The Boy from Reactor 4

CHAPTER 86





WHEN THE BULLETS started flying, Nadia tackled Adam. They stayed low. The floor shook before her eyes when bullets felled Stefan and Victor’s other bodyguard.

The firefight ended as abruptly as it had started.

Specter rushed over to them. Nadia and Adam were still on the ground.

“Are you all right?” he said.

His words sounded distant. Nadia realized her hearing was impaired from the gunshots.

Nadia glanced at Adam, who was rubbing his ears.

“I think so,” she said, collecting herself. She studied Specter. “Who are you, really?”

Specter pulled out a wallet and flipped it open to reveal an ID. “John Dzen. FBI. I work for the joint Hungarian-American task force on organized crime. We started there, ended up here. Where’s Victor Bodnar? He was here, wasn’t he?”

Nadia stood up. Her body trembled. She looked around. An agent was tending to a wounded colleague near the front door. Yuri and Simon were sitting on the floor, unscathed. Another agent was checking the pulses of Stefan and the other bodyguard. But there was no sign of Victor.

“These two are dead,” the agent said.

“He must have slipped away,” Nadia said. “You’re going to get him, though, right?”

“Did he have a gun? Did you see him shoot anyone?”

Nadia remembered Victor standing beside his bodyguards with his hands by his sides. “I don’t think so.”

Specter frowned. Raised his eyebrows. “Where’s the formula?”

Adam stood up.

“There is no formula,” Nadia said.

“Nadia, please,” Specter said. “The formula is a matter of national security. You must hand it over to the federal government. Let me put it to you this way. You will hand it over to us one way or another.”

“There’s no formula, Specter,” Nadia said. “Adam, show this man what was in the locket. Show this man what this was all about.”

Adam held the picture of the Statue of Liberty in his left hand. He extended his arm so Specter could see it.

Specter frowned. “What’s this? Is this a joke? Do you think I’m stupid enough to fall for this? Where’s the microfilm—”

Adam was staring with disbelief at a purple stain on his sports jacket. It was near his upper chest on his left side.

“He’s been shot,” Nadia said. “Specter, you shot an innocent child.”

“Stray bullet,” Specter said.

“Get an ambulance. Now.”

Adam’s knees wobbled. Nadia caught him. Specter helped her ease him back to the floor and peeled his jacket back. His white shirt was stained with blood, like Yuri’s the night he’d pretended to be Max Milan. Only this time, the blood was real.

Specter barked orders for a second ambulance and a first-aid kit. When it arrived, he opened a sterile bandage and told Nadia to apply direct pressure on the wound.

“It’s the upper chest,” he said. “Near the deltoid-pectoral tie-in. Nothing vital. Worst case, a muscle got hit. He’ll be fine. Ambulance is on the way.”

Adam, near the border of consciousness, studied Specter and turned to Nadia. “Government man,” he said. “Can’t trust a government man.”

“No,” Nadia said, giving Specter an evil eye. “No, you most certainly cannot.”

Nadia followed Adam’s gaze to the paper in his hand. The glossy newsprint and its dimensions struck a chord within Nadia. The hockey magazine. Adam had held up a page when she first asked about it on the Trans-Siberian. The page had a hole in it. It was the page for the New York Rangers. He’d torn the picture of the Statue of Liberty out of the magazine and put it in the locket.

Adam nodded at the picture of Lady Liberty. “Downtown?” he said.

Nadia nodded. “Downtown. I’ll take you to see her.”

For the first time since she’d met him, Adam smiled.

Nadia continued to press her hand to his wound gently. “It’s going to be okay. I’ll take care of you. But no more lies between us. Okay, Bobby?”

He took a second to absorb the comment. “Okay. No more lies, Auntie.”