Sands of Time (8 page)

No, not lucky. Not this day.

Darkened houses with their lifeless gaze watched Sarai
as she fought tears. She’d come to Russia to change the lives of kids like Maxim, and while she didn’t hope to save everyone, the limitations of living on the backside of the world only churned up her frustration.

And now, just when she might be poised to make a difference, Roman wanted to yank her out of Russia.

She hoped he’d given up.

Not likely.

But she wasn’t leaving. Not when there were people who needed her.

If she left, who would they have?

She turned and cut back toward the house, not sure what to say to the Gordovs. At least Maxim was past suffering. As if that might be any comfort to the parents of a dying child.

She stood at the entrance to their house, felt the grief inside and wiped her cheeks.

“I found you,” said a quiet voice behind her.

Oh, no.
How had he—never mind. Roman was a bloodhound for a living. She should have known that she’d never ditch him. Not unless he wanted to be ditched. She’d have to confront him. She closed her eyes. “Please, not now, Roman.”

He reached out, touched her arm. “Are you okay?” The concern in his voice blindsided her and she felt herself loosening the chokehold on her grief.

“I’ll be fine. Just…”

“Sarai.” He forcibly turned her, tucked his hand under her chin and raised her gaze to his.

His hazel eyes clouded, and for the first time since
he’d forced his way back into her life, she saw emotion—concern, even empathy.

It only made the little knot of pain in the center of her chest release and spill open. Rebellious tears pooled in her eyes, and she tried to look away.

He didn’t let her. “Sarai, what’s the matter?”

She closed her eyes. “There’s a ten-year-old boy in there who’s going to die by tonight.”

His “Oh, no,” felt more like a groan. Then, because of the hero he was, he pulled her to his chest and held her.

She didn’t resist, didn’t pull away but put her arms around him. Holding on. Despite the stranger he’d become, he’d been the man who first made her feel protected. And in this pocket of time, she could admit she needed that right now.

“Sarai, I’m sorry.” His hand ran down her hair, and she couldn’t help but relish his strong arms around her. Or the fact that under his black parka she felt hard muscles and a strength that spoke of safety.

“Me, too.”

She leaned back, looked up at him and tried not to let the concern in his eyes sink too deeply into her heart.
He’s just a friend. My brother’s friend. And…probably he’s just trying to get on my good side.

“Now do you see why I have to stay, Roma? Because more kids will die if I don’t help them.”

He was silent for a moment, then he looked away from her. “You can’t save them all.”

“I can try. If I don’t, who will?”

Roman shook his head as if in frustration. “What’s wrong with this kid?”

“He’s got renal failure. And the weird thing is that it’s the second case in twenty-four hours. Governor Bednov’s son died yesterday of this very condition. I don’t know why, but I can’t help but wonder if they’re related.” She disentangled herself from Roman’s too intoxicating embrace and found rest on a stump near the door.

Roman didn’t move to follow. In fact, he stared at her with an odd expression. “Renal failure? Um, do you know what brought it on?”

“Not the slightest. Julia Bednov told me her son had been sick for a while, and she thought he might have picked up something at their dacha this summer. I’ll need to ask the ME to do an autopsy on both boys.”

Roman stalked away from her. “We need to talk about you locking me in your apartment.”

Did they? “Sorry about that. But you need to stop with this…agenda. I’m not leaving. I thought I made that clear.”

Roman said nothing, and she watched him stare away from her, out into the fields surrounding the village, his hands on his narrow hips, his wide shoulders reminding her of David, and just how much he trained for his job. Under all that fluffy jacket, Roman had the same build as her big brother.

One that meant he could force her to leave if he really wanted to. “Please, Roman, just go.”

“Is that an oil field?”

What? Sarai frowned at him as he glanced at her over his
shoulder. “Yeah, I think so. A lot of folks in town work for Alexander Oil.”

“Really.” Roman wore a strange look as he came and sat beside her. His presence felt familiar. Although he’d turned into a stranger, he was still the man of determination she’d once known. She saw that much on his expression.

Apparently he could still be remarkably kind, too. “I’m sorry I ditched you,” she said softly.

He dug a phone from his pocket. “Me, too. Because the clock is ticking, and I’m not sure I can get us out of here before you’re illegal.”

She let that statement absorb a beat before it registered. “You can’t be serious. Have you not listened to one thing I said? What if there are other children in this village who are ill? I need to check them out, see if I can catch it before another child ends up like Maxim, or Sasha.”

But Roman was on the telephone, and he only glanced at her. Jerk.

She stood, strode away from him.

“Yanna, it’s me. I need you to check into something for me. Find out where all the decommissioned reactors are near Khanda, Irkutia. I think I may have stumbled onto something. Also, get me a list of shareholders for Alexander Oil.”

Sarai watched him as he ran his hand through his hair, then rubbed his eyes. He looked tired. Even a bit pale. And no, she shouldn’t worry about him. Not one bit.

He gave a wry chuckle and glanced at her. She looked away
but heard him as he said, “No. She’s still as stubborn as before.”

What?
Sarai glared at him and he met her eyes. His chuckle faded. “Okay. Just…if you can route the call to me, that would be great. But listen, don’t get yourself into any more trouble. I’ll deal with it when I get back.”

Sarai returned to the stump, watch Roman rub his eyes with his thumb and forefinger as he talked.

“Yeah, well, maybe you can come visit me.” He glanced at Sarai. Smiled. And her heart did a strange leap in her chest. “Okay, I’ll tell her. Thanks.”

He clicked off, staring at his telephone.

And suddenly, she knew. “You’re not supposed to be here, are you?”

He huffed, and gave a wry smile, but didn’t look at her.

“You’re AWOL, aren’t you?”

“I’m just on a little…unauthorized field trip.”

“I cannot believe the lengths you and David will go to—”

“Sarai! Enough. Do you think I like dragging myself all the way out here in the middle of the night only to tick you off and get locked in your flat? Do you think I like chasing all over the world after you, worrying all the time if you’re safe or not, and wondering when I’m going to either have to bail you out—for the warm thank you of a slap across my face—or hear of your untimely death at the hands of local terrorists? You think that’s fun for me?”

She opened her mouth, closed it. Saw only the anger on
his face. Her brain had stopped on the words
worrying all the time.

He worried about her?

No. Probably he worried if David was going to call him up and ask him to put his job on the line so he could save her not-needing-to-be-saved body.

“I don’t need your help,” she said softly.

“I know,” he snapped, as he got up and looked away. “But just for once, will you accept my help, even if it curdles every independent cell in your body?”

She sighed, glanced at the house. Mr. Sacrifice for the cause. Well, she wasn’t going to be the one who made him lose his job. “Just…wait here. I need to talk to Valya.”

He only clenched his jaw as she got up, gave him a half smile and went into the house.

H
e had to have
kasha
for brains. Or perhaps the temperature had dropped so low his brain synapses had frozen up, because while one side of Roman’s brain knew, just
knew
that her “okay, I’ll go along nicely” routine had been an act, the other side made him stand out in the yard watching the snow blanket the tin roofs of the two-and three-room village homes. Even when he heard an engine fire up and a vehicle pull away, reality didn’t whack him upside the head until he finally charged into the house.

Of course she’d gone out the back. Why had he ever considered her a calming force in his life? She felt more like a tornado.

He raced back outside, climbed into her Camry, hung a U-turn and floored it out of Khanda toward Smolsk. Where would she go? He popped on his headlights, and in the en
croaching darkness saw taillights of the ambulance she’d driven as she lumbered onto the main thoroughfare.

Hatlichna!
She was headed toward Smolsk. Maybe he had talked some sense into her and her pride just didn’t want to admit it. Hopefully she would just keep driving straight and right into Buryatia province.

Yeah, and maybe he wouldn’t be cleaning toilets in gulag this time next week.

Roman slammed his hand against the steering wheel. The car shimmied on the road and he slowed. Snow layered the road like icing and, as he drove out of town into the blinding whiteness of the encroaching blizzard, he had to double-grip the wheel. The heater couldn’t keep up with the cold and he felt his feet begin to grow numb. Ahead of him, Sarai’s taillights—at least he hoped they were Sarai’s—cut through the gauze of snow like a blood-red knife.

He shook his head. At this rate, they’d get back to Smolsk sometime tomorrow morning…early. But in sufficient time for their window.

And maybe, hopefully, he’d have a job to go back to. A job that right now centered on finding the supplier of Russia’s most dangerous—and toxic—commodity.

Highly Enriched Uranium.

Roman cut his speed as the taillights became clearer. Better to let her think that she’d left him standing in Smolsk. Then, at least she wouldn’t do anything crazy like…

What? Ditching the one person who wanted to talk sense into her?

Or, maybe, fleeing from the one person who wanted to
derail her goals. Sarai had always been a driving force, someone who parted the waters and got the job done. But at what expense this time? Her freedom and probably his.

In less than two days, the pictures in the newspaper and on television would morph from information gathering to at-large posters. And, if Bednov turned serious, there might even be a reward.

In the middle of economy-ravished Siberia, reward money just might put food on a farmer’s table for an entire winter. Buy the family a new cow, some warm clothes or coal.

Roman focused on the taillights. Where was she going? Hadn’t she said she needed to stay in town and check the other children? Renal failure. Her words had triggered suspicions, and now he let them free to roam about his thoughts. Barry Riddle had suffered from renal failure. His passport had listed Irkutsk, and he’d been affiliated with Alexander Oil. However, Alexander Oil had wells across Russia, from Omsk to Yakutia to Sakhalin Island.

Still, what if Alexander Oil had property on or near a decommissioned reactor? Especially a reactor that might still have unused HEU in its storehouse?

The possibility probably merited a field trip, if not a sneak and peek, to the Alexander Oil offices.

Frankly, finding the HEU supplier might be the only way to keep him out of gulag. Sarai’s lights ahead turned off to the right. Roman eased off the gas, slowed and took the turn at a crawl. Darkness had settled like a cloud, dissected only by his headlights and the thick snow. He kept back from
Sarai’s car, hoping that her attention was so affixed on the road ahead she wouldn’t bother to look behind her.

Because, obviously, she wasn’t headed for Smolsk.

He tried not to let that fact dig a hole in his gut. Apparently, she had no problem cutting him right out of her life. Even after she’d discovered he’d risked his own neck for her.

Some things never changed.

Like, the way her eyes turned the darkest shade of sea green when she was upset. Or the way she wrinkled her nose when she disagreed, as if even his words might be odorous. Still, he couldn’t help but notice that her freckles had never faded, and in summer probably made her look about twenty-one.

Or, maybe she’d simply be always about twenty-one to him. Because the woman who’d gone toe-to-toe with him, twice in the last eighteen hours, and ditched him, ahem, also
twice,
certainly wasn’t the carefree ray of sunshine he’d fallen for in Moscow.

No, this Sarai version seemed driven. Even desperate.

As if she might be trying to prove something.

Well, weren’t they all? Except, what did Sarai have to prove? She didn’t have a legacy of alcoholism, of die-hard adherence to a passel of lies. She didn’t have memories of watching his father go from refined businessman to drunken bum, of taking the blows when his father turned his disillusionment on Roman’s mother. Or seeing his mother pack her things and leave.

Her father hadn’t hit Sarai across the face when he found out his child had become a Christian. Or called her a traitor.

Thankfully, the Russian army had believed in the soldier they’d already spent two years in training, and two more in language training at Moscow University. Little did they know when they took Roman on for special operations training, preaching a new Russia, that he’d already found something else in which to believe.

Without David Curtiss and his grace-filled friendship, Roman might still be trapped in the hurt of his father’s failures. Because of David’s courage in sharing the gospel, Roman had hope in something better than the legacy his father had left behind.

And, for that reason alone, Roman zeroed in on Sarai’s taillights, ignoring the swell of frustration as he pressed into the blizzard.

Sarai wiped her face with her gloved hand. It shouldn’t be much farther, but if she didn’t find Anya’s dacha soon, she’d be in big trouble. She’d gambled—probably foolishly—by trying to find Genye and Anya’s summer home to hole up in during the storm and during this supposed foreigner crackdown. She wasn’t leaving, no way, no how, but Roman’s words had rattled her.

Especially when he’d admitted that he’d worried about her. Enough to go AWOL.

She didn’t know what the Russian FSB did to soldiers who disobeyed orders, but her limited knowledge of America’s policy had her wincing.

Roman had put himself in danger professionally, and probably personally, because of her.

Go home, Roma.
She wasn’t leaving, but she hoped he’d gotten the message and left her.

As much as that thought tore a hole in her heart.

Do you think I like chasing all over the world after you, worrying all the time if you’re safe or not?

Maybe she shouldn’t focus so much on his words as his tone—exasperation. He sounded a lot like David when he’d pulled her out of Somalia.

Well, maybe she wouldn’t be risking her life alone if Roman had been true to his Christian calling. Hadn’t he told her that he wanted to be God’s man, to change the world one person at a time? Hadn’t he told her he’d give up everything for the gospel?

Sadly, she thought he’d meant in missions. Apparently, she and Roman had different definitions of “surrendering all” for God.

She leaned forward, gripping the steering wheel. She’d turned her lights on low beam—the high beams only made the snow seem like bullets spraying her. As she traveled north, jack pines and birch towered over the road, jagged arms that reached into the black sky and vanished. The wind swirled up drifts, cracked the trees and shook the ambulance. Although she had the heat on full, her toes felt cold, her nose an ice block. Inside her gloves, she balled her fists, hoping for warmth.

Please, Lord, get me to their dacha safely. And protect
Roma, wherever he is.
She hoped he had the good sense to stay in Khanda.

So maybe that didn’t say much about her own good sense.

She counted kilometers—thirty from the main highway—and slowed as she came up on thirty-six. She’d visited the dacha countless times in the summer, even spent a week with Genye and Anya once in the fall, enjoying
shashleek
and freshly harvested vegetables. Genye and Anya had winterized their dacha years ago, turning it from a summer garden home to a year-round retreat. And, they’d added two downstairs bedrooms, an upstairs bunkroom, a sauna and a main room. Stateside, she supposed it would be called a cabin. Stateside, it would also have indoor plumbing.

She crept along the road, plowing through the drifts, gunning the ambulance just enough to keep it from getting stuck, yet not fast enough to lose control. Dark branches, laden with ice and snow, streaked across her side windows. The sound raised gooseflesh.

Her stomach felt tied in knots. She hoped Genye and Anya had left some food behind.

She muscled the ambulance up a knoll, mentally calculating the half-click or so to the dacha, when her lights flashed on an object.

A deer stood in the middle of the road. Frozen and wide-eyed.

Sarai slammed on her brakes. The wheels locked up, she tried to get them to gain purchase, but the ambulance began to slide.

She worked the steering wheel, which laughed at her efforts. Helpless, she slid toward the deer. She watched, as if in slow motion, as the animal darted off into the forest.

She kept sliding. Slower, but with enough momentum still to careen off the road and settle with a poof into the ditch.

Sarai rocked back into the seat and slammed her hand into the steering wheel. Super. Just what she needed.

She put the vehicle into reverse, spun the wheels a bit, opened the door to check her progress and smelled rubber burning. She climbed out and surveyed the damage. Snow, up to the axles, nearly lifted the ambulance from the ground. She wasn’t moving without a shovel, and maybe a tow.

Now what?

Silence around her felt soft and thick as snow sifted down from the blackened canopy. She heard only her heartbeat as she dug out her penlight, closed the car door, pulled down her cap and trudged into the darkness. She flicked the light on now and again to keep her bearings and hunkered her chin down into her jacket.

She tried not to let her thoughts tangle into the what-ifs. Like, what if she had seen the deer earlier? Or what if she hadn’t left Khanda? Or what if she’d returned even one of Roman’s telephone calls thirteen years ago?

Then he might be right here, in the ditch with her, helping her dig out.

No, she wouldn’t even
be
in the ditch.

She hunched her shoulders against the cold and fought
the claw of sadness. Seeing Roman had only tightened the sharp band of regret around her chest.

No, not regret. Reality. He was sold out for his job. She was sold out for God. Anyone with their eyes wide open could see that difference.

Her legs felt nearly frozen by the time she found the dacha nestled under a canopy of poplar and aspen trees. The cabin wore a blanket of white frosting, and snow crunched as she climbed the steps and eased the door open.

Inside, time stood frozen, the remnants of summer caught in winter’s grasp. She flashed her penlight into the main room. A batch of now-golden dill hung upside down near the window to dry crackled in the stiff wind that followed her in. A bunch of wilted daisies dusted the table top with their teardrop offerings. The place felt bone cold, shrouded under the blanket of winter. Sarai tried the light. Nothing.

Okay, this didn’t have to be hard. One step at a time. She’d start a fire in the stove, then search for food.

Then hunker down for a few days. Just until the craziness in Irkutsk subsided and she could sneak back into Smolsk.

Besides, what did the Russian government want with a small-time frontier doctor in the middle of nowhere? Roman was overreacting.

Thankfully, Genye had stocked the wood bin, both inside and outside, before they’d left a month or so ago. Sarai filled the stove, found an old newspaper and lit it. It clawed
at the wood, but the breath of winter had moistened it and the flame smoked out.

Sarai tried again, blowing gently, feeding in twigs.
C’mon little fire…

The door slammed open, caught by a gust of wind. Ashes spewed out of the potbelly stove as Sarai turned, startled.

Froze.

When would he give up?