The Boy from Reactor 4

“Yes,” Major General Yashko said with a dismissive smile. “To catch a woman and a child.” He enunciated slowly and precisely to convey his disgust with his assignment.

“You’d be surprised how elusive American women can be,” Victor said. “Especially if they’re from New York. I see them outside my apartment on the sidewalk chasing their dreams every day. They move so quickly. One second they’re there. Then you blink. And they’re gone.”

Major General Yashko measured Victor and smirked. He turned to the deputy director. “Who is this little man?”

“He is with me,” Kirilo said. “Do I need to get the director and the general on the phone and ask them for reassignments?”

“No, you most certainly do not,” Krylov said.

He turned to a wall with twenty television monitors featuring live video feeds. Some showed passengers wheeling suitcases and checking in, while others offered wide-angle views of piers and ships.

“We have security monitors at Sokol Airport,” Krylov said. “Arrival, check-in gate, security, luggage, departure. There are five international flights departing this evening from Magadan. We also have security monitors along the pier. There are three ships leaving this evening. We have agents all over the airport and the pier.”

“But you’re not certain she’s even in Magadan,” Major General Yashko said, “are you?”

“We’re certain she’s either in Magadan or is on her way,” Kirilo said. “She’s getting local help, so she could be coming in slightly off the grid. On a parallel road of some kind.”

“Passport Control is on full alert throughout Russia,” Krylov said. “It is impossible for her to get out of Russia legally.”

“Then she will get out of Russia illegally,” Victor said.

Shortly thereafter, two shapely assistants came in with lunch and coffee.

It was 12:00 p.m. on Friday.

CHAPTER 65

“THE PLAN FROM here on out…” Nadia said. “Adam. It’s dangerous.”

“No,” Adam said. “The plan is good.”

“It’s really dangerous and unnecessary.”

“No, it’s necessary.”

“The man who’s chasing us is Ukrainian. He’s powerful in Ukraine. Not in Russia. If he were, he would have caught us by now. Let me buy tickets for the flight to New York tonight.”

“No.”

“Actually, it’s New Jersey. United Airlines. It connects through Los Angeles.”

“No. You don’t understand how it is here. Russia, Ukraine, the other Soviet countries—they’re all independent, but they’re still linked. They’re linked by bad governments. We follow my father’s plan. He may be dying, but he’s still smart. He’s never told me a lie.”

“I’m not saying he’s not smart, Adam, but he’s not here now—”

“My father’s plan. We stick to my father’s plan.”

“Adam—”

“No.”

Nadia looked across the street at the airport and sighed. She checked her wrist, forgetting it was bare. “What time is it?” she said.

“Twelve thirty.”

“Okay. We stick with the plan. God help us.”

Four trees stood in front of the modest peach-yellow cement terminal. The grass along the front hadn’t been cut for a year. They entered through a pair of rusty steel-framed glass doors. Two weathered men in plaid shirts and jeans were buying Fanta sodas from a babushka at a small convenience shop. A fourth old man, with his back to Nadia, was chatting up a woman in a uniform at the check-in counter. When the woman glanced at Nadia and Adam, he turned.

He looked like a tunnel rat made of sinew and bone, with a fair Russian complexion. Gray stubble covered his sunken face. A cigarette hung on the edge of his lips. After glancing at Nadia and Adam, he pulled a small white envelope out of his coat pocket and handed it to the woman. After peeking inside the envelope, she turned away. He approached with the swagger of a younger, albeit equally short, man.

“Why do policemen work in pairs?” he said to Adam in guttural Russian.

“Specialization,” Adam said. “One can read, the other can write.”

“Ruchkin,” he said, tapping his chest. Ruchka is also the word for “hand.” “Quick. This way.” He pointed toward a side door with a sign that said AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.

They rushed down a short corridor and exited through a sheet-metal door. Power lines ran along a grassy field on one side of the single runway. Two white planes with red propellers sat along the other side. One of the wheels on one of the planes rested at an angle, as though it were ready to break. A red-and-white smokestack dominated the horizon. There was no control tower in sight, though there was a small shack beside the terminal.

A black delivery truck was backed up to the plane with better wheels. A pair of burly young men in army fatigues finished loading it with wooden crates. They nodded at Ruchkin and took off in the truck.

Nadia and Adam boarded the plane. Ruchkin started the engine and guided the plane to the far end of the runway. Pointing the nose toward the other end, he exchanged words with someone on the other end of the radio.