But it’s the folders that have my interest. I slip my thumbnail against their edges, seeing a memory of the tabs stamped with a big red SEKRET. Natalya shoves documents into them at her office. Her thoughts are wound too tight; her mental clock is running fast. She has to buy her way out.
But I don’t see anything more about the American team.
I knock the folder off the table, making it look like an accident, but I press deeper into the memories as I put it back. My heart leaps into my throat. What I see is not the documents she smuggled out of the laboratory. Instead there are dossiers. Black-and-white photographs, paper-clipped to typewritten fact sheets. The first photograph, I don’t recognize. But the next one—
Our guards are coming. Hurry, Valentin says.
The next one is of me. It was taken on the street, when I was still free. I look two steps away from the grave, bozhe moi.
I close the folder but slip my finger inside.
Natalya Gruzova sets the documents beside her on the park bench, and a man settles down beside her. Not the man in the fedora—this man has no face, no thoughts but a frenzied swarm of noise. The scrubber. He yanks her documents out of the folder and shoves them into his attaché while Natalya stares dead ahead.
“These are a good start,” the man says. His voice scrapes like metal on metal.
Natalya’s lips twitch. “I will bring you more. It takes time to get the necessary accesses—”
“Yes, I know. But I have an additional task for you.”
“Your boss didn’t mention anything else.” She laces her hands together, over and over. This conversation must have taken place before the one I saw in the lobby, when she confronted the fedora-ed man—this “boss”—about these extra demands.
He laughs, cruel and empty, then slips the dossiers into the folder. “When you bring me the next batch at Red Square, some of these people will be looking for you. Memorize their faces. Watch for them. Let me know when you see them.” He laughs again. “Let them fear us.”
I stumble out of the memory, vomit burning at the back of my throat. He wants us terrified.
The front door crashes open, and Lev and Pavel, our guards, spill into the parlor. “What’s taking so long?” Lev asks.
“Nothing.” Valentin shuffles backward. “We haven’t found much yet—”
“You’ve had plenty of time. Let’s go. Before that idiot doorman comes to his senses.”
They herd us toward the front door. I catch the wink of brass on the entry table where we left it, and my ration rat instincts kick in—my hand darts out, back into my pocket, too fast for even Sergei to see what I’ve grabbed. So I hope.
I admire Valentin for trying to escape, once. He must have craved it—the razor wire slicing through his hands, his beautiful, pianist hands, cannot lie. I know he thinks it’s safer on this side of the wall, and he may well be right.
But I can’t leave well enough alone. I have to approach the Americans—I have to at least try. Surely they would make a deal with me. Whatever this man’s reasons for wanting us scared, he has to be interested in what I can offer them. Like the games at the market—my information on the KGB’s psychic training program must be worth more than whatever else they have in mind.
It might even be worth helping me rescue Mama and Zhenya.
I reach back into my pocket for my gloves as we head outside, and permit myself a tiny smile as my fingers close around Natalya Gruzova’s spare key.
CHAPTER 17
THERE’S A TREMOR DEEP within me all through our debriefing the next morning. It started in my shoulders and hands, but I had to bury it when I heard how my teacup rattled against its saucer. Masha glanced at me once, sharp—like she could hear my fear. Like the plan rattling around inside me had set me shaking.
But as she gives her report on their remote viewing, there’s no knowing glance or hint of deception. If she saw what I did, she’s hiding it well. Much better than I’ve seen her hide anything thus far—her pride isn’t fond of gathering dust. The safe bet is that I’m safe. It’ll have to be enough. The answers I need can’t wait.
After lunch, Sergei tugs on one of my braids as I’m about to head upstairs. “Hey. Yul.” He’s wearing his dazzling grin and leaning back against the doorway, hands tucked behind him. “Look what I found.”
He holds up a record sleeve featuring a brooding, flinty-eyed Russian man with a woman hovering behind him, eyes heavily mascaraed. The Promise, reads the loopy lettering across the top. Then, in smaller letters: The promise is only the beginning …
“It’s the very start of the series,” he says. “When they’re talking about their lives back in Yekaterinburg—this is it.”
I grin in spite of myself. “Larissa told me the first few episodes are the best.”
Sergei tweaks my braid again. “And tomorrow night, you shall find out.”
“What about tonight?”