The Boy Who Glowed in the Dark (16 page)

“You’re right.”

Johnny reached out and put his palm on her hand. “You need to relax. We need to eat. Then we can try again. Maybe we’ll catch him in a different set of circumstances. Maybe his girlfriend will pick up or something.”

He pulled his hand away, and much to Nadia’s surprise, she found herself wishing it was still there.

The waiter brought them their beverages.

Nadia sipped her green tea. “I watched the local news in my room.”

“I did, too. If you can’t understand a word, how could you be sure it was local?”

“All the people in the stories were Japanese.”

“Good thinking. Very you. I watched the local news, too. Couldn’t understand much more than a word here or there.”

“I didn’t see any stories about malfeasance in Fukushima.”

Johnny raised an eyebrow. “Malfeasance?”

Nadia shrugged. “And I did a thorough search on the web. Nothing there either.”

Johnny nodded, then turned solemn. “Nakamura,” he said.

Nadia bowed her head and stared into her tea. “Tragic.”

“This formula is taking lives.”

“It was doing that even before we were sure there was a formula.”

“You mean we’re sure now?”

“Hardly,” Nadia said.

During her first trip to Ukraine, she’d risked her life in pursuit of a treasure that would have allowed her to pay off a mobster who believed she owed him. Her second trip to Ukraine had also put her in mortal danger, but that was to save Bobby from a lifetime jail sentence. Now, the prospect that Bobby, Johnny, and she were all risking their lives for nothing turned her stomach. Her greatest fear wasn’t the danger. Her adrenaline served as anesthetic to the risk. Her greatest fear was that it was all for naught, for reasons that were beyond her understanding at the moment.

“If we don’t hear from Bobby tonight,” Johnny said, “we have to consider our options.”

“You mean we have options?”

Johnny picked from a bowl of salty-looking snacks. “Only bad ones. We could go to the embassy and tell them the truth, or some version of it. They would get the local authorities involved. They could check with passport control. The driver must have a Russian name. Probably came in through Narita. How many Russians can possibly have entered the country recently?”

“That will take forever and get us nowhere. By the time we’re interrogated and the system starts rolling, Bobby will either be dead or long gone.”

“Alternatively, we can search by ourselves. We could hire a detective. I know it’s no fun to hear and I’m not trying to get you upset, but he could check hospitals. And presumably he’d have contacts with the police. He could see if there have been any reports about an American boy fitting Bobby’s description.”

“Usually there’s at least one good ‘bad option.’”

“Yeah,” Johnny said. “In this case they both suck.”

“That they do.” Nadia caught Johnny’s eye. “I want to thank you for what you did back there in the Zone.”

Johnny waved his hand as though what he’d done was nothing.

Nadia caught his hand mid-air. His eyes widened.

“Don’t underplay it,” she said. “You put your life on the line for Bobby. For me. Words can’t even begin to cover the debt I owe you.”

“No worries. That’s why I came along. Fortunately, I had some help from our mystery angel, or things might not have worked out so well.”

“He does remain a mystery. Whatever happens tonight and tomorrow, though, I want us to have an understanding.”

“What’s that?”

“You’re on that flight back to Newark on Saturday.”

Johnny frowned. Let their hands fall to the table. “And leave you here alone? With Bobby missing? There is simply no way—”

“Yes way. Your boss gave you a week on the spur of the moment. Your colleague took over your cases. You told me yourself it was a stretch to get that week. You promised when you booked the trip that you wouldn’t let it cost you your job.”

“Yeah, but I never imagined things would go down like this. I can’t leave. It doesn’t matter . . . It doesn’t matter what happens . . .”

Nadia squeezed his hand. “I cannot let you lose your job—”

Her phone rang again. She spoke immediately for fear the kid on the other end of the line would end the call. “Don’t hang up. I need to know where you found this phone. Please. It’s very important. Do you speak English? Can you understand me?”

A light static buzzed in the background. There had been no such noise during her previous calls. Something was off. Something was different. Nadia pulled the phone from her ear and glanced at the number from which the call was originating.

It wasn’t Bobby’s phone.

Then a voice sounded. As soon as she recognized it a wave of joy swept through her.

“My English isn’t as good as my hockey,” Bobby said. “But yeah, Auntie. I can understand you.”

CHAPTER 25

B
OBBY REMAINED GLUED
to the truck’s undercarriage for another ninety minutes. The crossbeam farthest away from his head helped him survive the trip. By hooking his knees over it, his arms and shoulders had to support only a fraction of his weight. He diverted his mind with a series of memories and fantasies. The latter included his favorite action sequence, the one where he completed an end-to-end rush and scored the Stanley Cup-winning goal in overtime for the New York Rangers. Not that the uniform mattered that much, as long as it belonged to an NHL team.

He began to smell the ocean halfway through the second leg of the trip. This was his first clue they were not heading back to Tokyo. The second clue was the traffic pattern. The closer one got to Tokyo, the worse the traffic. If they were headed back there, the volume of cars would have picked up after two hours. It didn’t. Instead, traffic lightened.

An hour and a half after the stop at the gas stand, the driver exited the main road. He took two right turns and one left, and parked the truck. Bobby was surrounded by tires. He assumed it was a parking lot. Then he heard a long whistle. A man’s voice came over an intercom. He spoke with a rhythm and cadence consistent with someone announcing some form of transportation was departing or arriving.

A train station.

Bobby heard a door slide above his head. Footsteps and a man’s voice followed. The cabin went quiet for a count of sixty, and then more footsteps sounded. Weight shifted toward the back of the truck. The suspension dipped. Bobby felt the force of gravity pull him toward the asphalt until the shock absorbers kicked in. The back door opened. He heard feet hit the ground behind him. The first set connected with a heavy thunk. The second set kissed the asphalt.

The door shut. Two pairs of legs walked by him on the left. One belonged to a man. Black cotton pants and leather boots. Rubber soles with a thick tread but stylish enough to be worn into a casual restaurant. The second pair of legs belonged to someone slimmer. Blue jeans. Androgynous brown calfskin boots. The legs and the footwear might have belonged to a young man or a woman.

Bobby counted to twenty and slid out from under the truck. He tried to stand up but he couldn’t straighten his knees. He squatted down to stretch his thighs and tried again. A delicious pain wracked his thighs, like the kind he experienced at the end of a leg workout.

He followed the driver and Eva into the Joetsu train station. On the way in he took off his hoodie and reversed it. It was gray with light blue trim on one side, navy on the other. He switched it so that the blue was on the outside. He pulled his knit hat over his head to cover his ears. Unfortunately, his sunglasses were in the Global Medical van. The reversal of the sweatshirt and the hat were the only element of disguise available to him. Up close the driver would recognize him. This was going to be tricky. Bobby needed to follow the driver but keep a safe distance so as not to be discovered. That might prevent him from getting a good look at Genesis II to confirm she was Eva.

The inside of the station buzzed with activity. The walls were lined with ticket machines. Bobby took cover behind a vending machine and scanned the main lobby. People stood buying tickets at most of the machines. None of them resembled the driver or Eva.

A sign with male and female stick figures hung on a wall. An arrow pointed toward two doors in the far corner. If Bobby needed a restroom, they did, too. Especially Eva. The driver wouldn’t let her use the women’s restroom alone, nor would he dare go into one himself. He was attracting enough attention by being the oversized gaijin
that he was. His only option was to pull the hood down low over Eva’s face and escort her into the men’s room as though she were a boy or disabled person who needed help.

Five minutes later the driver and Eva emerged from the men’s room, just as Bobby had suspected. The driver guided Eva to a ticket window. Bobby snuck up behind them to hear their destination, then hustled away. Once they disappeared down the platform, Bobby bought a ticket to Takaoka for himself.

“Joetsu line to Echigo-Yuzawa,” the agent said. “At Echigo-Yuzawa, transfer to Hakutaka Ten Limited Express. Four thousand two hundred ten yen, please.”

Bobby paid with a credit card tied to Nadia’s account. He used the restroom, bought a bottle of water and two Japanese candy bars, and boarded the train. He took a seat next to a man in a suit reading a comics magazine. Once the train took off, he devoured his candy bars and drank his water.

He made the necessary transfers. He spotted the driver and Eva once from behind, at the Echigo-Yazawa station. Two hours later he hurried off the last train and caught up to them on the platform heading for the exit. The smell of fish and salt hit him as soon as he followed them outside.

A large ship stood anchored in a port in front of the building next door. A vast sea stretched far beyond it. A long line of people began in front of the ship and disappeared into a side entrance at the other end of the building. They carried bags and cameras. A man in a blue uniform guarded the entrance to the gangplank. A yellow rope stretched across it and prevented the people in line from accessing it.

The driver led Eva into the building. Bobby waited a minute, then snuck inside, pulled his hat low, and watched. The driver purchased two tickets and walked over to a long line. A sign above the line contained a single English word as translation. “Immigration.” Bobby circled behind them to the information desk. An English-speaking woman answered his questions. The answers struck fear in Bobby’s heart. Afterward, he bought tickets to the boat’s destination.

Then he found a payphone and called Nadia.

CHAPTER 26

N
ADIA HELD THE
phone to her ear. She glanced at Johnny across the dinner table. “Bobby,” she said.

Johnny’s eyes lit up. He leaned forward. Nadia didn’t have the speakerphone on and Johnny wouldn’t be able to hear, but he still moved closer to the phone. There was no hiding his genuine affection for the boy.

“How are you?” Nadia said. “Where are you?”

“In a town called Takaoka,” Bobby said. “At a pay phone in a ferry building. I lost my phone.”

“I know. Are you hurt? Are you all right?”

“I’m a little stiff but I’m good.”

A dozen questions raced through Nadia’s mind. She performed some quick mental triage. “Are you in danger?”

“Nope.” He hesitated. “At least I don’t think so.”

Nadia imagined him looking around. He was a self-aware and cautious kid. He could take care of himself.

“No,” he said. “I’m safe. I’m sure of it.” His voice was peppered with ebullience. He sounded better than safe. He sounded excited. “I’ve been worried about you.”

“You’ve been worried about me? Are you kidding me? I’m the one who watched you dive under that truck and grab hold of it. How long were you under there?”

“Not sure. Two fifty, maybe three hundred miles.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah, but we stopped at a gas stand so I got a break.”

“Why did you do something so reckless? You could have been killed so easily. What were you thinking?”

“I couldn’t let that truck get away. It was that moment that comes in life, you know? Where you have to take a stand and say, no matter what it costs, no matter what the consequences, this is something I’ve got to do.”