They drove in silence for a long time. Maybe an hour. Nadia checked the tablet occasionally, to make sure they were still on course.
They never saw another human being, not even a light on the horizon. At one point they had to cross a major road — the local equivalent of a superhighway. Angel said it was clear in both directions, so Nadia eased the truck onto the road surface. “This is an important road. Over there,” she said, pointing through the passenger’s-side window. “About thirty kilometers, is Baikonur. The cosmodrome.”
“Where they launch the rockets,” Chapel said. “The — the Soyuz. Soyuzes. Whatever, the rockets that go to the International Space Station.”
“We won’t see a launch on this trip, I’m afraid,” she told him. Her smile was back, her enthusiasm.
“That’s too bad. I’d have liked to see something like that,” Chapel told her.
She laughed. “I’ll make a tourist of you yet. Maybe you’ll come to Siberia just for the sights.”
Within a few minutes they had left the road behind, so that Chapel couldn’t even see it in their mirrors.
“So far, sugar, your plan is working.”
Nadia was setting up the tent in the lee of a massive boulder. Bogdan had wandered off to urinate, so Chapel had figured it was an excellent time to check in. “Did the SNB find Mirza’s body?” he asked.
“They did,” Angel told him. “And they went nuts over it. They figured out very quickly that the other dead people were all Russians, but they seem to have assumed they were gangsters, not Russian agents. There’s a manhunt going on right now in Uzbekistan, every cop in the country looking for you and Nadia. They’re assuming you’ve already gotten away, but they aren’t taking chances.”
“Did you spread those false sightings I asked for?” he said.
Angel laughed. “We got lucky and I didn’t have to. Somebody blew through a border crossing into Tajikistan, just six hours after Mirza stopped reporting in. Most likely it was just smugglers, but they assumed it had to be Nadia at the wheel. They’ve got an all-points-bulletin out for you in Tajikistan, but they aren’t very hopeful. Apparently there’s no love lost between the two countries, and they don’t expect much cooperation.”
“That’s good news. What about the Russians? Have you heard any chatter from them, about Nadia?”
“Those communications are a lot better guarded than the internal stuff in Uzbekistan, I’m afraid. I’m not having a lot of luck intercepting their reports. But I do know they sent a new group of agents to Uzbekistan yesterday. They aren’t just going to give up — they’ll follow her wherever she tries to run.”
Chapel sighed. “I figured as much. Hopefully we can keep one step ahead of them until this is done. It won’t be long now — tomorrow, in fact.”
“I’ll run as much interference for you as I can,” Angel promised.
“You’re the best, Angel.”
“Darn right. Chapel — listen. I just want to go on the record here and say I don’t like this.”
“You don’t like what?”
Angel sounded more frustrated than he’d ever heard her before. “This… openness. This perestroika you’ve reached with Nadia. I don’t like the fact that she knows who I am.”
“Nobody knows who you are, Angel.”
“She shouldn’t even know I exist. How did she find out? You said she overheard you talking to me. But I know you, Chapel. You aren’t that careless. Unless you’re getting sloppy over there.”
Chapel was glad she couldn’t see him blush. “It was my own fault. If I’d kept typing instead of talking to you out loud… well. Frankly, I prefer it this way. I hated having to always run to the bathroom every time I needed to talk to you.”
“If you say so,” Angel told him. “I just wonder. She got a lot of information out of something she just happened to overhear.”
“She’s a spy,” Chapel pointed out. “We tend to be perceptive people.”
“Okay. The director seems semiokay with how things are, though he’s asking for constant updates. He wants to know everything that goes on over there, and most of what I can tell him is just what I can see from the satellites. Everything’s okay? You haven’t seen any sign of more Russian assassins?”
“No, nothing,” Chapel told her.
“And what about… the other thing. Fraternization. Anything to report there?”
Now Chapel was really glad she couldn’t see him. “I’ve rejected a few advances,” he said, which was technically true. That night on the balcony of the hotel, their last night in Tashkent… he had, in fact, stopped himself. But not before things had already gone too far. “I’m behaving myself,” he told Angel.
“Good. Good. I’m really glad to hear that. Because… there’s something I’ve been struggling with. Something I wasn’t sure I should tell you about, because I know you’re not going to like it. It’s about Julia.”
Chapel felt his heart lurch in his chest. He swallowed, painfully, as a sort of electric jolt ran through his body. “Did she call?” he managed to ask.
“She called me,” Angel said, very softly. “She… she was looking for you. Wanted to know if I could get a message to you. She knows she’s not supposed to call me unless it’s an emergency, but she said she couldn’t get hold of you any other way.”
“Was it an emergency?”
Angel seemed to have to force the words out. “No. No, it wasn’t. She called because… because she wanted to know if she could move back into the apartment, the one you shared in Brooklyn. She wanted to know if you had moved your stuff out yet. It’s been more than a month, after all.”
Chapel wanted to bang his head on the dashboard. He resisted the urge. “What are you saying, Angel? She’s evicting me?” The lease was in Julia’s name, after all. Secret agents weren’t supposed to sign legal documents if they could help it.
“It sounded like she assumed you would move out on your own,” Angel told him. “I told her you couldn’t be reached right now, and that you wouldn’t be able to move your things. She said there was no rush, but that she’d really like to move back in. Sweetie — I’m so sorry. I know how this must make you feel—”
Anger started welling up in Chapel like his blood vessels would burst with it. “You don’t, actually. You have no idea,” he said, far more curtly than he’d meant to. “You… you don’t.”
“I’m on your side,” Angel pointed out.
Chapel felt blood surge through his head, felt like he was going to explode. He reached over and grabbed the dashboard with both hands. Clung to it until he felt like the sharp metal would cut into his fingers. He felt like he might stop breathing. He felt like he might die right then and there.
He brought one leg up and kicked, hard, at the dashboard, not caring if he smashed the gauges and instruments there. Maybe wanting to do just that. But the Soviets had built the truck to take the occasional blow, and he didn’t even leave a dent. He lifted his leg to kick again, but then he stopped himself.
Tried to breathe.
“Yeah. Yeah, I know. Well. I guess.” He had no idea what to say. No idea what to do next. As he had so many times before, he forced himself to fall back on his training. When you got frantic on the battlefield, he knew, when shells were bursting around you and fear and confusion threatened to take over your brain, you started making mistakes. You stopped doing all the little things that kept you alive.