Lazlo Horvath Thriller - 01 - Chernobyl Murders

by Michael Beres

Seven … eight … nine …

  In the rearview mirror, the locomotive appeared above the station-house roof.

  Ten … eleven … twelve …

  Five or six seconds to get back to the tracks once he turned.

  Thirteen … fourteen …

  Now!

  He cranked the wheel left and pressed the accelerator to the floor. The Skoda spun about, its tires squealing, its engine sputtering and missing, but finally roaring like a snarling dog. He didn’t bother shifting out of second gear and kept the accelerator pressed to the floor. In the mirror, the Moskvich was still turning around.

  Ahead, the train engine was beginning to cross the road, faster than he had estimated. Too fast! He wouldn’t make it past the gate! Instead he aimed for the gate on the right, a hole to freedom ahead of the massive train engine, which now blasted its whistle.

  “We’ll make it, Juli!” he shouted.

  The gate smashed into pieces and flew over the Skoda. The front of the locomotive to the left was a moving wall. When the Skoda flew over the tracks, Lazlo felt a slight sideways jump of the Skoda’s tail like the skittering of a cat.

  Behind him the Moskvich flashed its lights. But the flashing disappeared as the locomotive and the first few cars of the train filled the rearview mirror.

  He couldn’t believe it. They had escaped!

  In the side mirror he saw a dent in the rear fender of the Skoda where the locomotive had touched them. A gentle touch for a locomotive, a good-luck kiss.

  Lazlo could see the mountains ahead as he shifted the Skoda into high gear and pushed the accelerator to the floor. “You can come out now!” he shouted to Juli in the back seat.

  By midday two Volgas sped up to the Kopelovo collective office. Five men got out, three of them spreading out and questioning farmers who had gathered. Another man stayed by the cars and watched the road through the village. The fifth man was Major Grigor Komarov, who went directly to the office of the collective chairman and was told the location of the Zimyanins’ tent. When he left the office, Komarov summoned two of his men.

  “What do others say about the Zimyanins?” asked Komarov.

  “A man and woman claiming to be from the Opachichi collective near Pripyat,” said one of the men. “The description matches Horvath and Popovics.”

  “A woman over there says they took the morning bus going to a collective farther south,” said the other man. “She saw Mrs. Zimyanin leave with a small suitcase.” The man pointed to the smoky yards behind the houses. “Their tent is the third one in over there.”

  Komarov sent the men ahead, ducking below a clothesline as he followed. The men drew pistols, and the sight of them entering the tent made Komarov laugh. The flare of the tent reminded him of the massive skirts worn by a Wagnerian Valkyries he’d seen at the opera. His wet-behind-the-ears men entering the tent bent over with pistols drawn were like adolescent boys sneaking a look beneath a woman’s skirt. A toothless old man peeked out from another tent nearby. The old man grinned, his gums glistening pink in the morning sun. The entire scene, with campfires, tents, run-down houses, and peasants wandering about, was an opera.

  Komarov laughed with the toothless old man until his own men came from the tent. Their pistols were put away, and one man shrugged his shoulders as the other spoke.

  “They’re gone.”

  “Of course, they’re gone,” said Komarov. “I expected them to be gone. But at least now we have a trail.”

  Komarov sent his men to the collective chairman’s office, where there were two telephones his men were to use immediately. He ordered the bus heading south be searched by regional KGB personnel when it reached its destination and the passengers be thoroughly questioned. He ordered all militia offices within one hundred kilometers be contacted and given descriptions of Horvath and Popovics. He ordered the refugees and residents of the collective be informed they must tell all they know about the Zimyanins and their whereabouts or face penalties of noncooperation. Finally he ordered more men be sent from Kiev.

  While his men used the phones at the collective office, Komarov went to the Zimyanin tent and went inside. An army blanket was spread on the floor of the tent. He kicked the blanket into a corner and found a slit cut into the floor. He reached through the slit and found the hard soil loosened. He poked around in the loosened soil. Nothing was there now, but it had recently been used as a hiding place.

  After he searched the floor of the tent and found nothing, Komarov flipped the blanket over to see if anything had clung to it. The smell of damp wool was annoying, like sniffing beneath someone’s clothing. He carefully spread the blanket across the floor, lit a cigarette, and sat down. When he examined the blanket more closely, he noticed bits of white thread clinging to the wool. There were long pieces and short pieces, thousands of them, as if a white garment had been reduced to its elements. One piece of thread was attached to a small square of white cloth. He also found several strands of long hair, and holding them up to the light coming through the tent ceiling, guessed they were brown.

  If he expected to catch Horvath, he should begin thinking like him. Horvath the fugitive, escaping at Visenka and going back to Kiev, staying at the Hotel Dnieper within blocks of KGB and militia headquarters. Horvath the refugee, remaining for days in one place, living in a tent instead of running. Horvath doing the opposite of what one would expect.

  Outside the tent, Komarov could hear children running about, pots banging together. He had been in the tent long enough for life in the camp to return to normal. Family life. He blew cigarette smoke at the ceiling of the tent, imagined he was Detective Horvath with Juli Popovics by his side. If he were Detective Horvath, he would find somewhere to leave Juli Popovics and go to the only place he could go under the circumstances. Komarov threw his lit cigarette out through the narrow opening at the tent flap. Outside, a man began complaining loudly about his precious roll of toilet paper being stolen.

  Komarov stood and left the tent. He walked quickly to the collective chairman’s office, waited for one of his men to finish a phone call, then called Captain Azef and ordered that extra men—no matter how green they were—be sent immediately to the Horvath family farm on the Ulyanov collective in the village of Kisbor near the Czechoslovakian frontier.

  28

  Already four weeks after the Chernobyl accident, yet news from Radio Moscow seemed like the confessions of a naughty boy caught in the devious act. The boy would be silent, acting as if nothing had happened. Then, when someone pointed out the obvious, the boy would confess in a way that would implicate others. The spooning out of information caused anger in cities and lively meetings on collectives. Farmers wanted to help their fellow farmers in need, but they also wanted to be told the truth about the danger and the outlook for the future.

  At a collective farm three hundred kilometers southwest of Kiev, an evening meeting was held in the living room of the chairman. The collective was small and far enough from Chernobyl so no Chernobylites had yet been sent there. The meeting had been called to tell collective committee members that the Agriculture Ministry had designated seven families be permanently relocated there.

  The committee argued about where the people would stay and who would build them houses. They argued about what jobs the new members would perform and whether one of them should be allowed on the committee. They argued about the small size of their school. One man on the committee wondered if the new members could bring radiation with them. A woman on the committee spoke against this, saying whatever harmful radiation the people received was locked in their bodies and would affect only them.

  “The Chernobylites might have it in their clothing,” said the man.

  “These people are checked by technicians,” said the woman. “If their clothes are radioactive, they get new ones. And quit calling them Chernobylites.”

  The man waved his hand at the woman. “If technicians told you the reactor never really blew up, I suppose you’d believe them.”


  “You’re talking nonsense,” said the woman.

  “Ha! We might not be safe from radiation even here.”

  “How can you say that? Kiev is much closer. Kievians aren’t dying.”

  “Not dying,” said the man. “But they sent all their children to the Black Sea. I spoke with my cousin in Kiev. He said they have special milk only for children, and Kiev is building an aqueduct to bring fresh water into the city. One cannot escape radiation. In a year or two, we’ll all be dying of cancer.”

  It was the woman’s turn to wave her hand at the man. “You’re a fool. How can you say such a thing? We have no radiation here!

  And you’re a fool for talking about such things to your cousin in Kiev on the telephone!”

  The man paused a moment and smiled to everyone on the committee before speaking. “If I’m such a fool, why did I see technicians at the pond today?”

  “What pond?”

  The man continued to smile. “We have only one pond on the farm, the very same pond where your favorite pigs are taken to drink.”

  The woman pretended to spit. “I have no favorite pigs, not even you!”

  The chairman stood and asked for order. He told the man to tell about the technicians at the pond and to refrain from sarcasm.

  “Very well,” said the man. “I was on my way past the pond with a can of oil for our tractor, which burns more oil than gas, when I saw a car parked and a man and woman picnicking on a blanket.

  They looked like doctors, both wearing white coats. I said hello and thought I might get some advice about my arthritis. They said they weren’t doctors but technicians checking for radiation. I asked if they found any. They said no.”

  “I told you,” said the woman.

  “But wait,” said the man. “When I walked past their car, I managed a peek inside and saw a carrying case saying it contained dangerous radioactive samples.”

  “Ha,” said the woman. “A carrying case talks to him.”

  “It didn’t talk. Words were printed on it.”

  “What words?”

  “It said, danger, radioactive samples, in Russian. If they were carrying radioactive samples, they must have gotten them from here.”

  “They probably carry the case around in case they find radioactive samples,” said the woman, looking to others for support.

  “Besides, you know very little Russian.”

  “So, tell me why they left the car to eat.” Now the man looked to the others. “I’ll tell you why. Because it’s not good to eat around radiation. It gets inside and eats you from the inside out. It turns your cells against you. It’s the worst cancer there is. And I know plenty of Russian.”

  “Describe these technicians,” said the chairman.

  “They weren’t Ukrainian. I could tell by their accents. They could have been Russian or even Czech or Hungarian. Maybe Belarussian.”

  “Why Belarussian?” asked the chairman.

  The man thought for a moment before answering. “Reports said radiation was very high in the Belarussian Republic to the north.

  Perhaps the technicians camped out here were on their way south to escape with samples from their own area. Technicians would know best about the cancer danger and would want to go south.”

  The mention of cancer and the description of technicians who might be fleeing Chernobyl radiation silenced the meeting, reinforcing the inevitability of damage already done. Many who would be affected by future disease were already impregnated. Except for having children drink potassium iodide the first few days after the accident, there was nothing anyone could do but pray their own cells would be strong enough to stave off the attack from within.

  As far as the Chernobylite refugees were concerned, the committee members began seriously discussing where to house them and what jobs they could do on the farm.

  Juli lay back on the pile of straw, aware of the warmth stored in the barn from the day’s sun, and of its smells—livestock, leather, straw, and fresh paint. She looked up at the rafters, saw bird droppings on timbers darkened with age. One rafter was worn thinner at its center where a rope must have been tied, or many ropes wearing the wood away over decades. She wondered what the ropes had been for. She wondered if a rope tied to the rafter had ever been used to hang someone. They were in the Carpathian foothills, the Skoda having coughed and sputtered its way. The Czech and Hungarian frontiers were nearer, just across the northern range. They were already within the region of border disputes and turmoil, which took place during the last war. Perhaps the rafter above had been used for hanging dissenters. And now abandoned, with no other task, the barn awaited future hangings.

  “Do you think we’ll make it?” asked Juli.

  Lazlo was in the center of the barn, putting the finishing touches on the car with a brush and a can of oily black paint he had found.

  “We’ll make it. If anyone tries to catch us, they’ll stick to our fly-paper.”

  “Isn’t it drying?”

  Lazlo dabbed at the roof. “Slowly. The part you did is only sticky now, not wet.”

  “Our little Skoda with a brand-new skin.”

  While Lazlo continued painting, Juli shook out the blankets they had taken from the Kopelovo collective and arranged them on the bed of straw near the stone wall at the back of the barn. Last night they had slept in the car. Tonight would be more comfortable. After the blankets were spread out, she stuffed straw beneath the bottom blanket at the end nearest the wall to form a wide pillow.

  When she finished making their bed, she took off her slacks and blouse and got under the top blankets. Lazlo was stooped behind the car and hadn’t seen her undress. The lantern was aimed at the car, and their bed was in the dark corner against the wall.

  Although the barn was in good condition, it seemed unused.

  Lazlo said it might be used to house livestock in the winter. It was some distance from the collective village and was probably left over from a time when one family owned the farm. Near the barn there was an overgrown foundation, which might have been a house before one of the wars.

  Because the barn walls were made of stone, they were not worried about anyone seeing light through a crack. Earlier in the evening, after lighting the lantern, Lazlo went outside to make certain. To celebrate their find, they ate some of the food Lazlo had purchased at a local market. While eating, they took turns with the brush changing the Skoda from white to black. If someone questioned the last farmer who saw them today, he would say the technicians eating lunch by the pond had driven a white Skoda.

  When Lazlo finished painting, he washed using the bucket of water drawn from the covered well outside. He sat inside the car using the mirror to shave with the razor he’d purchased back at Kopelovo. When he finished, he closed the car door, took off his shirt, dried his face with it, and hung it on a nail on a post. His shoulder holster and pistol also hung there. Finally he blew out the lantern, came to the dark alcove, and climbed into the bed of straw.

  “How long have we known one another?” asked Juli.

  “A thousand years,” said Lazlo.

  “Either clocks and calendars are all wrong, or we’ve gone mad,”

  said Juli. “Which is it?”

  “Both.”

  She pulled Lazlo to her, and they fell quickly into the momentary otherworld of not knowing what had happened or what could happen. She thought only of Lazlo, how she needed him and loved him. When he was inside her, she felt complete. Even if someone told her that in a few moments she would be tortured and hung from the rafter herself, it didn’t matter because the momentary otherworld had opened, and she and Lazlo had tumbled into it.

  After what seemed only a few moments of sleep, Lazlo awakened.

  Juli was in his arms, her head on his chest. Even though she had washed her hair several days earlier at Kopelovo, it still smelled sweet. He pushed his face deeper into Juli’s hair and inhaled.

  “What do you think about when you lie awake?” asked Juli.

&nb
sp; “I thought you were asleep.”

  “And I thought you were. What do you think about?”

  “About you. About us. About everything around us.”

  Juli turned her head on his chest and faced him. “It’s a dilemma, isn’t it? All these things happening around you, people depending on you even though you’re the one in the most danger.”

  “You know I must go to Kisbor before I can cross the border. If I simply leave, I’m afraid Komarov will hurt Nina and the girls, and even Bela and Mariska.”

  “He’s vindictive, one who can never forget?”

  “Yes. It’s his game. He knows I’ll go to the farm because I know he’ll go there. Going there will not guarantee their safety, but I can’t leave Nina and the girls alone as long as Komarov is in power. I should have gone after him in Kiev instead of waiting for him to act.”

  “You sound like Mihaly.”

  “Perhaps I am Mihaly.”

  They were silent for a time, the only sounds their breathing and a mouse somewhere in the corner of the barn tunneling beneath straw. Juli broke the spell.

  “How long will it take to get to Kisbor?” she asked.

  “It’s a few hours’ drive across the northern range. The Hungarian frontier is only about a hundred kilometers away. Kisbor is another hundred northwest at the edge of the steppes. When we were boys, Mihaly and I sometimes worked in fields near the frontier when other collectives needed help during the harvest. Last June on holiday, I told Mihaly we would have been better off staying on the farm. We were in the wine cellar. The cemetery’s not far from the house. The wine cellar’s about as deep as a grave, and I can’t help wondering if Mihaly had been predicting his death.

  There we were down in the ground … we even spoke about how I used to be frightened that dead people from the cemetery visited for a drink now and then …”

  Lazlo paused, and when Juli remained silent, he knew it was time to tell her about the deserter he’d killed on the Romanian border when he was a boy soldier. He told of the snowy day, he and Viktor leaving the army truck with their rifles. He told of their officers’ anger at Khrushchev’s Cuban missile fiasco, taking revenge anywhere they could. He told of the silenced violin in the village, the pistol in the violin case, the boy deserter shooting Viktor, his own rifle aimed, the trigger pulled, the blood exploding from the deserter’s face, the mother and sister screaming. He told of the return visit with his captain, the sister’s eyes as she stared at him, and finally his baptism with the name Gypsy, the name taken from the deserter he had murdered.