“What’s his name?”
“Says it’s Victor, but he’s got no ID. From his accent, he’s probably Russian.”
Wells walked over to the man, examined him closely. Nope. Definitely a stranger. Wells stuck out his hand. The man hesitated, then shook it.
“Victor,” Wells said. “I’m John Wells.”
“Nice to meet you.” The Russian accent was unmistakable.
“You looking for me? Because I’m right here.”
“Why would I be looking for you? I don’t know you. Just walking when these men grab me. Make me stand here and it’s cold.”
“You know a Spetsnaz named Sergei Tupenov?”
“Never heard of him.”
“Me, neither,” Wells said. “Victor. You like the Yankees?”
“Sure.”
“Big fan?”
“Sure.”
“Who’s their shortstop?”
Victor frowned. “Shortstop? What kind of question is this?”
“Fair enough,” Wells said. “You have a nice night. See you around.”
He walked back to Michaels. “Anything?”
“Nope,” Wells said.
“Any good threats come your way the last few weeks?” Exley said.
“On you two?” Michaels said. “Course not. Don’t you know everybody loves you?” Michaels paused. “Seriously, the usual nonsense. I’m more worried about the ones we don’t get.”
“True enough,” Exley said.
“So if you don’t recognize him, guess we have to cut him loose.” Michaels turned to Victor. “Get out of here,” he said. “And do me a favor. Don’t come back. Find another block to walk.” The Russian glared at them, then walked off, slowly.
And as Wells watched Victor go, he heard Johnny Cash, singing in the night.
I hear the train a-comin’, it’s rollin’ round the bend . . .
3
T
he Mayak complex stretched across hundreds of acres, encompassed dozens of buildings, and was protected by three separate layers of security. Foreigners, and most Russians, were barred not only from Mayak, but from Ozersk, the city that surrounded the plant. During the Soviet era, Ozersk hadn’t appeared on maps, or even had a name. It had been called Chelyabinsk-65, for its location, sixty-five kilometers from Chelyabinsk, the province’s capital. After the USSR collapsed, the Russian government had acknowledged Ozersk’s existence and allowed foreigners into the city. But now a new cold war—or at least a cold peace—was dawning. The Kremlin had again closed the gates to Ozersk and its other nuclear cities.
Of course, plenty of outsiders, like Yusuf, evaded the outer city checkpoints with fake identification and found their way into Ozersk. But a second level of security protected Mayak. The plant had its own guard force, an electrical fence, and closed-circuit cameras at every entrance. To further improve security, only managers like Grigory were allowed to bring their cars into the plant. Ordinary employees were required to park outside the perimeter and ride buses around the complex.
Finally, a third layer of fencing, guards, and high-intensity lights surrounded the “special area,” the depots where warheads were stored. Only employees with at least five years’ experience were allowed in the special area. And except for convoy trucks, all vehicles were barred from the area. The plant’s managers worked just outside the special area, in a hulking three-story concrete building whose narrow deep-set windows gave it the look of a maximum security prison.
GRIGORY FARZADOV TURNED
his Volga sedan off the four-lane avenue that connected the front gates of the complex with the special area, and rolled into the headquarters parking lot. Unlike senior managers, he didn’t have a designated spot, but working at night meant he could always park near the front doors. A good thing, too, since the parking lot was covered with an inch of black ice, a combination of water, dirt, sand, and grease that froze in November and didn’t melt until April. Every year Grigory took at least one nasty fall, found himself on the ground with his knee or his wrist aching, just short of broken. This cursed place, where even walking was a chore. If he succeeded tonight, he would take Yusuf ’s money and go somewhere warm, someplace where he wouldn’t have to wear mittens six months a year. If he succeeded tonight. And Yusuf didn’t kill him afterward.
Inside the front doors, a bored guard glanced at Grigory’s badge and waved him in. The guard’s name was Dmitri. He and Grigory had been hired around the same time, fifteen years before. As much as the cameras and fences, the long tenures of men like Grigory and Dmitri guaranteed Mayak’s security. No one new was allowed anywhere near the depots. But that familiarity had a downside. The insiders couldn’t really imagine one another capable of theft or sabotage. Tonight Grigory would take advantage of that blindness.
“Evening,” said Grigory. “How are you?”
“As usual, thanks. Yourself?”
“This beastly cold. Looking forward to spring.”
“Already?”
“Today and every day,” Grigory said. He remembered Mikhail and stifled a shiver. He’d condemned his neighbor to a frightful death with the same four words.
Grigory had arrived for his shift early, as always. He busied himself with paperwork for a few minutes before walking down the hall to the office of Garry Pliakov, the deputy manager of operations. Pliakov oversaw the handling of all special nuclear material—the phrase that both Russians and Americans used for plutonium-239 and uranium- 235, the two atoms that formed the core of nuclear weapons.
The Russian nuclear bureaucracy still hadn’t gone completely digital; Pliakov’s office was thick with personnel reports, orders from Rosatom’s headquarters, details of convoys arriving and departing, the papers neatly organized in folders on the shelves around his desk.
“Wasn’t a convoy due today? I don’t see the paperwork,” Grigory said.
“Those bastards are late.”
Yusuf had kept his promise. Grigory wasn’t surprised. “What, they stopped for a drink?”
“They say an accident blocked the highway. They’re hoping to arrive by ten o’clock. You know what that means. A cold night for you, unless Oleg”—the night manager at the plant—“decides to stay sober.”
Pliakov smiled. He was a decent man who invited Grigory to his apartment for a drink once a year or so. For a moment, Grigory’s resolve wavered. Could he really betray all these men he’d worked with for years? Then he remembered the way that Yusuf had torn apart the orange.
“No need for Oleg,” Grigory said. “I’ll do it.”
“Of course. Check the cucumber crates and then into the north warehouse.”
The special area had two storage depots. The north one was a low concrete building that held a couple hundred warheads that were still in active service but had been brought to Mayak for repair. The south warehouse was larger and dug deep belowground. It provided permanent storage for decommissioned and obsolete warheads. Though if the new cold war really got hot, they could always be put back into service.
“I know the procedure. I signed one in a couple of years ago.”
“Good. I’ll send over the codes in a few minutes, before I go.” In yet another security precaution, the codes to open the cucumber crates—Russian jargon for the boxes that held the warheads—were not carried on the weapons convoys. Instead, they were sent to Mayak over the secure private network that linked Russia’s nuclear facilities. Even if terrorists attacked the convoy and stole the boxes, they wouldn’t be able to unlock them and would have to cut them open to get to the warheads inside.
“All right. See you tomorrow, Garry.”
“Tomorrow.”
NO NIGHT HAD EVER PASSED
so slowly. Over and over, Grigory’s eyes migrated upward, to the clock over his desk. Each time they did, he was shocked at how slowly its hands had moved. Five minutes. Ten minutes. Two minutes. Through his narrow window, he saw that snow had begun to fall.
At nine o’clock he wandered down the hall to check on Oleg. The night manager lay on the couch in his office, a bottle of vodka half hidden under a cushion, his shirt untucked and pants unbuttoned, his potbelly rising and falling with each breath. When Grigory walked in, his eyes fluttered open and he treated Grigory to the patronizing smile he’d given Grigory a thousand times before. The smile that said, maybe vodka has turned my liver to rot, but I’ve got a wife and family waiting for me and you go home every morning to nothing but your own empty hand. Or maybe Grigory was projecting. Maybe Oleg was just thinking of his next drink. Even so, Grigory wouldn’t miss that smile.
Oleg mumbled something.
“Yes?”
“The lights,” Oleg said. “Make yourself useful for a change. Turn them off. And close the door. I don’t want you looking at me. What if you get hungry?”
“Of course, boss.”
Grigory turned off the lights and went back to his office. When he checked again a few minutes later, he heard Oleg’s heavy snores. No, Oleg wouldn’t be a problem.
Ten o’clock. Weren’t they supposed to arrive by now? Where were they? He walked over to the security center, a windowless room where guards monitored the plant’s alarms and cameras.
Tajid nodded as Grigory walked in. He was fiddling with a screen that had gone dark. Monitors broke all the time, but the failure of this particular screen was no accident. It was one of three that watched the north weapons depot. Without it, the men in here would be partly blinded to what was happening in the warehouse.
“Hello, cousin,” Tajid said. He looked perfectly normal. The room looked perfectly normal. Another endless night at Mayak. Grigory still couldn’t quite believe what he was about to do. He pointed to the darkened monitor.
“You broke it watching pornos?”
“We don’t need pornos,” said Arkady Merin, the senior night security officer. “We use our imagination. And sometimes Tatu.”
Against all regulations, a fat black tabby lurked in the security office. Two winters before, a guard had found the cat in the special area during a blizzard. In her search for shelter, she’d somehow gotten through the electrified fences. She wasn’t wearing a tag, and she ought to have been put down. But Arkady had taken a shine to her and made her the mascot for the guards. He named her Tatu, after a pair of Russian lesbian singers popular a few years back.
“Anything happening?”
“Quiet as a virgin in a whorehouse,” Arkady said. The perimeter and inner gates were staffed around the clock, but the operations center emptied out at night. This evening, only three men were on duty—Arkady, Tajid, and Marat, a fifty-something guard with a gritty, phlegmy smoker’s cough that for the last few weeks had gotten worse.
“When’s that dammed convoy due?”
“Eleven, they’re saying.”
“Another delay?”
“One of the BTRs had engine trouble.”
“They’re cursed. And such a night for it.”
“Could be worse. Could be February.” Arkady turned back to his monitors.
“Call me when they arrive,” Grigory said. “Our esteemed boss is dreaming up new and better ways to manage and doesn’t want to be disturbed.”
“Dreaming up? Such wit, Grigory,” Arkady smiled.
Grigory left. Hanging around wouldn’t look natural. He needed to look natural. But back in his office, he couldn’t work. He gave up trying and sat at his desk, watching the second hand tick. He knew what he was about to do was wrong, beyond wrong, and yet he couldn’t stop himself. He never would have guessed he could break the rules so easily. Perhaps every man carried a beast inside him.
A few years back, a serial killer had worked his way through Chelyabinsk, killing dozens of prostitutes before one escaped from his truck and called the police. The killer—Grigory couldn’t recall his name, but he was an electrician, he’d strangled his victims with thick black cords—grinned his way through his trial, and when the judge asked him if he had anything to say, any apologies to offer, he shook his head. “You’re lucky you caught me, for I would have gone on forever,” he said. “You can’t imagine how it feels.”
At this moment, Grigory thought he could.
THE PHONE RANG.
“They’re here. At the main gate.”
“Thanks, Arkady.”
Grigory grabbed his coat and the paperwork he would need, including the single sheet of paper that held the codes to unlock the warhead boxes. Easy, he told himself. No rush. The delivery was a minor break from routine, nothing more. He walked slowly to the security office. “Come on, Tajid. Enough pornos tonight. Let’s greet our visitors.”
The first test. If Arkady raised a stink about the fact that Grigory had asked his cousin to be his partner on the delivery, they’d fail right away. But Grigory didn’t expect Arkady to object. He wouldn’t want to go himself, and sending old Marat into the cold would be callous. Sure enough, Arkady was feeding Tatu and hardly looked up.
“Have fun, Tajid,” he said.
“A real humanitarian, you are.” Tajid grabbed his coat and gloves and followed his cousin out.
First test passed.
OUTSIDE,
the freezing wind hit Grigory full in the face. The snow was still falling, lightly now, covering the ground with a thin white rime.
Grigory was wearing a heavy down jacket and a sweater and woolen gloves, but he hadn’t bothered with proper boots or a hat tonight, and the wind found his feet and face and attacked them. Human beings weren’t meant to live this way. Maybe for a year or two, but not decade after decade. Not their whole lives.
Fortunately, the Volga started easily. Grigory had replaced the battery a few weeks before. Tajid and Grigory sat in silence for a moment, blowing on their hands, their breath filling the car. “No second thoughts, cousin?” Grigory said.
“None. You?”
“I’m not thinking at all.”
“Probably that’s best.”