The Boy from Reactor 4

CHAPTER 67

NADIA AND ADAM stood shivering beside each other. Light poured from the headlights of an idling buhanka beside the makeshift helicopter landing pad. A Caucasian man gave Ruchkin an envelope. He and another Slav transferred the crates from the helicopter to the buhanka.

A light flashed three times at the base of the knoll.

“Your Chukchis are waiting for you,” Ruchkin said. “Go.”

Nadia and Adam thanked him. They descended down the snow-covered hilltop to a ridge, walking and sliding in diagonal fashion to keep from falling. The hike warmed them up after they’d been standing so long in the biting cold.

Two men sat in another buhanka. One of the men climbed out of the vehicle and walked over to Nadia and Adam. He bore a startling resemblance to Adam, more so than the Yakut or Evenk. His face was the roundest of the three, his features the smallest, and his complexion lightly tanned. His lustrous black hair fell beneath his fur hat to his shoulders, but he had the heavily lined face of a prematurely aged man.

“You Adam?” he said, in coarse, barely comprehensible Russian.

“Yes,” Adam said.

“Skinny, though. What, no food in Ukraine?”

“No,” Adam said. “I mean, yes. There’s food in Ukraine.”

“Then why you no eat?” The Chukchi turned to Nadia. “You American, though?”

“Yes,” Nadia said. “I’m American.”

“America poor, though. Not much money.”

Nadia hesitated, unsure of what he meant. “Well, yes, our economy’s in trouble. The American government has borrowed a lot of money to keep us out of the recession, but I wouldn’t say we’re poor.”

The Chukchi frowned as though he had no clue what she’d said. “You say America not poor? America has money, though?”

“Well…”

“Then if you buy Alaska, why you no buy Chukotka, too?”

“Oh,” Nadia said, feeling her face flush in the darkness. “Now I see what you meant about money. Yeah, you’re right. Big mistake. We should have bought Chukotka, too.”

“How did you know my father?” Adam said.

“Didn’t know father. Don’t know father. Not your father, or mine. We go, though.”

Adam and Nadia climbed into the back of the buhanka. Heat poured from the buhanka’s vents, but the other Chukchi pointed at reindeer skins and told them to cover themselves anyway.

They traveled four hours over snow-covered paths and trails until they arrived at the edge of a salt pit.

The Chukchi driver pointed beyond the salt pit. “My cousin waiting at shore,” he said.

When Nadia and Adam circled around the salt pit, another pair of Chukchi were waiting for them at the edge of a lagoon.

They were in Uelen, the easternmost settlement in Russia, and the closest to the United States.