“This curse you carry in your veins will be your own salvation one day. A plague shall overwhelm the world, but you shall be proof against it.”

Anastasia thought he was babbling now, caught in the throes of some holy trance, and all she wanted was to break away. She deeply regretted ever leaving the ballroom.

“Thank you, Father, for the gift,” she mumbled, touching the cross — it was heavier than she might ever have imagined, and beautiful as it was, she wished that she did not have it. “I should go and look in on my brother now.” She drew back slowly, like a rabbit keeping a stoat in its view.

Rasputin’s gaze did not waver, nor did he move, as she edged toward the door. In his black cassock, framed by the dull glint of the holy icons in the candlelight, he looked like a pillar of smoke.

Not knowing what to say, she murmured, “The blessings of Christmas upon you, Father.”

“Pray for me,” he said.

And then, just as she put her good foot out behind her and stepped from the confines of the chapel, she heard him mutter, “For I am no longer among the living.”

Perched atop the hard seat of the Zamboni, Nika Tincook wrestled with the sticky gears. The machine was probably thirty years old by now, so a little trouble was only to be expected. Besides, the city budget of Port Orlov did not allow for any new expenditures. No one knew that better than she did.

Wrapped in the beaver-skin coat her grandmother had made for her, topped off with a Seattle Seahawks stocking cap, Nika shoved the gearshift again, and this time it caught. Under the lights of the hockey rink, she steered the old Zamboni in wide, slow sweeps, cleaning and resurfacing the ice. She always found the job relaxing, almost like skating with her hands folded behind her back. No one else was out there — everybody was home making dinner — and she could be completely alone with her thoughts.

Which was all the more reason why she was annoyed at the increasing noise she began to hear. At first, she thought something had gone wrong with the Zamboni again, and she actually bent forward in her seat to hear the motor better, but then she realized the commotion was coming from somewhere farther off. And it was coming fast.

Looking up at the sky, she saw lights approaching — red and white ones — but not spread apart the way they would be on a bush plane. They were concentrated, and two bright beams were searching the ground as the craft got closer. It was a chopper — a long and weirdly articulated one — and as it clattered into view above the town’s community center, she realized with horror that the beams were now moving in her direction and fixing on the rink. She was bathed in a blinding white glow, and a bullhorn started issuing orders from on high.

“Please move the Zamboni off the ice,” the voice announced.

“What the—” But she was already turning the wheel and gunning the engine up to its full ten miles per hour. The racket from the chopper was deafening, and bits of snow and ice skittered every which way across the rink.

As soon as she’d driven down the ramp and into the municipal garage, where the city kept everything from its snowplows to its ambulance, she switched off the engine and raced back outside.

The helicopter, its wheels extended like an insect’s legs, was lowering itself onto the ice that she had just finished polishing. What could this possibly be about? Please God, not another news crew dispatched to recap the Neptune disaster and interview the sole survivor, Harley Vane. Like a lot of people, she didn’t even believe Harley’s account, but the truth, unfortunately, lay somewhere at the bottom of the Bering Sea.

The rotors were turned off, and as they wheezed into silence, the hatchway opened, and a burly man with glasses stepped out. He slipped on the ice and landed with a smack on his rump. Laughing, he was helped up by another man, lean and tall, who guided him toward the steel bleachers. Nika crunched across the hard-packed snow and hollered, “Who are you?”

The two men noticed her for the first time. The tall one had dark eyes, dark hair, and reminded her of long-distance runners she had known — and dated — in college. He moved across the slippery ice with a becoming assurance and agility, but he didn’t reply.

“And who told you,” she went on, “that you could land on our hockey rink?”

Pulling off a glove, he extended his hand. “Frank Slater,” he said, “and sorry about the rink. But we were low on fuel when we saw your lights.”

“Lucky there wasn’t a game on.”

“And I am Vassily Kozak,” the professor said, bowing his head, “of the Trofimuk United Institute of Geology, Geophysics and Mineralogy. It is a part of the Russian Academy of Sciences.”

Now Nika was more puzzled than ever.

“We’re here on some important business,” Slater said, and though she ought to be used to it by now, her back went up at the slight hint of condescension in his voice. Because she was a woman, and young, and, to be fair, had been caught driving the Zamboni, he was just assuming she was some underling.

“I need to talk to the mayor of Port Orlov,” he said, showing her a bulky sealed envelope addressed to the city hall. “Could you show me where to find him?”

“Is the mayor expecting you?” she said, as sweetly as she could muster.

“I’m afraid not.”

“You came all this way, in the biggest chopper I’ve ever seen, without making an appointment?”

“There wasn’t time.”

“Right,” she said, skeptically. “Email is so slow these days.”

The professor was looking around with interest, and he said to them both, “Would you forgive me if I went for a short walk? I would like to stretch my legs.”

“No problem,” Nika said. “It’s hard to get lost in Port Orlov. The street’s that way,” she said, pointing off to one side of the big clumsy buildings, raised on cinder blocks, that comprised the community center. To Slater, she said, “You can follow me.”

They picked their way across the hard, uneven ground and entered the center. Geordie, her nephew, was sitting at a computer console, plowing his way through a bag of potato chips.

“Why don’t you bring us some coffee?” she said. “And knock off the chips.”

She led Slater down the hall, past the community bulletin board covered with ads for craft workshops and used ski gear, and into an office with battered metal furniture and a ceiling made of white acoustical tiles, several of which were sagging.

“Have a seat, Mr. Slater,” she said, shrugging off her coat and hat.

“Actually, it’s Dr. Slater,” he said, in an offhand tone that carried a welcome touch of humility. “I’m here from the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, in Washington.”

If she hadn’t guessed already, now she knew that this was a serious matter.

Geordie waddled in with the cups of coffee and a couple of nondairy creamers.

“You can just leave those there,” she said, clearing a space on the desk by shoving stacks of papers around. Slater took off his own coat and put the envelope down on a free corner.

“I should warn you,” he said, “another chopper will be arriving tomorrow morning, so if there’s anyplace in particular you’d like it to land, just let me know.”

At least he was being accommodating, she thought, despite all the mystery. But two helicopters?

“So what’s all this about?” she said.

“It’s best, I think, if any information was disseminated from your own mayor’s office.”

“In that case,” she said, picking up the envelope, and using a whalebone letter opener, “let’s see what we’ve got.”

He started to protest, even raising one hand to take the envelope back, but the smile on her lips must have given her away.

“Don’t tell me,” he said. “You’re N. J. Tincook — the mayor?”

She pulled out the folder inside. “Nikaluk Jane Tincook, but most folks just call me Nika. Nice to meet you,” she said, though her eyes were fixed on the official warnings, and top secret clearance stamps, on the cover of the report. The title alone was enough to knock her out of her chair. “AFIP Project Plan, St. Peter’s Island, Alaska (17th District): Geological Survey, Exhumation, Core Sampling, and Viral Analysis Procedures.” And the report attached, she saw from a quick riffle through the pages, must have been sixty or seventy pages long, all of it in dense, single-spaced prose, with elaborate footnotes, indices, charts, and diagrams. The last time she’d had to wade through something like this was in grad school at Berkeley. “You expect me to read this now?” she said. “And make sense of it?”