Anna’s stomach sank.
“It was nothing I did. Nothing they could find. This was just bad luck.”
“Can they trace you?”
“Yes, but I’m sending them on a wild goose chase. They will think that a CIA agent hacked into them. They will not track this back to you. Or your father. I promise you this.”
“Should I do anything?”
“No. Let me. You are safe. Everything will be fine.”
“What about the documents you discovered?”
“I downloaded them all.”
“I need them.”
Spaso hesitated. “What are you going to do with them?”
“I am a journalist. I am going to report this.”
“Anna, you do know the kind of danger you will be placing yourself in?”
“The danger is greater when you keep this secret. My knowing it—our knowing it — will not matter once everyone knows. Besides, the people out there, the Russian people, need to know what Nevsky is doing.”
The computer screen blanked and went back to the request for the passcode.
Spaso breathed out a sigh of relief. “There. I am finished.”
“And they did not trace you?”
“To Langley, Virginia, where the CIA have their offices, perhaps. But not to here. Not to you. We are safe. For now.”
“But there are a lot of people out there who are not.”
“Anna, please listen to me. If you try to tell the story here, you will be locked up as a traitor to the state. Worst-case scenario, someone will come for you, find you, take you out to the Volga, and tie weights to your hands and feet before dropping you in.”
Anna wanted to make a smart remark about his imagination, but she knew his assessment was not fantasy. That was very probably what would happen.
“Then I will not tell the story in Russia. I will tell it in Greece.”
“How will you get there?”
Anna thought furiously, then she remembered Professor Layla Teneen. “I will go to the Afghanistan Embassy. I may be able to get a ride out of the country as part of a diplomatic flight. Can you get me access to the documents you downloaded?”
“Of course. I will set up a website. When you need them, they will be there. You never have to take possession of them.”
“Thank you, Spaso.”
“Do not thank me, Anna. One way or the other, this secret that you stumbled across is going to change your life forever. Later, when you have time to see your regrets, you might not be so generous with your thank-yous.”
The front door of the house opened.
“I have to go. My mother is home, and I cannot allow her to find me in my father’s office.”
“Go then, and be safe.”
“You, too. Will this number still be good for a while?”
“Yes.”
“Goodbye.” Anna snatched the USB device from her father’s computer, powered it down, and headed for the door. Just as she was about to close it, she noticed the line of new books on her father’s bookshelves where he kept his newest acquisitions. Usually he stored them there until he could get to them, but these had bookmarks and Post-Its all through them.
She scanned the titles, surprised to find that all of them dealt with Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic civilization. She had never seen her father read anything on that subject before. Quickly, she surveyed other titles in the history section of her father’s library. Most of those had to do with military things and histories of Russia.
This was something new.
“Anna?” Her mother was calling from the front of the house. “If you are here, I could use some help with the groceries.”
Anna locked the door before pulling it closed then went to help her mother. “I am coming, Mother.” She just hoped that she could weather dinner with her mother without getting trapped in one lie or another. Her mother always caught her when she tried to lie.
44
Dinner with her mother reminded Anna of the meals they’d had in her years before going off to university. Her father had usually been home during those years, but sometimes he’d had to stay and work on projects that he couldn’t talk about.
This was like one of those nights. Anna helped her mother in the kitchen, made small talk, and dashed off to make telephone calls that she didn’t want her mother to hear.
The kitchen was smaller than Anna remembered. It seemed like everything had gotten smaller since the last time she had visited. Even her mother seemed smaller.
Katrina Cherkshan was only a couple inches above five feet and always looked tiny next to her husband. Anna’s family on her father’s side talked about Katrina and claimed that she had gypsy blood, like it was some kind of bad thing.
Her mother’s family were smaller and darker than the Cherkshan side, but they didn’t look like the Romani or act like them. They were just small and quiet, like her mother. If there was Romani blood there, it had been generations since the family had wandered and been virtually homeless. Anna’s grandparents on that side had lived in the small house that had been passed down from her great-grandmother.
“Why do you have to make so many phone calls?” Her mother didn’t complain, actually, but she noticed things with true passion.
“Because it’s my job.”
“This is for the newspaper?”
“This is for a story I’m working on.” Anna chopped iceberg lettuce and wished for the tenth time that she’d never agreed to dinner. She should have gone to her apartment. Better yet, she should have stayed at the newspaper office.
Then she wouldn’t have known about her father and the planned revolution in Greece.
“What story could be so important that you cannot simply fix a meal and eat it?” Her mother stood at the stove stirring lapsha, noodle soup with mushrooms.
The smell was delicious, and despite her confusion and terror, Anna’s stomach growled in anticipation. “The Ukraine was invaded, Mother. Perhaps you heard?”
Her mother shot her a hard glance. “Do not take a tone with me, little princess.” That had been her mother’s nickname for her as a child. Little princess. Because her father had treated her like one.
“I apologize. I am tired. It was a long trip.”
Her mother sighed. “No, it is I who must apologize. Make your phone calls. You have work to do. I know this.” She smiled. “I see you here, I just want my little girl back.”
Anna went to her mother and hugged her. “It is good to be home.”
Her mother held her tightly. “These times are troubled, Anna. Your father’s business worries me. I do not know how he is doing.”
“What do you mean?”
Her mother shrugged. “We talk sometimes. Not much. You know he cannot talk much when he is away from home. The military has too many secrets.”
Anna agreed.
“He would rather talk to me about his feelings and what he thinks when he is home. But I know he is troubled by everything that has happened in the Ukraine. The decisions he has made have not been easy for him.”
“But he made them.”
“No. Not the decision to see reunification for the Ukraine.”
Anna stopped herself short of challenging the term.
“That decision was made by President Nevsky. Your father only figured out the best ways to do this thing. Being your father has never been easy.”
In a little while, the soup was ready. Her mother heated up pirozhki, small buns stuffed with meat, rice, and onion, and boiled eggs with dill — which were Anna’s favorite — that she had made earlier in anticipation of the dinner. They sat and ate and pretended nothing was wrong in the world as they made small talk about the neighbors that Anna remembered.