A knife … slash marks on the back of Strudel’s shirt, slash marks on his shoulder blades and lower back, a dripping wound near his spine … It was obvious he had been tortured before the fatal gash. But not for long, because everything was warm.
A noise other than televisions and radios. Someone running! Janos ran out into the hall, heard the door at the bottom of the stairwell slam. Stairs two at a time, desk clerk pointing to the door, sound of an engine sucking air as he pushed open the door to the street. A silver BMW sped away. He saw the plate number, many digits: 4085743. He repeated the number over and over as he ran down the narrow street and finally stopped, out of breath.
It was dark before Janos finally arrived at the metro station near Mariya’s apartment. He had called the militia about Comrade Strudel and also given the plate number. He had met with Investigator Nikolai Kozlov at the hotel and told him what happened. The only information from the ancient desk clerk was that he had awakened to see a young man in a red baseball cap running out the door. As usual, Kozlov had not seemed enthusiastic about the incident.
The trace showed the plate was stolen from a truck several months earlier while it was parked in a warehouse lot in Korosten, northwest of Kiev. There were no fingerprints in the hotel room, except Comrade Strudel’s, and no murder weapon. None of this had excited Kozlov. He simply shrugged, said the BMW was probably one of hundreds stolen in the last few months, and said there was no way of proving Comrade Strudel’s death had anything to do with his connection with Janos. Before leaving the hotel, Janos gave money to another Strudel-like man who promised to use it for the funeral.
After Janos exited the metro tunnel, he saw a man had come up the stairs behind him. Although the man walked behind him for some distance, he lost him in the darkness. In less than three hours the militia watch would be off at Mariya’s apartment. According to Kozlov, what happened to Strudel had not changed Chief Investigator Boris Chudin’s mind. As Kozlov said, “He is from the old Soviet militia days.” Janos knew this meant Chudin could not be convinced to keep the guard on longer.
As Janos approached the apartment building parking lot, a man in a dark suit walked out of the shadows. The man was between him and the parking lot security light, his face obscured. Janos grasped the oak club in his duffel bag.
The man stopped several meters in front of him. “Please, Janos Nagy. I simply wish to speak. I have already shown my credentials to the militiamen in the parking lot, and they said it was perfectly all right to speak with you before you went inside.”
“Credentials? Who the hell are you with?”
“My name is Mikhail Juliano. I represent the interests of the Vatican here in Ukraine.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY
Janos was exhausted and sweaty and needed a shave. During his absence, he had become part of her; this is how she felt as she held him in her arms.
“We should go to bed,” said Janos.
“I know,” said Mariya. “But we cannot.”
Janos stepped back and stared at her, his eyes wide. “The militia guard leaves at midnight! I must think—”
Mariya held his shoulders tightly. “I’ll make strong tea. We will think together.”
“We are inside a folk tale,” said Janos. “Yes, strong tea. Comrade Piper and his killer are dead. My informant here in Kiev is dead. Men are dying around me, and soon the SBU and militia and Mafia will be coming. As I arrived outside your apartment, a man from Opus Dei came to me, worrying I will blacken the eye of the Pope in Rome.”
“The Pope?”
“He is probably still outside. His name is Mikhail Juliano. He said he serves the Vatican’s interests in Ukraine. Opus Dei dislikes Father Rogoza’s inflammatory statements on television. I told him Rogoza’s statements were nonsense, but he insists I do something to stop Rogoza’s attempts to connect me to the Vatican. If I do not do something—”
“What can Opus Dei do?”
“I don’t know. We are in the hornet’s nest of competing organizations. The trafficking network has set them upon us. The only way out is escape. Opus Dei means ‘God’s work’ in Latin. I learned of its work in seminary school. If Opus Dei is involved, this is insanity!”
Janos looked toward the door. “There was something particularly frightening about Juliano. I don’t know if it was because he represented the Vatican, but something about him brought back fears from childhood. He spoke so calmly. I don’t know how to explain it.”
“Viktor had dreams … someone speaking calmly. Janos, listen to me. When religion meets violence, good men become disillusioned. This was Viktor’s message to me!”
Janos nodded. “The kind man with a knife hidden in his sleeve, the poor vagrant with a pistol hidden beneath his tattered coat. We must leave now.”
Mariya held onto him. “The two of us together?”
Janos stared into her eyes. “The two of us together.”
“Eva Polenkaya called this afternoon. She has information but didn’t want to tell it to me. She wants you to call her. And there was another call. Yuri Smirnov from the SBU. Can he help us? Can anyone help us?”
“Both can wait. Heat water for tea. Quickly!”
After Mariya turned on the teakettle, Janos pulled her by the hand into the bathroom, turned on the shower water, and whispered into her ear. “Someone may be listening.”
They stood together in the small bathroom whispering ideas for escape to one another under cover of the apartment’s noisy plumbing clearing its throat. It took several minutes for Mariya to convince Janos her plan for escape would work. He was reluctant because it meant exposure for her. But finally it seemed the only way out. She would play decoy while Janos eluded the crowd. Mariya’s final whispered statement was “Janos, I know the bicycle paths.”
Janos took a quick shower as he gulped the strong hot tea Mariya brought him. He was a beautiful fish she had caught. All she wanted now was to protect him, to keep him. As she toweled him dry, she thought, so many others in her life had been thrown back into the sea, and now, at a time like this…
A few minutes before midnight, Janos wrapped his shoulder holster, pistol, and a change of clothes for Mariya in his jacket. After kissing her and taking the keys to her Audi, which she assured him would be faster than the Skoda, he left the apartment. Mariya watched from the window as Janos pretended to head toward his Skoda but stopped to lean into the window of the militia Zhiguli, speaking to the men on duty.
Mariya wore her riding outfit—shorts, shirt, helmet, and a pullover for the evening chill. She taped a small flashlight to the handlebar of her bicycle and rolled the bicycle through the apartment. She stopped at the kitchen sink, filled the water bottle halfway, took a drink and put the bottle into the holder on the downtube. The ratcheting of the rear sprocket, as she walked the bicycle to the door, reminded her of the night Janos rode naked into the bedroom.
On the landing, she locked the door, lifted the bicycle, and carried it down the stairs. In the vestibule, she saw Janos standing in front of the militiamen, blocking their view of the doorway. She pushed the door open and wheeled outside, making a right turn across the lawn toward the street. Once on the street, she got on the bicycle and started riding.
As planned, the militiamen assigned to watch Mariya’s apartment gave chase, and Janos ran to her car. She headed north and east toward the river, the militia car following and Janos right behind in the Audi. He was surprised how fast Mariya was able to pedal. Within two blocks, they had picked up another set of headlights. They were all going close to forty kilometers per hour—Mariya, the militia car with Janos close behind, and another car farther back. Another car with Mafia assassins or SBU or the Vatican secret service. So tempting to make a U-turn and confront them. But Mariya had her plan, and Janos stayed in line. He had Mariya’s cell phone and his cell phone in his pockets, both of them turned off so their direction of travel could not be traced by SBU or militia access to Kiev’s cell tower network. His GPS sho
wed him upcoming roads and turns.
Two blocks from the wooded entrance and the river bicycle path, Janos made his move. He accelerated the Audi, easily passed the militia car, tucked in behind Mariya, and then passed her, moving ahead at seventy kilometers per hour. In his mirror, he saw Mariya and the militia car and, finally, the other set of headlights turn to the right toward the path. Mariya, the woman who said she was dangerous, leading them away. Janos accelerated the Audi hard, passing everyone else on the road, because soon Mariya would go around the cable marking the bicycle path and pedal as fast as she could down the path. Soon the militia and the others would be forced to double back and come looking for the Audi.
As planned, Janos took a zigzag route toward the north, hitting one hundred kilometers per hour on the straights, scrubbing off tire rubber on the turns. Mariya’s exit from the bicycle path was several kilometers away where the path exited to the boulevard near the Monument to the Unknown Soldier. The zigzag route served two purposes. He would lose anyone who might try to follow him, and he would give Mariya enough time to arrive at the monument exit before him. By then, she would have the quick-release front wheel off her bicycle so it would fit in the trunk of the Audi. Then they would speed into the central city and turn back south toward the campground fifty kilometers southwest of the city to the hidden spot no one would be able to find except God the Father, Son, Holy Ghost, and all the saints and angels in heaven.
That is who Mikhail Juliano reminded him of: a drawing of Saint Mikhail the Archangel from an old prayer book. Saint Mikhail the Archangel driving Satan from Paradise with a sword, a knife hidden up his sleeve, a silenced pistol, or whatever weapons he might have.
As Mariya sped through the woods along the river, the flashlight lit up the path only far enough ahead to anticipate turns. The sounds of the militia and another car turning around had diminished, and it was silent and dark except for her breathing and the purr of chain on sprockets.
When she came out of a right-hand curve, she saw something and braked. A man stood in the center of the path. As soon as she saw him, she thought of the man from Opus Dei who had confronted Janos. The back tire skidded to the right, and she lost control.
Skidding, falling, asphalt like a dull file against her knee and elbow. Suddenly, she was grabbed. She screamed and tried to get away, but the man held her down.
“Take it easy! You might have broken something.”
The flashlight was out, the man holding her down by the shoulders a black outline.
“Let me go!” she screamed.
And he did. The man let her go and began lecturing. “I was simply trying to help. You are an idiot riding on the path at night! Especially a woman in Kiev at night!”
When Mariya righted the bicycle and got on, the man moved aside and continued mumbling about her being an inconsiderate idiot. She wanted to say she was sorry, but her throat was dry and hoarse, and her left leg burned as though it had been scraped raw.
She rode ahead slowly on the path, trying to get the flashlight back on. When it would not come on, she got off the bicycle and walked it.
Janos was already at the boulevard crossover near the brightly lit Monument to the Unknown Soldier when she arrived. She took off the front wheel and got into the car while Janos stowed the bicycle in the back. In the light coming from the monument, a patch on the side of her knee the size of a large coin looked like raw meat.
Janos drove fast, winding his way to Chervonoarmyiska, then southwest toward Bojarka. He drove so fast the Audi seemed to fly. While he drove, Mariya took a water bottle from the cup holder, found tissues in the glove compartment, and washed her wound.
That night they made love in a compact place, cozy and snug and away from everyone. The bed in Janos’ rented camper van was small. Afterwards, they opened the side curtain at the window and stared at the stars as they lay in one another’s arms. Here, fifty kilometers southwest of Kiev, away from the ground lighting of monuments and cathedrals, many more stars were visible to the naked eye. Except for the white glow of the bandage Janos had applied to Mariya’s leg, they were naked and tinted blue like the Milky Way.
On Monday morning most other campers, who simply used the camp as a stopover to or from Kiev, left early. A few still folded their tents as Janos walked to the building housing the restrooms and laundry. He went to the pay phone mounted to the side of the building. Miraculously the phone worked, and he called Eva Polenkaya.
“I’m glad you called,” she said. “I worried something happened to you.”
“You told Mariya Nemeth you had information.”
“It concerns the widower I mentioned, the man whose wife committed suicide.”
“What about him?”
“I just found out. I would have called sooner if I had known. Apparently he spoke with your friend, Aleksandr Vasilievich Shved, a few days before the fire.”
“Many people speak with Shved.”
“But Shved gave this man information to hold should something happen to him.”
A camper van drove past, and Janos pressed the phone closer to his ear. “Did the man give the information to you?”
“No. He told me he was trying to decide whether to go to the militia.”
“I don’t understand,” said Janos. “If the information might help find his missing child, why is he keeping it to himself?”
“This is the puzzling part,” said Eva Polenkaya. “He says it is not important. He says Private Investigator Aleksandr Vasilievich Shved was deceiving us. He said handing over information for someone to hold was simply part of Shved’s deception. Yet, I believe he clings to the possibility someone can help him. Shall I give you his phone number?”
“Yes.”
The widower’s name was Gennady Vorobey. He refused to give information over the phone or even at his apartment on the left bank, but agreed to meet Janos alone in two hours at the Myr Hotel on the right bank near the Central Bus Station.
Janos ran back to the camper van to tell Mariya he would need to leave her alone yet again.
Because the location was far south of the central city, Janos was able to take back roads most of the way. He arrived early, parked the Audi in an alley a block away, and walked to the hotel. He sat with his back to the wall, pretending to read a newspaper while he watched the hotel entrance.
Vorobey had agreed to be careful, saying he would wear a black shirt open at the neck with the sleeves rolled up. If someone else showed up dressed the same way, Janos could look for a tattoo Vorobey said was on his left forearm. The tattoo was a heart with “4 Lesia” written across it. Lesia was his wife, the one who committed suicide after their daughter had been missing three years.
Vorobey was short, in his forties, going bald, and had deep, sunken eyes. His movements were quick and nervous, and he had a deep, scratchy voice. Janos stood when Vorobey walked in. Now they sat opposite one another in soft lobby chairs with high backs. Vorobey pulled the ashtray on the narrow table between them close and kept a cigarette going constantly.
Vorobey took a deep drag, blew the smoke upward, and stared at Janos gravely. “I quit twice. The first time was before my daughter disappeared. The second time was before my Lesia died. I will not quit again. This way, I have death to hold onto.”
Janos waited until Vorobey took another drag. “Tell me everything Aleksandr Vasilievich Shved told you.”
“I will,” said Vorobey. “But I must repeat what I told Eva Polenkaya. Aleksandr Vasilievich Shved was in business. I believe he made his money from false hopes.”
“Have you given up hope of finding your daughter?”
Vorobey nodded and looked down at his tattoo. “Yes, I have given up hope. My Lesia gave up hope before me. I do not blame her. I am too cowardly to commit suicide.” Vorobey looked at his cigarette. “Too cowardly to do it the quick way. Everyone in my simple life is gone. Even Shved, who I trusted. He took trips, and when he came back he would say he was getting closer. He provided fake details
, which at the time seemed real. We idiots would chip in, giving Shved more money to keep him fat and happy.”
“I am not here to defend Shved,” said Janos. “But what were those details?”
Vorobey put out his cigarette and lit another. “The latest was when he returned from the Black Sea. A side trip down the coast to the Romanian border was convincing.”
“You have specific information Shved had you hold should something happen to him?”
“He said I could give the information to Eva Polenkaya or to another investigator who might replace him. I suppose you are this other investigator. I suppose someone must make money when parents lose their children.”
Vorobey had not raised his voice, but stared hard at Janos through the cigarette smoke.
“Please,” said Janos. “You can believe what you want about Shved and how he died. You can believe what you want about me. But I will tell you something. I have been on this case a week and have already seen two informants killed and have already had to kill a murderer. Did you hear news of two men found dead in Kharkiv at the Shevchenko Monument? I was there. I had a meeting with one of Shved’s informants. So please tell me what you know!”
Vorobey put out his cigarette and did not light another. Instead of smoking, he spoke.
“After his last trip, Shved came to me and said he felt he was close to something. I did not believe him. But even though I did not believe him, I listened. That is what the parent of a missing little girl does!”
Janos said nothing.
“Shved said he had a clue about missing children being kept in some kind of camp on a peninsula. He said the peninsula was in a marshy area with many tributaries and lakes and islands west of Kilija near the Romanian border. He did not have a name of a lake but said the nearest village was Vasylivka and the property was owned by one of the churches. He said the peninsula was supposed to be unoccupied, and locals thought it might be a radioactive waste dump from submarines in Soviet days.”
Traffyck: The Thrilling Sequel to Chernobyl Murders Page 22
