Heike and Romee shared a look.
“Yeah, that will be fine,” Heike said.
“For three, yes?” the woman asked.
“Yes. Our friend is waiting in the station with our bags. She’s probably scared to death.”
“Your friend?” the woman said.
“Yes.”
The translator looked at Alex. “What about you?”
“I still have time to catch my train.”
The woman translated everything to the colonel, who took a moment to yell at the two cops again. Alex was pretty sure she knew what the problem was this time. The cops hadn’t even thought to see if there was anyone else traveling with the girls. The lack of luggage should have been a glaring clue. The colonel was not happy.
They found Anika with their bags right where they had left her. The relief on her face was immense. As she hugged her two friends, Alex strapped on her backpack.
“Hopefully the rest of your trip isn’t quite as adventurous,” Alex said.
Heike pulled away from her friends and eyed Alex gratefully. “We didn’t thank you for chasing that boy.”
“Almost wish I hadn’t,” Alex said, smiling. “You guys take care.”
After hugs and goodbyes, Alex navigated through the station and out the door to her platform. The train to Simferopol was already in the station, waiting.
As she neared her car, a voice said, “Next time you get arrested, make sure it’s when you’re supposed to.”
Cooper was standing on the other side of a large baggage trolley piled high with suitcases.
Alex stopped. “Technically, I wasn’t under arrest.”
“Technically,” he said, smirking, “it isn’t easy to find a police colonel I can bribe on such short notice. You should consider yourself lucky.”
“Thank you.”
“Try not to let it happen again, huh?” He smiled.
“I’ll do my best.”
He touched his forehead as if tipping a hat. “Safe journey.” With that, he headed down the platform toward the station.
“Here’s hoping,” Alex said to herself, then climbed aboard the train.
Chapter Twelve
She arrived in Simferopol without further incident, a few minutes before noon the next day.
The plan was for her to be arrested at 3:30 p.m. outside the domestic terminal at the city’s airport. Having a little time to kill, she grabbed some food. Since it was likely the last good meal she’d have for a while, she left nothing on her plate.
After paying her bill, she found a cab outside and climbed in.
“Airport,” she told the driver.
He looked at her for a second in the mirror before his eyes widened. “Aeroport.”
“Yes, aeroport,” she said, nodding.
She leaned against the seat, and stared out the window as the city passed by, but her mind was elsewhere. This was her last chance to walk away, to say forget it. All she had to do was tell the cabbie to stop and let her out. But she didn’t move. Couldn’t move.
She had no choice.
While Alex was devastated by her mother’s death, her father had reacted with the same stoic fortitude he always displayed. Alex had begun to wonder if he was secretly glad her mother was gone. Then one night, when she couldn’t sleep, she went out to the kitchen to get some water. The light was on in the den, so she assumed her father was up. He often worked late, after all. She didn’t want to talk to him, but there was no way to get to the kitchen without passing the office’s door.
Steeling herself, she continued down the hall, hoping he wouldn’t notice her. As she glanced inside the den, however, she saw he wasn’t there, and his desk, which was usually clean and tidy, was now covered with squares of paper.
No, not paper, she realized, as her curiosity propelled her into the room.
Photographs.
She couldn’t help but pick one up. A snapshot of her mother, cradling a very young Danny.
Alex touched the image, her mother’s hair dark and thick, her creamy brown skin so perfect.
God, she was beautiful.
While Alex had inherited the hair, she had always wished she’d gotten her mother’s darker skin, too. And even half her beauty.
She set the picture down and scanned the others. They were all of her mother.
One by one, she looked at each, the tears growing in her eyes with every memory.
She wasn’t sure how long her father had been standing behind her, but at some point she heard him take in a breath.
She turned with a start. “I’m…I’m sorry,” she said.
Without saying a word, her father put his arms around her and pulled her to him. She cried for what seemed like days. She thought maybe he’d cried, too. And as her tears petered out, so did her strength, and she fell asleep standing there, leaning against him.
When she woke the next morning, it had almost felt like a dream. But she knew from that moment forward that her father was grieving also, and that made getting through each day easier. Her relief, however, lasted only until the morning he left the house and never returned.
There had been no goodbyes, no “I have to go away for a while.”
He was simply there one day and not the next.
The army had said he’d gone AWOL, that he had sold secrets to some foreign organization. Her father? A traitor? Not a chance. He was a good soldier, a great one. Next to his own family, serving his country was the most important thing to him. He was no more a traitor than the commander of the joint chiefs himself.
As the years went by, she held on to that thought even as her anger at him began to blossom.
So many questions only he could answer.
And now, here she was, riding in the back of a cab in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, one step closer to getting those answers.
When the cab reached the airport and pulled to the curb, Alex didn’t enter either of the terminals. Instead she made her way over to the small plaza between the buildings.
It was 3:30 p.m. Her instructions were to find a red-roofed building, something that wasn’t hard to do. It came into view, just beyond the plaza’s diamond-shaped flower beds, the moment she turned the corner. Words in large Cyrillic type were displayed on white beams across the apex of the roof — an advertisement or perhaps an identifier of what was inside. The door to the building was to the right of center, flanked by a pair of windows.
Alex walked casually toward the door. Twenty feet before she reached it, a voice yelled out.
Though she didn’t understand the words, she recognized it as the very same thing the cop at the Odessa train station had shouted at her.
She stopped and looked around, expecting to see the officer who had been bribed to take her into custody, but instead of one cop, there were five. All had pistols pointed in her direction.
She immediately raised her hands in the air. “No need for that. I’m unarmed.”
“Down on ground,” the one on the far left shouted.
She dropped to the ground, her pack heavy on her back.
“Arms, legs out!”
She assumed a spread-eagle position. Apparently her contact had decided to make her capture seem more realistic than planned, and had involved some of his friends. As long as she got where she needed to go, that’s all that really mattered.
One of the men — she couldn’t see which — approached her, and used a knife to cut the straps to her backpack so he could pull it off.
“Hey! That wasn’t necessary,” she said. She didn’t really care about the bag, but a knife that close to her skin was not something she was fond of.
The man dropped the backpack beside her, knelt down, cuffed her wrists behind her, and began a body search. As his hand slipped over her hip and between her legs, she squeezed her thighs together. “What do you think you’re doing?”