18. Nataliya
EIGHTEEN
“Let’s look on the bright side,” I said as Adrian finished filling Gabe and Zach in on what we’d found.
“What the fuck is the bright side?” Zach snapped at me. “The people we worked for sold us out.”
Hard to argue with that, I thought, but I tried to anyway. “We can bring Hayes down,” I said, and it barely registered that I’d used “we” instead of “you.” “We can burn everything he has to the ground—and oust those corrupted people in your government on top of it. We have their names; we have them agreeing to everything he asked of them.”
Zach’s hackles relaxed somewhat. “That’s…that’s true.”
But still, the three men were upset. When Gabe and Zach demanded to see the files for themselves, I pulled them up and moved out of the way. Seeing the evidence in black and white did very little to raise their moods.
“I know this is hard,” I said, using the same tone I used with Elias when he was in need of comfort.
Adrian glanced at me. “We aren’t naive, Nataliya,” he said sharply. “Anyone with power is susceptible to corruption. You don’t need to baby us.”
His words didn’t match the devastation on all of their faces. “I don’t think you’re being naive,” I said, though that was a little bit of a lie. “I just know what it feels like to be disappointed like this.” They were all looking at me now, and it gave me the courage to keep going, to dig for the words that might bring them a little bit of comfort.
“The Republic of Wathaan has a checkered history, as well you know. Corrupt politicians are a way of life. The last president before Elias and I fled was known for cutting the power in places where those who criticized him lived, and no one was brave enough to run against him in elections. He’s finally out of power now, but as far as I can tell, his replacement is no better.” I wanted to reach out to them, the way I would have to Elias, but I kept still, glad they were still listening. “Even with all of that, the people of Wathaan are strong,” I told them. “I’m proud of the people of my country, even if I can’t be proud of the ones who govern it.”
Maybe it came off a little preachy, but all three former SEALs sighed. “It’s not the same thing,” Zach insisted.
That’s bullshit. “Why?” I pressed, anger flaring in my gut. After living in the US for over a year, I had let go of a lot of the stereotypes that I’d heard about Americans growing up…but that didn’t mean some of them weren’t rooted in some kind of truth. “Because the RoW is lesser than your country?”
“I didn’t say that,” Zach said. “Don’t deliberately misinterpret me.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “I don’t think that I am,” I said. “Almost every country has dealt with corruption among people who are in positions of power. Your country’s history is riddled with it?—”
“Enough,” Adrian barked. There was this wall between me and the men now, invisible but impenetrable. I had been marked as “other,” and for the first time since leaving Elias in Alabama, I didn’t feel like a part of the team. “I get that you’re trying to give us some perspective, but you’re not helping. Just let us be upset, all right?”
It wasn’t “all right,” but what else could I do? “Okay,” I said. “I apologize for trying to help.”
“There’s nothing anyone could say to make us feel better right now,” Gabe said. “We need to be pissed off.”
I bit my tongue to keep from saying anything else. What would be the point? Instead, I went for the sliding glass door that led out to the minuscule balcony that came with the room. I thought, for a second, that Adrian might shriek at me for stepping outside, but he was too busy staring at my laptop like it had personally offended him.
It was cool outside, and I wrapped my arms around my body, trying to shake off the frigid air. I could call Elias back, even if it was a little early, but I didn’t want to throw him off too much today. The call earlier had shaken me up as it was, even if it was for good reason.
I glanced back over my shoulder and sighed, leaning against the balcony’s railing. Thirty minutes ago, I was in Adrian’s arms, wanting nothing more than to touch him, and now I was here, very much alone and nursing bruised feelings. What am I doing?
I kept asking myself that, but I was no closer to an answer. I had never wanted another person the way I wanted Adrian, but what could possibly come of it? I stared, unseeing, at the horizon and tried to imagine what life would be like once this was all over. Elias would need to stay in Birmingham for a few months to finish up his treatment, but if it worked? We could go anywhere. Do anything.
You could have a career with computers again, my mind whispered to me, but I shook that away. When we left the RoW, I gave up any such notion of working in my field. Survival was the most important thing. There was nothing wrong with being a waitress. It was tiring, but I’d enjoyed the work, enjoyed feeling like part of the community. That didn’t stop me from missing the work I used to do, though. But I could get real identification again, I argued with myself. I could be Nataliya Koza once more and actually put my skills to use.
It seemed like a pipe dream, but it was slowly taking root in my chest, the want for more from our lives. If I could get a job in tech, I could make serious money—enough to give Elias a good life, something stable and permanent, so he could make friends.
I couldn’t imagine how Adrian would fit into all of that. Or, rather, we didn’t fit in with his life. He was an FBI agent; this wouldn’t be the last mission he would go on. There would be more, and I didn’t like the kind of worry that would come with waiting for him to come home.
If he even wanted us to be waiting for him to begin with. It wasn’t like we’d talked about any kind of future between us; there was no guarantee that he wanted any more from me than what he’d already had. This isn’t the time to think about this, I told myself. When the mission was over?—
But wasn’t it over? We’d gotten the information we needed. Yes, we had to do something with it, but Hayes was done, one way or another.
I wanted to look back at the men again, but I didn’t. Seeing their stormy expressions wasn’t going to help. If anything, it would only make the churning in my stomach worse.
“Let’s eat, huh?” Nataliya jerked and turned around; apparently, she hadn’t heard me open the sliding glass door. “Come on,” I said. “We should eat and talk.”
She looked apprehensive but followed me back into the hotel room. Gabe and Zach had spread out the food they’d brought—more Chinese—and we sat around the small table together. Heating the food up in the microwave made everything mushy, but at the very least, it was warm. Nataliya picked at the beef and broccoli, doing what she could not to wince at the floppy vegetables, and if it weren’t for the weight sitting on my chest, I would find it unbearably cute.
“Hayes is an American citizen,” Gabe said as he shoveled fried rice into his mouth. “What he’s done equates to treason.”
I nodded. “I’ll call my director at the FBI and give him?—”
“Are you out of your mind?”
Gabe, Zach, and I all look at Nataliya, who was staring at us like we’d all grown a second head. “What?” I asked.
“You want to turn over all of the evidence to the FBI? After seeing how he’s blackmailing people in government positions?” she asked. “I may not know what all those titles mean, but I’m pretty sure it signals that they’re important. Important enough to get an investigation shut down before anything can come out that paints them in a bad light.”
I could feel my face pinching. “We have to go through the proper channels,” I said. “That’s how he ends up rotting in a prison cell.”
Nataliya shook her head. “You just saw how he’s been getting away with his crimes,” she said, and I tried not to flinch at the tone in her voice. It was like she was speaking to a bunch of toddlers. “So, he gets arrested by your government, and then what? His friends pull strings to get everything kept out of the press? He turns over evidence against other people, ‘cooperates’ with the authorities, and manages to avoid serving any time at all?”
A part of me understood what she was saying, but that was vastly overshadowed by outrage. “What do you suggest?” I spat.
“Burn it all down,” she said with a shrug, as if it were that easy. “Even if Hayes is arrested, there’s no guarantee he’ll actually face charges. But if we leak what we have to the public, then Hayes wouldn’t have time to hide anything or clean it up. He’d still get arrested, more than likely, and he’ll actually have to answer for his actions in court. So will the people he bought off or blackmailed.”
“You want to use the court of public opinion to blow it all up,” Gabe said.
“Social media has power. Let’s use it to our advantage.”
It was a solid plan, except we’d seen a document that had SEAL team locations in it. Some of those missions were still ongoing, and a lot of the troop locations for peacekeeping missions were still active. If we released the information, it would compromise hundreds of servicemen and leave them open for attack. I told her as much. “We can’t just drop a load of secret military intel onto social media,” I said. “We would be putting all of those peoples’ lives at risk.”
“Yeah, but they’ll find out that the info is out there at the same time as everyone else, so they’ll be able to put up additional defenses or just relocate,” Nataliya argued.
“They may not be able to move fast enough to avoid all the attacks,” Zach said.
“It’s a risk,” she conceded, “but aren’t SEAL teams trained to defend themselves?” She gestured at all of them. “You’ve proven that time and time again, haven’t you?”
“Being trained to face danger doesn’t mean they should have to just Rambo their way out of a life-or-death situation that we put them in,” Gabe argued. “Going on the offensive is much, much easier to plan and control. Being on the defensive means people could die. We could be the reason whole teams get torn apart.”
“But it would truly be over,” Nataliya said, almost pleading. “All the sell-outs would be exposed; Hayes would go to prison. It would be done.”
“And if people died?” I demanded. “You could live with that?”
Nataliya winced, deflating. “I don’t know,” she said softly.
I shook my head, blood boiling. “We’re not going to compromise anyone’s security,” I said, and the words were like nails in a coffin, final. “It’s not going to happen.”
“But—”
I was done listening to this. “No.”