Traffyck (39 page)

“With Katya gone, there are no older women here,” said Lena.

After a long pause, Nadia spoke.

“What about the armless Chernobyl woman?” asked Nadia. “She is at least twenty-five, wouldn’t you say?”

It was the first time Nadia had spoken in several days, and Lena realized Nadia was smarter than she’d thought.

Lena huddled closer. “Yes, I suppose she is old to you, little one.”

“I suppose,” said Nadia. “But after the streets of Kiev and the mountains and the cameras, and then the drugs here to make me rest, who knows how old I am? Lyudmilla, the skeleton, is older than me. But in the mountains, they made her into an infant. I watched. I am made of stone because of my grandmother who raised me. The streets of Kiev taught me many things. In my mind, I am an old woman like my grandmother.”

“Katya was nearing thirty,” said Lena. “She was a beauty. I saw the way the young men watched her. This has happened before.”

“What?” asked Nadia.

“A beauty suddenly takes ill or, as in Katya’s case, wanders into the river to wash her feet, and is supposedly swept away in an undercurrent.”

“Pyotr said it was God’s will.”

Lena laughed. “God’s will. And just who is this God who strikes down mature, beautiful women in the prime of their sexual lives? To me, Katya was Mother Teresa, except with blond hair instead of a shawl. Did I tell you Chernobyl is closer than we are led to believe?”

“Yes, to the north.”

“No,” said Lena. “I said north because I am told to say north. Shortly before her drowning, Katya told me it is west… beyond the fence, of course, but not very far. There is a village of old women, and then there is the sarcophagus.”

They were silent for a time, looking up at the stars, waiting for a glimpse of a shooting star or a satellite. One satellite moved steadily across the sky, and Lena pointed it out wordlessly. After the satellite was gone, she kissed Nadia on the cheek and they sat cheek to cheek, watching the sky the way civilizations long gone watched the sky, looking for answers.

“Nadia?” whispered Lena.

“What?”

“There has been no rain, the river has not risen, and Katya never went near the water. You have beautiful blond hair, Nadia. You care for the Chernobyl expatriates. I don’t want you to end up like Katya.”

“I’m not as helpless as you think,” said Nadia. “I never take the pills. I avoid the food you and the young men avoid. You have been away from the peninsula and come back. This is the puzzling part.”

“Yes, I’ve been off the peninsula. I’ve done things I haven’t wanted to do.”

“Have you seen people killed? Several men died when they rescued us.”

“Yes,” said Lena. “The last time, it was a fire. Leonid started it. And now Leonid is gone again. He’s taken other young men with him. Ivan orders his boy soldiers about while Pyotr talks on his telephone and gives idiotic lectures!”

“Have you spoken with Guri?” asked Nadia.

“Guri?”

“The boy rescued from the mountains with me,” said Nadia. “I’m not the only one who avoids pills. Guri and I were not dropouts. We finished school in Kursk and ran away together to our own school on the streets of Kiev. Sometimes we simply took things; other times, I would convince an idiot man, who thought he would have sex, to come into an alleyway, where Guri knocked him out and we emptied his pockets. We saw others lured by traffickers and were able to avoid them until the traffickers resorted to kidnapping. Like me, Guri cannot be held down. He sneaks out at night and has seen Ivan creating his own trafficking business on the other side of the peninsula. They steal girls off city streets. They bring them here on the boats, rape them into submission in their rape cabin, and then take them back across the river and sell them. Ivan is insane. Guri saw him rape the legless Chernobyl women who cannot speak. Guri saw him slit the throat of a kitten and spill the blood on the woman. Ivan knows how to manipulate. Guri says Ivan is much like the men who took us from Kiev into Romania. Tell me, Lena. Did Ivan learn his trafficking skills from Pyotr?”

Lena was stunned into silence, and although she did not answer Nadia’s questions, Nadia also remained silent. As the night grew colder, Lena hugged Nadia closer, not certain if she was feeling love or respect for this
girl
.

Finally, Lena spoke. “We will take a boat. I know a way to get one unlocked.”

In a little while, they walked back to the bunkhouse. Lena considered making Nadia promise not to tell anyone about their plan, but knew this was unnecessary. This girl named Nadia, educated on the streets of Kiev, gave Lena the courage she needed.

That night, news of at least a dozen young women having been kidnapped off the streets of Chernigov appeared on Kiev television. Militia investigators suspected a Mafia trafficking network. A witness to the abduction of two young women said the men who took them did not look like Mafia thugs, but like normal young men. This abduction had taken place on the far west side of Chernigov using a van that headed west, out of the city on the highway to Slavutich.

When Father Rogoza saw the news reports that night, he feared Pyotr had resumed his trafficking business. Rogoza was at his home and quickly drove to his office in his private car to make a phone call on a secure line. Earlier in the day, SBU Agent Yuri Smirnov had visited. This time, instead of trying to pacify Rogoza, Smirnov had thoroughly questioned him, saying someone had tried to kill Janos Nagy, and Nagy had gone into hiding with his client Mariya Nemeth. He also told about Mikhail Juliano of Opus Dei and, finally, threatened to contact Rogoza’s bishop if he did not get the information he desired.

After Smirnov left, Rogoza had called SBU Deputy Anatoly Lyashko’s office, but Lyashko was not in. Rogoza would have waited until the next day to call again had it not been for tonight’s news.

When Rogoza entered his office and turned on the light, he saw Boshko, one of his security guards, sitting at his desk.

“What are you doing here?”

Boshko smiled. “You tell me to guard your office. I am guarding.”

Rogoza waved the brute out. “I have been called to duty. Wait outside the door.”

After Boshko was gone, Rogoza sat at his desk, composed himself, and entered the secure number. It rang twice, Rogoza announced himself and was greeted by an Anatoly Lyashko who sounded out of his mind.

“Yes, Father,” said Lyashko, as if they had never spoken.

“What can I do for you?”

“Anatoly, listen, about Nagy and Smirnov, I—”

“Pardon me?” asked Lyashko. “What are you talking about?”

“The Gypsy!” said Rogoza.

“I’m sorry. I do not understand.”

“Is someone there? Is that why you cannot speak?”

“Pardon me again, Father, but whether or not I am alone does not concern you. Now if you will excuse me—”

“Wait! What’s wrong? Should I keep silent about it? Is that your meaning?”

“An excellent idea, Father. I know it will be difficult for one who enjoys listening to his own voice … but, yes, keep silent.”

After Lyashko hung up, Rogoza stayed in his office sitting at his desk. Eventually, he walked to the door and turned out the light. But instead of opening the door, he returned to his desk and sat in the dark. He thought about the euros he had provided Pyotr’s compound. At first it had seemed a good thing to do, but now…

As the night wore on, Father Vladimir Ivanovich Rogoza, deputy chairman of the Synodal Department for Relations with Armed Forces and Law Enforcement Agencies, tried prayer. But no matter how hard he prayed, he could think only of exposure and shame. He concocted horrific courtroom scenes. He imagined his wife and children and neighbors and relatives, and especially his flock, finding out about his secret life, the trafficking of teenagers, and the visits of teenagers to apartments guarded by SBU agents.

Sometime after midnight, Rogoza made up his mind. He went to a cabinet, took a bottle of vodka and a bottle of mineral water with him, told Boshko he could resume his post in the office, went down to his private car, got in, and drove home. Back in bed, he would tell his wife about an important early morning meeting with the bishop, drive himself across the river to the left bank, and head north.

Rogoza knew he must go alone and use whatever powers of persuasion he could muster to convince Pyotr to put an end to the compound. If money was necessary to set Pyotr up outside Ukraine, Rogoza would provide it. As a member of the Moscow Patriarchate, he could find a suitable location in Belarus or even Russia. Pyotr had proven himself a pragmatist in the past and would certainly be pragmatic enough to trust Rogoza’s judgment.

The triumvirate was unsalvageable. It was up to Pyotr Alexeyevich Andropov and Father Vladimir Ivanovich Rogoza to bring closure. If Lyashko wished to escape into a state of denial, Rogoza and Pyotr would work with Lyashko’s SBU commander on the left bank to close down the compound. And, since loyalties built during the Soviet reign never died, if he needed to, Rogoza could call in the Russian Mafia.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR

The aluminum rowboat scraping a submerged boulder was like an explosion in the dead of night. It echoed off the water, woods, and hills. They paused for a moment, listening. Janos was ahead of Mariya in the rowboat, sitting at the oars. They had stood on the dock for some time acclimating their eyes to darkness, and now Mariya could see Janos’ life vest and the shine of the aluminum rowboat in the starlight. There was no moon.

After striking the boulder, she looked back to shore. It was silent and black except for the light they had left on in the cabin window. For a second the light went out, then back on. A tree must have crossed in front of the window as Janos rowed, dipping the oars into the water slowly. Mariya held onto the cold sides of the boat. When they were some distance from shore and Janos had settled into smooth, quiet strokes, they whispered.

“The woods are so dark,” said Mariya.

“When we get ashore, follow me closely, and do not speak unless you have to.”

“What are we looking for?” asked Mariya.

“Buildings or dwellings of some kind,” said Janos. “If we meet someone, we’ll act like ignorant bird watchers who stayed out on the water too long and can’t find our way back.”

“And if someone doesn’t believe us?” asked Mariya.

“I’ll take out my gun only if I have to.”

As Janos headed close to the tip of the peninsula, they were silent. The woods grew close to shore, and thick roots took the place of boulders. After Janos jumped on shore and helped Mariya out, they pulled the rowboat up onto the bank. This made some noise, and they waited, listening, but heard nothing.

They left their life vests in the rowboat and walked along the shore, threading their way through closely spaced trees. Mariya stayed close when a path angled inland, and Janos moved ahead more slowly. The starlight dimmed beneath the canopy of trees. The darkness and the damp smell of woods made Mariya think of the insides of coffins, of the inside of Viktor’s coffin. Viktor’s charcoal black remains inside the total blackness of a coffin, and now here she was inside another blackness with another lover whose life also might be taken.

The path narrowed, and branches brushed her face. Janos stopped when a flicker of light appeared ahead. She heard the voices of men. Janos reached back and held her right hand with his left hand as he moved ahead. Though she could not see it, she knew, because of the repositioning of his right elbow, that Janos had removed his gun from the shoulder holster.

A bright campfire in a clearing in the woods lit up the bottoms of trees, the weathered faces of several men, and the fronts of three ragged tents. There were pots, saws, axes, scraps of paper, and vodka bottles strewn on the ground. The men wore dark knit caps and overcoats. Two of them had long hair; two of them had thick moustaches. Their faces looked dark and sad.

“Who is here?” said a deep voice from behind.

Janos swung around between her and the voice.

“We’re lost,” he said to the dark figure coming from the woods.

They were escorted nearer the fire. Janos put his gun away without anyone seeing it, but the men, five in all, became wary. The one who had caught them on the path did the talking. He was younger, perhaps thirty. He had dark eyes and a ponytail. He wore a leather jacket that squeaked and smelled sweet and new.

“My name is Barabás,” he said in Ukrainian with a heavy accent.

“He is hung, but not on the cross,” said one of the others, causing laughter all around.

Barabás pulled his long ponytail around his neck like a scarf. “What would make you want to get lost on this rock?”

“In the dark, we could not find our way back to the lodge,” said Janos.

Two of the older men had stood and were circling them. When they did this, Mariya wondered if she should look frightened and innocent and cling to Janos, or if she should put her hands on her hips and say something threatening from her past when she had been forced to deal with men who threatened her in back rooms. But she said nothing, did nothing. She did not have to say anything, because Janos took over.