by Sonja Stone
Five hours later, somewhere over Kansas, Damon realizes his new passport has probably been flagged.
71
NADIA
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 13
8:17 PM
Nadia wakes in a hospital, in a dimly lit room that smells of antiseptic and bandages. She hears her mother’s voice in the hallway. “Mom?” she whispers.
A nurse leans in to adjust the pillows. Quietly she says, “You had appendicitis. We operated; you’re going to be fine.”
“Appendicitis? No, that’s not—”
“Your cover story is that we removed your appendix. Which we did, just in case. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
Nadia nods as her mother enters the room.
“Nadia! Are you all right?”
“Mom, what are you doing here?”
“You’re in the hospital. Of course I’m here. Are you okay?” She turns to the nurse. “Maybe you should get the doctor.”
“I’ll let him know she’s awake.” The nurse leaves.
Nadia offers her mother a weak smile. Her lips feel like plastic, dry and cracked. A bitter metallic taste lingers in her mouth. She tries to remember her last moments awake, in the dean’s office—it’s like a dream.
“Your friends are here. I met Libby—she’s a doll. And Jack, who also seems very nice. And quite taken with you, I might add. He brought me coffee.”
“Jack’s okay?” Nadia’s eyes tear.
“Yes, dear, of course. Why wouldn’t he be? And who’s the other boy? Alan?”
Nadia grins and tries not to cry. She nods.
“He’s a character, hobbling around on that cane. He says you kicked him during jujutsu!”
“Is that what he said?” Nadia laughs as tears drip down her cheeks.
“You’ve always been a firecracker. Are you crying? What’s wrong?”
“I’m so happy to see you.”
“Oh, you are so sweet! I’ve missed you too. Where is the doctor? If you want something done right, I guess you have to do it yourself. I’ll go find him. Should I send in your friends?”
Nadia nods again. “And maybe some water?”
Jack, Libby and Alan enter the room as her mom leaves.
“Nadia, thank God you’re all right!” Libby leans in to give her a gentle hug. “We’ve been worried sick about you!”
“How are you feeling?” Alan asks. He leans on a cane. “You look awful.”
“You lied to my mother,” she whispers. “Good for you.”
“It was harder than getting shot,” Alan whispers back.
Nadia looks at Jack. “I thought you were dead.” She fights back her tears.
“No such luck.” He leans in and kisses her forehead. “You’ll have to try a lot harder if you want to get rid of me.”
She struggles to keep her eyes open. She has a million questions but she can’t stay awake. “Water?” she whispers.
“Okay, everyone, that’s it for now,” the doctor says as he shuffles her friends out of the room. “Nurse, can you get her some ice chips?”
“I’ll see you soon,” Jack promises.
Sunlight pushes through the cracks in the blinds when Nadia next opens her eyes. Hashimoto Sensei stands at the window, his back straight, arms crossed.
“Sensei.”
“Ah, Nadia-san, welcome back.” He pulls a chair next to her bed.
“What happened?”
“Dean Wolfe tried to kill you.” He smiles. “He failed.”
“He called you?” She remembers the dean calling someone, asking for help.
“No. When we discovered you recorded the incident, we checked his phone records. He called Professor Hayden.”
“But Hayden never came.” Nadia tries to scratch her nose but her arms are connected to many tubes. She roots her face into her shoulder.
“No, he did not.” Sensei chuckles. “Hayden-san made a hasty departure. He disappeared.”
“You saved my life.” Nadia smiles at him.
“Hai.”
“You deciphered my message. I knew you would.” She closes her eyes.
“Well done, Nadia-san. Get some sleep. We will talk later.”
Over the next twenty-four hours Nadia pieces together what happened. Jack and Sensei explain what she’s missed.
“I thought you were dead,” she says again to Jack. She’s able to sit up in bed. Her abdomen aches from the operation—they cut through her stomach muscles to dig out the bullet. By some miracle, no major organs were damaged.
“No, apparently not. I was unconscious, however. Wolfe knocked me out cold, but I guess since you were on your way in, he didn’t want to risk the noise of a gunshot.”
Nadia nods. “He didn’t have a silencer.”
Jack looks away. “I can’t believe it was him this whole time. I should’ve seen—”
“Don’t do that. You couldn’t have known.”
“Nadia-san is correct.”
“I know. It’s just embarrassing. I really looked up to him.” Jack clears his throat. He turns to Hashimoto Sensei. “I still don’t understand how you got there.”
Sensei smiles. “Nadia-san left a message when she broke into the covert-operations room at the dojo. When the door opens, it triggers a silent alarm that sounds only in my room.”
“Sorry about breaking in.” Nadia blushes and looks down at her hands.
“Nadia-san, it is no accident you saw my password. I knew you were suspected as the double agent. I also knew you were innocent. I thought the day might come when you would need access to that room.” Sensei turns to Jack. “She scribbled her message on the wall—in pen, no less.”
“I was afraid someone would see it and erase it. I would’ve carved it with my knife if I’d had time.” A nurse comes in to check Nadia’s vitals and they fall silent.
As she leaves, Jack looks from Sensei to Nadia. “So what was the message?”
Sensei leans back and laughs. “Sute inu. Well done, Nadia-san.”
“What does that mean?” Jack asks.
“I was afraid if I wrote ookami, it would be too easy for someone else to figure it out and destroy my note,” she interrupts. “And I thought you would be investigating my death, not saving my life.”
“But what does sute inu mean?” Jack pleads.
Nadia grins. “It means: a dog with no master.”
“What?” Jack furrows his eyebrows.
“A wild dog, Jack-san,” Sensei answers. “A wolf.”
72
DAMON
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 13
2:55 PM
Damon suspects agents will be at the gate when he disembarks. He spends the last two hours of the plane ride making friends. He trades places with a college student who is clearly annoyed by the screaming children beside him. He even moves the guy’s carry-on bag—after attaching a luggage tag that reads Jordan Phelps. Then he goes to work on the young mother as she desperately tries to soothe her children.
When they land, he carries one of her kids off the plane. He keeps his head down, eyes on the sleeping toddler. Damon looks like part of their family. They’re staying at the Airport Express Holiday Inn. What a coincidence; that’s where he’s meeting his Aunt Sarah. And he’s more than happy to help her onto the complimentary shuttle. The kid in the University of Maryland sweatshirt gets tackled before he reaches the escalator.
Damon expects the Nighthawks to stake out his house, so he waits at the hotel until nightfall. At the gift shop he buys an Orioles ball cap, a red scarf and a puffy coat. Light disguise, but enough to change his shape and cast doubt if anyone’s looking. The hardest part is adjusting his gait. He sticks a pebble in the corner of his shoe to establish a consistent limp.
After dark, he calls for a cab. He dozes in the back. The driver wakes him when they reach the address. A convenience store three blocks from his house. He’ll walk the rest of the way.
It’s cold enough to see his breath. The street smells like the woods after a
campfire. A half-block from home he cuts through the neighbor’s yard, coming up on his place from behind. He pushes through the screen of junipers that runs along the property line. The yard smolders.
His house is gone.
For a second, he’s confused. A black pile of smoking debris has replaced his home. His mouth falls open as he stumbles toward the street.
“Damon? Is that you?” Mrs. Williams, the next-door neighbor, waddles up the pavement toward him in her slippers and housecoat.
“Mrs. Williams, where’s my mom?”
“Don’t worry, baby, she’s fine. The man from the insurance company came by and took her to a hotel. He left this for you.”
Damon’s heart skips a beat. “What insurance company?”
“I’m not sure. It’s right here on the envelope.” Mrs. Williams holds the message at arm’s length, struggling to read the return address. “I don’t have my glasses. Looks like . . . Harkins—no, Hawkins Insurance.” She hands it to him.
His hands shake as he tears the envelope. The note inside reads: Welcome home. I’m willing to make a trade. You have my number.
Damon’s legs give out. He drops to his knees on the pavement. The acrid taste of bile burns the back of his throat as he vomits on the sidewalk.
“Oh, Damon. It’ll be okay.” Mrs. Williams puts her hand on his forehead. “Come next door. I’ll get you a ginger ale.” She starts down the walk.
He can’t breathe. A vice crushes his chest. He grabs onto the grass to keep from falling over.
They took his mother. Then they took her house.
Damon looks up at the charred remains. Every last memory of her husband, her baby boy, gone. Burned to the ground. Roberts spared nothing.
And neither will I.
Rage chokes his heart. He gazes into the starless city sky. I’ll get her back.
Quietly, much too low for Mrs. Williams to hear, he swears a solemn oath.
“And then I’ll annihilate the Nighthawks.”
73
NADIA
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 17
Nadia is released from the hospital just in time to pack her bags for winter break. And not a moment too soon. She’s bored out of her mind lounging around in bed.
Her mom stayed in town, declaring it would be best if they flew home together. She drives Nadia back to school to collect her things. The guard at the gate is expecting them; he greets Mrs. Riley by name.
“Isn’t he nice,” Nadia’s mom says. “How did he know me?”
Nadia shrugs. “It’s a small school. Maybe Sensei told him you’d be coming.”
“I’m glad to see security is so tight. It makes me feel a little better about your being here.”
Nadia smiles at her mother as they pull into the parking lot. “Don’t worry, Mom. No one gets in—or out—without permission.”
“I’ll pack up your clothes. You can say your good-byes,” she offers.
Nadia limps next door to the dojo. She leans forward in the doorway as best she can, but bending over really hurts her incision. Hashimoto Sensei comes to the lobby as she’s gasping her way out of the bow.
He rushes to help her straighten. “Nadia-san, today we will make an exception to the rule of etiquette.”
“It’s only pain. It will either kill me or go away, right?”
He smiles. “You are off for the holidays?”
“Yes. I wanted to come by and say thank you again. For everything.”
“As soon as possible, I expect you to resume your exercise program. Do not push yourself now; you might cause internal bleeding. But if you do nothing for the next month you will find yourself at a disadvantage when you return to school, and I know how you feel about doing your best.”
“Hai, Sensei.” Nadia turns to leave.
“I will see you soon. Be careful.”
His warning stops her. “Be careful of what?”
He frowns. “Nadia-san, the sparrow who flies behind the hawk believes the hawk is fleeing. It is not so. Dean Wolfe is in a coma with an armed guard watching his room, but Damon-san and Professor Hayden are both missing in action. Since we have no one to question, we do not know how many others were working with them.”
Nadia nods and moves toward the door. Once more she stops and faces Sensei. “Can I ask you something?”
“No.”
She ignores him. “You said I was the second student to be shown the covert-ops room. Who was the first?”
Sensei smiles as he answers, “Albert Vincent.”
“The director of the CIA?”
“Hai.”
Nadia tries to suppress her smile. “What does abunai mean?”
Sensei laughs. “Ah, my password. It is a warning. It means dangerous, or watch out!”
“That seems about right.”
Nadia leaves the dojo and hobbles up the path to the dining hall, hoping to see her friends before it’s time to go. She finds Alan and Libby at their regular table. It seems strange that Damon isn’t with them.
Nadia suddenly remembers what Dean Wolfe told her that night. Damon refused a direct order. He couldn’t kill me. Somehow, she can’t wrap her brain around the fact that Damon isn’t really Damon. She’s torn between the sadness of losing her friend and the anger accompanying her realization she never really knew him at all. Not to mention he was framing her as the double. I guess that’s bound to put a strain on any relationship.
“Hey, guys,” she greets her friends.
“Nadia, how are you feeling?” Alan stands and pulls out a chair.
“Look at you, getting me a chair!”
“People can change. You did. You were useless when you got here.”
“That’s more like it.” Nadia eases herself onto the seat. “Anyway, I’m okay, thanks for asking. How about you?”
He nods. “A little sore, but not too bad. Libby is taking excellent care of me.” He smiles at Libby and Nadia senses something more than gratitude.
Libby doesn’t seem to notice. “Nadia, I took the liberty of stashing our textbooks in the back of my closet,” she says. “I figured your momma might come by.”
“Thanks, I didn’t even think of that.”
“Listen,” Alan says. “I have been wanting to say something. When we first got here, I thought you two were dead weight. Libby, your Southern drawl makes you sound profoundly uneducated. And Nadia, where do I start? You were not good at anything.”
“What is the matter with you?” Nadia asks.
Alan seems surprised by her reaction. “I am trying to say thank you.” He holds up a finger and smiles. “I’m trying to say thank you.”
Libby narrows her eyes. “Is that supposed to be a joke? I may be too profoundly uneducated to understand the delicate nuances of Yankee-talk, but let me tell you something: this is not gratitude.”
“I am admitting I was wrong. I do need you. I would not have made it out of the canyon without you. I am very glad we are on a team. This is all I’m saying.”
“Well, that was one God-awful thank you.” Libby sits back and crosses her arms.
“You want to help me out, please?” Alan asks Nadia.
“Not even a little. Oh—but here’s something interesting.” Nadia glances around. “When I was in Wolfe’s office, he said something to me about your grandfather. He knows.”
A look of understanding crosses Alan’s face. “Oh, of course! That is what he was talking about.”
“Who? What?” Libby asks.
“Damon,” he whispers. “He made a big point of telling me what close friends we were after I got shot.”
“Why?” asked Libby.
“So no one would go looking for him,” Nadia says. Alan nods. She drops her voice. “Have you trained with your grandfather? That’s how you learned to shoot, isn’t it?”
Alan’s neck turns a splotchy red. “I cannot talk about him. Please do not ask me anything.”
Libby jumps in. “That’s fine. You’ll tell us when you’re good and ready. I
accept that, because we Southerners are far more well-mannered than you New Yorkers.”
They sit in silence for a few moments. Nadia can’t let it go. “It’s just—I’ve heard amazing things about Mossad. Can you teach us anything?”
Welts appear on Alan’s throat. “Nadia. Please.”
“Have you spoken to your grandfather yet? About how you feel?” she asks.
Libby changes the subject. “Think you’ll be getting a new roommate?”
“I had not thought about it. It’s weird, the whole thing with Damon—how someone so close to us could be so different from what he claimed to be, and we never knew.”
“It certainly is,” Libby agrees. “I mean, I’m not shocked you didn’t know, but Nadia and me? I thought we were sound judges of character.”
“Thanks a lot,” Alan says.
“Sometimes the truth hurts. Hey, Nadia, Alan and I might get together over break, maybe meet in DC for New Year’s Eve?” Libby pats Alan’s hand. “Shall we call you?”
“No, we have to do New Year’s Eve in Times Square,” Alan says.
“Honey, not everyone can make it to New York.”
“Your parents will get you a ticket.”
“I didn’t mean me.” Libby’s eyes flicker toward Nadia.
“Oh. Well, she does not have to come.”
“Alan. Be nice,” Libby says.
Nadia grins. Libby is walking right into this, and she has no idea. “Give me a call when you finalize your plans. Listen, you guys, I have to get going.” She pulls herself out of the chair. “I hope you both have a great holiday.” Libby stands to hug her. “It will be strange waking up without you. I’ll miss you.”
“I know. Same here,” Libby says.
Nadia looks at Alan one last time. “The conversation with your grandfather is non-negotiable.”
“I understand,” Alan answers.
“We’ll see you soon,” Libby says. “Tell your momma we said hi.”
On the way back to her dorm, Jack calls her name. She waits while he sprints across the lawn.
