The Boy from Reactor 4

Nadia stepped inside. A man lay wrapped in blankets on a narrow bed. Judging by the length of the bed, he was just a little over five feet tall. His cheeks were sunken and his skin discolored yellow. Red burn marks covered his face. This was the notorious Damian? This was the legendary thief? She felt a pang of disappointment. He looked more like a friendly farmer who’d fallen ill.

A portable Walkman cassette player from a prior century rested on a nightstand. A scratched and smeared cassette box lay beside it: the greatest hits of Petula Clark.

Damian’s parched lips spread into a smile. He curled his right index finger for her to come forward.

Without warning, a fit of coughing seized him. He wheezed and convulsed violently on the bed. Nadia wondered if she should call for Oksana but doubted there was anything the babushka could do.

The spasms slowly subsided. He inhaled through his nose and exhaled through his mouth three times to normalize his breathing. Motioned for Nadia to come closer. Nadia wished she felt a connection of some kind, but she didn’t. She was just a stranger in the house of an old man who happened to be her uncle.

She pressed her ear closer to his lips.

“Did a man give you a message in New York City?”

Nadia pulled back. How could he know about that?

“Did you send him?” she said.

He nodded. “What was the message?”

She pressed her lips close to his ears. “He said, in English, ‘Find Damian. Find Andrew Steen. They all…Millions of dollars. Fate of the free world.’”

She pulled back again and waited for a reaction. His lips parted slowly. He said something, but Nadia couldn’t decipher the words.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t understand you.”

He took three more deep breaths. She leaned in to his ear again.

“Five-androstenediol,” he said.

“Excuse me?”

“Five-androstenediol.”

His eyes closed, and his head rolled to its side on the pillow. He passed out.

Nadia staggered to the door. Glanced back at Damian. His chest filled and contracted slowly.

She’d heard the man wrong on Seventh Street. He hadn’t said, “Find.” There was no Andrew Steen. And he hadn’t said, “They all.”

Find Damian.

Five-androstenediol.

Millions of dollars.

Fate of the free world.

CHAPTER 42

“IT’S ONE FORTY, and I don’t want to arouse suspicion,” Karel said after they snuck into his laboratory at the Chernobyl Power Station through a rear entrance. “So I’m not going to turn the overhead lights on.”

He grabbed a bottle of spring water from a portable refrigerator and handed it to Nadia. “Eat a bag of these mixed nuts, too,” he said, offering her a sealed plastic bag. “They’re from Kyiv. Grown in eastern Ukraine. I know you’re a bit paranoid about food at this moment. It’s to be expected. Eat, drink, while I prepare these slides for you.”

The lab smelled of formaldehyde. Nadia moved a stack of journals and books off a folding metal chair, sat down, and inhaled the nuts. Her eyes had grown accustomed to the dark during the ride back to the power station from Oksana’s home. A green lamp cast a faint circle of light around Karel’s desk.

Images appeared in charcoal gray beyond the desk. A dozen mice squeaked in individual cages arranged on portable shelves. A chart of the anatomy of a wolf hung on one wall. A poster illustrating the effects of radiation on a wild boar hung on another. In the center of the room, a rectangular table held an array of tools, dishes, and vials.

An hour ago, when Nadia had emerged from Damian’s bedroom, she pulled Karel away from Oksana and asked him if he’d heard of a substance called 5-androstenediol. He stared at her for a moment with a blank expression and burst into action. He told her they were taking a trip on his motorbike. It would be easier to explain at his laboratory. In the event of unforeseen circumstances, he urged her to forget Damian had ever uttered that term to her. If interrogated as to what she was doing in the Zone without proper papers, she would tell the police she was visiting the dying uncle she’d never known.

The only thing Nadia knew for certain was that she was going back to see Damian in the morning. Regardless of what Karel explained to her, she still had questions about her father, the boy, and Damian himself. And she had the distinct impression her uncle might not live long enough to answer them if she didn’t hurry.

“Come take a look at these slides,” Karel said, lifting his head from a high-powered microscope on the large table.

Nadia pressed her right eye to the lens. The picture resembled a scatter plot of pink circles on a white background. Some of the circles were darker, while others were lighter. More than a third of the picture, however, was white.