"The men who got out of the second truck weren't in uniform, so he got curious. He snuck through the reeds until he could see better. There were the two soldiers from the Army truck and four civilian men from the second truck. They talked for a few minutes; then the four civilians disappeared behind the truck and then reappeared wearing 'cosmonaut gear.'"
"A biohazard suit," Fisher said.
"Yes, I think so."
Alexi kept talking.
"Two of the men were each carrying a big shiny footlocker. They all walked behind one of the mounds. The soldiers stayed behind, leaning against their truck, smoking.
"About twenty minutes passed, and then the four men reappeared from behind the mound carrying the boxes, two of them to each box. They loaded the boxes into the back of the second truck, then stripped off their suits and joined the soldiers at their truck.
"They talked for a few minutes, and then one of the civilians opened the door to the truck, took out a suitcase, and walked back. He handed the briefcase to one of the soldiers. And that's when . . . That's when it happened."
"What?" Fisher asked.
She held up her hand to silence him, then leaned closer to Alexi and put her hand on his forearm. They spoke for a while, then she leaned back and frowned. She turned to Fisher.
"He says after the civilian handed over the briefcase, his three partners drew pistols and started shooting. The first soldier went down, but the second was faster. As he fell, he got off two rounds from his rifle, killing one of the civilians. Then the leader--the one with the briefcase--walked over and shot each soldier a final time time in the head, then reloaded and emptied his pistol into the dead civilian's face. The three of them dragged the bodies behind the mounds, then climbed into the truck and drove away.
"He says he buried the two soldiers and the civilian in the woods beyond the bunkers."
"Did you know about this?" Fisher asked.
"All I knew was the rumor: that Alexi had seen the men the night they disappeared."
"Did he tell anyone about this?"
Elena asked him, then said, "He thinks he did, but he's not sure. He may be confused."
"Tell me."
"He says he told the area commander."
34
IT took only fifteen minutes to reach the site Alexi had described. Before they got there, Fisher told her to pull over. He reached up and switched off the dome light, then opened the door. "I'll meet you on the main road in two hours," he said.
"Let me go with you. I can help you."
"You can help me by going home and waiting. I just need to check a few things; I'll move faster alone. Pop the trunk."
She did so. Fisher walked back and retrieved the bag of gear Elena had put together for him--a pair of hooded biohazard coveralls, a respirator, goggles, boots, and a double set of gloves.
"You remember how to put it all on?" she asked.
"Yes."
"And the duct tape? On the wrists and ankles and neck? Make sure you get a good seal."
"I will."
Fisher closed the door and Elena drove away. He waited until the Kadett's taillights disappeared around the bend, then shouldered his duffel and walked into the woods.
FISHER didn't think Alexi was confused. He believed every word of the old tanker's story. Someone had bought their way into the Exclusion Zone and then bought access to one the bunkers, and you don't buy that kind of access from a pair of privates in the Ukrainian Army, but from staff officers--like an area commander. Whether the man knew his soldiers were going to be murdered, Fisher didn't know, but according to Elena the commander in question, a colonel, had retired two months earlier and moved to the resort city of Yalta, on the Black Sea.
Alexi claimed that upon hearing the story of the shooting, the colonel thanked him, promised there would be a full investigation, and then swore him to secrecy. Alexi didn't quite believe him, so he told the colonel the soldiers and the other man had been taken away in the civilians' truck.
"The civilian he didn't care much about," Elena had translated, "but he didn't think the colonel would do right by the dead soldiers. They were comrades; they deserved a soldier's burial."
Fisher could only speculate as to why the colonel left Alexi alive, but he suspected Alexi's renown in Chernobyl had something to do with it. If two young privates go missing, it's desertion. If Alexi goes missing, it's a mystery that locals want solved.
FOLLOWING his memory of the map Elena had drawn him, Fisher weaved his way through the darkened woods until he came to a stream, which he followed east until it widened into an inlet choked with reeds and cattails. He was now on the eastern side of the plant's cooling pond.
He pulled out his Geiger counter and passed it over the dirt and nearby foliage. The rapid tick-tick-tick in his earpiece made his skin crawl, but the numbers were within acceptable range. According to Grimsdottir, his exposure here would amount to three chest X-rays.
Over the tops of the cattails he could see the outline of the power plant. He was a quarter mile from the site of the worst nuclear disaster in history.
The morning after the explosion, rescue workers finally realized they were fighting a losing battle against the fires in the crater, which were being fed by not only by the molten slag of the remaining fuel rods but also by the highly flammable graphite that had sloughed off the casings of the rods. Helicopters were called in to dump neutron absorbants into the pit.
Over the next six days nearly two thousand sorties were flown through the radioactive plume gushing from the reactor. Five thousand tons--some ten million pounds--of lead, sand, clay, dolomite, sodium phosphate, and polymer liquids were dropped into the crater until finally, a week after the initial explosion, the fires died out. None of the pilots who flew over the pit survived the exposure.
Across the cooling pond, Fisher could see the bunker mounds. They were arranged in three-by-three squares, each square separated from its neighbor by a hundred yards. The mounds, which were nothing more than bus-sized shipping containers, had been covered by layers of earth and then topped off with a conrete lid. As with everything at Chernobyl, nature had reclaimed the bunkers, turning them into shrub-covered hillocks. If he hadn't known what they were, Fisher might have mistaken the mounds for natural terrain features.
He made his way through the reeds until he reached the opposite shore. He was about to cross the road when he heard the growl of an engine. He crouched down.
A pair of headlights appeared on the road. The vehicle, moving slowly, paused at the first set of bunkers. A searchlight came on and panned over the mounds, then went out. The vehicle pulled ahead and repeated the process at the next grouping. As it drew closer, Fisher could see the vehicle was a GAZ-67, a WWII-era Soviet jeep. Two soldiers were sitting in the front seat.
The jeep drew even with Fisher's hiding place, paused, scanned the mounds, then moved on. After a long ten mintes, the GAZ rounded the bend and disappeared from view. Every few seconds the searchlight would pop on, skim over over the next set of bunkers, then shut off.
Fisher dashed across the road, down the embankment, and through the tall grass to the clearing surrounding the bunkers. He pulled out his Geiger counter. The numbers showed a slight rise, but they were still within limits.
Alexi claimed the bunker the civilians had been interested in was Number 3, the farthest back from the road. He ran between the first two mounds, then veered right and stopped at the base of Number 3. He scanned again with the Geiger scan: still okay.
He followed the edge of the mound to the back, then flipped his goggles into place and switched to infrared. The image was stunning. The ground beneath his feet was a dark blue that slowly faded to a neon blue where the slope started. From there the change was abrupt, a line of orangish-yellow that began at the base of the mound and went to the top.
After twenty-plus years, the radioactive debris was still pushing heat through several feet of soil and a layer of concrete. Again Fisher felt the tingle of ap
prehension. Don't think, Sam, he commanded himself. Do what you came to do and then get out.
He opened his rucksack and rummaged around until he found the collapsible entrenching tool, which he quickly assembled. He walked the length of the mound, pausing every foot or so to jam the shovel into the slope. After ten feet, the tip of the blade plunged through into open air. He twisted the shovel, pulling out clumps of soil until he'd cleared a small hole. He clicked on his flashlight and shined it inside.
There was tunnel in the sod. At the end of it Fisher could see a patch of rusted steel.
35
HE laid the shovel aside and scanned the tunnel with the Geiger. The numbers had spiked up significantly. He grabbed his duffel and backed away, then chose an open spot in the earth and dug a hole two feet wide and two feet deep.
Next he donned the biohazard gear, starting with the coveralls and ending with the respirator and goggles. He took his time, making sure the fit was right and that all the zippers and flaps were closed, then sealed all the seams with the duct tape as Elena had instructed. Despite the protective gear, she had been adamant about his time inside the container: "No more than four minutes. Don't touch anything you don't have to touch. Don't bump or brush up against anything. Walk slowly--very slowly, like you're moving through water."
Fisher clicked on his headlamp and returned to the mound. He began widening the tunnel. The task was easy. Whoever had been here before him had done all the hard work. The mouth of the tunnel had simply been overlaid with a lattice of birch branches, then recovered with chunks of sod carefully cut from the face of the mound.
After five minutes work, the full tunnel was exposed. Four feet tall and two feet wide, it led directly to the container's rusted door, which was secured by a crossbar. A soil-encrusted padlock, its shackle cut in two, lay at the foot of the door.
He paused to catch his breath. The coveralls, gloves, and boots were all chemically treated to retard radioisotope absorption, but they also trapped body heat. He could feel sweat running down the back of his neck and his sides. Inside the respirator mask, his breath hissed. His goggles were perpetually fogged but, nervous about touching anything with his potentially tainted gloves, he left them alone.
This was just a glimpse into what rescuers had endured after the explosion, Fisher realized. Short of manpower and time, hundreds of soldiers and civilians spent days inside protective suits working at the lip of the crater with shovels and buckets and in some cases their hands to push radioactive debris back into the pit.
He set aside the shovel, then ducked down. Following the beam of his headlamp, he stepped into the tunnel. Pebbles and dirt rained down on him. Roots hung from the overhead like skeletal fingers. He reached the container door and stopped. Deep breath.
He gripped the crossbar and lifted. Half expecting to hear the shrief of rusted metal, he was surprised how soundlessly the latch moved. Curious, he peered at the mechanism; it glistened with oil. He felt his heart rate increase. This is where it had all started. Months ago, four men had crept down this same tunnel, oiled this same latch, then gone inside, stolen the radioactive debris that had ended up aboard the Trego, and had poisoned an entire city.
He swung the door open. Its passage dislodged a small avalanche of dirt. He waited, frozen in place, until it passed, then opened the door the rest of the way and shined his flashlight inside. He was immediately confronted by what looked like a chest-high wall of gray-black ash and scrap metal--which in fact it was, the only difference being this was so radioactive that even now, after two decades, direct exposure would kill you within minutes.
Up until now, there'd been a small part of Fisher's mind that found this too surreal to believe. But here, within arm's reach, was the piece of proof that made it real.
A section of the debris wall was missing, scooped out, he assumed, by the two discarded grain shovels at his feet.
SLOWLY, carefully, he backed out of the container and into the tunnel. From the leg pocket of his coveralls he pulled a cylindrical sample tube roughly the size of a coffee mug. This was the last piece of gear Elena had given him. Made of lightweight titanium, the double-walled tube was lead-lined and topped with a finely threaded lid.
He unscrewed the lid. Inside was a second, identical tube, this one the size of his thumb and secured in place by three spring-loaded prongs. He pulled this tube free and unscrewed the lid. Inside was a quarter-teaspoon titanium scoop.
With the scoop in one hand and the tube in the other, Fisher went back inside the container. He was halfway to a kneeling position when he caught himself. Don't bump or brush up against anything. He spread his legs wide for balance, then lowered himself into a crouch. He gently eased the tip of the scoop into a mound of debris at his feet. In the glow of his headlamp he saw a puff of ash surround his scoop. He went still and waited for the ash to settle, then pulled the scoop free and dumped its contents into the tube. He repeated the process five more times until the tube was filled with ash, then laid the scoop aside. He backed out of the container and into the tunnel, where he slid the smaller tube back into its mother, then screwed both lids back on.
He hadn't realized he'd been holding his breath. He let it out. He closed the container door and secured the crossbar.
Per Elena's adamant instructions, he took off his outer gloves and laid them aside, then picked up the tube and walked to the mouth of the tunnel and set the tube outside. He walked back inside, removed his boots, and laid them beside the gloves, then stepped out of the tunnel.
The cool, night air enveloped him. He had to resist the impulse to tear off his gear. Slow down, Sam. Almost there. A few more steps and he was done.
He walked to the hole he'd dug, and slowly removed his protective gear and placed each piece inside, followed by his inner layer of clothing, a thin cotton union suit Elena had given him. Now nude, he pulled a gallon jug of water from his rucksack and rinsed himself off, from the top of his head to the soles of his feet, then used the last few ounces to wash off the exterior of the sample tube.
He wiped the excess water from his skin and hair, then donned his own clothes and sat down to catch his breath. He was drenched in sweat and his legs felt rubbery.
From the other side of the mound he heard the growl of the GAZ's engine. He snatched up his rucksack and hurried behind the mound and dropped flat. Seconds later, the searchlight skimmed over the ground and up the side of the mound, just missing the tunnel opening. The searchlight blinked out. The GAZ's engine faded down the road.
After covering the hole and collapsing the tunnel entrance, he shouldered his rucksack, then pulled out the OPSAT. Alexi's map to the graves had been detailed enough for Fisher to find corresponding landmarks on the OPSAT's map, so now he got his bearings and slipped into the woods, heading northeast.
Alex had buried the soldiers together, under a spruce tree with a small cross made of twigs; the civilian he'd simply dumped in a shallow grave deeper in the forest. After fifteen minutes of walking, Fisher matched up the landmarks on the OPSAT and found the spot.
He had a final hunch that needed satisfaction.
Using the entrenching tool, he scraped around until he found the perimeter of the grave, then shoveled along the edges until the tip of the shovel touched something solid. He shoved his hand into the soil until his hand closed around the object. With a start, he realized it was a wrist. The flesh was the consistency of rotten pumpkin.
He lifted the wrist slowly until a forearm rose from the dirt, followed by a shoulder. The stench of decomposition filled his nostrils He squeezed his eyes against it and swallowed. Now with an anatomical landmark with which to work, he started scooping away dirt until the corpse was uncovered.
Alexi had laid the man faceup, arms crossed over his chest. Four months in the earth had rotted away most of the skin, revealing patches of muscle that had turned greenish-black with mold. In some places he could see patches of bone. He lifted each hand and examined them more closely. The fingertips on
each were gone. Similarly, the face was obliterated, save for some skin and flesh around the cheekbones and eye sockets, but even these were shattered from what Fisher assumed were bullets.
He leaned forward until he was within inches of the corpse's face. There was no way to be sure--no way to prove it beyond a doubt--but Fisher swore the corpse's eyes had an outer epicanthal fold. An Asian epicanthal fold.
36
THIRD ECHELON
"WOULD you bet your life on it?" Lambert asked. "Would you bet a war on it?"
Fisher considered the question. His gut instinct said, "Yes," but Lambert's point was well made: Lives were at stake--many thousands of lives that would be lost in a war that would not only forever change the Middle East but also America's place in the world. Decisions of this gravity weren't made on instinct.
"My life--yes," Fisher replied. "A war . . . No."
Fisher was convinced there was a game being played here, and that all the pieces had yet to be uncovered. But who was the driving force? The case against Iran was seemingly solid: the FBI had three suspects in custody, all of whom were talking, laying a trail a evidence that pointed to Tehran. And what did he have to counter that?> A now-destroyed yacht and a corpse with vaguely Asian features.
After taking a dozen digital pictures of the corpse and then covering the grave again, Fisher had retraced his way through the forest to the main road. As promised, Elena had been waiting.
Wordlessly, she drove him to within a few blocks of the Exclusion Zone checkpoint. Their good-bye was awkward. Something had clearly grown between them over the past two days, but Fisher knew the situation was impossible. He briefly considered trying to take her out with him--CIA be damned--but he quickly quashed it. If they were caught, she would be imprisoned and, at best, he would be detained for questioning. There was too much at stake and too little time. In the end, all he could do was promise to talk to the CIA on her behalf. She'd simply nodded.
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