Orest Stelmach - The Boy from Reactor 4

As soon as he felt the familiar tug, Adam turned and sprinted ten meters back down the hill. The hand with his knife swung by his side. He locked eyes with the man who’d fed and trained him for most of his life. The coach’s eyes went to the blade and back to Adam. His lips parted with surprise as Adam raced toward him.

The ten-meter sprint downhill had created slack in the band. The coach couldn’t pull him in if he tried. At least not for a few seconds. And that was all he would need.

Adam slid to a halt. Sliced the rubber band with his knife. It fell to the grass. He turned again, put his head down, and raced back up the hill. His legs moved in slow motion. He had nothing left. He expected bullets to whiz by him any second. They didn’t.

When he got to the top of the hill, he looked down. Karel was in his car, looping around to pick him up on the road half a kilometer away. The coach stood in the same place where he’d been, arms folded across his chest, whip at his feet, rubber band still tied around his bulging waist. He thrust his head back with pride. It was the same pose the parents in Korosten struck when they bragged about their sons after games over beer.

Adam squinted to see if he was just imagining it, when he remembered there was no time. His father had given him explicit instructions to follow when Karel gave him the signal.

Run.

THE BODYGUARDS SURROUNDED the Volkswagen. Nadia looked daggers at Anton, wishing there were a pocket chain saw handy in the glove box. His eyes dropped to the steering wheel.

“You slimy prick,” she said. “Since when? Since the airport?”

He glanced at her with a pained expression. “No, no. That was all genuine. My love for you was real. They were waiting for me at my apartment this afternoon.”

“Really?”

“Really. They gave me two choices. Which is to say, they gave me one choice. I’m sorry, Nadia. Really, I am. This is Ukraine. The politics change all the time. It’s a constant power struggle. The winners know how to go with the flow.”

“Yeah. You’re a real winner, Anton. You’re a walking testament to why Ukraine’s leading export is its women. Do the men in this country realize how pathetic that is?”

He snarled. “Hey. You wanted to get in the Zone. I got you in the Zone. You wanted to get out of the Zone. I got you out of the Zone. At my own risk. I asked for nothing in return. Nothing. And let’s remember how it was two nights ago. You were the one begging for it, from me .”

“You bastard.”

He shrugged. “Hey. You can’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“What?”

“I told you when I drove you from the airport. Ukrainian salary. It really is hell.”

Nadia shifted in her seat and squared her hips toward him. “So is an American woman.”

She pummeled his nose.

Bone crunched. Blood spurted. Anton screamed.

Nadia stepped out of the car.

“We missed you at the Veselka Restaurant,” Victor said. “Your ponytailed lawyer friend didn’t cut quite the same figure across the table from me.”

Nadia didn’t answer him. There was no benefit to saying a word.

“Let me have her, Kirilo,” Misha said.

The distinguished man from Kyiv sliced through the circle of bodyguards. He looked fat yet fit, like a former heavyweight prizefighter who carefully balanced his love of food and fitness. His clothes and carriage spoke of confidence and power. He gave Nadia a quick once-over that ended with a dismissive smirk.

She’d seen that smirk on Wall Street: how could a woman have given him this much trouble?

“You remind me of what my daughter might look like in fifteen years,” Kirilo said. “You have the same coloring. She’s the joy of my life, my daughter.”

Without warning, the back of his hand crushed Nadia’s face. As she toppled to the cement, pain shot through her jaw. Her eyes watered. Her nose stung. A bitter taste flooded her mouth.

“Let me have her,” Misha said. “I can make a woman do anything in fifteen minutes flat.”

Kirilo motioned to a man who looked more like a malnourished librarian than a bodyguard. “Pavel, take her to the office. Search her and make her comfortable.”

Pavel and two burly men grasped Nadia by her elbows and guided her toward an office in the far corner of the warehouse. They passed a harness attached to an elaborate pulley, one that could be used to hoist engines from a truck—or crucify uncooperative American women. A pair of stylish black shoes and slacks appeared beneath the pulley as a man circled around it. Brad Specter cast an indifferent look at her as she walked by. His footsteps stopped short as the bodyguards pushed her into the office.

The office contained portable orange shelving, a bare metal desk, and three chairs. A row of well-worn manuals lined one shelf. Nadia deciphered the Russian words for “truck repair.” The bodyguards tied her feet to the chair and her hands behind her back with duct tape. One of the men tore a final piece of tape with his mouth and sealed her lips.

They searched her body without inhibitions and did the same with her purse.

Kirilo entered the office. He removed his coat. As he placed it on the table, it didn’t bend, as though he were performing a sartorial levitation. He ripped the duct tape off Nadia’s mouth.

Her lips stung, but she didn’t scream.

“I hear you speak the language well for an American,” he said.

“I can get by,” Nadia said.

His eyes widened. “Refined. Like a college professor. You know about Ukrainian Hetman? Military commanders during the Cossack era?”

“I studied history. I know some things about them.”

He sat down on the corner of the desk and tapped his coat with his left hand. It made a solid noise, as though it were reinforced with steel.

“Then you know more than I do,” he said. “I never studied anything. I got my education on the street. I had to fight for everything I have. A smart man on the docks of Podil once told me—before I drowned him for his fishing boat—that the Cossacks believed that when you killed an enemy, the power of that enemy became yours. It literally seeped out of his soul into yours. The stronger the enemy you defeated, the more powerful you became.”

“I’m not your enemy.”

“I’m glad you said that. It’s true. Not only are you not an enemy, but it’s possible we can be business associates. Look at your friend Anton. He helped us, he got paid, and he’s going back to his life. A bit bloody, thanks to you, but back to his life. There’s no reason we can’t strike the same bargain. Tell me what it is you found in the Zone, and we can come up with a fair price.”

“I didn’t find anything in the Zone. I went to meet my long-lost uncle. He’s on his deathbed, and my mother told me of his existence just recently.”

“Oh, really? What is your uncle’s name?”

Nadia kept her lips sealed.

Kirilo smiled and tapped a muted tune along the coat, from shoulder to hip.

“What did the man say to you on Seventh Street? We both know there’s no ten million dollars. Damian Tesla is your uncle. Where did you meet him? What did he give you?”

Nadia focused on her breathing and reminded herself: once she told him, she was dead.

He grasped the lapel to his coat and started to pull it back.

A knock on the door behind her.

Nadia tried to turn but couldn’t.

Kirilo glared at whoever was standing in the doorway. “What?”

“Pavel needs you.” It was Specter’s voice.