Sands of Time Read online

“I found the key. I’ll e-mail you when I get back to Khabarovsk.”

  “Redman, thanks. May God give you wisdom. And providence.”

  Roman clicked off and pocketed his sat phone as he pulled on his jacket. He needed a truckload of divine wisdom if he hoped to find Sarai and get her out in—he checked his watch—sixty hours and counting. He opened the door, took the stairs two at a time, despite the shadows, vaulted the third step and slammed out into the street.

  Thankfully, the town wasn’t so large he couldn’t sprint back to the clinic parking lot and pick up his smashed jeep in ten minutes or less.

  Yes, yes! the clinic lights were on. And Sarai’s Camry sat in the lot. Gotcha!

  He burst through the doors, took a right and slammed open her office door.

  Empty.

  Breathing hard, Roman grabbed at his knees. His head felt woozy and he took a step forward, hoping he didn’t go down. He needed to eat.

  “You okay?”

  Roman turned at the voice. A familiar voice. Tall, with bobbed blond hair, lines around her icy blue eyes and a look that made him feel like he’d traveled back in time to sixth form. Anya—as Sarai had called her—didn’t smile. “Da. I’m looking for Dr. Curtiss.”

  “You’re that FSB agent Sarai told us about.”

  She’d gotten to them first. “Yeah. And she’s in big trouble. I need to find her. Now.”

  Anya raised her eyebrows. “Why?”

  “I told you. She’s in trouble. Your new governor, Bednov, is kicking out all foreigners, and if she doesn’t leave in the next two days, she’ll be arrested.”

  “By whom, you?”

  Maybe. But he said nothing. Suddenly the room seemed to swirl, and he reached out for the wall.

  “Sit down. I’ll get you some tea.” Anya disappeared as Roman cleared his head.

  “No. I don’t have time for tea.” He followed her out into the hall. “Just tell me where she went.”

  Only, maybe he did need something, because another wave of dizziness washed over him. What was wrong with him? What if… Oh please, no. What if it was the effects of radiation poisoning? Finally?

  He felt a cold sweat prickle his body.

  He angled for an exam room. Okay, so maybe just two minutes, while Anya fetched Sarai. And some tea.

  He sat on the table, rested his head on his hands. He knew he’d pay for Smirnov’s crimes. Somehow. Regret lined his throat. It wasn’t fair. Not after all he’d worked for.

  “Here’s your tea, young man.” Anya came in, holding a cup, with a piece of black bread balanced on the rim. She watched him as he drank.

  “You’re not really going to arrest Sarai, are you.”

  It was more of a statement than a question. He glanced at Anya. “I’m with the FSB. I might not have any choice.”

  She sighed, crossed her arms. “If she needs to leave, why isn’t her embassy calling?”

  “They probably did. But she doesn’t really stick around, does she?”

  He got a hint of a smile.

  “Her brother called me. He asked me to come get her.” Roman wasn’t sure why he might be passing this tidbit of covert information to Anya, but she hardly looked like a FSB spy. Besides, in the new era, even cops could have some American friends if they were careful. “Sarai and I knew each other years ago. I’m just trying to help her.”

  Anya made a silent O with her mouth, then pursed her lips and nodded. “I see.”

  Now what did that mean? “I’m just a friend.”

  “Then why did she run away from you?”

  Good question. One he’d been trying to figure out for more than a decade. “She doesn’t want to leave. But she has no choice. I just saw her picture on television, and soon they’ll be offering rewards for information leading to her whereabouts.”

  Anya narrowed her eyes. “I don’t know why, but I believe you. So you’d better be telling the truth.” She pulled a piece of paper from her pocket. “She went to Khanda about two hours north of here.” She handed him the paper, then, from the other pocket, Sarai’s car keys. “Don’t make me regret this.”

  Was Russia experiencing some sort of epidemic? Sarai could hardly believe her own diagnosis as she stared at ten-year-old Maxim Gordov. The village doctor, a young man who himself looked to be about twelve, stood at the foot of a double bed in the one-bedroom house. Under the green woolen blankets, and propped up by a homemade feather pillow, Maxim was shockingly yellow, his breathing shallow and giving off a sickly sweet scent. “I didn’t know what else to do. It came on so fast. I just got the tests back this morning.”

  Sarai nodded, said nothing. Without the tests, for all Dr. Valya knew, little Maxim may have had the flu. But he should have been able to detect the renal failure in time to transport him to…where? Smolsk didn’t have a dialysis machine. Maybe in Irkutsk… But if Maxim’s case progressed like Sasha Bednov’s, hope had died in the early morning when Max slipped into a coma.

  His mother, Galina, stood in the doorway, her work-worn hands covering her mouth, as if she couldn’t bear to let out the groan that certainly formed in her throat. Her attire—wool valenki boots, a housecoat and a buttoned sweater over her thin body—identified her as a simple woman.

  Maxim’s father sat in the next room, head in his hands, moaning.

  The weather mirrored their despair. The wind had begun to pick up, and Sarai had seen a wall of low-hanging gray clouds on her drive. This area of Irkutia province already bore the marks of winter—gray black snow along the roads, a blanket of pristine white over the fields, marred only by the occasional deer print. Ice dangled from the eaves over the door of Gordovs’ wooden, blue-painted house like spears. Inside, the smell of coal smoke embedded the rug-covered walls, yet a layer of frost outlined the wooden window casing and a chill hung in the air. Sarai had kept on the valenki she’d taken from her office in the clinic. All the same, the home seemed a warm place, a cheery place.

  So what did a ten-year-old village boy have to do with a rich governor’s son?

  She put her hand on Maxim’s head, and frustration knotted in her throat. Perhaps she was just tired but she felt overwhelmed, helpless. She wanted to curl into a ball and sob.

  Or maybe just surrender to Roman…and leave. Just run from the realities, the failures, the challenges.

  Even if they got him on a plane to Moscow, Maxim probably wouldn’t live out the day.

  “Has he been sick?” She turned to Galina, who stepped into the room and crouched beside the bed, pushing back her son’s hair.

  “No. He’s been fine. Maybe a bit tired lately. And he was sick a few days ago with the stomach flu, but that’s all.”

  “No strep throat?” Sarai opened his mouth, flashed her penlight inside. Nothing to indicate an infection. “I’m going to set up an IV. Maybe I can flush whatever is causing his shutdown out of his system.”

  She didn’t look at Galina as she prepped him and inserted an IV. She hung the bag from a chair. He didn’t make a sound, didn’t move.

  “When did he lapse into a coma?” Sarai asked, checking his pulse. It was slow and thready.

  “He had a seizure this morning when I woke him for school.” Galina’s voice dropped to a whisper. “I was so afraid.”

  Sarai’s throat felt thick. She looked at Valya. “Could I talk to you…privately?”

  They stepped out into the street and, while the wind dug under her hat and a light dusting of snow floated from a steel gray sky, she told him the prognosis.

  She stayed outside in the cold, her hands dug into her pockets while Valya returned inside. Even with two doors between her and the Gordovs, it didn’t muffle the pain that radiated out, nor the effect it had on Sarai’s spirit. Her throat burned.

  Sarai pushed a hand into her stomach as she walked down the street, passing ramshackle houses fortified for winter. The smell of a storm hung in the air and snow fell thicker, accumulating beneath her boots. This area of northern Irkutia, smack in the middle of Siberia,
wore snow cover from mid-October to May. The small town of Khanda had been formed during Khrushchev’s reign as a labor pool to serve a local nuclear plant. Since the mid-nineties, however, when the reactor shut down, population sloughed off toward the larger cities, leaving the village hollow, devoid of life. Families like the Gordovs subsisted on tiny vegetable plots, and the lucky few found work at the various oil refineries that owned millions of sotoks of Siberian steppes. The Gordovs were lucky. Galina worked as a chef for one of the local oil companies.

  No, not lucky. Not this day.

  Darkened houses with their lifeless gaze watched Sarai as she fought tears. She’d come to Russia to change the lives of kids like Maxim, and while she didn’t hope to save everyone, the limitations of living on the backside of the world only churned up her frustration.

  And now, just when she might be poised to make a difference, Roman wanted to yank her out of Russia.

  She hoped he’d given up.

  Not likely.

  But she wasn’t leaving. Not when there were people who needed her.

  If she left, who would they have?

  She turned and cut back toward the house, not sure what to say to the Gordovs. At least Maxim was past suffering. As if that might be any comfort to the parents of a dying child.

  She stood at the entrance to their house, felt the grief inside and wiped her cheeks.

  “I found you,” said a quiet voice behind her.

  Oh, no. How had he—never mind. Roman was a bloodhound for a living. She should have known that she’d never ditch him. Not unless he wanted to be ditched. She’d have to confront him. She closed her eyes. “Please, not now, Roman.”

  He reached out, touched her arm. “Are you okay?” The concern in his voice blindsided her and she felt herself loosening the chokehold on her grief.

  “I’ll be fine. Just…”

  “Sarai.” He forcibly turned her, tucked his hand under her chin and raised her gaze to his.

  His hazel eyes clouded, and for the first time since he’d forced his way back into her life, she saw emotion—concern, even empathy.

  It only made the little knot of pain in the center of her chest release and spill open. Rebellious tears pooled in her eyes, and she tried to look away.

  He didn’t let her. “Sarai, what’s the matter?”

  She closed her eyes. “There’s a ten-year-old boy in there who’s going to die by tonight.”

  His “Oh, no,” felt more like a groan. Then, because of the hero he was, he pulled her to his chest and held her.

  She didn’t resist, didn’t pull away but put her arms around him. Holding on. Despite the stranger he’d become, he’d been the man who first made her feel protected. And in this pocket of time, she could admit she needed that right now.

  “Sarai, I’m sorry.” His hand ran down her hair, and she couldn’t help but relish his strong arms around her. Or the fact that under his black parka she felt hard muscles and a strength that spoke of safety.

  “Me, too.”

  She leaned back, looked up at him and tried not to let the concern in his eyes sink too deeply into her heart. He’s just a friend. My brother’s friend. And…probably he’s just trying to get on my good side.

  “Now do you see why I have to stay, Roma? Because more kids will die if I don’t help them.”

  He was silent for a moment, then he looked away from her. “You can’t save them all.”

  “I can try. If I don’t, who will?”

  Roman shook his head as if in frustration. “What’s wrong with this kid?”

  “He’s got renal failure. And the weird thing is that it’s the second case in twenty-four hours. Governor Bednov’s son died yesterday of this very condition. I don’t know why, but I can’t help but wonder if they’re related.” She disentangled herself from Roman’s too intoxicating embrace and found rest on a stump near the door.

  Roman didn’t move to follow. In fact, he stared at her with an odd expression. “Renal failure? Um, do you know what brought it on?”

  “Not the slightest. Julia Bednov told me her son had been sick for a while, and she thought he might have picked up something at their dacha this summer. I’ll need to ask the ME to do an autopsy on both boys.”

  Roman stalked away from her. “We need to talk about you locking me in your apartment.”

  Did they? “Sorry about that. But you need to stop with this…agenda. I’m not leaving. I thought I made that clear.”

  Roman said nothing, and she watched him stare away from her, out into the fields surrounding the village, his hands on his narrow hips, his wide shoulders reminding her of David, and just how much he trained for his job. Under all that fluffy jacket, Roman had the same build as her big brother.

  One that meant he could force her to leave if he really wanted to. “Please, Roman, just go.”

  “Is that an oil field?”

  What? Sarai frowned at him as he glanced at her over his shoulder. “Yeah, I think so. A lot of folks in town work for Alexander Oil.”

  “Really.” Roman wore a strange look as he came and sat beside her. His presence felt familiar. Although he’d turned into a stranger, he was still the man of determination she’d once known. She saw that much on his expression.

  Apparently he could still be remarkably kind, too. “I’m sorry I ditched you,” she said softly.

  He dug a phone from his pocket. “Me, too. Because the clock is ticking, and I’m not sure I can get us out of here before you’re illegal.”

  She let that statement absorb a beat before it registered. “You can’t be serious. Have you not listened to one thing I said? What if there are other children in this village who are ill? I need to check them out, see if I can catch it before another child ends up like Maxim, or Sasha.”

  But Roman was on the telephone, and he only glanced at her. Jerk.

  She stood, strode away from him.

  “Yanna, it’s me. I need you to check into something for me. Find out where all the decommissioned reactors are near Khanda, Irkutia. I think I may have stumbled onto something. Also, get me a list of shareholders for Alexander Oil.”

  Sarai watched him as he ran his hand through his hair, then rubbed his eyes. He looked tired. Even a bit pale. And no, she shouldn’t worry about him. Not one bit.

  He gave a wry chuckle and glanced at her. She looked away but heard him as he said, “No. She’s still as stubborn as before.”

  What? Sarai glared at him and he met her eyes. His chuckle faded. “Okay. Just…if you can route the call to me, that would be great. But listen, don’t get yourself into any more trouble. I’ll deal with it when I get back.”

  Sarai returned to the stump, watch Roman rub his eyes with his thumb and forefinger as he talked.

  “Yeah, well, maybe you can come visit me.” He glanced at Sarai. Smiled. And her heart did a strange leap in her chest. “Okay, I’ll tell her. Thanks.”

  He clicked off, staring at his telephone.

  And suddenly, she knew. “You’re not supposed to be here, are you?”

  He huffed, and gave a wry smile, but didn’t look at her.

  “You’re AWOL, aren’t you?”

  “I’m just on a little…unauthorized field trip.”

  “I cannot believe the lengths you and David will go to—”

  “Sarai! Enough. Do you think I like dragging myself all the way out here in the middle of the night only to tick you off and get locked in your flat? Do you think I like chasing all over the world after you, worrying all the time if you’re safe or not, and wondering when I’m going to either have to bail you out—for the warm thank you of a slap across my face—or hear of your untimely death at the hands of local terrorists? You think that’s fun for me?”

  She opened her mouth, closed it. Saw only the anger on his face. Her brain had stopped on the words worrying all the time.

  He worried about her?

  No. Probably he worried if David was going to call him up and ask him to put his job
on the line so he could save her not-needing-to-be-saved body.

  “I don’t need your help,” she said softly.

  “I know,” he snapped, as he got up and looked away. “But just for once, will you accept my help, even if it curdles every independent cell in your body?”

  She sighed, glanced at the house. Mr. Sacrifice for the cause. Well, she wasn’t going to be the one who made him lose his job. “Just…wait here. I need to talk to Valya.”

  He only clenched his jaw as she got up, gave him a half smile and went into the house.

  Chapter Seven

  He had to have kasha for brains. Or perhaps the temperature had dropped so low his brain synapses had frozen up, because while one side of Roman’s brain knew, just knew that her “okay, I’ll go along nicely” routine had been an act, the other side made him stand out in the yard watching the snow blanket the tin roofs of the two-and three-room village homes. Even when he heard an engine fire up and a vehicle pull away, reality didn’t whack him upside the head until he finally charged into the house.

  Of course she’d gone out the back. Why had he ever considered her a calming force in his life? She felt more like a tornado.

  He raced back outside, climbed into her Camry, hung a U-turn and floored it out of Khanda toward Smolsk. Where would she go? He popped on his headlights, and in the encroaching darkness saw taillights of the ambulance she’d driven as she lumbered onto the main thoroughfare.

  Hatlichna! She was headed toward Smolsk. Maybe he had talked some sense into her and her pride just didn’t want to admit it. Hopefully she would just keep driving straight and right into Buryatia province.

  Yeah, and maybe he wouldn’t be cleaning toilets in gulag this time next week.

  Roman slammed his hand against the steering wheel. The car shimmied on the road and he slowed. Snow layered the road like icing and, as he drove out of town into the blinding whiteness of the encroaching blizzard, he had to double-grip the wheel. The heater couldn’t keep up with the cold and he felt his feet begin to grow numb. Ahead of him, Sarai’s taillights—at least he hoped they were Sarai’s—cut through the gauze of snow like a blood-red knife.