The old man released his lapel and looked back into the train, one hand still clutching Rossett’s face, fingertips like ice picks sliding across his skin. “I knew you before all this. You came into my shop. I knew your family, your father, your mother. They were good people, honest people. As soon as I saw you I recognized you. I read about what you did in France. I was so proud of you fighting for us.”

Rossett vaguely remembered the old man now from the shop on the corner when he was a child. Suddenly, the yard fell away from him and it was just him and the old man, looking into each other’s eyes.

“I remember, but you have to get onto the train. I can’t help you. It’s my job to put you on the train.”

The old man pulled him forward again; he gripped Rossett and pushed his mouth close to Rossett’s ear.

“Behind the bookcase, third floor, front room. My treasure is behind the bookcase. It is payment for you to help me, to do a thing for me. You are a good man, you’ll do it. I knew it the moment I saw you coming to the house, you’ll do this thing for me.” Whispering hot breath on a freezing cold ear caused Rossett to stiffen.

Just as suddenly as he had grabbed Rossett, the old man pushed him away and stepped back into the freight car as if falling from a cliff.

“Sergeant?” called the German from the bottom of the ramp. Rossett came to, the spell broken. He looked first at the German and then back into the gloom of the freight car. Ghostly faces with blackened eyes stared back, and he found himself taking a half step back, still looking for old Galkoff, who had disappeared into the darkness.

“I have a timetable!” called the German again.

Rossett finally turned and walked back down the ramp, glancing over his shoulder into the freight car, where eighty-four pairs of eyes watched him go. At the foot of the ramp, the German proffered the clipboard, which Rossett signed without checking. The two railwaymen abruptly raised the ramp and swung the freight door shut with the solid clang of a heavy iron hasp and the final screeching stuttering slide of a rusty bolt to hold it fast.

Rossett looked up at the locked door as the German pulled the clipboard from his hand. The train jolted as the distant engine took up the slack. From inside, Rossett heard some cries as the shock of the movement hit home.

Rossett felt as if he were in a dream. Galkoff’s whispering so close to his ear had unsettled him. It was more real, less clockwork, more human. He felt that he could still hear the old man, feel his panicked breath on his cheek. Rossett touched his face where the old man’s stubble had brushed and looked around to see if anyone else was affected by what had just happened.

They weren’t.

Behind him the HDT and police were already boarding their trucks. He saw that the German officer was making his way back to the guards’ train car. A whistle sounded somewhere, and the train suddenly jerked again, like a circus elephant against a chain, and then slowly, so slowly, the car in front of him started to move along the track.

He took another step back and looked from one end of the train to the other, from the engine to the guards’ car at the rear, where the German was hopping up onto the ladder before it started to move too quickly. The train picked up speed and as the guards’ car passed him, the German waved from the still-open door and shouted something about seeing Rossett next month.

Wind blew drizzle into his face, and he wiped it with the back of his hand, realizing he was still holding his sap. He watched the red lights at the back of the train move away for a moment and then turned toward his car.