“What about their economic ties, the gas and oil deals?”
“I think worldwide domination trumps that from the Russian standpoint. Besides, they’ll still be selling all the fossil fuels they want, along with a tax, I’m betting, to cover the AAC fees that will be in every contract the Russians sign after this.”
“So we’re going to accept China’s help?”
“Not officially. You can imagine what the Speaker and Majority Leader would do with that.” They both glanced at the muted TV screens. “Unofficially, we wouldn’t say no to anyone who walked in the door and said, ‘Here are your hackers.’ So good work on that apartment in Moscow,” Holmes said, nodding at her screen, “and good luck. I’ll let you get back to work.”
“Thanks for the update. That was stunning news.”
As Lana went to shut her laptop, Holmes pointed to her screen and said, “What’s that?”
She turned it toward her and said, “That’s called a response.”
“From the hacker?”
“Yes!” She held it up to him: WHO ARE YOU?
It wasn’t much, but this wasn’t a hit-and-run posting. The hacker had signaled a desire for a conversation.
The very first step across the cyberminefield.
CHAPTER 12
Galina couldn’t sleep. The night had turned into a long dark voyage that would not end. Each time she felt herself drifting off, she’d be seized by fears about Alexandra. Not her daughter’s cancer so much as whether she would be abducted in the middle of the night. Galina’s weak hold on her own fate made her even more wary of Alexandra’s.
Finally, after checking on her repeatedly, Galina climbed into bed with Alexandra and held her close. “No one’s going to take you. I promise,” she whispered. Not God, not cancer. Nor any of the devils who had been haunting their lives.
She watched with weary eyes as first light painted the familiar features of Alexandra’s room, the porcelain dolls on her shelf that had been Galina’s playthings little more than twenty years ago, and a pair of ballet slippers in their special place at the center of the top shelf. They looked so new, for Galina had given them to Alexandra only two days before the leukemia first left her too weak to dance.
A clown-face clock showed the time, 5:25, its eyes fixed on a stuffed bunny as big as Alexandra herself, won by her father at a carnival last year. Galina could not think of Viktor as a “deadbeat dad” anymore. He was Alexandra’s father, and every once in a while he had been wonderful to her. At the carnival, Viktor had accepted the barker’s dare with a smile and insisted that Alexandra stand by his side as he confidently sank ten free throws in a row to win the grand prize. Till then, Galina had not known that Viktor had lived, eaten, and slept basketball for most of his childhood.
There must have been so much more about him that she hadn’t known. And now, she realized, she’d never be able to give his daughter a full understanding of his life. She hadn’t loved Viktor in the end — and had been enormously frustrated by him much of the time — but she missed him on Alexandra’s behalf. Another fatherless child in Russia.
Oleg had killed him or had him killed. As soon as Galina had heard about the terms of Viktor’s so-called will, she’d known its true author. And when Tattoo had tried to get her to blame the murder on Oleg, she’d also known the deadly trap Oleg had tried to set. Galina would never let him near her again — or Alexandra. It still filled her with revulsion to think of him touching her daughter’s forehead in the elevator.
But what could stop him from killing her? Or Alexandra? Those questions ate at Galina as dawn opened up the sky. The lone answer, though, could have darkened the noonday sun, for nothing, nothing could stop Oleg from yet another murder. He’d seen to the merciless slaying of the Ahearns, Viktor, and the sailors on that submarine. And now news reports were saying the scientists in Antarctica would likely die from radiation poisoning if the missile landed on the continent because none of them could be evacuated.
Galina, still sleepless, propped herself on her elbow and looked around Alexandra’s room, forcing herself to take deep breaths to try to relax. She saw her daughter’s two favorite picture books open on the floor. One featured a little girl as the captain of a pirate ship that sailed the seas in search of the most wonderful treasure of alclass="underline" love. And the other showed the stars twinkling on a snowy night, lantern light soft on a city’s white street.
She’d read those books — and so many others — to Alexandra dozens of times, and remembered her daughter’s pure joy as she was ushered into those richly imagined worlds.
Galina smiled and dearly hoped she would read so many more to the “little love of her life.” And she believed she would — if Galina could just get her the cancer care she so desperately needed.
The next time Galina glanced at the clown clock, an hour had passed and she understood that she’d finally snoozed.
She sprang from the bed and bolted to the bathroom, showering and washing her hair. She wanted to make herself look as presentable — and as affluent — as possible, donning one of her most tasteful dresses.
Galina planned to plead with the older woman who ran the oncologist’s office. She had a voice like a man’s and was as burly as those testosterone-laden female Russian weightlifters who, along with their East German counterparts, had dominated their Olympic events for so long. Her father had laughed heartily as they’d watched a documentary during her childhood about those “great Russian female athletes,” as the narrator had described the masculine-looking medalists on the podium.
Her poor papa. In truth, he had laughed very little, making that occasion in front of the TV so memorable. She wished he were alive so she could flee to him, have his help, but at fifty-nine he had died the slow-motion suicide of a functional alcoholic and chain-smoker.
Galina’s mother had died even younger from a botched gall bladder surgery.
With Alexandra’s room fully lit, she woke her daughter and fed her the same cereal for breakfast that she’d eaten last night. “When they are this sick,” a nurse at a pediatric clinic had told her, “give them whatever they’ll eat that’s reasonable.”
Galina didn’t know if cereal that was supposed to taste like mini chocolate donuts was reasonable, but the milk had protein and healthy fats, and Alexandra let her mother spoon it into her mouth. Galina felt like a mama bird feeding her frail offspring.
They arrived at the doctor’s office right at eight thirty, when the staff unlocked the door. The doctor’s hours started at nine.
The office manager’s steely gray hair was pulled back so tightly it looked like the pressure would pop the roots right out of her hairline.
“I don’t know if you remember, but I’m Galina Bortnik,” she said quietly. “I was in last week to make the appointment, and then I called yesterday. We talked about the money.”
“Do you have what you need to see the doctor?” the woman replied obliquely.
Galina lifted Alexandra up so the office manager could see her over the counter. “I have my daughter. She has leukemia. I know your doctor can do miracles.”
“We do not do miracles for everyone. Do you have what you need?” she asked again, less patiently.
“Money, yes, I know. I have so much coming in. That’s not even an issue. I just inherited fifty million rubles.”
“And I am Czar Nicholas. Go.” She waved Galina away. More women with sick children were lining up behind them. “And don’t come back,” the manager warned. “You waste my time and are disturbing everyone.”