Chernobyl Murders lh-1

by Michael Beres

  By tomorrow the connection between the Horvath cousin and possible sabotage at Chernobyl would have a life of its own. Especially after tonight’s final meeting, the final link in the chain.

  Komarov went to the outer office where Nikolai Nikolskaia’s partner had been waiting to see him for over an hour.

  The former PK agent was light-skinned and effeminate, reminding him of Dmitry. After leading him into his office and closing the door, Komarov sat across from the agent, making a show of examining his KGB personnel file.

  “Pavel. May I call you Pavel?”

  “Of course, Major.”

  “Good. After speaking with your fellow PK agent, I wanted a chance to meet you. Nikolskaia is an interesting character, unmarried.” Komarov flipped through the file. “I see you are married.

  Was your wife able to leave Pripyat safely?”

  “She came to Kiev after the accident. She’s staying with her sister.”

  Komarov put the file down and lit a cigarette. “How would you like to be permanently stationed here?”

  “And not return to the PK in Pripyat?”

  “Both, Pavel. I wish to permanently assign you as one of my agents here in Kiev.”

  “I don’t know what to say, Major. I’m honored.”

  “Good. I’ll need to provide you with more detailed information concerning the Chernobyl case and Detective Horvath.”

  “We’ve watched him visiting Juli Popovics.”

  “I’ve admired your thorough reports, Pavel. It is also convenient you learned Hungarian in KGB language school. The reason I’ve asked you in tonight, besides wanting to meet you, is because I need you to bring Juli Popovics in for questioning tomorrow. It might be routine, or it could be serious. We’ll know tomorrow.”

  Komarov leaned back in his chair. “Because you and Nikolskaia were involved in the case from the beginning…”

  Komarov paused, giving Pavel a chance to volunteer information.

  “From the beginning?”

  “Yes. While at the PK office in Pripyat, you and Nikolskaia brought the Horvath cousin, one Andrew Zukor, to my attention.

  He’s been given the code name Gypsy Moth. However, this is in question because the Gypsy Moth might be someone else.”

  “Who?”

  “According to information transmitted from the First Chief Directorate in Moscow, Detective Lazlo Horvath may be the Gypsy Moth. Someone has been passing Chernobyl information to foreign intelligence for years. Efforts to measure Soviet plutonium production using clandestine air sampling have gone on for decades…

  You look puzzled. You have heard of these programs?”

  “Plutonium… yes.”

  “Good, Pavel. Then you should not be surprised to learn Detective Horvath, his brother, and Juli Popovics may have formed a triumvirate. Ukrainians bent on destroying their republic. But perhaps I’ve revealed too much. I want you to concentrate on the assignment at hand. You will bring Juli Popovics into this office for questioning tomorrow. If necessary, you will use force. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Major. I… we understand. Should we do it in the morning?”

  “At exactly nine o’clock. And you will return back here at ten. If it is a routine matter, we’ll question her briefly, and you can return her to Visenka. If it is not routine…”

  “You really think it involves the Chernobyl explosion?” asked Pavel.

  “I do,” said Komarov. “But remember, at this point evidence remains circumstantial. We’ll know more tomorrow.”

  Komarov stood, and this prompted Pavel to stand.

  “Oh,” said Komarov. “One more thing. If this is conspiracy, the parties involved might become desperate. I spoke with Detective Horvath today, and he seems an aggressive type. If he tries to get in your way, we’ll be certain of conspiracy and of his involvement in it. You have weapons. If it becomes necessary, I expect you to use them.”

  Komarov turned his back to Pavel and looked out the window.

  He raised his voice. “Make note of this, Pavel. Juli Popovics must be picked up in Visenka at exactly nine tomorrow morning and be in this office at exactly ten. Timing is critical. If you fail, there are other agents who would like to have the luxury of bringing their wives with them to Kiev. You are lucky, Pavel, to have followed a suspect in this case. Otherwise you and your partner would be in serious trouble. Nine o’clock in Visenka, and ten o’clock here. There will be no mistakes! Am I understood?”

  “Yes, Major,” said Pavel in a feeble voice.

  “You may go.”

  Komarov stayed at the window as his office door closed gently behind him. The lights of the city dazzled. Tuesday was almost over.

  Tomorrow, Wednesday, a day he had awaited since the Sherbitsky affair, was near. Tomorrow the Chernobyl affair would blossom like a spring flower, and by summer, medals would be pinned on his chest where the knife in his pocket felt like the pressure of a woman’s breast.

  Outside Komarov’s office, Pavel felt dizzy. He paused, hoping the major would call him back to say the final statement had been a joke to keep him alert. The mention of Moscow’s First Chief Directorate and plutonium production had upset him because he didn’t know what Komarov was talking about. He didn’t want to know secrets.

  All he wanted was a job in Kiev, maybe back in a PK office. And the comment about Nikolai not being married…

  A bearded, foreign-looking man sitting in a chair outside Komarov’s office stared at Pavel. “How, now,” said the man.

  “What?”

  “What, when, where, why,” said the man in a singsong voice.

  “All good questions if they evoke images for the poet’s muse.”

  Pavel walked out the door of the anteroom, taking his confusion with him. Tomorrow at ten, he and Nikolai would be here again with Juli Popovics. If not, they might end up at a committee hearing for abandoning their posts.

  21

  Wednesday, May 7, 1986. While driving the streets of Kiev at seven thirty in the morning, Lazlo noticed a subtle change. Instead of the usual straight-ahead or downtrodden look of pedestrians, he saw sideways glances, a few looking his way, perhaps recognizing an un-marked militia Zhiguli. Ten days had passed since the Chernobyl explosion. By now, shortwave receivers were down from closet shelves and attics, with wire antennas strung across living rooms.

  Literally and figuratively, Chernobyl was in the air in Kiev.

  A half hour ago, he had been rudely awakened by a call from Deputy Chief Investigator Lysenko and told to meet with Chief Investigator Chkalov promptly at eight for another morning meeting.

  He wondered if Major Komarov was back looking for scapegoats.

  The usual morning pastry vendors along Khreshchatik were absent, and several people climbing up from the metro wore handkerchiefs over their mouths and noses. It was an insane world.

  He had been asleep just over an hour when Lysenko called. He’d been within a familiar nightmare, the Gypsy deserter already shot in the face, yet pleading with him not to shoot. He could collapse any moment, run the Zhiguli into the curb. “Look here!” those on the sidewalk would scream. “It’s the radiation in the air! We’re all going to die!”

  Yesterday he had spent several hours in Visenka with Juli. He had been too tired to talk and napped after lunch. In the afternoon, when it was time to go on duty, Juli had awakened him with a kiss.

  It had not been a dream. Juli was real. Everything around him was actually happening, despite the sensation of floating he felt as he drove through Kiev.

  He stopped at a cafe and gulped two cups of strong tea. Back in the car, he turned several corners and circled back on the van following him. As he passed the van and sped to militia headquarters, he rolled down the window.

  “Your foot is still in your mother!” he shouted in Hungarian.

  The driver, a round-faced, pudgy young man, simply frowned.

  Chkalov was alone in his office and avoided looking directly at him.

  He wa
s like one of the pedestrians walking down the sidewalk. Even though Komarov was not here, Lazlo smelled a setup. At the last meeting, Komarov had mentioned his cousin, Andrew Zukor. Even he wondered if Zukor’s visit last summer had been for the purpose of speaking with Mihaly about Chernobyl.

  Chkalov finally looked at Lazlo. “Many of us are going without sleep these days. I’ll get to the point, Detective Horvath. It has to do with you deserting your post without notifying the officer in charge.”

  “I was in charge.”

  “Regulations specify you were supposed to notify the officer in charge here at the office before you left your post. You could have radioed instead of abandoning your men.”

  He thought, Should I have wiped their asses, too? But he said, “I left an officer in charge.”

  “Detective Horvath. Leaving an officer in charge without notifying the officer in charge at the office is not the way it’s done.”

  “So, an officer in charge in the field is not necessarily an officer in charge unless the officer in charge at the office is notified?”

  Chkalov scowled. “I find it necessary to suspend you, Detective Horvath.”

  “Did Komarov tell you to suspend me?”

  Chkalov’s face reddened. “The militia is independent of the KGB!”

  “Independent?” shouted Lazlo. “If we’re so independent, then why the hell am I being followed day and night? I’ll tell you why!

  Komarov is investigating Juli Popovics and me and my dead brother because he needs scapegoats for Chernobyl blunders!”

  Chkalov’s fists clenched on the desk. “Impossible! It was an unfortunate accident!”

  Lazlo stood up. “How long will I be suspended?”

  Chkalov stood, but because he was shorter, he had to look up to Lazlo. “I don’t know! Check back weekly with Lysenko!” The flesh at Chkalov’s neck shook violently. “Don’t stand there looking at me! Get out! Leave your car at the motor pool!”

  In the hallway, Lazlo passed Lysenko standing at his office door.

  “Good morning, Detective Horvath.”

  Lazlo raised his fist, and Lysenko backed into his office. In Hungarian, Lazlo said, “Your foot is still in your mother.”

  “What?” whined Lysenko.

  “It means the Gypsy is not pleased.” Lazlo continued down the hallway.

  “Detective Horvath, a message…” said Lysenko, calling him back.

  “What?”

  Lysenko handed him an envelope. “It just came up from the front desk.”

  Lazlo took the envelope and continued walking. Detective Horvath, Kiev Militia. The handwriting was unfamiliar. He tore open the envelope and stood in the hallway reading it.

  My dear Detective Horvath

  The when is now

  The who is one plus someone more

  The where is east of the river

  The what is danger to the one plus someone more Foreshadowing the fate of Vasyl Stus

  The why is a flower with deadly pollen

  Flattening the grass to wormwood

  A friend of a friend of Shevchenko

  Who would be a friend of a dead nineteenth-century poet? A poet?

  The bearded poet in the Zil who brought the message from Tamara. A friend of a friend could mean the message was from Tamara.

  Lazlo read the lines again. East of the river. East of the river in Visenka there was danger for Juli and her baby-the one plus someone more. Tamara said Vasyl Stus was a poet who died in a labor camp. Danger to Juli because of the deadly pollen of Chernobyl, the Chernobyl grass, the wormwood Mihaly had spoken of. He recalled telling Tamara about the biblical Chernobyl star. She would know.

  She would refer to the fate of Vasyl Stus.

  He ran down the hall to the stairway. He pushed through the front entrance of militia headquarters, almost knocking down a uniformed militiaman coming in. Was the message literal? Was Juli really in danger? If so, how would Tamara know?

  The van followed him around the corner. Chkalov had said to return the Zhiguli to the motor pool, so he was simply following orders. He sped into the fenced-in motor-pool yard where marked patrol cars were parked. One of the garage side doors was open, and he skidded inside to a stop amid the shouts of mechanics.

  “Imbecile! Who are you trying to kill?”

  Too many mechanics around to switch cars. They would question him, demand papers. Although cars were parked in the aisle, he was able to drive through with no more damage than removing a side mirror from another turd-green Zhiguli.

  “Madman! Stop!”

  The back door of the garage was closed. He jumped out and pushed the door up on its rollers. While running back to the car, a mechanic threatened him with a large wrench. The mechanic dropped the wrench and stepped back when Lazlo drew his pistol. Other mechanics gathered at the back door to watch him drive down the alley.

  From the front of the garage, everything would seem ordinary, the KGB men in the van waiting for him to come walking out of the garage. Lazlo drove slowly so he would not attract attention. He turned northwest, went several blocks at traffic speed to make sure the van did not follow. If a car followed, he could not tell because there were too many on the street.

  When he turned southeast, back through the heart of the city, he sped up, back to Khreshchatik, past the post office and the cafe, where he had stopped for tea. Khreshchatik would take him to Lenkomsomol Square. He would go through the underpass, branch south onto Kirov Street. If he took the ramp fast enough, he would be able to see if anyone followed, because they would also have to speed through the underpass. If not, they would lose him in the maze of ramps and exits.

  Ahead, the gaping mouth of the underpass was busy swallow-ing slower traffic. When he plunged into the underpass, he flashed his headlights at cars ahead, moving them out of the way. He was below Lenkomsomol Square, where he often walked to lunch in hot weather. Would he ever walk here again? Would Kiev, his world, ever be the same again? Would he get out of the underpass without killing himself and perhaps others?

  A sputtering Zaporozhets nearly lost control as it fishtailed to avoid being rear-ended. Lazlo had never driven this fast through the underpass. The sunlight coming through drainage grates on Lenkomsomol Square flashed like strobe lights. The Zhiguli’s tires squealed, the echo screaming through the tunnel. When he hit a wet spot in the tunnel, the Zhiguli lunged sideways, tipped up on two wheels, dropped back to the pavement, and slid into the wall. The wall straightened the Zhiguli, clawing away metal on the passenger side as he exploded up onto the Kirov Street ramp to daylight.

  There had been many turns in the underpass, and he had been too busy to see if anyone followed. But now, as he shifted the Zhiguli into high gear and sped onto Kirov Street, he saw a gray Moskvich driving like mad behind him.

  They were after him and would not let go, two men in a gray Moskvich, one of the cars alternating with the van earlier in the week, probably radioing the van right now. If he was going to lose the Moskvich, he had to hurry.

  Right on Karl Liebknecht, left on Revolutsii, right on Mech-nikov. His city. His Kiev, the streets he knew. But the KGB agents also knew the city. They stayed behind him, seemingly anticipating each turn. This was not getting him to Juli, east of the river where there was danger. But if he drove to Visenka with the KGB in tow, and if the danger came from the KGB…

  He turned onto Lesya Ukrainka and headed south. The boulevard was wide and straight, and he could maintain his speed by crossing from lane to lane, passing moving cars as if they were parked haphazardly in the street. He would soon cross over Friendship of Peoples Boulevard, the fastest route to the bridge over the Dnieper, the fastest route to Visenka.

  He maintained his speed and stayed in the left lane as he approached the overpass. The ramp down to the boulevard was on the far right. He would cross several lanes of traffic and enter the ramp at the last possible second. He only hoped the Moskvich would miss the turn.

  An old woman stepped from the island
, and he had to brake and swerve to miss her. A marked militia Zhiguli passed in the opposite direction. In his mirror, he saw its roof light come on as it U-turned to join the chase behind the Moskvich.

  The ramp coming up. No choice. Horns and tires screaming as he veered right across lanes of traffic and plunged down onto the ramp. A quick glance in the mirror, and the Moskvich was there, sliding sideways before entering the ramp.

  He had to get to Juli! He had to get rid of these men now!

  He turned the wheel, braked, spun the Zhiguli around, and sped up the ramp directly at the grinning grill of the Moskvich.

  “Bastards!” he screamed.

  The Moskvich turned abruptly to avoid him, lost control, and smashed into the guardrail. The militia car taking up the chase behind the Moskvich followed the Moskvich like a dog latched onto a rabbit’s tail, the driver thinking this was the only way to avoid the maniac coming up the ramp in the wrong direction. The militia car slammed into the back of the Moskvich, the sound of the impact making Lazlo look back to see if there was an explosion. No explosion. But both cars were disabled.

  Lazlo drove north two blocks so that north would be the direction radioed to the KGB and militia headquarters. But once out of sight, he took side streets back to Friendship of Peoples Boulevard and sped onto the bridge across the Dnieper River. As the Zhiguli crested the bridge at high speed, he saw in his rearview mirror, through the haze of the city, flashing lights of multiple militia cars converging at the overpass crossing over Friendship of Peoples Boulevard.

  Leaving Kiev, on the east side of the river, traffic became lighter.

  During the frantic chase, he had shifted in the seat, his jacket twisting sideways, pressing his Makarov uncomfortably against his breastbone. He adjusted himself in the seat, listening to Kiev militia frequencies on the radio. A broadcast repeated a description of his Zhiguli, but the broadcast focused on Kiev west of the river.

  There were thousands of Zhigulis the same turd-green color as his Zhiguli. He would get to Visenka, he was certain of it. But what would he do about the KGB men watching the house?