“General Cherkshan is on his way to Kiev, where he will help empower leaders sympathetic to the Russian Federation to bring our people back to us. We will stand together.” Nevsky grew a little more impassioned. “We will return to greatness and be able to take care of ourselves and our families.”
The television broadcast went dark, then was picked up again immediately in the CNN newsroom.
Lourds turned to Anna. “I can see why you need to get home. There are going to be a lot of stories there to tell.”
“Yes.” Anna hesitated. “I feel guilty leaving you like this, after we have come this far.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“When you figure out the code that holds Callisthenes’s secrets, will you call me? I would still like to be part of that story.”
“Of course. I promised you an exclusive.” Lourds smiled at her.
Anna stepped up to hug him, planting a kiss on his cheek. “Thank you for everything you’ve done.”
“You’re welcome, but I believe it was more of a team effort.”
She stepped away. “Layla is going to give me a ride to the airport. She thinks she can get me a flight out of Kabul to Moscow today.”
“Be safe, Anna.”
“You too, Professor Lourds.” She ducked back in to whisper. “And you must let me know when you find the right time to deliver that ring.”
Lourds grinned ruefully. “It’s kind of hard to do, what with running from assassins and watching countries getting taken over.”
“I trust you to find the perfect moment.”
“At least one of us trusts me for that.”
35
As it turned out, Layla couldn’t arrange a flight to Moscow immediately, but she put Anna up in the Kabul Serena Hotel until a flight could be booked. By the second day of being cooped up in the hotel, even with all the diversions that came with her comped package — and the fact that the hotel room wasn’t in her name — Anna thought she was going crazy.
She worked on stories during the day, using the phone lines to contact people and sources in Moscow as well as in Kiev and other parts of the Ukraine. She hadn’t gotten a true picture of the situation in either country, but the Russian people were apparently happy with their “regrowth,” and many Ukrainians seemed relieved that they were part of the Russian Federation once more.
“I feel confident that, once President Nevsky implements his plans for the federation, we will prosper and grow.” The speaker on television was an old man with a weathered face who was missing several teeth. Despite that, he had a genuine smile and didn’t try to hide his lack. “I will work hard under this Reunification. President Nevsky will see that he has made a wise investment in the Ukraine.”
“I am going to be sick.” Even though no one else was in the hotel room, Anna couldn’t keep her feelings to herself. She wanted to throw something through the screen.
But it had all been like that recently. Most of the people interviewed by the Ukraine media had nothing but glowing things to say about the Russians being there. The outside world called the military movement an invasion and now an occupation, but the people on the Ukraine channels — and in the newspapers — referred to the tanks and troops as the Reunification Effort.
Anna was convinced that Nevsky had branded that as well.
There were some in the Ukraine who spoke out against Nevsky, but those were few and far between. Some of the detractors had “disappeared,” and, so far, their bodies hadn’t been found. It was a very sobering thing.
Many of the Ukrainians whom Anna had tried to speak to refused to be interviewed or they wanted to speak out without revealing themselves. Getting the truth of the story from people on the ground was difficult.
Still, she persevered.
Her phone rang on the desk where she was charging it. She expected it to be Kirill. Instead, her father’s face was there.
She answered, and her heart thudded in her chest. Despite the fact that she didn’t like what he was doing, she didn’t want him to be harmed. Since the first day of the invasion — the term she was determined to use, not reunification — she’d been concerned about him. Her father appeared in many public places, becoming very prominent.
All it will take is one determined sniper. Or even a common citizen who can get close enough to him.
She had suffered through several nightmares since that first day and had not enjoyed a good night’s sleep since. Instead, she had subsisted on tea and toast, and she had researched and watched the news, and she had written story after story lambasting President Nevsky.
“Father.”
“Good evening, Anna.” He sounded tired, his voice gravelly the way it sometimes got when he had been too long without sleeping.
“You have not been resting.”
Her father chuckled. “These are not restful times.”
“Much of that seems to be your fault.”
He sighed. “Are we going to have an argument?”
Anna briefly considered that, thinking that an argument might very well be the thing she needed to relax. She had not even realized it was evening. Now, as she looked out her door and saw the dark skies hanging over the city, she realized she had lost all track of time.
“No. I don’t want to argue.”
“Neither do I. These past few days, I have had my fill of it.”
“Do you truly believe in what Nevsky is saying, Father? That this move is merely to reunify Russia and not to force those countries back under Russian control?”
Her father hesitated for a moment. “Am I talking to my daughter, or am I talking to the writer for The Moscow Times?”
“Does it matter?”
“My answer would not be changed, but I do not wish to be quoted in a newspaper. I have had enough of that too. Even as little as I talk, so many reporters willingly take what I say out of context and use it to their own ends.”
“All you talk about is how good the Reunification is.”
He didn’t reply.
“You are talking to me, Father.” Anna sighed. “Not a reporter.”
“Good. I had hoped to talk to my daughter.” He sounded more jubilant, and that made her feel good. “You are still safe?”
“I am. Currently I am stranded in Kabul.”
“The American has gone to Kabul now?”
“No. I have gone to Kabul. I am trying to get home. Flights into and out of Moscow are very limited.”
“Ah.” Her father suddenly sounded relieved. “You have decided not to pursue the American’s story?”
“At the moment, he appears stymied. And Russia is the story now.”
“The things you have been writing about President Nevsky are very harsh.”
“I made an agreement with you. You would not be talking to a reporter. I do not wish to be talking to an editor. Or worse, a censor.”
“I am speaking as your father.”
“Then, speaking as your daughter — and respectfully, at that — I must disagree with your assessment of my view on your president.”
“He is your president too.”
“Not when he does things I disagree with.”
Her father growled, but she ignored him. He took a breath. “Perhaps we should find something else to talk about.”
“Of course.” She adopted a mocking tone of voice. “How was your day?”
Unexpectedly, her father laughed. It was deep and throaty, and it took her back to when she had been a girl and he had come home from the wars to read to her. During those times, her mother had said, her father needed to laugh, and she was the only one who could make that grim soldier step outside of the horrors he had seen to become just a man again.