I almost say some platitude, like you’re also being helpful here or this is also important, but I keep my mouth shut instead. I’ve learned that’s not the sort of thing Svelorians appreciate.
“They liked you, you know,” Niko says, his eyes still on the screen. “After they met you at the bar.”
“They weren’t what I was expecting at all,” I admit. “You guys are fun.”
“There was beer,” Niko says. “And you could have knocked everyone over with a feather when he came in with you.”
“Me?”
He hits a button, and we switch from one camera to another. A clock in the corner is ticking down, my stomach twisting with every minute, and I try to ignore it.
“With a girl at all,” Niko says. He hits the button again, toggling through cameras. I think he’s getting antsy too. “Let alone one who actually makes him smile.”
Then he looks at me almost slyly.
“And who kicked her attacker in the balls twice.”
“I also clocked him in the face with a motorcycle helmet,” I say. Talking with Niko is finally starting to make me unwind. “He tell you that?”
“He bragged about that,” Niko says.
He toggles through the cameras again. It’s nearly six, and for a long moment, the two of us watch. I think Niko’s just as nervous about this as me, even though he’s been through this with Kostya more than once before.
Suddenly, on a camera, there’s movement where there was nothing before.
“Go back!” I say, but Niko’s already there, and we both sit forward in our chairs.
The camera is a hundred feet behind a small wooden table, off to one side. On the other side of the table, probably two hundred feet from the camera, there’s a small knot of people.
I hold my breath. One of them starts moving, hesitantly, with small steps. After a few more seconds I can see blond hair and a lithe frame.
“That’s Yelena,” I say, and Niko nods.
Together, we watch her approach the table, pass it, walk toward the camera and finally disappear. A few seconds later, a radio beeps in front of Niko, and he talks quietly in Russian for a few moments, then nods at me.
“She’s safe,” he says, and I swallow.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Kostya
Once Yelena passes the table, the knot in my stomach unwinds a little. I’m still strung like a piano wire, every nerve pinging, but at least it looks like Yelena’s going to be safe.
She’s twenty feet away, then ten, and then she’s between two of the Humvees and staring around, bewildered, before she looks at me.
“Kostya,” she says, like she’s confused.
I take her gently by the shoulders.
“Did they hurt you?” I ask.
She shakes her head.
“Are you sure?” I ask, looking into her bloodshot blue eyes.
“I’m okay,” she says.
Someone else comes, takes her hands, and pushes her into a vehicle.
There. I’ve done one thing right, at least.
I look back at the table, and realize that Pavel is already there, standing behind his wooden chair. The whole setup is strangely formal — a table and chairs on a concrete slab? — But I wonder if they just want this to look as legitimate as possible.
We checked the table for a bomb five times, maybe six, even though I wouldn’t tell anyone why. I’m not superstitious as a rule, but that dream was hard to shake.
Dmitri hands me a small, sealed bottle of vodka and a glass. I take a deep breath, my kevlar vest tight against my chest, and I walk to the table.
Pavel straightens as I get closer, then holds out his right hand. I place my bottle on the table then take his hand in mine.
“Pavel Vasilovich,” I greet him.
“Your Majesty, Konstantin Grigorovich,” he says, very formally.
I gesture at the vodka. We’ve both brought bottles and glasses. It’s customary.
“A drink?” I ask.
“Please, you first,” he says.
This is all politeness. No one’s poisoned anyone with vodka for a long time now, but allowing me to pour first is a show of trust on his part, that I haven’t poisoned my bottle.
I pour into our glasses.
“To the light on the mountains,” I say. It’s traditional. We drink.
Then, at last, we sit. He pours two more shots.
“To the fish in the sea,” he says, his voice quieter now. Everything before now has been for show, but now it’s just the two of us talking.
“You came instead of the American,” he says.
“It’s a pretty bad king that lets defenseless Americans do his dirty work for him,” I say.
He just nods. I wonder if that was a test.
“I apologize about the kidnapping,” he says. “It isn’t what I wanted.”
“It’s a brutish way to make a point,” I say.
He nods once.
“Yes,” Pavel says.
We sit there for a long time, or at least it feels long. Slowly, Pavel reveals more and more of what his faction wants, and at the same time he tells me about the politics of the USF, the in-fighting. Everyone at each other’s throats, and the volki happy to come in and tear everything apart.
Without exactly telling me, he’s saying that there doesn’t have to be violence. He’s saying that most people don’t want things to change too much.
Pavel lists reforms. I’ve already uncensored the press and lifted the ban on meeting places, and we volley back and forth over taxes, elections, representation. He seems surprised that I’m willing to consider those things at all, and I tell him I’m not my father.
He considers this, and in the distance, I hear a rattle.
There’s something familiar about it, something that alerts the fight-or-flight, instinctual part of my brain, and I look around.
Nothing. I try to ignore it.
Pavel moves on to export tariffs, but the sound is getting louder and I can’t ignore it. I watch the open space to my right, desperately searching. I know something is there. I know something is going to happen.
“Konstantin,” Pavel says, trying to get my attention, but then it comes into sight.
It’s an old Soviet truck, and it comes out from between two factories and the driver guns the engine at top speed. Everyone is shouting. There’s gun fire, and the truck rocks from side to side, its thick steel body denting with pockmarks.
The driver just ducks and keeps coming, and Pavel is staring, open-mouthed.
I don’t think. I don’t plan. I just grab him by the shirt, pull him around the table, and we both run.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Hazel
This is boring. Thank God, this is boring, and we’re just watching two men occasionally drink vodka and sit at a table. Every so often, Pavel will wave his hands around a little, but that’s about it.
Niko and I just watch. Every few minutes, we toggle through the cameras, but they all show the same thing: two men talking.
After about ten minutes, we hear an outer door slam open. Niko and I both jump, and then look at each other. I think he was hoping to have this finished with before anyone else found out what was going on, but he doesn’t exactly look surprised.