Orest Stelmach - The Boy from Reactor 4

“After we eat, I’ll be leaving,” Nadia said. “Tonight.”

He nodded. “I understand.”

He took an exit and merged onto a main thoroughfare. Nadia didn’t recognize the street, but a sign said NOVOKOSTANTINIVSKA STREET.

“I meant to ask you,” Nadia said. “Why did you drive the van through the fence in Chernobyl? I thought all cars that are in the Zone stay in the Zone.”

“They do.”

“But now the van is hot, isn’t it? I mean, at least its tires are.”

“Yup. I have to have them stripped, burned, and replaced tonight before I give it back to Radek.” Anton took a sharp left. “But it was worth it.”

“That’s sweet. Thank you. Thank you for caring.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

He smiled, turned right, and mashed the gas pedal. The Volkswagen hesitated before surging forward. Nadia’s head snapped back against her headrest. In front of them rose a dilapidated gray warehouse on an abandoned lot. A pair of doors swung open sideways, as they would on a barn.

The van hurtled into the building. The brakes screeched.

Nadia lurched forward until the seat belt strangled her. She fell back. The belt loosened and slid back down around her chest.

A black Audi and two black SUVs were parked in front of them. One of the SUVs was a Porsche Cayenne. Nadia didn’t recognize the six men lollygagging in front of the SUVs, but she’d seen the other three before. Victor, Misha, and the distinguished-looking man she’d evaded in the Caves Monastery were waiting for her.

“What I meant,” Anton said, “is that you’re worth more alive than you are dead.”

THE HOCKEY COACH might kill him.

He might have to kill the coach first.

Adam’s folding knife bounced around his warm-up pants pocket as he ripped through a set of burpees:

Squat down, thrust the legs back, fall nose to the ground, and do a push-up; squat up, leap as high as possible, bringing knees to chin, and land, prepared to squat down immediately into the next rep.

“You look anxious today, loser,” the coach said. “Like something is weighing on your mind. Like you’re planning a trip somewhere.”

He stuck his face a few centimeters from Adam’s head as he landed on the top block.

A whiff of raw garlic breath. Adam gagged.

“You planning a trip somewhere, loser? You think you’re going somewhere without my knowing about it? Without my approval?”

Adam jumped down the blocks on his right foot and switched back to his left. The coach knew. The coach knew he was leaving. Either his father had told him or the fat bastard had figured it out himself.

The coach might kill him.

He might have to kill the coach first.

Adam resumed box jumps off his weighted left foot.

“Your report card came today,” Coach said. “All ‘outstandings,’ except for one ‘very good.’ That is impressive for the son of a scumbag thief and an ugly whore from Alaska. For the product of a radioactive cesspool. When I was your age, my coach was Anatoly Tarasov. The father of Soviet hockey. He always said, ‘Education is important. An educated hockey player is easier to coach.’”

Adam landed on the top block and turned. Sweat streamed down his cheeks. He hopped down to the middle and lower blocks and turned.

“Of course, in your case, education makes no difference. You’ll still be the village idiot forever. Let me tell you where you’re going. You’re going nowhere. That’s where you’re going.”

The coach cracked the whip in the air.

“Stop! Rest for ninety seconds. Lateral box jumps next!”

Ninety seconds later, Adam began jumping sideways from the ground to one box, back to the ground, and up to the next. Each jump was successively higher.

“In 1979, I played in the Challenge Cup in Madison Square Garden,” Coach said. “NHL All-Stars versus Soviet National Team. We split the first two games, but we won the last game six to nothing. Yes. Of course we won.”

Adam tried to focus on the height of his knees and ignore the story. He’d heard it only five hundred million times before. Hard as he tried to ignore the coach, though, he couldn’t.

“New. York. City,” Coach said, emphasizing each word as though it were the name of a woman he once loved. “New. York. City. The restaurants. Oak Room in the Plaza. Steak fit for a czar. The theater. Angela Lansbury. Sweeney Todd . The people. Black, white, yellow, millions of them walking up and down Broadway. I will never forget it. That is a place where I’ve been, loser, and you will never see. Pick up your feet!”

Adam jumped.

Coach cracked the whip on the ground below him. Missed his feet by a centimeter.

Adam’s knees shot up and touched his chest.

“Chin music, loser. That is what I call chin music. Twenty seconds more!”

When time was up, Adam collapsed to the ground. The coach gave him two minutes’ rest before moving into clapping push-ups. Adam clapped his hands twice during each exercise, performing three sets of fifty repetitions for a total of 150 clappers in four minutes.

He lay faint on the ground when he was done, lungs heaving, legs bent to keep the blood flowing to his face.

“Want to see another place you’ll never go, loser?”

Adam glanced at the coach from an upside-down position.

The coach pointed to the top of the hill with his whip. “There will be sunbathing in Siberia before you ever see the summit of that hill, loser. No strength. No heart. No soul. Wrap the rubber band around your waist. Sprints in one minute. Prepare to fail the way you always do. Prepare yourself!”

Ten seconds later, Adam staggered to his feet and collected the rubber band. It was ten centimeters thick and fifty meters long. He wrapped one end around his waist and tied it into a knot.

He’d tied it loosely on purpose two years ago, when he’d decided he’d had enough of the fat bastard. When the coach gave it a yank, the band came loose and Adam kept running until he heard the gunshot. The coach always kept a handgun in his waistband. Adam didn’t make it to the top of the hill that day, either, and had always tied the band properly from then on.

After tying the band around his waist, Adam stood at the starting line at the bottom of the hill. The coach tied the other end of the band around his own waist. Adam noticed the bulge on the coach’s lower back where he always kept his gun.

The coach brought the whistle to his lips. Adam looked up at the hill. Something moved in his peripheral vision. A man stepped out from behind a Dumpster by the far side of the porcelain factory so that Adam could see him. Adam recognized the chaotic hair and scarecrow body of his father’s friend Karel, the zoologist from the Zone.

Karel raised the second and third fingers of his right hand to form a V.

That was the signal. The signal they’d agreed on.

It was time.

Adam considered the coach’s warning, that he was going nowhere, and the gun behind his back. He stuck his hand in his pocket and gripped his folding knife.

The coach blew the whistle.

Adam pulled his right hand out of his pocket, knife in fist, thrust it up in the air, and took off up the hill. After three swings with both arms to catapult himself forward, he unsheathed the knife. He tightened his fist around the handle and pumped his legs furiously. The horizon blurred.

Twenty meters. Thirty meters. Forty meters.

Adam hit the wall. The rubber band tightened. His steps shortened. Resistance increased. He stopped moving forward.