Vorobey stared at the ashtray and appeared to be on the verge of tears.
“There is something else,” prompted Janos.
“Yes,” said Vorobey. “Last year Gury and Ziya Goldin vacationed to the area. They were one of the founding couples of our group. They lost their daughter nearly six years ago and kept searching until their deaths.”
“How did they die?”
“They told everyone they were taking a much-needed vacation to the Black Sea. They drove and died in a hit-and-run accident on a back road near Kilija.”
“And you still do not believe Shved was close to something?”
“I feel he used coincidence to his advantage. He could have given the story about Kilija and the peninsula because the Goldins were killed there. All he had to do was look at a map.”
“What do you think now?”
Vorobey looked at him with his sunken eyes. “I do not know.”
“Have you told me everything?”
“I left out one part of Shved’s fable. He stayed at a lodge west of Kilija on the Romanian border during his last trip. That is where the Goldins were killed, on a back road to Vasylivka.”
“Is there a peninsula nearby?”
“Of course,” said Vorobey. “As I said, all Shved needed to do was look on the map.”
“And a church owning the property?”
“This was part of Shved’s story. But religions have acquired land throughout the ages.”
“What if I investigated and discovered religious ownership of a peninsula in this region and a lodge of some kind? Would this change your mind?”
Vorobey retrieved his cigarette pack from his shirt pocket, discovered it was empty, and crumpled it in his fist. “I don’t know. I feel I have been used, but perhaps …” He stood, waved his hand dismissively. “You have my number. If I hear from you, I will decide. If I hear facts, perhaps I will be able to kill those who took my daughter and killed my Lesia.”
Vorobey walked head down through the hotel lobby, stumbling toward a cart of luggage being rolled in. If it had been a vehicle, he would have been crushed. But the hotel porter was quick, veering sideways to let Vorobey live another day with his anguish and helplessness.
When Janos returned to the camper van that afternoon, he told Mariya about his meeting with Gennady Vorobey. Then he got out a detailed Ukraine map and the names and numbers of the lodges and resorts he had copied from the brochures found in Shved’s car. Together, at the camper van’s small dinette tucked in behind the driver’s seat, Janos and Mariya studied the southwest finger of Ukraine with Moldova on one side, the Black Sea on the other side, and the Danube Delta and the border with Romania at its tip. There were many lakes formed by the delta. But near the town of Kilija was the village of Vasylivka that Vorobey had mentioned. North of the village was a small peninsula sticking out into Lake Kytaj.
Mariya pointed to the far west side of the map. “There is a city also named Vasylivka on the Dnepr River. To me, it seemed when he spoke of his fear of boats, Viktor meant a river rather than a lake.”
“But Vorobey definitely said it was the village near Kilija, and the lakes in the region are all part of the Danube River Delta. Perhaps this is part of a trafficking trail. Like Albanians using high-speed inflatable boats to cross the Adriatic Sea, traffickers here would be able to cross the Danube in many places.”
Mariya leaned close to Janos’ side of the map. “Or they could travel up the river and take the Dun?rea River tributary into the heart of Romania, and from there, on to Turkey.”
After studying maps and brochures, Janos retrieved his violin from the bottom of the camper van’s closet. He tuned the violin and stood looking in the narrow mirror mounted to the closet door. Mariya watched and listened as Janos played a tune Mariya had heard as a child when she visited her grandfather and he put on a record for her.
When Janos finished the tune, he loosened the tension on the bow and gently, as if handling a baby, put the violin back in its velvet-lined case, and the case back in the closet. Then he sat across from her.
“It would be best if I went on this trip alone. Instead of flying, I would drive the seven hundred kilometers in less than ten hours.”
“What would you drive?” asked Mariya. “You cannot take my car or your car. This home on wheels is all that is left. I assume you used a false name during the rental process?”
“Yes,” admitted Janos.
“So, it is settled,” said Mariya. “I have already been in the position of thinking you were killed, and I will not do it again. We will share the driving. If you play with fire, I will be there.”
Janos smiled. “We should leave now. I’ll disconnect the electrical and water lines while you fasten everything down.”
“Do you really think a camp for children and young people in the region could go back far enough for Viktor to have been there?”
“Anything is possible. And because we don’t have enough evidence to contact the militia or the SBU for help, I say we have no choice.”
At a motorist stop along E-95 south of Kiev, Janos used a pay phone to call Kiev militia headquarters. When he discovered Svetlana Kovaleva was off duty, he called her apartment.
“Do not tell me where you are,” said Svetlana. “I don’t want to know. Chief Investigator Chudin said you might have something to do with the men found dead in Kharkiv. Is that true?”
“Yes, it’s true.”
“This is quite praiseworthy,” said Svetlana sarcastically.
“What do you mean?”
“Normally, Chudin restricts inside information. But today he hints I should pass some along. He thinks powerful elements are after you. Apparently his contact at the SBU agrees.”
“If you mean Yuri Smirnov, he and I already had a meeting.”
“I know,” said Svetlana. “Chudin told me.”
“Svetlana, are they tracing my cell phone?”
“Both yours and Mariya Nemeth’s. The SBU runs the system, and Smirnov is not certain the information stops in his building.”
“I’m surprised Chudin told you so much.”
“So am I,” said Svetlana. “I can only assume he and Smirnov at the SBU are concerned for your safety. Chudin is angry about Shved’s death. He said you were both fine militia investigators. He does not like what has happened with you and Mariya Nemeth. He even mentioned Father Rogoza’s television propaganda.”
“Thank him for me.”
“I will, Janos. One more thing. The BMW you chased from your informant’s hotel was stopped east of Darnytsya. One man was caught.”
“Have they been able to get him to talk?”
“No, Janos. He used a lethal dose of cyanide hidden in his mouth. They never made it to Kiev militia headquarters. He had no identification, and there were no fingerprint matches. He was a young man in his twenties, and the BMW was stolen. There was a baseball cap in the car with the name Leonid sewn on the inside band.”
After the call to Svetlana, Janos and Mariya stopped at an all-night shopping center in the city of Bila Cerkva and found a package shipping store. Janos shipped both of their cell phones to Svetlana with a note asking her to make a few calls around Kiev, and then turn the phones off. Recalling Svetlana’s mention of his new friend, Janos signed the note, “With love from both of us to both of you, Gypsy.”
While Janos took care of the shipping, Mariya purchased new phones at a phone kiosk.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE
Lazlo was packed, a rolling suitcase with carry-on bag strapped on top standing at attention like a resolute soldier at his door. Outside his apartment window, morning traffic hurried past, rolling over the worn-away bloodstain where Jermaine had been killed. The delivery van driver, at a brief appearance before a judge, had been given a fine and sent to drivers’ school. The driver was a young man of only nineteen—yet another example of boys killing boys—and Lazlo wondered how the driver’s life would be changed.
Whil
e it was morning in Chicago, it would be late afternoon in Kiev. Lazlo took his cell phone from his pocket, selected Janos’ name from the list, and placed the international call.
A woman answered in Ukrainian, “Yes?” The voice sounded tentative, yet familiar.
“Is Janos there?”
“He is unavailable,” said the woman. “May I take a message?”
“Tell him I am on my way to visit aunts, uncles, and cousins.”
“Aunts, uncles, and cousins?” asked the woman, not as puzzled as one would expect.
“He will know the meaning.”
“I see your name displayed. He has spoken of you.”
“Has he given you a message to pass on to me?” asked Lazlo.
“Is this an obscene call?” asked the woman sharply.
“An obscene call?”
“You heard me! If it is, I can report you to the Kiev militia! Perhaps you have stolen the phone to make this call! The government has ways to trace predators! I should know! Do you understand my meaning? I am acquainted daily with members of Kiev’s militia! Soon, comrade predator, they will be calling you! Therefore, my suggestion would be to hang up and think what you have done!”
It took a moment after the woman hung up before Lazlo realized the underlying message. Cell phones could be traced, not only the calls interrupted, but the location triangulated using cell towers and computers. Perhaps the woman who answered the phone was the woman Janos was with when he last called. Or perhaps Janos had left his phone with a woman he could trust. A strong and familiar voice had said, “I should know!” A woman who had been a fresh recruit in the Kiev militia at the same time Janos was a fresh recruit back in 1985 before Chernobyl. Svetlana Kovaleva. Janos was in danger and had left his phone with Svetlana Kovaleva!
Lazlo turned the power off on his cell phone and put it inside the cabinet where he kept his Hungarian and Ukrainian music CDs. The phone would be of no use outside the US. In Kiev, he would rent or purchase a temporary phone. He assumed by now Janos had done the same, leaving his phone in Kiev with someone he could trust. Perhaps telepathy would be possible someday, a skull implant so two Gypsies could converse without making waves.
Then suddenly, as if telepathy were taking place, Lazlo realized his error. If Janos had a new cell phone, how would he get the number? He had just spoken with Svetlana Kovaleva! Her harsh words had meaning! Soon, comrade predator, they will be calling you! Yes, this meant she or someone else would soon get a message to him.
Lazlo went to the cabinet, retrieved his cell phone, and plugged it into its charger. He would take the phone with him. If he received no call before leaving the continental United States, he would dispose of it, perhaps in a locker in New York. But now he felt there would be a call before his New York flight left for Ukraine.
Lazlo went to his house phone and called the local Ukrainian cab service, ordered a ride to O’Hare Airport, then stood back at the window. As he waited, he felt the tug of his childhood home in western Ukraine, and also the tug toward Kiev where he had worked so many years. Last time he was in Kiev, he had seen evidence of rollerblade and graffiti subcultures. But Ukraine would always be the home of his ancestors no matter the effects of westernization.
Pyotr did not speak often, but this evening during dinner he spoke at length of earlier times when the orphans they cared for were children rather than young adults. He ventured into religious territory, quoting the Russian Orthodox Bible. When the meal was over, Pyotr was still at it, causing many to doze off because of their earlier daytime pill combined with drugs put into their food. Lena, Nadia’s mentor, had warned Nadia about mealtime drugs. Because they took food reserved for older members, Lena and Nadia remained alert.
Nadia enjoyed listening to Lena’s adventures outside the compound—the men setting a fire here or planting a bomb there, and demanding sex afterwards. Adventures off the peninsula were better than being a sex slave because the men were young and handsome and waited until the time was right. According to Lena, the attacks were aimed at murderers and traffickers.
Life in the compound wasn’t so bad compared to when Nadia was thrown into the back of a van in Kiev and ended up in Moldova where fat men demanded sixty-nine. Or when she and the other two girls and Guri were taken to the pornographers in Romania, who forced them to perform all manner of acts including every bodily function and orifice.
When she came of age, Nadia hoped she would be able to have some fun with the boys during adventures off the peninsula. Coming of age here had nothing to do with physical age. Nadia learned several weeks earlier that Lena was only a year older. Coming of age here meant caring for the helpless orphans, preparing for the so-called afterlife, and, with any luck, getting in on some adventure. Lena taught her well, this morning confiding to her that the compound had once been a training ground for girls to be trafficked to other countries. But because of Pyotr’s religious enlightenment, all this had changed.
The honor given Pyotr by veteran members was understandable, considering most had come from street life and had once been in the hands of traffickers who beat or raped them into submission. Nadia rolled onto her side and reached out toward the next bunk. She found Lena’s hand and squeezed it gently as the comforting warmth of the potent sleeping pill took effect.
Nadia’s hand squeezing hers kept Lena awake and wondering why she remembered so little of her childhood. Although Nadia was nearly her age, Lena thought of Nadia as her child. This helped her forget about Leonid in motel rooms wearing his idiotic red baseball cap while they had sex. It also helped her forget the peninsula’s remoteness, its helpless cripples, and the years as a sex slave somewhere in Israel, where men did not even undress when they fucked her. Instead of thinking of these things, Lena began recalling events she had completely forgotten.
A word flew in like a bird from the distant past and landed on her nose, making her giggle. A word overheard by a little girl. The word was “brainwashed,” whispered by adults during Soviet times. She remembered imagining brains plucked from skulls like oysters, put into in an old washing machine, and run through the cylinders of the wringer like so much laundry.
When the sound and smell of the old wringer washing machine came back to Lena, she recalled an old woman’s face, wrinkled and sad until turning to her. The face smiling its wrinkles away as the woman hugged her and whispered, “Lena, Lena, Lena,” into her ear. And then, as she held Nadia’s hand, a name flew into the window over the heads of the drugged. Grandmother.
In the main cabin, the evening conversation between Pyotr and Vasily had again turned to argument. Pyotr asked Vasily if he was giving orders without consulting him. Pyotr had seen news of a new female clinic bombing in north Podil and accused Vasily of going above his head. This resulted in a long tirade from Vasily.
“We are not the only ones against abortion,” said Vasily, pacing the room. “You yourself said if abortion were ethical, the best we could do for our Chernobyl orphans is put them out of their misery. Obviously, we have not done this! Ours is a rough business. Some residents have run away, yet you do nothing! When he discovers we are in the Zone, a boy named Alek, recently rescued from child pimps, swims for it and is washed down the river! Instead of assuring new residents we are in a safe part of the Zone, you do nothing! Ivan and Leonid wear goon squad baseball caps stolen at a Kiev market! Ivan uses Soviet Army tactics, obviously preparing his own traffycking byznis on the other side of the reservoir, and you do nothing!”
When Pyotr did not respond, Vasily calmed somewhat but continued. “We overexpose ourselves, Pyotr. Too many boy soldiers sent off the peninsula opens up the possibility of someone being caught who cannot hold his tongue. Creating an army of boys never works.”
“Vasily, if they are caught, they’ve been trained to be loyal. The recent incident in Kiev proves it. Rather than risk saying anything, our own Leonid made the supreme sacrifice.”
“You can’t be certain everyone would do the same. Some of those off th
e peninsula have also been spending time with Ivan.”
“Exactly what does Ivan have that you do not have, Vasily? Speak calmly. I will listen.”
Vasily had been pacing back and forth in front of the fireplace. Now he joined Pyotr on the sofa. Both of them sat forward, tension showing in their clenched fists.
“All right,” said Vasily. “I recall the early days when I was a recruiter. I brought girls here so they could be sent along the trafficking trails. I also recall your change of heart, taking in the Chernobyl orphans no one wanted. Instead of sending girls down the trafficking trails, we took them off the streets of Kiev and kept them here. We not only gave them a home; we gave them purpose. I am one of the few who has shared the bad times and the good times. But now I believe we have entered a new phase. In the outside world, we would be labeled terrorists.”
Pyotr’s forced calm disappeared. He glared at Vasily, raising his voice. “If you’ve lost faith in me, why don’t you join La Strada? They need warm bodies to sit in useless meetings!”
“You don’t understand!” shouted Vasily. “It’s not the compound I object to … or even the burnings and bombings!”
Pyotr stood, then walked toward the door shaking his head. “So what is your objection?”
Vasily stood. “I’ve repeated it again and again. I am not complaining about Ivan’s physical muscles; I complain about muscles in his head. Why is it so impossible for you to believe Ivan has started his own organization? He’s an Army officer with soldiers beneath him. During the day, it seems innocent enough, Ivan as role model. But at night … Look at me, Pyotr! Listen! At night, he and his so-called men leave the peninsula, apparently with the blessing of the SBU guards and the use of their fastest inflatable boats. They bring back girls off the streets of Slavutich and Chernigov. They are gone one or two days, and you are not even aware of it! They bring the girls to the other side of the peninsula, drug the shit out of them, and take turns. The girls do not stay for long. Ivan is in the process of once again setting up a trafficking network. His boy soldiers have become recruiters, promising jobs, taking away papers, and finally shipping them off the peninsula, down the Balkan Trail. Ivan is trafficking with help from Russian Mafia contacts!”
Traffyck: The Thrilling Sequel to Chernobyl Murders Page 23