“He needs a doctor,” I say.
“Looks like it,” he says. “We’ll get him patched up, don’t you worry.” He motions to the van, and a man and woman climb out. They’re dressed in jeans and leather jackets and carry a large canvas pack marked with a red cross. They open the passenger door and begin examining my dad. While the woman presses a stethoscope to his heart, the man probes around the wound with fingers in rubber gloves.
“Let’s get him into the van,” the woman says.
I start to say something in protest, but the driver places a comforting hand on my shoulder. “They’re professionals, and your father’s going to be fine,” he says. “What’s your name, by the way?”
“Sofia—sorry, Gwendolyn.”
“Call me Sam,” he says. “So, did your father explain what this is?”
“No.”
“It’s an exfiltration—a big word that means we’re getting you and your dad the hell out of here.”
“I can’t. Not now,” I say. “There’s something I have to do. It’s important. There are—look, people’s lives depend on this.”
“We leave now or we don’t leave at all, you understand? Now turn off the engine.” There’s no smile on his face anymore. I do as he says and put the keys into his outstretched hand.
He steps back as I open the door and climb down from the Land Cruiser.
“Eight hours,” I say.
“What’s that?”
“Eight hours,” I repeat. “I’ll meet you here, at this spot, in exactly eight hours.”
Sam shakes his head. “We won’t be here, Gwendolyn.”
“Find a way,” I say.
*
Roman has been home to change into evening clothes and has already left again by the time I return to the apartment. Thus, my ablutions—the ritual cleansing of the body from the dirt of the tasks behind me and for the tasks ahead—can be conducted in private. I wash away the day’s mud and gunpowder with Roman’s lavender-scented soap, shave my legs with Roman’s razor, and slick my hair to the side with Roman’s pomade.
I unwrap the emerald sequined gown from Pa?í?ská Street. My God, is it stunning. I slide into it, somehow manage the zipper in the back, and allow myself to look in the mirror. In the reflection, I don’t see my appearance but myself, my self. A woman dressed for battle in emerald mail. A dragon whose scaled skin catches the light and becomes shadow along the contours of my body as the dragon turns and primps and likes what it sees.
Next come the accessories I’ll need for this evening at the fancy-dress ball. Dove-gray satin elbow-length gloves made in Paris. Black beaded clutch made in Milan. Brown-yellow capsules of rat poison made in North Korea.
I don’t think I’m going to make it to my maybe-on-probably-off appointment with Sam. After careful consideration of all the risks, it’s doubtful I’ll live that long. But I have sins to make up for. What I delivered those girls into is bad enough, but what happens to them after tonight is even worse. Their fate is my responsibility now—the cost of the sin I committed. If I succeed and free them, then I will deserve to be among the living. If I fail or am captured in my attempt, then I don’t deserve to breathe. In that case, I will pop one of the capsules in my mouth and bite down hard. It’ll hurt, the next part, but it’ll be quick. Faster and less painful than what Bohdan Kladivo would do to me.
There is one final order of business before I leave for the evening. I settle into the couch in Roman’s living room and cross my ankles just so. I can see my reflection in the window, an elegant, featureless silhouette. It takes me a moment to work up the courage, but before I can second-guess my decision, I’m pressing the numbers on my phone and the connection goes through and the other end is ringing.
Two rings. Three. Four. Terrance’s voice mail.
I pause stupidly after the tone, unprepared for the possibility that he simply wouldn’t pick up. I hear my breath catch in my throat, and now it’ll be the first thing he hears, scratchy, panicky unease. “Hey,” I say finally. My tone is flat, like a confession. “It’s me. I’m—going out. I don’t know when I’ll be back. Maybe this is the last time I can talk, so—look, I want to thank you for everything.” I pause, embarrassed for some reason by what I’m about to say. Once more I hear the static of distance, of satellites and solar flares and the vast, uncrossable space between him and me. I push the embarrassment aside and continue anyway. “I want to say that—I want to tell you that—you know, I’ve never been in love. Not really. Well, I thought I was once, but—I know this sounds stupid, but…”
But then the phone gives three dead-hearted chirps. Call dropped, says the screen. When? I wonder. At what point did it drop? What will be the last of my words he hears?
I toss the phone onto the couch beside me. It’s probably for the best. Even if he never hears it, at least I said it, or part of it anyway. As to what words would have come out of my mouth next, I don’t know. To say I loved him wouldn’t have been precisely honest. What I love is the world in which two people are allowed to fall a little in love while sitting on a park bench, afraid only of the dangers presented by sleeping drunks and rain clouds, talking about plans for future lives that now, at least for one of us, will never come true.
Outside on the street below, I hear the high-low siren of an ambulance calling out mournfully that an emergency is at hand. I check the time as I slip my phone into my clutch. Goodness, is it that late already?
*
I take a cab to the casino, closed for the night to the usual millionaire riffraff. Tonight is all about the billionaires, the ones who sign the paychecks of millionaires and who, for their amusement, have collections of Fabergé eggs and Greek statues and Moldovan teenage girls. The cab eases past the rows of parked limousines to the entryway, where a doorman in a grand cape and hat holds the door for me and greets me by the name of Miss Sofia.
A guard with a handheld magnetometer signals me to raise my hands, then passes the device over my body as another guard inspects my clutch. But of course he finds only my phone and a small bottle labeled ibuprofen, which he does not open.
“You are expected, Miss Sofia?” says a man in a tuxedo with a steely permanent smile.
“I’m invited as a guest of Pan Kladivo,” I say.
But he holds up a hand in front of me just as I’m about to start up the grand staircase. “Are you certain it’s tonight? Events such as this one are customarily for men only.”
I drill my eyes into his. “Then call Pan Kladivo down and ask him,” I say. “I’m sure he’d appreciate being pulled away from his clients to repeat what I just told you.”
The hand disappears, and my heels click on the marble staircase as I rush to the second floor.