My entire body broke into a sweat. I knew what sarin was, but my fingers automatically entered it in the search field anyway. A clear, odorless liquid twenty-six times deadlier than cyanide that rapidly evaporated into a vapor and was lethal at extremely low concentrations. Death usually occurred within one to ten minutes of inhalation.
I slammed the laptop shut, as if I’d just seen Satan’s ghost. Everyone knew that Syrian strongman Bashar Al-Assad was using sarin on his own people. Just a few months ago, the news had shown footage of corpses lying in the streets of Douma with eruptions of foam at their mouths, and screaming children who’d managed to survive the attack being drenched with hoses. I remembered a Sixty Minutes segment on a sarin attack in Syria in 2013. Assad’s soldiers had filled rocket launchers with the deadly nerve agent. The bombs exploded across a densely populated area, releasing clouds of poisonous gas. Over 1,400 civilians experienced an agonizing death. At least 426 of them were children. I remembered the exact numbers because I kept trying to imagine that many critically ill people being rushed to hospitals at once, and felt some of the helpless despair those Syrian doctors must have experienced.
The news show went on to explain that sarin attacks were relatively low-tech warfare, the kind of thing that even a poorly trained terrorist group could pull off easily if it had the materials.
When the segment was over, I immediately did exactly what anyone who knows me well would have predicted I would do. I looked up the effects of sarin exposure on the human body, in case I was ever called upon to treat victims of an attack. Sarin blocks the enzyme that allows muscles and organs to relax after exertion. Essentially, the body convulses to death. Initial symptoms are tightness in the chest, constriction of the pupils, uncontrollable drooling, and tearing of the eyes. Loss of bodily functions follows: victims vomit, urinate, and defecate. Their eyes and lungs blister and burn. Their muscles jerk violently, and they have ongoing epileptic fits. Usually, death comes from asphyxiation stemming from the loss of control over respiratory muscles.
There’s nothing a doctor can do.
I began pacing Misha’s narrow room, my heart pounding through my chest. One floor below was a weapon that could kill everyone in the building and countless others before we even had a chance to run away.
I texted the photos to Meredith and waited for her response in an agony of impatience, the cheap spy phone cupped in my hand.
So this was what Bohdan and Tanya were up to—stealing sarin from the chemical plant where they worked and selling it to buyers in Baku, Azerbaijan.
I almost couldn’t believe it. To think I’d spent hours the night before getting drunk and swapping tales with them, getting to know and sort of like them, all the while perched above a stash of deadly WMDs. How wrong my instincts about them had been.
How could they do it? What weird, twisted logic were they using to justify their acts? I hadn’t noticed any signs of religious fanaticism or bloodlust on a massive scale. They weren’t Russian nationalists either, as far as I could tell—they were too bitter about what was happening in their city, too cynical about government in general, to be on Putin’s payroll.
The only motivation that fit was greed, born from despair. They saw themselves as trapped in a dying community, with only poverty and unemployment to look forward to. It made sense that they’d be tempted to sell whatever valuable commodity they could get their hands on to the highest bidder, especially if the payoff was life changing. And what could be more life changing than permanent relocation in a foreign country? Turtle doves cooing in pink-blossomed cherry trees and a little white house with a picket fence.
But no, it didn’t work. I simply couldn’t get my head around the fact that they would trade WMDs for a tired domestic dream. Even though I knew full well that there were plenty of sickos in the world who would happily swap sarin for a bottle of vodka and a pack of smokes.
The phone vibrated. “Excellent work,” Meredith said breathlessly. “Where did you find them?”
I described their location. Not much of a hiding place.
“They probably weren’t going to be there very long.”
“How much destructive power is that?”
“Eight canisters? That’s enough for four artillery shells. Enough to kill a village.”
The scientist in me took over. “How do they handle the stuff without killing themselves? I mean, they might be relatively safe now, but at some point, those chemicals have to be combined.”
“Right. Those metal containers can be transported and handled in relative safety because as long as the DF and OPA are kept separate, there’s no problem. Once in the field, the fighters put a canister of each chemical inside an artillery shell, separated by a thin rupture disk. When the shell is fired, the disk breaks and the spinning of the shell mixes the two chemicals, producing liquid sarin, which is released on impact.”
I said, “And when the liquid sarin hits the air, it evaporates instantly. Into a gas so dense it doesn’t rise into the atmosphere but spreads along the ground in a yellow cloud.”
“You know your chemistry, Doctor.”
A wave of nausea came over me, as if I myself were a spinning artillery shell. I kneaded my forehead uselessly with my fingers. Think, don’t feel. So much needed to be done, all of it dangerous. The metal containers had to be removed from the flat and disposed of somehow; Duboff and Karp had to be stopped before they could steal any more nerve agent from the plant. Were there only eight canisters, or had others been hidden in other places? How much had been smuggled already? Who were the buyers, and what were the intended targets?
“Meredith?” I said, my heart in my throat. “What happens now? Who’s going to deal with this mess? And, just in case you have any crazy ideas, I absolutely won’t do it.”
I could feel her smile on the other end of the phone. “Don’t worry, Natalie. You’re off the hook. Our people will take it from here.”
“Oh, thank god. When can I leave?”
“I’m going to move very quickly to get you out of there. You’ll get a text soon with instructions. You may have to leave immediately, so be prepared.”
“I’ll be ready. Count on it.”
The minute we hung up, I started throwing my stuff into my duffel. I wanted to warn Ilmira and everyone else who lived within a half-mile radius, but knew I couldn’t. As long as the DF and OPA are kept separate, there’s no problem. No problem. I repeated that several times until I believed it enough to function.
An hour passed, then another. The afternoon dragged on. I made tea and let it get cold, turned the TV on and off. All the while a thought was nudging the edges of my consciousness: Had this been Misha’s objective in Mirny—finding stolen WMDs? If so, Meredith would have known that she was delivering me into a serious danger zone when she recruited me.
I recalled how she and Lena had lured me to Siberia, how Meredith had let me flail about until I was ripe for persuasion. It wasn’t out of the question to think that Meredith had outright lied about the danger when I asked. I needed to prove my suspicions false; otherwise, how could I trust anything she said from now on? I sent another text: I need to talk. Call me. A few minutes later, my phone vibrated.
“Did you know there might be sarin in that apartment?” I asked tersely. I was clutching the phone with a sweaty palm, pressing it hard against my ear.
A pause. “What’s going on, Natalie?”
“What do you mean, what’s going on? Nothing’s going on. I have a question, that’s all. Did you know there might be sarin in that apartment?”
Another pause, this one longer, followed by a long capitulating sigh. “All right. I’ll tell you as much as I can. Mayadykovsky Chemical Plant is one of several facilities that’s supposed to be destroying Russia’s enormous arsenal of chemical weapons, in compliance with a 2006 international treaty. The stockpile at Mayadykovsky originally included about forty thousand aerial bombs and missile warheads stuffed with toxic nerve agents like saran, soman, and VX. A
few years ago, the Kremlin announced that the plant had disposed of ninety-eight percent of its materials. Not a word since about the remaining two percent, which is enough to wage massive chemical warfare anywhere in the world.” She took a breath. “Are you following this?”
“Yes.”
“We’ve long suspected that Russia’s been supplying Syria with chemical weapons, or the means to make them. Naturally, we want to keep a pretty close eye on Russian stockpiles and figure out how the material is being moved, and by whom. Last winter, we received intelligence indicating that small quantities of a nerve agent were being smuggled out of Mayadykovsky and sold to some bad actors in the Middle East.”
“So you recruited Misha to go undercover at the plant.”
“Correct. We had a list of suspects, Duboff and Karp among them, but no evidence. Misha’s job was to get close to the suspects and dig up whatever he could.”
“So you did know that Duboff and Karp might be smuggling WMDs. But you didn’t mention that to me.”
“Natalie, in this business, there are secrets inside secrets. Are you really that surprised?”
I didn’t say anything. Finally, I asked, “You think Misha was on to them?”
“Without him here to tell us, there’s no way to be sure. My guess, probably.”
I swallowed hard. “So maybe they figured out he was a spy and got rid of him.”
“Makes sense, I’m afraid.”
If the thought of Bohdan and Tanya selling sarin to terrorists was hard to accept, the thought of them murdering Misha was harder. In the case of sarin, the actual killing would be done by others in a different country. With a pile of fancy rationalizations, they just might succeed in convincing themselves they weren’t really responsible. Murdering Misha was different—it would have been up close and personal. They would have had wet red blood on their hands, a real person’s body to dispose of. They were damn expert liars if they’d done it. If.
I said, “Let’s not forget the other option that’s in play. The gulag camp, and whatever was going on with that. Misha could have earned himself some enemies there.”
Meredith cleared her throat. “I should have told you this before, but whatever Misha was doing relative to this gulag camp wasn’t part of his CIA mission. I don’t have the manpower or the resources—or the mandate, frankly—to look into that.”
“What? You said… I thought you wanted to find him.”
“Of course. But there are limits to what I can do.”
“You’re giving up on him,” I said coldly.
“I wouldn’t call it that.”
“No? What is it called when a nineteen-year-old goes missing, and the people responsible for putting him into a very dangerous situation won’t expend the so-called ‘resources’ to try to find him? You recruited him, Meredith. You knew at the time he was just a kid. If he’s gotten himself into trouble, you owe him more than a bureaucratic brush-off. Especially when it’s perfectly clear that something is going on with him and that gulag camp. Don’t tell me you don’t have the money. How hard can it be to check the place out?”
I remembered Misha’s messy closet, the hiking boots with yellow dirt caked in their treads. Why yellow?
Meredith’s voice was as smooth and distant as a flight attendant’s. “I appreciate what you’re saying. Truly, I do. I’ll take another look at Death Valley, I promise. Right now, I need you to pack your bag and be ready to leave. You’ve done an outstanding job, Natalie. You should be very proud.”
The morning air was cool and humid with incipient rain. I’d received my marching orders late last night via text: the black Lada would come for me at seven a.m. and take me to the airport. It was Saturday, so Ilmira was still asleep. I wrote a note:
Dear Ilmira,
Sorry to leave so abruptly. I got a call—there’s been an emergency with my mom, and I have to go home right away. Here’s money to cover the back rent; I’ll leave the key under the mat. Sorry I can’t take Misha’s stuff: feel free to sell it or get rid of it however you want. Please let me know if he shows up or you hear anything new. I’ve given your info to his mom—I hope that’s okay. I don’t know what she intends to do now, but she’ll be in touch if she needs anything.
I really appreciate your hospitality, Ilmira. You’ve been terrific. Thank you for everything. Come and visit me in the States if you possibly can. I mean that.
Warmest wishes,
Natalie.
My purse was on my shoulder, backpack and leather duffel by the door. I waited at the window, dressed in jeans, short boots, and a light jacket, and as soon as I saw the car take the corner, I high-tailed out the door.
I very much wanted to see Meredith Viles behind the wheel. Instead, it was crusty Oleg, smelling of days-old sweat and tobacco smoke.
“Ms. Viles couldn’t come. She sends best wishes for safe trip,” he said. There was a tremor in the red, swollen fingers gripping the steering wheel. Hangover? Anxiety? Early Parkinson’s? I tamped down a surge of anxiety by telling myself that as long as I got to the airport on time, it didn’t much matter who drove.
Oleg checked his mirrors carefully before pulling away from the curb.
We turned onto the main thoroughfare. The entrance to the Mir mining complex came up a few minutes later. A uniformed security officer stood sentry while first-shift workers trudged through the gate, their clothes the color of mud, and trucks waited to be inspected, both going in and coming out. Further on, successive blocks of windowless industrial buildings slipped past the Lada’s dirty window. I wondered what went on behind their blank, imposing walls. Diamond cutting and polishing? The mass production of engagement rings? Odd to think of these drab factories creating coveted symbols of romantic love.
Oleg lit a Ducat and held it pinched between sausage fingers. I cranked open my window to escape the wreath of smoke. He checked his rear and side mirrors, which I’d seen him do a couple of times already.
“Looking for someone?” I said.
“Looking and not finding. This is good.”
“That’s not what most people would say.”
“I am not most people,” he replied with a smug smile, pleased with his own supposed mystery.
The airport came into view—a few paved landing strips with a single terminal building and three large hangars. Oleg turned in, made a slow circuit of the gravel lot, and parked at some distance from the terminal. He turned off the engine.
Adjusting his heavy body to face me in the cramped interior, he said, “I must ask you now to please open compartment in front of you and remove envelope.”
I popped open the glove compartment and took out a large manila envelope with a string closure. It was bulky with irregularly shaped items. I stared at it for a moment, sensing that I wouldn’t like whatever it contained.
“Open it,” he said.
I unwound the string and poured the contents into my lap: a passport, license, credit card, airline tickets, and a fat stack of rubles held together by a thick elastic. Also a smartphone in a brown leather case, with charging cord and earphones. I opened the passport. My face stared back at me over the name Anne-Marie Phipps.
“What’s this about?”
He sucked down a plume of smoke and, lungs expanded, choked out a comment clearly meant to be ironic. “So you will have safe trip home.” On the exhale, a phlegmy cough rumbled in his throat. “In few minutes, you will board plane to Novosibirsk, where you will pick up flight to Moscow. From there you will take the American Airlines to your Dulles airport outside Washington, D.C. It’s long trip. Twenty-two hours. But when you travel west in partnership with sun, you gain a day. Think of that—destiny is giving you extra time to live. As thanks.”
I was shaking my head vigorously. “No, that’s not right. I’m not returning to the States yet. I’m going to the village where my relatives are. Meredith arranged it; she must have told you that.” I unfolded the travel itinerary and checked what it said. To my surprise, it was as Oleg d
escribed: three flights, landing me in Washington that evening. I refolded it quickly. “No, sorry. This is wrong.”
He held the cigarette close to his face. There was a tincture of leer in his wistful smile. “I am sorry to tell you that new plan was made. Is much better for you to return to USA.”
“That’s not what I agreed to,” I said hotly.
He shrugged his heavy shoulders. “It does not matter what you think you agreed to. This is instruction now.”
“No, this is crazy,” I said, shoving the passport and other things back into the manila envelope. “I need to talk to Meredith.”
“She is not available.”
“What? Are you kidding?”
“She wants me to say she is sorry if you are disappointed.”
“Disappointed? Disappointed doesn’t come close. She said I’d be taken to see my relatives if I did what she asked. Well, I did it. Now it’s her turn to live up to the bargain.”
He pinched his eyebrows together with mocking sympathy. “You are wasting time with this talk, my friend. Your flight will depart soon. So now I ask you to leave behind anything connected to your real identity. Phone, license, credit cards, passport. Also, please, your laptop computer. And, of course, the small phone you were given to use.”
“You want me to give you my passport? Are you kidding? There’s no way I’m doing that. And I’m not giving you my personal phone or my computer either.”
“Please try to understand clearly. You have no choice in this matter. I must ask you to do this very quickly.”
“This is ridiculous. I’m calling Meredith.” I punched speed dial number one on the spy phone and listened through four rings. There was a click, and the phone went dead.
Oleg held out his meaty palm.
“Okay,” I said, dropping the burner into his hand. “I can’t get through. But I’m sure you could reach her if you want. I demand that you do that now. Get her on the line immediately, and let me talk to her. I really must insist.”
“I am very sorry, Doctor. You will please notice that you are being treated with respect.”
FINDING KATARINA M. Page 15