The Boy from Reactor 4

by Orest Stelmach

  Adam jumped.

  Coach cracked the whip on the ground below him. Missed his feet by a centimeter.

  Adam’s knees shot up and touched his chest.

  “Chin music, loser. That is what I call chin music. Twenty seconds more!”

  When time was up, Adam collapsed to the ground. The coach gave him two minutes’ rest before moving into clapping push-ups. Adam clapped his hands twice during each exercise, performing three sets of fifty repetitions for a total of 150 clappers in four minutes.

  He lay faint on the ground when he was done, lungs heaving, legs bent to keep the blood flowing to his face.

  “Want to see another place you’ll never go, loser?”

  Adam glanced at the coach from an upside-down position.

  The coach pointed to the top of the hill with his whip. “There will be sunbathing in Siberia before you ever see the summit of that hill, loser. No strength. No heart. No soul. Wrap the rubber band around your waist. Sprints in one minute. Prepare to fail the way you always do. Prepare yourself!”

  Ten seconds later, Adam staggered to his feet and collected the rubber band. It was ten centimeters thick and fifty meters long. He wrapped one end around his waist and tied it into a knot.

  He’d tied it loosely on purpose two years ago, when he’d decided he’d had enough of the fat bastard. When the coach gave it a yank, the band came loose and Adam kept running until he heard the gunshot. The coach always kept a handgun in his waistband. Adam didn’t make it to the top of the hill that day, either, and had always tied the band properly from then on.

  After tying the band around his waist, Adam stood at the starting line at the bottom of the hill. The coach tied the other end of the band around his own waist. Adam noticed the bulge on the coach’s lower back where he always kept his gun.

  The coach brought the whistle to his lips. Adam looked up at the hill. Something moved in his peripheral vision. A man stepped out from behind a Dumpster by the far side of the porcelain factory so that Adam could see him. Adam recognized the chaotic hair and scarecrow body of his father’s friend Karel, the zoologist from the Zone.

  Karel raised the second and third fingers of his right hand to form a V.

  That was the signal. The signal they’d agreed on.

  It was time.

  Adam considered the coach’s warning, that he was going nowhere, and the gun behind his back. He stuck his hand in his pocket and gripped his folding knife.

  The coach blew the whistle.

  Adam pulled his right hand out of his pocket, knife in fist, thrust it up in the air, and took off up the hill. After three swings with both arms to catapult himself forward, he unsheathed the knife. He tightened his fist around the handle and pumped his legs furiously. The horizon blurred.

  Twenty meters. Thirty meters. Forty meters.

  Adam hit the wall. The rubber band tightened. His steps shortened. Resistance increased. He stopped moving forward.

  As soon as he felt the familiar tug, Adam turned and sprinted ten meters back down the hill. The hand with his knife swung by his side. He locked eyes with the man who’d fed and trained him for most of his life. The coach’s eyes went to the blade and back to Adam. His lips parted with surprise as Adam raced toward him.

  The ten-meter sprint downhill had created slack in the band. The coach couldn’t pull him in if he tried. At least not for a few seconds. And that was all he would need.

  Adam slid to a halt. Sliced the rubber band with his knife. It fell to the grass. He turned again, put his head down, and raced back up the hill. His legs moved in slow motion. He had nothing left. He expected bullets to whiz by him any second. They didn’t.

  When he got to the top of the hill, he looked down. Karel was in his car, looping around to pick him up on the road half a kilometer away. The coach stood in the same place where he’d been, arms folded across his chest, whip at his feet, rubber band still tied around his bulging waist. He thrust his head back with pride. It was the same pose the parents in Korosten struck when they bragged about their sons after games over beer.

  Adam squinted to see if he was just imagining it, when he remembered there was no time. His father had given him explicit instructions to follow when Karel gave him the signal.

  Run.

  CHAPTER 47

  THE BODYGUARDS SURROUNDED the Volkswagen. Nadia looked daggers at Anton, wishing there were a pocket chain saw handy in the glove box. His eyes dropped to the steering wheel.

  “You slimy prick,” she said. “Since when? Since the airport?”

  He glanced at her with a pained expression. “No, no. That was all genuine. My love for you was real. They were waiting for me at my apartment this afternoon.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. They gave me two choices. Which is to say, they gave me one choice. I’m sorry, Nadia. Really, I am. This is Ukraine. The politics change all the time. It’s a constant power struggle. The winners know how to go with the flow.”

  “Yeah. You’re a real winner, Anton. You’re a walking testament to why Ukraine’s leading export is its women. Do the men in this country realize how pathetic that is?”

  He snarled. “Hey. You wanted to get in the Zone. I got you in the Zone. You wanted to get out of the Zone. I got you out of the Zone. At my own risk. I asked for nothing in return. Nothing. And let’s remember how it was two nights ago. You were the one begging for it, from me.”

  “You bastard.”

  He shrugged. “Hey. You can’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  “What?”

  “I told you when I drove you from the airport. Ukrainian salary. It really is hell.”

  Nadia shifted in her seat and squared her hips toward him. “So is an American woman.”

  She pummeled his nose.

  Bone crunched. Blood spurted. Anton screamed.

  Nadia stepped out of the car.

  “We missed you at the Veselka Restaurant,” Victor said. “Your ponytailed lawyer friend didn’t cut quite the same figure across the table from me.”

  Nadia didn’t answer him. There was no benefit to saying a word.

  “Let me have her, Kirilo,” Misha said.

  The distinguished man from Kyiv sliced through the circle of bodyguards. He looked fat yet fit, like a former heavyweight prizefighter who carefully balanced his love of food and fitness. His clothes and carriage spoke of confidence and power. He gave Nadia a quick once-over that ended with a dismissive smirk.

  She’d seen that smirk on Wall Street: how could a woman have given him this much trouble?

  “You remind me of what my daughter might look like in fifteen years,” Kirilo said. “You have the same coloring. She’s the joy of my life, my daughter.”

  Without warning, the back of his hand crushed Nadia’s face. As she toppled to the cement, pain shot through her jaw. Her eyes watered. Her nose stung. A bitter taste flooded her mouth.

  “Let me have her,” Misha said. “I can make a woman do anything in fifteen minutes flat.”

  Kirilo motioned to a man who looked more like a malnourished librarian than a bodyguard. “Pavel, take her to the office. Search her and make her comfortable.”

  Pavel and two burly men grasped Nadia by her elbows and guided her toward an office in the far corner of the warehouse. They passed a harness attached to an elaborate pulley, one that could be used to hoist engines from a truck—or crucify uncooperative American women. A pair of stylish black shoes and slacks appeared beneath the pulley as a man circled around it. Brad Specter cast an indifferent look at her as she walked by. His footsteps stopped short as the bodyguards pushed her into the office.

  The office contained portable orange shelving, a bare metal desk, and three chairs. A row of well-worn manuals lined one shelf. Nadia deciphered the Russian words for “truck repair.” The bodyguards tied her feet to the chair and her hands behind her back with duct tape. One of the men tore a final piece of tape with his mouth and sealed her lips.

  They searche
d her body without inhibitions and did the same with her purse.

  Kirilo entered the office. He removed his coat. As he placed it on the table, it didn’t bend, as though he were performing a sartorial levitation. He ripped the duct tape off Nadia’s mouth.

  Her lips stung, but she didn’t scream.

  “I hear you speak the language well for an American,” he said.

  “I can get by,” Nadia said.

  His eyes widened. “Refined. Like a college professor. You know about Ukrainian Hetman? Military commanders during the Cossack era?”

  “I studied history. I know some things about them.”

  He sat down on the corner of the desk and tapped his coat with his left hand. It made a solid noise, as though it were reinforced with steel.

  “Then you know more than I do,” he said. “I never studied anything. I got my education on the street. I had to fight for everything I have. A smart man on the docks of Podil once told me—before I drowned him for his fishing boat—that the Cossacks believed that when you killed an enemy, the power of that enemy became yours. It literally seeped out of his soul into yours. The stronger the enemy you defeated, the more powerful you became.”

  “I’m not your enemy.”

  “I’m glad you said that. It’s true. Not only are you not an enemy, but it’s possible we can be business associates. Look at your friend Anton. He helped us, he got paid, and he’s going back to his life. A bit bloody, thanks to you, but back to his life. There’s no reason we can’t strike the same bargain. Tell me what it is you found in the Zone, and we can come up with a fair price.”

  “I didn’t find anything in the Zone. I went to meet my long-lost uncle. He’s on his deathbed, and my mother told me of his existence just recently.”

  “Oh, really? What is your uncle’s name?”

  Nadia kept her lips sealed.

  Kirilo smiled and tapped a muted tune along the coat, from shoulder to hip.

  “What did the man say to you on Seventh Street? We both know there’s no ten million dollars. Damian Tesla is your uncle. Where did you meet him? What did he give you?”

  Nadia focused on her breathing and reminded herself: once she told him, she was dead.

  He grasped the lapel to his coat and started to pull it back.

  A knock on the door behind her.

  Nadia tried to turn but couldn’t.

  Kirilo glared at whoever was standing in the doorway. “What?”

  “Pavel needs you.” It was Specter’s voice.

  “Not now,” Kirilo said.

  “I thought I heard him say your daughter is on the phone.”

  Kirilo tore out of the office.

  Once he was out of sight, Specter rushed in and cut the binds around her ankles with a switchblade.

  “What are you doing?” Nadia said, astonished.

  Sirens blared outside the warehouse. “The police are here,” he said.

  Nadia wriggled her legs free. “They are? How do you know that?”

  “I called them. I gave them an anonymous tip that a big drug deal was going down.” He freed her wrists.

  An emphatic metallic clang in the warehouse. Feet stomped, men shouted.

  Nadia shook her hands loose. “Why are you doing this?”

  Specter folded the knife and stored it in his pocket. “I’ll tell Misha and Kirilo I did this to make sure the cops didn’t find you all tied up and they didn’t arrest us for kidnapping. When we walk out there, tell the cops we’re together.”

  “Why are you—”

  “Listen,” he said, exasperated. “The story is, Misha and I do business with Kirilo, and we’re here to look at a warehouse for storing auto parts from the States. You and I just had a lovers’ quarrel. Tell them I’m a cheat. Ask them to drive you to the police station. Tip them a hundred hryvnia. They’ll do it in a heartbeat. Kirilo will get us out of this, but you’ll have a lead on us again.”

  Nadia stood up, still mystified. “Why are you helping me?”

  Specter gathered the duct tape and threw it over the top of the shelving. “What were you doing in Chernobyl? You need to get to the embassy and get out of this country.”

  “No. I have to meet someone first.”

  “Who are you meeting?”

  “Who are you?”

  Footsteps clattered through the warehouse toward them.

  “I can help you,” Specter said.

  Two men with the word Militsiya stenciled on their light-blue warm-up jackets burst into the room. They drew their guns.

  “Police,” one of them said. “Hands in the air. Don’t move.”

  Nadia and Specter raised their hands.

  “I’m an American tourist,” Nadia said in perfect Ukrainian. “Thank God you’re here. You’ve prevented a murder.”

  “Murder?” the other cop said.

  “Yes,” Nadia said. “This is my cheating shit of an American boyfriend. I was about to kill him.”

  CHAPTER 48

  POLICE SWARMED THE warehouse.

  Nadia watched Kirilo’s eyes widen with disbelief when he saw her marching toward him with Specter. Then he gave Specter a nod of approval, as though he realized it was not in his interest for the police to find her tied up.

  Fifteen to twenty policemen lined up the bodyguards against the wall, searched them, and checked their domestic passports. Nadia, Specter, and Misha stood beside Kirilo.

  A police cruiser pulled into the warehouse. A cop emerged from the passenger side. Veins pulsated on his bald cinder block head as he chewed gum slowly. Ropes of muscle flexed under the ribbed white T-shirt beneath his powder-blue tracksuit. The index and middle fingers were missing from his right hand. He appraised each of them with a poker player’s expression before turning to speak with a uniformed cop.

  “He looks familiar,” Kirilo said, just loud enough for Nadia, Misha, and Specter to hear. He squinted. “Have I seen him before? Wait…Is he an Eagle? By God, I think that’s it. I think he’s an Eagle.” He nudged Misha. “We may have gotten lucky here.”

  Nadia had no idea what Kirilo was talking about.

  The man with the missing fingers finished giving instructions and ambled over. “I am Detective Novak,” he said.

  “You’ve made a mistake,” Kirilo said.

  “Passport, please.”

  “There are no drugs here.”

  “Passport.”

  Kirilo handed him a blue booklet similar to the US passport.

  “There’s been no crime committed here,” Kirilo said. “This warehouse belongs to me. These two men are from America. We’re negotiating a business deal.”

  Detective Novak compared the photo in the book to the man before him. “What kind of business deal?”

  “Auto parts,” Kirilo said. “American-made auto parts for the do-it-yourself repair market. It’s big in America, and it’s going to take off here.”

  The detective returned Kirilo’s passport and turned to Nadia. “Who are you?”

  Nadia glanced at Kirilo and Misha. They stared at her, radiating a ferocity that belied their inscrutable expressions. Victor, meanwhile, stood calmly behind them.

  “Until an hour ago, I was this man’s girlfriend,” Nadia said, shaking her thumb at Specter. “Now I’m his ex-girlfriend. I’m an American.”

  “Passport,” Detective Novak said.

  Nadia handed it to him. Kirilo, Misha, and Victor exchanged blank stares with one another, as though processing her story.

  Detective Novak studied and returned her passport, and did the same with Victor and Misha.

  “We got an anonymous tip,” Detective Novak said, arms folded. “It was made by a man with a lot of urgency. He was very specific about the location.” The detective glanced at Kirilo. “Why would someone send us here for no reason?”

  “Do I look like I give a damn?” Kirilo took a step forward. “Do you know who I am?”

  Detective Novak kept chewing slowly. “No. Should I?”

  “The deput
y minister of internal affairs is a personal friend of mine. He is an investor in my Black Sea energy project and a frequent guest at my villa in Yalta. Your police chief is also a friend. Didn’t I see an eagle fly over your shoulder when you stepped out of the car?”

  Detective Novak stopped chewing. He blinked. “What did you say?”

  “I said, we both know the same people. We’re both businessmen. Surely we can come to some sort of arrangement.”

  Detective Novak frowned. “It’s you who’s made a mistake. There was no eagle flying over my shoulder. There are no Eagles of Kravchenko here. Procedure will be followed. Any more discussion, and I will take you all to the station and we will sit there all night getting to the bottom of this. Procedure will be followed.”

  He turned, snapped his fingers, and shouted a pair of names. Two uniformed young cops with clipboards came running.

  Misha looked at Kirilo. “Eagles of Kravchenko?”

  Kirilo grunted. “In 2000, the president, Kuchma, complained about a journalist by the name of Georgiy Gongadze. Kravchenko, the minister of the interior, told him he’d ‘take care of him.’ Kravchenko said he had a team of elite detectives ‘without any morals, prepared to do anything.’ His words were recorded on cassette tape by a major who was in the meeting. They found Gongadze later, decapitated in a forest. They called the detectives the Eagles of Kravchenko. This fellow looks just like one of them, but apparently he’s someone altogether different.”

  Detective Novak returned with the two cops. “Look at their papers again. I want names, addresses, and phone numbers. Hotel names from the Americans.” He turned back to Nadia, Misha, and Kirilo. “Now we will search the warehouse and the cars.”

  The searches and interviews proceeded at a glacial pace. Nadia checked her watch every five minutes and fidgeted in place. Half an hour later, at 5:15 p.m., the cops finished collecting information and stepped away.