The Boy from Reactor 4

by Orest Stelmach

  A murmur of approval surrounded Nadia. The woman glowed.

  “A soul must work to survive,” a voice said.

  The crowd murmured more approval. Those who were standing parted. A man sprawled at a booth in front of Adam with a bottle of vodka and a shot glass in front of him.

  “Since they closed the collective farms in 1991, it’s all gone to shit,” he says.

  “Papers,” a woman shouted.

  Conversations ceased. Lips formed straight lines. A pair of heels clicked together at the back of the car.

  People scurried about. Some escaped into the car ahead. Others returned to their booths or the bar.

  A petite woman in a gray military uniform bustled up to Adam with a fierce look on her face, as though he’d trampled her garden. From the neck up, she resembled an aging porcupine, with spiked black hair that sprang from gray roots. A younger man accompanied her. He was tall, with a square face, gaunt cheeks, and a sidearm attached to his belt.

  “Papers,” she screamed at Adam. “Where is your guardian?”

  Adam lowered his head. He stuttered, “I…I…”

  For the first time since Nadia had met Adam, he looked like a child and not a man, one reared to respect and fear authority, like Soviet citizens of the past. An unfamiliar sense of maternal protectiveness sent Nadia springing to her feet.

  “Hey,” she said to the cop. “I’m the boy’s guardian. Who are you?”

  The woman flashed a legitimate-looking police ID. “You are in Kirov Oblast. We are the police. Passport Control. Papers. Both of you. Do not make me ask you again.”

  Nadia turned over her passport and told Adam to do the same.

  “Your papers are out of order,” she said after studying Nadia’s passport.

  “Why?”

  “Because you must register with the local prefecture upon entering Russia. You are in Kirov Oblast. There is no stamp of registration.”

  “I’m on a train, just passing through. How am I supposed to register?”

  Instead of returning the passports, she clutched them by her side. “You will get off with us at the next stop. You will register at the local prefecture. And you will have to pay a fine.”

  Adam shrank in his booth.

  “A fine?” Nadia said. The lies of a thief sprang to her mind. “I see. Well, we cannot and will not get off this train. I’m on important business.”

  The policewoman smirked. “Oh, really? What kind of business?”

  Nadia whipped out her New York City library card. “You see this? It says New York Chronicle. That is the biggest newspaper in America. I went to Moscow to interview Aline Kabaeva. You know Aline Kabaeva? She’s the Olympic gold medalist who’s now a member of parliament and a very close friend of Prime Minister Putin. After writing a story on women in politics in Russia, I’m enjoying your beautiful countryside with my nephew. But you…You don’t want me to enjoy it, do you? You want me to write another story instead?”

  The policewoman’s lips quivered as though she didn’t know if she should be angry or afraid. The soldier put his hand on his sidearm uncertainly. He looked from his partner to Nadia and back to her again.

  After a momentary pause, she returned the passports. “But you must register,” she grumbled. Her partner followed her to the next car, the badge sewn on his right shoulder barely hanging on by a few threads.

  When Nadia turned back, she found Adam staring at her with wonder. She led the way back to their compartment. Worn and weathered passengers loitered in front of their cabins. Smoking was prohibited, but a white cloud hung in the air and the corridor reeked of nicotine. Nadia savored the thrill of outwitting the cop. She was a thief’s daughter. She could wrangle her way out of any situation, couldn’t she? Equally thrilling was the thought that she’d impressed Adam and earned a modicum of respect.

  “Was that…Was that all true?” Adam said, close on her heels.

  “Was what true?”

  “What you said back there. To that musor. Was that all true?”

  “Of course it was true. Are you calling your aunt a liar?”

  “You’re my cousin, not my aunt.”

  “I prefer aunt. It gives me a sense of power with no real responsibility.”

  “You’re not my aunt.”

  “I disagree.”

  “Are you really a reporter? Do you really know Aline Kabaeva?”

  “No. But I read an article about her in a New York paper once.”

  “Huh?”

  When they got to their cabin, Nadia locked the door behind them.

  “From now on,” she said, “we don’t leave the room unless we need to use the bathroom. And we watch each other’s back at all times. Agreed?”

  Adam hesitated and then nodded. “Agreed.”

  CHAPTER 56

  KIRILO SLIPPED A five hundred–ruble note to the bartender in the restaurant car.

  “Car Three, Cabin Two,” the bartender said, snatching the bill from the counter and burying it in his pocket. “She and the boy.”

  “The boy? What boy?” Misha said.

  “Ugly boy. Not Russian. Face like a reindeer’s ass after Christmas Eve. Looks like he’s from the North. Not Yakut or Evenk. More like Chukchi. Smells like he’s from the Zone, though.”

  “The Zone?” Victor said. “Why do you say that?”

  “I worked in Kyiv for twelve years. You get a feeling.” The bartender shrugged. “I can’t explain it.”

  Misha’s neck buckled. Warned, Kirilo stepped away. Misha vomited. The bartender recoiled. Misha hurled again. Blood mixed with chunks of partially digested chips and nuts. The bartender groaned. A putrid smell filled the air. Kirilo gagged.

  Misha straightened. Blood dripped from his nose onto the counter. He raised his sleeve to his ashen face. A red droplet seeped into the white cotton and spread.

  His lips parted and his eyes widened. He glanced at Victor with a mixture of disbelief and disdain. “Did you really poison me, old man?”

  Victor laughed. “Of course not. You really must have caught a bug or a parasite.”

  Kirilo now knew Victor was lying. Misha looked worse every hour. But there was no sense in telling Misha. They couldn’t afford any delays to see a doctor, and even if they could, there was no hope for the moscal.

  “You should really see a doctor,” Specter said.

  Misha babbled incoherently for a few seconds before glancing at Specter. “What? Doctor? And let you guys make out with the formula? You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Specter? No, no doctor.”

  “Misha,” Specter said, “you’re not well.”

  “The formula,” Misha said. A maniacal glint shone in his eyes. “All I need is the formula. Let’s go.”

  They bounded down the corridor toward the third car. Kirilo let Misha, Specter, and the four bodyguards go ahead of him to put distance between the radioactive moscal and himself.

  Kirilo checked his watch. It was 4:00 p.m. on Tuesday. It had taken them two and a half days to catch up to Nadia. When they had finally arrived in Moscow at 2:00 p.m. on Sunday, some pipsqueak in Passport Control had flagged Misha as an undesirable based on his criminal record as a youth in Moscow. It didn’t help that Misha was sweating profusely, like someone who had something to hide. Kirilo explained that the deputy minister of the interior of Russia was an investor in his Black Sea energy project and would vouch for the American. The deputy was away at a conference in Prague, however, and couldn’t be reached until midnight.

  On Tuesday morning, they flew to Yemelyanovo Airport and tried to catch the Trans-Siberian thirty-seven kilometers away at Krasnoyarsk, but the taxi arrived seven minutes late. They drove an additional four hundred kilometers and finally boarded it at Tayshet, halfway to Vladivostok.

  When they arrived at Cabin 2, Misha tried to open the door. It wouldn’t budge. He cursed and kicked at it. Loitering passengers disappeared.

  Something clanged inside the cabin. It was metal on metal, like a lead pipe accidentally b
anging into the steel frame of a bed.

  “Who are you? What are you doing?” A very large female attendant barreled down the corridor. No wonder the restaurant car had no food to offer, Kirilo thought.

  Kirilo had the pyatichatka out of his wallet before she arrived. He offered her the fifty-hryvnia bill.

  “Please open this door,” he said.

  She licked her lips at the money and frowned as though she wished she could accept it but couldn’t.

  “It’s okay, dear,” he said. “The American woman is my granddaughter. The boy is a troubled child. She is adopting him. I am here to help them.”

  “That’s no business of mine,” she said. “But I can’t open the door for you because it’s locked from the inside.”

  “How do you get in if it’s an emergency?”

  “They have to open it themselves.”

  “What if they can’t?”

  “Well, that’s never happened. But if we had to, we could break it down. Though, in this case, it would be a waste of time.”

  Kirilo sighed with exasperation. “Why do you say that?”

  “Because the woman and the boy aren’t in there. They got off the train at Tayshet.”

  “What?” Misha said.

  “As soon as we arrived at Tayshet, they got off the train and disappeared.”

  The lock was unbolted from the inside. The door slid open. An ancient couple jabbered in Chinese. The man held a metal cane.

  “Where could they possibly be going that they would get off at Tayshet?” Victor said.

  “The Baikal-Amur Mainline begins in Tayshet,” the attendant said. “It goes north and then runs parallel to the Trans-Siberian. It is a slower train.”

  “Then why on God’s earth would anyone use it besides a local?” Kirilo said.

  “It used to be a transit stop for gulag prisoners. Now it is the gateway to Yakutsk and the North,” she said.

  Kirilo howled. “Yakutsk? The North? There’s nothing in the North but gulags and mines. No roads, no civilization, nothing.” Kirilo’s voice faded as he listened to his own words.

  “Which makes it the last place anyone would look for her,” Victor said.

  Kirilo swore under his breath. “What is the fastest way for us to get on the Baikal-Amur headed north?”

  The attendant eyed the pyatichatka again. “Once you pass Irkutsk, the train turns back north. You can get off at Bamovskaya, take the Amur Yakutsk line, and cut them off.”

  Kirilo handed her the five hundred–ruble note. “Where can we cut them off, dear?”

  She snapped the bill out of his hands and buried it in her pocket in one motion. “At Tynda,” she said. “You can cut them off at Tynda.”

  CHAPTER 57

  THE TRAIN RUMBLED north by northeast, pitching and tossing Nadia in her ramshackle seat every half hour. She spent the hours sleeping and gazing out the grimy bolted-down window of their second-class cabin. Whenever she checked to see how Adam was faring, she found him slumped in torpor. He didn’t mind the endless travel. It must be some Eastern European thing that living in America expunged, Nadia thought.

  Mile after mile of conifers stretched across the taiga amidst patches of red-and-gold birch trees. Signs of industry and life rolled into view occasionally. Factories sprawled along the Bratsk High Dam, while coots and geese buzzed the marshes. The vista gave way to the untamed forest and served as a reminder that Siberia was larger than the United States and Western Europe combined.

  Twenty-four hours after Nadia and Damian had boarded, they passed Severobaikalsk. The train plunged along its tracks past groves of stunted pines into a valley surrounded by jagged mountains with snowcapped peaks. The afternoon sun shimmered on the northern tip of icy Lake Baikal. It was the Pearl of Siberia, the attendant said when she brought hot tea, and the world’s largest freshwater lake. They passed through four tunnels along the lake and emerged surrounded by glazed tundra. From there, the permafrost extended forever.

  Adam kept busy by reading the same torn and tattered hockey magazine over and over again. The cover featured an action shot of a huge player with a penguin on his jersey driving toward the net. Wavy black locks flowed from his black helmet, fierce determination etched on a surprisingly cherubic face. From her viewing angle, Nadia could see the name Jagr in bold letters beneath the picture.

  “You have a favorite team?” Nadia said.

  He lifted the magazine and flashed the page he was reading. The top of the page said, New York Rangers. The page was a mess. The left side had a hole the size of an adult’s fist punched through it.

  They bought food and bottled water on the platforms during stops along the way. Forty-eight hours after they’d boarded, the Baikal-Amur train headed to Sovetskaya Gavan, the Sea of Okhotsk, and the Pacific Ocean, and Nadia and Adam made a scheduled stop. The local time was 7:31 p.m., five hours later than Moscow. It was now Thursday, April 29.

  The name on the train station read TYNDA.

  Nadia and Adam climbed off the train onto the platform at Track 2. Their matronly attendant did the same.

  “Where can we catch the northbound Amur-Yakutsk to Tommot?” Adam said.

  “Track Six,” the attendant said. “It arrives at seven forty. In nine minutes.”

  CHAPTER 58

  KIRILO AND HIS two bodyguards stepped off the northbound Amur-Yakutsk at Tynda on Track 6 at 7:42. Misha followed, propped up by Specter, looking like a corpse who’d escaped from the morgue. His pair of bodyguards brought up the rear.

  Kirilo marched up to a transit employee on the platform.

  “Which track for the Baikal-Amur? The one that’s just arrived, from Tayshet?”

  “Track Two,” the employee said.

  Kirilo had expected a small railway station. What the hell did they have out here that required twelve or more tracks? Timber? What else could it be?

  They bolted up the stairs to Track 2, where the Baikal-Amur had arrived twelve minutes earlier. The train sat on the track, waiting to depart. Kirilo and Specter hurried to the far end. A woman wearing a blue vest and a matching cap puffed on a cigarette.

  “I’m looking for my niece,” Kirilo said. “She’s American. Traveling with her adopted son. An unfortunate sort. Have you seen them?”

  The attendant’s eyes flickered for a second before registering confusion. She looked Kirilo up and down. “An American, you say? Gee, I don’t know if I’ve seen any Americans.”

  Kirilo whipped out his wallet and held out a pyatichatka. “Is your memory getting any better, dear?”

  The attendant snatched the dough. “Oh, that American. Sure. They were in Car Two, Cabin Four.”

  “Were?” Kirilo said.

  “Yes. Were. They got off when we arrived.”

  “Do you know where they went?”

  She scratched her chin. “Gee. They may have asked me how to connect to a train, but I’m not sure I remember which one.”

  Kirilo gave her another pyatichatka.

  “Oh, that train. Sure,” she said. “Now I remember. It was the Amur-Yakutsk.”

  “What?” Kirilo said.

  “The Amur-Yakutsk. They’re headed north to Tommot.” She glanced at her watch. “It leaves at seven fifty-five. In two minutes.”

  CHAPTER 59

  NADIA SAW THEM just as they got off the train. She grabbed Adam by the collar and yanked him behind a massive iron pillar on the platform of Track 6.

  “Oh my God. That’s them,” she said.

  “Who?”

  “Them. Don’t look, don’t look.”

  Adam slipped the knapsack off his back and stood sideways beside Nadia to make himself smaller.

  They approached. Nadia rotated her body around the pillar to hide. Adam followed her lead. She heard footsteps, recognized a familiar voice.

  Specter.

  Another rotation and they passed. Nadia glanced at their backs. Specter was twenty feet away from her. He was so close.

  Specter disappeared down the stai
rwell toward the central concourse with the others.

  Nadia nudged Adam. They hurried onto the Amur-Yakutsk headed north, the same train the others had just gotten off.

  The doors closed. The engine hissed. The train rolled away from the station. Nadia peered through a narrow gap between the curtains on the window in her cabin.

  Specter and Kirilo exploded out of the stairwell, three bodyguards close on their heels.

  “Let me look,” Adam said beside her.

  She held him back with a straight-arm.

  Kirilo and Specter raced for the edge of the platform. Nadia’s viewing angle narrowed until she lost sight of them.

  “What if they jump on the back of the train?” Adam said.

  “Lock the door,” Nadia said.

  She bolted out of the cabin, sprinted down the corridor, passed through a doorway, and entered the rear car. Weary faces looked up at her from benches. She didn’t recognize any of them.

  She slowed as she approached the window of the rear door, fearful that Kirilo or one of his bodyguards could be climbing aboard. The bottom of the window was filthy, covered with grime. The top, however, was still translucent.

  From a distance, she could see five men turning back on the platform toward the stairs.

  CHAPTER 60

  FOUR TAXIS WAITED outside the train station at Tynda.

  “Who knows the road to Tommot?” Kirilo said.

  All of them raised their hands.

  “Who’s driven it recently?” Kirilo said.

  All of them raised their hands again.

  “Who knows my brother Theodore’s hotel, the Tommot Vista Inn?”

  Three of the men raised their hands. Kirilo approached the fourth, the youngest of the bunch. He looked as though he didn’t shave yet. He stood beside a beaten-up Volvo station wagon with his arms folded across his chest.

  “How long a drive to Tommot?” Kirilo said.

  “About six hundred kilometers. But there is no Vista Inn in Tommot. And I don’t know any Theodore.”