The Boy Who Glowed in the Dark (19 page)

“You’re right. I guess it’s possible he was being followed. And we might be tempted to think it’s a good thing.”

“I hear you. Saved him once, save him again.”

“Right. But there’s no such charity in the world, let alone in Russia. The angel is after the formula, let there be no doubt. Bobby is carrying half of it—we had no choice to appease Nakamura. Genesis II may or may not have the second half.”

“Either way he needs Bobby,” Johnny said.

“So do I.”

“Then what are we waiting for?”

Nadia checked her watch. “I’m waiting until 10:00 p.m.”

Her use of the singular pronoun stung Johnny. It was a sign her plans didn’t include him. He waited for her to elaborate but she kept staring at her watch instead.

“You plan to bring me up to speed on why you’re waiting for fifty minutes to go by, or are you going to make me sit here like your personal secretary waiting for her majesty to decide when I’m worthy of being informed?”

Nadia frowned. “Sorry, I was thinking.”

“Why the fifty minutes?”

“It was something Bobby said.”

“What?”

“He said he’d be on the boat for two and a half days. Actually, it doesn’t leave for forty-five minutes. So it’s two days, twelve hours, and forty-five minutes.”

“And?”

“He said that would leave me enough time to go to Kyiv and make inquiries.”

“What of it?”

“It’s a crazy idea, isn’t it? Think about it. Logistically, it’s impossible to do it on commercial airlines.”

“Why? Departure times? How do you know until you look into it first?”

“Flight time from Tokyo to Kyiv is twelve hours. Flight time from Kyiv to Vladivostok is ten hours. That’s twenty-two hours flight time in the air. That excludes check-in, getting through customs, immigration. All that fun airport stuff.”

“Call it four hours more for that stuff. Twenty-six hours travel time. Bobby’s going to be in the boat for sixty hours. That leaves you . . . thirty-four hours. That leaves you with a day and a half in Kyiv.”

“You’re assuming the proper departure times exist. That I can time all my business to get to the airport on time.”

Again with the singular pronoun. Johnny wished he didn’t care so much. No matter how closely they bonded she always reverted to being an individual. “You’re right. I’m assuming you’re not screwed at the airport. Like I said, you won’t know until you check, and even if the logistics work, there’s risk.”

“No,” Nadia said. “There isn’t just risk. There’s a guarantee of failure.”

“Why?”

“Because if I come into Russia on a commercial airliner I have to go through the normal immigration procedure. I won’t be on the ferry from Takaoka like Bobby. They won’t let me into Russia for seventy-two hours without a visa.”

“You need a visa.” Johnny shook his head. “I forgot about the visa.”

“It’s the adrenaline. Look at me. I forgot about the boomerangs. I forgot about the angel.”

“So what are you saying, you fly back to Takaoka and get on the ferry? That doesn’t make sense. You’d be two and a half days behind.” It was a stupid thought, a stream of consciousness. He regretted even suggesting it.

“No ferries. And no commercial planes.”

“Then what? You have a private submarine?”

“No. But I have a friend who has a private plane.”

A flash of envy passed through Johnny. Simeonovich. The man with all the toys. The man Nadia wouldn’t trust when she went to Ukraine to dig into Bobby’s background. First, he was Russian, and Russians and Ukrainians had a history of adversity. Second, he was a Russian oligarch. Apparently one of the more honorable ones, but he himself had admitted to Nadia that by American rules of law, all oligarchs were criminals without exception. It was impossible to conduct business in the countries that comprised the former Soviet Union without offering bribes.

“So what, you’re going to trust him now?” Johnny said.

“To some degree, yes. I have no choice.”

“You’re kidding me. With this?” Johnny looked around to make sure no one was listening. Leaned across the table and lowered his voice. “You’re going to trust a guy who lives for money with the formula?”

“I’m not sure I’ll need to go that far for him to help me.”

“You think he’s going to let you fly in his plane from Tokyo to Kyiv and not expect you to feel some obligation toward him?”

“He has an office in Tokyo but the odds his plane is here are zero. No, I think he’s going to charter a plane for me to get to Kyiv. Then let me use his plane from there.”

“And you’re comfortable with this? Because before, you weren’t too keen on confiding in him.”

“The thought of owing him doesn’t bother me so much anymore. I like him. I . . . I trust him.”

Johnny noted the slight hesitation in her voice and her choice of verbs. “You sound as certain as Bobby was that he saw Eva. You expect him to do this for you without knowing what you’re after?”

“I must sound pretty arrogant right now, huh?”

Johnny shrugged. It wasn’t so much arrogance as it was feminine confidence, the kind a woman projected when she knew a man held a fascination for her, and was prepared to do whatever was necessary to get her. Whatever that meant. Johnny wanted to tell her she was making a mistake. That a man who measured his happiness by counting dollars, euros, or rubles would inevitably let her down. If she brought Simeonovich closer, he would find out about the formula and choose it over her. But there was no sense in doing so. Johnny would only sound like a jealous fool.

“It’s not about humility or arrogance,” he said. “It’s about Bobby, and it’s about the formula. You have to use all the resources at your disposal. All of them. If you have access to a private plane, and you trust you can handle the man who’s lending it to you, you have to go for it.”

Nadia considered his statement and nodded.

“Back to the original question,” Johnny said. “You’re waiting for fifty minutes to go by because of the time difference. Where are Simeonovich’s headquarters? Moscow?”

“Forty-six minutes. But who’s counting. Yeah, Moscow. Moscow is five hours behind Tokyo. So it’s 4:14 p.m. He prefers not to get personal calls until 5:00 p.m., when his workday is done. Everything rolls to voice mail before then. Thus the wait. I could call his business and have him interrupted, but I know the man. It will work better if I’m patient.”

“What if he’s somewhere else? In the UK or the US?”

“He knows the time changes. He’ll still know I respected his schedule.” Nadia shrugged. “What can I say? He’s a billionaire. He’s eccentric.”

“Self-important.”

“Semantics. In my experience with the super rich, as an analyst for hire, once a man’s net worth goes north of a hundred million dollars, inhibitions melt away pretty fast.”

“The emperor sheds his kimono.” Johnny recalled using the line with Nakamura. Sounded like emperors were stripping all over the place.

Nadia managed a laugh. Her eyes went to her watch again, then to Johnny, the food on the table, and back to him. They lingered on him. Johnny felt helpless when she stared at him, like he did in the courtroom when he was waiting for the verdict on an impossible case, one where he didn’t have a chance to impose his will on the final outcome.

“I better eat some of this fast and get to my room,” she said. “I want to be packed and ready to go. Just in case he says yes.”

“Sure.”

“I’m sorry to rush through dinner like this.”

Johnny barely heard what she said. He was coming to grips with what they weren’t discussing. That she needed him to go away now.

“I know it’s presumptuous of me,” Nadia said. “I mean, it’s nuts, right? I’m just assuming he’s going to charter a plane for me . . . ”

Her eyes were alive now, similar to how she’d described Bobby’s voice on the phone. And Johnny would not be part of it. If she was successful in getting Simeonovich to help her, he was not invited. Their unspoken understanding was that he would be going back to New Jersey. Johnny wouldn’t dare suggest tagging along. She appreciated him, maybe even loved him in a platonic way. But she needed more help than he was capable of providing. The man who could provide it wouldn’t want him around, and Nadia understood the reality of the situation. In addition to that, she genuinely didn’t want Johnny to lose his job by extending his vacation, especially not if she had an oligarch at her disposal.

The waiter delivered the bill on a tray. Nadia and Johnny had an understanding that she was paying his expenses for the trip. Johnny still tried to pay for the meal out of pure chivalry, but Nadia grabbed the tray with the bill from his hands. Johnny knew that her checking account was temporarily flush from the fat fee she’d earned from the securities analysis she’d performed for Simeonovich. Johnny watched her stack some yen on the tray to cover the bill and the tip.

People didn’t touch money in public in Japan. When a person needed to hand currency to another, he used an envelope. Money was considered filthy, both literally and figuratively. The Japanese were right, he thought. Money was a filthy thing, especially when it came from Russia. Johnny didn’t trust the bastard. Not one bit. They had no rule of law in Russia. Why would anyone trust a man who knew how to manipulate the law to his own benefit?

They left the restaurant and rode the elevator together.

When they got to Nadia’s room, she looked at him. Her eyes turned large and moist.

“You’re too good to me, Johnny Tanner,” she said. “I’m never going to be able to thank you properly for everything you’ve done for me. For Bobby and me. For us.” She kissed him firmly on the cheek.

Johnny went back to his room and called his credit card concierge to check the flight schedule from Tokyo to the New York metro area. He didn’t need to wait for Nadia to tell him what Simeonovich would say. They both knew the outcome of her call just as surely as they knew what had just transpired in front of her hotel room.

She’d given him the big kiss good-bye.

CHAPTER 29

T
HE CO-CAPTAIN
OF
the Gulfstream G550 emerged from the cockpit every half hour to see if Nadia needed anything. The sleek jet seated nineteen people, but she was the only passenger.

“Will we be stopping to refuel?” Nadia said.

The co-captain was an American in his fifties, with a gray crew cut and a lean physique. His military looks inspired confidence. He shook his head. “Nope. The G550 has a range of six thousand, seven hundred fifty nautical miles. The flight from Tokyo to Kyiv is about five thousand miles.”

Simmy had purposefully chartered a jet that could cover the distance non-stop. He didn’t want her to waste any time. Nadia pictured him telling his assistant—the condescending one with the sculpted cheekbones that she’d met on his yacht less than a month ago—to make sure she chartered a plane that met all of Nadia’s needs. A warmth spread over her body.

The co-captain said, “I’m guessing you didn’t make the charter yourself?”

“How can you tell?”

He chuckled. “The same way I can tell whoever chartered this plane is very fond of you. Kind of obvious.”

Nadia lowered her voice to make her next question sound more discreet. “How much for a jaunt like this?”

He shrugged. “Figure about ten thousand per thousand miles.”

“Fifty thousand?” Nadia swallowed. “That much?”

“Unless your friend is a good client. Then he has his own contract, his own rate. It’s negotiated.”

“My friend has his own plane. It just wasn’t in Tokyo.”

The co-captain smiled. “Good news then.”

“What’s that?”

“Your friend loves you. It was at least fifty grand.”

Nadia had called Simmy at precisely 5:00 p.m. Moscow time. It was his private mobile phone. Only his most trusted friends and associates had the number. He answered the phone without emotion, then turned enthusiastic as soon as he heard her voice.

Nadia explained the urgency of the situation. Bobby was in danger on a ferry headed to Vladivostok. Nadia needed to get to Kyiv to investigate some matters and get to Vladivostok before Bobby arrived. She had approximately fifty-seven hours before Bobby arrived and the clock was ticking. He’d offered to help her before. She hadn’t accepted. Now she needed his help. In the most grandiose, inappropriately expensive way imaginable.

It was a preposterous request. And yet Nadia was certain he would say yes. First, she’d saved him tens of millions of dollars with her analysis by preventing him from overpaying for a company whose books had been cooked. Second, fifty thousand dollars to him was the equivalent of fifty cents to her. It was a mercenary’s observation, but it was the truth. Third, he wanted her and Nadia knew it. A woman knew a man’s intentions based on the look in his eyes, his body language around her, his manner of speech. Whether she was an object of temporary fascination or something more serious, she had no idea.

But the prospect of either one thrilled her as much as telling a Russian oligarch about the existence of a formula scared her. Oligarchs became who they were because of their insatiable appetite for wealth. A radiation countermeasure would be worth billions. If he learned of its existence, could she trust him not to try to acquire it for himself?