The Boy from Reactor 4

CHAPTER 61





THE GLACIAL PEAKS of the Stanovoy Range glistened in the dark. The train hurtled through a tunnel beneath them. A hundred miles past Tynda, they entered the Sakha Republic of Russia, also known as Yakutia.

The train crossed three rivers and rumbled past the coal mines at Berkakit and Neryungri. Smog hung over the stations at the mining towns. They passed abandoned collectives and empty wooden cottages with fenced-in gardens overgrown with weeds. When the train pulled in to Tommot at 11:00 a.m. on Friday, the Aldan River shimmered beneath the morning sun.

Adam followed Nadia as she skulked her way through the train station. She was fearful that Kirilo, Victor, and Misha had somehow caught up with her, but they were nowhere in sight. “Where do we wait?” Nadia said.

“Outside, in front of the station,” Adam said. “My father said the man will find us.”

“And he didn’t tell you what he’d look like?”

“Just that he is a Yakut, and he will look a little more like me, and a little less like you.”

“What is a Yakut?” Nadia said.

“They’re one of the indigenous people of Siberia. Close to five hundred thousand live in northern Russia. Great hunters. Really intense.”

The Tommot station was a plain cement building but boasted three yellow domes like a church. Nadia put on her hat, gloves, and winter coat. Adam did the same. A wind blasted them when they stepped outside. According to the oversized thermometer by the entrance, the temperature was negative five degrees Celsius. That was about twenty degrees Fahrenheit.

A man got out of a vintage SUV parked a few steps away. He looked like the offspring of a Slav and an Asian. A fur hat covered his bald head. Although the creases in his weathered face suggested he was in his late sixties or older, the bounce in his step said otherwise.

After glancing at Nadia, he looked at Adam cautiously. “There is much talk about you. Can it be true?”

“Yes,” Adam said. “She betrayed me for a Yakut.”

The Yakut smiled. “Old Cossack song. Your father loved it. Yeah, good. We go.”

The SUV was a square-shaped model Nadia had never heard of, called a Nissan Patrol. The exterior was dented and dinged, but the interior was spotless, the cloth upholstery impeccably maintained. They stored their bags in the cavernous cargo area, which contained three spare tires and four cans of gasoline. Nadia sat behind the Yakut so she could watch him. Adam sat beside him.

“My name is Fyodor,” he said as he guided the car away from the station.

Nadia introduced herself and Adam. Fyodor spoke in a strange dialect. Nadia had to focus on the words to understand him.

“How did you know my father?” Adam said. “Did you work together on the railroad?”

“No. I knew father from gulag in Kolyma. Many years ago. We did business together.”

“Business?” Nadia said. “At the gulag?”

“Were you a prisoner, too?” Adam said.

Fyodor shook his head and glared at Adam. “No Yakuts in gulag. Bounty hunter.”

“Bounty hunter?” Nadia said.

“Yakut is hunter. Government hire Yakut to hunt prisoners who escape from gulag.”

“So how did you do business with my father?” Adam said.

“Your father arrange for prisoner to escape. Bounty hunter catch prisoner and bring him back. Bounty hunter get paid. I get paid. Father get paid. Prisoner get paid—if live.”

Nadia envisioned prisoners escaping and returning, and money changing hands.

“Didn’t the guards catch on after a while?” she said.

“Guard, no problem,” Fyodor said. “Other gang leader, problem. He set trap. Prisoner caught. Bounty hunter caught.”

A horn blared. Nadia craned her neck to the right. A massive cargo truck headed straight toward them.

Fyodor swerved into a pothole to avoid it. Nadia’s head hit the ceiling. She yelped.

“Sorry,” Fyodor said. “They work on railroad, extend all way to Yakutsk. Supply come to Tommot. Many trucks. Many holes in road.” He turned to Adam. “When I caught in gulag, your father pay money to guards. Bounty hunter escapes. Owes father debt. Yakut always pay debt.”

They drove farther north for a hundred kilometers until they reached a small village beside a river surrounded by rolling hilltops.

“This is Anga,” Fyodor said. “Oldest Russian settlement in Siberia. We are headed to one hundred kilometers from Yakutsk, near Sharlam’s lodge. Evenk meet you there, yes?”

“Outside Yakutsk,” Adam said. “Yes. An Evenk. Another friend of my father’s.”

“Evenk,” Fyodor said with a derisive sneer. “Yeah, good.”

Nadia whispered to Adam. “What’s an Evenk?”

“Another indigenous people of Siberia. About eighty thousand of them. Great herdsmen. Laid-back. Total opposite of Yakut.”

They drove on for another three hours along an increasingly awful road. Nadia was starting to think that it might just be possible to jar a person’s brains out of his skull, when Fyodor pulled to a stop.

Everyone climbed out of the vehicle. The sun burst into an orange ball of fire as it set over the horizon. Beneath the ridge, water rushed packs of rocks and ice along a river. After three hours in the van’s cloying heat, the Arctic chill was a welcome relief.

“You okay?” Nadia said.

Adam shivered and nodded.

“You see the trapper’s lodge where we’re supposed to meet this guy? I don’t see any lodge.”

Fyodor pointed at a cluster of pine trees a hundred yards away. “There.”

The corner of a roofline formed by three intersecting logs protruded through the trees.

“Five fifteen,” Adam said. “He’s supposed to be there at five. From five to nine.”

Thanking Fyodor for the ride, they ran to the lodge.

When they got there, a man was waiting. Like the Yakut, the Evenk was of medium height and lean build. His chin and cheekbones, however, were less pronounced, and his nose was sharper. He had a darker complexion, like an Australian aborigine.

The Evenk raised a shotgun and aimed it between them. “Who goes there?” he said in coarse Russian. He was even harder to understand than the Yakut.

Nadia and Adam froze.

“Umukon,” Adam said. “Umukon Khalganchuluk.”

“Then let’s run from here,” the Evenk said, “because it’s a place where evil spirits live.”

The Evenk laughed heartily and lowered his gun. He bounded forward and hugged them as though they were long-lost friends.

“Sorry late. Stopped by to see friends on way. In, in,” he said. “Leave quick.”

They climbed into a vehicle similar to the white van they had just left.

“Who is Umukon Khalganchuluk?” Nadia said.

“I don’t know,” Adam said. “It’s just something my father made me memorize.”

“Umukon Khalganchuluk. One-arm, one-leg, one-eye evil spirit,” the Evenk said.

“Why is he evil?” Nadia said.

“Because,” the Evenk said as he turned the van around, “he steal children from their sleep.”