“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
Nadia and Simmy returned to his car after their meeting with Eva’s orthopedic surgeon. Nadia waited until Simmy was seated beside her before checking her watch. She wanted to make sure he noticed her doing so to reinforce her sense of urgency. In her experience, the super-rich boasted short attention spans and mercurial personalities. They were also risk takers content to push timetables to the limit.
“It’s 11:35,” she said. “Four and a half hours left. And that’s if I want to push it. And I don’t want to push it.”
Simmy’s driver handed him a computer tablet from the front seat. Simmy took the tablet and cast a bemused look at Nadia. “Push it? When did I ever suggest I wanted to push anything with you?”
Nadia blushed.
“When someone tells me something,” Simmy said, “I remember it. I don’t need to hear it twice. And when I give my word I’m going to do something, my word is good. I’m going to have you in Vladivostok on time.”
“I didn’t mean to offend you,” Nadia said. “It’s just that dealing with you is even harder than dealing with the president and prime minister of Russia.”
“This I have to hear.”
“Same idea, fifty percent more complicated.”
“How so?”
“You are oligarch, client, and friend. Three men, two ears. That’s fifty percent more man per ear than the president and prime minister of Russia.”
“Is that true?”
“Certainly. It’s a matter of mathematics. Talking to you is — by definition — fifty percent more complicated.”
“No. Not that. Is it true we’re friends? And I don’t mean by American standards for friendship between a man and a woman.”
“What are the American standards?”
“You get the benefit of my private plane. I get the benefit of your beauty and your insolence.”