Chernobyl Murders

34

When the front door of the house flew open and two men ran out waving frantically, Nikolai opened the door of the Volga and followed after Captain Brovko. Once inside the house, one of the men who had waved ran alongside Brovko.

“The major is in the yard. He’s found something. A tunnel, I think.”

When Nikolai followed Brovko out the back door, Detective Horvath shouted after them. “Your major is going insane! You’d better watch him!”

In the yard, Major Komarov was bent over a box Nikolai had seen. But the box was open, its top, with a tablecloth hanging on it, tilted upward. Komarov stood as Brovko approached.

“Get the two Gypsy traitors,” said Komarov to the men nearest him. “Carry them out here, chairs and all. Here, give me your gun.”

Komarov took the AKM from the nearest man and turned to Brovko. “Captain, a dozen men search through the night, find nothing, yet the women and children are here under their noses. I should have known. The soil on this plateau is high and dry.”

Komarov watched the men gathering, trudging through the weeds. He smiled and waved his arm. “Come, don’t be frightened!

Women and children cowering in a wine cellar won’t bite!” Komarov held up the AKM he had confiscated. “I’ll protect you!”

The men sent for the prisoners carried Horvath and Bela outside, the two who were carrying Bela’s chair struggling. Bela’s wriggling threw the men off balance, and they dropped Bela on his side.

“New recruits,” said Komarov to Brovko, shaking his head.

“Whichever KGB school they graduated from should be investigated!”

Komarov pointed to the ground near the open box with the AKM. “Put them here.”

Because Komarov was smiling, some of the men smiled back.

But to Nikolai it was not a contagious smile. It was the grin of a madman.

Detective Horvath and Bela Sandor sat side by side, tied to their chairs, facing the open box. Komarov went to the far side of the box and faced them. Nikolai stood beside Captain Brovko and the rest of the men gathered in a semicircle behind them. They all looked at the box concealing the hole in the ground.

“It’s a wine cellar,” announced Komarov. “Gypsies drink plenty, the cheapest they can get, homemade rotgut. I should have known there wasn’t enough in the house. When I was a boy outside Moscow, legend had it they drank blood when they ran out of wine.”

Komarov looked down into the hole. “The Gypsies from my boyhood had a pact with one another. They were clannish, which meant the lives of those outside the clan meant nothing. Neither did the country in which they lived. Some Gypsies ended up leaving the motherland. They’ll go to any country foolish enough to let them in. They have a rebellious nature. We’ve had a taste of this rebellion in Afghanistan.”

Nikolai noticed two men who were standing to one side of the box glance at one another and shrug their shoulders.

Komarov stooped down and spoke into the hole. “You may come out now, Gypsies.” Komarov paused for a moment, then shouted, “I said, come out!”

Komarov stood up, aimed the AKM down the hole, and fired.

It all happened very quickly. The AKM was on full automatic.

At least a dozen rounds blasted into the hole. When the firing stopped, screams echoed from the hole, screams of women and children, making Nikolai want to do something. Off to the side he saw one of the men raise his AKM in Komarov’s direction. Behind him he heard a man say, “Don’t shoot them!”

The prisoners wriggled in their chairs, breathing loudly through their teeth.

After firing, Komarov stepped back from the hole and shouted,

“Will you come out now?”

“Yes!” was the reply, a woman weeping. Nikolai could feel the anguish in his chest.

Captain Brovko broke from the group and approached the entrance to the cellar. When the first woman appeared, he helped her up. It was Nina Horvath, who turned to take the baby from Mariska Sandor, who came out next, causing Bela to call her name. Finally, the two little girls came out.

“Take them into the house,” said Komarov. Then he summoned one of the men and gave back the AKM.

After a tearful reunion between Mariska, Bela, Detective Horvath, and his sister-in-law, Nina, Captain Brovko and two other men led the women and children to the house. Mariska was pulled backward, and she looked to Bela, making the sign of the cross.

“Pray to your God!” shouted Komarov. “Instead of joining with our motherland, pray to your icons, your ancestors, your Allah!

Idiot zealots! Destroyers of the world!”

The men who had carried Bela and Detective Horvath out began lifting Bela’s chair to follow the women and children into the house.

“No!” shouted Komarov, then, more calmly, he said, “Leave them here.”

Komarov walked around the cellar entrance and stood before Horvath and Bela. But then he turned suddenly and stared wide-eyed at Nikolai. “Now we will learn something, Nikolai Nikolskaia.

When conspirators go into hiding, they confirm their conspiracy.

The connection between Zukor and his cousins is established. We need only find Juli Popovics, whose role was to help Mihaly Horvath escape had the reactor not overreacted to his treachery!”

Several men standing to the side looked to one another, wondering whether Komarov’s theory rang true.

Komarov turned back to Horvath. “I wonder if the American CIA technical experts knew how the reactor would react when they sent in their Gypsy Moth. Not simply a steam explosion, but a more disastrous explosion endangering many lives! What would they care if the lives of a few Ukrainians and Russians and Hungarians were put at risk? Their goal was to disable the reactor, and they succeeded. Those in the Lubyanka in Moscow knew of the plot. Unfortunately the information they had was not enough to stop it!”

Nikolai listened with confusion as Komarov confronted Detective Horvath. “It’s a foregone conclusion, Detective Horvath. I cannot risk the possibility of another CIA plot in the works. You know where Juli Popovics is. She has information critical to us, and I have the women and children.”

“They won’t let you hurt them.”

“What did you say?”

“The men. They have families. You can’t expect them to let you…”

Komarov took out his pistol and smashed Horvath across the face. This time, after being relatively silent in the house all night, Horvath screamed. It was an overwhelming scream echoing across the plateau, a baleful scream of release and anger. When Horvath’s scream trailed off, yet another ungodly sound began, higher pitched, the shriek of an animal somewhere below ground. Words buried in the scream emerged from the hole in the ground. A woman. How could these words come from a woman?

“Komarov! You have fucked your mother and your father! Is there no one left?”

Komarov smiled an insane smile, turned, and started for the cellar entrance.

“No!” shouted Horvath. “I’ll say anything you want!”

When Komarov aimed his pistol down the hole, Horvath shouted something in Hungarian.

Komarov fired all eight rounds. He glared at the men moving toward him. Nikolai felt someone at his back shoving him forward.

Brovko came running from the house. Komarov threw the pistol aside, took a large folding knife from his pocket, opened it, and climbed quickly down the ladder. The last thing Nikolai saw was Komarov’s insane smile as Brovko ran up to the hole, then turned about with a puzzled look on his face as Horvath shouted in Hungarian. Among the shouts the word kes was repeated over and over, and Nikolai knew it must mean knife.

Juli’s ears rang from the deafening booms of the gunshots into the cellar. The air was filled with the smell of gunpowder. Light from the opening slanted through dust and smoke. No sooner had she stared at the slant of light, and the entrance was blocked by a shadow.

The rungs of the ladder creaked from the weight of someone coming down. Komarov or another man sent after her.

She heard Lazlo shouting from above. Something about a knife.

Komarov had a knife! When she could see legs on the ladder, she heard another voice, the voice of a man shouting directly into the hole.

“Major Komarov! Wait!”

In the distance, beyond the man shouting down the hole, Lazlo continued. “If you’re not going after him, at least keep silent!”

Suddenly, the world above was cut off. The only sounds remaining were the creaking of the last rungs of the ladder and the sound of her heartbeat.

Juli’s life, since the day she met Mihaly on the bus from the power station to Pripyat, flashed through her mind as it had flashed through her mind so many times. Small details of what had happened stood out. Other possibilities materialized-Mihaly’s parallel world; an island in the South Pacific to which the China Syndrome of Chernobyl has eaten a tunnel; Mihaly and Lazlo together in this other world, united-a seemingly small decision in the past could have prevented Mihaly’s death, perhaps even prevented the accident at Chernobyl.

If only she had married long ago, been a married woman with children like Nina when she and Mihaly met casually on the bus. If only she had listened to Mihaly’s concerns about the plant and done something, anything. If only she hadn’t met Lazlo and fallen in love with him. If only…

No! They were depending on her! Everyone up there in the world was depending on her! If Lazlo was willing to die for her and Nina and Mariska and the children, she should be willing to do something. Do something!

When the last rung of the ladder creaked, she crawled as quietly as she could to the side of the cellar where she knew the wine kegs rested on a wooden stand, which had felt like a squat table in the dark. She squeezed beneath the stand, spiderwebs settling across her face. It was a tight fit, one of the kegs in its cradle on the stand pressed against her back, another kept the side of her face on the dirt floor. She looked back at the shaft of light from the entrance and saw Komarov standing bent over. Then he disappeared, joining her in the darkness of the cellar.

It was so quiet in the yard Lazlo could hear birds singing down the hill. Juli! Why didn’t you fly away?

The seconds ticked by, Brovko and several other men standing around the hole, looking to one another. One man took out a flashlight, aimed it at the hole, but Brovko put his hand on the man’s arm and the man put the flashlight away.

The birds kept singing, and Lazlo looked down, trying to see through the earth and into the wine cellar. Then he prayed, first to his mother, then to his father, then to Mihaly. He even prayed to the Gypsy deserter on the Romanian border. He prayed that their spirits, knowing the difference between virtue and evil, would tunnel from their tombs. He prayed for them to go into the cellar and take Komarov with them.

Komarov followed the wall for a short distance before sitting on the floor against the wall. Because he held the knife in his right hand, he reached into his pocket with his left hand for the flashlight he had been given by one of the men. He listened for a moment, and when he could hear nothing, he aimed the flashlight straight ahead and switched it on.

She was wedged beneath a low platform holding a row of wine kegs off the floor. She covered her eyes with one hand and tried to squeeze farther beneath the platform.

“I didn’t think you had a gun,” he said quietly. “Otherwise you would have shot at me as I came down the ladder. This investigation has been a long, hard struggle for me. Even though you may think you are innocent, I know better. Just as I climbed down here on the ladder, I will climb to the top on your back and on the back of your lover. If others try to stop me or take credit for uncovering your conspiracy, I’ll climb atop the heap of their remains. I could capture you and say you confessed to me, but I’m afraid there are some who might believe your lies simply because you are a woman.”

Komarov switched the flashlight off and put it into his pocket.

Soon he would use it once more to look into her eyes the way he had looked into the eyes of Gretchen and Tamara. In his other hand, held down at his side, was the knife he would need to defend himself from an attack from behind.

When the glow of light filtering through her closed lids went out, she opened her eyes and, at the same time, struggled out from beneath the kegs. When she crawled free of her hiding place, she thought her ankles would be grasped at any moment. If she stood and ran to the ladder, he would see her and pull her down before she could climb halfway up.

She crawled slowly to the middle of the floor, pushing her fingers ahead through the surface dirt. She listened for him but could hear only her inhales and exhales. She opened her mouth wide in an attempt to quiet her breathing and crawled against the far wall, away from the entrance where her outline would be visible against the light from above. She crawled a circular path to the place he had been because she was certain he would have moved.

She paused and listened. She heard his breathing to one side.

Then she heard nothing and moved forward. Suddenly, her hand touched his shoe.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” he said, his voice seemingly calm, as if he did not really mean to hurt her.

In an instant his hand was at her head, clutching her hair and pulling. She swung out, hit his face. He stood, pulled her up with him, and threw her to the floor. She tried to roll away, but he had her by the arm, twisting her arm until she thought it would break.

Her other hand was on the dirt floor. She clutched a handful of dirt and flung it at his face. He coughed and spit, and she was able to pull free.

She ran to the back of the cellar, smashed her shin against a bench. Despite the pain, she picked up the bench, swung it around, and pushed it out in front of her. She hit him with it, but he was quickly back at her, ripping the bench from her grasp and pushing her against the wooden timbers on the wall.

A sharp pain at the back of her head was followed by dizziness.

She grasped at the wall, but it moved upward and away from her.

She was forced onto her back. She felt his weight on her. Then the flashlight burned in her eyes.

She could hear muted voices from above. Men arguing. They would come down into the cellar to help her. They would drag Komarov away. But Komarov’s hot breath blew on her face as he shouted, his voice enraged and insane.

“Don’t come down! That’s my order! If you do, you’ll be shot!

She’s armed!”

It was all happening too fast. Only seconds had gone by. The arguing from above continued. No one came.

He was behind the flashlight, breathing heavily. She could smell his foul breath. When she tried to push the flashlight away, she felt a sharp pain on her abdomen.

“Lie still.” His voice was calm again, a voice seemingly coming from a different person. “I have a knife. I’ll push it all the way in if you move.”

He turned and again shouted, “Fools! Don’t interfere! She’s armed!”

The knife was at her. Not inside yet, but pricking the skin of her abdomen. Her baby! What about her baby? She needed something to strike him with. She reached out slowly, not moving, not really.

The light stayed in her eyes until she stared above the light where she could now see his eyes in the dim light above the flashlight.

Dirt would be futile. She stretched her arm outward, and this seemed to draw him closer. Then she felt something. Cloth. Damp cloth. A soiled diaper from Mariska’s baby. She pulled it in with her fingertips, pulled it closer and dragged it to her side where he could not see it because his eyes were close to hers. He spoke.

“How young you are, and beautiful. I thought you would have reminded me of other Gypsy women. Your hair is lighter than I thought it would be. You are neither Barbara nor Tamara. I’m paying you a compliment when I say you remind me of Gretchen.”

She considered pleading with him. Maybe he had made a mistake. Maybe he was really after someone called Gretchen. Maybe if she reminded him she was not Gretchen. No! Reason would not do. He was insane. She could see it in his eyes. And if he was insane, maybe she could make him think she was Gretchen, if only for a moment.

She slowly moved the diaper closer and felt more pressure on the knife. When she opened her eyes wide, the pressure lessened.

She kept her eyes open wide and forced a smile. She said, “I am Gretchen. I have something for you.”

His eyes narrowed slightly, and he moved his face back when she began unbuttoning her blouse with her free hand. The flashlight lowered, and she could see him looking at her breasts. The look on his face changed slightly. A smile began to appear. As she unbuttoned her blouse, she had his attention. But what would she do after this? And what would he do?

For the first time since he’d held her down, she felt a slight lifting of his weight. Then, when she felt the pressure of the knife at her abdomen ease even more, she pushed the soiled diaper into his face and rolled sideways.

He screamed, and she kicked out her legs, kicked against something. She scrambled to it, swept the floor with her hands until she found it.

When he threw aside the foul-smelling rag, he could still smell it and feel it. Urine, his face soaked, his lips tingling. A sudden image of Dmitry and his lover using the cellar for lechery flashed before him. A wave of nausea threatened to overcome him, but he regained his senses.

He spit and turned in the direction she had crawled. He reached for her. He wanted her beneath him again. But where was his knife?

The knife!

Yes. There it was. He found it. He found it! It was… in him.

It felt hot, as if it had saved up all the heat of its victims.

Were there voices? Did he hear voices? Was it his wife and Dmitry come to see him in hospital? Had time moved ahead faster than he realized? Yes, Grigor Komarov, the hero, taking visitors in hospital. How did it happen? asks the visitors. And he tells them how he was forced to kill the woman in self-defense because… because Captain Brovko had come down into the wine cellar and been killed by her? Yes, it could have happened that way… there were so many ways, so many rungs on the ladder…

But the voices… the voices. Like being on his back porch in the dark, someone creeping up on him. Was it his father and mother?

Had they come to join him in seeking vengeance upon the Gypsies?

Then the voices became a thousand faces, and he tried to scream but could not.

Nikolai saw that Captain Brovko was uncertain about what to do.

The captain had started for the hole several times, only to step back.

Then, when it seemed he’d made up his mind to go down into the hole and he actually leaned in, he stepped back, his eyes open wide.

When Nikolai saw the look on Brovko’s face, he stared at the entrance to the hole as if it were a living thing.

A blood-soaked hand gripped the edge of the cellar entrance.

There were gasps from the other men as the rest of the bloody arm appeared; then another hand, not bloody; then Juli Popovics climbing out of the hole under her own power.

“Juli!” shouted Detective Horvath.

Captain Brovko stepped back as Juli Popovics saw Horvath and ran to him. She knelt before the chair and hugged him, looked into his eyes as she touched his face with her hands, both of them ignoring the blood on her right hand and arm as they stared into one another’s eyes and wept.

Captain Brovko came to Nikolai, handed him a key, and motioned to the couple. Nikolai stooped down behind the chair and unlocked the handcuffs so Detective Horvath could embrace Juli Popovics.