Each word seemed to weigh her down a little more. Chase realised that something awful was coming. ‘What sort of experiments?’ he prompted.
‘Human experiments,’ she whispered. ‘On my grandmother. He used her to see what eitr would do to a living person — and her unborn child.’
‘Shit,’ he said, shocked. ‘He actually poisoned his own wife? While she was pregnant?’
‘He was an evil, evil man.’ A new tear ran down her cheek. ‘I am ashamed that I have anything to do with him.’
‘It’s not your fault. But why did he do it?’
She raised her head. ‘The eitr is not just a poison, even though according to his letter just a few drops on the skin can kill a person — they tested it on prisoners.’ Utter disgust and loathing twisted her features for a moment. ‘In smaller amounts, it is a… a mutagen is I think the English word. It causes mutations in DNA, sometimes huge. My grandfather believed these mutations could be controlled to create a new breed of human. Supermen, a master race.’ Another expression of revulsion, this time at the connections to her own country’s past. ‘The Soviets only cared about turning the eitr into a weapon, so he continued his work in secret. After testing on animals, he put a tiny amount into my grandmother’s food to see the effect it would have on people.’
‘And it gave her cancer?’
‘And eventually killed her. But because it caused mutations at a genetic level, they were passed down to my mother while she was still in the womb — and then to me.’ She looked down at her side, one hand tracing the line of the scar. ‘The tumours appeared when I was sixteen. They almost killed me — I was in hospital for half a year. By the time I came out, my mother was suffering from them too. But with her, the doctors could not risk removing them; they were too advanced. All I could do was — was watch her die.’ She sniffed, wiping her eyes again. ‘I am sorry, it is still hard to talk about.’
‘That’s okay,’ said Chase, with deep sympathy. He had been through the same terrible experience with his own mother.
‘Thank you. Oh…’ She released a long, sighing breath, then looked round as the child with the prosthetic leg hobbled up and hugged her tightly, chattering and laughing in Vietnamese. Natalia managed a smile, giving the excitable boy a kiss on the forehead before sending him back to his mother. Another sigh. ‘I love children, I do. But I can never have any of my own — it is too dangerous. That is my family’s curse, Eddie. My grandfather poisoned us for ever.’
‘Christ. I’m sorry. I can’t even imagine what it must have been like to find out.’
‘My grandmother gave the letter to my mother on her deathbed, telling her the truth about how they had come to Germany,’ Natalia continued. ‘The CIA was supposed to take her out of Russia, first to West Germany and then on to America. But when my grandfather did not make it, they abandoned my grandmother. She had to make her own life in a new country. Which she did — until the eitr at last killed her. My mother kept the letter, but did not tell me about it. Until she too was on her deathbed.’
‘If she’d told someone what was causing the tumours, couldn’t they have done something about them?’
The young woman shook her head firmly. ‘We did not want to tell anyone about my grandfather’s experiments, or the eitr. That was something my grandmother made my mother promise, and she made me promise. It is a promise I meant to keep. I did not even tell my father.’
‘But you’re telling me now.’
‘Someone else already knows.’
Chase glanced towards the jungle. ‘The Russians?’
‘It is the only possible reason why they would have taken me. They want to start the experiments again.’
‘So why would they want you? Couldn’t they just go to wherever they found this eitr stuff and get more?’
‘Because it was destroyed. My grandmother worked out what must have happened. The letter said the eitr was discovered on Novaya Zemlya, off northern Russia.’
‘That was where the Russians tested their nukes,’ he remembered.
‘Yes, but a research facility was also built where they found the eitr. That was where my grandfather worked. I do not know the details, they were not in the letter, but there was an accident involving the eitr. Many people died. Khrushchev ordered the project to be closed down. That was when my grandfather decided to defect, and take his research with him. But he needed a sample of eitr to give to the Americans. There was only one place he could get it — the pit in the Arctic. So his plan was to go in secret to the facility to steal some, then the CIA would get him out of the country. He never came back. A nuclear test took place on the same day.’
‘So… you’re saying they nuked the place?’
‘They must have wanted to be sure that no one would ever have the eitr. They dropped the biggest bomb ever made—’
‘The Tsar Bomb.’ Chase saw her questioning look. ‘I paid attention to military history.’
‘But you did not know the real reason why they dropped it, did you? It was to destroy the facility, and the eitr. I read about the results of the explosion. Nothing was left — even the ground was melted.’
‘I still don’t get why they’d need you, though. It’s not like you’ve got eitr running through your veins.’
‘No, I do not. But…’ Natalia stared at the ground again, deep in thought, before continuing. ‘I have been exposed to it. Through my mother, and my grandmother. My DNA has been mutated by the eitr. If these Russians had samples, they could compare them to normal DNA and find out how it had been mutated. That could tell them enough about what the eitr does to create more, or create something that has the same effect.’ She turned back to him, fearful. ‘They want to use me. They want to take what my grandfather did to me, and turn it into a weapon. Eddie, that cannot happen! I will not let it.’
‘It won’t,’ he assured her. ‘I’ll get you out of here, I promise.’
‘That is not a promise you can keep!’ she cried. ‘They are still hunting for us, they must be — if I am so important to them, they will not let me escape. If they find us—’
He put a hand on her arm. ‘I won’t let them take you.’
‘How? With what? A broken landmine and a gun with one bullet?’ She straightened, suddenly resolute. ‘The bullet — you must keep it for me.’
‘What?’
‘I am serious. You saw those poor children in there.’ She jabbed a hand towards their building. ‘That is what chemical warfare did to them, and that was just a — a side effect. Agent Orange was created to kill plants; they did not even think about what it would do to people. But if the Russians create more eitr, it will be as a weapon of deliberate mass murder. Anyone who is exposed to it will die, either from the poison or the mutations it will cause. I will not allow that. It is against everything I believe in. If I let it happen, I would be as evil as my grandfather! It cannot happen. It cannot.’ She began to cry again. ‘Promise me that, Eddie. Promise me that.’
‘I am not going to promise to put a fucking bullet in your head, Natalia!’ he said, dismayed. ‘But I’ll stick to the promise I already made. I’ll get you out of here, trust me. It’ll take a bit longer since the phone’s out, but once I meet up with the others at the rendezvous, we’ll take you somewhere safe. These Russians won’t get hold of you.’