Mastermind: A Theo Cray and Jessica Blackwood Thriller Read online

  Having a facility in Ukraine would give the people behind the project access to highly skilled researchers in a depressed economy . . . scientists accustomed to keeping secrets. There’s also the possibility that the project has, at least in part, some support of the Ukrainian government. I’m fairly certain they have no idea of the full scope of what is going on, though. This could be an offshoot of a research study where the researchers are doing something else entirely.

  Jessica glances up at me from the map. “You ready for a road trip?”

  “Da,” I reply.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  WANDERERS

  Mickey, the guide we hired to get us through the checkpoints, is an enthusiastic physics student we found through a contact of mine at the University of Kiev. Since Mickey works for one of the state-licensed tourist agencies that give tours of Chernobyl, Pripyat, and the other areas inside the radioactive zone, he has the right documents to get us through the checkpoints.

  “What do you want to see first?” Mickey asks as we pass the first guard station. “The amusement park? The high schools?”

  “I’d like to see what research facilities are still open,” I reply.

  “Okay. They’re not as exciting, and they’re a little farther out,” he explains.

  “It’s fine,” I tell him.

  Jessica is sitting up front, making small talk, while I sit in the back of his old Mercedes with a laptop, scanning for Wi-Fi signals with a directional antenna that’s letting me build a map of possible points of interest.

  Some of them match up with buildings and institutions on the map. Other signals appear to be unlisted and, in a few cases, in locations that are supposed to be undeveloped.

  After three hours of driving around, I have seven points of interest that could be where the wandering men came from. We need to narrow it down to one or two and convince Mickey to take us on an unscheduled side trip.

  I figure it’s up to me to choose the spot and Jessica to convince Mickey, which shouldn’t be too hard, since the young man seems clearly smitten by her.

  I stare at my map and think, If I were a secret research lab that wanted to operate in a somewhat patrolled yet remote area, how would I go about it?

  I’m assuming the facility isn’t any of the ones still listed as operational by the Ukrainian government. I’m also assuming that our suspects didn’t build anything new. They took over an existing facility that was close enough to their needs.

  For a small bribe and slightly larger payment to the state, a private individual could set up some kind of research project here, just as the tourism companies got permission to bring buses full of people through the zone.

  “How are you doing, Theo?” asks Jessica.

  “Great. Fine.”

  An internet search doesn’t bring up anything that sounds remotely like what I’m looking for. While that doesn’t surprise me, the facility would have to have some official reason for existing.

  Or at least it did at some point . . .

  If the Ukrainian databases don’t have any listings, there might be another place I could look. If this facility had been on the radar under different management, then it is also possible that they applied for research grants, possibly in conjunction with a US institution.

  I do a search of the National Science Foundation and Department of Energy databases for grants relating to Chernobyl research.

  I get thousands of results back.

  Okay, that’s obvious. But what about facilities in the zone?

  I refine the search using the postal codes for this region. The list gets considerably smaller. I write a script to list the names and addresses and put them on a map.

  A moment later I have an overlay to accompany my map of Wi-Fi hot spots. One stands out from all the others: the Yaniv Workers Clinic.

  I pull up everything I can on the institution. Apparently, it was a research project to study the impact on the cleanup workers of working in the zone. It operated for more than two decades, looking at the various impacts, and was shut down eight years ago.

  Shut down . . . but it still has active Wi-Fi.

  I look up the location. Interesting. Prior to being named the Yaniv Workers Clinic, it was the Yaniv Workers Spa, a retreat near the Red Forest for Communist Party members.

  I think this might be the place.

  “Mickey, could you take us to the Yaniv Workers Clinic?” I ask.

  “The what?”

  “The Yaniv Workers Clinic.”

  “I’ve never heard of it,” he replies.

  “It was the spa for the party members. It’s near the Yaniv train station,” I explain.

  “There’s nothing there. Unless you mean the train station. That we can see.”

  Well, that’s at least a start. “That would be great.”

  It takes us forty minutes to get there. We park and get out of the car. As a precaution, Mickey uses a Geiger counter to check the background radiation.

  While most areas outside the reactor are fairly safe, there are hot spots where the radiation levels can spike by a thousand percent. In some cases, rain or snow can bring about changes as soil shifts and hidden deposits of radioactive ash or irradiated soil become exposed.

  I start walking to the west. Jessica follows. “What’s up?” she asks.

  “I think our facility might be a half mile that way. We need to figure out how to ditch our babysitter or bribe him to help us take a look,” I explain.

  “Let me try.” She turns around and shouts, “Hey, Mickey, want to see what’s this way?”

  “Absolutely,” he says before breaking into a jog to join us.

  Here I was planning some kind of subterfuge to distract the poor kid, and all we had to do was ask. Or rather, have Jessica ask him.

  We cross the tracks and follow a side road until it comes to another road that leads straight into the woods under a canopy of overgrown trees.

  From the aerial image, I could see that there’s another access road to the north of here, but it’s in an inner zone and probably requires a level of access even Mickey can’t provide.

  The pavement is broken into uneven sections with tree roots occasionally rupturing the surface like mini mountain ranges. Weeds sprout from cracks everywhere, and insects crawl about their business.

  What I’d give to be able to study these things more closely . . . As with other regions we’ve written off as uninhabitable, nature never got the eviction notice and has adapted in its own way here.

  I’d be most interested in studying the microbial life near the main reactor. What survived? How did it adapt to the environment?

  “Theo,” says Jessica, pointing to something on the ground.

  It’s a dirty robe. I lean in to get a closer inspection, but Mickey puts his handheld Geiger counter between me and the robe.

  It clicks with a not-insignificant number of rads, but nothing to worry about. Mickey still cautions me to step back. Not wanting to upset him, I leave it be.

  We continue down the path and reach the start of a chain-link fence that’s overrun with vines. Parts of it have been pulled open, and the barbed wire on top has been stripped away.

  Jessica touches my arm to stop me. I glance over and see a figure kneeling on the other side of the road: a man, wearing only pajama bottoms. He’s so skinny his vertebrae look like they’re going to burst through his skin.

  Mickey speaks first. “Hello?”

  The man turns around; his eyes are sunken, and his lips are blistered and cracked against paper-white skin. His hands and fingernails are covered in grime from digging into the ground.

  Startled, the man gets up and runs across the road, slides through a gap in the fence, and vanishes into the trees.

  Shocked, Mickey lets out an expletive in Ukrainian and crosses himself.

  I step over to look at where he was digging. It’s just an empty hole in the ground. The man must have been out of his mind.

  “This is messed up,” s
ays Jessica.

  “Was that a . . .” Mickey starts to ask.

  “A person with a mental disability? Yes,” she says, trying to keep him from panicking. “Now what, Theo?”

  “Let’s find out where he went to.”

  I walk over to the fence and slide through the gap. Jessica follows. “Friends, I don’t think we should be doing this,” Mickey says.

  “Wait here for twenty minutes, then call the police,” Jessica tells him.

  “I’m not sure if I’m comfortable waiting out here.”

  “It may not be better in there,” I explain.

  Torn, Mickey decides to follow us at a distance. We take a path through the trees in the direction the man ran and come to a clearing where the grass comes up to our knees. At the far end is a two-story building with barred windows. Behind the bars, a dozen pairs of eyes watch us from faces with sunken cheeks and listless expressions.

  A door swings open, followed by a loud yell. Mickey starts running, but Jessica’s hand goes to her gun.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  SKELETON CREW

  I brace for anything to come running out of the doorway. So does Jessica; her hand stays on the butt of her gun inside her jacket. I trust her to decide when to draw it and when to wait.

  A rotund woman with red hair and wearing dirty nurse’s scrubs emerges from the door, shaking her fist in the air and letting loose a string of what I can only assume are Ukrainian curses directed at us.

  A gaunt man appears in the doorway behind her. She spins around and shoves him back inside, then continues her tirade.

  Despite the woman’s intensity, Jessica lets go of her gun, and I breathe a small sigh of relief that we’re not under immediate threat of being attacked by a zombie horde. Although anything is possible at this point.

  Jessica holds up her hands. “Hold on. Speak slowly.”

  The woman stops cold at the sound of Jessica’s voice. “Americans?” she asks.

  “Yes,” Jessica replies.

  The woman stops her advance and crosses her arms. “You are not here to relieve me?”

  “No.”

  “Then you are useless,” the woman snarls before heading to the door.

  “Wait!” Jessica runs after her. “We’re here to help.”

  “Help me? Who is going to help them?” the woman replies. “For three weeks now, I try to take care of them. Just me since the others left!”

  “What others?” asks Jessica.

  The woman eyes her suspiciously. “I am not to talk to you.”

  “We’re the only ones to talk to because you’ve been abandoned. Nobody’s coming to relieve you.”

  The woman curses, not at us, but at the ground. “And what is to be done with them?” she asks, gesturing to the building behind her.

  “Let’s figure that out. That’s Dr. Cray; my name is Jessica. What’s yours?”

  “I am Nurse Zlate,” she replies.

  “May we step inside?” I ask.

  “Fine. But do not get too close,” says Zlate, stepping aside to let Jessica and me enter the facility while Mickey waits behind.

  The tiles are cracked, and the paint is peeling from the walls in the large open area. Two men sit on a couch, watching a television showing a cartoon. Another sits on a bed, playing with the drawstrings of his pajamas. Each looks listless and lost in their own world. Some of them watch us, but not with any great interest.

  The conditions are horrific, but it’s not dirty. Zlate, for her part, has tried to do her best.

  At the far corner, there’s a nurses’ station in front of a small office. I can see the edge of a cot inside with a rumpled blanket.

  “It’s just been you here?” asks Jessica.

  “Yes,” says Zlate.

  “And no help from the government?”

  She shakes her head. “Help is coming, they told me. Don’t worry, help is coming. But I do not believe them. Not since they sent the wrong medication.”

  “Wrong medication?” I ask.

  “Yes. They gave me pills and told me to give them to each of the patients,” she replies.

  “What kind of pills?”

  “Poison.” Zlate walks back to her office and uses a key to open up a cabinet. She pulls a plastic pill bottle from inside and hands it to me.

  The label says “Niacin,” but when I open it up and take a whiff, I detect the distinctive scent of almonds. I show the bottle to Jessica. “Arsenic,” I tell her.

  Zlate nods. “‘Did they eat the pills?’ the man on the phone asks. I say no, they smell bad. ‘No,’ he tells me, ‘the pills are fine.’ But I don’t believe. ‘Then you eat the pills,’ I tell them. And then they call no more.”

  “Who are these men?” asks Jessica.

  “They said they were doctors, but I do not believe. One man is Russian; the other, Chinese? I took job from ad in paper. Nursing license not necessary.”

  “What did they do here?” I ask.

  “Secret government research, they said. ‘Where do these men come from?’ I asked, but they say, ‘Don’t worry.’ But I worry. Each man . . . his mind is gone, like scrambled. Here, let me show you.”

  Zlate motions us over to a man sitting on a bed, staring at the clock on the wall. “Medev, look this way,” she tells the man.

  He turns his face in our direction. Zlate points to a small scar at the side of his eye near the bridge of his nose. “When he arrived, he was still bleeding from here. Same as the others.”

  “A lobotomy?” asks Jessica.

  “Yeah. Like the kind they did fifty years ago,” I reply. “Apparently someone’s kept the tradition going.”

  “I’ve heard rumors the Chinese still do it. Rumors, mind you, but it’s easier than shooting patients up with Thorazine.”

  Medev turns his head back to the wall and goes back to whatever internal thoughts he was thinking. If it’s anything like what I’ve experienced when I’ve had my brain tampered with against my will, it’s not a lot of thoughts at all.

  “Who are these men?” asks Jessica.

  “I do not know. They do not say much. Their accents are from all over. Prisoners, perhaps? Patients of a mental hospital? I do not know.”

  Jessica takes out her phone and starts to walk around the room, taking photographs of each man. Most of them are barely aware that she’s there. One reaches a hand toward her hair, and she gently pushes it away by grabbing at the wrist—a judo technique.

  “I need to know exactly what happened here. What was the condition of these men when they arrived? Were they healthy? Were they sick?” I ask.

  “Some were healthy. Some were not.” She points to a stretcher. “Some arrived barely alive.”

  Interesting. Was this some kind of convalescence stop after treatment at another facility? Did the men who did this care what happened to the patients afterward?

  “The sickest ones, the ones that arrived on stretchers, where are they now?” I ask.

  Zlate points to Medev and five other men. “They are the ones that got better.”

  “What about the ones who didn’t?”

  She shakes her head. “They are buried outside with the rest.”

  “The rest?”

  “Yes. The ones there was no hope for.”

  “How many was that?” asks Jessica.

  “I lost count. Many.”

  Suddenly concerned, I tell Jessica to step back. “How exactly did they die?”

  “They had the disease,” replies Zlate.

  “What disease?”

  “The disease.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  ANATOMY

  Jessica and I are sitting in an observation room, watching through a window as Dr. Leonid, Ukraine’s top forensic specialist, performs an autopsy. Unfortunately, the chimpanzee mass grave wasn’t the last hidden burial site that we encountered. There are four bodies in the room, filling up all the available tables, and another nineteen in freezers waiting to be examined.

  Leon
id is wearing hazmat gear from head to toe, not only to protect himself from the normal infectious agents you encounter when you pull a rotting corpse from the ground, but also because whatever killed these men may have been engineered.

  Poor Zlate was arrested soon after we called the Ukrainian authorities. We’ve been given assurances that if she fully cooperates, they won’t punish her.

  Jessica and I explained as best as we could that only a saint would stay there trying to take care of those men by herself. It even turned out that she had tried calling Ukrainian authorities on multiple occasions and was either dismissed as crazy or handed off to someone else to deal with.

  The surviving men were another mystery. Nobody knew where they came from until a sister of one the patients recognized her brother’s photograph on the news. He’d been committed to a mental hospital in Belarus years ago and abandoned.

  We expect that break in the case to lead to clues about the others. Jessica’s suspicion is that they were acquired from various mental institutions throughout Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia. Many asylums are understaffed and might look the other way when offered the opportunity to make a difficult patient someone else’s problem.

  According to the sister of the one we identified, he’d been a problem teenager and prone to violent behavior. Regardless of his past, it’s tragic that he ended up with his mind taken from him, the victim of some cruel experiment.

  But what is that experiment? The other surviving men are now receiving medical care, but aside from malnourishment due to Zlate’s dwindling supplies, they’re otherwise healthy. Physically, at least. Mentally they’re gone, but bodily, even the patients that Zlate said were incredibly ill when they arrived are doing fine. Just like with our chimpanzees, it’s unclear which was the control group and which was the experimental group.

  Dr. Leonid steps over to the microphone by the window, strips off his gloves, and speaks in English to us. “I can’t find any sign of unusual infection. While antibody tests are difficult with this stage of necrosis, I was able to get some viable blood from deep in the tissue. But I don’t see the symptoms of a respiratory infection. Their lungs and digestive tracts are also fine.”