by D. A. Keeley
She stopped and rolled down her window.
“How are you this morning, agent?”
He wore jeans, a leather jacket, and running sneakers. At least there was no way he was hiking several miles into the woods with her, not dressed like that.
“Very well,” she said, “and you?”
“Excellent. What brings you here this morning?”
“I’d like to take a walk through the woods, if that’s alright.”
“It’s raining.”
“Not hard,” she said.
They both knew there was no need for her to seek permission. Three Bushnell wireless hunting cameras, with tree braces, were in the zipped backpack on the passenger’s seat. The hunting cameras would send photos to her phone or iPad via text.
“What’s the power drill for?” he asked.
A yellow DeWalt drill lay next to the backpack; she needed it to mount the tree braces.
“It was in the truck when I got in,” she lied. “Need to use it?”
He smiled. “No, we have plenty of drills.”
“Something wrong, Leaf ?”
“So you’re walking back there again?”
“That was my plan. Have you seen anyone out there recently?”
He shifted and looked down at his Adidas. “Nope.”
She’d asked millions of questions to thousands of people over the years. When someone physically turned away from a question, she knew why.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll tell you if I see anything.”
“I bet,” he said.
She pretended not to hear his sarcastic reply.
The snow base on the trail was close to thirty inches deep, and the morning’s rain turned the snow wet, heavy, and soft. If Peyton hadn’t worn aluminum snowshoes, she’d have exhausted herself slogging through knee- and (if she strayed from the trail) waist-deep snow.
A half mile in, she paused to drink water. The inside of her green Border Patrol ball cap was damp. She’d learned to dress in layers and now wore a long-sleeved Under Armour shirt beneath her eight-pound Kevlar vest, her uniform shirt atop the vest, and her flannel winter field jacket over that. She folded her field jacket and put it in the backpack.
At the shack, she took off her snowshoes and looked around. Leaf Ryan was nowhere in sight. She sat on a fallen tree for several minutes in silence, listening. Only sounds of the forest: birds, branches cracking under the weight of the moisture-laden snow, snow itself slipping and cascading down in clumps to land on the crusty top layer below like stones into hay. No human sounds: coughing, talking, or even shuffling. No one had followed her.
She put on her helmet, climbing harness, and tree spikes, and chose a large maple.
After shimmying thirty feet up, she mounted the first camouflaged camera. The sound of the DeWalt drill shattered the forest’s silence. She didn’t like using the loud drill, but she felt safe doing so this far from McCluskey’s plant.
When all four cameras were attached—pointing at the cabin and, more importantly to her, at the trail coming and going past it—she returned to the ground. She sat on the fallen tree again, drank more water, and ate a Clif Bar.
A coyote led Aleksei Vann to the US, and that was who she wanted to see on the video images. The owner of the shack, at least to her, was secondary. She doubted they would be one and the same. But she’d review the video for both the coyote and the drug dealer, who was important to Stone and Maine DEA. Quid pro quo among law enforcement occurred often, and it seemed appropriate here. Finished with her Clif Bar, she headed back to her truck.
Only when she climbed in behind the wheel and took her phone off vibrate did she realize she’d missed DHHS caseworker Susan Perry’s phone call.
5:55 p.m., Donetsk, Ukraine
Dariya Vann was at his tiny kitchen table. Both chairs across from him were empty now.
He wished there were dirty dishes in the sink. At least then he’d know Liliya ate something. But the sink was empty.
The apartment was silent. Liliya slept often now. He tried to be quiet and felt terrible when he woke her even to eat. It was odd how “fate stage-managed” everything. He’d read that phrase a long time ago, back when he’d been living in Boston reading American novels. Who had written the line? He couldn’t remember, but the phrase was fitting.
Fate had made Liliya a larger part of his life now than she’d been even when she was healthy. Even though her existence depended on him, he felt, after nineteen years of marriage, somehow alone. She was home, physically struggling through each day, and he was out of the house from dawn till dusk most days, trying to earn a meager living.
He took his laptop from his bag and opened it on the kitchen table to continue working on an article he began that morning, a piece for the Kyiv Post. Most of the afternoon had been spent on the streets, in retail outlets, and in bars interviewing residents about the economic impact “the war,” as he described it, was having on the region. He didn’t need to ask about the emotional impact it was having—he saw that each moment he spent at home.
Everything had changed in Donetsk, for the city and for him. Only two years ago, he was discussing national and international politics on a TV set with city and national leaders. Hadn’t been walking the streets, trying to get someone to talk to him. Back then, interviewees came to him, dressed professionally. But his TV career—for now—was over. One too many accusations directed at the prime minister, the producer had told him upon his firing. Translation: too many tough questions asking Donetsk city leaders and the prime minister about being in bed with Putin. It had probably taken a single phone call from the prime minister’s office, and five minutes later he was a freelancer.
Next to his laptop lay a thin reporter’s pad. He was flipping through the pages of the notebook, looking for a particular quote.
If it wasn’t for Liliya—poor Liliya—he might actually enjoy the new career. From a purely journalistic standpoint, after all, freelancing was more rewarding. He selected stories he wanted to pursue, asked questions he wanted answers to, the Prime Minister be damned.
He found the quote. It was hard to concentrate with the neighbor’s kids running in the apartment overhead. The light fixture rattled each time one of the children jumped. Worse were the fights he heard coming from the apartment next door. It seemed to happen every night, drunken shouts always followed by something sounding like porcelain shattering.
“Hi,” Liliya said, her voice a whisper.
He looked up, saw her pushing her walker toward the table, and leapt to help her. She waved him off, but she shuffled around the tiny apartment the way he’d seen the elderly do in nursing homes.
Dariya sat down again. “Did the children wake you? I’ll go up and tell them to be—”
“No. I couldn’t sleep.” She struggled to a chair across from him. “I think of him all the time.”
“Me too. Bohana says he’s going to school. Says his teachers are impressed.”
“It’s hard when you don’t speak English so well.”
“Yes. I know, firsthand.”
“I’m glad he’s with Bohana. She’s been so good to us over the years, sending us what she could, now and then, always writing.”
“Yes. She always wrote.”
“But you said it’s very hard to be there when you don’t speak English well,” she said. “That’s why you left.”
“It wasn’t the only reason,” he said.
“But now we’ve sent Aleksei there, alone, to face that same problem.”
“It wasn’t the only reason I left,” he repeated.
“Then why? One day you just decided to come home?”
“We’ve had this talk many times. I was homesick. I was young.”
“He’s only thirteen,” she said. Dark rings hung beneath her eyes. Even when she’d waited tables until clos
ing, she’d never looked this tired.
“How do you feel? How is your leg?”
“The leg will get stronger. It’s the pain in my stomach. The pain should be gone by now.”
He knew that was true. The doctor had said she’d feel better weeks ago. “I want you to go to a doctor somewhere else.”
She looked puzzled. “Where?”
“Switzerland.”
It made her laugh. “How could I do that?”
He stood, went to the sink, filled a water glass, and set it before her. He did not answer the question.
“I want Aleksei to have an opportunity,” she said. “The one you walked away from.”
“I didn’t just walk away,” he said. “Things weren’t always like this. Don’t forget that. This war has cost me my career, our home, your health.”
“And now our son.”
“We’ll be together again,” he said.
“When? I want him to stay in America, to go to school there.”
“There are other places.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Switzerland has opportunities,” he said.
She sipped her water. “And I want to feel better.” She spoke to the floor.
“You will.” He reached across the table, took her hand gently. “We’ll go to Switzerland, live in the Alps, like you’ve always talked about.”
She smiled. “You’re dreaming. We could never afford that.”
He smelled meat cooking somewhere in the tenement. “I saw a rat going through garbage behind the building,” he said. “These people live like animals. They just throw garbage out the windows.”
“I miss our home.”
“You’re my home,” he said. “Let me make you something to eat.”
“No. I’m tired. I’ll go lie down.”
He watched her cross the room with her walker and turn left into the tiny bedroom.
Feet pounded the ceiling above him again as he returned to his work. Specks of plaster floated down from the ceiling. The WiFi was spotty, but it connected, and he saw the new email and stopped typing. The message was from TEDO1.
Aleksei is doing well. Saw him today. Looks like you. Hope your wife is feeling better. You can cut your travel time in half if you fly the first leg. Buyer is paying for your ticket. What are your plans for going back? OS account is all set. Buyer knows 30 is a deal. It’s worth 150M.
Dariya knew the value of it. And he didn’t like discussions over email, not about the transaction. Skype or Google Hangouts were better.
Why only two lines about Aleksei? Everything else in the message was repetitive, even unnecessary, except the airline ticket and the offshore account information. That was finally done. But the accounts were supposed to be separate, with fifteen million going in each. The email referenced only one account. What was that about? He’d stopped trusting people long ago. One account and two sellers? He could do the math.
Dariya stood and crossed the kitchen, tossed another log into the woodstove. Late-afternoon sunlight streamed through the small window above the sink. He hated this rented apartment, but the Buk tore a hole the size of a garage door in the house they’d called home for ten years. That home and even that past life, thanks to the war and to his termination, were gone.
He thought of the fifteen million dollars. It wasn’t one hundred and fifty million, but it was more than enough. Fate stage-managed everything. It was Raymond Chandler who wrote that line. And Chandler was right: circumstances dictate everything in your life. Dariya knew his circumstances changed three months ago when their house shook and screams woke him.
And he knew they were about to change again.
12:30 p.m., Garrett Middle School
“I had meetings scheduled all day and had to find one I could cancel in order to squeeze you in,” Garrett Middle School Principal Peter Thomas, Ph.D., said Thursday after lunch.
He met Peyton and Susan Perry at the front door, and they followed him down the hallway.
“Just let me deliver these papers,” he said.
“Of course,” Susan said.
They waited in the hallway while he entered the guidance office.
“I think he’s trying to make sure we believe this year’s tax bill is worth it,” Peyton said.
“Everyone tries to seem busier than they are,” Susan said. “You know how that goes.” She was holding a bottle of VitaminWater.
Thomas reappeared, and they followed him.
“Sorry I couldn’t meet sooner,” he said over his shoulder. “I’m terribly busy. I’m sure you understand.”
“Of course,” Susan Perry said and glanced at Peyton.
Peyton let it go. The last work meeting she attended had taken place two weeks ago. Mike Hewitt had called all-hands-on-deck after an intelligence report stated more than two thousand Westerners were now part of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). A principal Western player was from Boston. The former Massachusetts resident’s picture was pinned to the sun visor in most Houlton Sector service vehicles.
Maybe she was being egocentric, but what the hell could be so pressing in the world of a middle school principal?
“The fight started in the locker room before gym class?” Susan Perry asked after they positioned themselves around a table in a conference room near the principal’s office.
Thomas turned from Peyton to Susan and nodded. He had blond hair cut short, and Peyton had seen him coaching Little League games.
“Tell us about that,” Susan said.
“Does this matter require the Border Patrol?” Thomas asked. “I can see why you need to know about it. You’re his social worker. But I’m a little surprised that you brought Agent Cote.”
“I called Peyton,” Susan said. “She has a solid rapport with Aleksei Vann. I’d like her insights when we talk to him.”
“I don’t think that’s necessary. He punched a kid. I’ll handle this.” Thomas glanced at his framed doctorate, which hung on the wall to Peyton’s right.
Was he glancing at it for reassurance? Peyton looked at the pale, lithe first-year principal and thought he probably needed it.
“What do you have planned?” she asked.
“I’m going to teach Aleksei that this isn’t Russia. You don’t go around strong-arming people.”
“He isn’t Russian,” Peyton said.
“Yes, I know.”
“Do you?” Peyton asked.
Susan finished her VitaminWater and set the plastic bottle in a recycling container near Thomas’s desk. “What’s Aleksei’s side of the story?”
Thomas folded his arms across his chest. “I haven’t asked him yet.”
Peyton uncrossed her legs and leaned forward, forearms on her thighs. “You know there’s a bullying—”
Thomas’s head shook back and forth immediately, as if the word itself triggered his denial.
“—problem in this district.”
“That’s inaccurate.”
“The newspaper has published several articles about it.”
“The paper’s definition of bullying is fairly broad.”
“Who started the fight?” Susan interjected.
“I haven’t determined that yet.”
“Part of my role is to help Aleksei adapt to his new surroundings,” Susan said. “I’d like to get Aleksei’s side of the story.”
“Just don’t tell me how to run my school,” Thomas said.
“It’s not actually yours,” Peyton said, “and since she’s a taxpayer, she technically can tell you how to run this school.”
Thomas looked at Peyton. “And I can ask you to leave.”
“Yes, you can ask,” she said. “But I won’t.”
They waited in silence for several minutes before Aleksei Vann appeared.
There was no way he’d lost the fight. That was Peyton’s first thought when Aleksei entered the office.
He paused outside the door, looked through the glass, and, after checking to see who was there, tapped on the window. Thomas waved him in.
There was an empty seat between Peyton and Susan, and Aleksei hesitated.
“Have a seat, Aleksei,” Thomas said.
The thirteen-year-old did.
“Hi, Aleksei,” Susan said. “Remember me?”
He nodded.
Peyton loved Susan’s soothing voice; everything about the woman seemed to emanate calm. Hell, if she worked with Susan Perry, she wouldn’t need to go to the dojo in the evenings and hit people to release her tension. She’d just have lunch with Susan each day.
“And you remember Agent Cote?”
He nodded.
Thomas leaned forward. “We understand there was a problem in the locker room this morning.”
Aleksei shook his head. “.” He caught himself. “No problem,” he corrected.
Thomas leaned back in his seat and looked from one woman to the other. “See this?”
“See what?” Peyton asked.
“This attitude,” Thomas said.
“I see you getting frustrated,” Peyton said. “That’s all I see.”
Susan cleared her throat. “May we move on?”
Thomas sighed. “Scotty Champaign was in here an hour ago with a broken nose. He told me you hit him. I’m pretty sure he’s also got a concussion. That means he can’t play in the basketball game this weekend.”
Aleksei sat staring at the man. He was only thirteen, but Peyton could see it in the boy’s eyes: he wouldn’t break. He would outlast Peter Thomas, Ph.D.
Thomas saw it too. And he didn’t like it. “Tell me what happened,” Thomas said.
“He push me and tell me go back to Russia.”
“And what did you do?”
“I tell him”—he shook his head—“not from Russia.”
“Then you hit him.”
“No. I did not.”
