With tears streaming down her cheeks — and Alexandra asking, “Why won’t they help me, Mama?”—Galina carried her daughter outside, still bundled like a baby in her bunny blanket. Every day her daughter got lighter, even as Galina herself felt weakened by the horror of what was happening to her child.
She sat with Alexandra on a bench by the parking lot in back of the building. She’d seen photographs online of the doctor smiling at charity events for “cancer kids.” She would curbside him. That was a term she’d read on American websites. There was no Russian equivalent that she knew.
At precisely nine o’clock a black Mercedes coupe with smoked windows pulled into the parking spot reserved for Dr. Kublakov. It was closest to the rear entrance. His Benz was shiny black with sparkling chrome. Perfect. Not a speck of dust on it. She wondered how many “cancer kids” had made that purchase possible.
Galina lifted Alexandra and stood as the driver’s door opened. But the handsome doctor did not get out. Instead, a stocky man with a shaved head and dark sunglasses stood and scanned their surroundings, as if for assassins, then buttoned his black suit jacket and walked around to open the passenger door. That was when she saw the revered doctor for the first time, the man the media called a “miracle maker.”
“Doctor Kublakov,” she called to him. “My daughter needs your help so much.”
She carried Alexandra toward the two men. As she neared them, the bodyguard placed his ample bulk in front of the oncologist, who was hurrying toward the door.
When Galina tried to reach past the bodyguard, he karate-chopped her arm. His hand felt like steel. It hurt so badly she almost dropped Alexandra.
Kublakov disappeared through the doorway.
“Go away,” the bodyguard told her. “Do not be here when I come back.”
Galina, forearm throbbing, retreated to the bench and sat back down. She watched with blurry eyes as the bodyguard paused to glare at her one more time before following his boss into the building.
She rocked Alexandra, forcing herself to stop crying, then climbed to her feet and trudged to her car. She made Alexandra comfortable in the backseat, checking her messages quickly. Just one, from Oleg: “Where are you?”
The question chilled her, and she was glad she’d found and disabled the customized app locator he’d put on her phone. She certainly didn’t reply. She turned out of the lot, knowing she had only one possible course of action.
The drive home, through the thick of Moscow morning traffic, took longer than she expected. Alexandra, so startled at the clinic, now looked sullen, without hope. Galina wished she could say something to cheer her up, but what would that be?
She hoped the answer would come soon. After carrying her daughter to the couch, where she’d been spending most of her days, and tempting her with berry juice and crackers — overjoyed at seeing her eating anything on her own — she rushed to her computers, moving every vital file from her desktop to her laptop. Then she burrowed a trail deep into the “cloud,” where she secured backups of her most important files. She also logged on to Internet Relay Chat, IRC, where the first anonymous message had appeared, sitting back in surprise when she saw the simple response: “I am someone who can help you and your sick daughter.”
Oleg, she thought at once. He was setting her up. Now that Tattoo had failed, he was testing her.
She called PP, asking if she could see him for just a few minutes.
“Yes,” the old man’s familiar voice said. “But I won’t be back until later this afternoon. Come join us for dinner. I was going to call you. Something’s come up with Dmitri. He’s very upset. Maybe you could talk to him. He’s saying your name.”
“Yes, of course.” The “Gull, Gull” that passed for it, she presumed. “One thing,” she said to PP. “I hate to ask this of you, but please don’t tell Oleg I’m coming over.”
“Don’t worry,” PP said so soothingly that it scared her, though she couldn’t be sure exactly why.
Galina spent an anxious day packing up her daughter’s belongings and medications. She also took a few changes of clothes for Alexandra and their toiletries. Not too much, she advised herself. If they come, you don’t want them to know right away.
Who were “they?” She was sure only of Oleg but she also knew that he had a team that killed for him. And a cop — or two — who might be part of it.
As late afternoon turned orange and golden, she fired up her computer one more time and found yet another message: “I am not who you think I am.” Again, she thought only of Oleg. But then she wondered.
She shut off her laptop and placed it in a well-padded carrying case. Driving out of Moscow, checking her rearview constantly. She didn’t know what to expect, but more trouble of the kind she’d experienced at the morgue seemed likely.
Galina heard Alexandra singing to herself in the backseat. She appeared so much better now that she’d napped and put the experience at the clinic behind her.
The electric eye opened the gate to PP’s country palace, as it had for her many times before. She figured her old Renault was the most humble vehicle to ever roll through the entrance.
In seconds, she turned into the car elevator, which lifted her to the second floor, rotated, and left her facing one of the visitor spots.
Carrying Alexandra — the poor child seemed to have no strength left for walking — Galina entered a hallway that ringed the main floor of PP’s huge residence. She peered at a door that opened only by iris recognition.
PP welcomed her with a gentle hug, encircling both mother and child in his strong arms. He led them into the high-ceilinged kitchen. His cook, a Eurasian woman in a pale-blue muslin dress with a crisp white apron and matching cap, was tossing cilantro into a Thai stew. Steam rose to a copper vent, fragrant scents to Galina’s nose. Her stomach rumbled; she realized she had eaten very little all day.
PP had set a place for them, and timed the meal well. Even Alexandra ate spoonfuls of broth, noodles, scallions, and a shrimp. Dmitri, oddly, was not present.
“And papaya juice?” PP asked Alexandra. “It came all the way from Hawaii just for you.”
The girl, wide-eyed at PP’s attention, nodded.
And she did drink the juice — eagerly. Galina thought that if Alexandra could live like this and see Dr. Kublakov, she might survive the leukemia.
PP used a napkin to dab his lips, the cotton so crisply ironed that it unfolded like a deck of cards.
“Now that we have eaten,” he said, “tell me what is wrong, Galina. Did Oleg hurt you?”
How should she respond? In the pause she took trying to answer her own question, PP nodded and spoke again. “I am not certain of what he is up to, but it is not good.”
Again she did not respond quickly enough.
“What did he do to you?” he asked more sternly.
“I can’t say, PP. I’m so sorry. But he did not hit me, nothing like that. Did you want me to talk to Dmitri? I thought he would be here.”
PP shook his head. She didn’t know if that was in response to her refusal to say what Oleg had done, or to the concerns about his younger son. He called out the fifteen-year-old’s name in a voice both commanding and consoling. “Come, Galina is here to see you. Gull has come.”
Dmitri shuffled into the dining area, looking warily at his father and Galina.
“This is the first time he’s left his room since last night,” PP said.
“What happened last night?” she asked.
“He took a photograph of Oleg that was hanging in the upstairs hallway with other family pictures. His fine motor skills are not so good anymore, so to get it out of the frame he broke the glass. Maybe that explains the gash in Oleg’s face in the picture,” PP added dubiously as he held up the torn photo. “Maybe not. Here he is. Have a seat, my son.”