The Boy from Reactor 4

Misha glared at him. “Yeah, well, what is it?”

Kirilo counted the flowers. There were ten of them. Ten. An even number. An even number of flowers was given only at funerals.

Someone was about to die.

“I came to say good-bye to you,” Victor said.

“Oh yeah?” Misha said. “You leaving the country?”

Kirilo pushed his seat away from the table. Stuck his right foot out in case he needed to run.

“No, Misha,” Victor said. “You’re leaving this world.”

Misha darkened before his shit-eating grin reasserted itself. His laugh echoed with uncertainty. “Oh yeah? Where am I going, Old School?”

“To the afterlife.” Victor put his elbows on the table and folded his hands under his chin. “How were the pickles, Misha?”

Misha stopped chewing.

“A friend of mine knows a woman who grows them in a black village outside Chernobyl. Was the finish a bit salty? Did you detect the aftertaste of cesium-137?”

Misha’s lips parted in shock. A few seconds later, they slowly spread into a smile. He shook his index finger at Victor. “You had me for a second, there, Old School. You had me real good. It would be just like you to pretend to poison me to get me thinking about it. To get me to die from the stress. Well, I hate to disappoint you, but it’s not gonna work on Misha.”

Victor pursed his lips and nodded, like a doctor who was used to his patients’ disbelief. “The sugar she adds to the pickles acts as a delivery device. It propels the cesium into your bloodstream quickly.” He picked up a saltshaker. “If you dilute this with water and force yourself to throw up before you’ve digested all of them, you might live ten days instead of five, like the last two people who ate them.”

Misha grinned and stared at Victor, head bobbing up and down in mock agreement. Victor stared back. Five seconds passed, and then five more—

Misha grabbed the saltshaker. Unscrewed the cap. Dumped half its contents into his water. Stirred with his finger and drank.

Five seconds later, he vomited on the floor.

While Misha hacked and spit, the waiter returned with Kirilo’s credit card bill. In the background, another waiter wheeled out a dessert tray toward the bar where the bodyguards sat.

Kirilo signed the bill, threw the pen on the table, and leaned over.

“Are we done here?” he whispered to Victor.

“Yes,” Victor said.

“I want my daughter now. Where is she?”

“In a better place than Misha.”

CHAPTER 45

NADIA HELD ON to Karel’s hips as he guided his motorbike toward the center of Chernobyl. Despite the urgency of the situation, she couldn’t stop thinking about Damian’s revelation that her father had lied about his past. He was a thief, not a war hero. The freedom-fighter image she’d romanticized was just a figment of her imagination.

Much to Nadia’s surprise, however, it didn’t bother her. Her mother was right. Her father had moved to America. He gave her citizenship and set an example by working tirelessly collecting garbage for the City of Hartford. He took his family to church almost every Sunday and did his best to be a family man, even if it was clear it gave him no joy. So what if he had a past? So what if he wasn’t a doting father? He hadn’t been part of the stolen-art and antiquities ring she’d uncovered in Hartford. Wasn’t that evidence he’d changed?

Not only did Damian’s revelation about her father not disturb her, his proclamation that she was a thief’s daughter felt strangely empowering. Perhaps if her father hadn’t changed and become a better man, her new identity would have bothered her. Instead, much to her own surprise, Nadia hung on to Karel loosely, comfortable in the moment, more confident she could outwit any adversary who tried to prevent her from getting to New York with the formula.

It was only 2:15, but the sky looked like dusk. Purple clouds swirled overhead. A squall had given way to a steady rain. Karel skidded and slid along the path from Oksana’s house, kicking mud onto their pant legs, his headlight barely illuminating the way. When they emerged on the main road, Nadia pulled a hand away from his waist to wipe rain from her eyes.

A clap of thunder erupted. The gate to the power station lifted. A truck passed through. Seven others waited in a queue to enter. A guard studied a driver’s papers beneath the hood of a poncho pulled down low. Derricks and cranes working on the shelter grumbled and groaned above the din of the bike’s engine and the relentless patter of rain.

Karel circled to the edge of forest at the far side of the station. He sliced through another muddy path toward the thicket of trees from which Nadia had emerged last night. Halfway down, one of the trees seemed to step forward into their path. Nadia shook the rain out of her eyes and looked again.

It was Hayder. He held the same covered carrier in his right hand.

Karel pulled up twenty feet away from him, as though he wanted privacy. Nadia climbed off the bike. Her hiking shoes sank in the mud.

“We will probably see each other again someday, yes?” he said.