The Boy from Reactor 4

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.”