Sands of Time (12 page)

Steps echoed behind her.

Don’t panic.

She picked up her pace, then broke out into a jog. She heard scuffling and leaped into a full run.

She turned the corner and discovered yet another narrow street packed with three-story apartment buildings. A dead end. A hand snatched at her shoulder, and she screamed, wrenching away from it.

Laughter. It sliced through her like a scalpel.

Then, another hand grabbed her arm, yanked her to a stop.
“Kakaya Zhenshina mwe nashli?”

Sometimes, in the darkest corners of her heart, she could still hear his voice.
What kind of girl have we found?
Right then she knew the truth.

She wasn’t fierce or brave.

She was afraid. So darkly afraid that she kept it packed down under self-reliance. Under bravado and her noble cause. Under pure foolishness. Because to acknowledge it would force her to admit that she needed someone besides herself.

Olive-skinned, with short dark hair and darker eyes, her attacker smelled of vodka. He shoved her against the door to an apartment building. Finding her other arm, he held her wrists in a viselike clamp that made her cry out. “Leave me alone.”

More laughter. She looked past him, and her breathing turned to razors in her chest. Maybe six boys, all wearing crooked smiles.

“Please…don’t hurt me. I’m just trying to find my way home.”

She spoke in English, and knew that had been a mistake the moment they exchanged looks and grinned.

She closed her eyes and prayed.

“Otsan ot yeyo!”

She heard the voice, and for a second the words didn’t register. Only the feeling of relief that seemed so powerful, it threatened to take her knees out.
Get away from her!

Sarai opened her eyes to see Roman take down the hoodlum who had backed her up against the building.

She screamed as Roman sent his fist into the kid’s face—one, two, three times. Until her brother pulled him off. “Let him go!”

Roman turned and his expression etched forever in Sarai’s thoughts. She still revisited it whenever she felt so alone she wanted to crumble.

Roman didn’t ask. Didn’t hesitate. He pounced to his feet and crushed her to himself, holding on so tight it scared her a little. “I was so worried,” he said into her ear, and his tone nearly broke her heart.

She closed her eyes, caught in the moment when she’d imagined herself brutally raped and beaten by a Moscow gang.

“Thank the Lord, Vicktor had a thing for Mae. He was following you. I swear, I’m never letting you out of my sight again.” Roman put her away from him, breathing hard. He looked stricken, and in the fading light he looked fierce and dangerous in his jean jacket and black jeans. “I’m sickened by what might have happened to you.” His voice sounded broken, and his eyes were wet. He didn’t bother to blink them dry.

“I can’t believe you found me.”

He frowned, shook his head. “I’ll always find you, Sar, I promise. I’d be lost without you.”

As Sarai bracketed his face with her hands, she saw in his eyes a truth that she wanted to hold on to. She had his attention. His full, breathtaking attention. It felt sweeping, and she reacted with tears.

Roman mistook it for fear and held her.

But what she’d felt hadn’t been fear, but relief. Deep, soul-filling relief. God had sent her a man who looked past the façade of independence and spunk and saw that inside, she feared so much. Loneliness. Failure. Weakness. A man who let her fool the world, even herself, but knew the truth.

She needed him.

Roman’s voice was roughened with vestiges of anger when he finally spoke. “For every jerk out there, there are guys in Russia who are decent and honorable. Those punks won’t get away with this, Sar. I’ll make sure you’re never afraid again.”

Obviously, thirteen years later, he still operated on that principle—making sure that thugs like the ones who’d chased her down Trotsky Street ended up in prison. One by one.

Trying to prove that Russia wasn’t a land of thugs and criminals.

Thirteen years later, she hadn’t changed, either. She still wore the facade of tough girl. However, this time he wasn’t getting under it. “Lord, why is Roman back in my life? What are you trying to do to me?” Sarai ran her hands over her eyes. They came away wet. Downstairs, she heard creaking, the squeak of the gas stove. Someone loaded wood, and her heart felt thick and heavy in her chest.

I’ll always find you, Sar.

Maybe he’d kept that promise, also.

“W
here are you, Roman?” Yanna’s voice dropped almost immediately after she answered the telephone. “You are in so much trouble around here that I think your face might appear on a stack of FSB’s most-wanted playing cards. Malenkov knows you’re AWOL. He’s been on the telephone with Irkutsk all morning. They’re putting an APB out for you.”

Roman glanced at Genye, half-hidden by the open snowmobile cover. He couldn’t believe Genye had gotten the machine to start. An ancient Buran, it looked as if it hadn’t been running since the days of Brezhnev. Or Peter the Great.

However, if they got it moving, he’d already decided that he’d put Sarai on the back and just keep going. He’d seen an airbase on the road to Khanda, and with the right persuasion, he could get an AN-2 delivered, maybe even
scrounge one up there. He didn’t need a pilot, just the wings.

They didn’t even need to get all the way back to Khabarovsk. Just over the border into Buryatia, or Tuva. He’d deal with the fallout—both Sarai’s and Malenkov’s—after that. At least she’d be alive.

And mad. He winced just thinking about it. “I’ll be back as soon as I can, Yanna,” he said into the sat phone. “What did you find out about Alexander Oil?”

“Two things. First, they own a number of drilling stations. The one near Smolsk is just one of them. Secondly, your dead American is an independently contracted site inspector. He’s traveled around the region regularly for the past six years or so, checking the fields for leakage and other issues.”

Had he gotten into a little nuclear fuel smuggling, too? It seemed that, regardless of the inspections and scrutiny they put on foreign tourists, someone always slipped through.

“There’s more,” Yanna said. “The two Americans Governor Bednov is holding for suspicion of kidnapping in Irkutsk are on the Alexander Oil board of directors. But most importantly, so is Bednov.”

“He’s on the board?” Wasn’t that interesting?

“One of five. Three Americans, two Russians—a man by the name of Gregori Khetrov. He’s a communications billionaire in Moscow, only right now he’s sitting in Lubyanka prison, courtesy the FSB, on tax charges.”

For sure the guy was crooked, but then again, so were
half of Russia’s businessmen, a.k.a. former party leaders. “What about the reactors?”

“You’re sitting nearly on top of decommissioned reactor number 213 in the Khandaski region. According to the manifest, all the HEU was transported from Khandaski three years ago to a reactor in Yakutia. Only, I can’t confirm that it ever arrived. None of the lot numbers match up.”

“Keep looking, Yanna. Maybe it was diverted.”

“Maybe it’s still at Khandaski.”

Roman shot a look at Genye wondering how much the guy understood. “Great minds think alike.”

“Listen, Roma, get to Smolsk. Vicktor and I have a little plan. He’ll meet you at Sarai’s clinic.”

He felt a rush of gratitude for his friends. “Don’t get into trouble, Yanna.”

“Us? Get in trouble?”

He could hear her smiling on the other end. “By the way, David has sent me three e-mails looking for you. Maybe you should give him a call.”

Maybe not. Roman had a few choice words for David that he should probably keep tucked inside his chest. He clicked off and stood over Genye as the man fiddled with the spark plug wires.

“Everything looks okay.” He closed the lid. “Fire her up.”

Roman braced his foot against the machine, grabbed the cord and gave it a rip.

It sputtered, then nothing.

“Again.” Genye opened the hood, pumped the primer.

Roman pulled again. The machine coughed, he added some gas, then it roared to life. Smoke billowed out the back as it cleared the exhaust of age and rust.

Genye latched the hood and handed Roman an ancient helmet.

“Listen, you be careful, okay? I want Sarai safe.” He wore a smile, but Roman saw protection in those eyes. And, after yesterday, when the guy had clocked him but good, he knew Genye meant it.

“Konyeshna.”

Genye nodded at Roman’s agreement, then glanced at the house. Sarai was coming out of the door. “She might not admit it, but she needs you. Try to see that.”

Roman stared after him as Genye turned and walked to the house.

“Ready?” Sarai entered the garage. She wore a clean pair of jeans—probably Anya’s—wool valenki boots, her black parka, a scarf and a homemade green stocking cap that made her face seem tiny and sculpted. Her green eyes sparkled and for a moment he wanted to answer no.

Not quite ready at all.

If he had his way, in twenty-four hours she would be safe…and not talking to him again.

Which would be a thousand times worse than having her argue and tease and occasionally pout.

Being around her had made him realize why his life felt so eerily calm when she entered his atmosphere. Because despite her maddening determination, she had a smile that could stop his heart cold, and when she laughed, well, he’d
just about die to hear her laugh. He’d barely won their chess games. In fact, he’d checkmated her by sheer chance the first time.

Not that she had to know.

Still, something about being with her cut through the buzz that permeated his life and focused it.

Gave it meaning.

“Get on,” he said. She climbed on the back of the snowmobile and wrapped her arms around his waist.

Uh-oh.

Snow melded to her eyelashes and pelted her cheeks, and her pantlegs were soaked clear through. But, as Roman drove the snowmobile through a drift and they went airborne, Sarai felt something rocket loose and take flight.

Maybe her brain cells. For sure the tight knot of stress that came from the all-work-and-no-play routine over the last two, no, ten years. Okay, probably most of her life.

They landed in a poof of snow and Roman whooped as he gunned the engine. Sarai screamed, but she heard adrenaline and laughter in her tone as she tightened her clasp around Roman’s waist.

Yes, she could get used to flying through the whitened, magical landscape, in and out of deer trails, thundering up and through snowdrifts, letting the machine drive her into the milky horizon with her arms around a man who looked both dangerous and delightful in his wool hat and whitened, snow-spiked hair. Crystals of snow gathered on
his twenty-six-plus-hour beard, and his eyebrows looked iced over.

But his gaze seemed oh so very warm when he looked at her over his shoulder, slowing the snowmobile slightly. “You okay back there?”

“Fine!” She grinned. “Where did you learn to drive one of these?”

He gave her a one-eyed frown then turned his attention back to plowing through the snow.

Roman Novik, soldier. He probably had a plethora of talents she didn’t want to know about. She sank her chin onto his shoulder, relishing the feel of his solid back, his strong arms muscling the snowmobile.

She had to admit, when Genye had uncovered the rusted heap in his garage, she’d nearly turned and fled. But with a little tinkering, he and Roma had coaxed it to life, and with it, her curiosity. Oddly enough, Roman agreed to let her come along on his field trip.

She had to wonder if he might be up to something.

He was
definitely
up to something. “It could be dangerous,” he’d said.

At the moment, she didn’t care.

They plowed through another drift and snow crashed into her scarf and down her back. “Ooh-rah!”

Roman glanced at her, smiling. “Having fun or something?”

She said nothing, just grinned.

They drove in silence, the engine cutting out conversation. Through the gray haze, Sarai saw oil wells to her south
and west, some working, others frozen. The pungent smell of diesel cut through the crisp air, and even the exhaust of the snowmobile.

Roman angled north, as if he might know where he was going. She hung on, and for a moment, she even closed her eyes, trusting in his ability to guide them.

They went over a knoll and zipped down the other side. Roman slowed the machine. “There.”

She followed his point, and her pulse did a small rush when she saw his destination.

A nuclear reactor.

“It’s huge.” She counted two smokestacks, and on either side, like a ring of iron giants, electrical towers cut into the gray sky. The plant itself looked like a factory, a huge box with few windows, laden with pipes. On one end, lined up like shotgun shells stood maybe a dozen three story silos.

Roman gunned the snowmobile right toward the plant, oh, joy.

Hadn’t he ever heard of a little accident called
Chernobyl?
“I thought you just wanted to see where it was. Roman, I don’t want to go any closer.”

“Now you tell me,” he said, but didn’t slow. “I told you that it might be dangerous. You said you wanted to come along.”

No, what she said was that she wasn’t worried because she had a hero. But, as usual, she’d been in serious denial.

Now that she saw the reactor, a coldness started in her stomach, then spread out through her arms, and it had
nothing to do with the snow still pelting her cheeks. “Roman, I’m serious.”

He slowed the snowmobile. She looked beyond him and could see a road leading to the plant. Flanked on either sides of the road, a guard stand and entry gate indicated security. Beside it, a tall white monument—or sign, perhaps—topped with a red-painted concrete flame betrayed its purpose.

“Calm down, it’s decommissioned,” Roman said over the rumble of the motor.

“Then why are there still people here?” She pointed toward a truck just beyond the gates.

“It’s decommissioned, but it’s still operational—in terms of cooling the spent fuel. They cool the nuclear waste in rods in a pool of water for about seven years and then store them in those huge silos. I’m sure there is a skeleton crew monitoring the cooling.” He pointed with his gloved hand. “Listen, no one will know we’re here. It’s scarcely manned, and all we’re going to do is do a little poking around.”

A little poking around? But before she could object, he revved the machine, and drove parallel to the road, cutting a wide angle around the plant, and stopped at the edge of a pine forest.

“If you want, you can stay here.” Roman got off the snowmobile. “I won’t be long.”

She angled a look at the plant, then back at Roman. Let’s see, stay here in the cold until he got hurt and left her stranded, or go with him and get arrested? Then again, once he returned he might just arrest her anyway.

She got off. “Lead the way, hero.”

He nodded, then opened his jacket and pulled out—

“A gun?”

“Calm down, it’s just a precaution.” He tucked it into his outer pocket. “We’ll have to hike from here, but I think the blizzard will hide our approach.”

Oh, great.

She wondered if she should be ducking as they trudged out from the cover of the pine forest and crossed the hundred or so meters to the fence.

“I’m going to hoist you over,” he said.

“I can do it.” She dug her hands into the fence, but her thick boots refused purchase.

“Let me give you a boost—”

“You touch my backside and I’ll kick you.”

He stepped back, hands up in surrender.

She fought her way up, over and let herself fall into the snow on the other side.

He jumped up and vaulted it before she even climbed back to her feet. Jerk. She slapped away his outstretched hand.

He laughed.

She made a face at him.

Now
he bent over as he ran toward a service door, as if hunching over might conceal the two intruders wearing black coats against a snow-white backdrop? For crying out loud…

Still, ten minutes later, they were inside the building. Silence felt thick, or maybe she just couldn’t hear anything
over the thunder of her heartbeat in her ears. The smell of gasoline and concrete permeated the walls, and she couldn’t stifle a shiver. They were inside a nuclear plant.

She probably needed to get her head examined. Then again, that should probably be standard practice whenever she found herself in Roman’s airspace.

“What are we looking for?” she asked.

“Tiha!”
he said and put a finger to his lips.

Wait—wasn’t he a federal agent? Why all the sneaky, sneaky? Shouldn’t he be allowed to just stroll in, flashing his badge or something?

He moved out into the hall and scrambled to another door. She stayed glued to his tail and shut the door behind her.

They were in an office, and from what it looked like, an abandoned office. Like all Russian offices, pictures of the plant, including floor plans and egress routes hung on the wall. Roman shone his flashlight on the map, tracing his finger along a route.

“Here.” He tapped it twice, then looked at her. “I think you should stay here until I get—”

“Not on your life, bub. I’m Velcro on you.”

He raised one eyebrow, but didn’t smile. “
Ladna.
But keep up.”

Was he kidding? She’d probably run him over.

They exited to the hallway, and he did a James Bond, sneaking down the hallway, down stairs, through passageways until he came to a locked room. Yes, she read the ra
dioactive sign on the door, even pointed it out to him, but he shrugged it away.

What, was he impervious to radiation poisoning? Hello, she didn’t want her teeth and hair falling out at the ripe old age of thirty-five.

He opened the door, shone his light inside. It reflected off a pane of glass.
“Poshli,”
he said as he beckoned her inside.

She smelled the odor of danger as she closed the door into total darkness. Or maybe the smell was the redolence of her own fear. As Roman stood and slowly panned his light through the glass, she felt cold and clammy. And bald.

“What does
Vwesoka Obogashenie Oran
stand for? It can’t be good. Especially with the symbol of radioactivity on it? And the word for “dangerous,”
Opasnost?
What is it, Roman?”

He turned to her, bracketed his hands on either side of her face. “Calm down. It’s uranium. Probably Highly Enriched Uranium, which was used to power this nuclear reactor. What I need to know is the lot number on those casks.”