The Boy Who Stole From the Dead

by Orest Stelmach

  Nadia caught the attention of one of the officers. She gave him a set of VIP credentials, faxed to her by someone from the Orel Group. He studied them and called a supervisor over. The supervisor reviewed the documents. Meanwhile, Nadia and Marko filled out the forms she’d picked up from the desk.

  The last time she’d entered the country she was asked a variety of intrusive questions, including her parents’ birthplaces and her political affiliation. This time the border officials didn’t ask any questions. Instead, the supervisor took the forms, stamped Nadia’s and Marko’s passports, and welcomed them to Ukraine.

  Nadia and Marko collected their luggage and exited the baggage claim area. Nadia powered on her cell phone to see if she had voice mail. On the other side of the window, the taxi area looked like a bumper car racetrack.

  “The taxis are ugly, too,” Marko said. “I read they try to rip you off. Charge you three hundred hryvnia for a trip to Kyiv when you should be paying one-sixty. I may have to kick some ass.”

  “No. There will be no ass kicking in Kyiv. I’m here on business. Working for an important man. Your behavior will reflect on me, Marko. Please remember that.”

  “You always did take yourself too seriously. But don’t worry. I won’t embarrass you. At least not too much.”

  Nadia rolled her eyes. She’d feared having him along was a bad idea and now she was certain it was a mistake. She scanned the crowd of drivers holding signs. A meticulous woman in a corporate suit barged forward. She held a piece of white cardboard with Nadia’s name printed on it in perfect font. Nadia walked over and introduced herself.

  “On behalf of the Orel Group,” she said in Russian, “Welcome to Ukraine. Your car is waiting outside.”

  Nadia glanced at Marko. Waited for gratitude or a compliment.

  “Lucky for you they know who I am over here,” he said.

  Nadia rolled her eyes. On the way to the car, Nadia noticed she had a voice mail. She pressed the phone to her ear, turned the volume low, and listened to a message from Johnny.

  “Bobby went ape-shit when I showed him old Valentine’s picture,” Johnny said. “Ape-shit. Said you should turn around and come back home immediately. Said your life is in danger. Call me as soon as you get there. I don’t care what time it is.”

  She hung up. Marko looked at her, his eyes asking her what the call was about. She had updated him on the basics concerning Bobby’s situation on the plane.

  “Johnny,” she said. “According to him, we’re back on the Appalachian Trail.”

  Marko nodded. He understood immediately what she meant. Their lives had been in danger on the Appalachian Trail when she’d taken her Ukrainian Girl Scout survival test.

  They sat in the back of a stretch limousine. The woman who greeted them slid beside the driver, a fresh-faced male equivalent.

  “Evgeny was the finest driver on the Kyiv police force,” the woman said. “Until the Orel Group hired him away. He is very fast, but very safe. We will have you at the Intercontinental in no time.”

  The driver guided the car out of the airport. The woman pointed out the bottles of spring water, vodka, and Scotch.

  “First time in Ukraine?” she said.

  “Not for me,” Nadia said in Russian. She motioned toward Marko. “Yes for him.”

  “We were born in America but this is our parents’ homeland,” Marko said in Ukrainian. Unlike Nadia, he didn’t speak Russian. Although some basic words sounded the same, it was impossible to have a deep conversation using both languages. “We were raised in a Ukrainian community. We went to kindergarten speaking only Ukrainian.”

  “Your language is amazing,” the woman said, with a crude Ukrainian accent. To a Ukrainian-American, it sounded like ghetto. “Textbook Ukrainian. Like they speak in Lviv. In Western Ukraine.”

  “So let me ask you a question,” Marko said.

  The woman lifted her eyebrows. “Yes?”

  “Why are you speaking Russian to me as though I’m in Moscow?”

  Nadia kicked Marko in the shin. He’d always been a rabid Ukrainian nationalist within the American community. She understood he hated any sign of Russification but this was not the place to be demonstrative. He glared at her as though he had no choice but to make the comment.

  The limo was so long the woman saw Nadia’s kick. “No, Ms. Tesla,” she said in Ukrainian. “It’s a good question.” Nadia had to give her credit. Russian was the woman’s primary language but she was speaking the language common to everyone in the car. “It’s a matter of history.”

  “History didn’t make you speak Russian instead of Uke when you met us at the airport,” Marko said. “What are you talking about?”

  Nadia kicked him again.

  “In the 1970s, the leaders of the Soviet Union implemented a program called ‘Russification’,” the woman said.

  “By ‘leaders of the Soviet Union’ you mean the Russians,” Marko said. “You mean that bastard Brezhnev.”

  “Marko,” Nadia said.

  “Yes,” the woman said. “The Politburo and Leonid Brezhnev. The Ukrainian language was forbidden in universities. Pro-Ukrainians were called nationalists. They were persecuted, arrested, put in jail. It got to the point where Kyivans had two choices: send their kids to Russian-speaking schools and tow the line, or move out.”

  “Move where?” Marko said.

  “Moscow.”

  “No way.”

  “There was more opportunity in Moscow for Ukrainians to speak Ukrainian than in Kyiv. By 1980, Russian was the only language spoken in Kyiv. Only since independence in 1991 has the Ukrainian language started making a comeback here.”

  “Thank God I waited until now to come here,” Marko said.

  “Yes,” the woman said. “For your sake, I am also glad you waited.” She turned forward, grabbed a clipboard, and started confirming tomorrow’s itinerary with the driver.

  Nadia glared at Marko. “You cannot be this way.”

  Marko appeared confused. “What way?”

  “Sarcastic, argumentative, confrontational. In short, an asshole. You cannot be an asshole when you’re a guest in someone else’s country.”

  “Oh, come on. You know me.”

  “I’m here on business, Marko. I’m getting paid.”

  He sealed his lips and looked out the window.

  The driver turned on the radio. Modern interpretations of traditional Ukrainian folk music started up. A crescent moon hung in the sky. The limousine glided along the tarmac. Green pastures and clusters of forest rolled by.

  Memories from last year’s trip flitted in and out of Nadia’s mind. The search for Clementine Seelick, Bobby’s aunt. Nadia’s escape from her pursuers in the tunnels of the Caves Monastery on her hands and knees. And then, Chornobyl, the locket, and the escape with Bobby back to New York.

  They crossed the bridge over the river Dnipro. Lights from Kyiv’s skyscrapers illuminated the golden domes of its eleventh century churches and cathedrals.

  When they got to the hotel, Nadia and Marko stepped out of the limo. The driver removed their luggage from the trunk. Two well-dressed young men were arguing about something.

  “Evgeny will pick you up at nine a.m. to bring you to Orel Group offices,” the woman said. “If that is convenient.”

  “Thank you,” Nadia said, “but I need to get started earlier. I need to be there by seven a.m.”

  “Then he will pick you up at six forty-five a.m.” She glanced at the driver to make sure he understood. He nodded politely.

  One of the young men struck the other in the face. The injured one screamed. Brought his hands to his nose.

  A bell captain and two hotel doormen came running.

  “What happened here?” one of the doormen said.

  The injured man removed his hands from his nose. They were covered with blood
. It streamed down his face from his nose.

  “This man punched me for no reason,” the injured man said.

  He pointed at Marko.

  “What are you talking about?” Marko said.

  “That’s a lie,” Nadia said.

  She remembered her experience last year in Kyiv. Thugs pretended to be cops, planted dope on her, and tried to extort a bribe. This was a scam, too, she realized, but what was the angle?

  Marko was going toe-to-toe with the assailant, threatening to stick his head in a blender for being a lying bitch. The driver and the woman were trying to back him up but there was too much screaming. It was chaos.

  It was a diversion.

  Nadia turned. Their luggage was gone.

  “Our luggage,” she said. “Our luggage is gone. It’s a scam to get our luggage.”

  She looked left. Nothing. Glanced to the right. Nothing. She swore. Looked around again. Further out this time. She was vaguely aware the two miscreants were running away. Who cared. She needed her luggage.

  There. Across the street. A third young man wheeled their luggage toward a taxi. One bag in each hand.

  “Thief,” Nadia said. “Stop him.”

  She sprinted toward him.

  A rawboned man in a tan suit appeared from nowhere and blocked the thief’s path. He didn’t touch the kid. He simply spoke to him. Three sentences. Maybe four. Nadia couldn’t hear what he said but the younger guy dropped the bags and ran away.

  The rawboned man helped her retrieve their bags. Up close he appeared to be in his early fifties, with a military crew cut.

  “Thank you,” Nadia said in Ukrainian. When he frowned she repeated herself in Russian.

  His peppercorn eyes twinkled. “You’re welcome. I was in my car waiting for my wife.” He pointed to a white BMW with black rims. “I saw the whole thing happen.” He sounded quite pleased with himself. “You are a tourist?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where are you from?”

  “America.”

  “I love America.” He turned serious and wagged his finger. “Just remember when you go back to America to spread the word. Not everyone in Ukraine is corrupt and criminal.”

  He returned to his car as Marko arrived, out of breath.

  “He speak Russian or Uke?” Marko said. He waved to the good Samaritan, who smiled and waved back.

  “Guess,” Nadia said.

  “Damn. I wanted to like him so bad.”

  CHAPTER 27

  THE GENERAL WOKE up excited and enthused. He was expecting news about the Tesla woman this morning. What started out as a matter of honor was becoming an even more intriguing proposition.

  After washing and dressing he took his breakfast in the study. He never ate breakfast with his wife. He had his butler deliver it to his study instead. If he were to eat breakfast with Asya, the layers of fat in her chin might hypnotize him. He might start counting them. By the time he was done it would be time for lunch. That was unacceptable, eating two meals back-to-back with no productive activity in between, even for a retired military hero.

  What a cow she’d become, he thought. Once she turned fifty, her metabolism slowed and she shed all inhibitions about portion control. Divorce was allowed in the Orthodox Church and he owned a few judges. He could have dumped her for a nominal settlement years ago and married the ballet instructor. She was always making eyes at him and his Mercedes AMG, the one with the hand-built engine. But if he divorced, the other four remaining members of his hunting club, the Zaroff Seven, would have never looked at him the same. They were old-school Soviet boys. Appearances mattered. Screw the farmer’s daughter—or son—if you had to, but for God’s sake do it in private, and don’t dissolve the marriage.

  The General was realizing the truth more and more each day. He had no choice. There was only one way out, one course of action that would allow him to save face. He was going to have to kill her. But this would cause his grandchildren to cry at her funeral. He couldn’t stomach the thought of seeing his grandchildren cry for any reason. And so he went on with the status quo, eating his buckwheat cereal with blueberries in his study every morning, surrounded by the trophies that hung on his wall. Bear, wolf, lynx, argali sheep, red stag, Caucasian tur, snow sheep, wild boar, Siberian tiger. The heads of every animal worth hunting within the boundaries of the former Soviet Union.

  He finished his breakfast and tried to motivate himself to deal with the horror that awaited him in the other room. First however, the phone call that would deliver him good news.

  It came at 9:05 a.m. Sevastopol time.

  “You’re five minutes late,” the General said. “I hate tardiness.” Saint Barbara knew that, and still he hadn’t called on time.

  The General’s former protégé had been a colonel in the Russian army. The colonel had earned his nickname in the Chechen republic of Ichkeriya in 1999. Article 148 of the local criminal code forbid anal sex between people of any sexual persuasion. First and second time offenders were caned. Third-time offenders were beheaded or stoned to death. These local laws were against Russian law. When the colonel personally intervened to prevent a mute prostitute’s murder, the General began to call him Saint Barbara, the patron saint of delivery from sudden death.

  “Don’t blame me,” Saint Barbara said. “Blame the woman in front of me that ordered five lattes to go.”

  “You should have allowed yourself a larger margin for error. A great hunter allows for error.”

  Saint Barbara didn’t answer but the General could picture him rolling his eyes on the other end of the line. Insolent child. But what was he expecting? Saint Barbara was only forty-nine. This younger generation was for shit. No wonder Russia was falling apart.

  “Some punks tried to steal her luggage,” Saint Barbara said. “I made an executive decision and stepped in. Otherwise she’d be wasting time replacing her things instead of getting on with her search.”

  The General paused to think. “I agree. And even worse, it would ruin her disposition. We can’t have that. We need her to be happy. Optimistic. Until it’s time for her to be realistic. Good decision.”

  “Thank you.”

  “She saw your face?”

  “They both did.”

  “Both?”

  “She’s traveling with her brother.”

  The General thought about this development. “I’m not sure that’s such a bad thing. That there are two of them now.”

  “I thought you might say that.”

  “And as for seeing your face, that doesn’t matter. As long as you don’t let her see it again. Until the time comes when it’s the last face she sees.”

  “The brother’s at the Central State Historical Archives this morning. And she’s at Simeonovich’s offices.”

  “Keep me informed.”

  The General hung up and rubbed his hands together. It was going to be a good day after all. Then he remembered his appointment. His semi-annual horror awaited him. And now he was ten minutes late. He cringed. They would make him suffer for being tardy, especially since he’d reamed them new assholes for keeping him waiting five minutes one time.

  The General reached into his desk drawer and grabbed the only weapon that would work against the enemy he was about to face. Stormed out of his office determined to dispose of it within five minutes.

  He walked down the hallways and burst into the grand living room. There they were. The liberals. Three of them, all women, none over the age of thirty-nine. Or so they said. Pride, Prejudice, and Prada.

  “There you are, General,” Pride said. She glanced at her watch. “We were beginning to worry your clock might have stopped.”

  The General bowed. “My apologies, lovely ladies of the Siberian Environmental Protection Committee. Some issues at one of my aluminum plants. Let’s see if I can make it up to you. Look.” He bran
dished his weapon and held it like a hatchet. “I’ve brought my checkbook.”

  CHAPTER 28

  NADIA SCRUBBED BOOKS all morning. The Orel Group’s acquisition target had some problems. Serious problems. Normally, this was good news. A forensic security analysis was similar to an IRS audit. The analyst needed to prove his worth, and this was best accomplished by finding something was wrong. The discovery of some minor accounting irregularities that didn’t threaten the client’s agenda secured victory for everyone. The analyst proved his worth and justified his fee.

  Except in this case the irregularities weren’t minor. Nadia’s findings might deal a blow to Simeon Simeonovich’s ambitions. Clients didn’t react rationally to such news. Especially the rich and mercurial. Sometimes they blamed the person delivering it. They might not admit it to the analyst’s face, but they might withhold a recommendation. A positive referral from one of the world’s richest men could make her career. A negative one could kill it. Prospective clients would question the absence of one.

  When she arrived in the morning, Simeonovich invited her to lunch at his favorite Kyiv restaurant, Spotykach. Nadia quickly looked it up online and found it was the top-rated Eastern European restaurant in town. An old-school Soviet brasserie serving gourmet Ukrainian food. Nadia had been eating Ukrainian food from the womb. The thought of a top chef producing a twist on varenyky whet her appetite. Once they got in his Bentley, however, he told the driver to take them to his private club in Podil. Nadia hid her disappointment. He offered no explanation. Instead he served as her tour guide.

  Podil was the oldest section of Kyiv. A winding thoroughfare revealed monuments, castles, and cobblestone streets. He pointed out a section called Zamkova Hora, or Castle Hill. It was one of several parts of Ukraine known as lysi hory, or bald mountains, inexplicably bare peaks surrounded by dense forest. According to Ukrainian folk mythology, ravens, black eagles, and other paranormal creatures gathered at Zamkova Hora for their “Sabbath.” Local satanic groups also gathered there to conduct their rituals since Ukraine proclaimed its independence in 1991. A special place for ritual sacrifice still stood.