The summer flew by once Sasha signed on to spearhead the Chernobyl project. Kathy notified the DC office of Sasha's answer, and they got straight to work. Given that the power plant and the abandoned city were located in Ukraine right on the border with Belarus and the fact that the weather there was very much like New York weather, it was decided that October would be the optimal time for the trip. Sasha had told her liaison in DC that she refused to step foot inside Pripyat but would gladly make camp in the first or second exclusion zone. Benjamin Clark and Rahel Davids could go as far as they wanted, but for Sasha this was non-negotiable.

            Because Ukraine and Belarus were separate countries with their own rules, the liaison made sure to find out the proper travel laws and what were needed from both countries in order to visit. Ukraine was pretty straight forward, and one could fly straight to Kiev and then take a special car that would be arranged for them the 5-hour trip north to Pripyat. Belarus, on the other hand, was a bit of a challenge as one needed a visa if they wanted to spend more than 5 days there. Sasha wasn't even sure she wanted to go back to Belarus, but if she decided on it, she knew she wasn't going to spend 5 days there, so they decided to let the consulate in New York know her travel plans, but nothing was yet set in stone.

            The whole project was kept under extreme raps because National Geographic didn't want any news outlet to follow them around. Meanwhile, because all three team members were ultimately flying in from three separate countries and some never worked with the others, the DC office decided to bring them together at headquarters so they could get to know each other or get reacquainted as was the case with Ben and Sasha. By August, everyone flew into DC for the meeting and were put up in a hotel in downtown DC a few short blocks from the headquarters.

            Benjamin Clark arrived first from the UK. He was forty-three years old with dark brown hair and piercing blue eyes standing at six foot three. Sasha always teased him and told him he should have become a model instead of a scientist. Ben as he liked to be called, had grown up in a small suburb outside of London and had gone to Eton College and even studied at the Sorbonne in Paris. He had three degrees under his belt including a Ph.D. in biology and other than working for National Geographic, he taught and lectured to students all over the world.

            He and Sasha had worked on so many projects together that most people were surprised when they saw them apart. It was Ben that Sasha had saved from nearly becoming a proverbial head on a stick in New Guinea during her second assignment and who then gave her the little lamp that she used at her desk as a thank you gift though Sasha insisted that she was just doing her job and helping out a colleague. Some people wondered why they never dated because like Sasha he was never married and didn't have any children, but they were such good friends that it never crossed either of their minds to take it a step further. Working on this project with Sasha now, got Ben very excited because he knew of her personal connection with Chernobyl and he knew that if anyone made this piece hit a home run, it would be Sasha.

            Ben was sitting at the hotel bar with his drink in hand when Sasha entered and smiling walked towards him. She had gotten in an hour before and had gotten his message on her room's answering machine asking her to meet him there. Rahel hadn't arrived yet so this would be the perfect place to wait for her before they went off to dinner that the magazine had set up for them. After hugging and kissing each other on both cheeks as was customary in Europe, the two of them got into a very lively catching up period. They decided to stave off the project conversation until Rahel had arrived.

            This happened about an hour after Sasha's own arrival. Rahel made her entrance to the turning of heads as she walked into the bar with an air of authority. She was only 30 years old but was the biggest rising star in the world of photography. Her photos were one of a kind and something that had never been seen before. Rahel was born in Nazaret Ilit, a small town in Northern Israel. She went to the University of Tel Aviv and studied abroad at Georgetown in DC after getting out of the mandatory military service every Israeli had to do. She had an eye for taking just the right kinds of shots since she was in middle school and had won contests and prizes all over the world not only in Israel. She was just like Sasha except she knew every aspect of her worth and didn't understand why one needed to be humble when they were good.

            Rahel spoke four languages fluently; Hebrew, English, Arabic, and French. She also wanted to learn Greek and Italian but hadn't had the time for it. That said, she was very interested in this project when she was asked to do it. She had heard of Sasha and Ben and wanted to work with the best of the best but without compromising her own position. Sasha had a feeling that working with Rahel wasn't going to be easy. It seemed that she was a bit overconfident in herself from the way she did practically everything except breathe. Ben noted the same thing, and though she was beautiful, he wasn't going to let that stop him from doing his best work. It was enough that half the bar full of men were drooling over her as the three of them walked out and got into the waiting car to take them to dinner.

            At dinner, Sasha explained how they were going to be doing things and when they would be traveling to Ukraine as well as possibly Belarus. She filled in Rahel who was listening intently to everything Sasha had to say, about her own connection to Chernobyl with her health and how her brothers were born. She also explained that she would not be going into Pripyat proper, but if Ben and Rahel wanted to go, she wasn't going to stop them. Rahel wasn't happy that Sasha was giving the orders of where they could or couldn't go, but she wasn't going to say anything about it yet.

            The following day, they met with the bosses at headquarters where Sasha, who had been doing a lot of research at home about the last nearly 30 years of the disaster and the surrounding area, explained what she would need once they got there. Because she herself wasn't willing to go all the way into Pripyat proper and the other two were hesitant as well, the bosses devised an idea to have a drone do all of the aerial shots for them, and Rahel would help with picking out the best ones. That seemed to suit the latter well. Though Rahel had done many stories with her photos before, she had never worked in a team before where someone else was in charge and therefore was not used to being told what to do, where to go, and so on. That said, the bosses who were paying her, made it abundantly clear that both she and Ben were to do as Sasha told them though she was known to ask for opinions and hold those in high regard with people she trusted.

            They spent a total of four days in DC before flying back to their respective homes. The next time they were to see each other was in a hotel in Kiev, Ukraine at the beginning of October. All three had a lot of prep work to do before then. Sasha was doing her research and rereading many of the first-hand accounts like "Voices from Chernobyl" by Svetlana Alexiavitch, though she skipped over the two solitary stories in the front and back of the book. She couldn't read them as they were near verbatim accounts of what happened to Vasya.

            She kept the blue diary with her in DC and was going to take it to Ukraine in October. It was going to be a talisman of sorts for her. Even though she wasn't going to see the city or the plant herself, she was mainly going to take Vasya back where it all started for both of them, back to the place he had to go and in the same month 29 years since they met; letting his spirit guide her. She was going back to the beginning of it all so she could write a story that would never be forgotten.