The Way I Die

by Derek Haas

  A few google clicks and I stand in the lobby of The London Times, asking to speak to a reporter named Jeremy Doyle. The receptionist makes a call and twenty minutes later, a frumpy man who looks like he sleeps in his clothes appears from behind a glass door.

  “Hello. Gina said you’re with Hodder & Stoughton?”

  I shake his hand.

  “Yes, an in-house imprint called Textile. It’s a play on text and tiles, you know like they . . . never mind. I keep telling Randall it’s too much to explain.”

  The reporter examines me like I’m some kind of alien creature.

  “Anyway, sorry, I’m nervous. Is there some place we can talk?”

  “Yeah, yeah, of course.”

  He shepherds me beyond the glass.

  Print reporters are a dying breed in the world of personal blogs and instant tweeting. If you dangle a book deal in front of one of them, they’ll tell you everything you want to know.

  “Did you read Voices from Chernobyl by Alexievich?”

  Doyle nods. “She won the Nobel.”

  “That’s right. I worked with her when I was at Norton. I came across the articles you wrote about the Belchatow Power Station accident back in 2004.”

  “I was stationed in Krakow then. Just happened to be around when it all went down.” His eyes twinkle.

  “It was a long time ago,” I say, dipping my hook in the water, shining a light on the tasty bait.

  “Not too long. I remember it like it was yesterday.”

  “Do you think there’s a book there?”

  He leans forward and blows out a snort of air. “Oh, yeah, without a doubt.”

  “I don’t know. I mean at its core it’s a pretty standard power plant accident, nothing remarkable about it, right?”

  “Okay, let me stop you right there. What’d you say your name was?”

  “Walker. Jack Walker.”

  “Let me stop you right there, Mr. Walker. This isn’t a standard story. No way. I mean that’s the cover story the Polish government used, yes, sure. That’s the reported story. Hell, I reported it.” He smooths out some hair on the top of his head, actually licks his palm and pats it down.

  “What’s the real story? I’ll be honest, I heard some whispering. That’s why I’m here.”

  “You were testing me, huh?”

  “I just thought it sounded a little far-fetched. Government conspiracy shit.”

  I’m guessing but it seems a fair guess based on Loeb’s report. Jeremy takes the bait.

  “Okay, here’s what I heard firsthand from two people who worked there. You want the short version or the long version?”

  Before I can answer, he says, “Short version is the head of the power plant purposely murdered twenty-four people, but you already guessed that one. The long version is where it gets interesting. You got time?”

  “Nothing but.”

  “Good, good, because if I write this for you, it’s gonna be a best seller.”

  “Let’s hear it then.”

  A couple of stray hairs stick up on his head like antenna and he pats them down again.

  “Okay, here goes . . .”

  The Belchatow Power Station covers about 4,000 acres and has twin 300-meter chimneys that spew exhaust into the dead center of Poland to the tune of 30 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year. This place is sprawling, smelly, nasty, and this is fifteen years ago, before regulations and carbon capture technology and all that. The coal from the plant comes from a giant strip mine nearby, so there’s just a layer of nastiness covering the whole operation. Now, the guy overseeing all of it is a very smart, very ambitious man named Piotr Malek. P-i-o-t-r but pronounced Peter.

  So you know, here’s who I’m talking to when I did the reporting. I’m talking to the operations manager. I’m talking to a security official named Gorski who is “No longer with us” and yes, those finger quotes are intentional. “No longer with us.” I’m talking to several menial laborers who worked there for several years.

  So I do some digging and I learn Malek went to school in Moscow. Okay, yes, he was in Moscow but he wasn’t in school. He was GRU inside Russian intelligence, and his contemporaries there are a murderer’s row of Russian agents—Naryshkin, Lunev, Trofimoff, some say Putin himself. Okay, so he does a decade in Moscow in foreign intelligence. A lot of where he went and who he went with and what he was doing is spotty, but I have some ideas. Bosnia. Kosovo. Qatar. This guy was in every hot spot and everywhere he went, people died.

  Okay, regardless, he returns to Poland, and he rises quickly in the energy department, all his orders coming straight from the Kremlin, I suspect, and this traitor to his nation gets rich and climbs to the head of the Department of Energy, which becomes the Polish Power Grid Company in ’97. He rides the wave from public to private without ever wiping out.

  Okay, stay with me. This is where it gets . . . insane. 2004.

  Okay, there’s an accident in building 6 between the pulverizer and the boiler. In the official report, two dozen workers were called in to clean out a faulty conveyor that carries crushed coal from the pulverizer to the boiler. I can draw you a diagram if you want. Pulverizer’s here, boiler’s here, conveyor belt runs between. And here’s where the questions begin. I’m a reporter and I live for questions.

  One, why do you need two dozen bodies to do what could be accomplished by ten? I’m getting this from the head of operations and maintenance, whom Malek conveniently sent home that day. Operations, security, safety, and management heads were all sent home with no explanation. Why, right? Now, granted, none of them would talk to me on the record. Three wouldn’t talk to me at all, but operations . . . Piotek, Piontek, something like that, I’ll have to check my notes. He was rattled, but I slid him a stack of bills and some vodka and he opened up like a tin can. He said he’d deny it if I reported anything, but I still have my notes. Anyway, so question one is why are there two dozen people doing a job ten could do?

  Question two is why were all two dozen workers political prisoners?

  His eyes glow and he leans back, licking his lips, and those two stray hairs stand on his head again like soldiers snapping salutes. He ignores them and his face wiggles up and down like a bobblehead doll.

  “This was not a state factory making license plates where prisoners are routinely brought in to do manual labor. This is a one-time affair, a first and a last, two buses filled with prisoners brought in on that day, to do that job.

  “Okay, so I start drilling down on these prisoners and let me tell you, it wasn’t easy. The number of the dead was widely reported, but the names, the families, who actually died, that was always being sorted, as internal investigations went on indefinitely.

  “Still, I worked my way inside and checked prison transfer records and prison populations and one domino led to the next and I realized these weren’t state prisoners, these were dissidents, all of them. Some were Chechen rebels who had escaped to Poland and were picked up on dubious charges. Others were Ukrainian nationals, some were Poles, some Russian, but there were twenty-four people who had either spoken out against the PiS party, which was rising to power in 2004, or the Kremlin.

  “So here’s Piotr Malek, right, who grew up in the shadow of a Nazi prison camp in Krakow, marching twenty-four political enemies into a power plant and roasting them alive. Hitler’s proclivities not far from his mind, I can assure you.”

  He shakes his head at the wonder of it all. “How’s that for a book, eh? It’s got a bad guy who is Hitler-adjacent, it’s got innocent victims, it’s politically charged, I mean, tell me, what am I missing?”

  I shake my head. “Why didn’t you report this before?”

  “Scared, maybe. Too much work. Worried I’d get to the end and it wouldn’t add up. Worried I’d get sued. This is a bad time for reporters, you understand. I don’t know. I’m a coward I guess.”

  “Why would you write it now?” Irrelevant to what I need—I’ve already gotten everything I hoped for—but
I genuinely want to know.

  “For the advance, right?” He smiles big and claps his hands together. Then he points a finger at me. “Kidding, mate, kidding. No, in all seriousness, I think enough time has passed and maybe people who were reluctant to talk would talk now. Like Chernobyl.”

  I nod. “Okay, look, you’ve been very helpful. Do you have a lit agent?”

  “No, I mean, I’ve spoken to a few . . .”

  “No matter. Give me a few weeks to pitch this proposal upstairs. I’m sure I can get it through, just a formality, but I gotta do it.”

  “No, yeah, of course.”

  “Once I get the sign-off, I’ll send you the names of some lit agents. Or if you want to find one on your own . . .”

  “Okay, yeah, no, fine.”

  “Great.”

  I stand and Doyle enthusiastically shakes my hand, nearly jerking it off my wrist. What is it with these Brits and their handshakes? Dollar signs and Nobel prizes sparkle in his eyes. “This is wonderful, really. So unexpected.”

  “Don’t celebrate yet,” I admonish. “And do me a favor and don’t mention this to anyone. If Hodder catches wind you’re shopping this, they’ll just back off completely. We’ve been burned before and they say they won’t play that game again.”

  “Oh, yeah, no. You came to me. You get first shot, Mr. Walker.”

  “I’ll call you as soon as I hear.”

  “Thank you.”

  I get to the door of the conference room and turn the handle. Before I exit, I turn back to him. “Twenty-four political prisoners burned alive.”

  “Like Auschwitz,” he says, and shakes his head in wonder.

  9

  You’re not going to like me when this is over. Any goodwill I’ve earned by telling you my story over this last decade is about to evaporate. You’ll ask why I would hurt an innocent woman. You’ll say there could’ve been other ways, safer ways, where the innocent were left out of it. But you’ve forgotten who I am. You’ll say I didn’t take the time to plan another route to Malek and you are right. I won’t deny it. I’m a killer and I hurt people to get to my target, sometimes intentionally. Cuts heal. Broken bones heal. Bruises heal. Psyches heal. Pain lessens. Victims forget. Move on. Get over it.

  Ask yourself later, if you had to reach Piotr Malek, would you do what I did to get to him?

  The weak seek out weakness. The wounded attack the wounds in others.

  Surveillance is difficult on his house in Maidenhead. The neighboring land is owned by some kind of Turkish ambassador as a summer retreat so there are cameras set up along the length of it in a multi-acre hedge on both sides of the road. I rent a black BMW SUV and drive along the road twice, going and coming after stopping at a Sainsbury’s, so it looks like my reconnaissance has a purpose.

  Malek has a black iron gate blocking entry to his mansion, and one of his guards stands at the seam of it, unsmiling, at attention, eyeing me both times I pass.

  I give him a two finger wave as I go by the second time.

  I want him to remember me.

  Inside the window of a sandwich shop, I sit at the counter, just left of the door, when Madeleine spots me. She catches herself, unsure it’s me, and then waves and steps inside. There are many ways a contract killer can make himself invisible. There are also ways to position your body, your face, your clothing, put them all in motion in just the right way, to catch someone’s eye.

  From the doorway, she says, “I know you!”

  I pretend to turn off my music and then take earbuds out of my ears.

  I smile, “It’s the Polish teacher.”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  The best sales jobs are when the buyer thinks she discovered the item on her own, without learning the item was placed precisely where the shop owner knew she’d look.

  “Have you eaten?”

  A smile pulls up the corners of her mouth and softens her face. “I haven’t.”

  “Well, I can do better than here,” I say. “What’re you in the mood for?”

  We walk to a sushi restaurant and take two seats at the counter.

  “I should’ve asked if you like sushi,” she says.

  “I’ll eat anything.”

  We order rolls and nigiri from an obsequious chef and when he moves off, I turn to her. “I have to ask if you’re single.”

  She chokes on the water she just put to her lips.

  “I’m sorry,” I add quickly. “I know that’s terribly forward.”

  “No, I . . . well . . . it’s interesting. Without going into detail, it’s complicated. How’s that?”

  “Ahh, okay. I would never intrude except, well, truth be told, I couldn’t stop thinking about you since yesterday, and then seeing you today was like out of one of those Richard Curtis movies, and anyway, I got swept away.”

  She touches my forearm. “No, Jack, listen. I am single but there’s . . .”

  “Someone else.”

  She nods, blushing. “Someone married. It’s a cliché, I know. I don’t even like him that much. It’s all ghastly if you think about it. Which is why I don’t.”

  Her accent makes the old song sound cute, at least. I can see how a middle-aged Polish man would fall for her, and I understand why she would carry on the affair, but I want to hear her say it.

  “And how does that work?” I ask. “You have to forgive me for being nosy. I have fours sisters, so it was a gossip frenzy in my house growing up.”

  “You are forward . . .” she says, but doesn’t seem to mind. It’s more of an observation than an accusation. “Well, what happens is he sees me on the side without his wife knowing.”

  “And what do you get out of it?”

  “I get to live in London in a pretty nice flat that an English tutor could ill afford. It’s not as romantic as a Richard Curtis film, but it’s the way it is. For me, at least. An affair of convenience.”

  “He may not feel as flippant about it as you.”

  The sushi chef leans over with two plates of nigiri, a thimble of wasabi, and a bird’s nest of ginger. “Salmon. Tuna. Yellowtail,” he says with a British accent.

  Madeleine pulls wooden chopsticks from a paper sleeve and goes to work. “So,” she says between bites. “Does my scarlet letter turn you away? Because I understand if it does.”

  “I’m a little shocked is all.”

  “There’s a Polish expression. Modli się pod figurą, a diabła ma za skórą. Roughly it translates to ‘She prays but has a devil under the skin.’ I always liked that one.”

  The sushi chef clears out our empty trays and replaces them with fresh ones. He then puts a perfectly carved rainbow roll between us.

  Madeleine’s eyes light up and she does a little clap and bow. “Anyway, enough about me. What about you? You have a secret you wish to relieve yourself of?”

  I shake my head. “I grew up in Boston but live here now. I’ve never been married but did just get out of a bad relationship. My fault. She wanted commitment and I . . . didn’t.”

  Madeleine eyes me, a hint of crow’s feet crinkling the edges of her eyes. “Wow, we’re covering a lot of ground on our first date.”

  “Impromptu first date,” I say, as Madeleine polishes off the rest of the roll. I think I had one piece.

  “Now,” she purrs, “do you want another roll or do you want to take me home and fuck me?”

  I pretend to be shocked.

  I make it as far as the front gate to her flat and then tell her I’m not ready, which is the truth, although she doesn’t need to know the reason why.

  She doesn’t act hurt, doesn’t plead either, just nonchalantly moves inside her door and says, “Call me when you are, Jack.” She winks at me over her shoulder and disappears inside.

  I will.

  Just a few pieces to move around the board and then I will ring her bell.

  Piotr Malek’s sister and her wife have theater tickets and no protection. I find this so often with marks, men with price tags on their h
eads. They spend enormous sums on twenty-four-hour protection, go through any number of inconveniences to keep themselves safe, and then completely neglect their immediate family. I’ve gotten to men through their mothers and fathers, through their brothers and sisters, the occasional aunt or uncle or cousin. It’s amazing how often you can get a target to drop everything and come to you simply by texting a photo of a roughed-up sibling or parent.

  Gosia Malek lives in a house Piotr paid for, lives there with her wife, her two short-hair cats, and illusions of security: dead-bolt locks, door alarms, window stoppers. The house has motion detectors but they don’t turn them on because of the cats. The alarm companies love to say the motion detectors are gauged to ignore pets, but a couple of false alarms and the owners stop setting them.

  I know Gosia and her wife are at the theater because the two women shouted the address at the cab driver as he pulled to the curb to pick them up. Twenty minutes later and I’m looking at a picture of the two of them posted to Instagram, smiling in front of the theater sign at the Old Vic. There has simply never been an easier time for thieves and killers. Bless you vanity. Bless you social media.

  I have plenty of time to pick the lock, dismantle the alarm, and have my run of the place. On the second floor, I find Gosia’s laptop. There’s no code to access the desktop, so I browse through her email account. There are only five or six messages between Piotr and her, and they’re written in Polish. I use Google’s translator to unlock the words and though I can’t trust the translation to capture nuance, it seems the emails are basic requests for money with no “How are yous” or “Tell me about your days” or “I love yous.”