“Why do you say the partial formula looks interesting?”
“For the simple reason that it appears to be relevant — incomplete but consistent with the formula that you brought in a week ago. And given you have come here twice, I’ve inferred you’ve gotten them from two different sources. All of which leads me to believe the results of a prior experiment — perhaps in a different country — are being recovered piece by piece.” His eyes widened. “Am I right?”
Nadia had been afraid of confiding in anyone — even a stately old professor — but what choice had she had? She needed to trust a scientist to understand the formula.
“Can you at least tell me the scientific source of your discovery?” Sandstrom said.
Nadia hated to say no, but she had no choice. She remained mute.
Sandstrom nodded with understanding. “Can you tell me the country of origin?” When Nadia didn’t answer, he leaned forward in his seat. “The former Soviet Union, perhaps? There was an old recluse there. A genius there by the name of Arkady Shatan.”
Nadia lost her breath for a moment. Arkady Shatan was the name of the Russian scientist who’d conducted experiments in the Zone and supposedly given the formula to Bobby’s father, her uncle Damian. Like Damian, however, Arkady was dead, leaving the partial formula Bobby had been given a mystery.
“It’s best for both of us if I don’t elaborate any further,” Nadia said. “I have to ask you to trust me, Professor. And in turn, I have to put my trust in you, sir.”
“You have it, my dear.”
“Have you spoken to anyone about my previous visit? About the partial formula you’ve seen before today?”
He didn’t hesitate. “Absolutely not. To what benefit? You asked me to keep our discussions confidential. And I have done so. Besides, at my age, if I told anyone about what you’d shown me, they would assume I was suffering fantasies. It was in my best interest not to discuss your discoveries with anyone.”
“Good. Let’s keep it that way.”
“Do you understand the medical implications of such a formula? If the risk of radioactive contamination were mitigated, it would open up an entire new world of medical treatments. Millions of lives would be prolonged and saved.”
“Yes,” Nadia said. “But there may also be military implications, if one country were to get a hold of the formula and keep it from others.”
Sandstrom frowned. “That could not be allowed to happen. If you disseminated the formula to the world at large that risk would be eliminated. Surely that is your plan, is it not?”
“Yes,” Nadia said, honestly. “That may be a bit trickier than it sounds, but that’s the plan.”
Before that plan could even be contemplated, another one would have to be carried out. Nadia and Bobby would have to travel to a country where they didn’t speak the language or know anyone. Nadia wished there were an alternative solution, but there wasn’t one.
The stakes were too high.
They had to go to Japan.
CHAPTER 7
Bobby ran his hand along the sleek black suitcase Nadia had just bought him. It was one of those Swiss Army designs, with a neat aluminum handle that popped out with the press of a button. Nadia said it was made for the young business traveler. It looked like something James Bond would stick in the boot of his Aston Martin after a night of gambling. The Swiss sure knew how to make cool things. Bobby imagined closing the trunk of his own sports car…
Come on, focus, man. Focus.
He wheeled the suitcase to the corner of his room and left it there like a piece of modern furniture he could admire. Then he pulled his old duffel bag out from his closet and began to pack.
From the moment he read the e-mail his thoughts had been consumed with Eva. Bobby had grown up living with his father’s friend, a disgraced former hockey player. The man became Bobby’s guardian, hockey instructor, and personal tormentor. Bobby simply referred to him as the Coach. Bobby had thought Eva was the Coach’s daughter, but he later learned she was his niece.
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.