Mother and daughter took a pause while Tanesa, a fine calming influence on Emma, sat on the couch near her. The look on Emma’s face was about as ugly as it could get for a pretty young woman who, consensus held, bore a striking resemblance to her mother. They both had shiny black hair, smooth skin, cheekbones a Russian supermodel might envy, and, in Emma’s case, coltish legs that were on nearly full display under the kerchief passing for a skirt.
“Your mom has a really important job,” Tanesa said to Emma. “You’re not even supposed to know that, but you do.”
“She couldn’t exactly hide it from me after last year.”
More resentment over more secrecy, even when it wasn’t secret anymore.
But Emma did think the world of Tanesa, so whenever she spoke up in Lana’s defense, Lana felt grateful.
Tanesa was three years older than Emma and had been the girl’s nanny; odd as that might sound, it made sense in the way that life often mangled the logic of chronological age. Tanesa still watched over Emma, for which Lana paid a handsome wage, but in truth they had become close friends, much to Emma’s benefit. The strikingly attractive young African American woman had also recruited Emma into the Capitol Baptist Church Choir, an award-winning ensemble. Emma’s first solo was set for tomorrow night in Bach’s St Matthew’s Passion.
“Please don’t do that, Tanesa,” Emma said.
“Do what?”
“Sound so reasonable: ‘Your mom has a really important job.’”
Emma wasn’t being tart. Sadly, she was serious. As if to underscore this, she added, “This is emotional truth for me.”
Another notable influence in Emma’s life of late: her therapist. After enduring a harrowing abduction during last year’s cyberattack, and the second-by-second threat of nuclear annihilation, Emma had suffered nightmares and anxiety. Those were classic PTSD symptoms, so Lana had gotten her daughter professional help.
And it had eased Emma’s condition considerably, as well as provided her with a newly charged arsenal of emotionally laden language for skewering her mother. Which had proved painful only to the extent that Emma used her psychobabble accurately.
No denying her daughter’s deadeye now. Lana was flinching internally over the truth of much of what Emma had said, but not over what she now added:
“It can’t be as bad as last year, Mom, and anything short of that is a shitty excuse.”
“Emma!” Tanesa, a devout Christian, had no tolerance for profanity, and — miracle of miracles! — had managed to clean up Emma’s potty mouth, for the most part.
“Look, I’m sorry,” Emma instantly allowed, “but I’m so sick of ‘dear heart’ and ‘sweetheart’ when I want to see my mother in the front row looking up at me in the National Cathedral!” Suddenly, she burst into tears, sobbing, “I don’t have a dad. I’ve only got you.”
Lana choked up and rushed to her side, holding Emma as tightly as she had in many months, feeling her daughter shake with disappointment. Yet Lana also knew that she desperately needed to get back on her computer as soon as possible. Torn, once more, by her deeply conflicting obligations.
“Mom,” she said softly. “I’ve been tracking him down.”
“Who?”
“My father.”
Lana stepped back and looked closely at Emma. You mean that good-for-nothing deadbeat who walked out on me — us — when you were two years old?
That, of course, was what Lana wanted more than anything to say. Instead, she choked it all down before speaking: “That won’t be easy. I don’t know where he is.”
“I do, Mom. It’s not that far away.”
Oh, great.
Emma peered right into her mother’s eyes as she continued: “I found him through the Bureau of Prisons.”
“What?” Prison? Even for ne’er-do-well Donald, that was shocking.
“They caught him sailing four thousand pounds of marijuana up from Colombia on his sailboat. That’s two tons of pot, Mom.”
“Please don’t sound so impressed. When was this?”
“A few years ago. He’s in the jail in Cumberland. It’s a medium-security place. It’s not like he’s dangerous or anything.”
Oh, yes he is. But she couldn’t expect her daughter to grasp that truth so soon after locating him. Suddenly, a hacked and hijacked nuclear-armed submarine full of dead sailors, and the murders of a genius and his wife in Cambridge — and an admiral’s gambling addiction — all seemed far away. But Lana knew none of it would remain removed for long. And as a respite from a national security crisis, Donald Fedder’s imprisonment on federal drug charges left a great deal to be desired.
“Have you contacted him?” she asked.
Emma nodded. “He’s actually pretty handsome, Mom.”
“He’s an asshole,” Lana said, regretting her outburst even before she received Tanesa’s censorious gaze. “And looks aren’t everything.”
Which is exactly why you went to bed with Donald so quickly, right?
Lana groaned out loud at the memory. Now Emma took her mother in her arms and said, “It’ll be okay, Mom. He’s got a furlough for good behavior. He’s a model prisoner. As long as you agree, they’ll let him come to the concert tomorrow night in one of those ankle bracelets…”
Oh, my God.
“So… maybe it’s for the best that you’re not coming.”
No, it’s definitely not for the best.
Minutes later, in between checking grim status reports about the Delphin, Lana confirmed every detail of her Google-loving girl’s words. And it was all spelled out in the form that Emma had forwarded to her from the Bureau of Prisons, ready for her signature: “Request granted by daughter’s mother and legal guardian.”
Lana signed it electronically, groaning again when she sent it on.
What choice did she have? She was in a corner. If she denied Emma’s request — when she couldn’t make it to the concert herself — she would appear an emotional scrooge. But what made it worse, was after attending the concert, “Doper Don,” as Lana had already dubbed him, would be permitted fifteen minutes of supervised time to visit with his “long-lost” daughter.
She was never lost. He was.
Never had her profession cost her so much personally. She could see no good coming out of this, particularly after Emma had changed her life in such positive ways since meeting Tanesa.
After reviewing another status update, Lana received a call from Deputy Director Holmes.
“It’s very strange,” he said, eschewing all small talk, “because the hackers, whoever they are, wherever they are, aren’t making any demands.”
“Nothing?”
“Not a thing,” Holmes said. “They just keep showing the bodies of those sailors.”
“Are they surfacing to do that?”
Holmes shook his head, saying that the sub had probably deployed a radio buoy. The electronic device had small antennas that protruded just above the water line and were all but invisible on the vast reaches of ocean.
“Is there anyone alive?” Lana asked.
“Admiral Deming is certain there are. You couldn’t operate a sub without some crew, but we haven’t seen them yet. The video feed is still horrible to watch but you should study it, see if anything jumps out at you. Wait, get on it right now.”
“Sure.” She worked her keyboard. “Why?”
“There’s someone in a protective suit and breathing mask in front of the camera.”
Lana’s screen came alive with the eerie appearance of the man, who punched numbers into a box and began to speak.