The Hunters

22

The rage hung in the room for a few moments, then it evaporated. As it did, Jasmine saw Dobrev racked with shame.

‘I am so sorry,’ he said miserably.

‘There’s no need.’

‘I’m ashamed,’ he repeated, turning away slightly. ‘So ashamed.’

She let him have a moment. Jasmine did not know if Dobrev knew it, but those were reportedly the very words Nicholas II said to Alexandra after he was forced to abdicate.

When he looked at her again, his face was regretful. ‘My grandson, Yury… he held so much promise. He was named for Yury Lomonosov, the designer of the first diesel locomotive. His father thought that he would take after him. But it was not to be.’

Jasmine was cautious, but she couldn’t help herself. She took a few steps toward the man and placed a hand on his shoulder, letting him know that she, and the situation, were all right.

She knew from what Garcia had researched and whispered in her ear that the young man’s father, Andrei’s son, was Ivan Dobrev. Newspaper accounts and police reports said that Ivan had been a proud railroad man during the industry’s most trying time in the 1990s. Yury had been just a baby when the Russian mob, competing with the dying Soviet government for control of the railway workers, had opened fire on a picnic in the Lyubertsy neighborhood just outside Moscow city limits. Yury had survived the slaughter. His father did not.

‘My son was a good man,’ Dobrev said sadly, succinctly. ‘He was killed in an unfortunate incident. His mother, Dominika, lingered — but as you can imagine, she was never the same. She drank to bury her pain. She couldn’t control Yury, even when he was a child. I tried, but I was around infrequently. I found her dead one morning when Yury was eleven. We never did discover whether she simply gave up or committed suicide with the bottle. Yury was sitting by her side, reading a book about the Revolution. I can still see the cover, February and October—’

Jasmine nodded. ‘The abdication of the tsar, and then the rise of the Bolsheviks.’

‘That’s right,’ Dobrev said admiringly. ‘After the ambulance came, and the police, I asked the boy to join me at the rail yards. He didn’t answer. I referenced the book. I told him that in spite of everything that had happened, he was lucky not to have to live through the time of hunger and change. I told him how we had to work with military tanks in the streets, gunfire in our ears, and the smell of acrid smoke in our nostrils. He listened, looked at me for a moment… then he spit at me.’

Jasmine made a sympathetic sound in spite of herself. ‘He was just eleven?’

Dobrev nodded. ‘I didn’t strike him. I grasped him tightly by the arms and asked him why he had done that. He said that my trains had caused the trouble. Ease of travel from foreign countries. The influence of foreign culture and values. He blamed that on men like me.’

‘Where did that come from?’ Jasmine asked.

‘The RNU.’

Cobb whispered in her ear. ‘The Russian National Unity Group. Russian Nazis. Mainly young punks who embrace the label because they think it’s cool… By the way, we’re outside. Cough if you need us.’

‘Russian Nazis,’ Jasmine said.

Dobrev nodded. ‘They recruit young boys to program with their mindless fervor. Yury kept getting angrier and angrier. When I saw him, which wasn’t often, his talk was increasingly spiteful and sadistic. It was this behavior that took him from me.’

‘What happened?’ Jasmine asked. She was speaking to both her immediate company and those listening on their closed frequency.

Garcia pounded his keyboard, frantically searching the Web for anything related to Yury Dobrev. ‘I’ve got nothing,’ he answered.

Andrei Dobrev took a deep breath, steadying himself before he continued. ‘Even among those united by hate, there are grave differences.’

Jasmine sensed he wasn’t finished and didn’t interject.

‘Not quite a year ago, Yury and his new “friends” traveled to Zvenigorod, about sixty kilometers to the west. Zvenigorod draws numerous foreign tourists, all seeking their destinies.’

‘Legend holds that the dreams one experiences in Zvenigorod foretell the future. It dates back to a story about Napoleon’s stepson, who saw his own fate while staying in a monastery there.’ Garcia and Dobrev spoke almost in unison, with virtually the exact same words, as if the former was quoting from a book that the latter had written.

‘The legend attracts foreigners,’ Dobrev continued, ‘and the foreigners attract nationalists. Or at least those who spit venom from behind the cloak of nationalist pride. Nazis, white supremacists, Aryans. Once a year, they all turn out en masse to show their strength. An event that quickly collapses into chaos.’

Dobrev paused, and his eyes glazed over.

Jasmine could see the pain in his memories.

‘That’s a lot of collected anger,’ Jasmine offered. She didn’t mean to salt the wound, but she knew she needed to hear the rest of the story.

Dobrev nodded. ‘It would seem that the only thing these groups hate more than foreigners are those who don’t know how to properly hate foreigners. The Nazis feel that the supremacists and Aryans impede their cause with unprovoked violence. The supremacists and Aryans feel that the Nazis are too concerned with politics, particularly international affairs. Perhaps the only thing they agree on is that the RNU has yet to earn their respect. Insults were exchanged, and punches soon led to weapons.’

Tears welled in Dobrev’s eyes. ‘Yury was stabbed. He did not survive. His so-called friends buried him somewhere in the forests between here and there. To this day, I do not know exactly where. I’m not even sure they know where.’

Jasmine pointed toward the door. ‘That was one of Yury’s friends?’

Dobrev nodded. ‘His name is Marko Kadurik.’

He took a bottle of vodka from atop a desk in his small living room, poured himself three fingers’ worth, and downed it with one quick swig. His eyes never focused on the task. He was still consumed by the memory of his grandson.

Jasmine took a deep breath. ‘I should probably go.’

‘All right,’ Dobrev agreed.

Jasmine felt the pangs of remorse, and she wondered if she had taken her questions too far. She had assumed that Dobrev would object to her departure and beg her to stay longer. Instead, he seemed to welcome the impending solitude.

‘I will make sure you get safely to—’

‘There’s really no need,’ she said. ‘It’s early, and I saw a taxi station just down the block. I will be perfectly safe.’

‘Please, I—’

Jasmine smiled and took his hand, holding it gently in a show of affection. ‘Thank you for sharing your treasures and keepsakes. You’ll never know how much it meant to me.’

Marko Kadurik heard the conversation through the thin wall that his apartment shared with Dobrev’s. He hadn’t lived there long — less than a year — only in the months since Yury’s death. Yury had often bragged of his grandfather’s old-country regalia, and he had mentioned their value on more than one occasion. One item in particular had caught Kadurik’s interest: a gold coin. He had already broken into Dobrev’s apartment several times in search of the treasure, but he had yet to locate it.

It is only a matter of time, he thought.

When the woman left, he stared into the darkness of his apartment. His walls and windows were covered with RNU flags. They were emblazoned with swastikas and modified swastikas — symbols that looked like four deadly, interlocking tonfa batons.

Yes, he thought. Go to the taxi stand. Go where you think you’ll be safe.

The only illumination in the room came from the cell phone he held at his waist, his thumb dancing across the tiny keyboard. The dim backlighting of the device gave his tortured face an even more satanic glow.

A few seconds passed. The cell phone vibrated in his hand. He glanced down and saw the message clearly. His comrades-in-arms were on their way. And they were coming fast.

Kadurik smiled like a wolf when he heard the outside door of the apartment building slam shut. He peeked from behind one of the banners and looked at the street.

There she was. Walking proudly. Not knowing the fate that was about to overtake her.

His group’s leader had made it clear: Russia was for the Slavic — not the Jews, not the Muslims, not the Gypsies, and certainly not the hated Asians. He had been vehement about that. The Russian national identity must be protected from dilution by other races, liberal sympathizers, cross-breeders, mixed progeny, and temptresses — especially the exotic ones. The ones that made normally sane men, like Yury’s grandfather, dribble like senile old men.

Kadurik opened his door and grinned in anticipation.

This was going to be fun.