The Boy from Reactor 4

by Orest Stelmach

  “I’m looking forward to finishing our conversation,” Kirilo said to Nadia. “I think we were close to coming to a business arrangement.”

  Nadia ignored him.

  Detective Novak returned with Kirilo’s coat. He removed a long, cylindrical object from a special pouch in the lining. It was made of stainless steel and had a green handle and trigger at one end. It reminded Nadia of a spear gun.

  “You are carrying a concealed weapon,” Detective Novak said.

  “It’s not a weapon. It is a cattle prod.”

  “Do you herd cattle?”

  “Do you value your career?”

  Detective Novak smiled, walked up to Kirilo, and handed him the coat and the cattle prod.

  “We’ve completed our search,” he said. “You’re free to go, as are your men.”

  Kirilo stepped between Specter and Nadia and put his arm around her shoulder. “Come with me, dear. Let me give you a ride to your hotel in my Audi.”

  Nadia wrangled out of his grasp and stepped forward. “Detective, may I get a lift to the station, please? I’m not with these men anymore.”

  Detective Novak glanced from Nadia to the men and back to her again. He stopped chewing.

  “I was going to offer to pay for the gasoline or any inconvenience,” she said, “but that would be an insult. So I can only say please.”

  Detective Novak paused, resumed chewing, and smiled. He marched over to a police cruiser and opened the door to the backseat without saying a word. Motioned for Nadia to get in with a sweep of his right hand. After closing the door behind her, he stood before Kirilo, Misha, and Specter.

  “I don’t want to see any of these vehicles following us to the station. The lady is no longer interested in your company. Is that understood?”

  They didn’t answer.

  “In fact,” Detective Novak said, glancing at one of his men with a clipboard, “check registrations for all these cars before these men leave.” He turned back to Kirilo. “For my report. To make it perfect. Because I value my career.” He winked.

  He climbed into the passenger seat while another cop got in the driver’s seat. As he pulled away, Nadia snuck a peek out the window. Kirilo followed the car on foot for a few steps, as though letting her know they would be coming soon.

  Specter stood tapping his cell phone. The motion suggested he wanted Nadia to call him later.

  “May we take you to the Hotel Rus?” Detective Novak said.

  “No, thank you,” Nadia said. “That’s very kind of you. If you wouldn’t mind…There is a destination…I’m leaving tomorrow, and I haven’t had a chance to see the new statue. The new statue at Babi Yar.”

  CHAPTER 49

  THE COPS KEPT Kirilo, Victor, Misha, and the bodyguards in the warehouse for another hour. Kirilo fumed at the irritation until the cops finally left at 7:25.

  “We have to stop her from leaving the country,” Kirilo said. “If she’s still here. Pavel, call the deputy minister of the interior. Get him on the line for me.”

  Pavel pulled out his cell phone and stepped away.

  “Who has a picture of her?” Kirilo said.

  Misha pointed to Specter, who nodded.

  “Good,” Kirilo said. “Get it to Pavel right away. I’ll see that the deputy minister gets it to Passport Control and that she’s held for suspicion of illegally entering the Zone of Exclusion. We don’t even have to make up a phony charge. It’s legitimate. The taxi driver confessed to it.”

  “She has a head start,” Misha said. “She could be on a plane before they have her picture.”

  “She won’t go to the airport,” Victor said.

  Kirilo forced himself to look at his cousin. “Why do you say that?”

  “She’ll be expecting us to be expecting her there. It’s how she came in. It’s the easy way out. It’s too big a risk, and she’s too smart to take it.”

  “Then she’ll go by boat or by rail,” Misha said.

  “It doesn’t matter how she travels,” Kirilo said. “She has to clear Passport Control somewhere, and we will either have that picture in time for her to be stopped or we won’t. Which is why we will pursue our other leads while we wait.”

  “What other leads?” Misha said.

  “We know from the taxi driver that she met with a zoologist. A man named Karel who conducts experiments in Chernobyl village. The deputy minister will get Pavel his home address, and we’ll go pay him a visit immediately. Meanwhile, the deputy minister will get us emergency clearance to enter the Zone of Exclusion tonight.”

  “Chernobyl?” Misha said. “You’re going to Chernobyl? When? Tonight?”

  “That’s where she went to see her uncle,” Kirilo said. “Damian Tesla is there, somewhere. He can tell us what we’re chasing after. And he might be able to tell us how she’s leaving the country.”

  Misha fidgeted in place. “For real? You would go there? I mean, like, is it safe?”

  “Of course it’s not safe,” Kirilo said, amused by the moscal’s obvious fear.

  Victor slapped his young protégé on the shoulder. “You don’t have to go, Misha,” he said. “I’ll go with Kirilo, and we’ll fill you in with whatever we find out. You can trust us. You know that.”

  Misha blinked several times in rapid succession. He straightened his posture and balled his fists. “Fuck you, old man.”

  As soon as he got the words out, Misha whitened. He raised his hand to cover his mouth, turned, and vomited on the warehouse floor.

  Kirilo stepped back. Victor hadn’t been kidding, he realized. The Bitch really had poisoned the moscal.

  “You okay?” Kirilo said.

  “I’m fine,” Misha barked, face flushed. “Don’t you worry about me.”

  As Kirilo passed him, Victor whispered under his breath, “Ten million divided by two is greater than ten million divided by three.”

  The mere sound of the Bitch’s voice made Kirilo want to bite his ear off and spit it out in his face.

  “I’m on hold,” Pavel said, cupping the phone with one hand.

  Kirilo edged closer to Pavel, glancing over his shoulder to make sure Victor couldn’t hear him.

  “Anything on Isabella’s whereabouts?” Kirilo said.

  “No,” Pavel said. “I have calls in to all our contacts. The only thing I’ve learned so far is that the Timkiv twins may be helping him. They run a small crew in Odessa and were seen in Yalta by one of our men. They match the description of the two young men you saw outside your boat when Victor came aboard.”

  “Good,” Kirilo said. “How can we squeeze them where it hurts? Are their parents alive? Are they married with children?”

  “I don’t know about their family. I know they’re single. And they worship only money.”

  “That is a church I’m familiar with. Let’s find their bishop. I’m sure I can threaten to disrobe him to reveal their location.”

  CHAPTER 50

  NADIA ASKED DETECTIVE Novak to give her a quick tour of the park at Babi Yar so she could orient herself. He dropped her off two kilometers away from the ravine itself. She’d learned her lesson at the Caves Monastery: she wasn’t going to expose herself at the rendezvous point. She would approach the boy only after she saw him.

  Nadia hoped the picture of him was recent and that she would recognize him. Of greater concern was her responsibility to help get him out of Ukraine. She could take care of herself under any circumstances. Of that she was certain. A teenage boy she’d never even met, however, was an entirely different matter.

  She stepped out of the police cruiser at 5:43. After the car disappeared, she hid behind a tree and waited for a few minutes to make sure Kirilo or Misha hadn’t somehow followed her. When no one appeared, she slipped out of hiding.

  Tall lampposts illuminated the tree-lined path that wove its way around the perimeter of the park. The air smelled of dew and worms. A young couple, their fancy backpacks identifying them as tourists, walked solemnly around the Menorah Monumen
t. A family of seven stood at the ravine’s edge.

  Nadia was certain she and the family were thinking about the same thing. On September 29, 1941, all Jews in Kyiv were ordered to report for relocation. The Nazis spread the word by nailing bulletins to telephone poles and taping signs to windows. At the time, the Jewish population in Kyiv numbered fifty thousand, with another hundred thousand having fled deeper into the Soviet Union and Central Asia. Non-Jews were told that their Jewish countrymen were going to be deported to Israel. In fact, 33,771 of them were lined up at a ravine called Babi Yar, stripped naked, and slaughtered over a two-day span.

  A total of one hundred thousand people were executed at Babi Yar during the Nazi occupation of Kyiv, including Ukrainian priests, nationalists, and gypsies. Yet, after the war, the Soviet Union refused to acknowledge the murders. The first Jewish memorial was built only when Ukraine proclaimed independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. A bronze statue dedicated to all the Ukrainians who perished was added in 2009.

  The ravine was not what Nadia had expected. Its shockingly small size stood in sharp contrast with the number of bodies the Nazis had buried within it. Nadia snaked along a fence of decorative trees to a rolling meadow. A sports complex loomed in the foreground. She clung to the shadows as she marched two kilometers through the park, eyes swiveling around to the back of her head. The sound of traffic grew louder. A metro station came into view. Cars crisscrossed at a major intersection ahead. When the outline of the new statue appeared, Nadia circled around a maintenance building and hid behind a corner. From her perch, she couldn’t make out the details of the monument.

  As if on cue, a boy emerged from behind the statue. He wore an old blue warm-up suit, muddy track shoes from the seventies, and an army knapsack that looked as if it had survived a world war. He carried a duffel bag in his right hand. He was close to six feet tall and lanky, with a knit cap pulled low over his forehead.

  Nadia decided to approach. A light shone over the monument. On the granite wall to the left, a series of human silhouettes toppled into a ravine. A mother clung to her baby below. On the right, a bronze child read the announcement on the wall, ordering him to report to Babi Yar.

  Nadia came within ten feet of Adam and stopped. He was the boy from her mother’s photo, although he looked taller and more mature. He looked ready to run on a second’s notice.

  “Hi. My name is Nadia. Your father told me to meet you here.”

  “Passport,” he said, like a young customs officer in training.

  “What?”

  “Passport.”

  Surprised by his officious manner, Nadia pulled the booklet out of her bag. Adam studied her photo, her personal information, and the entrance stamp, and returned it. She stowed it back in her bag and put her left hand on her hip.

  “Passport,” she said.

  His sullen expression didn’t change.

  She put her hand out. “Passport.”

  He removed a sealed plastic bag from the front of his pants. The bag contained his two passports, as though there were a risk they would get wet during his journey. One of the passports was a domestic ID, the other international. Nadia read the inside page of the international one.

  “It says you were born in Korosten,” she said. “Your father told me you were born in Chernobyl village.”

  “No one lives in Chernobyl, so no one can be born in Chernobyl, even if he was really born in Chernobyl.”

  He reached out with an open palm. She leafed through the domestic one quickly and slapped the passports into his hand. He stuffed them back in the plastic bag, sealed it tight, and stowed it in his knapsack.

  The boy was very stiff, and she could understand that. She tried to put him at ease. “So you’re the man with the plan,” she said. “What next?”

  “We go see the forger.”

  “Who?”

  “The forger. My father, he knows some people. It’s all arranged.”

  “What do we need to see a forger for?”

  “You need a visa.”

  “I do? Where am I going?”

  “Moscow.” He checked a battered watch with a red hammer and sickle on a discolored white dial. “It’s ten after six. The forger’s expecting us at six thirty. The express to Moscow leaves Central Station at eight-oh-nine tonight.”

  “Moscow? Why are we going to Moscow?”

  He remained very cautious. “I can tell you once we’re on the train but not before.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because those are the instructions my father gave me. If you get captured by the men chasing you, you won’t know anything more.”

  Nadia studied his neck. A sliver of gold protruded along the left collar of his T-shirt.

  “Your father told me about a locket. A locket that has some very special information in it. Where is that locket?”

  He slid his hand under his shirt and lifted the necklace high enough to reveal a pendant. It was a golden square with a black trident carved on the front.

  “I’d like to see inside—”

  “No.” Adam took a step back. “I don’t open the locket for anyone.”

  “I’m not anyone. I’m your cousin.”

  “I don’t care who you are. My father told me. Keep it simple. If you don’t open the locket, you can’t lose the formula inside. So I won’t open the locket. Not for you, not for him if he showed up here right now. Not for anyone.”

  “Okay,” Nadia said. “So be it. There are men following me. We should hurry.”

  Adam suddenly loped toward the train station across the street. Nadia raced after him. As a teen, she’d run the mile in 5:37. At home, she still worked out religiously. It didn’t matter. The kid had the propulsion of a locomotive and the stride of a deer. The faster Nadia ran, the more ground Adam gained. He disappeared across the street into the Dorohozhychi metro station fifty yards ahead of Nadia.

  When she got there, she was out of breath. The station teemed with commuters. Informal queues lined food kiosks. Nadia found Adam waiting for her at one of the yellow vending machines.

  “I’ll get this,” she said.

  He slipped two hryvnia into the machine and bought his own token before she could open her purse. Nadia did the same. Their tokens rattled to the metallic cup at the bottom, one after the other. As they walked toward the platform, a babushka stepped in their way. Nadia put her hand on Adam’s shoulder to guide him around the old woman.

  Adam stopped sharply and pulled back. “Don’t touch me. Don’t ever touch me again.”

  This wasn’t exactly a family reunion. The boy was scared, and he obviously didn’t trust her. That was okay, Nadia thought. She was scared, too.

  Seven minutes later, a train arrived. They climbed aboard and headed south toward the center of Kyiv without saying another word to each other.

  CHAPTER 51

  “THE POLICE MAY be onto me,” the forger said after opening the door. She glanced over Nadia’s shoulder. “One of my clients was arrested this morning. Come in. We must hurry.”

  The forger lived in the basement of a small coffee shop with a Wi-Fi sign in its window, three blocks away from a hospital near the Pecherska metro station.

  At first glance, she appeared to be the prototype for the churchgoing spinster: a middle-aged woman with alabaster skin, meticulously combed short hair, and a smile that could charm a priest into eating anything she baked. On second glance, the tattoo on her forearm that peeked out from beneath the sleeve of her dress suggested she was less devout. It was a picture of the queen of diamonds, an inkwell, and a feathered pen in the shape of a gun.

  Her office was a bookkeeper’s dream, with stacks of accounting ledgers and textbooks lining the shelves. A high-powered lamp illuminated a sturdy wooden desk. A computer, a printer, and an array of well-organized office supplies rested on top.

  Adam removed his backpack. The forger pointed to a plate of poppy seed rolls and a pitcher of milk. He grabbed a massive hunk of pastry and dug into it like
a Cro-Magnon man.

  “Let me see your passport,” the forger said. “Do you have two blank pages facing each other? Do you? You must have two blank pages facing each other, or I cannot help you.”

  Nadia opened her passport to a pair of blank pages.

  “Good. Stand in the corner against the white wall. We need to take a passport photo.”

  Nadia backpedaled toward the corner. “Why? Since when do visas have pictures?”

  “When you cross the border, a customs agent will check your visa against the computer. If your information isn’t there, you’ll be arrested. My son will download your application into the Russian Federation database. He will also enter your picture.”

  A man in his thirties with wire-rimmed glasses and an air of ambivalence shuffled into the room. He held an instant camera and a blue knit sweater the size of a pup tent in his hands.

  The forger gave the sweater to Nadia. “Put this on. Quickly.”

  “Why?” Nadia said.

  “It will look suspicious if you are wearing the same clothes as you are in your photo, no? Put it on.”

  Nadia took her coat off and put the sweater on. She stifled her horror at how she must have looked. Yet the photo would be shoulders up, she reminded herself. Who cared?

  She stood against the wall and cracked a sympathetic smile. The son snapped three photos in rapid succession and disappeared into a back room with the pictures.

  “Now fill out this visa application,” the forger said. “In English, as though you walked into the Russian embassy in New York. Date it February nineteenth. I will fill in the name of your hotel in Moscow. It will also be the entity that’s inviting you.”

  “Inviting me?”

  “To get a Russian visa, you must be invited by an authorized party. Usually it’s a travel agency or a hotel. You are going to be invited by the Hotel Ekaterina.”

  “Does it even exist?”