The Boy from Reactor 4

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.