Chapter 35
Chapter Thirty-Five
Callie wasn’t certain she’d heard him right. But of course she had. He hadn’t whispered. He said the name with an American accent, but it wasn’t garbled or incoherent.
He’d said Mikhail.
She looked at the screen again. At the chubby man with glasses and a receding hairline. He had a friendly smile. “I don’t know that person. Are you sure you have the right Mikhail? There could be more than one.”
“This Mikhail was born in the US to immigrant parents. He worked for the Dashevsky Group. Had a home base in Washington. His body was found over a week ago, right after you said he came to see you.”
“But that isn’t the Mikhail I know. Knew .”
None of this made sense. Her mind raced over every conversation and interaction with Mikhail. Every nuance, everything he’d said about where he came from and what he’d done.
“Can you describe him?” Alex/Ghost asked.
“He was tall, fit. Not like all of you, but lean. I saw him run at the base in Poland. He asked if I wanted to join him for his morning runs. I said no.” She shook her head in disbelief. “That’s not the same man, even if he lost weight and wore a hairpiece. You’ve got it wrong somehow.”
What was happening to her life? How had everything gotten so unbelievably out of control? It was like something out of an over-the-top spy movie. Would James Bond walk into the room, sipping a martini and informing them he’d taken care of the problem so they could rest easy now? Spectre was defeated for another day, cheerio and all that?
God, she almost wished he would just so this nightmare would be over. She was still tired from lack of sleep last night, though this morning’s nap had helped, and she was heartsore.
“Do you have any pictures of him?”
It was Seth, and he was being gentle. She appreciated that. She didn’t want to, because she needed to keep her heart hardened against him, but she did.
“No.”
“Any selfies where he might be in the background?”
“I’m not a big selfie taker, so no, none. Most of what I took would have been to send home to my parents and Nikki so they’d see what a fabulous time I was having in Europe. Or when I visited my aunt and cousins in Gdansk. Mikhail never went along.”
“Well, shit,” Alex/Ghost said, leaning back in his chair. “So we’ve got a mystery man who was impersonating the real Volkov. So which one is it they fished out of the Potomac?”
Callie blinked. “They couldn’t tell?”
“He was in the water. It does things to the body.”
Seth appreciated that Ghost didn’t tell her half the man’s head was blown away.
“Then wouldn’t forensics know? DNA? Dental records?”
“I imagine they’re working on it. Nothing goes as quickly as it happens on television, though.” He raked a hand through his hair the way Seth did when he was thinking or irritated. “Guess I’d better make some calls. Fuck, I hate talking to bureaucrats.”
“If that’s the real Mikhail, how could the one I knew get away with impersonating him? I met him in Poland over a year ago. You’d think anyone who knew the real Mikhail would recognize a fake, wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t people at the Dashevsky Group who’d worked with him know the difference?”
“If somebody went to the trouble to impersonate him, take over his life, they altered the record,” Seth said. “It’s the kind of thing spies do. They can make fake identities, and do, but sometimes it’s more effective to take over someone else’s life. Sometimes they kill the person they impersonate. Sometimes they leave them alive, especially if there’s no chance their paths will cross. I think the real Volkov was probably disposed of early on. Which means the body is either the Mikhail you knew, or they’ve tried to make it look that way.”
She could only gape at him. “I don’t think I want to have anything more to do with spies or codes or any of it. I just want to take Nikki and go someplace we can start over and be left alone.”
She wasn’t certain, but it looked as if sorrow clouded his gaze for the barest of moments. But sorrow for what? Her? Not likely.
“I understand, Callie. But we have to deal with the situation you’re in. I think you also need to consider that you’re in a position to do something for your country by sticking with this project and making sure it’s done right. We’re talking about the lives and futures of millions of people. You, me, everyone in this room. Your sister. All of us. We can’t let Athena fall into the wrong hands. We can’t let them win. You hold the key to finishing the command and control system so it can go online and protect us all.”
Callie swallowed. Damn him. She closed her eyes, saw her mother on the day she’d taken the oath of citizenship. She’d been so proud. Happy. Giddy even.
She’d loved her mother country—father country if one was translating literally from the Polish—and she was proud to be Polish. Proud of her heritage.
Ah, but America , she would say. In America, you can be anything you want to be. Anyone can succeed. Anyone can be a movie star or a pilot or a business owner. The sky is not the limit. The stars are. The infinite universe. You must dream big, my little Callie. Be anything you want.
Callie’s throat was tight. She shook her head, fighting memories of a woman she didn’t understand as well as she would have liked but would miss forever.
Mama would want her to do this. To stay and be a part of Athena, to make her country safe by doing her job and making sure the code was free of ghosts, back doors, and other malicious sequences meant to do harm. Mama would be proud to know her daughter was doing such important work for the safety of their nation.
“I said I wanted to leave. Not that I will,” she told him. She dropped her gaze to the computer screen in front of her. “Since you were able to isolate the inputs based on logins, can you isolate who did this one?”
“Not if it was done earlier than our hack. But I can check.”
“Thank you. Guess I’d better get back to work then. See if there’s anything in here I missed.”
The screen blurred a little and she angrily pushed her glasses up and rubbed her eyes.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine. My eyes are tired.”
“Take a break then. Nobody expects you to find problems that were likely months in the making inside of a few hours.”
“No, but I want to.”
“Callie, I?—”
“Go away, Seth. Leave me alone. I don’t want to chitchat with you. You don’t like it anyway so stop trying to pretend like you’ve got something to say.”
He shoved his chair back and stood. She didn’t turn around as the door opened. As he walked away.
“What?” she practically snarled to the men in the room who’d grown unnaturally silent.
Chance held up both hands. “Nothing. It’s fine. Carry on.”
“Fuck my life,” Alex/Ghost sighed. “I should have made sure you were all neutered before you stepped foot in this state.”