The Boy from Reactor 4

CHAPTER 84

AS SOON AS Nadia entered the Underground, she didn’t have to wonder anymore if anyone had found the body of the man who was shot before her eyes. There, at a small table, reading a Ukrainian newspaper and looking decidedly alive and healthy, sat Yuri Banya, the man who’d pretended to be Max Milan.

Yuri said to Nadia, “I’m not surprised to see you. We knew you’d figure it all out eventually.”

“You’re giving me more credit than I deserve,” Nadia said. The scene that had started it all flashed in her mind. Banya. A gunshot. A big old American sedan. “I haven’t figured anything out. I thought you were dead. But you’re alive.”

“Yes. Last I checked.”

“And looking none the worse for wear.”

“Thank the Lord.”

“In fact, you don’t look like a man who cheated death… How many days ago was it? Seventeen? No, eighteen. You don’t look like a man who spent eighteen days in a hospital recovering from a gunshot wound to the chest.”

His eyes twinkled. “I’ve always been a fast healer.”

“I’m looking for a boy. My nephew—”

“Adam,” Yuri said. “You’re looking for Adam. He’s here.”

“He is? Where? Is he okay?”

“Yes. He’s fine. He’s using the bathroom in back. Maria is fixing him a sandwich and some borscht. He’ll be out in a minute. Have a seat, please.” Yuri gestured with his hand toward a chair.

Nadia glanced at the chair and spotted Adam’s knapsack and bag against the wall beyond it. A wave of relief washed over her. Instead of sitting, though, she remained standing. Something Yuri had said sounded wrong, but she couldn’t figure out what it was. Then it hit her.

“You said, ‘We knew you’d figure it out.’ Who’s ‘we’?”

Feet shuffled. A curtain parted. A tall, gangly man with a round face and a shock of red hair came into the room. He stopped beside Yuri, bowed, and smiled.

“Good morning, Nadia,” he said, as though they were friends.

Nadia mumbled a greeting in return. She didn’t recognize him, but something about him looked disturbingly familiar. She’d seen that shock of hair somewhere before. It was the stuff of nightmares, the kind that caused her to wake up in the middle of the night elated that she’d only been dreaming. Except in this case, he’d been all too real…

“The big old American sedan,” Nadia said. “You were the shooter. The supposed shooter, I should say.”

“This is my old friend,” Yuri said, “Simon Stanislavski.”

“Blanks,” Simon said. “I was shooting blanks.”

“Why?” Nadia said.

“We had to motivate you,” Yuri said.

“Excuse me?” Nadia said.

“We had to motivate you to go to Kyiv,” Yuri said. “If there wasn’t the promise of untold millions, whether in cash or from the sale of a formula, would you have gone to Kyiv?”

“What?” Nadia said.

Yuri said, “If you got letters in November and January, the way your mother did, and learned your long-lost uncle was alive, a long-lost uncle who was the most notorious thief and con man the country ever knew, would you have packed your bags and gone just because he asked you to?”

Nadia tried to process everything they were saying and form a logical conclusion, but her brain didn’t seem to want to go there.

“Damian sent letters to your mother in November of last year and in January. He was honest. He said he was dying and he had a boy, a good boy, for whom he wanted a better life. Your mother never answered. It was no surprise. Damian was a thief. People thought he was long dead. And who wants a boy from Chernobyl?”

“No one wants a boy from the Zone,” Simon said.

“So he wrote a third letter. This time he talked about having some information that could change the fate of the free world. And he asked us to lure you in. To lure you into the con.”

“We were members of his crew in Kyiv back in the day,” Simon said.

Yuri said, “We’re two of the three who got away.”

Nadia collapsed into a chair. She stared at the geometric pattern of the wood grain in the table. The pattern seemed to be moving in a circle for her benefit.

“You’re saying that everything that happened on Seventh Street was an act,” she said. “A ruse just to pull me in. You said, ‘The sale of a formula.’ Not the formula. A formula. Which suggests there is no real formula. That it was all just a sick game of some kind. That everything I went through was for nothing. For nothing at all.”

The men exchanged gratified looks with each other and turned to Nadia.

“No,” Yuri said. “Not for nothing. It was most definitely for something. It was for someone.”

“No one wants a boy from the Zone,” Simon said. He stepped over to the bar and reached up into a storage rack for glasses.

“What?” Nadia said.

“No one wants a boy from the Zone,” Simon said.

“That’s not entirely true,” Yuri said.

Simon raised his eyebrows. “Oh?”

“There is a country.”

“Really? Where is this country?”

“North of the equator and just south of heaven.”

“What’s so special about this country?”

“It takes everyone,” Yuri said. “Everyone has a chance to prosper.”

“Everyone? You really mean everyone? Does an Arab have a chance?”

“Yes.”

“Does a Jew have a chance?”

“Yes.”

“Does a black man have a chance?” Simon said.

“A black man can become president.”

“What about a boy from the Zone?”

“Even he may have a chance,” Yuri said. “Especially in one particular city.”

“Oh? What kind of city is this?”

“It is a city that was built on the backs of the unwanted.”

“And where is this city?”

“At the mouth of the river where the woman stands guard by the harbor.”

Simon poured three vodkas. Yuri and Simon raised their glasses. Yuri and Simon glanced at Nadia as though waiting for her to do the same. She did not.

“Three days ago, a thief died,” Yuri said. “But still he steals from his grave. Today he steals freedom for his son.”

“To the best there ever was.”

“To Damian. Na zdorovye.”

They downed their shots.

“When I saw Damian,” Nadia said to Yuri, “he told me that, given your body had disappeared from Seventh Street, someone had yet to reveal himself to me. That someone… was him. He was pulling my string the entire time.”

“We had no idea you were in trouble with Victor and Misha because of that antiques business,” Yuri said. “We had no idea you would be followed and your life would be in danger.”

“That… That was never part of our plan,” Simon said. “This should have been much, much easier.”

Nadia glanced at Yuri again. “On Seventh Street… When you asked me if I was the Nadia Tesla who worked on Wall Street and I said, ‘Not anymore,’ you seemed disappointed. Upset, even. Why?”

Yuri shrugged. “It costs money to bring a boy to America. To raise him. To live in New York. Simon and I live on a fixed income. We barely get by. And that’s in southern New Jersey.”

Nadia laughed. “Well, there’s one on you guys. I’m unemployed and rapidly depleting my savings.” She tossed the vodka down her throat, coughed up a storm, and cleared her throat. “So if there’s no formula, what’s in the locket?”

“Locket?” Yuri said. He glanced at Simon, who shook his head. “What locket?”

A toilet flushed in the distant background. Everyone turned toward the curtain leading to the back room.

Adam walked into the bar looking refreshed. His eyes widened with excitement when they met Nadia’s. His lips parted, but no words came out, as though he couldn’t find the words to express himself.

Nadia bounded up to him and folded her arms across her chest. “Why did you run away from me? Why didn’t you wait?”

“I saw the government men. They were there for me. They were there to send me back, weren’t they?”

“No. They were there to arrest some other man. It had nothing to do with you or me.”

“Really?”

“Really.” Nadia lowered her gaze and found a few links of the necklace peeking out from beneath his shirt. “Where’s the locket?”

Adam swallowed, like a boy who’d done something wrong and knew he was about to be scolded, and touched his upper chest area.

“It’s time we opened it and took a look at exactly what’s inside,” Nadia said.

A shuffling noise from the direction of the front door broke the silence.

Nadia turned.

Victor Bodnar stood in the foyer. Stefan and another huge bodyguard held guns in their hands behind him.

“Yes,” Victor said, smiling. “Exactly what I was thinking. Let’s see what’s inside that locket.”