29. Alice
Alice
After a bone-shaking, terrifying eternity, the van’s careening and weaving settled into a regular, sedate pace and the driver’s hunched posture relaxed. “We’re good, no one following us,” he called back to the man holding Alice, in an accent that could be Canadian.
Her captor relented his grip. “I apologize, Alisa,” he said as she scooted out of his reach. “We had to work quickly.”
Wait, she’d heard that voice before. She planted her back against the cold metal side of the van and stared across at him. Dark hair, tall, skinny… It was the guy who visited Nika at the hospital.
“We have lost them now,” he said, as if that was supposed to reassure her. “Never go into a situation without plan to get out, is that right?”
“Who are you?”
“You don’t remember me? We have met. At hospital. I visited your house.”
“Yes, I remember that. But who are you, really?”
“I am Yuri, like I said when we met.”
“Yuri? You’re Yuri?”
“Did you knock your head? Who else would I be?”
“I don’t remember you telling me your name, just that you were Nika’s ex. You’re Yuri?”
“Yes, Yuri! This is what I told you, but we did not actually break up so … ex? I don’t know.”
“You’re supposed to be dead.” The van took a corner, and Alice skidded into a toolbox. Yuri shot out a hand to steady her. “I think when you let your girlfriend believe you’re dead, you’re effectively breaking up with her.”
“You make good point. My death in Russia, it was staged. Like Nika, I was resettled here in exchange for providing information to America, after I was betrayed in Russia.”
“But there was a body in a casket. A funeral.”
“Casket, yes. Funeral, yes. Body, no. It was very top secret.”
“You had Nika fooled. It broke her heart.”
“And mine. I felt very bad. I ask them to let me bring her to America but they say no. Our relationship, it was secret, so they say, ‘She is safe.’ I left for her safety too. I could never risk contacting her again in Moscow in case it led Kremlin to her. If I knew the American would recruit her too—I read this in your book and I’m like ‘Whoa, what?’”
“Carter? Did he know your death was staged?”
“Carter? Yes, this is his name. I see it in newspaper today. He went by different name then. And no, I don’t think he knew.
When I find out Nika is in America, and dying…
After all that time, in America, same as me.
Not even very far from where I live. We dreamed of coming here together.
For so long I try to forget her. But if you know Nika, you know that’s impossible. And here she was, dying in America.”
“How did you track her down to the hospital?”
He glanced at the driver. “We were contacted. I know someone discreet who works at Russian Embassy—that is all I can say to you. I got there straightaway, but it was too late.” He waved a hand.
“But you know this. I held her hand. Her skin was so thin, like piece of paper with veins. But she recognized me. I don’t know if that was good thing.
She clutch my hand. She tell me ‘Drop dead,’ over and over.
Her last words. ‘Drop dead. Drop dead.’”
“Her mind was wandering all over the place by then, so she wouldn’t have meant it. I’m surprised she had the strength to talk at all.”
“It was more whisper. But very clear what she said.”
“And that was you, at my school, in the Daisy Sparkles van?”
“We came to warn you that you are in danger, to offer to help. The FBI was watching you, so we had to be invisible. Not safe to call on phone. I read your book—good book, by the way, very exciting. Many people are talking about it. Many people want to know what more Nika knew. What more you know. Many people don’t want more information getting out. ”
“‘We?’ Who’s ‘we’? What side are you even on?”
“We?” He indicated the driver. “A small group of patriots.”
“Patriotic to which country—Russia or the U.S.?”
“Ha. Both, in a way. Is complicated. We want proper democracy in Russia, like many Americans do. We want people who need to be brought to justice to be brought to justice. We want people who need to be protected to be protected.”
“You work with the CIA?”
“Oh my God, no. Too many spies for Russia in CIA. You cannot trust anyone. We have spies, they have spies, we have spies among their spies, they have spies among our spies. Is confusing. Better to work from darkness. We run sign-making business. Legit. You need a sign, you let me know. Maybe for your school?”
“Hence the ‘Daisy Sparkles.’”
“Yes, on their website, it says school is client, so we made copy of logo on magnet and stuck it to van. Easy peasy. Couple of minutes. Security guard at school is like, ‘Yeah, whatever, go on in.’”
“Do you know what’s happened to Carter?”
“He was taken by FBI. Does he have the list—Nika’s list? Does he have her kompromat?”
“Uh.”
“We must know how much danger he is in. And how much you are in.”
“You just said no one can be trusted.”
“Except me, obviously. If he is carrying the only copy of these materials, it could be the last anyone sees of them. And him.”
“What makes you think they even exist? Or that Nika had them?”
“Rumors. But good rumors. I am hoping. Many people are hoping. Oh, and remind me to give your laptop back. We borrowed it from your classroom. There is nothing of interest on it. Good lesson plans though. I would like to be teacher. Influencing young minds. So important. Is hard when my English is so crap.”
“That’s my work laptop. I’m guessing the FBI now has my personal one.”
“Is that where kompromat is—on your own computer? And the list?”
“What do you want with this list? Isn’t it better off destroyed?”
“Destroy the only known record—outside Kremlin—of the people who are undermining everything America has done to protect itself from Russia? And you ask if I am patriot?”
“The people who are undermining… But it’s a list of CIA personnel and agents. The people whose job it is to protect American interests—and half of the names aren’t even undercover. It might not be as valuable as you think it is—as anybody thinks it is.”
“So you have seen it?”
“Wait, you said it was the known record outside the Kremlin. Are you saying that the Kremlin already has it? Since when?”
“You really don’t know? This is not some list of any old CIA personnel.
This is list of traitors in the CIA, the American government.
Americans who are bribed, blackmailed to tell things to Russia.
It came out of the Kremlin. Far as we know, our friend there wrote it on piece of paper, and gave to Nika with kompromat, and then it all vanished before she handed it to CIA.
Our friend in Kremlin, sadly… He disappeared.
He was disappeared. Then she disappeared. We thought same thing happened to her.”
“But there are so many names on the list. The deputy director of the CIA is on that list. You’re saying they were all giving information to Russia? But Nika wrote…” Alice trailed off.
“Nika wrote what?”
“Oh shit. Nika wrote in the book about our heroine having a list of ‘CIA spies.’ ‘American assets.’ You’re saying she meant they were spies for Russia?”
“Yes, exactly. This is I guess why Nika had to leave Moscow so quickly. She saw list and went, ‘Whoa!’”
“Not because her name was on the list,” Alice said, the pieces slotting together in her brain, “but because she found out what the list really was. All those names—she must have realized how much danger she was in. With that level of infiltration, it had to be a matter of time before she was exposed.”
“Oh, they were already onto her. She was clever to get out when she did. But she was always clever. And this is also why we are in danger. Why Carter is in so much danger. Every person on list, every person who has been turned by the Russians, wants that list destroyed, and kompromat too. And would like us destroyed. Where is all this now?”
“Uh.”
“Listen, Alisa. I have lost friends to death or imprisonment because of people on this list. I had to leave behind the only woman I’ve ever loved because of people on this list. More people will die unless the people on this list are stopped. Please, Alisa.”
“Alisa. That’s what Nika sometimes called me.”
“It is also my sister’s name. The Russian name for ‘Alice.’ I have not seen her for such long time.”
“Does she think you’re dead too?”
“Everybody from my old life does. That is hardest thing. That is why I need things to change. I would like to see Alisa again—my Alisa. I used to do everything in hope to see Nika again too. Now I do it for others who cannot see people they love, cannot hug them. For others with courage to stand up for what is right. As Nika was dying there right in front of me, I held her little cold hand and vowed I would keep fighting. Ah, but those words she said to me at the end… A dagger, right here.” He jabbed the fingertips of both hands into the center of his chest. “In the shadows live regrets, Alisa.”
“She loved you. The passages in the book, when the heroine was mourning her fiancé—Nika cried as she wrote them. Sobbed. I thought she must be channeling something from her past. I didn’t realize…”
“Every day I dreamed of seeing her again. Some people believe in finding love twice, Alisa, but not me. For me, Nika was for life.” He sniffed, loudly. “I saw you kiss him, your CIA man, this Carter, when he dropped you off.”
“You were watching?”
“We had tip-off that FBI were expecting you there. I was going to warn him when they came but too late.”
“I spotted your driver in the hospital. I thought I was going crazy.”
“Easy to go crazy in this wilderness of mirrors. But yes, that was us. You are hard woman to find. And then you come and lean against our van! We can’t believe it.
For a minute we don’t know what to do. Please, Alisa, you don’t want to live with the regrets I do.
Help me to help you to help him. You don’t want to wonder forever if you could do things differently. ”
“Yuri—you and your friends would be able to translate Russian text into English, right?”
“Certainly, we can try. What does this mean? You have something? Please, you don’t want to be haunted. ‘Drop dead, drop dead, drop dead.’ Ugh. I’ve never told anyone about this before. It haunts me, every day.”
“Wait. She was just saying that, over and over?”
“It was like she didn’t have any other words left. She used her last strength to curse me.”
“So: ‘Drop dead, drop dead, drop dead.’”
“Dear God, don’t remind me.”
“Or could it have been: ‘Dead drop, dead drop, dead drop’?”
“What?”
“Yuri, she wasn’t telling you to drop dead. She was giving you a message. ‘Dead drop.’ It’s what they call a place where an informant will leave something—a message, some intel.”
“Oh my God, I did not think… Yes, I know this word. This ‘dead drop.’”
“Maybe someone left something for her that she was unable to collect after she left. Something vital to all of this. Do you still have contacts in Moscow you can trust?”
“Yes.”
“Could they check the locations of her last dead drops for us?”
“The ones in the book? They will already be picked over. People there know about the book too.”
“Not those dead drops. There was one more. One that she insisted we leave out—but now it’s starting to make sense. Where are we? I’ll tell your driver where to go.”