“We used to talk about this when we were drinking in the gray district,” he says softly, in Russian.
“We talked about what we’d change, not this,” I say.
“If we allied with the populists, this could be over in a week,” Niko says.
“They killed my father in the street like a dog,” I say. “We should crush them. Annihilate them. Wipe them from the face of the earth.”
“That’s what he would have done,” Niko says.
He doesn’t have to say and that’s why he’s dead for me to understand it.
“Do you know what they want?” I ask.
“They want a Parliament, mostly,” he says, and we look at each other. Then I look back at the Black Sea.
We’ve always talked about this. It’s the twenty-first century, and as small as Sveloria is, a hereditary monarchy as the sole form of government seems quaint at best and dangerous at worst. I could never breathe a word of it to my iron-fisted father, but it’s been in the back of my mind for a long, long time.
“I’m willing to talk,” I say.
“They want Hazel,” he says.
“That’s out of the question,” I say.
The bedroom door opens.
“Get me a meeting with Captain Ovechkin,” I say quietly, still speaking Russian. “Keep it quiet. Bring Dmitri and Sergei.”
Niko nods, and Hazel walks toward us, looking professional in black pants and a button-down shirt.
“Let’s go at least hear what they’ve got to say,” she says. She sounds less angry, but there’s steel in her voice. “I’m willing to go if it means an end to this.”
I just nod, and we leave Hazel’s room.
The day feels endless. Hazel, Niko, and I are in a windowless meeting room for hours with old men who advised my father and various people from the State Department on the screen in front of us.
We argue. We hash out plan after plan, then go back to arguing. We imagine every possible scenario, change a detail, and argue about it all over again.
Intelligence comes in: the group who has Yelena now isn’t the group who kidnapped her. That was the volki, the wolves, the same people who murdered my father.
“Not even the populists support the volki,” Minister Arkady points out. “No one does. They’re fighting an extremist, losing battle.”
The USF is fracturing fast, but there’s a delicate balance: if we do the right thing, we repair the country and make it strong. The wrong thing, and we rend it in two.
The half of the room that wants to send Hazel out — the half that includes Hazel — slowly wins. They’re convinced that it’s the safest for everyone, the best way to open negotiations.
Across the table, I catch Niko’s eye. I can tell we’re thinking the exact same thing: we spent years in the mountains fighting people like the volki. They’re fanatics who won’t give up, American military or no American military.
Everyone else in this room is lulling themselves into a false sense of security, telling themselves over and over again that this is safe, this is fine, this is an acceptable risk to take. These are men who fought with my father twenty years ago, but since then they’ve sat in comfortable chairs, getting fat on caviar and vodka.
I nod along with what they say, acting agreeable. Let them think their arguments are swaying me.
At four in the afternoon, after more than six hours, I stand.
“We’ll take a break,” I say, and look around at the blinking faces. “Come back here in two hours and we’ll work on the details.”
I leave the room first. Someone calls after me, but I ignore them, quickly going around a corner and down a staircase, taking the stairs two at a time, until I’m nearly in the basement, where I stop.
No one is following me. Good.
I walk into another hall. I turn a corner, and then the wooden doors of the chapel are in front of me and I swing them open.
Three men are standing inside, bathed in the light of the stained glass. They turn toward me as I enter.
“Captain Ovechkin, thank you for coming on such short notice,” I say, and shake his hand.
“Of course, Your Majesty,” he says.
“Sergei, Dmitri,” I say.
The door opens again. Niko walks in, and Sergei crosses his arms in front of his chest, a pleased look in his eyes.
“All right, your highness,” he says. “What shit are you getting us into now?”
“It’s top secret and probably dangerous,” I say.
Sergei and Dmitri both grin. Captain Ovechkin looks like he doesn’t mind.
“We’ll do it,” says Dmitri.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Hazel
When we reconvene at six, Kostya and Niko aren’t there. The generals, the Americans on the teleconference, and I all look around at each other.
I wonder where the hell they are. They’re both normally punctual to a fault, the first to get annoyed if someone else is three minutes late.
After five minutes of silence, Chief Minister Arkady clears his throat.
“We’ll just begin,” he says, and begins laying out his thoughts on the plan for tomorrow.
It’s another ten minutes before Kostya and Niko come in together and silently take their seats. They don’t offer an explanation, and no one’s going to demand one of them, so we just carry on as though nothing strange just happened.
Slowly, we hammer out the plan. I’ll be driven to the meeting place, an empty lot in the gray district, in a squadron of bulletproof cars, escorted by members of the Royal Guard. There will be snipers on the surrounding rooftops, the whole nine yards.
The leader of the USF Populists, Pavel Vasilovich, will meet me there. We get Yelena first, and once she’s safe, Pavel and I talk. I’ve got a list of what Kostya’s willing to do and a matching list of demands, and it’s safe to assume that Pavel has the same.
We exchange our lists. We shake hands. We both leave, and I come back here, safe and sound.
Sitting in this meeting room in the middle of a fortified castle, it all sounds so reasonable. Just another political discussion, nothing to get worried about. We meet, we exchange, we leave.
I know better. Right now, someone is going through the armory, looking for a kevlar vest that will fit me, but my real protection is believing that the other side isn’t dumb enough to shoot an American.
That’s what we’re banking on. Everyone seems convinced, but even though I try to act like I’m not bothered, I’m nervous.
It doesn’t help that Kostya’s said about two words since he got back, almost like he’s not paying attention. He just nods and agrees to everything everyone says, a total one-eighty from this morning.
Around nine, he excuses himself again, along with Niko, while I run through my script for the thousandth time. I’ll leave at eight in the morning. Arrive eight-thirty. Perimeter cleared, snipers in place, everything checked and double checked.
I’ll get out, talk to Pavel. Niceties, then real discussion, and I’ll be out of there by nine-thirty. By ten in the morning, I’ll be taking a bubble bath back in the palace.
I don’t get out of the meeting until late that night, and Kostya and Niko are still God knows where. Something is going on with the two of them. I don’t know what it is, but it’s making me uneasy, especially right now.