroad embankment provided good cover for the riflemen and the machine gunner. The overturning of the car might save all our lives, Brandon thought. Most of the firing is coming from the rear of train where the valuable equipment is carried.

The attackers were mounted and racing up and down the right-of-way. The Polar Bear riflemen were armed with bolt-action 1903 rifles and the boys from the Midwest could shoot. The Springfields were the best rifles they had ever been issued.

Several horses were down. In the light of the flares fired from the train, Lieutenant Brandon saw a mass of infantry emerge from the forest. He realized the cavalry was only a probing attack. “Reilly,” he yelled to his sergeant, pointing to the emerging infantry. “Bring up your men!” He wasn’t going to lose his entire platoon in a fight to the death over an overturned rail car. When the platoon was together, he moved them back into the forest.

The accurate fire from the platoon’s rifles from the cover of the forest turned back two waves of mass attacks. Lieutenant Brandon gave the order to fire one more magazine on the next attack and fall back into the forest and evade west down the tracks to Irkutsk. The next attack came after a new barrage from some horse-drawn field artillery. The wedge of attacking infantry broke through the thin line of Polar Bears. Only a few members of the platoon were able to fall back and escape to the west as a sudden heavy snowfall masked the battle area. Lieutenant Brandon saw Sergeant Reilly go down with a fatal wound. He turned to move deeper into the cover of the forest when he was knocked down by a blow to his right thigh. Scrambling on all fours, he managed to find a dead fall of two down trees and crawled under cover. The fight for the train was over. Surviving was the next mission.

 It was now snowing so hard he couldn’t see anything. The wind strengthened to a gale force. The whole battle area was obscured by a swirling, white cover. Lieutenant Brandon, lying between the two fallen trees, could hear the shouts of Red Army soldiers and an occasional gunshot and explosion. They will kill all the prisoners, wounded or not, he thought, I’ve got to lie still. I don’t think my leg is broken or any major arteries were severed. If the bleeding stops and I don’t freeze to death, I can live through this. I’m already covered with snow. My tracks and blood trail must also be under snow cover. The Red Army officers will call off the attack and use the soldiers to load up the supplies they want. There must be a trail or road close by for tractors and horses to pull wagonloads of supplies away from the ambush site. I won’t freeze. It’s 20 degrees Fahrenheit. My winter gear and this snow cover will keep the worst of the cold out.

Brandon was dozing when he was awakened by something moving in the snow near his hiding place. He lay still. Listening, he heard a snuffling sound and Russian voices, then he felt the snow being brushed away. He reached for his .45 Colt but couldn’t manage to get it out. As he struggled he heard a Russian voice saying, “Over here. This one is alive.”

Strong hands pulled him out of his snow-covered hiding place. He tried to stand but his leg wouldn’t hold him, and he sagged against the person who had pulled him out of the snow. He felt his .45 being taken away. He slowly raised a hand and brushed the snow from his face and eyes. The first thing he saw was a huge white dog sitting in the snow, watching him. He saw several armed figures bundled in fur clothing gathered around him. After a few tries he managed to say he was an American and pointed to the patch on his uniform.

One of the smaller fur-covered figures said, “We know that. We can tell by your weapons and uniform. You are a lieutenant.”

Brandon, using his limited Russian, said, “Speak slowly. I understand and can speak a little Russian.”

 “Good,” said the small figure in a female voice. “I speak some English. Better than your Russian. Now in English tell me about your injuries.”

“I was shot in the right leg last night. The leg is not broken and the bleeding has stopped. I feel weak and don’t believe I can walk on this leg. Who are you?”

“My name is Katrina. You don’t need to know any more now. Just do what you are told. We are bringing a sled up to carry you. The trip will be hard. We will reach a safe place with heat and food sometime late tonight, if we have no trouble. We can’t do anything with your wound now. If it starts to bleed again, tell someone. Not everyone will want to take you with us. They believe you will slow us down and they want to carry supplies on what sleds we have, not wounded soldiers. Do not worry. I will convince them to put you on a sled.”

All of Barry Kelly’s novels are available in print in digital formats from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or your local bookstore. Visit www.factsandfictions.com for more by the author.

It occurred to me while musing over my first three novels featuring Jack Brandon and his team that the story of Jack’s father, Peter, had been neglected. Here was a man who was a fast-track KGB officer who escaped from his masters and re-established the Brandon family in America. How did he manage to flee the KGB? How did he come to live in the U.S.? What was his life like in the Soviet Union? Who was Jack’s mother? What was she like? Where did the name Brandon come from?

Run to Freedom is the beginning of the Brandon family story.

Has anyone ever written a fiction novel that was 100 percent fiction? I doubt it. Some truth always makes its way onto the pages the readers see. My characters are a combination of truth and imagination. None are actual people.

My novels contain a lot of detail. In the worlds of espionage, detail is king. Without it, any operations plan is useless. You may have to ignore pieces of the plan to deal with reality but scrambling from a plan is better than no plan at all. Detail also is necessary when devising and using aliases. Knowing when to change an alias is a learned skill. Bear with me as my hero changes identities multiple times over his journey.

For the intelligence operative, changing identities often requires a matching change in behavior. It is not easy to keep all this change straight. I’ve personally used many identities. Some lasted only a few hours, others months. The longer you use an alias, the more you slide into being someone else and the greater the impact on the real you.

I try to take few deviations from the truth when dealing with geography, distance, travel time, and various hardware items. Weapons used by the Brandon team and their capabilities are real. Distance shooting scenes are probable. Hand-to-hand combat is from my own training in Hapkido and the choreography of those scenes is correct. The firefights are plausible. Serving with CIA in I Corps Vietnam in 1968 and ‘69 gave me some experience with small-scale firefights.

The operational planning is real as is the casing of targets. The execution is based upon first-hand knowledge with a varying amount of fiction. Knowledge of the KGB is from study and two years in Moscow as the CIA Station Chief. The KGB is a worthy opponent and I added to my lore of tradecraft by that experience. Whatever skills I have in planning operations, I owe to excellent training by the CIA.

I want my readers to follow along with Peter Brandon as he tries to escape the KGB and feel they too are in the action. There are no superhuman actions. Many of you with the proper training could turn the clock back and face the same challenges.

My knowledge of the Irish Republic Army is slight. I hope I haven’t used too much imagination and too little fact in writing about it as it existed in the 1970s.

Buckle your seat belt and enjoy the action!

All of Barry Kelly’s novels are available in print in digital formats from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or your local bookstore. Visit www.factsandfictions.com for more by the author.

“When the time comes, the way will be clear.”