"Third row, second from left," the old man scoffed, and Konrad half expected him to spit on the floor. "That's the bastard. He's older in real life, though. Looked more tired, too."
Dmitry took a glance as well before nodding.
"He's a marked one. Pavel Streletsky, 38."
Which meant the guy arrived from Japan.
The absolute Jackpot—yet he didn't seem as enthusiastic as Konrad.
He was yelling and slamming the table.
"That's him. Where did he go from here?!"
That earned him a suspicious glare from the grumpy locals.
And that was before the Captain even translated his question.
"The hell would I know?!" the old man snapped. "He was a drunk, with a gun, talking to himself. Have only heard those few words I already told you about. I tried to stay as far away as possible."
Fair. And knowing what Lucifer's other puppets could do, it was a smart choice, too.
But still. This was amazing news.
After a week, they had finally found an actual name and a picture to go with it.
Even if that was it, Konrad shouldn't have complained. But it wasn't.
"The barkeep," the informant grumbled. He nodded at the counter before chugging his beer down. "They have talked for some time, so ask him where he went, not me."
And he was about to do that, if not for the strange face Dmitry made.
"No. This is all too easy," he said, shaking his head. "We can't be sure if that's our guy yet."
Too easy? This?!
Konrad tanked a ballistic missile. He went into a coma. And then, he spent long days searching.
If this counted as easy, running Halaima must have been child's play.
But for those wondering, it wasn't.
Well, the Captain wasn't a mind-reader, nor had he heard of The Doctor or Ghost.
He should have mentioned them before, but it was nice that they both wanted to make sure.
Like, there was no settling for a convenient clue and hope for the best.
Even if Konrad was already sure.
But hey, if two matches weren't enough to convince Dmitry, he had a perfect third to try.
"Look up his close relatives," he asked. "If he is our guy, he must have a twin somewhere."
Because, uh—
Something, something, Lucifer needed a stillborn with a living twin for his soul thing.
Transfer? Transplant? Whatever.
He didn't understand it, either.
But as he had Nimrod, all these reincarnates should have had a twin as well.
"Thought you only knew his nickname," the Captain said, rolling his eyes. But he still tapped away on his phone to pull up the relevant data. "And what do you know? He did have a twin."
There. That was all the proof Konrad needed.
Now, to talk with the barkeep—
"And she disappeared thirty years ago," Dmitry added, making him freeze. "Ana Streletsky. Declared dead, but her body was never found."
Shit.
"That would explain why he was getting drunk as soon as he entered the country."
Yeah. If Lucifer was the guardian of all these people—
He was terrible at it. And he only needed that twin for the moment of birth, anyway.
Whatever happened after that, he wouldn't care.
Did Soap and Roach still have their siblings? What was their relationship like? Were they even still alive? Or, in Ghost and Fang's case, how might they have reacted?
No, scratch that. This was not the time.
Even if Lily didn't scold him via telepathy, he could almost hear her complaint.
He'd ask the survivors. Later. Once his mission was over.
For now, he had to talk with the barkeep.
"This man," he said, waving the ID grid around. "You talked to him three weeks ago, right?"
The owner of the place squinted for a second before crossing his arms.
And while it seemed like he understood, he still waited for the Captain to repeat it in Ukrainian.
"I remember him," he grunted. "Though his hairline receded a lot. All chopped short, too."
"What did you talk about?" Konrad asked, then again, Dmitry translated.
They were doing this on purpose.
And no, that wasn't paranoia. He could actually read it from their minds.
"He said he rushed home at the news of the war," the barkeep said, shrugging. "Asked about enemy movements, as if I were some damned general. I did fight in the first invasion, but—"
Nothing out of the ordinary so far.
"Anything specific?" Konrad interrupted. "Like an area he asked about?"
Having a name and an image was nice, but if they could even find the guy—
Dmitry translated his question, then the answer, too.
"The Pripyat marshes," he said, scratching his head. "Which is odd since he's not from there."
Konrad could only rub his face, too, having never heard of that before.
"Is it close?"
"It's north," Dmitry explained. "A huge wetland, stretching across the Belarusian border."
And he wasn't from there?
Then why ask about a big-ass marsh?
"Don't tell me his sister disappeared there," Konrad theorised, but the only answer he got was a shrug. It seemed there was no information about it on his phone. "What's even there?"
Another shrug, even more theatrical than the previous one.
"Nothing. Much of it is a national park. And no troop movements, either. The Russians weren't interested in it since there are no big population centers. No industry, only, uh—"
"What?!" Konrad demanded.
"Well, as the name implies, Pripyat is there, of course," Dmitry said, as if that meant anything.
Not for him.
"You're not helping," he complained, trying to steal a peek at his phone. "Is that a place he might want to go to or something?"
The Captain grunted, typing in some search words.
"You tell me," was all he said, turning the phone around. "Would he?"
The images were familiar, though he tied them to a different name.
A nuclear reactor, blown to pieces and then covered in a concrete sarcophagus.
It made the headlines back in 1986; he still remembered it from his previous life.
And now the question found a whole new meaning.
"I wouldn't go anywhere near it," Konrad claimed. "But it would make some haunting amount of sense if he did. Not sure why, and I'm afraid to find out. But that's his most likely destination."
Were they lucky or cursed now?
They found their target and had a good idea of his destination, too.
But why go there of all places?
If it was anything like what he had heard about on the news—
Scratch that. If it involved Lucifer, or even this guy's magic—
"So, mission success?" Dmitry asked, flipping through more images on his phone, one worse than the other. "I can, uh, give you a lift, but don't want to go near the actual thing, either."
No kidding. Who would want to?
"Is it far from here?" he asked. "I know I've already abused your time and connections and all."
And how long would it take to reorganize his unit, anyway?
"Not exactly close, but it's not the end of the world. Even if it looks like it," the Captain joked. But his smile didn't reach his eyes. "Could take you to the edge of the zone, and find you a fixer."
"Yeah, sounds good," Konrad nodded, whatever that meant.
But he couldn't unsee those images.
The radioactive waste, the mutated flora and fauna, the burns—
That's where Strelok went.
Chernobyl.