Belly of the Beast by Blake Crouch, Douglas Walker Page A

Joseph. How do you really know who my father is?”
    Yuri looked toward the door, but did not move.
    Very slowly, Lana opened her eyes and turned directly toward Niki, but her eyes looked straight through her. “A mother knows,” she said and then turned back toward the window.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

     
    After another long silence, Galina sat up and smiled. “See, I told you Joseph is the father.”
    “Where is he now?” asked Niki.
    “You’ll have to come back tomorrow.”
    Niki studied the old woman. “You don’t know, do you?”
    “Do too,” said Galena. “I’m just not telling.”
    “Then I’ll just have to talk to Lana,” said Niki.
    Lana returned to her blank stare.
    “Okay. I’ll tell,” said Galina. “Joseph lived near Mayak—that place I’m not supposed to say. Guards took him to the foreigners’ barracks in Techa after the interrogations, but sometimes I saw him in that Alpha Tunnel. The guards moved the blocks that were supposed to seal it and sent workers and prisoners in to mop up the floor, but they never went in themselves. It was plutonium solution on the floor. It was always leaking from the pipes, and it was the most valuable stuff in all of Russia. It was worth a man’s blood. Just ask Yuri.”
     “I don’t need to know,” said Niki. She touched Yuri’s arm. “I just need to know about my family.”
    Yuri closed his eyes in resignation. “Go on Galina, but don’t talk about political officers, don’t talk about plutonium, and don’t talk about Mayak.”
    Galina smiled. “You said Mayak.”
    “Where is Joseph now?” asked Niki.
    “Looking for me. We leave notes in the tunnel. We were both in the tunnel one time and I was supposed to crawl under a row of pipes to wipe up a spill, but he did it and wouldn’t let me help. He said plutonium was killing us. He wrung out his wet clothes in the collection bucket. I took off my clothes too and pulled him to me. It was not the first time. I was already pregnant. Joseph said the plutonium would kill the baby too.”
    Niki shook her head. “I had no idea. It must have been horrible.”
    Galina eased her legs over the side of the bed and swung them happily. “Not so bad for me. We had special privileges. We were the chocolate eaters. We had horses and ski trails. In winter, I skied every minute I was not working. I am going to the Olympics someday.”
    The room fell quiet again.
    It was insane; Niki listened to her crazy mother through another crazy person’s warped perception while Yuri tried to stifle both of them. Niki began to wonder then, Had radiation make them crazy? Then she remembered Dr. Baxter’s question about nuclear power plants and chromosome damage. How could my parents not be damaged? And me. My God. I am the cause of Alex’s leukemia.
    “We were in the tunnel when the big explosion happened,” said Galina. “They called it the Kyshtym Explosion. It was October.”
     “September,” Yuri said soberly, “1957. If we are going to reveal state secrets, we may as well get the dates right.”
    “We thought the whole plant blew up,” said Galina. “Joseph said things would be different. He said we might not see each other again. He showed me a cut off pipe along the west wall. He said if we ever got back in the tunnel, we should put notes in bottles and hide them in the cut-off pipe. That way we could find each other. Joseph is coming back for me.”
    “That was thirty years ago,” Yuri said calmly. “The radiation would surely have killed him by now. May we go now?”
    “My mother is still alive, maybe Joseph is too. If he was at Techa, maybe we could—”
    “Victor Malenkov took him away,” said Galina. “When he comes back for me, he’ll bring tea in a silver samovar.” Galina closed her eyes.
    There was an uneasy quiet.
    Niki finally nodded. “This is all crazy. We can go now. I’ll just say goodbye to my mother.”
    Yuri was already out the door when Lana spoke once more. “It was a stainless