As he began to lead her away, Ada's friend called after. “Don't you two do anything I wouldn't do, now. You're not as young as you used to be!”
Max pushed into the grain of the crowd, dragging Ada into the open stage auditorium. Cutting past the lingering staff, Max led his wife towards the side door. From there, he knew they could get out quickly.
“Max! Where are you going? Do you know they're about to start the banquet?”
He pushed on.
“Stop it, damn you!” she yelled, finally pulling free. “I am not going another step until you tell me what this is about.”
Max stopped and appraised her, suddenly unsure of what to do. It was the first time he could remember her using such language in front of him. But then, this was turning into a night of firsts all around. He had time only to think they had led such a quiet life. In spite of his traveling, they had dined, and danced, and been to the market near their little house every week for almost forty years. He had bought her shoes and scarves on Saturdays. He had the sinking feeling that was all about to end, now. When his friend had asked for the favor, Max had not believed anyone would really come looking.
“They know about Dominik, Ada.”
“What?”
“I don't know how, but they know. They found out about him and they followed us here, where no one can protect us. We have to get out.”
“How?”
“I met someone we will have to trust.” Then, he added, “And you'll have to trust me.”
She resisted for one moment more, and then she gave herself to the run. They entered the maintenance hall at a gallop. Pipes lay exposed in the walls, huge electrical boxes lining the concrete. A man in gray worker's fatigues looked bewildered as they passed, yelling at them in Swedish. Seconds later, they reached the loading bay door and plunged outside into the cold.
“Max!” Ada cried. “Max, you're hurting me!”
As he looked down, he realized his knuckles were white, the thin sausages of her fingers squished between them. He let go and looked up, and that's when he saw them: three men in suits by the parking area. Their leader was a fat, bald man with a cruel face, his hair receding along the sides of his ears.
Max turned the corner, galloping into the market square with Ada in tow. Not a single other soul lay in sight. When Max pushed aside the wooden signs barring the entrance to the underground tram, no one stopped him.
His wife stumbled, and he had to catch her. “Take off your shoes. God, why didn't you do that before?” He hated the sound of his own voice, but it had to be said. They had to keep running, and fast. When he looked at her again, barefoot and terrified, he was alarmed to see tears in her eyes. He wiped one away and kissed her cheek. “Now is not the time, love.”
Sixty-eight years.
Sixty-eight years of clean living jeopardized for a single decision. Staring into the darkness, holding Ada, he didn't even know if it had been the right one any more.
The room before them was dark, illuminated only by ring lights around the distant train tunnels. The station had only been closed for a few days, but looking through the cold and the darkness, it might have been sealed for centuries. A set of iron fencing had been left open for the construction crews, and Max pulled Ada through, approaching the ledge of the first platform. Tools lay scattered about the edge, and as he helped her down to the tracks, she fell into his arms with a cry.
Behind them, he saw flashlights. Voices spoke hurriedly to each other in German. They had not been seen yet, but they had been heard. Ada had been heard.
Then, Max saw what he was looking for, a service tunnel door with a pale bulb overhead. The door had been left unlocked and cracked. Geysers of relief began to wash over him in great, white waves. No matter what manner of man this Matthew was, he was not a liar. He hoisted his wife through the door and shut it behind them. They were facing a staircase of sorts, this one leading up at a steep, narrow angle. Beyond the shadows at the top, he could see the gray promise of sky.
My name is Isaac, he thought. The man at the top will be Abraham, and I will answer, 'My name is Isaac.'
“What?” Ada asked.
Max realized he had been mumbling. “Nothing! Hurry, love!”
As soon as he turned his head, he heard a wet, clunking sound.
Clunk, clunk, clunk.
Something rolled down the steps and hit his foot. He jumped, his heart hammering. The thing beneath him was a man, or more properly, had been a man. Through the peels of hair, Max could see a piece of skull missing from the back of its head. If he had looked down a moment sooner, before the body rolled, he would have seen the corresponding entrance wound in the man's left eye, but mercifully, he did not.
His feet felt rooted to the spot. His lips could not move to shout. Beside him, Ada froze, her mouth hanging open as if she were an image in a photograph.
The spell did not break when the door opened behind them. It did not even break when the bald, shadowed figure at the top of the stairs began descending towards them.
All at once, Max heard himself speak. “My name is Isaac.”
The figure smashed him on the head with the butt of a light stick, and he toppled downwards, rolling past the Germans and coming to rest directly next to the body at the foot of the stairs.
“That was eins,” the figure said, pointing to the corpse, “and this is zwei,” he said, pointing to Ada. “Are we clear?”
Max nodded, his vision blurring.
“And now you will tell me everything there is to know about Dominik Kaminski and where he is headed.”
“Yes,” the old man said. “I will.”
The answers came tumbling and hurtling from his mouth like vomit. They were the last words he would utter upon this earth.
Chapter 1: Inheritance
1
The old man was finally gone.
Kate looked down at her father's headstone, and all she could think about was how disappointed he would have been to know it had cost the state thirteen thousand dollars. It brought a smile to her lips, bitter but welcome. “Never waste a dime on anything that doesn't come back to you, pumpkin,” he had told her on more than one occasion. “Don't end up like your mother, all goosy with the credit cards.” And he had smiled and patted her head, even when she grew up and gained an inch on him, even when her mother was long gone. That was her dad, full of an endearing sort of rage when he thought he knew best. Maybe all dads were like that.
Remembering that was funny now, in a way. But it was better than remembering what he looked like in the last twelve hours, stuck in a hospital bed with tubes running in and out of his body, two dozen idiots crowded around trying to get a word in edgewise.
The press had been kind in the wake of his passing, however, and that was unexpected. The Times was calling him “The Most Powerful Vice President since Dick Cheney,” whatever that meant, but the tone was complimentary. All of his greatest accomplishments had been described in Sunday's edition, complete with dates and photos. Of course, she and her brother were missing from that list. She guessed that when you clawed your way to the top of the political food chain, your family became the equivalent of set dressing: necessary for esthetic appeal, but hardly worth talking about in matters of business.
“You never would have told us that, even if you knew it was true. Right, Dad?”
She blushed when she realized she had spoken aloud. And maybe that wasn't fair. He had always made time for her and Bobby, even after the last election. She supposed some girls would have been thrilled to be a part of it, just to see inside the most famous political building in the world, but Kate had always taken it in stride. It was her brother who had jumped into the life, moving from one high-profile job to the next, ending up as one of the top security analysts in D.C.