“Did your mother say how she came to know about these people?”
“No. I just assumed they were powerful men. The type of men who could do whatever they wanted. The kind of men you hear about but don’t talk about. At least not out loud.”
“What did you hear them say to your mother?”
Melnik appeared surprised. “How did you know I heard something?”
Luo had no idea if Melnik had heard anything. In his experience, leading questions were the most productive way to uncover secrets. Many people were too anxious or nervous to realize the questions were a trap.
“You just told me,” Luo said.
Melnik picked up a pebble. “They asked her about one of Dr. Arkady’s patients.”
“What patient?”
“A kid. A couple of years younger than me. His name was Adam Tesla.”
It was the name Luo had longed to hear. “What did they ask?”
“I didn’t hear. I ducked into my closet and called the police.”
“Did you know Adam Tesla?”
“I knew who he was. We weren’t friends or anything like that. I used to see him at Dr. Arkady’s office.”
“Why was he visiting the doctor?”
“He was getting treated for acute radiation syndrome. Him and the girl.”
“Girl?” Luo’s pulse picked up. “What girl?”
“Her name was Eva. I don’t remember her last name. She died. Then Dr. Arkady passed away, too. I never saw Adam Tesla again.”
“What else do you know about this Eva?”
Denys tossed the pebble and shrugged. “Nothing.”
“Did you hear your mother say anything?”
Denys took a deep breath. He pulled his shoulders back. A locket revealed its shape from beneath the fabric of his shirt. It was hanging from a necklace around his neck.
“Japan,” he said.
Luo frowned. “Come again?”
“‘Japan.’ I heard my mother say, ‘You’ll find what you’re looking for in Fukushima, Japan,’ and then they killed her.” Denys stared at Luo with a blank look. “Happiest moment of my life.”
CHAPTER 13
JOHNNY LED NADIA and Bobby along the streets of Shibuya toward a low-key shabu-shabu restaurant, where customers cooked their own dinners on a skillet at the table. They’d left New York on Tuesday and arrived in Tokyo Wednesday afternoon. Johnny’s jet lag had vanished from the moment he’d laid eyes on Nadia. His gut told him she was in more danger than either of them knew, but at least the three of them were together.
Nadia and Johnny walked close together so their conversation couldn’t be overheard. They let Bobby get a few steps ahead of them so they could keep an eye on him. He gaped and gawked at the people and the neon lights.
“We were followed from my apartment to the airport,” Nadia said. She told him how Bobby duped airport security into taking the men into custody.
Johnny wasn’t surprised by the kid’s balls or skills. The backstory to his murder accusation had established he was no ordinary seventeen-year-old. “Who were they?”
“Don’t know,” Nadia said. “They looked straight out of central casting for Russian or Uke mafia types. Right off the streets of Moscow or Kyiv. But when things look one way, they’re often another.”
“Yeah, but in this case, given Bobby’s from Ukraine and you guys spent all that time there, odds are high they are what they look like. Which leaves only one question.”
“Who do they work for?”
“Exactly.”
Nadia shook her head. “You got me.”
“Could it be someone who knows about the formula?”
Nadia thought about the question. “Johnny, at this point, it could be anyone. Bobby and I had the same conversation about the source of the e-mail, the person who called himself Genesis II. We shouldn’t make any assumptions. When we assume, we create a bias that can prevent us from seeing the truth.”
Johnny chuckled. “You sound like a lawyer.”
“Heaven forbid.”
They walked quietly for ten more minutes until they arrived at the restaurant. It was packed and noisy. Johnny looked around for suspicious characters, especially Caucasians, but didn’t see any. If locals were following them, he wouldn’t know it.
Nadia’s phone rang while they were perusing the pictures on the menu. She lowered her voice and turned away. It was a quick exchange but enough to put a healthy glow on her face.
“How’s your Russian sweetheart?” Johnny said.
Nadia fired a quick glance at Bobby. She frowned at Johnny as though he’d embarrassed her. “He’s my client, not my sweetheart, sweetheart.”
“What did he want?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“It’s a game. It’s silly. He’s trying to figure out where I am. And how did you know it was him on the phone?”
“You were blushing. You know, the way a woman does when she’s talking to any old client.”
Nadia blushed some more. Johnny savored the victory until he realized he was losing the war. She didn’t blush like that in his presence, and he didn’t play silly games. He was too busy solving her problems and trying to keep her and Bobby alive.
They ordered plates of beef and exotic Japanese vegetables. Johnny’s phone rang while they were waiting for their food. He recognized the voice from the bar.
“Are they with you?” Nakamura said.
“Yes,” Johnny said.
“Let me talk to her.”
Johnny handed his phone to Nadia. “He wants to talk to you.”
Nadia leaned in close to Johnny so they both could listen without using the speakerphone. “Hello?” she said.
“Is your cousin with you?” Nakamura said.
Nadia took her time answering. “Maybe.”
“Ask him what Dr. Arkady used to give him when he was done with treatments.”
Nadia glanced at Johnny. Johnny shrugged and nodded. Nadia repeated the question to Bobby.
“Marzipan,” Bobby said.
Nadia repeated his answer into the phone.
“You brought the locket?” Nakamura said.
Johnny glanced at Bobby. The locket was in its original place, hanging on a necklace around his neck, hidden beneath his turtleneck. Nadia had told Johnny that they’d photocopied the engravings and left copies at home and in a sealed envelope with the professor from Columbia. She’d given him instructions to disseminate the contents of the envelope to the scientific press if she and Bobby suffered fatal accidents during their trip or disappeared. If the second locket did contain the rest of the formula, she wanted the world to know about it.
“Yes,” Nadia said. “We brought the locket. Are you going to bring yours?”
“Put Mr. Johnny Tanner back on the phone.”
Johnny leaned in. “I’m here.”
“Tomorrow. Ten-thirty a.m. There’s a hot springs resort called Higashiyama Onsen. It’s in a town called Aizuwakamatsu. It’s a three-hour train ride from Tokyo. Three and a half hours by bus. There’s a café near the lobby. Tell the maître d’ you’re waiting for me. He’ll get me.”
“Why do we need to go there? Why can’t we just stay in Tokyo?”
“Because I am not in Tokyo anymore.”
“Why did you leave Tokyo?”
“Because I’m a working man,” Nakamura said. “The nuclear reactors in Fukushima prefecture are located in Okuma and Futaba. Okuma and Futaba are at the epicenter of the twenty-kilometer Zone of Exclusion. Radiation levels are severe. No humans are allowed in the Zone. They are ghost towns. Aizuwakamatsu contains the largest settlement of refugees from Okuma. That is why I will be there. And that is where Genesis II will be.”
CHAPTER 14
NADIA STARED OUT the window of the Aizu lo
op bus. Water gathered steam down a river and plunged over rocks. It pooled in a basin and rolled slowly along flat terrain. Then it fell in shining twenty-foot-long sheets to another tier. The process repeated itself along four successive drops to the bottom of the waterfall. From there fury turned to foam that gradually merged into a gentle stream.
She’d left the hotel with Bobby and Johnny at 7:30 a.m. on Thursday morning. They’d taken a bullet train along the Tohoku-Shinkansen line from Tokyo to Koriyama Station and transferred to a regular one along the Banetsu-sai line. The trip to Aizuwakamatsu took a little more than three hours. The Aizu loop bus took an additional fifteen minutes. It dropped them off at Ryokan Higashino at 10:55 a.m.
An air of tranquility engulfed Nadia when she stepped off the bus. Nakamura was a genius. He’d chosen a perfect location for the meet. A hot springs resort. A place of reflection and contemplation that would defuse tension.
A ryokan was a traditional Japanese inn, Nadia learned. This one looked tired and run down. Some of the wood shingles needed repair. A woman in a blue kimono with a red sash across her midsection greeted the three of them in an entrance area. Johnny said a few words in Japanese that ended with “Nakamura-san.” The woman bowed and said something to Johnny, who returned the bow and smiled.
They took their shoes off and followed the woman down a maze of corridors to a steel door. The woman opened the door, bowed, and stepped aside. Nadia followed Johnny and Bobby into another corridor with rooms on each side and another door at the end. A second woman in a kimono placed three small canvas bags on the floor.
She slammed the door shut behind them. Darkness enveloped them.
Nadia rushed forward and tried to open it. The doorknob didn’t budge. She tried with both hands. Nothing.
“Locked,” she said.
Johnny tried to open it but couldn’t. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Our shoes,” Bobby said. He pulled his hiking boots from one of the canvas bags. The other two bags contained Nadia’s and Johnny’s shoes.
An engine rumbled nearby. Tires rolled toward the door at the end of the corridor. Brakes screeched.
Metal slid against metal. It was the sound of a sliding door opening. Another metallic sound came from the door. A key slipping into a hole. A deadbolt snapped open. A second key slid into place.
The door swung open into the interior of a truck. It was hugging the back of the building.
A slender Japanese man stood inside the truck. Stacks of linen were piled high behind him. Three large gray rucksacks rested beside the linen. The interior smelled of fresh produce. Leaves spilled from the cracks of a crate.
“I am Nakamura,” he said, bowing in front of them.
Nadia recognized the name Nakamura, but the man looked far older than the one Johnny had described.
“Please get in truck,” he said. “We must go quickly.”
Johnny said, “Who are you exactly?”
“Nakamura Hiroshi.”
“You’re not the Hiroshi Nakamura I know,” Johnny said. “But you do look like him . . .”
“I am his father, the owner of this hotel, and we are late. To truck, please. My son is waiting for you. Every minute is most important.”
They climbed into the truck and sat down on a bench nailed to the floor along the driver’s side of the van’s interior. Nakamura climbed through the cabin into the driver’s seat and took off. He never opened the door. He never stepped outside.
He shifted into gear and drove onto an access road behind the inn.
“Where are we going?” Nadia said.
“To meet my son.”
“Why couldn’t he meet us himself?” Johnny said.
“It was not convenient.”
“Why not?” Nadia said.
Nakamura thought about this for a moment. “You will understand when you see him.”
He followed the same path the bus had taken in reverse, and then merged onto a thoroughfare headed east.
“How long have you owned the inn?” Nadia said.
“I bought the inn and moved to Higashiyama Onsen last year. Before that I lived with my wife in Minamisoma. You know Minamisoma?”
“No,” Johnny said. “What prefecture?”
“Fukushima prefecture. You remember the three-eleven earthquake and tsunami?”
“Three-eleven?” Nadia said.
“The Great East Japan Earthquake,” Nakamura said. “We call it the three-eleven earthquake. It happened on three—eleven—eleven. March 11, 2011.”
“We remember,” Johnny said.
“Who can forget the pictures,” Nadia said.
“Those pictures do not tell the entire story. To understand the three-eleven earthquake, you must first understand the Ring of Fire.”
“Ring of Fire?” Nadia said.
“Yes. Japan has been the battlefield for a world war for centuries and it has been slowly losing the battle. The three-eleven earthquake. It was inevitable.”
“What world war?” Johnny said.
“The one being fought beneath the sea.”
Johnny and Nadia exchanged concerned glances. Perhaps the elder Nakamura was not entirely in control of his mental faculties.
“What war beneath the sea?” Nadia said.
“The war between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. The surface of Earth is made of crust. The crust is made of plates. They are constantly destroyed and created by underwater volcanoes caused by heat from radioactive decay of Earth. The underwater volcanoes around the Atlantic Ocean do battle with the Pacific Ocean. One ocean get larger, other ocean get smaller. The Atlantic Ocean is making plates of crust faster than Pacific Ocean. Atlantic Ocean is winning. Pacific Ocean is gradually shrinking. In three hundred million years, there will be no more Pacific Ocean. It will be a mountain.
“Worst of volcanoes run down the center of Japan—like a human being’s spine, yes? It cause earthquakes and tsunamis more and more dangerous over time. That is why geologists call Japan the Ring of Fire. The three-eleven earthquake. It was inevitable. Because of the Ring of Fire.”
Johnny said, “What did you do for a living before you bought the inn, Nakamura-san?”
“I was a physics professor,” he said. “But geology. It makes me very fascinated. On the day of the great earthquake, one of the plates under Japan snapped upward. It caused the Japanese island of Honshu to move eight feet closer to America, and four hundred kilometers of the coastline of Japan to drop two feet. This caused a magnitude nine earthquake. It lasted for six minutes and released six hundred million times more energy than the bomb that fell on Hiroshima. Two days later volcanoes exploded on Japanese island of Kyushu and in Antarctica. And planet Earth started rotating almost one second faster.”
“Where were you when the earthquake hit?” Johnny said.
“I was in Tokyo lecturing at a university. Japan has an advanced warning system for earthquake. That system gave us one minute warning. At first everyone thought it was just another earthquake. The students carry cell phones. They were communicating with each other on the social media. On Twitter. Before the earthquake, I did not know what Twitter was. Now everyone in Japan knows Twitter. The twitters started getting more frantic. A student shared a picture of his parents’ house collapsing. Another showed a woman hugging the ground for support. Then it hit us. Computers started to slide off desks. Skyscrapers started swaying like rocking chairs. The next six minutes felt like six hours. The only way we could tell when the earthquake stopped was when the ceiling fan stopped swaying.”
“How did everyone get home?” Bobby said.
“People walked. Elevators, trains, buses, and cars. They all stopped. Tens of thousands of people walked home. There was no traffic. They walked in streets. They walked calmly. There was no running. There was no panic. From the first moment there was Japanese solid
arity. An unspoken understanding that we would get through this together. Only when we got home did we realize exactly what was happening to our country. Roads cracked and disappeared under the Earth. Cars and houses were thrown like toys.”
“How long until the tsunami started?” Johnny said.
“Within an hour, a tsunami washed away Sendai Airport along the eastern coastline. Cars and planes were swept away. A camera from a helicopter caught a picture of a driver trying to steer his vehicle away from the wave. He was swallowed whole. The waves were black. Black like night. Entire towns were washed away. I was in my hotel room in Tokyo, just sitting and trembling. Finally I got the message from wife that she had arrived at her cousin’s house in the mountains.”
“Ah,” Nadia said. “Your wife wasn’t travelling with you.”
Nakamura appeared pensive in the rearview mirror. “‘I am safe,’ she said. ‘I have made it to higher ground.’ I can remember the relief. I can remember sending my son a note that his mother was safe.”
Nadia was about to say thank goodness, but stopped herself. Nakamura’s words spoke of a happy ending, but there his tone was too somber.
“It turned out I spoke too quickly,” Nakamura said. “High ground was not high enough. No one had ever imagined a tsunami of this force. No one ever imagined waves thirty-nine meters high.”
Nadia had used the metric system so much during her two trips to Eastern Europe she could do the numbers in her head. “A hundred thirty feet,” she said.
“And so the salary men in Tokyo who thought their wives would be safe in the mountains discovered that they were the safer ones,” Nakamura said. “The skyscrapers were built to survive an earthquake, but the mountain was not tall enough to withstand the tsunami.”
“We’re very sorry for your loss,” Nadia said.
Nakamura merged into the right lane to exit.
“Life is suffering,” he said.
“Ganbaro, Nakamura-san,” Johnny said, “So desne?”
Nakamura’s eyes lit up with appreciation. “Yes,” he said, with a quick bow to the rearview mirror. “Ganbarimashou.”
The Boy Who Glowed in the Dark (The Nadia Tesla Series Book 3) Page 7
