Orest Stelmach - The Boy from Reactor 4

“How is she?” Kirilo said, once they were on the highway to New York.

“Demure, humble, and compliant. Just like her father.”

“You’re such a bitch.”

“She is fine. Just as she was two hours ago on the plane when I called.”

“And this Johnny Tanner?”

“I have two men watching him now. We’re going to meet with him straight away.”

Kirilo’s hand went to his coat pocket, where he usually kept his cattle prod. “Damn,” he muttered. It had been confiscated at Customs.

“Don’t worry,” Victor said, looking out the window at a giant sports stadium. “You’re not going to need it. This is America. It’s a civilized country.”

“Oh yeah. I forgot. You’re just going to ask him where the Tesla woman is, and he’s going to tell you, right?”

“Exactly,” Victor said.

“This I can’t wait to see.”

Forty-five minutes later, both drivers pulled up next to a deli called Vichkovski’s on a long, wide avenue in New York City. Kielbasa necklaces hung in the display window. A middle-aged man with a bloodstained apron stood waiting for them. He lifted a metal door handle and opened a hole in the sidewalk. Kirilo and Pavel followed Victor down a set of steep metal steps in front of the deli to its basement.

Pavel was essential. He’d attended the California Institute of Technology and spoke fluent English. They wound their way through a storage room to a thick stainless steel door where a second man was waiting for them. This one was younger and bigger, dressed in a leather bomber jacket and jeans: a soldier type Kirilo knew well.

He opened the door. Victor, Kirilo, and Pavel stepped inside.

Sides of beef dangled from hooks. Nooses made of blood sausage hung from the ceiling. A muscular man in a ponytail sat strapped to a folding metal chair, wearing a tank top and pinstripe pants. Fear was etched on his face.

Kirilo looked at Victor. “Civilized country? I thought you were going to make him your willing accomplice.”

“I am. As soon as I put a gun to his head, I’m certain he’ll be willing.”

“You really are such a bitch.”

Victor walked up to his boys. “Did he cooperate?”

“Not yet,” one of them said.

Victor motioned with his hand for one of his boys to give him something, and the man pulled a gun from his waistband. It was a semiautomatic with a noise suppressor. Victor held it by his side as he approached Johnny Tanner.

“We met at the Veselka Restaurant,” Victor said. “You came in Nadia’s place, which means she told you who I am.” Victor racked the slide to load the chamber and put the barrel to Johnny Tanner’s head. “One chance, and one chance only. Where is Nadia Tesla?”

Johnny Tanner gnashed his teeth as though preparing to live with the consequences of giving up the girl. Kirilo had respect for the man. He’d refused to tell the boys anything, and even now, with a gun to his head, he was hesitating. That took balls. This Johnny Tanner was unlike any lawyer he’d ever met in Ukraine.

Victor pressed the gun into the skin of his forehead. “And the count from three begins. Three, two—”

“Turtle Bay,” Johnny Tanner said.

Victor frowned. “What?”

“Turtle Bay. She’s meeting him in Turtle Bay.”

“Meeting who?”

“A professor. Radiobiologist from Columbia University.”

“What is this Turtle Bay?”

“It’s a neighborhood. Around the United Nations.”

“United Nations?”

“He lives there. Three United Nations Plaza. They’re meeting at the Plaza Deli. Between First and Second. Near the United Nations, where he lives.”

“What is this professor’s name?” Victor said.

“John Horton.”

“When is the meeting?”

Johnny Tanner hesitated.

Victor pressed the gun deeper into his flesh. “When is it?”

“Today. The meeting is today. At noon.”

“BOBBY KUNGENOOK. BOBBY Kungenook. Please pick up any courtesy phone and dial two-one-one.”

Nadia had Adam paged, figuring it was safe to do so since no one knew his new identity. It was a long shot: even if he was still in the airport and heard his new name, would he understand the rest of the message?

She waited half an hour, but no one showed. After leaving her cell phone number with Emergency Services, Nadia hustled down to arrivals at Terminal 4. If he wasn’t in the airport, he’d left. Given his limited knowledge of English, he would have needed help to secure transportation.

The arrivals area was a melting pot of people and languages. Two Port Authority cops stood by the entrance, studying everyone, but Nadia didn’t want to arouse their suspicions by asking questions. She walked across the street to the taxi dispatcher.

“I’m looking for a teenager,” she said. “About six feet tall, athletic but thin. Black hair over his ears. He’s wearing a blue blazer. Speaks broken English.”

The dispatcher scratched his forehead. “Nope. Haven’t seen anyone like that.”

She ran back into the terminal. The cops and Homeland Security officers looked like the government. She could understand why Adam had gotten spooked, but why didn’t he wait down the corridor or in the arrivals area?

The information desk was no longer empty. An intense-looking woman with slits for eyes was standing behind it now. Nadia sliced her way through a group of tourists jabbering at each other in German.

“Have you seen a boy?” Nadia said. “He doesn’t speak English. Five foot ten. Hundred seventy pounds. Looks like an Eskimo. He had a knapsack and a duffel bag. He’s wearing a blue—”

“AirTrain.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“He wanted to know how to catch the train to Manhattan. I told him how to get to the AirTrain.”

“Manhattan?” Nadia said.

“He had an address written on a piece of paper. He showed it to me because he wanted to make sure he got on the right train.”

“Do you remember the address?”

“Let’s see. Seven… Seven East Thirty-Third. That’s right. Seven East Thirty-Third.”

Nadia frowned. Murray Hill? Why would Adam visit someone in Murray Hill?

“Are you sure?” Nadia said.

The woman started to nod and stopped. “No. Wait. Other way around. It was thirty-three East Seventh Street. That’s it. A place called the Underground. Thirty-three East Seventh Street.”

The Underground was a Ukrainian dive bar favored by an older generation of immigrants. Maybe it was an emergency address his father had given him, a place to go to if he got lost. If that were the case, though, why hadn’t Adam shared it with her? An eerie feeling washed over Nadia. Was Adam’s disappearance related to the formula? It had to be. Had Damian arranged a sale to a less-than-savory party in New York City? Had that been the plan all along?

Nadia called information and got a phone number for the Underground. She called the bar four times on the way to Manhattan, but no one answered. It probably didn’t open until the afternoon. Was Adam waiting on the doorstep? When her taxi from the airport merged onto FDR Drive, Nadia checked her watch. It was 11:41. She’d never be on time for her appointment with the radiobiologist if she tried to go to the Underground first. But Adam and the locket were essential to the meeting.

She tried calling Johnny to tell him to call the professor and inform him she’d be late, but it went straight to voice mail. While she left him a message, her driver passed the United Nations.

She was on her way back to the East Village, where it all had started.