The Boy from Reactor 4

CHAPTER 79





AFTER KILLING MISHA, Kirilo had struck a bargain with his excellent bodyguard, Stefan, who’d saved him from being shot by the babushka. He put him and his crew on retainer, paying them the equivalent of US$50,000 to become his American security consultants. In fact, Kirilo was paying to prevent them from seeking retribution and to agree that Misha had left the casino complaining of stomach pains and had simply vanished with his friend Specter. If Specter was a musor, as Kirilo suspected, that would convince those who profited from Misha’s existence that he had turned snitch for the American police. Hence, no one would regret the moscal’s disappearance.

That Stefan had worked for Victor previously was of no consequence. It was not unusual for men to shift allegiances as their bosses faded. Victor was on the decline. His power had eroded to younger men such as Misha. More important, he was broke. Stefan’s betrayal of Victor for Misha implied he was a rational economic being. He followed the money. Kirilo had money. Still, since some allegiances died hard, Kirilo instructed Pavel and his team of bodyguards to maintain a safe distance from him.

Two of Stefan’s men picked them up at Newark International on Saturday morning. Pavel, the bodyguards, and Stefan drove in one car. Kirilo and Victor rode in the other.

Victor had been on the cell phone when Kirilo finally got through Customs. Strangely, it made Kirilo happy to see him talking to his men in Kyiv because they were taking care of Isabella. Their line of dialogue brought Kirilo closer to his daughter, if only in his imagination.

“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.”