Traffyck: The Thrilling Sequel to Chernobyl Murders

by Michael Beres

  “Yes, I know this fable. He was supposed to rid Hamelin of rats, and when he did not receive his agreed-upon fee, he led the children to drown in the river. But this is not the Piper to which I refer. I have an Irish friend who knows of the name. It is one of many names in my friend’s list. If we were partners playing cards, we would now be in a good position because I have not shown my hand. Some on the list are themselves rats, and one must be careful.”

  Janos said nothing but cleared his throat into the phone several times to let Lazlo know he was still there, thinking. Finally, Janos responded.

  “This one wants to meet. Left bank. An overnight train to a city in which the mother tongues are not heard on the streets. I am to visit the garden of our beloved poet.”

  “I understand,” said Lazlo, checking the list given him by McCullum. “Yes, this is home base. He has worked with the organization whose English acronym is sometimes dropped into the vodka glass here in the US before it is sipped at celebrations for aunts, uncles, cousins, and various other family members, alive or cold in their graves. We in the US are uncivilized when we drink vodka. If you understand my meaning, I will light a candle for you.”

  “And I for you,” said Janos, which Lazlo knew meant Janos understood the message—ICE in vodka, the acronym for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

  “Janos?”

  “Yes.”

  “I may decide to visit our family in Ukraine in the near future.”

  “Will we see one another?” asked Janos.

  “Of course. I consider you and your friend close family.”

  “How do you know about my friend?”

  “I can hear it in your voice.”

  After the usual patter of wishing all members of their imaginary family the best, Lazlo hung up. Because Janos had not objected to a visit, Lazlo knew the investigation was in a critical phase. Perhaps an elderly Ukrainian-American on a nostalgic journey could be of use.

  Lazlo carefully folded the list of trafficking informants McCullum had provided, and buried it deep in his wallet. As he cleaned his meager dinner dishes at the sink, Lazlo tallied lists in his mind for his journey. Money belt, visa, passport, maps, and a few typical brochures for cathedrals and castles.

  As the evening wore on, Lazlo was online, viewing various flights and stopovers from Chicago to Kiev. When searching for travel in Eastern Europe, pop-up ads for so-called “Pleasure Holidays” appeared. One ad mentioned Highway E-55 in the Czech Republic near the German border with its many brothels. Another ad showed images of beautiful “Russian” women, which Lazlo knew would be any good-looking Eastern European girl with blond hair and fair skin. Kiev had its share of “Pleasure Tours,” including strip clubs and casinos, many of which, he learned from McCullum, were currently run by a syndicate tied to the Russian Mafia.

  While staring at the computer terminal, Lazlo touched his side, expecting to find his old Makarov 9mm pistol hanging in its shoulder holster. But the Makarov never made it to America in 1988. After the KGB took it away and he and Juli escaped over the Czech frontier, the Makarov was last seen in a black Volga and was probably now in a museum or in a private collection in Moscow. If he needed to be armed, Lazlo would take care of this in Kiev, a city whose underworld would surely respond to him … one way or another.

  Saturday afternoon, Mariya withdrew the cash in euros and Janos stopped at a travel agency to purchase his ticket to Kharkiv, the same city in which Mariya’s dead husband, Viktor, had roamed the streets as a boy. In a way, Janos felt like a boy when he tried on the red and green silk scarf Mariya insisted they purchase in a Khreshchatik Boulevard boutique. Mariya also picked out a sport shirt and slacks in the men’s department, something more appropriate to wear with a scarf, and much more appropriate for a Kharkiv tourist on a Sunday morning.

  “You look perfect,” said Mariya back at her apartment.

  On their way to the train station, the militia guards in their turd-green Zhiguli followed as best they could. Inside the Audi, accompanied by the scent of Mariya’s perfume mixing with the odor of the Audi’s leather seats, Janos considered how much his life had changed in one week. Last Saturday he’d been driving slowly across the Carpathians in his rented camper van on his way to meet the widow of a man killed in his adult video store. And now he was being driven, in more ways than one, by this woman who warned she was dangerous, on his way to Kharkiv to meet a man with a high-pitched voice named the Pied Piper. Was he being led away like one of the children of Hamelin? Had the intricate trafficking networks in Kharkiv arranged this visit by corrupting his informant? In one version of the fable, the children, instead of simply disappearing through a doorway in the mountain, were led over the mountain to Transylvania.

  Janos had looked up the fable on the Internet earlier that day. Knowing more about the fable simply added confusion to the interconnections between missing children and adult bookstores and trains and boats and the Pied Piper and the Gypsy and the SBU and the Mafiosi of Ukraine and maybe even Father Vladimir Ivanovich Rogoza.

  When a truck turned left in front of the Audi, Mariya braked hard, performed a fishtail maneuver around the slow-turning truck, accelerated back up to speed, and glanced quickly to Janos with an intoxicating smile of satisfaction.

  “Are you a wild horse?” asked Janos in Ukrainian.

  “Yes,” answered Mariya in Hungarian. “One of the wild ones from the Chernobyl Zone.”

  Saturday night, while Janos’ train was on its way to Kharkiv, Mariya stood in the dark at the window overlooking the apartment parking lot. The two militiamen who followed her back from the train station were still on duty. She saw a light go on occasionally and could see they played cards. Earlier in the evening, she heard several train whistles in the distance. In her own way, with her own belief in a presence composed of all persons, male and female, the dangerous woman named after the Mother of God prayed. At first she held the quartz crystal, but eventually she lay in bed and wrapped her arms about a pillow named Janos.

  When the phone rang, Mariya recalled Janos’ warning not to say anything about his trip or mention any names in his investigation.

  Mariya picked up the phone. “Yes?”

  “Mariya Nemeth, this is Investigator Svetlana Kovaleva of the Kiev militia. Is Janos Nagy there?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know where I can reach him?”

  “He is out of the city. I’m taking messages for him.”

  “Very well. But listen to me. Turn your television to Kiev News Channel One. If you have a recorder, make a copy for Janos. Father Vladimir Ivanovich Rogoza of the Moscow Patriarchate has not limited his evening speech to the so-called ‘false’ Ukrainian Orthodox Church. His speech tonight includes a section about law enforcement, blasphemy, and Janos Nagy. I know Janos will want to see this as soon as possible.”

  Pyotr looked out his cabin window at a stormy night on the peninsula. A cold front from Russia was in a fierce battle with a warm front from the Black Sea. Although there was little rain in the storm, there was much wind, lightning, and thunder.

  Earlier in the day, SBU Deputy Anatoly Lyashko had called from his upper floor Kiev office, and not long ago Pyotr’s trusted Vasily had come again to express concerns about Ivan and the men stationed on the left bank. This time Vasily had even complained about Pyotr sending Semyon and Tomas back to Kiev so soon after the deaths of Viktor Patolichev and Aleksandr Vasilievich Shved in the video store fire.

  “Why have you sent them?” asked Vasily.

  Pyotr had answered angrily. “I sent them for an order of Strudel!”

  “I thought I was to tell them where to go and when.”

  Pyotr tried to console Vasily, but Vasily left in anger, just before the storm.

  Pyotr sat at his desk with only the small desk lamp on. A short time ago it had flickered and dimmed, but not from the storm. The light had dimmed, as it did every night when the automatic timer on the generator switched over to batteries. As the lightning
flashed and thunder crashed about the cabin, Pyotr concentrated and tried to draw strength from it. Trust was strength, and if he could no longer trust those whom he had trusted in the past, he would be forced to draw strength from elsewhere.

  Lyashko of the SBU was a fool, no longer to be trusted. Imagine wanting Pyotr’s compound to suspend its work helping the Chernobyl orphans because a Gypsy had a sketch. Imagine Rogoza’s bodyguards not being able to keep the Gypsy away. And then imagine again the betrayer, a boy nurtured during the early days of the compound, trained to be a devoted follower when the compound was formed. A devotee turned betrayer so soon after his escape to an outside world where he became a seller of pornography.

  Betrayers come from the inside. Perhaps Vasily would be his Judas. He had felt it coming and knew he could not sit on his hands forever. It was time to act in the name of those who came before him. Although Pyotr did not like to think about his role in trafficking, he was owed favors not only by religious and governing men thrown to the wolves following the Chernobyl disaster, but also by the underworld. Especially by a monster he had protected for years. A key player in the vast trafficking network. When the Russian Mafia had been after him, Pyotr had harbored the monster here on the peninsula. Maxim Vakhabov, the Uzbekistani who collected teenagers from city streets and sold them for whatever he could get.

  Pyotr opened his center desk drawer and looked inside. Then he closed the drawer, picked up the phone, and placed a standard call, bypassing the left bank.

  “Hello?” The young woman on the other end sounded tentative, perhaps drugged.

  Pyotr spoke slowly and steadily, his voice purposely deepened. “Hello, my dear. I wish to speak with Maxim Vakhabov.”

  Vakhabov came on with a sleepy growl.

  “This is Pyotr. You have promised to do your part. Now that time has come.”

  Pyotr waited a few moments to be certain there was not a negative response from Vakhabov, but there was no response except the sound of his breathing, apparently caused by cupping the phone close to his face.

  He continued. “I have protected you for many years, but now I need your help. I know you have connections to the east. There is a man named Janos Nagy traveling on the overnight train to Kharkiv. He will be meeting a man in Kharkiv we both know as one who leads children away. I need to have this man Nagy dead before he returns to Kiev.”

  “I understand,” said Vakhabov in a meek voice that contradicted his insane cruelty.

  “Thank you,” said Pyotr. “Nagy’s meeting is in the morning at zero eight hundred in Shevchenko Gardens. If he is left to rot in the gardens, perhaps this would be the poetic way.”

  After a pause, Vakhabov growled in his usual manner. “Will this pay my debt in full?”

  “Perhaps it will,” said Pyotr.

  “How will I know?”

  “If you meet men from the Kiev government building and they shake your hand in greeting, this would be a sign of reconciliation.”

  When he hung up, Pyotr turned off his desk lamp, stood, and walked out the front door. He stood on the porch enjoying the wind and lightning and thunder. The power of the storm reminded him of the power he had accumulated during the years after Chernobyl.

  Sofya Adamivna Kulinich’s roof leaked during storms. When her husband had been alive, the roof had not leaked! Sofya realized she had almost thought of taking God’s name in vain, and crossed herself. The electricity had gone out some time ago when there was an especially loud crack of thunder. She should have been thankful her house was not struck, and left it at that.

  Her oil lamp was lit, and the drips from the roof leaks sounded like the popping of cork guns boys of the village played with when they were young. So many corks popping all about her, so many little boys, she so joyful to have children about. But this summer, even the buses transporting young workers into and out of the gate back and forth to the city were absent. This summer was nothing but loneliness and depression. She had not even seen one of the Przewalski wild horses that sometimes wandered into the village. Perhaps, like old widows, the herd was doomed.

  True, Tatiana had been over as usual for lunch. But the sun had been out then, and now here she was in the middle of a storm. God’s wrath coming down on her roof, popping like cork pop guns from the past…

  Sofya realized this time she had taken God’s name in vain in her thoughts and, as she usually did during storms, picked up her Bible and sat close to the oil lamp to read marked passages.

  CHAPTER

  NINETEEN

  The rough ride between Kiev and Kharkiv was blamed on last year’s floods and washouts. Passenger cars rocked so much, sleep was impossible. Those who complained the tracks should have been repaired by now were answered by shrugs from conductors stumbling down the aisles like drunkards. Motion sickness made the small restrooms into cesspools. Early in the morning, at the Kharkiv station, some ran from the train to station restrooms. A message taped to the track bulletin board sent Janos to the desk. A message from Mariya asked him to call.

  “Mariya, what is it?”

  “I’m fine, Janos. I wanted to make sure you called when you arrived.”

  “I tried several times overnight from the train, but there was never a town within cell service long enough. The train was on time, but the ride was rough.”

  “I thought you should know about Father Vladimir Ivanovich Rogoza. He was on television last evening saying things about you. Svetlana Kovaleva called to tell you to watch. I have it recorded. I can play it if you want to listen.”

  “Can you sum up what he said?”

  “It’s a sermon. He repeats himself, going back to the beginning for effect. He says there is an ex-Kiev militiaman working against the Moscow Patriarchate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. He builds on this, and eventually, as if reluctantly, reveals your name. He begs forgiveness for doing this, yet goes on to say you were raised Catholic, studied for the priesthood, but for some reason dropped out. He implies you may be involved in something illegal. It’s all speculation. He keeps repeating could it be this and might it be that. Here. I wrote some: ‘Could it be some Catholics desire a split of the Orthodox churches in Ukraine? Might they employ agents schooled in their priesthood?’ After these charges, he speaks of a secret organization working for the Vatican … and finally he mentions missing children!”

  “Me, the Vatican, and missing children?”

  “Because he defends the Moscow Patriarchate, he’ll have the Russian Mafia after you! I know about these things, Janos. I worked in clubs run by syndicates.”

  As Janos listened to Mariya, he watched the others exiting the gate from the track. Many spoke animatedly, to anyone who would listen, of the rough ride. Others said they should have taken the express instead of the overnight. After the arrivals had passed and the gate was clear, he studied the entire terminal to see if anyone was watching.

  “Janos, perhaps you should skip your meeting—”

  “I will be careful, Mariya. Being careful is my job.”

  “Janos? … phone … breaking up. Please … do what you must … return to me.”

  “I will, Mariya.”

  After he hung up, Janos realized that during the time they had spent together, despite the intimacies they had shared, he and Mariya had not once spoken of love. This seemed appropriate for two dangerous people. By not saying it, they became even closer. Janos consulted a Kharkiv tourist map in the station, saw that Shevchenko Gardens was only three kilometers distant as the crow flies, and walked out into the cool dawn morning. Janos had not brought his GPS, and one had to be careful with maps put up for tourists. Instead of north being upward on this map, the tiny north arrow pointed to the right. In Kiev, locals joked the changes in spelling from Soviet days and maps having north pointing every which way were part of a plot to increase spending. Tourists, thinking they could easily do a walking tour, became lost, thus building appetite and thirst and the need for cab or metro rides. An unprepared tourist might even require a
hat and sunblock to protect oneself from UV rays, all while clicking away on cameras, which would need batteries that were very expensive in tourist shops.

  Janos bypassed waiting cabs and the metro pickup and walked briskly down the side of the railroad entrance road toward the central city. He carried only a duffel bag containing a change of clothing, a cap, other basic essentials, and his weapon, which bumped against his leg. Because of new security measures on public transportation, he could not carry a pistol. If he were a government official, he would have been able to check a weapon and pick it up at the destination. But private investigators had been denied this privilege in recent months. Instead of his pistol, the bag contained a half-meter-long oak club he had carefully sewn into the bottom of the bag when the weapons ban on public transportation had gone into effect.

  Janos found his way past Blagoveschensky Cathedral and into the Central Market. During his walk, the sun came out and he put on his sunglasses. He mounted the small bicyclist’s mirror Mariya had given him to the frame of his sunglasses. By glancing up and to the left, he quickly got used to checking behind without turning around. He could adjust the view with slight movements of his head. So far, no one followed.

  At the market, he found a stall that had opened early while most were still draped with tarpaulins. The stall offered strong coffee, pastry, and sausage. When he asked the woman running the stall if there was somewhere he could charge his phone, she shrugged her shoulders and shook her head as if she understood neither Ukrainian nor Russian. Perhaps she was deaf.

  After eating, Janos continued walking toward city center. It was still early with very few pedestrians on the streets. He passed the Drama Theater, closed restaurants, and the Opera House. At Shevchenko Gardens, he stayed on the far side of the wide street and walked past. It was still early, and Shevchenko stood alone in the park staring off into the distance.