Fires of Kiev Read online

  “What do you mean, make the world better?” Izzy asked, giving her a tremendous opening.

  “I want to use my influence, no matter how small it is, to make the world better. That’s why I have volunteered with Doctors Without Borders for the last four summers. Now that I have my medical degree, I can volunteer as a doctor to treat people in areas of the world where medical services aren’t easy to come by.”

  Izzy asked a couple more questions about medical school and about her volunteer work, and Meredith was feeling pretty good about the interview when things suddenly changed.

  “Okay, audience, it’s time for Meredith to face the tough questions.”

  The audience cheered loudly and chanted: “Ask it! Ask it!”

  Izzy leaned back and retrieved her box of “Ask it!” questions, another signature of the show. She pulled out a bright blue card, read it silently, and made a production about gasping and fanning herself with the card. “Are you ready for this, Meredith?” The audience cheered.

  Meredith laughed lightly, much more uncomfortable than she hoped she was portraying on camera. “Bring it on, Izzy,” she said appearing confident, she hoped.

  “Okay, okay.” Izzy quieted the audience. “We understand that wedding bells are ringing for you and a certain senior member of your father’s staff. Is it true that you and the very hunky Scott Jackson are getting married?” Behind them, a screen lit up with a large photo of Scott for the audience to see.

  Meredith could feel her face color. She tried to glance backstage, to get some sort of reaction from Scott, but the lights prevented her from seeing him. Oh hell!

  “Have you been swept off your feet, Miss Meredith? Is Scott off the market? Are you getting married?” Izzy repeated amid reactions from the audience.

  Meredith coyly glanced to Izzy and backstage. “The truth is that Scott and I have not even talked about marriage. We are really enjoying getting to know each other while I’m living in a new city.”

  There was a collective “Awwww!” from the audience.

  Izzy broke in. “Tell us what it would take for you to take the ‘M-R-S’ title?”

  The image of the blue eyes she visualized backstage immediately came to mind again. She saw little ones running around their daddy, just as the nieces and nephews did around Kostya that day in the field of lavender. She felt her heart float when he lay next to her and whispered softly words of love and home.

  “Love and home,” Meredith repeated from her vision, aloud on the stage. She shook off the vision, but smiled at the audience. “I’m just like everyone else. I want to feel love and I want to have a place that is home. That’s what it would take.”

  From there it was wrapping up, and before Meredith knew it, she was in the Green Room with Will and Scott again.

  “That was brilliant, the whole thing about love and safety and houses, or whatever it was,” Scott was raving. “The Senator is going to see a big bump in conservative families.”

  Meredith was gathering her belongings. “I’m glad it will help him,” she said drily.

  Scott fumbled in his jacket and pulled out his cell phone. Reading a message, he said, “Oh, crap. Will, can you take Meredith home? I’ve got to get to the Capitol.”

  Will mock saluted. “Aye-aye, Captain.”

  “Don’t wait up for me, okay Mer?” Scott said.

  Meredith nodded, and Scott kissed her lightly and ran out.

  Meredith hoisted her bag and started walking out. “Are you ready?”

  Will followed her, grabbing her bag to carry it. “It was a good interview, Mer. Dad will be pleased.”

  “Thanks,” she said. “Now, am I exempt for the next few years?”

  Will laughed. “Not if we have a royal wedding.” Will hit her playfully on the arm. “Did Izzy have some information I don’t know about?”

  Meredith scowled. “Absolutely not.” She pursed her lips then explained, “Scott isn’t someone who would go there, you know.” Or at least, I can’t see myself going there with him.

  Will loaded her bag into his trunk. “Then why are you wasting your time with him?”

  Meredith stared at Will skeptically. “Okay, Mister Can’t-Commit-To-Anything. You’re going to give me relationship advice? That’s rich.”

  He opened the door to the car for Meredith. “I’ve only seen you gone enough to consider marriage once, and I never got to meet the guy.”

  She didn’t have to ask who he meant. Will was the only one she had told about Kostya and her time in the Ukraine. “That was long ago.” She ducked into the car and he came around to the other side.

  “It may have been a long time ago, but you didn’t reach out for Scott’s hand when you were nervous today. You grasped your necklace, the same necklace you’ve worn for five years.” Will started the car and drove out of the downtown parking lot. “Scott has never inspired your trust. I’ve never seen you lean on him for strength.”

  Meredith crossed her arms and sank into her seat, uncomfortable with Will’s insights. “I’m pretty independent. I don’t need a man to ‘lean on for strength’.”

  “That’s not what I mean, and you know it.” Will frowned. “I just think you deserve to be appreciated.”

  “Appreciation—the foundation for all great love stories. ‘Romeo, Romeo, Wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and appreciate my intelligence’.”

  Will shot her a look, and they were both silent as they approached Georgetown.

  “He wasn’t supposed to stay,” Meredith admitted quietly.

  “Huh?”

  “Scott wasn’t supposed to stay in my townhouse. He said it was just until he found a new place since his lease was up and they were remodeling into condos.” Meredith remembered.

  “So, why do you let him stay?” Will pulled up to the side by her house.

  “I don’t know.” Meredith sighed. “We’re dating and everything. And Dad loves him so much. Maybe I thought if I committed, I’d finally get over…” She rolled her eyes and grabbed her purse. “Well, you know.”

  Will got out and lifted her bag from the trunk. He walked her to the front door and waited while she unlocked it. “I’m here for you, sis. Whenever you decide what you really want.”

  “I may take you up on that. Thanks, Will.” She smiled and gave him a hug.

  Chapter 6

  “Mr. Dychenko, will you please follow me?”

  Kostya gathered his papers and followed the man into the room the clerk had emerged from just a moment ago. After a long day with Customs and Border Patrol at the airport, and a long night in one of the small holding cells at the downtown office, Kostya was trying very hard not to be impatient. But his head ached from sleeping on the dorm-style bed set in a common room surrounded by a mosaic of people who obviously slept in different time zones. His mind had not stopped spinning since he left Cherkasy seventy-two hours ago. It was frustrating being held in limbo, especially knowing that the information he offered could save lives.

  The clerk gestured toward the grand desk facing them. A frazzled, fifty-something year-old man sat behind the desk, scribbling into a notebook and tapping on a computer keyboard alternately. He had a pencil behind his ear, one in his hand, and yet another in his shirt pocket. His graying hair covered most of what looked like red, and his complexion, easily flushed, was reddening as he finished recording his ideas on paper and in cyberspace. The clerk cleared his throat. “Mr. Dychenko, this is Mr. Hannigan. He will be taking your case from here.”

  Mr. Hannigan waved the clerk out and waited for the door to shut. His pale eyes, looking past the readers perched on the end of his nose, examined Kostya. He closed one file and placed it in a basket on the corner of his desk. A big man, Hannigan’s gut was probably thicker than it once was, and his age showed around his eyes and mouth, but he seemed capable and respected. His office was pleasantly disorganized, full of files and books on shelves and in stacks around the room. There was no wall of diplomas or awards. Instead he displayed pictu
res of himself with smiling people who Kostya assumed were clients based on the variety of ethnicities they represented. Kostya liked him immediately.

  Hannigan put out his hand and greeted Kostya with a handshake. “Now, Mr. Dychenko, it sounds like you have quite a story. I’d like to make a recording while you tell it, if that’s ok.” Kostya nodded while Hannigan pulled out his phone to record the interview. “When you start, please state your full name, and state the fact that you are seeking asylum. Then, tell your story. All right?” Hannigan started the recorder and pointed at Kostya to begin.

  Kostya’s jaw clenched with determination and his voice was gravelly but strong. “I, Kostyantin Mikhail Dychenko, am asking for asylum status in the United States because of dangers I face inside my home country, the Ukraine. I know I am in danger because my life has been openly threatened with physical attacks, and my family’s farm has been destroyed by arson, killing my father and my mother.” When he spoke of his parents, his control faltered slightly, and he coughed to clear the catch in his throat.

  Hannigan breathed out deeply. “I am sorry for your loss, Mr. Dychenko.”

  “Thank you,” Kostya said quickly. He kept his eyes fixed ahead. If only he hadn’t taken the extra work, even if the additional money promised to be a godsend for his family. In the end, all he accomplished was making his parents targets.

  “I’ve read your statement.” Hannigan flipped through some papers on his clipboard. “I understand the basics on the work you did on the components, but could you explain how you discovered the missile silo?”

  “The computer components I worked on were labeled. Each one listed the Oblast, or Provence, where my employer had collected the piece, and the GPS coordinates of what ended up being a missile silo. He rattled off the precise latitude and longitude coordinates from each box like they were sitting in front of him—all locations in the Ukraine, spread around the central farmlands, his homeland.

  “I guess I don’t understand why, when you suspected something was wrong, you didn’t go to the authorities.” Hannigan peered over his readers at Kostya.

  “Exactly who do I report a resurrected missile silo to, Mr. Hannigan?” Kostya ran his hands through his hair and rubbed the back of his neck. “My brother and I could have been shot for what we saw at the silo, depending on who wanted to keep it a secret. If I told my employer, I would be blamed for lost profit. Tell the Ukrainian Defense Ministry? Corruption is so rampant in government offices, I wasn’t convinced they weren’t involved. The Russians? The United Nations? The thought of someone listening to a programmer from Kiev who claimed to have reverse engineered components to launch an ICBM was laughable.”

  “So in the end, you chose the Americans?” Hannigan grinned across the table.

  Kostya shook his head and laughed out loud, but quickly became serious again. “I love my country. I think you should know that. For so long I believed that I was doing what was right for the Ukraine. Perhaps I have become a stranger to my country.”

  “Or maybe your country has become a stranger to you.”

  “Perhaps.” Kostya took a long drink from a water bottle Hannigan had provided him.

  “You were Spetnaz-Alfa. Special forces in the Ukrainian Army.” Mr. Hannigan flipped some pages in Kostya’s file. “You had excellent marks, a bright future in the military. Why did you quit so suddenly and go to the University?”

  Kostya shrugged. His mind drifted to the November protest in Kiev held at Independence Square. His unit was tasked with peacekeeping, but not everyone believed in following orders. The eyes of Ukrainians, his neighbors, rounded up like animals and used for target practice still haunted him. “I couldn’t be a part of it anymore—the corruption, the violence against civilians—I had to escape.” He turned his head, eyes resting on the table for a moment, and then returning to Hannigan. “I believe in honor and doing what is right.” He quickly shook off the bad memories. “Besides, my family needed my help to keep the farm.”

  Hannigan nodded, but they sat silently for the next several moments as Kostya’s confession settled. “When you went to Cherkasy, did you find the locations identified with the coordinates?”

  “Yes. My brother Bohdan and I decided to go explore.”

  ****

  Bodhan was happy to let Kostya use a dirt bike, and he didn’t ask very many questions when Kostya wanted to go out riding Saturday morning. Knowing that the cell coverage was spotty, Kostya borrowed a handheld GPS unit. They set out together on the bikes, tearing up the paths away from the Dychenko land. The first site was just miles from his childhood home, off the main roads. Following some dirt paths and skirting creeks full of water and the edges of fields planted with tall crops of corn, the men stopped in front of the first geographical marker.

  The land had been cleared about a hundred meters square, and slabs of rotting concrete marked areas where vehicles may have parked at one time. There were several metal poles with lights and antennas that reached up from nothing to the sky. Near the center of the clearing was a berm of built up earth.

  “I know what this is. This is one of the old Soviet missile silos sites,” Bohdan said. “There are a bunch of them around.”

  “I thought they shut them all down at the end of the Cold War,” Kostya said. He heard it wasn’t uncommon for people to loot the old silos for metal, or for teenagers to explore the dark, underground spaces for a thrill. It was harmless because the Russians had taken everything dangerous before they abandoned them.

  “They did, but they left behind skeletons of their existence. It looks like this one is pretty intact.” Bohdan booted down the kickstand and walked toward the berm. “Want to explore?”

  Kostya jumped off his bike and followed Bohdan to get a closer look. “Let’s see if we can get inside.”

  Near one of the corners of the open area was a pair of concrete walls that angled into the ground, retaining the soil from a pathway that inclined downward. Bohdan led while both men accessed their cell phones to use as flashlights. The square-shaped entry’s top support was at ground level, opening to a concrete reinforced tunnel into the earth.

  “How far do you think this goes down?” Bohdan asked.

  “I don’t know. I’ve heard they dug over fifty meters deep, though.”

  Holding his cell phone at his leg to light the walkway, Kostya entered the passageway, which led into a tiered stairway going deeper and deeper into the ground. The steps were metal grates, good for traction and upkeep. The white painted concrete, peeling and crumbling in places, surrounded them as they descended on the stairs. Lines of wires were attached to the wall in conduits that snaked down from level to level with the stair passageway.

  Reaching the first landing, there was a threshold to what looked like a storage room on one side, and a square open shaft that appeared to house a lift to the deep lower levels.

  “Do you think it still works?” Bohdan asked.

  “Not without electricity,” Kostya said cynically. He leaned over and pushed the call button for emphasis.

  Both men jumped back when it roared to life.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Kostya mumbled.

  Bohdan burst out with laughter. “What was that about electricity, brother?”

  “Why would they still have it hooked up?” Kostya wondered as an open elevator car ascended to their level. His senses on high alert, Kostya watched and listened for any evidence of other people around and found nothing.

  “It can’t hurt if we take a look around, can it?” Bohdan tempted. Kostya, unable to think of a good reason why not, shrugged. Bohdan opened the gate to the small elevator car and they entered. Bohdan pressed the lowest button on the panel, “Control.”

  Down they sank, Kostya counting ten thick concrete floors as he passed. The temperature of the air dropped with each floor they passed, giving him shivers. “I feel like I’m descending into hell,” he said. “Only colder.”

  Bohdan became more and more wide-eyed as the car sa
nk lower and lower. “There are ladders to get out if this contraption isn’t working later, right?” Kostya nodded, although he really didn’t know for sure.

  Finally, the cables squeaked to a stop and they stepped onto the concrete landing of the control floor. There was a thick door on tracks, thankfully left open, between them and the rooms on that level. The handles were welded onto the side, proof of steel reinforcement; its thickness evidence it was made of both concrete and steel—a blast door. Kostya moved forward through the passageway to see what would have likely been the control room.

  The narrow walkway opened up to a dimly lighted room on the right hand side. Again puzzled by the electricity present, Kostya’s senses were on high alert.

  “This is probably where the military personnel who handled the missiles were stationed,” Bohdan observed. Then looking up to the opposite wall, he exclaimed, “What the hell is going on here?”

  Kostya was already there, looking at the computers that lined the wall, set up in nineteen-inch racks. They weren’t just sitting there, abandoned, after the Cold War; they were up and running. Then, he stared as the realization hit: he was surrounded by the outdated components that he had reverse engineered and fixed. He recognized each component and its seemingly innocent purpose, not as benign now that he put it into context. The box for communications, for security, for testing equipment—all these had a much different purpose when put into a nuclear silo.

  Kostya was so sidetracked by his components being here, Bohdan had to nudge him to get down when the two security guards descended the ladder from the floor above. They were laughing obnoxiously, one of them carrying a bottle of vodka and the other a deck of playing cards. Their conversation was continuing from the floor above.

  “So I told him that they could bring in more guards, but it wasn’t going to change the fact that no one around here cares, and we do nothing,” the first guard said.

  The second guard burst out laughing. “You really said that to him? No one cares?”

  “Well, maybe not in those words—”