Chernobyl Murders lh-1

by Michael Beres

  The thought of the warm Kiev bakery made Lazlo shiver. He dropped the tent flap and sat back on his heels. He reached up to touch the warm slope of the tent where the orange of the sun glowed.

  Although the cut on his wrist was healed, his ankle still ached from the jump to the scaffold at the Hotel Dnieper. He turned and crawled to the back of the tent where Juli slept. He lifted the blankets carefully so as not to let in cold, damp air. Beneath the blankets, he felt Juli’s warmth against him and his shivering stopped.

  After the narrow escape at Lenkomsomol Square, Lazlo met Juli at the hospital. Dressed as peasants and with Lazlo wearing an eye patch to disguise himself, they’d gone to one of the roadblocks and joined the line of people trying to enter Kiev. Lazlo had worked the roadblocks long enough to know how to use the situation to their advantage. He knew that instead of being allowed in, they would be transported with others to a collective many kilometers away. He also knew they could do this without identification because during the rapid evacuation, many refugees failed to obtain passes. He let Juli do most of the talking, saying they were from Pripyat and had worked in a department store. He kept his face hidden, and none of the militia officers recognized him.

  They had been here at the Kopelovo collective a full week, freez-ing in the tent each night and keeping trim on the daily ration of food provided. Kiev was a hundred kilometers northeast, and he might never see it again. His sprained ankle had healed, and he was ready to move on. The question was where to go and when. The only logical direction was west, to Czechoslovakia or Hungary or even farther. The time would be soon, because yesterday there were rumors of relocation. Paperwork would be completed, names put on file, and representatives of the militia or the KGB milling about.

  They were fugitives, both considered criminals-him a murderer and Juli his accomplice. It didn’t matter if the agent aimed his pistol at them. To the KGB, one of their own was dead. No matter if the incident was a setup and Tamara’s poet friend was a KGB informer.

  He recalled Tamara’s anger at the poet when he met her at the river, saying she would kill him if she saw him again. Lazlo had insisted she not make trouble for herself. He needed her to follow through on the faked betrayal so she would not be implicated when he and Juli escaped.

  Would he ever see Tamara again? Would he tell her about his confusion when he realized he was attracted to Juli? Would he tell her about the past week, during which he and Juli posed as husband and wife living in an army tent on the Kopelovo collective? Would he tell Tamara he was in love?

  As he lay beside Juli, Lazlo could feel the heat of her breath on his face. He kissed her cheek and held her close. But at his back the chill of morning touched him, reminding him that Nina, Anna, and little Ilonka were in Kisbor. Komarov would know Lazlo must go there. If he and Juli escaped across the frontier without going to Kisbor, Komarov would take revenge. The thought of going to Kisbor and of what he must do became icy fingers pulling him away from Juli and her unborn child.

  Coming awake, Juli thought she felt her baby move. She wondered if time had sped up, if months had passed and she was in a bed in an apartment with Lazlo by her side. But when she opened her eyes, she saw the tent roof. Time had not sped up. They were still at the collective. She was still in her seventh or eighth week of pregnancy and certainly would not have been able to feel the baby move. The momentary thought of being in a bed with Lazlo was a dream. But at least part of it was true. Lazlo was with her, holding her tightly.

  “I thought you were my baby.”

  Lazlo kissed her cheek. “I am your baby.”

  “When you moved, I thought it was my baby moving. I dreamed we were somewhere safe with no one looking for us. I was big and fat, and you still loved me.”

  Lazlo smiled. “It’s a wonderful dream.”

  “I hope it comes true.”

  “It can if we cross the frontier. We’ll be able to go to a good hospital and get you and your baby checked. We’ll be able to tell someone what you know about Chernobyl. We’ll find somewhere to live instead of a moth-eaten tent.” Lazlo sat up and looked down at her with a broad grin. “It’s nothing but good news from now on.”

  “I like seeing you smile, Laz.”

  “I rarely smiled before I met you.”

  They kissed and made love beneath the rough army blankets.

  After a breakfast of canned sardines, bread, and bottled water, Juli reviewed with Lazlo the information about Chernobyl they hoped to get to officials at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. The information included what Mihaly told Juli before he died-the experiment to see how long the inertia of the turbine could generate emergency power, the emergency backups turned off while the reactor was still running, the absence of the chief engineer who had ordered the experiment, printouts of reactor conditions not available directly to control-room personnel, speculation about Chernobyl being used as a guinea pig for other reactors of the same type throughout the country. Juli had memorized as much as possible and recited the details each day to Lazlo. She also included information she knew from her job, including specific figures she recalled concerning radionuclide sampling around the power station before the explosion.

  “It’s like being in school again,” said Lazlo. “A big tough guy with his Makarov pistol strapped to his chest back in school.”

  Juli touched Lazlo’s chin, realizing how much he resembled Mihaly.

  “You’re not such a tough guy, Laz.”

  “What am I?”

  “A Gypsy, like me. I’ve always wondered what it would have been like to live somewhere else, to be someone different. We can’t help it. It’s in our blood. It was in Mihaly’s blood.”

  Lazlo lifted her hand from his chin, kissed her hand, stared at her. “Mihaly wasn’t attracted to a desire to try something new. He was attracted to you because you’re special.”

  “How can you say that? I’m the one who initially thought of our affair as a game. I wasn’t married so who could get hurt? No, Laz.

  Don’t call me special.”

  “I’ll call you whatever I like,” he said in a deep voice.

  They both laughed, pulling the heavy blankets over their heads so others would not hear them and wonder who would be insane enough to tell jokes in a situation like this.

  Later in the morning, while Juli washed the tattered peasant clothes they managed to pick up along the way, officials arrived. She was behind a nearby house using a washtub set up for refugees. From where she stood, she could see a militia car pull up and three men get out. Two men in suits and a local uniformed militiaman. Juli stayed at the washtub, watching as Lazlo stood in line to speak with the men. Lazlo looked like any of the other farmers, his hands in the pockets of baggy trousers, his ill-fitting cap pulled down tightly on his head.

  Because they had agreed not to panic, Juli stayed at the washtub. If Lazlo recognized any of the men, he would not have gotten in line.

  One of the officials had a clipboard. When a refugee made it to the front of the line, the man would flip through pages on the clipboard and write something down. The procedure took only a minute or so for each. But when Lazlo got to the front of the line, the man with the clipboard kept flipping pages, Lazlo kept shrugging his shoulders, and the militiaman standing to the side stood closer. Finally Lazlo leaned forward, pointing at something on the clipboard and the questioning became more serious. They questioned Lazlo for several agonizing minutes. When he was finally allowed to leave, Juli hurried to the tent to join him.

  Lazlo retrieved the sock in which he kept his money and his pistol from the hole dug in the ground through a slit in the tent floor.

  He took the pistol out, checked the magazine, put the pistol in one pocket and the sock with the money in his other pocket, and turned to Juli.

  “We’ve got to leave.”

  “Do they know who we are?”

  “Not yet. But I couldn’t convince them I was on the list. I tried mispronouncing a name to see if I coul
d fake one, but they wanted family details. I guess you saw what happened when I tried to look at the list myself.”

  “I thought they would arrest you.”

  “I pushed them close to it. Soon they’ll report back about a man and wife named Zimyanin, a name not on the refugee list.”

  “Where should we go?”

  “I don’t know yet. There’s a bus due early tomorrow morning for those being shipped out. We’re supposed to stay here until the officials come back. If we get out of here tonight, or at least before morning, maybe they’ll think we got on the bus. We’ll spread the word we’ve been told to leave on the morning bus.”

  Lazlo took off the hat he had worn, combed his hair, and put on a shirt with fewer holes in it. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. Get ready while I’m gone. I like your idea of posing as radiation technicians.”

  “I’ll put things together.”

  After Lazlo kissed her and left the tent, Juli looked out and watched him go. He walked quickly, one hand deep in the pocket where he had put the sock containing money saved during his years in the Kiev militia, the other hand deep in the other pocket where he had put his pistol.

  Juli had gotten the idea to pose as radiation technicians when she saw technicians in lab coats while being bussed out of Kiev.

  Creating makeshift lab coats out of bedsheets had taken three days.

  The needles and thread and a pair of scissors were available at the village store. Although they were simply smocks rather than coats, it didn’t take much to look official in this region. Especially when she made a fake Geiger counter by taping an old radio tube from the local trash to a length of wire and inserting the other end of the wire into her black overnight case.

  Juli removed the fake lab coats from the overnight case and spread them on the floor of the tent to get out the wrinkles. She took out a bottle of pink nail polish she had purchased at the village store and closed the overnight case. The smell of nail polish quickly filled the tent as she pulled out the brush connected to the cap. Juli did not polish her nails. Instead, she pulled the overnight case close and began filling in letters she had earlier outlined on the side of the case. The letters spelled out in Russian the words, danger, radioactive samples.

  27

  The sun was still well below the horizon, the gray dawn barely illuminating his office. It was deathly silent, no voices in the hall, no computer printer clattering outside the door. Komarov lit a cigarette, watching the dance of flame from his lighter. After closing the lighter, he inspected the cigarette’s tip. He thought of the shortness of life and the necessity to make the best of it while the glow still existed. Although he could not see the smoke, he saw a slight darkening of the slit of light shining beneath his office door. A shadow was there, and when he waved the smoke away, the shadow remained.

  Three quick knocks on the door were soft and tentative. He waited a moment, then said, “Come in!” rather loudly.

  Light from the hall swept across the office, and a sizable creature stood in the doorway.

  “Are you here, Major Komarov?”

  “I am, Captain Azef.”

  “Why are you sitting in the dark?”

  “I’m helping the state in this time of energy shortage, Captain. I was not in need of light at the moment, and one of our major generating plants is incapacitated. You can turn it on now.”

  Despite the initial glare of the overhead light, Komarov kept his eyes open wide and watched as Azef sat across from him. Azef looked tentative, the initial darkness in the room putting him on the defensive.

  Azef glanced at Komarov’s pistol and shoulder holster resting atop his desk, then looked to the window. “Still dark outside.”

  “Never mind how dark it is, Captain. After days of silence, a twig has snapped in the forest. Yesterday a man without papers was interviewed at the Kopelovo collective to the west. Being without papers is not unusual, but he was with a younger woman he claims is his wife. The man said his name was Zimyanin. After interviewing him, officials on the scene questioned others about Zimyanin because the name was not on the refugee list. The questioning revealed Zimyanin is not a peasant but an educated man who speaks Russian, Ukrainian, and Hungarian. The man and his supposed wife fit the description of Detective Horvath and Juli Popovics.”

  Komarov felt the heat rushing to his face and knew he would no longer be able to contain his anger. He finished in a loud voice after smashing his cigarette out in the ashtray.

  “All of this was known to the Interior Ministry yesterday! And when am I told?” He looked at his watch. “A full sixteen hours after the fact! Shcherbina in the Zhitomir branch office learned about it and called me at home. Unfortunately he was not informed by phone. The ministry fools sent a note via the republic militia! The note didn’t reach Shcherbina until this morning when he arose for his morning exercise!”

  Azef waited an appropriate few seconds to make sure Komarov’s tirade was finished. “What are you going to do, Major?”

  “I’m going there myself as soon as the idiot driver arrives! If Zimyanin is Horvath, the ministry asses and local militia will most likely let him escape if I’m not there!”

  “He most likely moved on after the questioning.”

  “I know. But if he was staying at the collective with Juli Popovics, there will be evidence remaining, people who saw them or spoke with them. There may even be evidence of contact with outside intelligence. I refuse to trust local idiots to do any more interviewing!”

  “I understand, Major. Will you be gone long?”

  “However long it takes. If the Zimyanins have left and if I find evidence proving they are Detective Horvath and Juli Popovics, I will have Horvath in my grasp.”

  “How will you have him in your grasp if he escapes?”

  “Put yourself in his place, Captain. Try to think like him, as I have. Why would a clever man with militia connections giving him access to fake papers, perhaps even confiscated passports and visas, not have crossed the frontier by now?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Don’t you see, Captain? He can’t leave. He needs to wipe the slate clean by eliminating those who know of his involvement in sabotage. Our agent in Visenka was just the beginning. The poet, an associate of Tamara Petrov, was next. And, before leaving Kiev, Horvath obviously murdered Tamara Petrov. A vengeful man becomes desperate, and a desperate man becomes careless. He will be captured if someone doesn’t bungle it! I will not let him escape!”

  “What about Chkalov, Major? He called twice yesterday wanting to speak with you.” Azef smiled slightly. “He told my secretary an underling would not do. When I asked if he considered me an underling, he said the secretary had put words in his mouth.”

  “Not words,” said Komarov. “His foot, or something else if he could reach it over his belly. Don’t worry about Chkalov. He won’t have any choice but to speak with you because you’ll be in command while I’m gone. Chkalov’s only concern now is the fact he allowed a saboteur and murderer to remain under his command in the Kiev militia!”

  Komarov stood. “Leave me for now, Captain. My driver and the men who will accompany me are waiting… I have things to gather before I go.”

  Azef paused at the door. “Should I use your office while you’re gone, Major?”

  “By all means, Captain.”

  After Azef was gone, Komarov put on his shoulder holster, with extra cartridges loaded into the strap holders. He pulled on his jacket, put his overcoat on his arm, and picked up the valise containing two changes of underwear and a dozen packages of cigarettes. At the door he put the valise down and patted his pockets. He had not forgotten. The knife was there, resting against his chest.

  A shame about Tamara Petrov. He admired her defiance. Like a true Gypsy, she had spit in his face. But once the knife went in and twisted, she opened her eyes wide and, like the others, glowed for a few moments in the ecstasy of dying.

  Komarov picked up his valise and went to join his men.r />
  As Juli walked along a dirt road on the farmland belonging to the Kopelovo collective, her overnight case tugged at her fingers. The sunrise, initially bright, was now cut off by clouds hanging low at the horizon. The land was flat, with plowed fields on both sides of the road. A dog barked in the distance, perhaps at the collective village a kilometer or two behind her. But it wasn’t the bark of a dog she listened for. What she wanted to hear was the sound of a car.

  Lazlo had left long before dawn to get the car. A white car, he said. He had purchased it yesterday and left it hidden several kilometers away so as not to arouse suspicion. He planned to meet Juli on the dirt road heading straight west out of the village. She was to keep walking along the road until he picked her up.

  Yesterday, Lazlo’s journey to the town of Korostyshev, the purchase of the car, and the long journey back had taken hours. She’d been alone most of the day and well into the night. It had been cold last night, more so because after sunset Lazlo was not beside her.

  He returned near midnight and left again early this morning. During the few hours with him, she held him tightly. Now he was gone again, and she shivered with cold as she listened intently for a car on the road.

  After a few minutes, she heard tires thumping into ruts in the road behind her along with the struggle of a misfiring engine. When she turned, she saw it was not a white car. As it came closer, she saw it was a battered old bus.

  She wondered if she should hide. After spreading the news yesterday, saying she and Lazlo were leaving on the relocation bus early in the morning, could she afford to be seen out here? Obviously the bus coming down the road was not the relocation bus, but the dilapidated bus used to transport collective workers. She looked about and realized the ditch at the side of the road was too shallow to hide her. But why should she hide? If the people on the bus saw a woman walking along the road, what would it matter? She would simply look away when the bus passed.