“Correct,” said Pyotr in a calm and soft voice, a voice making Lyashko wonder who was more insane. “I never discuss how accidents of nature come about. This is your byznis.”
Pyotr’s use of the mock English word angered Lyashko. “And traffycking is your byznis! Do you realize the pressure on me? I am in the center of it all! We should put an end to this!”
“Do you wish to return the assistant I provided?”
Lyashko looked in the mirror at the reflection of the boy in bed. He was asleep with his mouth open. The shoes were no longer on the boy’s feet, but on the bed on either side of him as if an invisible man stood over him. “Yes,” said Lyashko, “I wish to return the assistant. Have him picked up immediately.”
“Very well,” said Pyotr. And he hung up.
With access to a newly-installed covert national phone system, unknown to lower SBU offices, including Smirnov’s, Lyashko knew Pyotr had accurate information. Nagy had called from a location along E-95 south of Kiev, which meant Janos Nagy and Mariya Nemeth were most likely on their way to Odessa, then Kilija.
Lyashko wondered if Shved had left anything behind in the village of Vasylivka. Even though his men had performed a thorough search after Pyotr’s young men returned Shved’s body to Kiev to be disposed of in the fire, he could not be certain the two investigators, Shved and Nagy, friends for years, might not still be able to communicate despite one of them being dead.
For a moment, Lyashko considered disbanding his special contingent of men after the boy was picked up. He would simply bring his men out and, when questioned, deny knowledge of Pyotr and his compound. But he was in too deep, and the thirty million euros from Rogoza’s Moscow Patriarchate had been invested in ways that must be kept under wraps.
Lyashko picked up the phone and again accessed the scrambled line. He called a memorized number he wished he did not need to use, identified himself simply as L, and asked the person on the other end of the line if men he could trust were available to go to Kilija.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE
Lazlo’s cell phone rang while he stood in the security line in the international terminal at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport.
“Uncle?” Ilonka spoke rapidly and urgently in formal Hungarian, and Lazlo knew not to interrupt. “I wanted you to know I arrived safely and to pass along the puzzle we spoke of. Do you have time to write it down? You must do it without interruption. This one involves the Greek alphabet. Are you ready with pen and pad?”
“I will be in a moment,” said Lazlo, knowing this was no ordinary call. He should not interrupt because he had already spoken with Ilonka twice after her return to Kiev. The purpose was to pass a message. Perhaps it was Janos. No, it had to be Svetlana Kovaleva who implied in her phone call she would somehow get a message to him. The message would be a new phone number for Janos. Svetlana had visited Ilonka! Because it was late afternoon here, it would be the middle of the night in Kiev for Ilonka.
Lazlo stepped out of the security line and went back into the terminal. A security guard—the good-looking African American woman—watched him, and he knew getting through security would take longer because he had been seen stepping out of line. But he had more than an hour before flight time. He found a bench against the windows, got out his notebook and a pen.
“I am ready for puzzles,” he said.
“Very well,” said Ilonka. “Write down given names in this order using Hungarian spelling. First, the name of my half sister. Next, the name of the one who chased the Frisbee. Finally, the name of your most humble and distinguished professor. Do you have the names?”
“Yes, I have them.” Lazlo had written, “Juli, Jermaine, Ilonka.”
“For this part, simply write the instructions,” continued Ilonka. “I will say name one, name two, and name three as you have written them down. Do not try to do the calculations until later. Use the Greek alphabet to assign numbers to each of the letters. Then perform calculations using the numbers assigned to each letter of the name using a formula I provide. Are you ready?”
“Yes.”
“Number one: Add the last letter of the last name to the fifth letter of the second name. Number two: Add the third letter of the first name to the fourth letter of the second name, and take the square root of the sum. Number three: Subtract the first letter of the last name from the first letter of the first name, and multiply this by the fifth letter of the second name …”
Ilonka spoke slowly and clearly so he could write it all down. It took several minutes and three pages in his small spiral notebook. When she finally finished, Ilonka had him read it back to her slowly. After he finished reading it back, Ilonka said, “Very good. I will be excited to see if you come up with the answer to this one. It is a bit more difficult than puzzles we tried on one another during my visit. I wish you the best love, Uncle.”
“And I wish you the best love,” said Lazlo.
As he headed back to the security line, Lazlo had already figured out the first number. The last letter of the last name—the professor, Ilonka—was a one, plus the fifth letter of the second name—the Frisbee chaser, Jermaine—was another one, therefore, the sum was two.
The sums, subtractions, multipliers, dividers, and square roots became more complicated as the verbal formula went on. Lazlo would calculate the full number during his flight. For now, he would be delayed in security because the good-looking African American security guard in her trim uniform walked to his security line smiling toward him as he inched forward.
Because of the hurried nighttime departure from their previous campsite, the Gypsies grew weary. They had wanted to go to Odessa, but instead turned off the main highway and found a remote campground. Driving south in the small camper van with the violet bicycle strapped to the back would have been conspicuous at night on the deserted highway.
“I’m glad we stopped,” said Mariya the following morning.
“We needed rest,” said Janos. “And we discovered the purpose of this miniature bed.”
Mariya did not answer. She simply smiled and kissed him before throwing off the thick blanket and standing naked in the morning light coming through the camper van’s windshield.
The secluded campground was northwest of Odessa near the Moldavian border. Janos had parked facing east so the rising sun through the windshield would awaken them. Because it was after the weekend, they had the small campground to themselves.
Janos watched from bed as Mariya stood before the full-length mirror mounted on the narrow closet door. She combed her hair, each detangling stroke of the comb making her breasts quiver. The camper van was bathed in light from the windshield and side windows, the light shining on Mariya’s smooth skin like another skin, electric. As Mariya turned, her hips and midriff and buttocks created for Janos many variations of the female form.
“We did not close the curtains last night,” said Janos.
“No matter,” said Mariya, glancing forward. “I think we are alone.” Mariya turned to him. “Do you enjoy watching me? On stage, I was Kimmy the dancer.”
Janos answered by lifting the blanket momentarily.
Mariya’s smile was coy as she turned back to the mirror. “I see.”
“You will burn the forest because firefighters will drop their equipment.”
After leaving the campground, they did not return to E-95, the main highway to Odessa. Instead, Janos used his GPS to maneuver back roads along the Ukraine-Moldavian border. By afternoon, they reached the Black Sea southwest of Odessa and drove around the south end of the Dnistr River estuary. Soon they were in the remote and vast Danube River delta where roads became narrow and villages farther apart. Eventually they came to Kilija, stopped for fuel, and Janos studied the map and GPS.
When Mariya returned to the camper van after paying for the fuel, she had a leaflet for a local campground and another for a rental car agency in Kilija.
“The village of Vasylivka is not far,” said Janos. “It’s the last sto
p at the end of a road heading northwest out of Kilija. According to what Shved told Vorobey, the peninsula outside Vasylivka is where young people are being held. Locals say a church or religious group supposedly owns the property. There are also rumors of waste dumps along here that might be radioactive from Soviet submarine maintenance.”
“We should rent a car to drive there,” said Mariya.
“But if someone is on our trail, the camper van might give us away,” said Janos.
“We will park the camper van,” said Mariya. “The campground is not far from the agency. I’ll ride my bicycle from there and rent the car. My appearance in helmet and riding clothes will be better than you appearing where surveillance photos might be hung.”
Soon after Janos began driving the camper van toward the campground, wetlands surrounded the road on both sides. Many species of waterfowl flew among bulrushes and reeds, their shadows in the bright sun doubling the bird population because of reflection from the still water. Janos felt uncomfortable here. In the mountains, one could go on foot, but here…
“Did I tell you about Anatoly the Cossack in the Carpathians?” asked Janos, as he drove.
“You did,” said Mariya. “Back at the apartment and again last night before we stopped. We were talking to stay awake. You said Anatoly the Cossack had total freedom. You said many people have called themselves Gypsies over the years, but Anatoly was the true Gypsy.”
“We compared him to your husband, Viktor,” said Janos.
“Viktor is not my husband,” said Mariya. “Perhaps he was never my husband. He and the Cossack had this in common… both appearing out of nowhere.”
Janos looked into the rearview mirrors and even leaned forward to look up into the sky.
“We have seen no one,” said Mariya. “Not one vehicle coming from either direction.”
“I know,” said Janos. “But when no one is following, it could mean someone already knows where we are going.”
In a few kilometers, a sign appeared for the campground. It was on a sandy ridge of small trees. A few tents were set up, and Janos could see people on the perimeter of the campground with spotting scopes and binoculars mounted on tripods.
“Bird watchers,” said Mariya.
“I have binoculars,” said Janos. “I can also watch birds while you fetch the rental car.”
It did not take long for Mariya to ride her bicycle back to Kilija, tell the young male clerk a tale about a dead camper van motor, rent a several-year-old Fiat for cash, remove the quick-release wheels on her bicycle so she could stow it in the small backseat of the Fiat, and return to the campground. After her return, she changed clothes and they prepared to leave. Janos took his pistol, hidden beneath his jacket, along with his binoculars. Mariya, who’d said she was used to stick shift, drove the Fiat as they turned onto the road toward the lodge where Aleksandr Vasilievich Shved had last stayed.
“I need to say something,” said Mariya, shifting rapidly through the Fiat’s gears. “Halfway to Kilija, I felt like turning back. I was going to tell you a perfect plan. We would forget the case and lose ourselves. We would use makeup and hair color. We would disguise ourselves and become Gypsies.”
“Why did you change your mind?” asked Janos.
“Perhaps because of the girl,” said Mariya.
“The girl?”
“While riding, I looked down a side street in Kilija and saw a girl who could not have been more than sixteen. She wore a short skirt and low-cut blouse. A large man stood behind her, hands on his hips and legs spread. I wanted to turn down the street and ride my bicycle at high speed directly into the pimp bastard. I would have castrated him with my front wheel!”
“So you think we will castrate pimps?” asked Janos.
“Putting a few of them out of business would be satisfactory,” said Mariya.
Vasily was alone in his cabin with the door locked. He sat on the edge of his cot with his AK-47 resting on his lap. Earlier in the evening after dinner, Pyotr had given another vague lecture about “good works,” followed by an announcement of the discovery on the east beach of the drowned body of one of his favorite teachers, a young woman named Katya. Pyotr eulogized Katya as if he were an evangelical preacher. Many were moved to tears.
Vasily had not spoken to Pyotr since their argument and was not aware of the drowning. Following Pyotr’s eulogy of Katya, Vasily had walked through the dark woods to the cemetery, where many had been buried over the years—some overtaken by disease, others brought back from the outside world where they had been killed, but most the helpless victims of Chernobyl.
At the cemetery, Vasily had pried open one end of the coffin Ivan’s followers had nailed securely for the service to take place the next day. After seeing that the coffin contained not the body of Katya, but only a few centimeters of sand, Vasily re-nailed the coffin, using his jacket to muffle the sound of his knife handle, which he used as a hammer.
So now, here he sat, Vasily Alexievich Kovalenko, an early member of Pyotr’s compound, a man whose guilt lingered. A man who would have gone to prison as a recruiter, had not Pyotr stepped in and rescued him with the help of SBU comrades. Not only had SBU officials been given their pick of girls, and boys, but also church officials had gotten their share. In return for funds from their collection baskets, living “gifts” had been delivered to deacons, priests, and even a bishop, at private apartments in Kiev and other Ukraine cities.
Vasily Alexievich Kovalenko gripped his AK-47 tightly, recalling his younger days on the streets of Kiev, telling teenaged girls how they could help their families by taking the jobs he offered. At first, he had worked for a Kiev syndicate, and the girls became strippers. Some girls enjoyed being strippers and made good money. But eventually, girls who were promised jobs as waitresses and housekeepers and even dancers were simply put onto the Balkan Trail, and he received his commission, knowingly selling them to be brutalized in far-off lands. And now Katya, the most innocent of all, a young woman who took pity on Chernobyl survivors, was not in her coffin, and most likely on her way to somewhere…
In the corner of Vasily’s cabin was a backpack he had taken on several missions off the peninsula. The backpack was rounded and full. He had packed it with clothing and enough food to last a week. Now it was simply a matter of deciding when to leave. It had to be soon because Ivan’s power had increased in direct proportion to Pyotr’s madness. If Vasily did not leave soon, Ivan would most likely change the locks on the boats. This would be disastrous because Vasily would be forced to travel overland through the radiation fields.
As Vasily sat on his cot, he recalled the last time he had been off the peninsula. He recalled the raid on the lodge in the Carpathians and the trip back across the border with the three girls and one boy he had wanted to set free along the highway. If he had disobeyed Pyotr then, if he had let them go, perhaps things would be different.
The insanity began with the arrival of the four from the Carpathians. Pyotr, in the process of going mad, had taken the frail girl to his cabin. Had Lyudmilla, traumatized by her experience in the mountains, been sent to the left bank for medical care? Had Pyotr raped her?
Vasily stood and leaned his AK-47 in the corner next to his backpack. He went to the window and looked out at the darkening dusk beneath the canopy of the trees. Then he clenched his fist and slammed it into the wall, splintering one of the horizontal pine boards.
The sign at the entrance said “Kytaj Rest Lodge.” The husband and wife owners were very large, weighing at least 125 kilos each, in their sixties, and wearing clothing gone gray from years of washing. The husband introduced himself simply as Guzun and stared at Mariya as if he had not seen a woman in years. Guzun’s wife did not introduce herself but kept busy behind the small counter in the lobby, peeking out suspiciously at Mariya. The lodge was constructed of logs, the ceiling held up by exposed pine beams dark from age and from years of smoke from the huge stone fireplace on the north wall.
“It has lasted th
rough two wars,” said Guzun, lighting a home-rolled cigarette that smelled like swamp reed.
Guzun remembered Aleksandr Vasilievich Shved.
“He loved to eat. He spoke of food all the time, keeping my wife in the kitchen. He said he liked hamburgers, so for lunch one day she made hamburgers.” Guzun laughed and coughed. “He said they were better than McDonald’s hamburgers. Relish stuck to his mustache!”
“Besides eating, what else did Shved do while he was here?” asked Janos.
Guzun thought for a time, staring at the ceiling like a philosopher. Guzun needed a shave, and his nose hairs were extremely long. “Shved relaxed in his cabin, drove into town, walked out on the peninsula, and asked about the fence. He wanted to know if anyone lived there. I told him Gypsies camped there even though the Orthodox Church owns the land. I also told him rumors of wild horses left over from the Gypsies. He took a rowboat around the peninsula.”
“Did he say whether he met anyone on the peninsula?” asked Mariya.
A question from Mariya made Guzun perk up, straightening his shirt collar, combing back his thin hair with his fingertips. “He met no one, my dear.”
Back at the counter, Guzun’s wife cleared her throat noisily.
“How long was Shved out in the rowboat?” asked Janos.
“All day,” said Guzun. “My wife made a box lunch. Four pork sandwiches and homemade potato salad, a thermos of tea, and for desert—”
“When he returned at the end of the day, did he say anything about it?”
“He loved the food,” said Guzun.
“Not the food,” said Janos. “Did Shved say anything about the peninsula?”
“Simply that it was peaceful and quiet and there were many birds. This is what most guests come for, the watching of birds.”
“Is anyone on the peninsula now?”
“A few Gypsies,” said Guzun. “I smell their campfires. They will be gone next month. In winter, one can walk around the peninsula; spring and fall are dangerous with choppy water colder than witch tits.” Guzun smiled toward Mariya. Guzun’s wife coughed again.
Traffyck: The Thrilling Sequel to Chernobyl Murders Page 25