The Boy from Reactor 4

“My God,” Krylov said. “What was the destination?”

“Provideniya. Via Anadyr.”

“The Chukchi Sea,” Victor said.

“What resources do you have up there?” Kirilo said.

“The Maritime Border Guard Unit,” Krylov said. “When did they land in Provideniya?”

“Hard to say,” the major general said. “Sometime in the last hour.”

“We have a modified Tupolev TU at our disposal,” Krylov said. “We can be in Provideniya in two and a half hours. I’ll have the Border Guard set up a perimeter with a radius of one hundred kilometers up and down the coast.”

As Deputy Director Krylov barked instructions into the phone, Major General Yashko walked up to Kirilo. “So there’s no doubt now. Her plan was to escape by ship after all.”

Kirilo didn’t argue. He simply nodded and smiled. Then he glanced at Victor. He could tell from the Bitch’s expression he was thinking the same thing as Kirilo.

Now that it appeared Nadia Tesla was planning to escape by ship, there was no doubt she was going to leave Russia some other way.

CHAPTER 67

N

ADIA AND ADAM stood shivering beside each other. Light poured from the headlights of an idling buhanka beside the makeshift helicopter landing pad. A Caucasian man gave Ruchkin an envelope. He and another Slav transferred the crates from the helicopter to the buhanka.

A light flashed three times at the base of the knoll.

“Your Chukchis are waiting for you,” Ruchkin said. “Go.”

Nadia and Adam thanked him. They descended down the snow-covered hilltop to a ridge, walking and sliding in diagonal fashion to keep from falling. The hike warmed them up after they’d been standing so long in the biting cold.

Two men sat in another buhanka

. One of the men climbed out of the vehicle and walked over to Nadia and Adam. He bore a startling resemblance to Adam, more so than the Yakut or Evenk. His face was the roundest of the three, his features the smallest, and his complexion lightly tanned. His lustrous black hair fell beneath his fur hat to his shoulders, but he had the heavily lined face of a prematurely aged man.

“You Adam?” he said, in coarse, barely comprehensible Russian.

“Yes,” Adam said.

“Skinny, though. What, no food in Ukraine?”

“No,” Adam said. “I mean, yes. There’s food in Ukraine.”

“Then why you no eat?” The Chukchi turned to Nadia. “You American, though?”

“Yes,” Nadia said. “I’m American.”

“America poor, though. Not much money.”

Nadia hesitated, unsure of what he meant. “Well, yes, our economy’s in trouble. The American government has borrowed a lot of money to keep us out of the recession, but I wouldn’t say we’re poor.”

The Chukchi frowned as though he had no clue what she’d said. “You say America not poor? America has money, though?”

“Well…”

“Then if you buy Alaska, why you no buy Chukotka, too?”

“Oh,” Nadia said, feeling her face flush in the darkness. “Now I see what you meant about money. Yeah, you’re right. Big mistake. We should have bought Chukotka, too.”

“How did you know my father?” Adam said.

“Didn’t know father. Don’t know father. Not your father, or mine. We go, though.”

Adam and Nadia climbed into the back of the buhanka

. Heat poured from the buhanka’s vents, but the other Chukchi pointed at reindeer skins and told them to cover themselves anyway.

They traveled four hours over snow-covered paths and trails until they arrived at the edge of a salt pit.

The Chukchi driver pointed beyond the salt pit. “My cousin waiting at shore,” he said.

When Nadia and Adam circled around the salt pit, another pair of Chukchi were waiting for them at the edge of a lagoon.

They were in Uelen, the easternmost settlement in Russia, and the closest to the United States.

CHAPTER 68

V

ICTOR WATCHED KIRILO pace around the meeting room in Provideniya’s Militsiya headquarters. It was 6:00 on Sunday morning. Major General Yashko sipped coffee while Deputy Director Krylov was on the phone.

Victor worried about the Timkiv twins and hoped they were moving Isabella every twenty-four hours, as planned. It concerned him that they were incommunicado. In Kyiv, he could sneak away to a pay phone every now and then. Out here, in Siberian hell, there were no pay phones. And he purposely didn’t carry a cell phone, for fear Kirilo would steal it and trace the number he’d dialed. The boys were professional and reliable, but they weren’t planners.

If they could just hang on for another twenty-four hours, Nadia would cross the international date line and the playing field would tilt in his favor. Victor was certain he knew where she was going. Once she was on American soil, Kirilo would be playing on Victor’s turf. The advantage of familiarity would shift in his favor. The probability of victory would shift in his favor as well.

One of Deputy Director Krylov’s lackeys burst inside.

“Border Patrol officers just found a buhanka

with crates of vodka and brandy by the pier where the Yupik whalers take off in the morning. The driver said he took a delivery tonight. A woman and a boy got off the helicopter.”