The official gets drunk and tries to rape Valari and kill Gregori, but the official is killed in self-defense and thrown overboard. As Gregori tries to find out how to get out of Russian Amerika with Valari for political asylum, he is betrayed by her, as Valari is actually a spy and a high-ranking officer in the Russian Army. Gregori is captured by the government and falsely charged with the murder of the official (who was actually Valari's superior) and with the attempted rape of Valari, leading to a sentence of life of hard labor on the Russian-Canadian Highway.