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Things are tense around Little Odessa, the part of Brooklyn with the highest Slavic population in the continental US.
"Nikola Grigoryev is dead? I can't believe it. That man funded the cleaning at St. Anastasia."
"Terrible way to go. Electrocuted? By a light fixture? Radio City Music Hall is supposed to be safe."
"No light fixtures fell. The audience said he started convulsing and the girls on stage screamed."
"He was murdered?"
"In front of fifteen hundred people? How!"
"You think our borders keep us safe? Look at what happened to the Nobel prize winner."
"He was from Moscow."
"And no one's seen the editor of Truth Light for weeks. He was from Minsk."
"Or Mr. Basov's two aides. Top scientists themselves. They just vanished. It's enough to put a shiver down your back."
"It's a bad time to be Russian. I thought it was terrible enough in '27."
"I'm going to be locking my doors. Just like the old bad days, Olga."
So Little Odessa becomes a lot colder, a lot warier, and a lot less friendly in days to come…