The Boy Who Stole From the Dead (19 page)

“Your language is amazing,” the woman said, with a crude Ukrainian accent. To a Ukrainian-American, it sounded like ghetto. “Textbook Ukrainian. Like they speak in Lviv. In Western Ukraine.”

“So let me ask you a question,” Marko said.

The woman lifted her eyebrows. “Yes?”

“Why are you speaking Russian to me as though I’m in Moscow?”

Nadia kicked Marko in the shin. He’d always been a rabid Ukrainian nationalist within the American community. She understood he hated any sign of Russification but this was not the place to be demonstrative. He glared at her as though he had no choice but to make the comment.

The limo was so long the woman saw Nadia’s kick. “No, Ms. Tesla,” she said in Ukrainian. “It’s a good question.” Nadia had to give her credit. Russian was the woman’s primary language but she was speaking the language common to everyone in the car. “It’s a matter of history.”

“History didn’t make you speak Russian instead of Uke when you met us at the airport,” Marko said. “What are you talking about?”

Nadia kicked him again.

“In the 1970s, the leaders of the Soviet Union implemented a program called ‘Russification’,” the woman said.

“By ‘leaders of the Soviet Union’ you mean the Russians,” Marko said. “You mean that bastard Brezhnev.”

“Marko,” Nadia said.

“Yes,” the woman said. “The Politburo and Leonid Brezhnev. The Ukrainian language was forbidden in universities. Pro-Ukrainians were called nationalists. They were persecuted, arrested, put in jail. It got to the point where Kyivans had two choices: send their kids to Russian-speaking schools and tow the line, or move out.”

“Move where?” Marko said.

“Moscow.”

“No way.”

“There was more opportunity in Moscow for Ukrainians to speak Ukrainian than in Kyiv. By 1980, Russian was the only language spoken in Kyiv. Only since independence in 1991 has the Ukrainian language started making a comeback here.”

“Thank God I waited until now to come here,” Marko said.

“Yes,” the woman said. “For your sake, I am also glad you waited.” She turned forward, grabbed a clipboard, and started confirming tomorrow’s itinerary with the driver.

Nadia glared at Marko. “You cannot be this way.”

Marko appeared confused. “What way?”

“Sarcastic, argumentative, confrontational. In short, an asshole. You cannot be an asshole when you’re a guest in someone else’s country.”

“Oh, come on. You know me.”

“I’m here on business, Marko. I’m getting paid.”

He sealed his lips and looked out the window.

The driver turned on the radio. Modern interpretations of traditional Ukrainian folk music started up. A crescent moon hung in the sky. The limousine glided along the tarmac. Green pastures and clusters of forest rolled by.

Memories from last year’s trip flitted in and out of Nadia’s mind. The search for Clementine Seelick, Bobby’s aunt. Nadia’s escape from her pursuers in the tunnels of the Caves Monastery on her hands and knees. And then, Chornobyl, the locket, and the escape with Bobby back to New York.

They crossed the bridge over the river Dnipro. Lights from Kyiv’s skyscrapers illuminated the golden domes of its eleventh century churches and cathedrals.

When they got to the hotel, Nadia and Marko stepped out of the limo. The driver removed their luggage from the trunk. Two well-dressed young men were arguing about something.

“Evgeny will pick you up at nine a.m. to bring you to Orel Group offices,” the woman said. “If that is convenient.”

“Thank you,” Nadia said, “but I need to get started earlier. I need to be there by seven a.m.”

“Then he will pick you up at six forty-five a.m.” She glanced at the driver to make sure he understood. He nodded politely.

One of the young men struck the other in the face. The injured one screamed. Brought his hands to his nose.

A bell captain and two hotel doormen came running.

“What happened here?” one of the doormen said.

The injured man removed his hands from his nose. They were covered with blood. It streamed down his face from his nose.

“This man punched me for no reason,” the injured man said.

He pointed at Marko.

“What are you talking about?” Marko said.

“That’s a lie,” Nadia said.

She remembered her experience last year in Kyiv. Thugs pretended to be cops, planted dope on her, and tried to extort a bribe. This was a scam, too, she realized, but what was the angle?

Marko was going toe-to-toe with the assailant, threatening to stick his head in a blender for being a lying bitch. The driver and the woman were trying to back him up but there was too much screaming. It was chaos.

It was a diversion.

Nadia turned. Their luggage was gone.

“Our luggage,” she said. “Our luggage is gone. It’s a scam to get our luggage.”

She looked left. Nothing. Glanced to the right. Nothing. She swore. Looked around again. Further out this time. She was vaguely aware the two miscreants were running away. Who cared. She needed her luggage.

There. Across the street. A third young man wheeled their luggage toward a taxi. One bag in each hand.

“Thief,” Nadia said. “Stop him.”

She sprinted toward him.

A rawboned man in a tan suit appeared from nowhere and blocked the thief’s path. He didn’t touch the kid. He simply spoke to him. Three sentences. Maybe four. Nadia couldn’t hear what he said but the younger guy dropped the bags and ran away.

The rawboned man helped her retrieve their bags. Up close he appeared to be in his early fifties, with a military crew cut.

“Thank you,” Nadia said in Ukrainian. When he frowned she repeated herself in Russian.

His peppercorn eyes twinkled. “You’re welcome. I was in my car waiting for my wife.” He pointed to a white BMW with black rims. “I saw the whole thing happen.” He sounded quite pleased with himself. “You are a tourist?”

“Yes.”

“Where are you from?”

“America.”

“I love America.” He turned serious and wagged his finger. “Just remember when you go back to America to spread the word. Not everyone in Ukraine is corrupt and criminal.”

He returned to his car as Marko arrived, out of breath.

“He speak Russian or Uke?” Marko said. He waved to the good Samaritan, who smiled and waved back.

“Guess,” Nadia said.

“Damn. I wanted to like him so bad.”

CHAPTER 27

T
HE
G
ENERAL WOKE
up excited and enthused. He was expecting news about the Tesla woman this morning. What started out as a matter of honor was becoming an even more intriguing proposition.

After washing and dressing he took his breakfast in the study. He never ate breakfast with his wife. He had his butler deliver it to his study instead. If he were to eat breakfast with Asya, the layers of fat in her chin might hypnotize him. He might start counting them. By the time he was done it would be time for lunch. That was unacceptable, eating two meals back-to-back with no productive activity in between, even for a retired military hero.

What a cow she’d become, he thought. Once she turned fifty, her metabolism slowed and she shed all inhibitions about portion control. Divorce was allowed in the Orthodox Church and he owned a few judges. He could have dumped her for a nominal settlement years ago and married the ballet instructor. She was always making eyes at him and his Mercedes AMG, the one with the hand-built engine. But if he divorced, the other four remaining members of his hunting club, the Zaroff Seven, would have never looked at him the same. They were old-school Soviet boys. Appearances mattered. Screw the farmer’s daughter—or son—if you had to, but for God’s sake do it in private, and don’t dissolve the marriage.

The General was realizing the truth more and more each day. He had no choice. There was only one way out, one course of action that would allow him to save face. He was going to have to kill her. But this would cause his grandchildren to cry at her funeral. He couldn’t stomach the thought of seeing his grandchildren cry for any reason. And so he went on with the status quo, eating his buckwheat cereal with blueberries in his study every morning, surrounded by the trophies that hung on his wall. Bear, wolf, lynx, argali sheep, red stag, Caucasian tur, snow sheep, wild boar, Siberian tiger. The heads of every animal worth hunting within the boundaries of the former Soviet Union.

He finished his breakfast and tried to motivate himself to deal with the horror that awaited him in the other room. First however, the phone call that would deliver him good news.

It came at 9:05 a.m. Sevastopol time.

“You’re five minutes late,” the General said. “I hate tardiness.” Saint Barbara knew that, and still he hadn’t called on time.

The General’s former protégé had been a colonel in the Russian army. The colonel had earned his nickname in the Chechen republic of Ichkeriya in 1999. Article 148 of the local criminal code forbid anal sex between people of any sexual persuasion. First and second time offenders were caned. Third-time offenders were beheaded or stoned to death. These local laws were against Russian law. When the colonel personally intervened to prevent a mute prostitute’s murder, the General began to call him Saint Barbara, the patron saint of delivery from sudden death.

“Don’t blame me,” Saint Barbara said. “Blame the woman in front of me that ordered five lattes to go.”

“You should have allowed yourself a larger margin for error. A great hunter allows for error.”

Saint Barbara didn’t answer but the General could picture him rolling his eyes on the other end of the line. Insolent child. But what was he expecting? Saint Barbara was only forty-nine. This younger generation was for shit. No wonder Russia was falling apart.

“Some punks tried to steal her luggage,” Saint Barbara said. “I made an executive decision and stepped in. Otherwise she’d be wasting time replacing her things instead of getting on with her search.”

The General paused to think. “I agree. And even worse, it would ruin her disposition. We can’t have that. We need her to be happy. Optimistic. Until it’s time for her to be realistic. Good decision.”

“Thank you.”

“She saw your face?”

“They both did.”

“Both?”

“She’s traveling with her brother.”

The General thought about this development. “I’m not sure that’s such a bad thing. That there are two of them now.”

“I thought you might say that.”

“And as for seeing your face, that doesn’t matter. As long as you don’t let her see it again. Until the time comes when it’s the last face she sees.”

“The brother’s at the Central State Historical Archives this morning. And she’s at Simeonovich’s offices.”

“Keep me informed.”

The General hung up and rubbed his hands together. It was going to be a good day after all. Then he remembered his appointment. His semi-annual horror awaited him. And now he was ten minutes late. He cringed. They would make him suffer for being tardy, especially since he’d reamed them new assholes for keeping him waiting five minutes one time.

The General reached into his desk drawer and grabbed the only weapon that would work against the enemy he was about to face. Stormed out of his office determined to dispose of it within five minutes.

He walked down the hallways and burst into the grand living room. There they were. The liberals. Three of them, all women, none over the age of thirty-nine. Or so they said. Pride, Prejudice, and Prada.

“There you are, General,” Pride said. She glanced at her watch. “We were beginning to worry your clock might have stopped.”

The General bowed. “My apologies, lovely ladies of the Siberian Environmental Protection Committee. Some issues at one of my aluminum plants. Let’s see if I can make it up to you. Look.” He brandished his weapon and held it like a hatchet. “I’ve brought my checkbook.”

CHAPTER 28

N
ADIA SCRUBBED BOOKS
all morning. The Orel Group’s acquisition target had some problems. Serious problems. Normally, this was good news. A forensic security analysis was similar to an IRS audit. The analyst needed to prove his worth, and this was best accomplished by finding something was wrong. The discovery of some minor accounting irregularities that didn’t threaten the client’s agenda secured victory for everyone. The analyst proved his worth and justified his fee.