Orest Stelmach - The Boy from Reactor 4

A door crashed open. Raucous laughter. A hip-hop beat.

Nadia followed the sound. A hundred yards away was a small square building that resembled an emergency military barracks.

The café. Built for workers who still labored in the village and the power plants in the center of the Zone.

She waited until the guard turned to walk back to his booth and pedaled to the side of the café. Leaned her bicycle against the wall, set her cell phone to vibrate, and stepped inside.

She gagged. Cigarette smoke hung in the air as though fire were leaking from beyond its walls. Rap music pounded from small suspended speakers. The beat was American, but the words were Ukrainian. Laughter and conversation spilled from one clique to another and filled the room. She looked around for an older man, but there were a half dozen possible candidates.

Slicing her way into the far corner, she counted thirty to forty people, split evenly between the sexes. Most wore camouflage uniforms or warm-ups. One couple danced dirty in the center of the room, lips and hips mashed together.

Nadia ordered a beer from an agreeable bartender. As she sipped it, a series of men stood up at a long table and raised toasts to a pair of newlyweds. Champagne flowed from multiple bottles.

One of the men saw her and did a double take. Nadia cringed. She looked away and stepped to her left to try to hide behind a burly Cossack downing shots of horilka .

“Hey, you can’t drink alone,” he said, rushing up to her. He had Einstein hair, a spindly body, and a lovable nerd’s face fully equipped with black-rimmed Superman glasses. “Haven’t seen you here before, kotiku .” The literal translation of the popular Ukrainian endearment was “kitty.” “What’s your name? Where are you from? Where have you been all my life?”

Nadia smiled and nodded toward the table. “I think the party’s over there, not here.”

He grinned. “You won’t get rid of me that easy, kotiku . My name is Karel. What is yours?”

“My name is Nadia.”

“Nadia, Panya. My beauty. First time in the Zone?”

“How can you tell?”

He laughed and tapped his nose. “The Zone knows its own. Where are you from? Who are you with?”

Nadia followed the script she’d written with Hayder and Anton. “I’m a newspaper reporter from New York City.” The media had helped the Green Revolution succeed. They would respect and admire an American newspaper reporter.

His eyes lit up even more. “A reporter? From New York City? Your Ukrainian is excellent.” He grabbed Nadia by the crook of her elbow and dragged her to the table.

“Look, everyone,” he said, as though she were a major celebrity, “a friend from New York City.”

The table exploded with cheers. She searched the faces, looking for a welcoming smile on the face of an older man. An amiable fellow raised a toast to America, the bastion of freedom and free enterprise. Someone shoved a glass of champagne into Nadia’s hands. She sipped some, knowing it would be an insult to do otherwise.

Everyone drank to the bottom, set their glasses down, and looked expectantly at her.

Nadia felt herself blush. Glanced at Karel. “Should I raise a toast?” she whispered.

“Better you tell us a joke,” he said loudly, so that everyone could hear.

The table roared with approval. “A joke. A joke. Give us an American joke,” they said.

Nadia scoured her mind for something funny to say. Only one idea came to mind. “How many actors does it take to change a lightbulb?”

She waited a beat.

“Three,” she said. “One to change the bulb, and two to say, ‘That could be me up there.’”

For reasons beyond her comprehension, the translation from English didn’t work. She got a few chuckles, but no guffaws.

“That joke doesn’t work in the Zone,” Karel said with mock seriousness. “Because there is no electricity. So the lightbulb never goes on.”

The table exploded. Karel buckled with laughter.

Nadia waved good luck to the newlyweds as Karel pulled her back to a spot in the corner. He nestled her beer glass back in her hands and ordered a brandy from the bar.

“So what did you learn about the Zone today?” he said.

Nadia considered her answer. “I’m not sure. I saw a lynx in a condemned hotel today. A big, beautiful wild cat. You tell me what that means.”

Karel stuck out his chest. “It’s one of the world’s best-kept secrets. The Zone is the greatest wildlife preserve in Europe, and the second best in the entire former Soviet Union.”

“You’re kidding me. How is that possible?” Nadia said.

“The common theory is that the absence of man has triumphed over the presence of radioactivity. We have formerly extinct species of wild boar and lynx. Wild horses roam the steppe. Storks nest low, unafraid of human predators. Insects, birds, wolves, rodents. We have species we never had before. Like the lynx. We have species the world hasn’t seen for a century.”

“That is amazing,” Nadia said. “Has word gotten out about this? Do you have poachers hunting for these animals?”

Karel’s right eye twitched. “Poachers? Here? No,” he said, swatting the idea away. “Sometimes a drunken idiot may go after a wild boar for sport, but that is all. There is no crime in the Zone.”

His brandy arrived. He knocked back a third right away and ended up pressed against the side of Nadia’s hip. She tried to retreat, but her back was already up against the wall.

“So what do you do, Karel? And who are all these people?”

“I am a zoologist,” he said. He gestured toward the newlyweds with drunken inaccuracy. “The others at our table are botanists and scientists who conduct ecological experiments for the government.” He motioned toward the men and women in camos. “Then there are the scientists who work in the Shelter.”

“The Shelter?”

“The sarcophagus that covers Unit Four. Here, we call it the Shelter.”

“Ah.”

“No one knows what those people really do in the Shelter. All we know about one another is that we are all volunteers. None of us have to be here. But there is no other place that we would rather be.”

Nadia looked around the café. The party was devoid of pretension. People were just plain having fun.

Nadia raised her beer. “To the Zone,” she said, and clinked her glass against Karel’s snifter.

“To the Zone.”

They finished their drinks. Nadia glanced at her watch. It was 10:17. Hayder was due in thirteen minutes.

Karel leaned into her unsteadily, his breath reeking. “I will share a secret with you, if you share one with me.” He pulled back and did a little jig in place with eager anticipation.

Nadia laughed. “Okay.”

He leaned forward. “There may be a little crime in the Zone.” He raised his right hand and left an inch gap between thumb and forefinger. “Just a little,” he whispered.

Nadia laughed again. “If there is more than one human being in a place, there will be crime. Now, let me think. What kind of secret can I tell you?”

Karel raised a drunken finger. “I have a suggestion.” He leaned into her ear one more time. “True or false. You are not really a reporter, are you?”

“What? Of course I am. Why do you say that?”

His voice shed its alcoholic tinge. “Because your name is Nadia Tesla and you have come to see a man named Damian about the fate of the free world.”

KIRILO MARCHED DOWN the pier at the Yalta Yacht Club flanked by the two bodyguards who had accompanied him on the helicopter from Kyiv. Splashes of moonlight shimmered on the Black Sea.