by BTKT
Straightening from the bush, it struck her all of a sudden that she had no pain now. Except for the headache, she wasn’t hurting anywhere. Holding out her hands, she saw that they looked just like always. She touched her face, her head, her arms—nothing.
Whoa. After being pelted with stones, how could she have not one bruise or scratch?
She began walking, faster and faster, trying to put as much distance, as quickly as possible, between herself and Pier 26. Ten blocks later, she spied a cab and ran out into the street, waving like a maniac. He pulled over and she got in, breathing hard while she gave him her address, then settled back and stared out the window, trying desperately not to cry.
Anabo. Alex had said she was Anabo, that it meant light, that she was a descendant of Aurora, the daughter of Eve. She hadn’t known Eve had a daughter. Before Cain and Abel, she had Aurora. Before she ate the apple and tempted Adam. Was it true? She’d always wondered if Adam and Eve were real, or just a story to explain the beginning of sin.
No way. Alex was not only a lowlife scumbag, he was crazy. There was no such thing as Anabo. If there was, she’d have heard of it. If Eve had had a daughter, wouldn’t there be something, somewhere, that mentioned it?
Maybe she’d look it up. For now, though, all she wanted was the safety of her own room and a hot shower.
By the time the cab delivered her at the curb outside her building, she felt only slightly better. Inside, she nervously waited on the old elevator. Mom would be up by now, and maybe these days she didn’t care where Sasha went, but she was bound to want to know why Sasha was coming in at six thirty in the morning.
She opened the door, trying to be quiet, thinking maybe she could sneak down the hall to her room if Mom was in the kitchen, or her own bedroom, but no such luck. Mom was right there in the living room, sitting on the sofa, looking way pissed and even a little scared. She launched off into a long tirade, all in Russian, most of which Sasha couldn’t understand. She knew enough Russian to carry on a simple conversation, but when Mom got cranked up like this, forget it. Not that it mattered. Sasha was pretty clear on the message. Mom was furious.
She stepped into the room, and that’s when she saw that someone else was there. An enormous man sat in Dad’s favorite chair, staring at her from folds of fat, his small eyes never blinking.
“Mom,” she interrupted, “what’s going on? Who’s this?” Her mother didn’t answer. He sighed, setting his belly to jiggling. “I’m your uncle, Tim
Shriver.” Couldn’t she have come home, had a shower, and faked being sick so she didn’t have to go to school? Why did a fat guy who claimed to be her uncle have to show up right now? “I don’t have an uncle.”
“I’m married to your father’s sister, Melanie. Mike and I worked together for many years. Trust me, I’m your uncle.”
No way Dad had a sister and never told her. “Why weren’t you at his funeral? If you worked together, shouldn’t you have been there? And if Dad had a sister, she’d have been there.” She wasn’t about to trust anyone at this point. “Who are you really?”
“He tells the truth,” Mom said, now staring at the coffee table. In the background, the local news was on. “There was bad blood.”
Moving farther into the room, Sasha stared at Tim. “If you worked with my dad at the same insurance company, did you go to Russia? Do you have any ideas about who killed him?”
He darted a look at Mom, who was still focused on the table, motionless as a statue, before he looked again at her. “Mike didn’t work for an insurance company. He and I were with the CIA. Someone ratted him out.” Oh, God. Never, ever in her wildest imagination had she thought of something like that. “Mom, is it true? Did Dad really work for the CIA?”
Her mother nodded, looking miserable. “It’s how we met, when I was still in Russia. The situation in Moscow was terrible for me. I wanted to live in the United States, but they said no, until Mikhael said he would help me.”
“Why did they say no?”
“Because of my family. My grandfather was head of the KGB under the Soviets. His son, my father, became almost as important in the new Russian government, but everything was chaos, lots of scrambling for position, and an old enemy accused him of selling arms to rebels in Chechnya. He was imprisoned for treason.”
Sasha stared at her mother as if she were a stranger. Never in her whole life had she heard any of this. Mom had talked about her life in Russia as if it was idyllic. They had lived in the country, in the Ural Mountains, on a sheep farm. Mom’s mother had died when she was little and she had lived with her grandfather and father and a housekeeper named Marta. Was it all a lie?
Did she know her parents at all? She felt betrayed, like a dupe.
“I also worked for the Russian Security Council,” Mom said, “which is like our State Department, and it frustrated me as much as it did my father. There was so much corruption, so much suffering of the Russian people, all because of greed and power plays. Eventually, my father was exonerated, but he died not long after his release. I was bitter and wanted to leave, to move to the United States. Mikhael convinced the State Department I could be helpful to them, because of my background, so they hired me as an analyst, and I’m sure they hoped I’d pass along information as it came my way. Even after I arrived in the States, I continued friendships with people in Russia.”
Sasha’s hands were clenched into fists, and her whole body was stiff with anxiety and fear. “Was it one of your friends who killed Dad?”
If possible, her mother became more pale, looking up at Sasha as if she had cut her to the core. “No one knew he was with the CIA. He went to Russia as an insurance adjustor, and everyone believed his cover.”
“Obviously, someone knew, Mom. All this time, you knew he died because he was a spy, but you never told me. Why? And why won’t you tell me who killed him?”
“Why does it matter so much, Alexandra? He’s dead! Knowing who shot him won’t bring him back. You have to let it go!”
“I want a name, Mom.”
She deflated and looked down at the coffee table again, tears spilling across her cheeks. “A Russian operative. Yuri Andreovich.”
Finally, she knew, but it was a stranger whose name meant nothing at all, a Russian whose job was to assassinate foreign spies. He probably shot Dad, then went home to his family and had dinner. Just another day at the office for Yuri Andreovich. “How did he know? Who told him Dad was a spy?”
Mom didn’t say a word.
“The CIA is still investigating,” Tim said. He shot a look at Mom again. The tension in the air was thick with hostility. Her mother and Tim Shriver evidently despised each other. A lot.
Sasha sank down into the chair opposite his. “Why are you here?” she asked Tim.
“Katya, do you want to tell her?”
Slowly, her mother shook her head. Her hands clutched the folds of her robe, her knuckles white.
“Your mother has been fired from the State Department and is being deported to Russia. She has two hours to collect her things before an INS officer arrives to take her into custody.”
Sasha felt like her shoes were on the wrong feet, her hair was parted wrong, the sky had just turned green—everything in her world was becoming more screwed up by the second. “But she’s a citizen. They can’t deport a citizen, can they?”
“Actually, she’s not a citizen. The United States allowed her into the country, and the State Department hired her because they wanted her knowledge of the Russian government, but they never trusted her enough to grant her citizenship.”
“She and Dad were married! Doesn’t that give her automatic citizenship?”
“Usually, but in her case, no. You have to understand, your mother’s family were prominent in Russia, people with money and influence. The United States didn’t trust her reasons for defecting and have always been suspicious of her motives. It’s odd for someone to walk away from that kind of money and position.”
“If they
don’t trust her, why did they hire her to work at the State Department?”
“Because she understands the inner workings of the Russian government, and she has important contacts there that are helpful to the United States. She has very minimal security clearance, so it’s not as if she can access state secrets.”
“What happened, Mom? Why did they fire you?”
Her answer was so quiet, Sasha barely heard her say, “Because of Alex Kasamov. He was sent here to get something from me, and when I refused to hand it over, he threatened to get me into trouble. I’d done nothing wrong, so I told him he didn’t scare me and he needed to go away.”
Sasha waited for her to finish, but Mom just sat and stared. And cried.
Tim sighed. “Kasamov is a Russian operative. He told the State Department that Katya was the one who ratted out your father. His proof was all hearsay, and Katya denied it, of course, but the accusation was enough to get her fired. And deported.”
She wished Alex would go back to Russia and get lost in Siberia. She hoped God could forgive her for hating him so much. “Mom, what did he want that you wouldn’t give him?”
Her mother looked up at her. “When my grandfather was head of the KGB, he collected personal information about all kinds of people—heads of state and other key political figures from around the world. My father continued the tradition when he was a senior administrator in the Russian Security Council. He was a rich man with many friends, and he gathered information about all of them. He made copies of private letters and memos, took pictures of them in compromising positions, recorded their private conversations. He and my grandfather saw this not as an invasion of privacy, but as insurance for the future. Favors, they called them, but it was only a nice name for blackmail. If they needed something—classified information, or the name of an arms dealer, or even a restaurant reservation in Paris—they called up these favors. When my father died, he left me all of the information. It’s in a safe deposit box in Geneva, and I intend to die without ever seeing it again. The number of the box and its contents will be buried with me.”
“Why does Alex want it?”
“He said his supervisor in the Russian Security Council found an old file of my father’s with a list of the contents of the lockbox. He wants it and sent Alex to get it.”
“Why didn’t you give it to him, Mom? What could be in that box that’s so important, you’d risk everything?” Sasha was unaware she was crying until tears splashed against her hand.
Her mother stood. “I wasn’t willing to hand over detailed, personal information about important people to anyone, least of all his boss, who is a bully and a criminal. Even if I’d known what would happen, that Alex would accuse me and I’d be deported, I wouldn’t have given him the box number. Some things are bigger than ourselves, Alexandra. Doing the right thing always comes with a price.”
“I’m glad you feel so virtuous, Katya,” Tim said, sounding bitter. “Maybe if you weren’t selective about when to be noble, everything would be different.”
Sasha wondered what he was talking about. Her mother looked like she’d just been punched, shock and pain reflected in her expression. She opened her mouth as if she would say something, but instead, she stormed away to the kitchen, cursing in Russian while she slammed cabinet doors.
What had happened to make them hate each other this much? Sasha wanted to ask, but Tim was red in the face, his breathing very labored, and she was afraid he’d have a heart attack if she upset him further.
She swiped at her tears and wondered what it would be like to live in Russia. Could she finish high school there? Just the thought of being a new kid in a school where she barely spoke the language made her dizzy with anxiety. “Where will we live?” she asked Tim. “Moscow? St. Petersburg?”
It was a little while before he said in a quiet voice, “You can’t go with her, Sasha. You’re a U.S. citizen, so you have to have a visa to enter Russia.”
Her dizziness moved closer to a full-on panic attack. “How long does it take to get a visa?” Tim looked away from her, clearly uncomfortable. “Not that long, but there won’t be a visa for you. Not yet, anyway. As much as the United States doesn’t trust Katya, the Russians are angry with her for defecting. Until she has a feel for how things are, it’s too dangerous for you to be with her. Kasamov’s boss still wants the contents of that lockbox, so he could use you as leverage to get Katya to turn it over. It’s not a risk Katya wants to take.”
Fear nearly ate her alive. “Will he do something to Mom?”
“It’s possible. I won’t lie, Sasha. The next few months are going to be very difficult for your mother. The best thing you can do is stay here, out of harm’s way, so at least she doesn’t have that worry on her shoulders.”
“I guess I can stay with a friend until it’s safe for me to go.”
“No, Sasha. That’s why I’m here. For now, you’re going home with me.”
She blinked. That sounded just terrible. “Where do you live?”
“In Colorado. Telluride. Your mother will get things sorted out, and in the meantime, you’ll live with us and get to know your aunt and your cousins. I have two boys, close to your age.”
A couple of teenage boys and a stranger who had bad blood with her father wasn’t going to make being separated from her mother okay.
Tim sighed again. Or maybe he was just sucking in deep breaths because of his size, because it was hard for him to breathe.
One thing was sure—he didn’t look like a spy. “You work for the CIA, which is part of the State Department. Can’t you help Mom?”
“I’m not CIA anymore.” His scowl was hard to recognize, his face was so flabby. “I quit after your dad was killed and they tried to pin it on me. They thought I was the one who ratted him out. There wasn’t a shred of evidence, because it wasn’t true.” He cleared his throat and dropped his gaze to the floor. “He was my best friend, until I married his sister. Melanie always resented Mike, but I didn’t realize how much she hated him until . . . later.”
He didn’t say “until it was too late,” but Sasha heard it in his voice. Her aunt sounded like a witch. And she was going to have to live with her. “Did Dad hate her?”
“No, but he avoided her because she became so angry and hostile whenever he was around. After we married, I thought I could help mend fences and invited him to meet us for dinner in D.C. Big mistake. It ended in a loud, embarrassing fight, and she stood up and accused him of trying to ruin my career. It got around, because things like that always do, and when he was killed, I was the first person they looked at. I was in Russia at the time, had been doing some recon on Yuri Andreovich, but there was nothing they could find that proved I was the snitch.”
“If it wasn’t you, then who was it?”
He met her gaze, his small eyes hard with anger. “If I knew, I’d do everything in my power to bring that person down. I’d take away everything important to them.” His voice shook with passion and rage. “I’d make them wish they were dead.”
Something crashed to the floor in the kitchen. “Mom? Are you okay?”
Her answer was another string of Russian curses.
Sasha stared at the television, trying hard not to fly into a million pieces. In the middle of her total freak-out, she saw Missy’s face on the screen, followed by Amy Lee, then David Hollister. Casey Mills. All the Ravens, one by one, with a line at the bottom that read: Fourteen local teens drown in sailing accident. She leaned forward, straining to hear the newscaster.
“ . . . aren’t sure why they were out so late, on a stolen sailboat, but a Coast Guard spokesman says they were involved with a secret club at St. Michael’s prep school known as the Ravens. None of the fourteen was wearing a life jacket when the Coast Guard answered the mayday.”
---
By the time Jax and his brothers were done with the Ravens, it was close to six in the morning in California, seven in Colorado. Along with his brothers, he transported back home to the Me
phisto Mountain, to the grand hall of the house. The scent of food, particularly bacon, was heavy in the air.
“I’m starving,” Phoenix said. Everyone but Jax echoed him and walked toward the dining room, shrugging out of their trench coats as they went. Halfway there, Phoenix stopped, turned, and looked at him expectantly. “You planning to eat, bro?”
“Not yet. I want to call Mallick and see how it went with Sasha.”
“You have to eat, Jax. You’ll run out of energy, and it’ll be that much longer before you can see her.”
“I’ll eat as soon as I talk to him.” Phoenix turned away while Jax pulled out his iPhone. Mallick answered on the second ring. “How did it go?” he asked, without preamble. His impatience was killing him. He wanted to go right then, wanted to see Sasha again. He was still floating on a cloud of euphoria, still stunned that he’d found an Anabo, one meant for him, still fighting the overpowering instinct to snatch her up, bring her here, and never let her go.
Yeah, he got the purpose of free will. It was what they lived for, what they fought for, but at the moment, he wished there was no such thing. They were forbidden to interfere with free will, so he’d have to win Sasha like any other guy, which wasn’t going to be easy. He knew as much about romance as he did about knitting, which was exactly zero.
