The Sky Is Falling (26 page)

Shdanoff was watching her. “Well?”

Dana took a deep breath. “All right.” She went into a tiny dressing room and put the outfit on. When she came out, she looked in a mirror and gasped. “I look like a whore.”

“Not yet,” Shdanoff informed her. “We are going to get you some makeup.”

“Commissar—”

“Come.”

Dana’s clothes were stuffed into a paper bag. Dana put on her wool coat, trying to hide her outfit as much as possible. They started walking through the mall again. Passersby were staring at Dana, and men were giving her knowing smiles. A workman winked at her. Dana felt degraded.

“In here!”

They were in front of a beauty salon. Sasha Shdanoff went inside. Dana hesitated, then followed him. He walked to the counter.

“
Ano tyomnyj
,” he said.

The beautician showed him a tube of a bright red lipstick and a jar of rouge.

“
Savirshehnstva
,” Shdanoff said. He turned to Dana. “Put it on. Heavy.”

Dana had had enough. “No, thanks. I don’t know what kind of game you think you’re playing, Commissar, but I’m not going to be a part of it. I’ve had—”

His eyes bored into hers. “I assure you it is not a game, Miss Evans. Krasnoyarsk-26 is a closed city. I am one of the select few with access to it. They allow a very, very few of us outsiders to bring in prostitutes for the day. That is the only possible way I can get you past the guards. That and a case of excellent vodka as payment for your entry. Are you interested or not?”

Closed city? Guards? How far are we going with this
? “Yes,” Dana reluctantly decided. “I’m interested.”

THERE WAS A MILITARY jet waiting at a private area of Sheremetyevo II airport. Dana was surprised to see that she and Sasha Shdanoff were the only passengers.

“Where are we going?” Dana asked.

Sasha Shdanoff gave her a mirthless smile. “To Siberia.”

Siberia
. Dana felt a knot in her stomach. “Oh.”

The flight took four hours. Dana tried to make conversation, hoping to get an inkling of what she was facing, but Shdanoff sat in his seat, silent and grim-faced.

When the plane landed at a small airport in what seemed to Dana to be the middle of nowhere, a Lada 2110 sedan was waiting on the frozen tarmac for them. Dana looked around at the most desolate landscape she had ever seen.

“This place we’re going to — is it far from here?”
And will I be coming back
?

“It is a short distance. We must be very careful.”

Careful of what?

There was a short, bumpy drive to what looked like a small train station. Half a dozen heavily bundled-up uniformed guards stood on the platform.

As Dana and Shdanoff approached them, the guards were ogling Dana’s skimpy outfit. One of them pointed to Dana and smirked. “
Ti vezuchi
!”

“Kakaya krasivaya zhenshina!”

Shdanoff grinned and said something in Russian and all the guards laughed.

I don’t want to know
, Dana decided.

Shdanoff boarded the train and Dana followed, more confused than ever.
Where could a train be going in the middle of a bleak, frozen tundra
? The temperature in the train was freezing.

The engine started, and a few minutes later the train was entering a brightly lit tunnel cut into the heart of a mountain. Dana looked at the rock on both sides, inches away, and had the feeling she was in some weird, surrealistic dream.

She turned to Shdanoff. “Will you please tell me where we’re going?”

The train jerked to a stop. “We are here.”

They debarked from the train and started toward an odd-shaped cement building one hundred yards away. In front of the building stood two forbidding-looking barbed-wire fences, patrolled by heavily armed soldiers. As Dana and Sasha Shdanoff approached the gates, the soldiers saluted.

Shdanoff whispered, “Put your arm in mine and kiss me and laugh.”

Jeff will never believe this
, Dana thought. She put her arm in Shdanoff’s, kissed him on the cheek, and forced a hollow laugh.

The gates swung open and the two of them went through, arm in arm. The soldiers watched enviously as Commissar Shdanoff walked in with his beautiful whore. To Dana’s astonishment, the structure they entered was the top of an elevator station that went below the ground. They stepped into the cab of the elevator and the door banged closed.

As they started down, Dana asked, “Where are we going?”

“Beneath the mountain.” The elevator was picking up speed.

“How far beneath the mountain?” Dana asked nervously.

He said, “Six hundred feet.”

Dana looked at him incredulously. “We’re going six hundred feet under a mountain. Why? What’s down there?”

“You will see.”

In a few minutes, the elevator began to slow down. Finally, it stopped, and the door opened automatically.

Commissar Shdanoff said, “We are here, Miss Evans.”

But where is here?

They stepped out of the elevator and had walked no more than twenty feet when Dana stopped in shock. She found herself looking down the street of a modern city, with shops and restaurants and theaters. Men and women were walking along the sidewalks, and Dana suddenly realized that no one was wearing an overcoat. Dana began to feel warm. She turned to Shdanoff. “We’re underneath a mountain?”

“That’s right.”

“But —” She looked at the incredible sight spread out before her. “I don’t understand. What is this place?”

“I told you. Krasnoyarsk-26.”

“Is this some kind of bomb shelter?”

“On the contrary,” Shdanoff said enigmatically.

Dana looked again at all the modern buildings around her. “Commissar, what is the point of this place?”

He gave Dana a long, hard look. “You would be better off not knowing what I am about to tell you.”

Dana felt a fresh sense of alarm.

“Do you know anything about plutonium?”

“Not very much, no.”

“Plutonium is the fuel of a nuclear warhead, the key ingredient in atomic weapons. Krasnoyarsk-26’s sole purpose for existing is to make plutonium. One hundred thousand scientists and technicians live and work here, Miss Evans. In the beginning, they were given the finest food and clothes and housing. But they are all here with one restriction.”

“Yes?”

“They must agree never to leave.”

“You mean—”

“They cannot go outside. Ever. They must cut themselves off completely from the rest of the world.”

Dana looked at the people walking along the warm streets and thought to herself,
This can’t be real
. “Where do they make the plutonium?”

“I will show you.” A tram was approaching. “Come.” Shdanoff boarded the tram, and Dana followed him. They rode down the busy main street, and at the end entered a maze of dimly lit tunnels.

Dana thought of the incredible work and all the years that must have gone into building this city. In a few minutes, the lights began to get brighter, and the tram stopped. They were at the entrance to an enormous, brightly lit laboratory.

“We get off here.”

Dana followed Shdanoff and looked around in awe. There were three giant reactors housed in the immense cave. Two of the reactors were silent, but the third one was in operation and surrounded by a busy cadre of technicians.

Shdanoff said, “The machines in this room can produce enough plutonium to make an atomic bomb every three days.” He indicated the one that was working. “That reactor is still producing half a ton of plutonium a year, enough to make a hundred bombs. The plutonium stockpiled in the next room is worth a czar’s ransom.”

Dana asked, “Commissar, if they have all that plutonium, why are they still making more?”

Shdanoff said wryly, “It is what you Americans call a catch-twenty-two. They can’t turn the reactor off because the plutonium furnishes the power for the city above. If they stop the reactor, there will be no light and no heat, and the people up there will quickly freeze to death.”

“That’s awful,” Dana said. “If—”

“Wait. What I have to tell you gets worse. Because of the state of the Russian economy, there is no longer the money to pay the scientists and technicians who work here. They have not been paid in months. The beautiful homes they were given years ago are deteriorating, and there is no money to repair them. All the luxuries have disappeared. The people here are getting desperate. You see the paradox? The amount of plutonium stored here is worth untold billions of dollars, yet the people who created it have nothing and are starting to go hungry.”

Dana said slowly, “And you think they might sell some of the plutonium to other countries?”

He nodded. “Before Taylor Winthrop became ambassador to Russia, friends told him about Krasnoyarsk-26 and asked him if he wanted to make a deal. After he talked to some of the scientists here who felt betrayed by their government, Winthrop was eager to make a deal. But it was complicated, and he had to wait until all the pieces fell into place.”

He was like a crazy man. He said something like “All the pieces have fallen into place.”

Dana was finding it difficult to breathe.

“Shortly after that, Taylor Winthrop became the American ambassador to Russia. Winthrop and his partner collaborated with some of the rebel scientists and began smuggling plutonium to a dozen countries, including Libya, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, North Korea, and China.”

After all the pieces had fallen into place! The ambassadorship was important to Taylor Winthrop only because he had to be on hand to control the operation.

The commissar was going on. “It was easy, because a mass of plutonium the size of a tennis ball is enough to make a nuclear bomb, Miss Evans. Taylor Winthrop and his partner were making billions of dollars. They handled everything very cleverly, and no one suspected a thing.” He sounded bitter. “Russia has become a candy store — only instead of buying candy, you can buy atomic bombs, tanks, fighter planes and missile systems.”

Dana was trying to digest everything she was hearing. “Why was Taylor Winthrop killed?”

“He got greedy and decided to go into business for himself. When his partner learned what Winthrop was doing, he had him killed.”

“But — but why murder his whole family?”

“After Taylor Winthrop and his wife died in the fire, his son Paul tried to blackmail the partner, so he had Paul killed. And then he decided he could not take a chance that the other children might know about the plutonium, so he ordered the other two murdered and arranged for their deaths to look like an accident and a burglary gone wrong.”

Dana looked at him, horrified. “Who was Taylor Winthrop’s partner?”

Commissar Shdanoff shook his head. “You know enough for now, Miss Evans. I will give you the name when you get me out of Russia.” He looked at his watch. “We must leave.”

Dana turned to take one last look at the reactor that could not be shut off, that was turning out deadly plutonium twenty-four hours a day. “Is the government of the United States aware of Krasnoyarsk-26?”

Shdanoff nodded. “Oh, yes. They are terrified of it. Your State Department is working frantically with us to try to find a way to turn these reactors into something less lethal. Meanwhile…” He shrugged.

In the elevator, Commissar Shdanoff asked, “Are you familiar with the FRA?”

Dana looked at him and said cautiously, “Yes.”

“They are involved in this also.”

“What?” And then the realization hit her.
That’s why General Booster kept warning me away
.

They arrived at the surface and stepped out of the elevator. Shdanoff said, “I keep an apartment here. We will go there.”

As they started to walk along the street, Dana saw a woman dressed as she was, clinging to the arms of a man.

“That woman —” Dana started.

“I told you. Certain men are permitted to use prostitutes during the day. But at night the prostitutes must return to a guarded compound. They must know nothing of what goes on below the ground.”

As they walked along, Dana noted that most of the shops’ windows were empty.

The luxuries are gone. The state no longer has money to pay the scientists and technicians who work here. They have not been paid in months
. Dana looked at a tall building on the corner and noticed that instead of a clock it had a large instrument mounted on top.

“What is that?” Dana asked.

“A Geiger counter, a warning in case anything goes wrong with the reactors.” They turned into a side street filled with apartment buildings. “My apartment is in here. We must stay there for a little while so no one will be suspicious. The FSB checks on everyone.”

“The FSB?”

“Yes. It used to be called the KGB. They changed the name, but that is all they changed.”

The apartment was large and was once luxurious, but it had become shabby. The curtains were torn, the carpets were worn, and the furniture needed re-upholstering.

Dana sat down, thinking about what Sasha Shdanoff had told her about the FRA. And Jeff had said,
The agency is a cover-up. The real function of the FRA is to spy on foreign intelligence agencies
. Taylor Winthrop had once been the head of the FRA, working with Victor Booster.

I would stay as far away as you can from General Booster.

And her meeting with Booster.
Can’t you fucking journalists let the dead rest? I’m warning you to stay the hell away
. General Victor Booster had an enormous secret organization to carry out the murders.

And Jack Stone was trying to protect her.
Be careful. If Victor Booster knew I was even talking to you
…

The FRA spies were everywhere, and Dana felt suddenly naked.

Sasha Shdanoff looked at his watch. “It is time to leave. Do you know yet how you are going to get me out of the country?”

“Yes,” Dana said slowly. “I think I know how to arrange it. I need a little time.”

When the plane landed back in Moscow, there were two cars waiting. Shdanoff handed Dana a piece of paper.