Dead or Alive

roared to life and water frothed at the stern.

“Next stop,” Salychev called over his shoulder, “hell.”

Two hours later the island’s southern headlands appeared through the fog off the starboard bow. Adnan stood amidships, watching the coastline through a pair of binoculars. Salychev had assured him military patrols would be no trouble, and Adnan could see none.

“They’re out there,” he called from the pilothouse, “but they’re not so bright. You could set your watch by ’em. Same patrol routes, every day at the same time.”

“What about radar?”

“Where?”

“On the island. I heard there was an air base…”

Salychev chuckled. “What, you’re talking about Rogachevo? Not really, not anymore. Not enough money. Used to have an interceptor regiment there, the 641st, I think, but nowadays it’s just a few cargo planes and helicopters.

“As for the boat patrols, they got dinky navigation sets, and like I said, they’re predictable anyway. Once we’re inshore, we’re safe. As you might imagine, they try to keep their distance.”

Adnan could understand why. While his men knew little about the nature of their mission or their destination, Adnan had been fully briefed.

Novaya Zemlya was indeed a hell on earth. According to the last census, the island was home to 2,500 people, mostly Nenetses and Avars living in Belushya Guba settlement. The island itself was in reality two islands-Severny in the north, and Yuzhny in the south-each separated from the other by the Matochkin Strait.

It was a shame, really, Adnan thought, that all the world knew of Novaya Zemlya was its Cold War history. The Russians and Europeans had known about it since the eleventh century, first through Novgorod traders, then through a steady string of explorers-Willoughby, Barents, Liitke, Hudson… They’d all visited here hundreds of years before it was annexed by the Soviets in 1954, renamed the Novaya Zemlya Test Site, and divided into zones: A, Chyornaya Guba; B, Matochkin Shar; and C, Sukhoy Nos, where the fifty-megaton Tsar Bomba was detonated in 1961.

During its lifespan, Novaya Zemlya had been home to nearly three hundred nuclear detonations, the last one in 1990. Since then it had become many things to many people-a curiosity, a tragedy, a grim reminder… But for the cash-poor Russian government after the dissolution, the island had become a dumping ground, a place to abandon their abominations.

What was that American phrase? Adnan wondered. Ah, yes… One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.

They were interested in the new line, Cassiano saw. Where it crossed roads, how far off the ground it was, how many support pylons per mile… An interesting request, and of course he would do his best to acquire the information.

They were also interested in trains, which puzzled him. It was true that trains came and went on a daily basis, but their entry into the facility was strictly limited and monitored. If they were looking to gain access to the facility, there were easier ways. Perhaps that was the answer. They weren’t interested in the trains as a means of infiltration but rather as a measurement tool. The facility’s output was a closely kept secret, but if the trains coming and going were monitored and their specifications known, one could make a good guess as to the output levels.

Very smart, he thought. And it did fit with what he knew about his employers. Competition was a healthy thing, he’d been told, and nothing could be done about a newly discovered oil field. What could be controlled, however, were prices and output capacity, which is what he suspected his employer planned to do. The OPEC nations (Islamic nations) had been the world’s largest supplier of oil for decades upon decades, and if Cassiano could help maintain that supremacy, he would happily do so.

42

IN RETROSPECT, Jenkins realized he should have seen it coming, this “promotion” that was in fact nothing more than a grade-A pain in the ass. The facility got regular visits from a plethora of government agencies and officials, from the Environmental Protection Agency and Homeland Security to the U.S. Geological Survey and the Army Corps of Engineers, all of which had thus far been handled by a Department of Energy spokesperson. The recently reheated battle in Washington over the future of the facility had changed all that, and it seemed every pol or bureaucrat who could find his or her way here was showing up, armed with probing questions generated by underpaid staffers and a deep desire to understand every nuance of the facility.

“What they want, Steve,” his boss had told him, “is a peek behind the curtain, and you’re just unpolished enough to make ’em think they’re getting it.”

Backhanded compliment notwithstanding, Steve had to admit he knew the facility inside and out, backward and forward, having started here just three years out of college, which was, in the lifespan of the project, nineteen years after the site had been initially identified as a possible candidate, along with ten others in six states; twelve years after it was nominated for intensive “site-characterization” studies; and ten years after it was crowned the winner of the beauty contest. He’d worked at this not-so-little patch of desert for most of his adult life, and at a current cost of $11 billion, it was one of the most extensively studied chunks of land in the world. And depending on who won the battle in Washington, that $11 billion might be written off as a loss. How did one do that? he wondered. In what column on the federal balance sheet did such a sum fall?

The project’s completion had become a point of pride for the nine hundred or so members of the team, and while opinion varied from employee to employee whether they would want to live next to it, their collective investment in its success was enormous. Though only thirty-seven, Steve was considered one of the site’s old hands, along with a hundred or so others who’d been here since the project had gone from a notion on a piece of paper to a shovel-in-the-dirt concern. Unfortunately, he could tell no one much about what he did, a restriction he hadn’t minded until he’d met Allison. She was keenly and genuinely interested in his work, about how he spent his days, a trait neither of his previous two girlfriends had displayed. God, he was a lucky man. To find a woman like her, and to have her attracted to him… And the sex. God almighty. Admittedly, his experience was somewhat limited, but the things she did to him, with her hands, with her mouth… Every time they were together, he felt like he was living a Penthouse Forum letter.

His musings were interrupted by a telltale plume of dust appearing over the hill opposite the main tunnel entrance, indicating vehicles approaching. Sixty seconds later, two black Chevy Suburbans appeared on the north road and pulled into the parking lot. Afternoon work had been halted, and all the trucks and equipment pallets moved to the perimeter of the lot. The Suburbans slowed to a stop about fifty feet away and sat idling. None of the doors opened, and Steve imagined the occupants dreading the idea of leaving the air-conditioned interiors. And it wasn’t even hot, he thought, not summer-hot, at least. Funny how delegation visits like this one tended to taper off in June, July, and August.

Now the doors opened, and out climbed the ten staffers who had been dispatched by their respective governors. Two for each of the five bordering states. Having already rolled up their shirtsleeves and loosened their ties, the group stood for a moment, blinking and looking around, before seeing Steve waving his arm at them. En masse, they walked over to him and gathered in a semicircle.

“Afternoon, and welcome,” he said. “My name is Steve Jenkins, and I’m one of the senior on-site engineers here. I’ll do my best to learn your names before we’re through, but for now I’ll leave it to you to sort out your visitor badges.”

He held out a shoebox, and one by one each delegate came forward and found his or her badge.

“Just a couple quick reminders, and then we’ll get out of the heat. I’ll be passing out information sheets that will cover everything we’re going to talk about this afternoon, and everything I’m allowed to say.”

This got a few chuckles. Steve relaxed a bit. Might not be so bad after all.

“That said, I’ll ask you not to take notes, either on paper or on a PDA. Same with voice recorders and