Popov, whom she knew had no religion, said curtly, ‘We’re going to need more than prayers.’
‘How much stuff did Oskin have?’
‘Enough.’
Natalia accepted tension would be inevitable in all of them in the coming days. And just as inevitably probably get worse. ‘Let’s hope it is.’
The trip towards Kirs showed Natalia how thickly the region was forested. They seemed to drive, mostly in silence, constantly through canyons of tight-together trees. She supposed there were cleared areas in which helicopters could set down but driving along this road it was difficult to imagine where. It was, she recognized, superb ambush country. And then accepted the cover would be as good for those they were trying to trap as for themselves. Several times they were slowed practically to a walking pace by huge, flat-bed lorries piled high with chained-in-place cargoes of tree trunks. On four occasions Popov pointed out covered trucks marked with an insignia he identified as that of the nuclear plant, although there was no recognizable lettering: two vehicles in convoy were escorted by uniformed militia motorcyclists, headlights on to clear slower vehicles out of their way.
‘Does that happen a lot?’ asked Natalia.
‘I’ve never seen it before.’ Then, abruptly, Popov pointed to her left and said, ‘There!’
There was no immediate, positive break in the trees but then Natalia saw a slip road with a barriered control post some way back from the main highway. And beyond, just visible through the tree screen, four chimneys and what looked like a tower block, although they passed too quickly for her to be sure.
‘It doesn’t have a name, just a number,’ said Popov, formally. ‘Sixty nine.’
‘Where’s the town?’
‘Another four or five kilometres.’
Natalia guessed it was a further two, maybe a little less, before the treeline began to thin and finally straggle into a rolling plain. Almost at once Popov turned off to the right. The road was unmade and holed, jarring Natalia in her seat. It got worse when the hardcore trailed away into a dirt track, snarled with exposed roots and deeper holes. Very quickly the terrain became moonscape, undulating hills and low valleys with little ground covering until they came to a bowl-like core, an enormous open area sloping down for what must have been almost two kilometres to a lake at its bottom. Here there were a few stunted trees and when they got close to the water’s edge Natalia saw a small jetty protruding into the lake from an old and lopsided hut. Popov carefully took their car around to the rear of the ramshackle building and parked as close as he could to it on the side furthest from the lake. Here the trees were substantially although oddly thicker, the last hair on a bald head.
As Natalia got out she physically shivered at the cold desolation. ‘What happened here?’
‘An accident a very long time ago, just after the Great Patriotic War,’ said Popov. ‘This was where 69 was originally sited. They had to move it.’
‘Is it safe?’
‘Lvov says so. They’ve carried out tests. People eat the fish from the lake, fishermen built this hut.’
‘This is where we meet him?’
‘His choice, like Oskin’s last night. Anyone following would be visible for a very long way.’
Natalia shivered again, acknowledging the security. ‘This is all so…’
‘… Ridiculous?’ suggested Popov, when she trailed to a halt.
‘I wasn’t going to say that. I’m not sure what I was going to say.’ She started at a sound from inside the hut, jerking around to Popov.
‘He had to be here first, to see it’s safe,’ said the man, gripping her arm for reassurance. ‘If it hadn’t been he would have left, through the trees back there.’
The hut was dark, a square box without any furniture apart from benches along two walls and closed cupboards along a third, and actually smelled sourly of fish. There were other smells, too: the rot and decay of dampness. There was a rod and a small bag along one of the benches, which Natalia assumed belonged to the man waiting for them.
Valeri Lvov was thick-set but not fat and his hair was turning from grey into complete white. The shirt was stained and sweat-ringed under the arms and the boots into which the rough work trousers were tucked looked uniform issue. He stood half to attention, like Oskin had the previous night, but with his hands cupped before him, holding the cap he’d taken off as a further mark of respect. He appeared as surprised as Oskin that Natalia offered her hand, responding hesitantly. Lvov’s hand was wet and greasy. There was a nervous tic jerking near his left eye and his lower lip pulled constantly between his teeth.
Natalia didn’t want to sit – she didn’t want to be in the stinking hut – but did so in the hope of relaxing the man. He remained standing until she suggested he sit, too. He did so quite deliberately on the bench opposite and Natalia realized that from where he had chosen Lvov could see the track along which anyone had to approach through a split in one of the badly placed planks.
It was much more difficult than it had been with Oskin to urge the man through his story. He contradicted himself on the date of the first approach and on the day he was taken off the trolley car by the two strangers he was sure came from Moscow. When Natalia asked why, in contrast, he could remember their list of demands, Lvov said it had been written down: they had told him to memorize it. He didn’t have the list any more because they’d ordered him to destroy it. That had been before he was able to tell Oskin and felt he had to do everything they told him, to keep his family safe.
‘I know it was wrong. Stupid. I’m sorry.’
‘It’s done now,’ accepted Natalia. Judging it fitted this part of Lvov’s account, she took him through the Yatisyna Family Militia photographs. Lvov didn’t hurry, holding several prints up to the better light from the single, unglassed window.
‘No,’ he said, finally, offering the package back to her.
‘None at all?’ pressed Popov.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘That’s all right,’ soothed Natalia, the expert debriefer. ‘We only want what you’re sure of. Don’t tell us anything you think we want to hear that isn’t true. Or exaggerated.’
‘I’m sure they’re going to kill me! Harm my family!’ Lvov burst out, answering her literally.
Natalia remained silent for several moments, reaching a decision. ‘You were in the Militia, once?’
‘At the Kirov headquarters,’ confirmed Lvov. ‘That’s how I met Major Oskin. He arrived a month before I left. I’d already resigned.’
‘Why did you resign?’
‘I wouldn’t become part of the system. Become crooked. So they made it hell for me. No one talked with me, accepted me. I had to eat alone, in the canteen. Got all the worst shifts, all the time. They put shit in my locker, sometimes into my boots. There were phone calls to my wife at one or two in the morning with no one at the other end when I was working nights. Other times they were obscene: men saying they were coming around to screw my daughters while she had to watch
…’
Positively, Natalia announced, ‘I promise you that neither you nor your family will be harmed, for what you have done. And are doing, to help us. I will take you back into the Militia. Not here. In Moscow. I’ll transfer you and your family away from here, to where you’ll be safe.’ I hope, she thought. She was aware of Popov’s look of surprise but didn’t respond.
Like Oskin the previous night, there was almost a visible lift of pressure from the man. ‘Thank you! Thank you so much!’
Natalia coaxed Lvov on details, establishing there were two service roads into the complex other than the one she had already seen, also guarded by control posts operating road barriers. The plant was entirely circled by an electrified fence, which at night was permanently lit. The guard contingent had consisted of fifty men but that was being scaled down like everything else in the decommissioning.
Natalia picked on the word, risking the deflection. ‘On our way here today we passed some lorries, going in the opposite direction. There was a small convoy with motorcycle outriders?’