The Boy Who Glowed in the Dark (23 page)

“Right. Sorry. That’s what
we’re
here to find out.”

Simmy’s reminder that he was now equally vested in her mission to meet up with Bobby and discover once and for all if a formula existed stirred mixed emotions. Without his assistance, she wouldn’t be in Kyiv. With his assistance, she was now indebted to another person.

One she still wasn’t certain she could trust.

CHAPTER 33

C
ARS CRAWLED ALONG
the streets of the capital of Ukraine. Pedestrians marched on sidewalks toward trains and businesses. Nadia never ceased to be amazed at how well the people of Kyiv dressed. It was a source of cultural pride, an old-school European custom. Day or night, people dressed up whether they were going to work or out for a coffee. The per capita income in Ukraine was approximately 3,600 dollars, less than one-thirteenth of that in America. You wouldn’t have known it by looking at the sidewalks. The people were honest, friendly, and worked hard just to survive. Their pride in themselves and their country showed by the way they carried themselves in public.

Nadia glanced at her watch for the second time since they’d left the apartment six minutes ago. Simmy finished a call with his assistant. He’d kept his voice low. As a result, Nadia couldn’t overhear everything he’d said. But she was certain she’d heard him use the word
detective
twice.

“It’s not going to work,” he said, after he hung up.

“What’s not going to work?”

“Checking your watch every minute is not going to make the time go by any slower.” Simmy chuckled. “Trust me, I’ve tried this several thousand times.”

Nadia looked away, pretending to be irritated. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not checking my watch every minute.” She sighed. “I’m checking it every three minutes.”

“Pardon me. I’m sure that will be much more effective.”

“Let’s confirm my timetable one more time,” Nadia said. “The flight from Kyiv to Vladivostok will take eleven hours. How far is the Vladivostok airport from the ferry?”

“About fifty kilometers. Call it an hour and a half to allow for traffic.” Simmy glanced out the window and made a sour face. “Not this kind of traffic. Just traffic.”

“Call it two hours to be on the safe side. That’s thirteen hours’ travel time. Kyiv is eight hours behind Vladivostok. That means I have to be on a plane no later than 4:00 p.m. to meet the ferry at 1:00 p.m. And that leaves little to no cushion for unexpected delays.”

“There will be no unexpected delays. We will be on my jet well before 4:00 p.m. You have my word on that.”

Nadia squeezed his arm. “Thank you.”

“We’re going to save time by doing two things at once.”

“How are we going to do that?”

“You and I are going to the Central Clinic,” Simmy said.

The Central Clinic was one of Kyiv’s finest hospitals. Simmy had discovered that Dr. Arkady Shatan had been affiliated with it. That’s where he’d treated patients who’d required hospitalization. Logic dictated that Eva would have been admitted and treated there before she supposedly died.

“And my men are going to go to the Civil Registry Office. That’s where recent birth, marriage, and death certificates are kept. They will look for the birth and death certificates for one Eva Vovk.”

“Vovk,” Nadia said. She’d met someone in Chicago with that last name, so it wasn’t entirely uncommon. But it was certainly most memorable. It was the Ukrainian word for wolf. “That was her last name?”

“Yes. You said she lived with her uncle in Korosten and that he was a former member of the Soviet National hockey team back in its glory days. We traced her through him. She was the only Eva in the secondary school, and her address in school records matched that of the uncle. Same last name, too.”

“So the uncle was on her father’s side.”

Simmy said, “Why does that matter?”

“Not saying it does. Just noting it for the record.”

Simmy rolled his eyes. “Forensic analysts.”

“That’s right. That’s why you pay them the moderately big bucks.”

“Moderate?”

Nadia shrugged. “Compared to the oligarch’s typical payday. Very moderate.”

Simmy donned a look of mock irritation and shook his head. “Still insolent.”

“You’ve arranged for someone to help us navigate our way through the hospital?”

“Yes. Nothing commands respect like a detective’s badge and a gun.”

“Except for money.”

“Depends on where the gun is pointed. He should be waiting for us when we get there. Which would be five minutes from now if it weren’t for this damn traffic. In the meantime, tell me again what you know about the Zaroff Seven and what your connection is to them?”

“Me?” Nadia said. “I was going to ask you that.”

“You asked me about them a month ago and I told you. They were former Soviet administrators who cashed in their political connections and used the system to get rich during privatization.”

“You mean they pilfered state assets.”

“From a Westerner’s point of view, yes. From a Russian’s point of view, they used the system to their advantage. Boris Yeltsin created the rules for privatization. Blame him.”

“He’s dead.”

“That shows you what a waste of time it is to blame people. As I told you before, the Zaroff Seven were remnants of old Russia. Of the Soviet Union and the lawless transition that followed. Individually, they weren’t so powerful as to be intimidating, in business or in politics. But collectively they had capital and political clout. And they had the ear of the president and the prime minister.”

“Aren’t they one and the same man?”

“Exactly. Two offices. Two ears. One man.”

“You used the past tense. The Zaroff Seven don’t have that kind of clout anymore?”

“No. It appears there are only three of them left. Two died of natural causes. Two others vanished under mysterious circumstances a month ago. Right around when you were asking me questions about them.” He narrowed his eyes. “You wouldn’t know anything about their disappearance, would you?”

“Me? Don’t be ridiculous.”

Nadia knew the two men had died in the fire at her deceased uncle’s house, but she didn’t know where the babushka had buried the bodies. A neighbor’s root cellar, she supposed. And one of the two original deaths hadn’t been natural. Bobby had pushed the sole female member into the cooling ponds while defending his and Eva’s lives.

“It’s obvious they’ve found out about the formula,” Simmy said.

Indeed, Nadia thought. What had begun for them as a search for comrades had turned into a treasure hunt.

“Once they discovered there was a formula,” Nadia said, “they zeroed in on Arkady Shatan’s assistant, Ksenia Melnik, the only person alive with intimate knowledge of his work. Based on what her son told us he heard, she sent them to Japan for the second half of the formula.”

“What about the first half of the formula? What about the part only you and Bobby have?”

Nadia told Simmy about the Russians who’d showed up at her apartment in New York and the ones she’d evaded at the airport. “They were after the formula, I’m sure.”

“All right then,” Simmy said. “It’s much easier to fight a battle when you know your enemy. The driver who lifted Genesis II. The man Bobby is following. The odds are high he’s with the Zaroff Seven.”

“Which means Bobby’s following the men who want to capture him.”

“I like this boy’s style. He’s fearless. When he decides he wants something, there’s no stopping him. He reminds me of someone.”

“I wonder who.”

“Men like the Zaroff Seven. Old-school Russian nationalists who think the Soviet Union should be re-created. They may not care about the beneficial implications for a countermeasure to radiation. The medical implications, for instance. They may see it more as a military application that would help them achieve their ultimate goal. Colonize the independent states that once made up the Soviet Union under Russian leadership. Return the new Russia to superpower status.”

“I doubt the president and prime minister of Russia would disapprove of that agenda,” Nadia said.

Simmy didn’t comment. How could he? The president and prime minister was an old-school strongman in disguise. He’d permitted Simmy to accumulate his businesses, wealth, and power. Without his approval, Simmy wouldn’t have succeeded to the same extent. If the president and prime minister changed his mind and disapproved, Simmy could find himself convicted of corruption or embezzlement charges and serving an indefinite prison sentence like other oligarchs before him.

They arrived at the hospital at 10:10 a.m. A detective was waiting for them in the lobby. He had a picture of Eva with him. It was a headshot taken three years ago. Stringy black hair and purple lipstick. Carved cheekbones with small facial features. Too extreme, too Slavic to be called gorgeous. Yet definitely distinctive. Nadia could picture them at school, the two social castaways with no one but each other to rely on.

“This picture was in the system,” the detective said. “From her dosimetric passport. The radiation treatment unit was supposed to update it every year. But this is the most recent one.”

The detective established his credentials. A nurse searched a computer system for records of admission for one Eva Vovk. She found one such record. It corresponded to the week prior to Eva’s death. The orthopedist who’d treated her was not due to arrive for another forty-five minutes.

“I hate to waste time sitting around,” Nadia said, “but in my experience a phone call is not as reliable as an interview. The only way to tell if a man is telling the truth is by studying his extremities. That’s where the tells are. The lips, the Adam’s apple, the hands, the arms, the legs.”

“Adam’s apple,” Simmy said. “Who would have thought? And all this time I thought you were staring at my lips.”

“Of course you did. Humility is not a prerequisite to the oligarch’s major.”

Simmy frowned. “Excuse me?”

“Never mind,” Nadia said. “It doesn’t translate that well from English.”

He raised his eyebrows. “More insolence?”

Nadia laughed. “Pretty much.”

“Good. I like it when you’re insolent to me.”

“You do?”

A little smile spread across his lips. “Within reason, of course.”

“Ah, within reason. And who decides what’s reasonable?”

“The less tolerant person, of course. The needier one with more limitations.”

“Ooh. This is getting good. And which of us is that?”

Simmy studied her, smile still etched in his face. “I’m not sure. I think we’re pretty similar. We like to think we have no needs or limitations . . .” He lowered his voice for effect. “But it’s a lie.”

“Is it?” It was. If loneliness implied need and limitations, Simmy was right. “Huh. I guess that’ll have to remain a mystery for now.”

“Yes.” Simmy raised his chin and looked away with a contented expression. “For now.”

They sat in the waiting area. Simmy’s man brought tea and ham sandwiches from the cafeteria. Nadia ate her lunch, unsure when she would have the opportunity to eat again. The doctor showed up on time at exactly 11:00 a.m.

“I remember Eva well,” he said. “She’d been a swimmer her first year in secondary school. Set all sorts of school records at a ridiculously early age. Incredible physical specimen. A true athletic talent. I remember asking her why she quit and she said because it wasn’t fair. She said she had an unfair advantage. She said she was stronger than the others because of the treatments her personal physician had been administering to her. That was nonsense. If anything she suffered from a weaker immune system based on the usual regimen prescribed for thyroid cancer. I asked her if she got along with her teammates and she said no. They hated her. Didn’t like being in the water with her. That’s the real reason she quit. Problems with socialization. It’s not uncommon for Chornobyl children.”

“What did you treat her for?” Nadia said.

“Initially, an open fracture to the left fibula. They said it was a hiking accident. She slipped and fell down a mountain.”

Nadia pictured her falling as she tried to run away from the Zaroff Seven with Bobby. “Who said?”

“She and her uncle.”

“She needed surgery?” Simmy said.

“The surgery was successful, but this type of break—where the bone protrudes through the skin—is very susceptible to infection. She returned within a week in bad shape.”

“She didn’t respond to antibiotics?” Nadia said.

“I wouldn’t say that. I wouldn’t say that at all.”

“You wouldn’t?” Simmy said.

“Oh, no. Her fever had dropped and she’d stabilized before she was released.”

“She was released?” Simmy said.

Nadia said, “She didn’t die here?”

“No. I heard about her passing a week later, but she didn’t die here.”

“Why did you release her?” Simmy said.

The doctor’s jaw tightened. “Because I had no say in the matter. It was her uncle’s right to sign her out to another doctor’s care.”

“What doctor?” Nadia said.

“A man by the name of Arkady Shatan. Dr. Arkady Shatan. Eva Vovk died a few days later under his supervision.”

CHAPTER 34