The Boy from Reactor 4

CHAPTER 72

THE PERIPHERY OF the island was captured by strategically positioned cameras and displayed on a wall of security monitors in the observation room. Two men manned the equipment. This morning, however, the monitors were all white with fog.

Kirilo kept his eyes glued to the telescope on the southwest side of the island. He scanned from left to right and came upon three of the soldiers who had been sent out to form a human chain, twenty meters apart. There was no woman or child among them.

“Twenty meters is too far apart in this fog,” Kirilo said. “You need more men out there.”

“This is Gvozdev,” Major General Yashko snapped. “There are no more men.”

The telescope wouldn’t swing farther to the right. Kirilo began scanning backward to the left. “What are the odds someone can cross the Bering this way? Not likely, right? The ice, the water. The wind, the current. How many people have done it? Two? Three?”

“Thirty-three, excluding the Chukchis and the Inupiat,” the general said. “I say excluding the Chukchis and the Inupiat because they visit each other all the time. If you count them, thousands.”

Kirilo pulled his eye away from the telescope. “Thousands? You must be joking. The world thinks it’s two or three.”

“That’s what we want it to think. Neither we nor the Americans want the publicity, or we’ll have every thrill seeker in the world here. So we keep it quiet. But it is not as hard as the world is led to believe. It all depends on the fog and the ice. The natives know the weather and the terrain. They have it down to a science. They communicate with each other all the time. If the natives have guided the woman and the boy, then they can most certainly do this. The only question is if they’re getting such help.”

“No,” Victor said.

“No?” Krylov said. “They’re not getting help?”

Victor smiled and shook his head. “I meant no. There’s no question about it.”

Major General Yashko grabbed a radio transmitter. “Get those helicopters lower. Seventy meters. They’re useless up there.”

Kirilo resumed scanning. An empty block of ice. A soldier. Another block of ice—wait. Something dark against the white background. He swiveled the telescope back a few centimeters. Someone was emerging from the fog. Was it another soldier?

No. It was the boy.

“The boy, the boy,” Kirilo said. “There he is.”

A chorus of voices. “What? Where?”

A soldier surprised the boy.

“Wait,” Kirilo said. “He’s one of ours.”

The soldier raised his rifle. The boy dropped his bag and raised his hands.

“We’ve got him,” Kirilo said. “By God, we’ve got him.”