A glorious victory for the Motherland.

And as in the past, Operation Uranus and Saturn would once again free Russia and change the course of world history.

And likewise, not without casualties.

Necessity was a cruel master.

Savina reached the far wall of the cavern. A tunnel opened, framed by thick lead blast doors, miniature versions of the same doors that closed the main tunnel into Chelyabinsk 88.

Just inside the mouth of the tunnel rested a train and bumper stops. The electrified tracks carried a single train back and forth between the Warren and the heart of Operation Saturn, on the far side of Lake Karachay. The old tunnel went under the toxic lake, allowing for fast transport between the two sites without risk of exposure to the lake's hot radiological soup of strontium 90 and cesium 137.

The train was already waiting for her.

Savina climbed into one of the lead-lined cabs. There were only two enclosed cars, one on either end of the train. The remaining four sections were open ore cars for hauling supplies, mining gear, and rocks.

As the train sidled out with a clack of wheels and sizzle of electricity, the blast doors sealed behind her. The tunnel went dark. She stared up as the train began the five-minute journey. As it accelerated, Savina pictured the weight of water overhead, insulated by a quarter mile of rock.

The region above was the heart of the Soviet Union's uranium and plutonium production. Mostly now defunct, the facility had once had seven active plutonium production reactors and three plutonium separation plants. It was all sloppily run. Since 1948, the production facilities had leaked five times more radiation than Chernobyl and all of the world's atmospheric nuclear tests combined.

And half that radiation was still stored in Lake Karachay.

The radiation level on the lake's shore measured six hundred roentgens per hour.

Sufficient to deliver a lethal dose in one hour.

Savina remembered where the maintenance worker from Ozyorsk had found Dr.

Archibald Polk's abandoned truck.

On the shore of that lake.

She shook her head. There had been no need to hunt down Dr. Polk. He'd been dead already.

Lights appeared ahead.

It glowed with the hope for a brighter future.

The heart of Operation Saturn.

3:15 P. M.

They're planning on doing what? Monk said, a bit too loudly as he walked alongside the riverbank.

He and the kids had been walking alongside the churning river for the past hour.

It was not the same waterway as where they'd encountered the bear. Monk had forded that turbulent stream by using a series of boulders and followed it down to this larger river, buried in a dense fir forest. Monk had studied the topographic map several times. It seemed they were following along the watershed that drained the eastern slopes of the Ural Mountains. On the western side, the

Urals shed their rainwater and snowmelt into the Caspian Sea; on this side, it all flowed into a region of massive rivers and hundreds of lakes, all of which eventually emptied into the Arctic Ocean.

What the Russians were planning

Shock had rung in his voice.

Konstantin winced at his sharpness.

I'm sorry, Monk said more quietly, knowing voices traveled far in the mountains. He had been the one to warn the children to speak only in whispers.

He obeyed his own rule now, though his voice was still strained. Even with the hole in my memory, I know what they're planning is madness.

They will succeed, Konstantin countered matter-of-factly. It is not difficult. A simple strategy. We he waved to Pyotr and Kiska, then in a general motion behind him, indicating the other children like him at the underground compound have run scenarios and models, judged probable outcomes, analyzed statistical global data, studied environmental impact, and extrapolated end results. It is far from madness.

Monk listened to the boy. He sounded more like a computer than a teenager. Then again, Monk remembered the cold steel behind Konstantin's ear. They all had them. Even Marta bore a thumb-size block of surgical steel buried in the fur behind her ear. During the past hour, Konstantin had also used the time to demonstrate his skill at calculations. The mental exercise had seemed to calm him. Kiska showed him how she could identify a bird's song and mimic it in perfect pitch.

Only Pyotr seemed shy about his abilities.

Empath, Konstantin had explained. He can read someone's emotions, even when they're hiding it, or acting contrarily. One teacher said he was a living lie detector. Because of this, he prefers the company of animals, spends much of his time at the Menagerie. He's the one who insisted we bring Marta.

Monk stared at where the boy walked with the elderly chimpanzee. He had been studying the boy, watching how he interacted. The two seemed to be in constant communication, silent glances, a pinch of brow or pucker of lip, a swing of arm.

He watched Pyotr suddenly stiffen and stop. Marta did, too. Pyotr swung to

Konstantin and spoke in a rush, a frightened babble, first in Russian, then

English. His small eyes turned up to Monk, searching for some miraculous salvation.

They're here, the boy whispered.

Monk didn't have to ask who Pyotr meant. It was plain from the raw terror in his voice.

Arkady and Zakhar.

The two Siberian tigers.

Go! Monk said. They ran down the riverbank. Konstantin led the way. His sister, Kiska, as fleet-footed as a gazelle, followed behind him. Monk allowed

Konstantin to pick the best path through the blueberry bushes, scraggly brush, and boulders that lined the riverbanks. Monk kept a watch on their back trail.

He had to be careful. Streams of straw-yellow spruce needles flowed from the thick forest to the river's edge and created patches as slick as ice underfoot.

Pyotr slipped on a patch and landed hard on his backside. Marta scooped him under a hairy arm and got him back on his feet. Monk herded them forward.

Konstantin and Kiska widened the distance ahead of them.

They ran for five minutes, but exhaustion quickly began to slow them. Even adrenaline and terror fired you for only so long. Ten minutes more and they were slogging at a stumbling half trot.

The group closed together again.

There remained no sound of pursuit, no crash of branches or snap of twigs. No sign of the tigers.

Konstantin, panting and red-faced, glared at Pyotr and spoke harshly in Russian, plainly berating the boy for the false alarm.

Monk waved Konstantin off. It's not his fault, he gasped out.

Pyotr wore a wounded yet still terrified expression.

Marta hooted softly, bumping Konstantin.

Kiska also scolded her brother in Russian.

Monk had been warned that Pyotr could not judge distances well, only intent. He had to trust that when the tigers got really close

Pyotr went ramrod stiff, his eyes huge.

He opened his mouth, but terror choked him silent.

No words were necessary.

Now! Monk screamed.

Turning as one, they all ran straight for the swift-flowing river as planned.

Monk grabbed Pyotr, hugged him tight, and leaped from the bank. He heard twin splashes as Kiska and Konstantin hit the water downstream a few yards.

Monk surfaced in the icy-cold flow with the boy clinging like a vine to his neck. He twisted in time to see Marta swing up into the branches of a tree, climbing fast.

Deeper in the forest motion swift a flash of fiery fur

Monk kicked for the deepest and fastest current. He spotted Marta leaping from one tree to another in the dense forest. Chimpanzees could not swim and had no natural buoyancy. She had to take another path.

Forest shadows shattered as a huge shape burst into view, low, muzzle rippling, paws wide, striped tail high and stiff.