The Spirit Thief of Tyuratam

About this book

Odessa port kid Kostya Rybak, nineteen, has one rule: survive, and get paid for it. Drafted after the police tired of him, he is posted as a driver to a secret missile range on the Kazakh steppe, a place the soldiers call the Point and the maps leave blank. There he finds the perfect racket: the technical spirit the rocket crews use to clean their machines, which he steals and sells to construction troops and the railway families of Tyuratam station. But his partner Aigul drives a harder bargain than he does, the engineer he chauffeurs refuses every bribe, and Sergeant Larin is counting the cans. As Moscow demands a new missile fly before the seventh of November, Kostya plans one last, enormous deal for the evening of the launch. At 18:44 on 24 October 1960 he is exactly where he chose to be. Ninety seconds later, the steppe turns white.