Chapter 17

October 1986

Buffalo, New York

Alexei glanced behind him as he approached the post office near the university. He'd received a phone call that he finally had mail, and he couldn't shake the feeling that someone might be watching him. They'd managed to sneak close to a hundred Russians into Hawkins. How difficult would it be to place one assassin in Buffalo? He hurried in. Whatever happened, he wasn't going to turn back without reading that letter.

He pulled out the key he'd gotten months before and opened the letter box. Inside was a tiny envelope. His heart caught in his throat as he saw the return address. Mariya Medvedeva, from Pripyat. Why was she still there? He tore the envelope open and pulled out a small, one-sided note. "My dearest Alyosha, you can't imagine the joy it brings me to know you are alive, but you must never take such a risk again. Your father, brother and I are fine. Take care, and be well and happy. Your loving Mama."

He quickly folded the note and put it in his shirt pocket. If it had come to his mother, the police had seen it. Had they believed the ruse with Professor Murphy? Not likely, but his mother must have believed it was safe to send this little note. She would be in a better position to know than he.

Still, he found himself looking around as he left the post office, and as he came and went from work and home. He told Joyce that his mother was safe, but didn't show her the note. It was ridiculous – she couldn't have read it – but it made him feel he was doing something to protect her. The less she knew, the better.

A week passed, then two, and nothing happened. Slowly, very slowly, he began to relax. He still jumped whenever anyone got too close, but he stopped scanning the faces of strangers as closely. He even whistled a bit as he walked home from the bus stop after his night job. He was fumbling for his keys when he felt something cold on the back of his neck.

"Put your hands up," a man growled. Alexei lifted them.

"Let me explain your situation, Dr. Medvedev," a woman said behind him. "We have orders to take you alive. Try to run, and we'll go upstairs and have a little fun with the woman and kids. You don't want that, do you?"

Alexei sighed. "I will cooperate."

They led him to a dark car. The woman sat with him in the back, her gun trained on his belly, while the man drove.

"Did you arrest my mother too?" he asked.

"You don't get to ask questions," the man snarled, but the woman shrugged.

"Your mama helped us catch you," she said.

Alexei doubted that, but he didn't intend to argue. "And now that you have me, you'll leave the Americans alone?"

"No need to attract attention," the woman said. "Now shut up. We have a long trip."

They took him to a small airport outside the city and loaded him onto a private plane. It clearly wasn't set up for comfort – probably an old military transport plane. He strapped in, while the two agents went to the front with the pilot. He could overhear the woman talking to the air traffic control tower, and she spoke flawless English. Quite an asset to the police, he thought. And then they lifted off. He tried to look out the tiny window, to spot the house that had become his home before he left it forever, but everything looked alike in the dark. "Goodbye, Joyce," he thought. "Goodbye, children. Be good."

They were flying west, because the horizon in front of them wasn't getting any lighter. Most likely they were going to Siberia. They hadn't taken his watch, so he could calculate approximately how long they had been flying and come up with some idea of where he was. But why? No one was coming for him. They would interrogate him until either he broke or they killed him.

He decided he would tell them the truth about why he had decided to help the Americans. He couldn't come up with a better lie, and the truth wouldn't hurt anyone. It would be better to get it over, without them beating it out of him. The problem would be if they wanted him to build another key. He could do it. He remembered how. But he couldn't do that to Joyce and her family. He'd put them in enough danger already. He would have to resist to the point of death, and he could only guess how long these people could prolong suffering before letting a prisoner slip into oblivion. He could only hope that his body was weaker than they'd counted on. His mother had told him that he'd had a slight heart murmur as a child, though the tiny hole seemed to have closed by the time he reached adulthood. Maybe it had done some silent damage and the organ would fail under their torture? If only he were so lucky.

They landed at a military complex. He checked his watch. Twelve hours. Probably eastern Siberia. He unhooked himself and followed the woman.

In the daylight, he could see that she was quite beautiful, with auburn hair and striking blue eyes. Probably also trained in seducing secrets out of foreigners. The man who'd held the gun to his neck was a thick lump of muscle, like a curly-haired, less-graceful version of Grigori. He didn't want to know what either could do to him.

They led him into a room in a cement-block building and told him to sit at a desk. Another chair sat across from him, largely in the shadows of the single bare lightbulb hanging over his head. They kept him waiting there for quite a while, probably to let his nerves do their work. He closed his eyes, leaned his head back and began mentally reciting the periodic table. A guard banged on the door and said he wasn't allowed to sleep. As if he could sleep at that moment.

Then the door opened and a man walked through. The man sat down across the desk, and Alexei looked into his own narrow brown eyes. Andryusha. Relief flooded him, then fear took over. Andrei worked for the police. He would need to prove his loyalty by being at least as brutal as the others. A stenographer quietly sat off to the side.

"Why did you betray your Motherland?" Andrei started.

"It wasn't something I planned."

Andrei slapped him. "We're not interested in excuses. Confess, you piece of shit."

"The Americans kidnapped me." Alexei told them about how Grigori had taken him and Smirnov to the farmhouse basement, the gun battle, how Hopper had handcuffed him and driven off with him, then stolen a car to take him to his Russian-speaking friend. "The policeman threw me out because I wasn't cooperating. He knew Grigori would kill me if I went back. He wouldn't believe I hadn't betrayed them."

"And you expect me to believe it?"

"It's true."

Andrei grabbed Alexei's head and banged it against the desk. "Stop lying!"

"I'm not lying. I'm not lying." Alexei moaned as his vision swam.

"You told them how to blow up the key!"

"Only after they told me about the monster!"

"Monster?" Andrei sat down again, with a calculated casual air. "What monster, little brother?"

"Something with a body like a man, but gray skin, and it can walk on four legs. Better than a person can. Its head – I've never seen it, but they told me where a face should be, there are four flaps. They open up into a mouth."

"That sounds terrifying. Where are the eyes?"

"I don't think it has any. They said it finds food by smell."

Andrei shook his head. "And what does this have to do with the key?"

"The monster was on the other side of the door. It eats children. We wouldn't have even tried if we'd known the Americans found that, Andrei, you know-"

Andrei twisted his arm behind his back. "You don't call me by my name. And you don't decide what we won't do. You understand?"

"Yes, yes, yes!"

"Good." Andrei released his arm and sat down again. "Now, only one more thing before we're done with you. You're going to build a new key." Alexei breathed deeply. "Did you not hear me?"

"I heard you. But I won't do it. You don't believe me about the monster. But I'm not bringing that into the world."

"You will." Andrei reached for him. Alexei flinched away and curled into himself. Andrei smiled. "Do you really think you're going to resist? Please, Alyosha, I know you. You couldn't keep quiet when Papa got out his belt. And you think you're going to withstand everything we can do to you?"

"I have to."

Andrei snorted. "You'll break soon enough." He opened the door and spoke to the guard. "Take prisoner T1006 to his cell. Start the waking death protocol." He turned back to Alexei. "I'll see you in three days."

The guard led him past a row of identical metal doors. They hadn't bothered to heat the corridor, or probably the rooms. The odor of old excrement and unwashed bodies came from several cells. Soon, he would smell like that too. He pushed the thought away.

The guard opened the door, pushed him in and shut it. It was completely bare, except for the lightbulb. Cement block floors, walls and ceiling. He wandered around a bit, trying to decide if any part was better than another for lying down. It was all the same. He chose the wall farthest from the door and was starting to lie down when the guard banged on it. "No sleeping," he said.

Alexei sat down and leaned against the wall. Every time his head started to drift to the side, though, the guard banged on the door and shouted filth at him. It continued with the guard on the next shift, and the next. So this was the waking death protocol. Keep him awake until he cracked. It was simple, and easy for them, and it likely would work. From what he'd heard, a person would lose touch with reality after 72 hours awake. It might work even faster on him. It had been 24 hours since he'd been plucked out of Buffalo, according to his watch, and he already could have sworn he'd heard Hopper yelling. He was in trouble.