It didn’t help that the damned landscape wouldn’t just lie flat. The desert was a great rumpled sheet of long crescent-shaped barchan dunes, giant mounds of sand that moved grain by grain as the wind carried them along. There was no way to drive around the dunes, so the truck had to constantly climb the face of each one, powering its way up the face, then scramble down the far side with the engine almost idling. It was like riding the world’s most boring roller coaster, and at the bottom of every dune the truck came down with a jolt no matter how carefully Chapel steered into the impact, launching him into the air. He thought Bogdan had the right idea. After moaning for nearly an hour about the rough ride, the Romanian had wedged himself down into the leg well between the front and back seats. Maybe the carpeting on the floorboards was thicker than the seat upholstery.
Chapel peered out through the windshield, anticipating the next dune. They had gotten lucky in that the moon was new, and only starlight lit up the landscape. With the truck’s banks of lights turned off, that would make them hard to spot, even by satellites. It gave them a fighting chance. “You really hate the Soviets, don’t you?” he asked. “Ever since we started this mission, all you’ve done is tell me how awful they were.”
Nadia shrugged. “It is a national pastime. We all live in their shadow now. We live with their mistakes every day.” She clutched her arms around herself. Even in the heated cab it was cold — outside the night winds would be truly bitter, despite the warmth of the day.
“And the Russians, now? The Russian Federation? How do you feel about them? They’re trying to kill you, after all.”
Nadia looked over at him with guarded eyes. He’d touched something, but he wasn’t sure what. “You doubt my patriotism? Tell me, do you support everything your government does? Every member of your Congress, every elected official?”
Chapel frowned as he peered ahead into the endless waves of sand. “My government tried to kill me, once,” he said. “Well, one of its organizations did, anyway. Governments, even good ones, aren’t ever really of one mind. As for Congress, well, I guess hating Congress is our national pastime. Sometimes I think we elect our politicians just so we’ll have something to be angry about. Yeah, there are things about America I don’t like. It doesn’t stop me loving my country. Fighting for it. I guess I’m asking how you feel about your country, not its leaders.”
“My country,” she said, a little bitterness in her voice. “This is the problem with Russia, calling it one country.” She shivered a little. “Strange that I feel so cold now, when in Siberia this might be a pleasant day in spring. I’ve been away so long. Siberia is my country. I hope to see it again before… well. Before I die.”
“Nadia, I didn’t mean to—” he began.
She shook her head to stop him. “I do not want your pity. Moscow, where I have lived for many years… it is very nice, in its own way; you can buy nice clothes any time of the day or night. You can see all the foreign movies there. But the people throw their trash into the street. The river stinks. My people would never let that happen. My grandfather was an Evenki shaman. Do you know what that is?”
“Not even a clue.”
Nadia never turned to look at him. Whatever she saw through the windshield, he was pretty sure it wasn’t the desert. “He went from village to village in the forest, healing the sick, fighting with ghosts. He rode around on a reindeer. When I was an infant, he would hold me on his lap, on the back of his reindeer. I can almost remember that. I can definitely remember how it smelled.”
She smiled at the thought. Closed her eyes and lay back in her seat.
“That is my country, the back of that reindeer. The trees of the taiga. The people of the forest. I will fight and die for them, to keep them safe. Whether Moscow approves or not.”
“I believe you,” Chapel said.
She opened her eyes. Turned and looked at him.
“That was what got you arrested, wasn’t it?”
“I beg your pardon?”
Chapel thought back to what Angel had told him. “You were arrested a few years ago at a protest rally in Moscow. One that was calling for Siberian independence, among other things. You didn’t give your name, and you were released right away. But you were there, weren’t you?”
“Angel is very, very good at what she does,” Nadia said. She shifted away from him in her seat, as if she might throw open her door and jump out of the truck.
He’d definitely hit a nerve. “Yeah,” he said. “She is.”
“If you have a question to ask, then ask it,” Nadia told him.
Chapel was careful not to push too hard. What he was getting at was a tricky thing to talk about, even now. “You say that Siberia is your country, not Moscow. That makes me wonder something. Why is Siberia still part of Russia?”
“Now you’re asking me riddles.”
He shook his head. “No. Listen, I’m curious about this. When the Soviet Union fell, just about everybody jumped ship. Everybody from Belarus to Tajikistan decided they wanted nothing to do with Russia anymore. But not Siberia.”
“It’s true,” Nadia said.
“Why is that?”
“When the Union fell, every ethnic group in the Union was given a choice to declare for self-determination. But Moscow wished to hold as much territory as possible. Some groups were… urged more strongly than others to stay. The truth is, Russia could not afford to lose Siberia. All the country’s wealth is there.”
“Oil, you mean,” Chapel said.
“Yes, definitely there is oil in Siberia. Not to mention gold, and diamonds, and rare metals. And of course there is Vladivostok, which is the only way Russia has to reach Asian markets, and one of its very few port cities that does not freeze over every winter. No, Yeltsin was very much interested in holding on to Siberian territory, and Putin agrees. At the time of the breakup, perhaps, something could have been done. There was political momentum, then. But now — Putin has made it very clear that Moscow will not give up any more territory. Look at what he has done to Chechnya.”
“But you think it would be a good thing, if Siberia split with Moscow?”
Nadia sighed and wrapped her arms around herself as if she were cold. “The Soviets plundered Siberia for its resources, without much compunction. Putin has been, if anything, worse. The land is being strip-mined, the trees cleared in great swaths. No one seems to care if the forest is poisoned, as long as they get what lies beneath. Do I think the people who actually live there would make better stewards of the land? Yes. Konyechno.”
“You feel strongly enough to get arrested for saying so,” Chapel pointed out.
“What is this?” Nadia demanded. “What are you asking?”
He turned and gave her a hard look. “You lied to me once. When you said that you had the blessing of Moscow for this operation. I want all the cards on the table. You don’t work for FSTEK anymore. You’ve shown political leanings in the past. Who are you working for now?”
“You’ll never really trust me again. I see that,” Nadia told him. “But you already know the answer to that question. I work for Marshal Bulgachenko.”
“Who’s dead,” Chapel pointed out.
“Yes. I work for his memory. And I work to make the world safer for everyone. Jim, I have very little time left. I have dedicated all of it to bringing down Perimeter. Is that so hard to believe?”
Chapel started to answer, but he stopped when his tablet chimed and the screen lit up with a map.
Talk about timing, he thought.
“You’re almost there,” Angel told him. “The border’s just a few miles up ahead. Time to get careful.”
“I’m getting the live feed from a weather satellite that’s about to break your horizon,” Angel told him. Chapel nodded, even though he knew she couldn’t see him. “You’re still clear of the border, though if you get too much closer, you’ll definitely draw some attention.”