The Boy Who Glowed in the Dark (6 page)

As a fifth grader, he’d looked up to her. She was only a year older, but that year seemed like ten in grade school. Eva didn’t want anything to do with him. They walked to school together, but once they got close she made him wait so she wasn’t seen entering the playground with him. They never talked about anything personal. They only discussed who was going to do what chores around the house.

When Eva started secondary school, things got worse. She started wearing purple lipstick and makeup, and dressing in black from head to toe. Bobby turned fourteen and started to dream about kissing those lips. He became tongue-tied in her presence. On the rare occasion she looked at him across the dinner table and asked him a question—such as to please pass the butter—his heart would start beating so fast he feared his chest would explode. But she wanted even less to do with him.

Bobby was known as the freak in school, with his shorn ears and introverted personality. Everyone knew he suffered from radiation syndrome. No one wanted to touch him for fear of getting infected. This was a superstition, carried over from the days following the reactor’s explosion. But superstitions died hard. Radiation syndrome sufferers were shunned by society. Not even his teachers wanted to come near him.

The secret he and Eva shared was that she suffered from the same disease. Initially, Eva didn’t have a physical handicap like Bobby. She was able to keep her condition a secret. Eventually she had to have surgery on her thyroid, however, and the other kids in school noticed the scar at the base of her neck. Her friends stopped talking to her. She became a freak, too, the female equivalent of Bobby. A month after Eva’s illness was exposed, she started walking into school with Bobby by her side. No longer did he have to wait until she was out of sight so that her friends didn’t see them together. She didn’t have any friends left to worry about except for Bobby.

On the last Friday of each month, the Coach would pick them up in his car after school and drive them sixty miles to the Division of Nervous Pathologies in Kyiv. The radiation in their bodies was measured and recorded in their dosimetric passports. Then they received physical exams. Most patients went home after the checkup was completed. But not Bobby and Eva.

Instead, the Coach drove them to the office of a retired radiobiologist named Arkady Shatan. Dr. Arkady, as Eva and Bobby called him, injected them with a special serum. Dr. Arkady insisted that if the serum stayed in their bloodstreams long enough, it would counteract the radiation in their bodies and cure them of their illness. In fact, not only would the serum cure them, Dr. Arkady said it would make them stronger than the average person. The Coach and the doctor swore Eva and Bobby to keep their injections a secret.

If the treatments brought them closer, the side effects made them inseparable. They shared nightmares, anxiety, and occasional hallucinations. Dr. Arkady said the effects would fade over time. He was right. They faded but never disappeared completely. Attacks came randomly, and still persecuted Bobby, as they had in jail two weeks ago.

Throughout this ordeal, the Coach had his own problems, and Eva and Bobby suffered accordingly. He drank and gambled his pension away. Sometimes toward the end of the month they wouldn’t have enough money left to buy food. Eva and Bobby became scavengers, scrounging what they could. Stealing radioactive car parts from the Zone of Exclusion was their specialty. They were strong, lean, and agile, and could slip in and out of vehicle graveyards with ease.

Then one night, life changed forever. They were scavenging in the Zone when a group of hunters stumbled upon them. It wasn’t unusual to find a poacher roaming Chornobyl in search of game for a local restaurant, but these were different kinds of hunters. Their prey was human. Criminals on the lam often hid in the Zone, and these hunters must have thought they were doing society a favor and enjoying a hobby at the same time. Scavengers were by definition criminals, too.

Bobby saved Eva and accidentally killed one of the hunters by pushing her into the radioactive cooling pond. Eva suffered a severe injury to her leg, and died of a staph infection at the hospital. Bobby was so heartbroken he had trouble getting out of bed for the next six months.

As he wedged a roll of toilet paper into his duffel bag, Bobby wondered who else knew the phrase
Genesis II
. Dr. Arkady had died two years ago. There were two possibilities. First, Dr. Arkady’s personal assistant might have heard it. Her name was Ksenia Melnik. She was a sweet woman. Bobby had liked her. And she had a son, Denys, a few years older than Bobby. He was a jerk. Bobby had liked him less.

Could Dr. Arkady have given Ksenia Melnik the second half of the formula? Could the e-mail have come from Denys? Why would Dr. Arkady divide the formula in two? Because he was an eccentric old man, Bobby thought. Or, for some more logical reason that wasn’t clear yet. There was a method to the madness of brilliant old men. There was still another possibility.

There could have been another patient. Another boy.

The problem with both those possibilities was they didn’t explain why the e-mail came from Fukushima. He couldn’t shake the explanation he and Nadia had imagined. That there was a second scientist in Japan, conducting the same experiments as Dr. Arkady, the two of them in constant correspondence until Dr. Arkady’s death. The timeline of events suggested the two scientists would have begun their collaboration before the Fukushima accident took place, but that didn’t make it less likely. Japanese fears of nuclear disaster ran deep. Bobby knew this from school. They were rooted in Japan’s World War II experiences in two cities—Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

“What are you doing?” Nadia appeared in his doorway holding the handle to an older suitcase on wheels.

“I’m done.” Bobby zipped the duffel bag, slung it on his back, and let the strap fall across his chest.

“That’s not what I mean. Why are you taking that ratty bag when I bought you a beautiful piece of luggage?”

Bobby didn’t want to tell her the truth. He didn’t want to scare her. “Because it’s so beautiful. I don’t want to scuff it up. I’d rather look at it for a while and then use it once the novelty wears off.”

Nadia flashed a smile. “Oh sure. That makes sense.” She sealed her lips tight. “Unpack. I bought it so you could use it, not look at it. Let’s go.”

“I’m not taking the suitcase. Please. Let’s not argue over this.”

“Why? You can’t seriously be concerned you’re going to nick it.”

Bobby had already lied to her about
Genesis II
. He didn’t want to lie to her again. He took a deep breath and exhaled. “It’ll be hard to run with a suitcase.”

“What?”

“It’s easier to run with the bag.”

“Run? What are you talking about? Who’s going to be running?”

“We are.”

Nadia frowned. Suspicion spread across her face. “Why do you say that?”

“If the formula is real, someone else probably wants it. And if someone else wants it, we’re going to have to run. Just like we had to run from Ukraine.”

“We’re going to Japan. Not Ukraine.”

“Doesn’t matter where we’re going. The formula’s the thing. Right?”

“If it’s real.”

“Yeah. Right. If it’s real.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Do you know something I don’t know?”

Bobby shook his head. “No.”

Bobby kept a straight face but he could feel her eyes penetrate him. They’d only known each other for a year but they’d endured the trip to New York from Chornobyl and his murder charge. Nadia could read Bobby better than his teammates’ parents could read their kids.

“You were excited when you first got home from jail,” Nadia said, “talking to me like normal. But ever since the e-mail came you’ve clammed up. And now you’re packing as though you’re going to need to run.”

Bobby tried to hold her eyes but couldn’t. His father had been a master con artist. Bobby was discovering he was his father’s son, capable of concocting plots and lying to anyone necessary to extricate himself from a dangerous situation. But he couldn’t stand lying to Nadia. He owed her his life.

“You do know something,” Nadia said. “Don’t you?”

Bobby saw the knowing look in her eyes. On the one hand he didn’t want to discuss the treatments with her, relive the horrors he’d shared with Eva. On the other hand, he longed for her to push him a little more so he’d tell her the truth.

Nadia walked up to him and put her hands on his shoulders. He’d told her never to touch him when she’d done the same thing at the Kyiv train station. But now he didn’t mind it so much. In fact, although he wouldn’t have admitted it to anyone, he found it comforting.

“All we have is each other,” she said. “If you know something it has to be related to the e-mail.” Bobby could see her mind working furiously. She was so smart. “The name.
Genesis II
. You recognized it. It means something to you. Doesn’t it?”

Bobby nodded before he could decide whether he wanted to or not. He held his breath, waiting for her to yell at him, but she didn’t.

Instead, she patted his shoulder. “That’s okay. I’m sure you had your reasons. The important thing now is we’re getting on a plane in two and a half hours to go to Tokyo. I need to know if we’re in danger. If Johnny’s in danger. Who or what is
Genesis II
?”

Bobby told Nadia about Dr. Arkady, Eva, and the treatments.

“
Genesis II
was what Dr. Arkady called us,” Bobby said. “Eva and me. He said we would be a fresh start for mankind. The person with the second locket, who signed the e-mail, the one Nakamura is calling
Genesis II
, has to be someone who knows about us. Who knows about our treatments.”

Bobby told Nadia about Ksenia Melnik, Dr. Arkady’s assistant, and her son, Denys.

“Why didn’t you tell me this right away?”

Bobby felt himself blushing. “The treatments. We promised Dr. Arkady to keep them confidential. I didn’t want anyone to know. I had some kind of injections. I don’t even know what they were.” He didn’t mention the side effects. They weren’t relevant to their trip and the mere thought of them made him nervous. And he didn’t need to be nervous before a fourteen-hour flight.

“And that’s it?” Nadia said. “There’s nothing else. No other reason why you think . . .” She eyed his duffel bag. “We’re going to have to run.”

Bobby shook his head. “That’s it. Someone knows about the formula. There’s going to be competition for the formula. We’re going to have to run.”

Nadia smiled. “Japan is one of the safest countries in the world. Tokyo is one of the most crowded cities in the world. We’ll be okay. But you can take your duffel bag if it makes you most comfortable.”

Bobby nodded at her suitcase. “You should switch to a bag like mine. There’s still time.”

Nadia laughed. “Thanks but I’ll be okay.”

Her cell phone rang. She answered it, thanked the person on the other end, and hung up.

“Our car’s here,” she said. She turned and grabbed her suitcase. “Let’s go to Tokyo.”

They took the elevator to the ground floor. The doors opened. Two men stood in front of the front desk speaking to the doorman. One was lean with gray hair. He wore an expensive blue suit and tie. The other was bald with cinderblock shoulders. He also wore a fancy suit. It was black with narrow white stripes, and stretched taut against the giant’s frame, looked like designer prison wear.

Bobby studied the older man. Sunken cheeks and square jaw. Distinctly Slavic features. They were Russian or Ukrainian mobsters. Bobby had seen enough of them during his childhood in Ukraine to know the look.

“
Chorty
,” Bobby said.

Nadia frowned. “What?”

Chorty
was the Ukrainian word for
devils
. The front desk was twenty feet away and the men were standing sideways. They were in the middle of an animated conversation with the doorman and weren’t paying attention to the elevator. Bobby grabbed Nadia by the lapel of her coat.

“They’re here for us,” Bobby said.

“Who’s here for us?” Nadia’s voice trailed off as her eyes went to the men. Bobby could see the recognition in her eyes. Two Slavic-looking mafia types at her apartment building. It was too much of a coincidence.

“Freight elevator,” Bobby said.

They slipped out of the elevator and hurried down the corridor to the side entrance. Nadia said hello to the doorman who accepted deliveries and stormed past him out the side door. Bobby followed. She took a hard right onto the sidewalk on Eighty-First Street. They hurried to the end of the block. Took a left turn onto First Avenue and hustled forward another half block. Ducked into an alcove in front of a giant day care center for dogs.

Nadia pulled out her cell phone and called the car service. “I had to drop my dog off at the day care center,” she said to the operator. “Would you please tell the driver I’m sorry for the inconvenience and ask him to pick me up a couple of blocks away?” She proceeded to give directions to their current location.

Bobby peered around a wall at the sidewalk behind them to see if anyone had been following them. He didn’t see anyone suspicious.

“There may be more men,” Bobby said. “In a car. Watching our car.”

“That would not be a good thing. Even worse would be if they figure out we’re going to Tokyo.”

“Don’t worry,” Bobby said. “I packed for misdirection.”

Nadia frowned.

A black Lincoln Town Car pulled up. The name Tesla was handwritten on a sign in the front windshield.

“That’s a slight giveaway,” Bobby said.

Nadia swore under her breath. “You think?”

The driver stored their luggage in the trunk. He took the sign down from the windshield and tossed it in the passenger seat beside him.

“What terminal at JFK?” he said.

“Terminal one,” Nadia said. “Did the doorman from my building come out to see who you were picking up?”

“Yeah.”

“Did he ask what terminal?”

“No. One of the other guys did.”

“What other guys?”

“There were two guys in suits with him. They looked like security. The way they asked, I thought they were coming with us in a backup car. For a minute there, I thought you were a congressman or something.”