The Boy from Reactor 4

by Orest Stelmach

“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

  VICTOR 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.”

  “I’ll call you back, sir,” Krylov said into the phone, and hung up. “What? What’s this?”

  “A pair of Chukchis were waiting for them in a buhanka. The driver said one of the Chukchis tried to buy a bottle off him. Said they had a long, cold trip ahead of them.”

  “Did he say where to?” Major General Yashko said.

  “Uelen.”

  “Uelen?” Krylov said. “Why, that’s at the tip. Near Dezhnev.”

  Kirilo stood up. “The Bering Strait,” he mumbled.

  “Gvozdev Islands,” Major General Yashko said. “Forty kilometers from shore. Big island, Russia. Small island, America. Four kilometers between the two islands. Four kilometers from Russia to America.”

  The major general hustled toward Krylov’s desk and reached for the phone. Krylov must have read his mind, because he stood up and made way.

  “Have you got anyone on Gvozdev that can help?” Kirilo said. “Or is it all natives?”

  Major General Yashko was busy dialing.

  “It’s all natives on the American side,” Yashko said. “One hundred sixty-two at last count. And two sentries and a telescope. We shipped our natives to Chukotka in 1948 and razed our island. Now it’s a military base. About twenty square kilometers. Company strength. Helicopters, artillery. It’s under military command.”

  Deputy Director Krylov nodded toward the major general.

  “Get me the commander at Gvozdev,” the major general said into the phone. “Yes, yes, wake him up. It’s an emergency, dammit. Hurry!”

  The major general cupped the phone, sighed, and glanced at Kirilo.

  “Not by plane or by ship,” Kirilo said. “On foot. The strait is still frozen. They’re going to walk. They’re going to walk from Russia to America.”

  When the major general started barking instructions, Kirilo glanced at Victor and did a double take.

  “You don’t seem surprised,” Kirilo said.

  “Why should I be?” Victor said. “Damian planned a route where people would help his son. The zoologist told us. Plus, the boy’s mother was from the American tundra. Don’t you get it? The boy’s mother is from Alaska.”

  CHAPTER 69

  DAYLIGHT ARRIVED SHROUDED in fog. On the shore of the rocky beach in Uelen, Nadia couldn’t see more than twenty feet in front of her.

  Two other Chukchi men met Nadia and Adam. They wore the same sullen, inscrutable expressions and had identical weathered appearances. They were somewhere between twenty and fifty years old. It was impossible to discern more.

  Their wooden boat seated four. It had oars in the front and the back where the Chukchi sat. It also had an outboard motor surrounded by a rib cage of pipes. When one of them started the engine, it whirred gently like an electric razor, suggesting the extra pipes were a noise-reduction system. Nadia and Adam didn’t speak, and the Chukchi didn’t ask them any questions.

  The lagoon had melted. The boat chopped and skipped over water toward an invisible target. The cliffs surrounding the inlet tempered the winds. Small waves slapped the boat and rolled by without incident. The Chukchi in the lead checked his compass every five minutes and made minor adjustments in navigation.

  Time passed. Nadia didn’t know how much, but it had to be pushing two hours. Russia’s Big Diomede Island was somewhere up ahead. Two miles beyond it was Little Diomede Island. American soil. Adam wore his anxiety on his face, continually mashing his upper lip into his lower one. He appeared stiff, as he had when the policewoman had accosted him on the train.

  The boat came to a stall in a pocket of slush. The Chukchi killed the engine and rowed through the icy sludge to water. They started the engine again, but the boat promptly groaned to a halt again. The Chukchi in the back muttered something to the one in front. That one nodded. From then on, they kept the engine off and rowed. They navigated through an unpredictable maze of water, slush, and ice. When a wave crashed over the edge of the boat and doused the deck, the Chukchi continued rowing as though nothing had happened.

  Nadia looked around for something to do, but there was no way for her to help. She was baggage. Feeling impotent, she suppressed an urge to scream.

  The current nudged them southward while the Chukchi forged eastward. That was the plan. Uelen was northwest of the Diomedes Islands.

  Water gave way to more slush, and the latter yielded to more ice. They stopped rowing. The Chukchi in the lead turned and held his finger to his lips.

  “Keep your voice low,” he said. “Keep your voices low.”

  They rowed for another five minutes until they careened in a circle and ended up pressed between two blocks of ice. The Chukchi muttered something incomprehensible to each other and set their oars aside.

  The Chukchi in front turned and whispered to Nadia. The wind swallowed his words, however, and Nadia had to ask him to repeat everything he had said.

  “Ice from here to Imaqliq,” he said. “Four, five kilometer to Ignaluk. Chukchi can do. American? Not sure, though.”

  By “Imaqliq,” he must have meant the Russian Island, Big Diomede. By “Ignaluk,” he must have meant Little Diomede. Five kilometers was a little more than two miles. Big Diomede was in the way, but the fog would protect them. The Russians had no reason to know Nadia and Adam were coming anyway. The
lookout would never see them.

  Nadia pulled out her compass and looked at the Chukchi. “Where is Big Diomede?”

  The Chukchi frowned.

  “Imaqliq. Where is Imaqliq?”

  The Chukchi turned and pointed forward into the fog at a forty-five-degree angle to the right. “That way,” he whispered. “Close. Real close, though.” He pointed to Nadia’s compass. “Fog lift soon. You see Imaqliq and Ignaluk. Beach on Ignaluk on west side. Remember, though. West side.”

  Nadia and Adam stepped carefully out of the boat onto a massive sheet of ice. The boy was no longer sullen. He was oddly cautious, looking to step where she’d stepped. The Chukchi tossed them their bags and two pairs of webbed rubber spikes. Nadia and Adam stretched the rubbers and slipped them over their boots for traction.

  “Russian side—sea is warm. Chukchi warm. Many pieces ice,” the Chukchi said. “American side island—sea is cold. America cold. Big ice, though. Travel good, other side. Tell cousin said hello.”

  “Cousin?” Nadia said.

  The Chukchi didn’t answer. He and his partner turned their boat around and disappeared into the thick white clouds.

  Nadia helped Adam with his backpack and other bag, and he did the same for her. She studied the compass and pointed south with her arm. They took three steps and stopped.

  A strange mechanical noise sounded above them. Nadia looked up into the fog. It sounded shrill, like a motor, grew louder as it approached, and became deafening. Adam squatted to the ice out of sheer instinct, as though he feared they were about to be bombed. Nadia stood tall, to appear brave for the boy, but when the noise got even louder, she bent down beside him.

  Under her breath, so that Adam couldn’t hear, she began a constant rotation of Hail Marys. Halfway through her third round, she realized she was squeezing Adam’s arm tightly. She pulled her hand away, repulsed she might have shown weakness. If this was going to be the end for her, so be it.

  But she’d be damned if she went out any way other than fighting.

  CHAPTER 70

  KIRILO RACED DOWN the stairs behind Major General Yashko and the soldier who’d met them at the heliport toward the observation room at Gvozdev. He could hear Victor and Deputy Director Krylov trying to keep up behind them.

  “I have a helicopter, my friend,” Kirilo said, “but I’ve never been on a flight like that before.”

  “That is the Bering Strait,” Major General Yashko said.

  Krylov staggered in behind them, looking like a sweaty piece of moldy cheese. Victor looked a bit winded but otherwise unaffected, like the immortal bitch that he was.

  Another military officer introduced himself as a colonel and the commander of the island.

  “Are your men in position?” Major General Yashko said.

  “They are leaving the garrison as we speak,” the colonel said.

  “And the helicopters? Why are your helicopters not in the air?”

  The colonel appeared flustered. “Why…We agreed to wait…to allow you safe landing…prevent a collision.”

  Major General Yashko slammed his fist on a table. “Well, I’ve landed, dammit. Why are they not in the air?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “We prefer them alive rather than dead,” Kirilo said, “but above all, Colonel, we must have the bodies and their possessions. Don’t let them drown. Do we understand each other, Colonel?”

  The colonel appraised Kirilo hesitantly, reluctant to take orders from a man in a suit. Yet he couldn’t disobey someone powerful enough to be on Gvozdev right now. He turned to Major General Yashko for guidance.

  “Don’t even let them get wet,” Yashko added.

  CHAPTER 71

  THE NOISE IN the air stopped abruptly.

  The small hard-rubber spikes gripped the ice well and provided excellent traction. Nadia and Adam scampered twenty feet forward before they had to make their first jump. Although the gap was only two feet wide, the leap still unnerved her.

  The water deep below was hypnotic. It lapped the edges of both blocks of ice and reminded Nadia of harsh reality. She was standing on the Bering Strait, halfway between Russia and the USA, nothing but the principle of freezing keeping her from the bottom of the sea. No one had told her there would be gaps in the ice. The strait was supposed to be frozen. This was not the plan.

  The second jump came thirty feet later. This time the gap was closer to four feet. Adam took off his knapsack, bent low, swung his arms back, and leaped.

  He flew through the air like an Olympic athlete, landing four feet in on the other block of ice, covering twice the necessary distance. He slipped, fell, and righted himself. He got up, rubbing his left hand.

  “You okay?” Nadia said.

  He nodded.

  Nadia threw their bags to him. He caught them and motioned for her to jump.

  She inched closer to the edge. How close should she be? Six inches? Four inches? Nadia looked down at the water.

  “Don’t look down,” Adam said with authority, as though he’d done this many times before. “Look at me. Look only at me.”

  Nadia set her feet. Looked at Adam. Took a deep breath. Bent her legs and swung her arms back. She vaulted.

  An alarm sounded.

  Her foot slipped.

  She flailed forward. Her left leg sailed forward. Hit the far block of ice. Her right leg lagged behind. Would she make it?

  Adam bounded forward and rammed the heel of his shoe into the ice to create a foothold.

  No way she would make it. She was going down. She reached out with her hand.

  Nadia’s right foot hit the water. She teetered backward.

  “Help—”

  Adam grabbed her hand. Braced himself against the foothold and pulled.

  Nadia slid forward onto the ice beside him. Pulled her right boot out of the water as though it were fire.

  Human voices shouted to one another in the distance. Startled, Nadia looked up and around. Visibility was a mere ten feet. She couldn’t see anything, but people were approaching.

  The whirring noise from before started up again, multiplied by five. Helicopters, Nadia realized. Within ten seconds, they were buzzing overhead, invisible through the fog. The voices belonged to soldiers or border guards. They were searching and hunting.

  For them.

  “They’re here,” Nadia whispered. “They knew we were coming. They were waiting for us.”

  Adam stared at her, eyes wide, looking for guidance as to what they should do next.

  CHAPTER 72

  THE PERIPHERY OF the island was captured by strategically positioned cameras and displayed on a wall of security monitors in the observation room. Two men manned the equipment. This morning, however, the monitors were all white with fog.

  Kirilo kept his eyes glued to the telescope on the southwest side of the island. He scanned from left to right and came upon three of the soldiers who had been sent out to form a human chain, twenty meters apart. There was no woman or child among them.

  “Twenty meters is too far apart in this fog,” Kirilo said. “You need more men out there.”

  “This is Gvozdev,” Major General Yashko snapped. “There are no more men.”

  The telescope wouldn’t swing farther to the right. Kirilo began scanning backward to the left. “What are the odds someone can cross the Bering this way? Not likely, right? The ice, the water. The wind, the current. How many people have done it? Two? Three?”

  “Thirty-three, excluding the Chukchis and the Inupiat,” the general said. “I say excluding the Chukchis and the Inupiat because they visit each other all the time. If you count them, thousands.”

  Kirilo pulled his eye away from the telescope. “Thousands? You must be joking. The world thinks it’s two or three.”

  “That’s what we want it to think. Neither we nor the Americans want the publicity, or we’ll have every thrill seeker in the world here. So we keep it quiet. But it is not as hard as the world is led to believe. It all depends on
the fog and the ice. The natives know the weather and the terrain. They have it down to a science. They communicate with each other all the time. If the natives have guided the woman and the boy, then they can most certainly do this. The only question is if they’re getting such help.”

  “No,” Victor said.

  “No?” Krylov said. “They’re not getting help?”

  Victor smiled and shook his head. “I meant no. There’s no question about it.”

  Major General Yashko grabbed a radio transmitter. “Get those helicopters lower. Seventy meters. They’re useless up there.”

  Kirilo resumed scanning. An empty block of ice. A soldier. Another block of ice—wait. Something dark against the white background. He swiveled the telescope back a few centimeters. Someone was emerging from the fog. Was it another soldier?

  No. It was the boy.

  “The boy, the boy,” Kirilo said. “There he is.”

  A chorus of voices. “What? Where?”

  A soldier surprised the boy.

  “Wait,” Kirilo said. “He’s one of ours.”

  The soldier raised his rifle. The boy dropped his bag and raised his hands.

  “We’ve got him,” Kirilo said. “By God, we’ve got him.”

  CHAPTER 73

  ADAM STARED AT the barrel of the rifle. The soldier was either going to shoot him or take him prisoner to get the locket. The first option was bad. He didn’t want to die. But the second was worse. To come this close to executing his father’s plan and then be taken without a fight was unacceptable.

  The soldier had a face that could have grated potatoes. He looked as happy as the coach the morning after a vodka bender. His rifle was wedged in his armpit as he operated the radio transmitter that was attached with Velcro to his shoulder.

  “Yes, sir,” he said. “Standing by.”

  Adam had to make a move, and he had to make it now. He had quickness and the element of surprise in his favor. Lunge, lift, wrestle. Lunge forward, lift the barrel, and wrestle it out of the guy’s hands.