“Do I seem like a bunny rabbit to you, Katerina?”
“Yes. And I am worried about you.”
The dim clip lamp is the only thing lighting up our suddenly intimate discourse. I’d turn on the overheads, but they’re first-class mood killers.
“Worried about me? Seriously?”
“Paige, you are good girl inside. You are kind person. But this is Russia. This is not place for bunny rabbit.”
She takes me in, trying not to say too much.
“Maybe there are danger around you don’t even realize.”
This is a warning. But it’s protective, not threatening.
“Katerina, I didn’t just fall off the cabbage truck.”
“What truck?”
“It’s an expression. It means like someone who is over their head, ignorant.”
“But why cabbage truck?”
“I don’t know why cabbage truck.”
“Cabbage truck sound like good place for bunny rabbit.”
And, with that, she turns off my stolen clip light and plunges us both into darkness.
37
Uri has invited Katerina and me to lunch. To meet his parents. Actually, just his dad and his dad’s trophy girlfriend. You remember her, Queen Elsa? What I don’t know is that though I’ve never met them, they’ve seen me before.
We are in the sky-blue-and-gold Baroque dining room with white Louis Catorce chairs and a giant ornate Tiffany-blue dome up above. I’m trying hard not to seem like a provincial American and spend the whole time gawking at the scenery.
Now, keep in mind, I have never been here before and I have never met these guys before. You’ve met them, because I was nice enough to show you that videotape. But right now, at this point in our little ditty, I, Paige Nolan, have no actual idea who these people are or what they are up to. I’m like an innocent little lamb in this scenario. Which makes it a very rare kind of scenario.
“You are long way from home, no?”
Uri’s dad, aka Dimitri, aka head honcho kingpin of Moscow, is addressing little ol’ me.
“Um, yeah, I guess.”
“It is always I guess with you Americans. Everything is always kind of or sort of . . . never defined. Never strong.”
“I think it’s just our way of being polite, maybe?”
“Yes, so polite while you drop bombs on children. Sorry. While you kind of drop bombs on children.”
“If you’re looking for me to make a positive argument about dropping bombs on civilians, trust me, you’ve asked the wrong person to lunch. I am absolutely, positively antiwar, anti-imperialism, and a pacifist above everything else. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. That’s my Buddhist chant. But sometimes I chant in Aramaic. Maranatha. Which means come, Lord or the Lord is coming. It really depends on how I’m feeling that day.”
Dimitri takes this in.
Queen Elsa blows smoke in my face.
Suddenly, Dimitri blurts out. “This is what I don’t understand about USA! You have government that does horrible things, or lets horrible things happen all over the world, in client state, in puppet state. Then you meet USA people. And they are like puppy dog.”
Queen Elsa blows another drag at me. I don’t think she likes me.
“To what do you attribute this discrepancy?”
“Respectfully, sire, Americans are good people.”
Look at me. I’m practically Abigail Adams over here! Nothing like a bunch of homeland bashing to make you wave the good ol’ red, white, and blue.
“And what do good people think of big traitor Sean Raynes?”
That’s weird. Why is he bringing that up? I mean, I guess he’s famous and everything . . . ?
“Well. I think he’s a hero.” I don’t tell him he’s my almost-boyfriend. “It’s just the establishment that hates him.”
“Of course. He show the world they are hypocrite.”
“Well, this is light conversation over borscht.” Uri makes a joke. I think he’s actually being protective of me. Sweet.
We all share a fake laugh . . . and then something strange happens.
In the corner, next to an enormous floor-to-ceiling gilded mirror, there is a giant clanking sound.
Everybody at the table, I mean everybody, turns to face the sound, ready to strike. Dimitri. Katerina. Ice Queen. And Underling. Who points his gun. At the busboy.
But it was only an accident. The busboy dropped a wineglass while cleaning it. The sound echoes up into the blue sky dome ceiling, reverberating back down in the cavernous space.
The busboy meekly puts his hands up in the air, terrified.
“Sorry . . .”
Everyone breathes a sigh of relief.
I can’t help but notice Uri and I were the only people not to jump.
Interesting.
“Wow. Nervous table.” I smile.
Dimitri politely smiles back but is really not amused.
“It was nice to meet you, American Paige. And you, Katerina. We see you soon.”
And at that, Dimitri, in all his bald glory, curtly stands up, followed by Underling and Queen Elsa. She gives a look back to the table. Possibly a sneer.
There’s a long pause as Katerina, Uri, and I contemplate the interaction.
“They seem nice.”
That’s my way of breaking the tension.
Katerina rolls her eyes and we all start laughing.
Uri calls over to the busboy, “Hey, busboy who almost got killed over glass. Come. Bring vodka. And food!”
The busboy looks around and scurries off, presumably to retrieve said vodka.
“Um, Uri, why did your dad want to meet us anyway? I mean, not that we’re not fabulous, interesting women of the world. But, seriously? Why? That was kind of weird. All he did was grill me about America. We didn’t even eat!”
“Maybe he is writing paper.” Katerina smirks.
“Were you just born with that smirk on your face?” I joke. “Like when you came out into the world, did you just sneer at the doctors and ask for a cigarette?”
“Maybe. I ask Mother.”
Yes, I know Katerina is a spy. And to be honest, I kind of resent that she’s pretending to be my friend. But I can’t show it. The best way to cover is to just act normal. Keep it easy breezy, lemon squeezy.
The busboy comes back with a bottle of vodka and three shot glasses.
“No, no. You have one, too,” Uri tells the busboy. “I insist. It is not every day you drop wine glass and almost die.”
Uri is basically the opposite of his dad, I see.
The bus boy smiles and takes a shot, grateful.
Uri watches him drink the shot and put the glass down.
Silence.
“That was poison glass.”
The busboy goes white.
“I kid! Kidding!”
The busboy breathes a sigh of relief. Uri and Katerina laugh out loud, a broad, bawdy laugh.
Katerina turns to me.
“You see, American Paige? Russians are nice people, too.”
38
Whoever put together Raynes’s little pied-à-terre in Moscow I am going to assume didn’t want him to leave. I mean, it’s stunning. It sits at the top of an extremely modern glass skyscraper and it has a pool. Not, oh, there’s a pool you can go down to share with everyone else. No, there’s a pool on the balcony. Your balcony. Yep. A private infinity pool on the balcony so it looks like, if you’re swimming in the pool, that you could just swim off into the sky.
And I just can’t.
Right now Raynes and I are sitting by the pool, under a patio heater cranking full blast, eating sushi and drinking hot sake. Apparently, the pool is heated, in case you were thinking about going for a dip. But it’s brisk. Remember, we’re on the fourteenth floor.
Don’t worry. Oleg is inside, at the kitchen bar, sitting there like a grumpy bug on a toadstool.
“I wouldn’t have pictured you in a place like this.”
“Me either.” Raynes looks emba
rrassed. “I didn’t really have much choice.”
A breeze blows across the deck.
“How bad is it?”
“What?”
“Your kind of superglamorous captivity.”
“It’s surreal. I mean. They won’t send me back. Because Putin enjoys humiliating America so much. And they won’t kill me. For two reasons. Number one, that becomes an international incident between the US and Russia. New cold war. Not good. And number two . . . they know I have more information. Maybe something they want. Maybe something they can use against the States. If I die, they never find it.”
“Whoa!” I say like this is big news to me. “Not to be, like, macabre but . . . couldn’t they just get whatever you have by torturing it out of you? Feel free to tell me to stop talking, by the way.”
“No, it’s a good question. Again, there’s two reasons. One, that’s back to an international incident, and two”—he stops, glances around, lowers his voice—“what I have, if I’m killed, goes out anyway. I actually designed a program that gets set off if they kill me. Or if anybody kills me. And, of course, they know that, too.”
“Ah! So that’s why you’re still alive. Well, I’m happy to hear it. I really prefer to hang out with live people.”
We clink sake cups, in a devil-may-care kind of cheers, and I think for a second.
“Wait. Can’t they just hack you? I mean, I’m sure they’ve got all their best guys trying to figure out how to hack everything you’ve ever remotely taken an interest in. Trying to find where it’s embedded?”
“That is what they would assume, isn’t it?”
Okay, I have to lay off before he starts to get suspicious.
But I can’t resist just one teensy-weensy last question.
“So do you?”
“What?”
“Have, you know, additional somethings? Somethings someone would really want?”
He smiles.
“Wouldn’t you like to know.”
Oleg turns on the TV inside.
I squint at Raynes. “I feel like pushing you in the pool right now.”
“You would never push me in the pool right now.”
“Why, do you think Oleg would jump in and throw me off the building?”
“Maybe. He’s very possessive.”
I stand up to peek at Oleg. It looks like he’s watching some sort of heist movie. Raynes and I stand side by side, taking him in.
“Do you think he’s pissed he’s got this duty? To watch you?”
“I can’t tell. He’s impenetrable. It’s like talking to a building.”
And then I push him.
Yes! Ladies and gentlemen, Paige Nolan has just pushed public enemy number one into the swimming pool. In his clothes.
There’s only one problem.
Right when he’s about to fall backward, he reaches out and grabs my sleeve, which grabs my arms, and then, of course, takes all of me into the heated (thank God, heated!) swimming pool. Fourteen stories up. On a skyscraper in Moscow. The lights of the city all around us.
“You satanist!” I splash him.
“You strumpet!” Now his turn.
“You scoundrel!” Now me.
“You soul-sucker!!” We are splashing each other like five-year-olds only to look up and see Oleg glowering down at us from the edge of the pool.
Why do I feel busted?
“Everything’s all right, Oleg! Just splashin’ around!”
I laugh at this last part. Such a dork.
Oleg is not amused.
He returns back to the living room, nonplussed.
“He’s a real people person,” I whisper to Raynes.
But it doesn’t matter what I just said because Raynes has just now attacked me. With his mouth.
Under the stars and the lights of Moscow.
It is the best attack.
39
Okay, busted.
I spent the night.
Listen, don’t judge me. I am not just totally enraptured with a certain someone who shall remain nameless, but I am doing this out of a duty for my country. I am sacrificing here, okay?
And no. I’m not going to tell you all the slurpy details.
Pervert.
All I’m going to say is this . . . When I think about this night, even now and probably forevermore, I will have to stop whatever I’m doing and stand still and catch my breath and try to compose myself.
So that’s all you get to know.
Quit it.
It’s about four in the morning, and I am perfecting my walk-of-shame tiptoe scheme when I notice a copy of The Painted Bird on the bookshelf.
Hey! That’s kind of nifty. Our book! That’s our book! It’s a sign!
Then I look closer and I realize there’s something sticking out of the top of it. Like a postcard or a picture or a receipt.
I tiptoe over, not wanting to wake Raynes, and oh-so-gently take the book down to look at the photo. It’s not a postcard, after all—it’s just a printed screenshot. I can see the settings bar at the top of the picture.
Strange.
The picture is of a round little mud structure with a wooden door, a giant red rock formation the size of a building behind it, and a vast sunset desert sky. Everything in the picture is glowing a kind of pink sienna. Shimmering.
“Um. What are you doing?”
Whoops.
Busted.
I really didn’t mean to wake him up, but now there he is, in all his scruffy, raven-haired glory, squinting at me.
“Oh, um . . . sorry, I just saw you had The Painted Bird, and I picked it up and this fell out.”
So, basically, I was snooping around.
Ugh. Sorry.
“Oh yeah. Cool, thanks.” He grabs the picture from me really fast. Like he nabs it away.
“What a beautiful picture . . .”
I’m trying to ease the tension. It’s so not working.
“Oh. Yeah. Thanks.”
Okay, this is really bad. He seems . . . annoyed?
“Why are you leaving so early? Don’t you want to stay? I could make you eggs or something.”
Wait. Is that why he’s annoyed? He thought I was ghosting on him? Not the snooping part?
“I—I didn’t—”
“I honestly think it’s kind of rude of you to just leave. You didn’t even say good-bye or anything.”
Oh.
Okay.
Quite frankly, I’m pretty sure my bachelors back home were relieved by my disappearing act. Not disappointed.
So this is new.
“I guess I just figured it’d kind of be better not to have to make awkward conversation and feel stupid and insecure.”
“Come here. Let’s make awkward conversation and feel stupid and insecure together. How about that?”
“Is that, like, a demand, like an I’m-the-man-so-I-decide kind of demand?”
“No, it’s a demand like, please don’t leave. I don’t want you to go.”
“Oh. All right, I won’t.”
A smile breaks on his face like a kid who’s just caught sight of his Christmas loot. “Cool. Now how do you like your eggs?”
“Like my disposition.”
“Scrambled?”
I swat at him. “I was going to say sunny side up.”
But, scrambled . . . truer words have never been spoken.
40
I’m two steps from home on my walk of shame when it hits me.
Madden is half-asleep when I get him over my hot red Beats connection.
“Speak.”
“I need a ticket back to the States.”
“What? Why?”
“I think I know where Raynes is keeping the whatever-he-has.”
He yawns. “Okay, fine. But you better be right.”
“I am. I’m right. I know I’m right.”
Suddenly, the picture pops in my head of my parents, there in that dusty complex in the middle of God knows where.
I have t
o be right.
I’m going to be right.
41
It takes me about a day to get there, with the plane, then the second plane, which is the little plane, then the car, which is a rental.
I try my hardest during this extended transport not to think about the possibility I have no idea what I am doing.
Let’s be honest. I’m basically operating off a hunch.
But it’s like this.
I have feels for Raynes. As much as I hate that. As much as I’d rather not admit it. There’s something there. There’s a connection, like I’ve known him a lot longer than I have. Like we’ve met before or something. Like we’re remeeting each other.
And maybe that time before was a hundred years ago or a thousand years ago or never. Maybe it’s just me being stupid. But I feel like I know him, what’s inside him, what makes him tick. Because I know me. What’s inside me. What makes me tick. And I’m pretty sure it’s the same.
That’s why I think I’m right.
About my hunch.
He told that Navajo story, remember? About Fortress Rock? It means something to him. The Navajo. Their rebellion. Their refusal to go quietly into the night. They didn’t do what they were supposed to do. What the army wanted them to do. What the US wanted them to do.
Kind of like him.
And, in the end, they were vindicated.
They won.
They were right.
They were enemies who, after a time, were celebrated as heroes.
The second thing is this. Raynes acted distinctly un-Raynes-like, unnatural, and even a little bit scared when he saw me staring at that picture. The screenshot. Quite frankly, he lost his cool. And he put a wall up. It was brief. He recovered. But initially, he was defensive. He was defending something.
And I think I know what he was defending.
It took me a while, using the magic of the internet, to figure out what exactly I was looking at in that screenshot.
And yes, when he went into the other room, I grabbed my phone and took a picture of the screenshot. So now I have a screenshot of a screenshot. Very meta.
So, that round mud building in the photo, according to the interbot, is a “round dwelling; with or without internal posts; timber or stone walls and packed with earth in varying amounts or a bark roof for a house, with the door facing east to welcome the rising sun for wealth and good fortune.”
Liberty Page 15
