“Alexei, don’t yell,” I tell him. “Just listen. You have to listen to me. Please. You have to go back to Moscow.”
“No!” It hurts for him to shout, I can tell, but he does it anyway. And when he stands, he’s a little unsteady, but that doesn’t stop him. “No. I will not run. I will do the honorable thing for my country and for yours. I must do this!” Then something seems to dawn on Alexei. “What time is it?” he asks.
Noah gives a somber nod. “It’s time.”
Alexei mumbles something in Russian then starts through the lawn, around the corner of the embassy and toward the street. I’m no longer worried that someone might see us at the top of the hill. I’m too afraid of what lies at the bottom.
“Alexei, don’t do this,” I plead.
“I must do this,” he says.
“No, you don’t have to. Okay. So you don’t want to go back to Moscow. Fine. Then stay here. Lay low until we can figure out who really killed Spence. Just —”
We’re on the street when Alexei turns. “It is a matter of honor, Grace.”
“Honor is overrated.”
“I will cooperate with their investigation, and the truth will come out.”
“No!” I grab his arm and stop him, lunge forward and block his way. “It won’t if they don’t want the truth to come out.”
“Who are ‘they,’ Gracie? Tell me.” Alexei’s voice is soft, worried. But not about the situation. About me. He thinks the world is too big and vast, too full of checks and balances for the truth to stay hidden forever. He still thinks the good guys always win.
“I … I don’t know. But don’t go, Alexei. I don’t know why, but I know it is a huge mistake. Please, don’t go.”
Reporters are in position, overlooking the mob and the Russian embassy. The press conference must have sent the cable news networks into a feeding frenzy. I can almost hear the talking heads now, speculating on exactly when the Russian ambassador’s son will appear and make the trip to police headquarters, when the next chapter of the story will begin. They keep their cameras trained on Russia’s gates.
“I’m late.” Alexei glances down the street as a long black car with Russian flags flying near the headlights pulls through the crowd and into the Russian courtyard. “I should be on my way to the police station by now.”
He looks at Megan and Noah.
“It’ll be okay,” Noah says. When he glances at me, I know he’s not talking about the police. “We’ll take care of her.”
“Yeah.” Megan stands on her tiptoes and kisses Alexei on the cheek.
Then he turns to me. I’m sure that I’m not crying. There has to be some other excuse for the way my eyes go blurry and my throat begins to burn. And yet when Alexei’s fingers come to my cheeks, I notice that they smooth away moisture, but that can’t be right. I’m supposed to be all out of tears.
“I am okay, Gracie,” he tells me, my face still cradled in between his hands. “Do you hear me? I’m okay. I’m going to be okay. No one is trying to hurt me.”
I want to believe him. I swear, I really do. It’s not like I enjoy this terror that consumes me, this never-ending pulse of fear that pounds in my veins and echoes in my mind so hard that even when I cover my ears I hear it.
I don’t want to be right.
But I’m too terrified of what might happen if Alexei is wrong.
Down below, the car sits idling in the Russian courtyard, and the crowd waits with bated breath. They are watching the front doors of the embassy, not the far end of the street. They haven’t seen us. Yet.
Alexei looks toward them, certain of where he must go and what he must do.
“We’re going to figure out who did it,” I tell him. “We’re going to find Spence’s killer. Before it’s too late.”
“What do you think’s going to happen to me, Gracie?” Alexei says it with a grin. It’s almost like a dare.
But that must be too much irony for the universe to handle, because, just then, the big black car explodes, fire and black smoke filling the sky.
The room was probably beautiful once. But now when I pull off the white sheets that cover the furniture, a cloud of dust billows up. Moldy drapes cover the windows, but Megan pulls them aside just a crack and peers out onto Embassy Row. From the second story of Iran we can see the street. The chaos. That’s why we aren’t in the basement. No, we’re here, watching the black smoke rise into the sky, listening to the constant chorus of sirens, shrill and piercing, playing like an old-fashioned phonograph turning in another room.
The protestors have been replaced by spectators who push against barricades. Police cars and fire engines and every news crew in Adria fill the streets. The story has changed, and for a moment, the crowd waits, reverent and still.
But soon … soon they’re going to start looking for Alexei.
The world is right outside that dirty window, but we stay in this dusty, decaying shell of an embassy, none of us certain what comes next.
“We can’t stay here.” Noah can’t stop pacing. He’s right, of course, but I don’t say so. We know the Scarred Man used to meet the prime minister here — maybe other people come here, too. It’s a risk that we can’t take, and Noah knows it.
“Do you think we’d be better off out there?” Megan points to the street.