The Boy from Reactor 4

by Orest Stelmach

  Victor grimaced. “You eat pickles with kielbasa?”

  “I eat pickles with everything, man. Major flavor with zero calories. You can’t beat it with your rhythm stick.”

  Victor shook his head and sipped his coffee. They were seated at a table for four in the far corner, Victor with his back against the wall. Misha’s plate smelled of spicy pork and garlic. Victor hadn’t eaten for twenty-four hours and still wasn’t hungry.

  Misha said, “I have an appointment with the money manager, Steen, in Kyiv tomorrow afternoon. I leave on the seven o’clock tonight.”

  A pang struck Victor. “Are you sure it’s wise for you to go? I know the city better. I can go in your place, if you’d like.”

  Misha grinned. “So you can accidentally disappear with ten million dollars? A sudden attack of Alzheimer’s? I don’t think so, Old School. If Damian has ten million on account that is due his niece—his rightful heir—I’m going to tell him she’s ready to accept delivery of the money. In no uncertain terms.”

  A man entered the restaurant and looked around. He wore his hair pulled back in an elastic band like a schoolgirl but had the build of a man who once really worked for a living. The women in the diner looked up from their soups and salads to check out his black suit, which seemed like something an Italian fashion designer or a mortician would wear.

  The man dismissed the hostess with a glance and wound his way through the tables toward them.

  “Victor Bodnar? Mikhail Misha Markov?” he said, glancing at each of them.

  Misha’s men approached quickly from the counter, hands under their coats.

  Victor and Misha remained mute.

  “There’s been a change in plan. Nadia won’t be joining you for coffee today. My name is Johnny Tanner. She sent me in her place. May I?” He motioned to the chair beside Misha, unbuttoned his jacket, and sat down without an invitation. “So, what’s good here?”

  Misha motioned for his men to return to their beer.

  Victor called in Ukrainian for the waitress to come over. He eyed Johnny Tanner’s ponytail uncertainly. Was a man who referred to himself as Johnny trustworthy in any way?

  “Coffee?” the waitress said.

  “No, thanks. I won’t be here long enough to enjoy it.” Johnny Tanner waited until the waitress couldn’t hear them. “So what have you guys learned about Andrew Steen?”

  Victor looked at Misha, who returned his blank stare.

  “Do I know you?” Misha said. “Because you’re talking to me like I know you. And I don’t. Just like I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. Who are you again?”

  “Johnny Tanner. I’m Nadia Tesla’s attorney. And friend. Her very good friend.”

  “I know a Nadia Tesla,” Victor said. “The book man, Obon, introduced me to her yesterday. Nice girl. Very intelligent. I like her very much. She was looking for information about her uncle. A man named Damian. You heard of him?”

  “Sure,” Johnny Tanner said. “He’s alive.”

  Victor didn’t say anything. He couldn’t have if he’d tried. Misha paused to digest what the man said and licked his lips.

  “Say again?” Misha said.

  “Damian Tesla is alive.”

  “Who told you this?” Victor said. “What proof do you have?”

  “Nadia made some inquiries. That’s all she knows for now, but she’s working on it.”

  “What do you mean, she’s working on it?” Misha said. “Why isn’t she here?”

  Misha’s electronic machine sprang to life. It vibrated and danced in place. Victor bit his tongue. Misha picked it up and began to play with it.

  “Where is Nadia now?” Victor said.

  “On the way to Kyiv,” Johnny Tanner said.

  Victor and Misha glanced at each other sharply. Misha resumed reading. The table remained silent for several seconds.

  “You looked surprised to hear that, Victor,” Misha said, face down in his device. He turned toward Johnny. “KLM. Flight 8579. Newark to Amsterdam to Kyiv.” Misha glanced back at the screen. “She’s in 14E in the emergency exit aisle. And she’s drinking red wine.” Misha started typing furiously with both hands.

  Victor would have tipped his cap at Misha if he were wearing one.

  “See, Old School?” Misha said. “The guy with the most money isn’t always the stupidest one at the table.”

  Johnny Tanner showed no emotion, no tangible fear that his friend was in deeper trouble than she could have possibly imagined, until his Adam’s apple moved just a bit.

  “Kyiv is no place for a woman on her own,” Victor observed.

  “I’m sure you’re right,” Johnny Tanner said. “But Nadia is her own woman.”

  “You guys got nothing to worry about,” Misha said. “She’s not on her own. She just thinks she is.” He leaned over to Johnny Tanner and lowered his voice. “Tell her I’m disappointed she wasn’t here like she said she would be. And tell her I’m on the seven o’clock from JFK tonight.”

  Misha left the diner with his men. Johnny Tanner followed shortly afterward.

  Victor’s stomach growled. All of a sudden, he couldn’t remember ever having been so famished. He called the waitress over and ordered a bowl of hunter’s stew and a bottle of Obalon beer.

  Misha was on his way to Kyiv. It was the best possible news. Although Tara was safe for the moment, she and her unborn child would always be at risk until Misha was killed.

  Victor considered that prospect. Getting away from New York would be good. His old stomping grounds would provide Victor plenty of opportunity to make sure Misha never returned home.

  CHAPTER 20

  NADIA COULD SLEEP on planes at will, but not this time. She bolted upright every ten minutes, convinced someone was watching her. Yet when she walked the length of the coach cabin, no one paid attention to her. She even stumbled into business class, pretending to need to use the restroom, before getting kicked out by a flight attendant. She didn’t recognize anyone. Still, she couldn’t sleep.

  She landed at Boryspil Airport after a twelve-hour flight with a stop in Amsterdam. As the plane taxied down the runway, Nadia adjusted her watch. It was 1:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 20, seven hours ahead of New York City. She checked for e-mails from Johnny on the GSM cell phone she’d rented.

  Meeting as planned, Johnny wrote. Wolverine a no-show. Victor quiet. Misha headed your way. You have 7–8 hour head start. Phone is on 24/7. Call if you need me. J.T.

  Misha was en route to Kyiv?

  Nadia grabbed her suitcase from the stowaway bin and raced to Customs and Passport Control. The scene at Terminal B was reminiscent of any American airport, except the people spoke Ukrainian instead of English. Although Nadia had studied and spoken the language her entire life, she’d never been among so many native speakers. It was exhilarating.

  The local process for queueing, however, was not as pleasant. People didn’t wait in orderly lines. They jumped and jostled for position. Nadia channeled her innermost New Yorker to conform. It took her twenty minutes to get to the head of the line. A suspicious young man interrogated her, searched her bags, and motioned for her to pass.

  When she burst into the arrival area, a gang of gypsy-taxi drivers tried to rope her into their cars. Nadia ignored them and continued to the taxi stand. The sun shone on a mild day, but the air smelled of diesel. Peugeots, Fords, and Mercedeses purred in line. While twenty people waited for a ride, five men argued loudly in the yellow hut.

  A thirtysomething driver with dirty-blond hair and cynical blue eyes stood beside his cab at the end of the line. “For every three Cossacks, there are five Hetman,” he said in Ukrainian, shaking his head with disgust. “Welcome to Ukraine.”

  Nadia checked out his cab. Rust dangled from the body of a filthy white Fiat with Soviet stories to tell. Nadia couldn’t see through the indigo tint on the windows, but the phone number stenciled on the side of the door and the license on his dashboard confirmed he was a legitimate operator.


  “Hotel Rus. How much?” Nadia said in English. She rubbed her fingers together in the international sign for money.

  He put up four fingers and answered in Ukrainian. “Four hundred hryvnia,” he said. Fifty dollars. Should be closer to thirty, Nadia thought.

  Nadia switched to Ukrainian. “I need an honest Hetman. One who’ll take this Cossack’s daughter to her hotel for two hundred hryvnia.”

  His lips formed the trace of a smile. “I’m cutting the line. Big violation if they notice. But for a Cossack’s daughter returning to her homeland from America, three hundred hryvnia.”

  Nadia stepped back. “How did you know I’m from America?”

  He pointed at the KLM baggage tag on her suitcase. “Newark, New Jersey,” he said in broken English, smiling.

  Nadia agreed to his rate. He took her bags, opened the door for her, and drove her out of the airport.

  “First time here?” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “Are you a language professor? An academic?”

  “No. I was born in America, but I was raised in a Ukrainian community. Ukrainian was the first language I learned. I went to night school for twelve years.”

  “You speak it well. Where was your father from?”

  “Bila Tserkva.”

  The driver nodded. “Sure. My cousins live there. I visit all the time. What do you do for a living in America?”

  Nadia hesitated. “Finance,” she said. “I work in finance.”

  He moaned with approval. “So you are beautiful, and you make a good salary. You are half of paradise.”

  Nadia blushed. She spied his handsome grin in the rearview mirror. “I beg your pardon?”

  “In Ukraine, men say that paradise is an American salary, a Ukrainian wife, Chinese food, and an English house. You have the first two covered, so you’re half of paradise.”

  “Oh.”

  He glanced at her through the mirror. “You know what hell is?”

  Nadia shook her head.

  “Hell is a Ukrainian salary, an American wife, a Chinese house, and English food.”

  Nadia chuckled. “Yes. Stay away from those American women. They’re selfish and spoiled.”

  “Really? Ha. What do you know? Just like the men in Ukraine. That makes us two of a kind.”

  An eight-lane highway cut through a countryside filled with birch groves and white brick farmhouses. A yellow neon sign proclaimed WELCOME TO KYIV in English. The forest yielded to a sequence of billboards and neat rows of apartment buildings topped with satellite dishes. At first, the landscape was reminiscent of the approach to a regional American airport. Once they crossed the Dnipro River and the hills of Kyiv rolled into view, everything changed. A panorama of gilded church domes decorated the horizon. They blended with modern architecture to create a unique urban skyline.

  As traffic picked up, the driver accelerated his pace. He used breakdown lanes to pass on the right and darted between cars in lanes that didn’t exist. Nadia clung to her armrest.

  “There are no atheists in Kyivan taxicabs,” he said with a grin. “In fact, you give me an atheist, I’ll convert him to the religion of your choice in fifteen minutes.”

  “That’s terrific,” Nadia said. “But I’m already a believer. And if I wasn’t clear at the airport, I was hoping to arrive at the hotel alive.”

  The driver laughed and drove more cautiously the rest of the way. When he pulled into the driveway, Nadia tipped him 20 percent.

  “Here is my card,” he said earnestly. “My name is Anton. If you need reliable transport, call me. Anytime.”

  Nadia looked at the card. Anton Medved, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Kyiv Slavonic University. Why was a professor driving a cab?

  “Ukrainian salary,” Anton said, as though reading her mind. “It really is hell.”

  Nadia thanked him and checked into the Hotel Rus. The drab concrete exterior of the former Soviet property conjured images of a soulless country. Her room was small but clean.

  After a quick shower, Nadia dialed Clementine Seelick’s number in Kyiv and got the same beauty salon she and her mother had reached before. She gathered her valuables in her bag and asked the concierge for directions to Clementine’s address. Just in case the taxi driver tried to take her for a ride or she ended up on foot for whatever reason.

  In the taxi, she asked the driver if Start Stadium was on the way. He said it was a slight detour. Nadia asked him to drive by so she could see it. He obliged and stopped at a monument at the front. It was a bronze of a muscular athlete kicking a soccer ball into the beak of a wounded eagle. Nadia felt a lump in her throat. She could hear her father tell the story for the umpteenth time.

  On August 9, 1942, Kyiv was under Nazi occupation. A group of German officers believed to be members of artillery and Luftwaffe units challenged a local soccer team consisting primarily of bakery employees. Some of those employees, however, had been members of Kyiv’s elite Dynamo team. The local team was warned about the risks of defeating a team consisting of Nazi soldiers, but as one Ukrainian player put it, “Sport is sport.” The game that followed would become known as the Death Match.

  Before the match started, a Gestapo officer visited the Ukrainians in their locker room and instructed them to give the Nazi salute in a pregame ceremony. The players agreed, but then refused to follow through on the field. The match was tied 3–3 until the Ukrainians rallied for two more goals. They won 5–3.

  Within six months, four of the Ukrainian players died. Among them, their three stars.

  Yes, exaggerations followed. The Germans probably didn’t incapacitate the Ukrainian goalie by kicking him in the head. There was no evidence a Gestapo officer warned them to lose at halftime or face execution. It was unclear if the players’ deaths were a function of retribution. And director John Huston’s Victory, with Michael Caine and Sylvester Stallone, where the players earned a victory and escaped to freedom, was pure Hollywood.

  But they were legitimate Ukrainian heroes from World War II. A war during which eight million Ukrainians died, more than in any other European country, and one during which Ukrainians were often collectively labeled Nazi sympathizers.

  After the detour, the driver turned back and dropped her off on Yaroslaviv Val. It was a narrow, cozy street. Elaborate balustrades and balconies adorned the facades of architectural masterpieces. Nadia walked for five minutes until she found the five-story neoclassical apartment building. She buzzed the door to Seelick, 8B, took a deep breath, and waited.

  No one answered.

  A minute later, she buzzed again. No one was home. After two more tries, she buzzed the button for deliveries and asked to speak with the super.

  A stout man with a handlebar mustache opened the door. Nadia told him she was looking for Clementine Seelick.

  The super soured as soon as he heard the name. “She’s gone,” he said.

  “Gone?”

  “This is a monthly rental. She left at the end of March.”

  “Did she leave a forwarding address?”

  The super looked Nadia over from head to toe and turned away as though he was insulted. “No. I don’t think she lived here.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “She had visitors. Male visitors, if you know what I mean. And now she’s gone. Are you interested in renting an apartment?”

  “Who, me?” Nadia said. “No, thank you.”

  The super grunted and slammed the door in her face.

  CHAPTER 21

  KIRILO ANDRE HOISTED himself to his feet, circled his Louis XIV desk, and faced his daughter. He’d been waiting for this moment since the British kid had asked Isabella to marry him. Kirilo clutched the antique music jewelry box.

  “For you,” he said in Ukrainian, his voice cracking. “To wear on your wedding day.”

  “What? For me? For real, Papa?” Isabella said.

  “Yes, sunshine. For you.”

  Tears welled in her eyes. She didn’t rush to open
it. Instead, she caressed the mother-of-pearl inlay with her elegant fingers, taking pleasure in it.

  Kirilo caught his breath. With each passing year, she looked more like her mother. Her black hair fell in silken strands to her shoulders. Her innocent oval face appeared sculpted by God himself from Venetian white marble.

  After her mother died when she was sixteen, she told him she wasn’t going to be like all the other girls her age. She was saving herself for the man she loved. How proud he had been. Now she was twenty-one, and the time had come. Why did it have to happen so fast?

  Isabella opened the box. It sprang to life with the melody of “Lara’s Theme.”

  “Doctor Zhivago,” Kirilo said. “It was your mother’s favorite—”

  “Oh, Papa. They’re beautiful.” Isabella pulled the strand of white pearls out of the box and gasped.

  “They were your mother’s greatest treasure. She asked me to give them to you for your wedding day. They’re natural pearls. Made by oysters. By accident. Just like you. Here, let’s try them on.”

  Isabella stood up. Kirilo’s hands trembled as he fit the pearls around his daughter’s neck.

  “Well…” he said, forgetting his other words as quickly as they came to mind.

  She ran to the mirror in his office bathroom, shrieked, and flew back into his arms.

  “Thank you. Thank you, Papa.”

  They discussed the wedding arrangements for a few minutes.

  “It doesn’t have to be the Hotel Oreanda,” Isabella said. “We can have a simple wedding. At a smaller place.”

  “Nonsense. I’ve booked all one hundred thirty-three rooms and suites for our guests. I’ve booked the entire hotel for the weekend.”

  She beamed and kissed him hard on the cheek.

  “Papa,” she said when she pulled away, “we want to live in London when we’re married.”

  “London?” he said, alarmed. “Really? I thought your young man was going to open a restaurant in Kyiv. You know. Close by.”

  “We were thinking about that, but given my experience in the music business—”

  “Selling CDs at Virgin Records?”