The Boy from Reactor 4

CHAPTER 58

KIRILO AND HIS two bodyguards stepped off the northbound Amur-Yakutsk at Tynda on Track 6 at 7:42. Misha followed, propped up by Specter, looking like a corpse who’d escaped from the morgue. His pair of bodyguards brought up the rear.

Kirilo marched up to a transit employee on the platform.

“Which track for the Baikal-Amur? The one that’s just arrived, from Tayshet?”

“Track Two,” the employee said.

Kirilo had expected a small railway station. What the hell did they have out here that required twelve or more tracks? Timber? What else could it be?

They bolted up the stairs to Track 2, where the Baikal-Amur had arrived twelve minutes earlier. The train sat on the track, waiting to depart. Kirilo and Specter hurried to the far end. A woman wearing a blue vest and a matching cap puffed on a cigarette.

“I’m looking for my niece,” Kirilo said. “She’s American. Traveling with her adopted son. An unfortunate sort. Have you seen them?”

The attendant’s eyes flickered for a second before registering confusion. She looked Kirilo up and down. “An American, you say? Gee, I don’t know if I’ve seen any Americans.”

Kirilo whipped out his wallet and held out a pyatichatka. “Is your memory getting any better, dear?”

The attendant snatched the dough. “Oh, that American. Sure. They were in Car Two, Cabin Four.”

“Were?” Kirilo said.

“Yes. Were. They got off when we arrived.”

“Do you know where they went?”

She scratched her chin. “Gee. They may have asked me how to connect to a train, but I’m not sure I remember which one.”

Kirilo gave her another pyatichatka.

“Oh, that train. Sure,” she said. “Now I remember. It was the Amur-Yakutsk.”

“What?” Kirilo said.

“The Amur-Yakutsk. They’re headed north to Tommot.” She glanced at her watch. “It leaves at seven fifty-five. In two minutes.”