“Yeah. I’m Johnny Tanner. Who are you?”
“May I see identification, please?”
“Excuse me?”
“Your passport. To see your passport.” The boy blushed and bowed. “Please.”
Johnny looked around. No one was paying attention to them. He turned back. The kid stood with a stiff posture, hands thrust in his pants. He seemed too nervous to be a professional operator of any kind. Johnny pulled out his passport, opened to his picture, and extended his hand so the boy could see it.
The boy’s eyes widened. He studied the name, the photo, and Johnny. Tension eased from his face. He exhaled audibly — a uniquely Japanese expression of relief and gratitude — bowed again, and followed it up verbally. “Thank you, sir. Thank you very much.”
Johnny returned the bow. It was an instinctive thing. He didn’t bend his waist or dip his head as low as the boy did. He was acknowledging, not deferring.
“What’s your name?” Johnny said.
The boy didn’t answer. Instead he pointed to the mural. “You have seen painting?”
“Yes. I have seen the painting.”
“Taro Okamoto. Very famous Japanese painter. Painting is called Myth of Tomorrow.”
“I’m more focused on today. For instance, you know my name, but I don’t know yours.”
“We must worry more about tomorrow and less about today.”
Great. Another philosopher. Like Victor Bodnar. He was always saying stuff like that. “Who are you? What’s your name?”
The boy smiled. “Answers. Yes. Outside.” He extended his arm toward the exit to the front of the station. “This way, please.”
“We don’t need to go outside. We can stay here. You have something you want me to take a look at?”
The boy ignored Johnny. Instead he widened his smile. “To follow, please.”
He turned his back and headed toward the exit.
Johnny let the boy lead the way. The kid had made a point of emphasizing the mural. The mural had a nuclear theme. That wasn’t by accident, Johnny thought. It had to be a reference to the formula.
The boy walked through the double door outside the station. Johnny followed.
A rowdy bunch of teenagers cut in front of him. They were hurrying into the station as though they were late for a train. They joked and jostled, elbowing the other pedestrians out of the way. Johnny peered over their heads. Saw the boy. A man wheeled a vending machine forward and obscured his view. Johnny pushed the last teen out of his way. The man with the vending machine moved further forward.
The boy was gone.
Johnny searched the perimeter of the station. He tried to hurry — even run — but it was impossible to take more than three steps without bumping into someone. A fleeting sense of desperation gripped him. Had someone lifted the boy? He’d confirmed Johnny’s identity. Why would he have vanished of his own accord?
What a disaster. He couldn’t have scripted it any worse unless the kid had been harmed. Which was not entirely out of the question, Johnny thought.
He returned to the front of the station. Commuters rushed past him in each direction. Johnny stood facing the front door. He studied the same exit the boy had used to leave the building. Looked around one more time.
Nothing.
His only course of action was to wait or return to the hotel. Then he saw that the homeless-looking man was staring at him. He widened his eyes slightly as though he was praying Johnny, the gaijin, would come over to help him. None of his own countrymen cared.
Johnny didn’t know the proper etiquette in Japan. He’d never seen a single homeless person during his previous stay in Tokyo. If he gave the old man a few yen, people might think he was encouraging the man to live in the street. But ignoring him felt even worse.
Johnny walked over and gave the man a five-hundred-yen note. The man’s eyes widened with glee. He took the bill and nodded. Then he hugged Johnny. A bow would have been customary. The hug was so unexpected, Johnny found himself patting the beggar on the back out of sheer instinct.
The beggar’s whisper sounded soft and steady in Johnny’s ear. “Where are you staying?”
The man’s English was impeccable. Johnny tried to pull back to look at the man’s face but he hung on tight. Refused to let Johnny move.
“Which hotel?”
Johnny hesitated, then let his instincts take over. “Hotel Century Southern Tower,” he said.
“I will call you.”
“Who are you?”
“Be careful. We can’t assume we’re alone.”
“What does that mean? You’re being followed?”
The man let go of Johnny and walked away. He slipped his bowl into his jacket pocket, righted his posture, and accelerated his pace.
Then he entered the station and vanished among the crowd.
CHAPTER 4
Luo enjoyed the tour of Chornobyl village and Pripyat on Sunday morning more than he expected. Pripyat was the name of the town that had been built within the village for the benefit of the nuclear power plant workers. It had been abandoned since 1986. Visiting the nuclear ghost town had become a cult experience. Prior to his tour, Luo couldn’t understand the appeal. After seeing the damaged reactor and walking around Pripyat, however, he had a better sense of the attraction.
Chornobyl offered an eerie glimpse of what Earth looked like without humans. The tourist could decide if it was a glimpse into the past or the future. Either way, it was a desolate vision shrouded in mystery but punctuated with hope and possibility. It was the latter observation that surprised Luo the most. He had expected to experience a sense of loss and discomfort. He certainly felt those sensations, especially at the memorial statue to the firefighters who perished from radiation sickness. But he was also left with a sense of rebirth under way. The Zone of Exclusion was thick with vegetation. A variety of wild animals, many formerly extinct, roamed the land.
After the tour was over, the grumpy guide left. Luo stood by the gate to the power plant with a Ukrainian cop. The inspector looked like a boxer gone to pot. He studied Luo’s dark complexion, leather skin, and small eyes. Luo knew the look. Some Russians looked down on people who didn’t resemble the image in their mirror. Evidently some Ukrainians shared the same affliction.
“Where are you from?” the inspector said.
Luo smiled. “It doesn’t really matter, does it?”
The inspector spat on the ground. “You must know someone important if I was forced to get out of bed and meet you here on a Sunday morning.”
“Now there’s something that does really matter.” Luo’s former commander, a retired general, had gotten him access to the Zone.
The inspector raised his eyebrows. “Black Berets?”
The Black Berets were Russian special forces. They dealt with domestic counter-terrorism, riot control, and special situations. Some of those situations were rumored to have occurred in foreign countries. Luo knew firsthand the rumors were true.
He stared at the inspector but didn’t say a word.
The inspector nodded. “I can always tell. Chechnya?”
Luo stiffened. The mere mention of the place raised his blood pressure.
“First war or second?” the inspector said.
“Like I told you.”
The inspector frowned. “Told me what?”
“It doesn’t matter.” Luo looked the inspector in the eyes again. “Tell me about the fire in the village.”
“One of the abandoned homes burned down. About a kilometer and a half away. The fire trucks from the power plant put it out.”
“When was this?”
“Five days ago.”
“You investigated?”
The inspector lit a cigarette. “Everything burned to the ground. There was no sign of human life. As there shouldn’t be. It’s prohibited for anyone to live in the Zone of Exclusion.”