“What if Gunther’s right, sir?” said Lieutenant Rascher. “We don’t know anything about this fellow.”

“I gave you an order, Gunther. Now do as you’re told.”

The major was already unbuttoning the flap on his holstered Nagant. There was no telling if he was about to pull the gun on me or the MVD starshina, but the Ivan saw it and then met my eye, and when he met my eye he saw what I had seen in his—something lethal. He reached for his own pistol, and this prompted Lieutenant Rascher to abandon the idea of searching me and fumble for his own gun.

Still wearing handcuffs and with no time to decide if the major was with me or not, I swung my fists at the Ivan as if I had been driving a golf ball, connecting hard with the outside of his porcine head. The blow knocked him onto the floor between the two rows of seats, but the big thirty-eight was already in his greasy fist. Someone else fired and the glass in the carriage door above him shattered. A split second later, the Ivan fired back. I felt the bullet zip past my head and hit something or someone behind me. I kicked at the Russian’s face and turned to see the major dead on the seat, the lieutenant aiming his revolver at the Ivan with both hands but still hesitating to pull the trigger, as if he’d never shot anyone before.

“Shoot him, you idiot!” I yelled.

But even as I spoke, the more experienced Ukrainian fired again, punctuating the young German’s forehead with a single red full stop.

Gritting my teeth, I stamped at the Russian’s face with the heel of my boot, and this time I kept on going, as if I were stamping on something verminous. One last uppercut of a kick caught him under the jaw and I felt something give way. I stamped again, and his throat seemed to collapse under the force of my boot. He made a loud choking noise that lasted as long as my next kick, and then he stopped moving.

I collapsed back onto the seat of the railway carriage and surveyed the scene.

Rascher was dead. Weltz was dead. I didn’t need to check for a pulse to know that. When he’s shot dead, a man’s face wears a certain look that’s a mixture of surprise and repose—as if someone stopped a movie in the very middle of an actor’s big scene, with his mouth agape and his eye half open. There was that and there was the fact that their brains and what these had been swimming in were all over the floor.

The MVD starshina made a long, slow gurgling noise, and adjusting my balance against the movement of the railway carriage, I kicked him hard—as hard as I could—against the side of his head. There had been enough shooting for one day.