"Natalie called Dan from the road, told him that I was coming in with you two, that I'd need a car."
"The car that Illya acquired, yes. Which is probably when he informed his masters that you would be coming to the safe house. Masters who, in all likelihood, are responsible for Illya's disappearance. The team that ambushed you could have been an element of the larger team that assaulted the house; they could have been split off when it became apparent they needed a new contingency to deal with you, when they realized they needed to stage an ambush."
The tea bag in my cup was floating on the surface, on its side. I poked it back down with a finger.
"That's something that's been bothering me," I said. "Why didn't they just hit all of us at the house? Why did they think it was necessary to hit me separately?"
"They identified you as the greatest threat."
"Greater than you? I find that hard to believe."
"They knew I was wounded. They wanted to isolate you. That's why they forced you into an ambush, away from the safe house."
"Stupid on their part."
"Perhaps. They were having to adapt very quickly, remember. And their assessment of you was correct; you broke their ambush, and you killed all three of them without dying yourself. There are not many who could have survived that."
"If they'd kept the whole team together, hit us as soon as we'd arrived at the safe house-"
Alena moved her left hand, a slight gesture, side to side, impatiently. "Don't make assumptions, Atticus. We do not know if they were in position when we arrived. It is just as likely that they had to call for more men to set the ambush as it is that the three who attacked you were part of the larger unit."
I snagged on the word "unit." "You think they were military?"
"Not active duty, no."
"Civilian contractors."
"That would be my suspicion, yes. And we both know who civilian contractors contract with, Atticus." She ran a hand through her hair. "As I said, we both know who 'they' are."
I put my tea down, on the shelf, beside my glasses. I was tired and I was sore, and I hurt in body and heart. I let my head fall back against the cushion behind me, closed my eyes.
Natalie Trent was still resting on her bed of leaves.
"I love my country," I said softly. "But I fear my government."
Beside me, Alena said, "With good reason."
Then she reached across the aisle, and took hold of my hand, and held it until the government I feared was far, far behind us.
PART
CHAPTER
It took three years, two months, and twelve days for us to find where Illya Tyagachev was hiding.
Within three weeks of arriving in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, I was out of the woods and beginning to heal, and to heal fast. Maybe it was because I'd been in the best shape of my life when I'd been shot, better even than when I'd been twenty and full of juice and pounding the ground in the Army; maybe it was simply my bullheaded resolve that, between Alena and myself, at least one of us needed to be able to rely on their legs to do what they were told.
Whatever the reason, I bounced back quickly, and was able to move around, unassisted and with only minor discomfort, before the end of November. I wasn't doing handstands during yoga, and the ballet training was off the table, but if I had to, I could serve in a pinch. Vadim was still traveling with us, and he helped pick up my slack, further acting as our legman, gopher, and extra gun.
We spent New Year's Day that year at the Sonnenhof Clinic in Saanen-Gstaad, looking out at the snow-covered mountains of the Bernese Oberland. Alena had undergone her first surgery only two days prior, a combination exploration and cleanup where a team of orthopedic surgeons had gone into her leg to visualize the damage Oxford had done there. They'd removed the remaining bone debris and the last of the shot that had been missed by the first doctor who'd worked on her, back in Kingstown, St. Vincent.
The operation took just under three hours, and the doctor leading Alena's care, Frau Doktor Marika Akrman, told us afterwards that it had been "very productive."
"But there is, I am afraid, not so good news, as well," she said. Her English was precise, the accent very German. "What we feared due to the delay in your treatment has come to happen, and the anterior cruciate ligament will have to be replaced. In addition, the tendons that were severed have retracted. If you had come to us sooner, we might have been able to reextend and reattach them. Unfortunately, that is no longer possible."
Frau Doktor Akrman was in her fifties, with a girlish face and blond-white hair. When she frowned or smiled it made her look a lot younger. She was frowning when she added, "I am sorry to tell you that I do not think you will ever be able to dance as you once did."
Alena and I took the news stoically. That had been our story, that Alena had been teaching ballet in Moscow, a bystander making her way down the street caught in a cross fire between two rival gang factions. It wasn't the most creative lie, but it worked, because it wasn't much of a lie at all. I'd found the report of the actual gunfight through a Google search, and it was easy enough to put Alena on the scene as a woman named Sinovia Gariblinski, an innocent victim who had recently wed an American software designer more than willing to pay for his new bride's expensive surgeries.
In fact, the money behind the surgeries-the money behind everything we did, how we traveled, how we lived, all of it-was Alena's and Alena's alone. Her "blood money," she called it, the wages she had been paid for the nine men and two women she had murdered as one of The Ten. There was a lot of it, hidden in trusts and accounts and investments around the globe, carefully folded into the safety of private banks. One of the first things Alena had done when we'd reached Eastern Europe was reach out for her attorney, arranging a meeting between him and the two of us in Warsaw. She'd liquidated some funds and redistributed others to new hiding places. After all, I'd been able to leverage Oxford through his money; she didn't want the same thing happening to us.
"How much more of this will she have to go through?" I asked Dr. Akrman.
The Frau Doktor inclined her head, accepting my concern for my spouse. "Another two procedures, I think. We will have to reattach the bones in the tibia and fibula, as discussed, and bolt them back into place. Then a final operation, to replace the anterior cruciate. Of course, you will need to look into appropriate physical therapy once you get her back home."
"How long until I regain the use of the leg?" Alena asked.
"If you dedicate yourself to the physical therapy, not long." Frau Doktor Akrman smiled a practiced smile, attempting to remove the sting from what she had to say next. "But without the tendons, the strength in your left leg will be severely diminished. Running and jumping will be difficult, and I would strongly advise against even attempting to try."
Alena smiled, too, saying she understood, and Frau Doktor Akrman left, and as soon as she was out of the room and the door was closed, Alena pulled the pillow from behind her head and threw it across the room. The pillow hit the television in its open cabinet on the opposite wall, then fell to the floor. Alena cursed in Russian.
"Don't swear," I told her. "You can't breathe properly if you swear."
She turned the cursing at me, glaring, and I gave her a big grin in return. She tried to keep glaring at me for another second or two, but my grin won, and finally she had to look away, out the windows and at the glorious winter view, to keep her bad mood intact.