Belly of the Beast (25 page)

 “Don’t worry,” said Galen, “The police won’t dare mess with anything belonging to Mr. Andryevich. Get on board. I’ll take care of the police.”

“There are seats in the back,” said the flight attendant. Niki looked down the aisle. Men were drinking, whooping and hollering, their twangy Texas accents sounding absurdly out of place. A few wore hats with the red and white logo of
Crescent Oil
.

Niki tried to shelter Katrina from the wolf calls and stray hands reaching to pinch soft flesh. Halfway back she stopped.

“You are animals,” she said loudly in English.

Only a few men put down their drinks, but all heads turned toward the woman and girl standing in the aisle.

Niki laid a thick Russian accent onto her English. “We know where live your family in Texas.”

There was a hush. Niki and Katrina took their seats.

Katrina stared vacantly out the window as the plane rose and headed across the snow clad Urals.

The man in front of Niki turned back. “We just finished a week at a Siberian oil rig trying to teach you people how to frack shale. Part of that Glasnost thing. Do you know what it’s like out there in that godforsaken icebox? We’re just unwinding.”

“Is no excuse for bad manners,” said Niki.

“I apologize. Melvin Jones is the name. If I can be of any—”

Katrina began to sob again, and Niki wrapped her arms about her. “No thank you.”

Niki and Katrina held each other for most of the flight. Niki’s thoughts were a lumpy mix of grief, guilt, pain, nausea, and the need to focus on saving their lives. When Katrina got up to use the toilet, Niki went to the galley, added ice to the oilskin bag, and bread and caviar to her satchel.

As they descended, Melvin turned back again. “You really know about Texas?”

“I used to live in New Mexico,” Niki said dropping her accent. “There were a lot of Texas oilmen there. I’m American, and I’ve got to get back as soon as I can. I lost my passport. Is there a U.S. Embassy in Leningrad?”

“No idea. Your daughter okay?”

“She’s not my daughter. Her father just died. I’m taking care of her.”

“She’s Russian?”

Niki nodded.

“Don’t get your hopes up. My sister tried to adopt a Ukrainian baby. You wouldn’t believe the paperwork. After six months and thousands of dollars, she finally gave up. I bet it’ll take you a week just to get your own passport.”

“I don’t have a week. There has to be a faster way.”

“This is Russia. If there’s one thing we’ve learned, you can’t rush the bureaucracy. Russians are used to waiting. Our guide said they usually wait in line four hours a day.”

“I’m sure the American Embassy is different.”

“Perhaps,” said Melvin. “I wish I could have been more help.”

The plane rocked back and forth as it lined up for the runway; Niki leaned forward. “Excuse me, maybe you could help. Could you deliver a package for me?”

Melvin turned, eyebrows raised.

“It’s not drugs,” said Niki. “It’s bone marrow. My son needs it for a transplant.” She opened the top of the oilskin bag exposing the canister. “It needs to get to San Francisco. I’ll pay you.”

Melvin looked at it. “I’d have to inspect it, but I suppose I could. We fly through Los Angeles, I could send it from there. Yeah, I’d be glad to.”

“Thank God,” said Niki. “Finally something is going right.” Niki took out her notebook. On a fresh page, she wrote down all the contact information for Rob and the hospital. She tore out the page and tapped Melvin on the shoulder. “If you call this number, the hospital will arrange everything for tomorrow afternoon.”

“Tomorrow? The Russians have some sort of celebration planned at some ritzy spa. We’re not going stateside until after New Year’s.”

“That’s too late. I’ll pay you two thousand dollars if you go back to the United States now.”

“I’m sorry,” said Melvin, “but that really won’t work. I don’t speak a word of Russian. I couldn’t find a toilet here on my own. We’ve been escorted everywhere. Sorry, I wouldn’t stand a chance of getting out of here on my own.”

“I speak Russian. I’ll help you get a ticket.”

Melvin shook his head. “Sorry. I don’t think that would work. My first responsibility is to my men here.”

“Go on without me,” Katrina whispered to Niki. “I’ll be okay. If you’re alone, they might let you on a plane out of here. A passport is just a silly piece of paper. They probably want you out of the country anyway.”

Niki shook her head. “I’m not going without you. Maybe we can find someone else to take the canister.”

“I doubt you can even get into the terminal without a passport.” said Melvin. “Guards were questioning everyone back at Yekaterinburg.”

Tires squealed as the plane jerked Niki back to earth. She dropped the paper with the addresses to the floor. Katrina picked it up and slipped it into the clothes sack.

Outside, a tour bus pulled up beside the plane while it was still on the tarmac.

“Don’t you have to go through the terminal?” Niki asked Melvin.

“Not so far. Either we’re getting first class service or they just don’t want to deal with us. Russians. Either they nitpick something to death, or they ignore it completely.”

Niki looked at the distant terminal building with police milling about. She turned back to Melvin. “What’s the name of the spa you’re going to?”

Melvin pulled a flier from his pocket. “
Sovetskiy Health Spa
. They say it used to be just for the top Soviet bosses, real ritzy. Look at the picture.” He handed her the black and white flier.

Niki studied it, especially the little map at the bottom.
Could this be where my mother was?
Finland couldn’t be but thirty-five miles across the ice
.

“Keep it if you want,” said Melvin.

“Katrina,” Niki whispered, “If we are stopped, pretend that I am your mother, your crazy mother, and that you are taking me to a spa for treatment. Say that I worked at Mayak and was irradiated. Can you do that?”

Katrina wiped her eyes and nodded. “I didn’t live to be fourteen without being able to lie.”

While the men de-planed, Niki stepped back to the galley again and crammed their bags full with sausages and water bottles.

The oil men staggered from the plane to the bus. Niki struggled to stand as both feet had stiffened badly during the flight. Katrina helped her down the aisle. While the flight attendant flirted with the pilot, Niki and Katrina slipped in line behind Melvin.

“Are you okay?” he asked Niki.

“My feet are just a little sore.”

“Are you sure you should be following us?” he asked.

Niki glanced at the terminal. “Quite sure.”

Melvin held seats at the back of the bus for Niki and Katrina. A Russian escort boarded, sat down in front, and looked straight ahead. Within three minutes the bus passed through the tarmac gate and drove through the outskirts of the Leningrad. Without a flight attendant serving drinks, the men amused themselves smoking cigarettes and drinking from souvenir bottles of Russian vodka.

It was early afternoon but almost dark when the bus stopped outside Zelengorsk. An armed guard boarded and announced, “Passports.”

“Stupid Americans,” the guard mumbled in Russian as he worked his way toward the back. He cussed at some of the men while smiling.

Katrina held out her birth certificate.

“Russian! What are you doing on this bus?”

“The mayor of Sverdlovsk himself put my mother and me on the plane and told us to travel with these gentlemen. I’m taking her to the
Sovetskiy Health Spa
. It was just opened to people like us, one of Gorbachev’s last directives.”

“Aren’t you a little fountain of knowledge.” The guard looked at Niki and held out his hand. “Passport.”

“Passport,” Niki mumbled in Russian.

“She’s Latvian.”

“I have it somewhere.” Niki began unpacking the clothes bag.

“Don’t unpack the clothes,” Katrina scolded, then said sweetly to the guard, “She gets confused because of the radiation.”

The guard backed up a little.

Niki dropped her armful of bread, sausages, and peasant clothing all over the floor. The scent of horse manure rose above it all and mixed with the stale cigarette smoke.

Niki held up her notebook. “Here it is.”

“No, Mama.” Katrina leaned toward the guard and whispered, “She was a nuclear scientist, now she can’t tell a passport from toilet paper. That’s why I’m taking her to the spa.”

“I don’t care about your problems. Show me her passport.”

Katrina stuck her hand into the oilskin bag and pulled out the canister. “Oh, you might be interested in this too. It’s a sample of the radioactive material that made her sick.”

Katrina held it out. The guard backed up.

“They said to bring it. Mama, show the guard your radiation burns.”

Suddenly, Melvin grabbed the guard’s sleeve and started retching. “I’m going to be sick,” he choked out.

“He’s going to be sick,” Katrina repeated in Russian.

Another man started retching.

“Fucking asshole Americans. I don’t get paid to put up with this shit.” The guard turned and hurried toward the door.

“They can’t hold their vodka,” Katrina said after him.

Melvin stopped retching as soon as the guard was gone. Two of the men didn’t. When the bus was underway, he whispered to Katrina. “I couldn’t tell what you said, but I could tell you’re some actress, comprende?”

“It is what we do to survive,” said Katrina.

“Thank you,” Niki said to Melvin, then she hugged Katrina. “You were wonderful, sweetheart. You saved us.”

“I just did what I had to.”

“But what are you going to do now?” whispered Melvin.

Niki pulled out the spa brochure, but couldn’t see a thing in the dark. “Do you have a match,” she asked Melvin.

“No, but this might help.” Melvin dug into a pocket. “My wife was sure I would get lost in Siberia, so she gave me this piece of junk. The man at the hardware store told her that I’d be able to kill bears with it.” He handed it to Niki. “It’s got a fingernail clipper, fish scaler, tweezers, toothpick, knife, pliers, scissors, and screw driver. I’m not sure which one you’re supposed to use on bears.”

“I needed a light.”

“Turn it around.”

A tiny light was built into the end complete with a tiny compass on the lens.

“Keep it,” said Melvin. “If anyone ever needed a survival knife, it’s you two.”

Waves of thick fog swirled in the lights of the ornate entrance to the
Sovetskiy Health Spa
. Niki had trouble standing again, but she and Katrina followed the men off the bus. While the men made their confused way to the reception area, Niki and Katrina slipped behind the bus. Melvin looked back and seemed to mouth, “Good luck.” Niki nodded, then led Katrina out of sight.

Behind a row of birch trees, Niki struggled through deep snow. With each painful step, she wondered if she could take another.

“We have to find a place to rest,” said Katrina. She led Niki from the deep snow to an easy path that meandered downhill to several small buildings. Smoke curled from the chimney of one. “I think that’s a sauna,” whispered Katrina.

“It would be warm.”

Katrina looked toward the lights of the lodge. “It might be empty now, but I doubt it will be for long. There’s a path straight to the lodge.”

Deep snow covered the path to the next building, but the entrance to the third was well packed. A window by the door was dark. Niki and Katrina slipped inside. Light from the lodges dimly lit rows of skis, poles, and boots.

“We need to stay warm while we figure things out,” said Niki. “Put on your warm clothes.”

“And leave my new Levis?” asked Katrina. “Nobody has real Levis.”

“Put your old snowsuit on over them. Put on every layer of clothing we have.”

“What are we going to do?” asked Katrina.

“We’ll look at the map on the brochure after we change clothes.”

Katrina stared over her shoulder as Niki studied the map by the light of the survival knife. “This says it’s only 140 kilometers to Leningrad,” said Niki. “If the map is to scale, then it’s only about thirty kilometers to Finland. How many miles is that?”

“About eighteen, but we’re on the end of a peninsula. It’d be over sixty miles by road.”

“We’re so close,” said Niki.

“There were some automobiles in front of the lodge,” said Katrina. “We could steal one, drive to the border, and crash through the gates. I saw that once in a movie.”

“Even if we could start a car without keys, I doubt it would be that easy,” said Niki. “I suspect there would be checkpoints with concrete barriers, and the border crossing would be well fortified.”

“Maybe we’ll see a way in the morning. We both need some sleep.”

“We can’t wait,” said Niki. “It won’t take Malenkov long to figure out what we did.”

“I hate him,” said Katrina. “If he catches up with us, I’ll kill him.” She swung her arm and knocked over some ski poles.

“If only it was that easy.” Niki took a breath. “There must be dachas or something along the coast where we could hide out.

“You had trouble walking ten meters in the snow. It’d be hard going at best, and we’d leave a perfect trail for Malenkov to follow.”

“Then I’m out of ideas,” said Niki.

“Rest here for a moment,” said Katrina. “I’ll be right back.”

“Wait. You can’t—”

Katrina was gone before Niki could stop her. Niki closed her eyes.
How could I have screwed up so many lives?
Niki thought about Pytor, the price he had paid trying to help her. She thought about what might have been. She thought about her promise:
I will take care of Katrina.
But Katrina was gone.

Niki went to the window and rubbed frost from the pane. Light from the lodge glowed on the beams that crisscrossed its tall gables for a moment, then disappeared in an icy fog, but the pluck of a balalaika permeated the thick air and sent chills down her spine. She was a long way from home in a hostile land. She wondered if she would ever see home again. She wondered if Katrina would ever have a home.

Katrina crept back into the shed. “There’s a Buran,” she whispered to Niki.

“A what?”

“A snow machine. They are very fast, and there’s fresh ice on the gulf. We could be in Finland in no time.”

Niki had driven Rob’s snowmobile years ago. At thirty-five miles an hour, Finland was only an hour away. “Okay,” said Niki. “It’s our best chance. We’ll take it.”

“One thing,” said Katrina. “I couldn’t find a key. I was thinking I could sneak into the lodge and look around.”

“No. I can’t let you do that.” Niki was silent for a moment, then said, “It’s me they really want. I’ll turn myself in before Malenkov finds me. You’re Russian. They’ll take care of you.”

“Like they took care of my father? I don’t care how hopeless it is, I’m not giving up.”

The old tea seller’s words slipped into the cold room.
When everything seems hopeless, walk toward tomorrow.

 “How thick is the ice?” asked Niki.

“I don’t know, but I read that a thin layer of sea ice will bend before it breaks. There’s a ski trail out on it.”

“We’ll ski on the ice then.”

“You can barely walk.”

“I learned to ski before I could walk.”

“The last ten kilometers to Finland is over land. It will be tough going.”

“If we head east when we hit the coast, we can say on the ice all the way. And we won’t have to worry about the border crossing.”

“That’s at least forty kilometers. No offence, Niki, but I don’t think you could ski five.”

“When I can no longer ski, I’ll crawl.”

“I suppose we have to do something. Father and I used to ski on Verky-Isetskiy. A thin layer of wind-packed snow on new ice is perfect. I won the twenty-five kilometer race in Sverdlovsk. I could go ahead and bring back help.”

“We’ll stay together,” said Niki. “I need to take care of you.”

“We’ll take care of each other,” said Katrina.

Niki folded the brochure, then fumbled for the pocket in her peasant’s parka.

“I’ll keep it,” said Katrina. She put the little map and the survival knife in her snowsuit pocket, then said with surprise, “At least we have wax.” She pulled the three little pieces of colored paraffin from the pocket.

“I guess we should be thankful for small blessings,” said Niki. “We’ll wax after we find boots that fit.” But the best Niki could hope for was to find boots that would slip over her swollen feet.

“Wax for the cold,” said Niki as they worked on their skis. “Green base, blue kicker.”

“I know,” said Katrina. “I’m not a child.”

Niki knew. Just an hour before Katrina had saved her life in the face of a guard with a gun. Now, all Katrina had left of her past was three stupid pieces of wax. Katrina’s childhood had ended.

Still, Niki worried about the waxing. It was the one thing she could control. “Slide on the glide, and stick on the kick,” her mother had said way too often. Each color of wax was a different hardness. The wax on the ski bottom had to be soft enough for snow crystals to indent it slightly with each step—wax too hard would allow no push, but too soft wax would cause snow to stick like mud on a boot. Skis stuck with snow would be worse than snowshoes.

“I’m ready,” whispered Katrina.

“Are you sure about your wax? They’ve got to be perfect.”

“Perfect varies with the snow,” said Katrina. “We can’t be sure without trying.”

“We only get one chance.”

Katrina rubbed the bottom of her skis one last time. “Will you be all right?” she asked. “I’ll carry the sacks.”

“I’m all right, sweetheart. Don’t worry about me.”

Niki checked the window. Waves of fog drifted past. She was about to open the door when voices came from the direction of the sauna.

Niki peered out the window.   

Someone stepped in front of it.

Niki stopped breathing. Katrina grabbed her arm.

Footfalls crunched outside the door.

One of the Americans? A guard? Victor Malenkov himself?
Cold slipped under Niki’s collar and down her back like ice water dripping from her cabin roof back in Colorado.
Is this where it ends
, she thought, but as quickly as they had come, the footsteps faded into the music from the lodge.

“I’d rather freeze than get captured,” whispered Katrina.

“As long as I’m alive, neither will happen,” Niki whispered back. She handed Katrina Malenkov’s fur–lined gloves.

“Any last thoughts about the Buran?” asked Katrina.

“If we could find the keys, it would be fast.” Niki peered out the window again. The fog obscured the snowmobile.
Fog.
Niki remembered what Dr. Baxter had said in San Francisco. Waves of fog meant that there was open water on the gulf.

“We have to ski,” Niki whispered. “We could hit open water with the snowmobile before we knew what happened.”

As more fog swept in, Niki and Katrina crept down the packed trail to the frozen sea.

Niki shivered. They had stood a long time in the cold shed, hands bare for the waxing, and now hers were covered only with Katrina’s threadbare gloves.

Katrina stepped into her skis. Niki did the same and adjusted the strap of her leather satchel so it rode on the small of her back. She felt the reassuring pressure of the ice-packed canister and led off.

As she struggled forward, Niki wondered how thick the ice was, wondered how far out it went. But it really was the least of her concerns. The chemical burns on her feet had turned the skin to raw liver. She thought it best not to let Katrina know how bad it was.

Niki followed the trail until it ended where the snow became thin and wind-packed.

“This will be perfect skiing,” said Katrina.

“There are bare spots,” said Niki. “This couldn’t have frozen very long ago. I think it’s too thin.”

“We’ll be fine,” said Katrina. “We can head north and turn west when we hit the shore. I’ll lead.”

“No,” said Niki. If anyone was going to fall through and die, Niki couldn’t let it be Katrina. “I’ll lead. Don’t get too close.”

Niki turned north and plodded on. Her thoughts swung wildly between Alex, Katrina, and thin ice. With time, the cold anesthetized her feet, and Niki trudged robotically. Reality slipped from her grasp.

“Wait,” yelled Katrina after an hour of following silently. “We’re circling back.”

Niki strained to rise from her stupor. She looked about but couldn’t tell which direction moonlight was coming from much less which way was north.

“I’m going to lead,” said Katrina.

“I got us this far,” said Niki. “Why are you questioning me now?”

“Drift patterns,” said Katrina. “I can feel them as we ski. Polar explorers could ski a straight line with their eyes closed. The little drift ridges were parallel to us, but now we’re slipping across them. Check the little compass if you want.” Katrina got it out.

Niki’s fingers were too numb to work the switch, so Katrina took it back, held it vertical, and turned on the light switch. “See,” she said glancing back. “We’re going east around the end of the peninsula—straight back to Russia.”

“It’s just a toy,” said Niki, but the snow was a little deeper, the bare spots less. The old woman Galina had mentioned snow ridges, but if Katrina was wrong, they’d be heading further from shore.

“There’s another thing,” said Katrina. “Russia is still to the north. The ice seems fine to me. The sooner we start west, the better.

Niki felt her throat tighten. “The plan was to go until we hit the shore, then turn west.”

“That was before we knew how solid the ice was, and you are skiing better than I thought possible.”

The moon broke through a hole in the fog and lit the pattern of drifted snow. Niki stared at it a long time.

“We have to get going,” said Katrina, moonlight on her face.

Niki no longer felt her fingers or feet, but pain stabbed at the stitches on her right leg. Radiation burns had sapped her strength and fogged her mind, but somehow she knew it was time to relinquish command. “You lead, sweetheart, I’ll follow. But if you turn and see I’m gone, promise that you’ll keep going.”

“I’m not going to let you quit,” said Katrina.