Adam looked down and sank back in his seat. Nadia raised her hand to touch him and remembered he had told her never to do so. She pulled it away and looked out the window instead.
Adam didn’t ask any more questions.
The plane never reached a high elevation, as though Ruchkin were purposefully avoiding detection. Half an hour into the flight, a snippet of coastline came into view on the right side.
“It’s going to get bumpy here along the coast,” he said. “But don’t worry. I’ve done this trip many, many times. You know what they call this route, don’t you? Magadan to Chukotka? They call it ‘Gateway to Hell.’”
Four hours later, they landed on a runway at Ugolny Airport, serving Anadyr, the capital of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug. Anadyr is the largest town in the extreme northeastern part of Russia and the last before land yields to water.
At Ugolny, they never left the runway. Two men hauled two dozen crates from the plane into a large helicopter with camouflage paint. Ruchkin then flew Nadia and Adam an additional three hundred kilometers to a secluded landing spot in Provideniya, the largest settlement at the tip of Chukotka.
They flew for six hours cumulatively and crossed one time zone during the trip. It was 8:35 p.m. on Saturday when they arrived in Provideniya.
CHAPTER 66
KIRILO PACED THE FSB office. He glanced at the clock: it was 9:00 p.m. on Saturday.
“So much for the airport tonight,” Deputy Director Krylov said. “The last international flight just left Sokol.”
“Nothing from the pier or Passport Control?” Victor said.
“Nothing.”
Kirilo swore under his breath. Krylov brushed his hand through his thinning hair and reached for his fifth cup of coffee since lunch.
Major General Yashko marched into the room as though he were reporting for duty. His customary indignation was absent from his expression. He clicked his heels together and cleared his throat.
“I have a development to report,” he said.
Krylov raised his eyebrows.
“Magadan-Thirteen,” Major General Yashko said.
“Magadan-Thirteen?” Krylov said.
“What’s Magadan-Thirteen?” Kirilo said.
“Airfield,” Krylov said. “Thirteen kilometers northeast of Magadan. Basically abandoned. An occasional prop plane. Domestic. By appointment only.”
“Actually, that may not be true. I was discussing our problem with one of my men when he made me aware of certain rumors,” Major General Yashko said.
“What rumors?” Krylov said.
“A bootlegging operation,” Major General Yashko said, his eyes falling to the floor.
“Bootlegging?” Krylov said. “What does that mean, bootlegging?”
“Government employees in the Chukotka Oblast get paid once a month. When their paychecks arrive, there’s a big demand for alcohol. Especially among the locals, the Chukchis. It’s a big business. Thousands of people. Big enough to command a monthly run under the radar from Magadan-Thirteen.”
“What?” Krylov said. “Under whose protection?”
The major general’s face turned a darker shade of red. “I honestly don’t know. I’m sure the deputy director can launch an appropriate investigation and find out.”
“You can count on that,” Krylov said. He reached for his phone. “First we have to find out if there’s been a flight today.”
“There has,” Major General Yashko said. “That’s the development. I had my man make inquiries. A woman and teenage boy were seen boarding the plane at one o’clock this afternoon.”
“My God,” Krylov said. “What was the destination?”
“Provideniya. Via Anadyr.”
“The Chukchi Sea,” Victor said.
“What resources do you have up there?” Kirilo said.
“The Maritime Border Guard Unit,” Krylov said. “When did they land in Provideniya?”
“Hard to say,” the major general said. “Sometime in the last hour.”
“We have a modified Tupolev TU at our disposal,” Krylov said. “We can be in Provideniya in two and a half hours. I’ll have the Border Guard set up a perimeter with a radius of one hundred kilometers up and down the coast.”
As Deputy Director Krylov barked instructions into the phone, Major General Yashko walked up to Kirilo. “So there’s no doubt now. Her plan was to escape by ship after all.”
Kirilo didn’t argue. He simply nodded and smiled. Then he glanced at Victor. He could tell from the Bitch’s expression he was thinking the same thing as Kirilo.
Now that it appeared Nadia Tesla was planning to escape by ship, there was no doubt she was going to leave Russia some other way.
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.