I’m standing at the top of the stairs an hour later when I see Rosie down below, her blond head moving back and forth, scanning the room. She walks with hurried, frantic steps. Pacing. Searching.
Panicking.
I hear the band stop. My grandfather walks onto the stage, his white hair shining in the spotlight.
“Well, hello, out there!” he says with a chuckle as he brings a hand up to shield his face against the glare. “And welcome. Welcome to the US embassy. And welcome to Adria, my home for the last forty-five years. I may still have Tennessee in my voice, but Adria is in my heart.”
The crowd gives a collective awww. My grandfather, make no mistake about it, is a charmer. But I can’t take my eyes off of Rosie.
My grandfather keeps talking, but I don’t hear a single word. Soon the string quartet begins to play again. Not the boring music they’ve been playing all night. This is a song I know. A song that makes everyone in the room stand a little straighter. And, in unison, we all turn toward the door as “Hail to the Chief” fills the room.
The spotlights shift and soon the president enters, smiling and waving through their glare. He shakes hands and pats backs as he makes his way toward the stage.
“Rosie, what happened?” I say when I see her climbing the stairs toward me.
“I don’t know,” she says. “I lost him. I was following him and then he was just … gone.”
The quartet is still playing. The president is still walking — waving through the parting crowd. And, suddenly, I feel like a fool.
What if Megan was right? What if he wasn’t meeting someone from the US embassy when I followed him? What if he was meeting someone in the US embassy? What if — instead of smuggling in a weapon tonight — he brought one in days ago?
It’s hot in the ballroom, with the lights and the crowd of bodies, and yet I feel my blood turn cold.
“It’s tonight,” I say, not caring whether or not anyone can hear me. “It’s right now!”
Down below, I see the president walking up the steps to the stage.
And then I hear Rosie gasp. “Grace, I found him.”
“Where?” I practically shout.
“Down there,” Rosie says.
He’s so close to the balcony that I actually have to lean against the rail to see him. He is almost beneath me, but I realize he is actually moving away from the president.
I see Alexei’s father waiting in the wings, and when he spots me, a disappointed look crosses his face. But I don’t have time to worry about him and why he hates me, about all the ways I’m not good enough to be friends with the boy next door.
The US president is on the stage. I hear his voice echoing in the ballroom. “It is so good to be here tonight, with our friends and our neighbors.” He raises a glass in the direction of the Russian president, who nods solemnly in agreement.
The tension between the two men is palpable. I can almost feel the tightrope that our two nations have to walk in this moment. And I think of the look on the Russian ambassador’s face as I stood in his office, a teenage girl apologizing for accidentally hitting him in a garden.
What kind of chaos would rain down if something worse were to happen — if something worse were to happen to the president of Russia? If that something were to happen here? Now?
It would mean bloodshed.
It might mean war.
I think about my first day here, about the sight of the embassies all standing in a row like dominoes, and I know that something — or someone — is getting ready to knock them down.
The Russian president is standing with Alexei’s father, and the Scarred Man is approaching them quickly. As he walks, I notice something in his hand. Something black and shiny and …
He’s almost there.
It’s almost too late.
“No!” someone yells, and it takes me a moment to realize that it’s me.
I don’t take the time to think about anything else. Not the number of people in the room or the height of the balcony. I’m not thinking about my pretty party dress or the look on my grandfather’s face as the whole room seems to freeze.
The president is shaking my grandfather’s hand. But everyone turns at the sound of my voice. Everyone is watching as I hurl myself over the railing. Even the US Secret Service can do nothing but watch as I fly through the air and crash onto the Scarred Man’s back.