Skandal (29 page)

I poke my head into the office and catch Winnie’s eye. She groans and sets down her banker’s box of files. “You look like you’re up to no good,” she says.

I smile. “Only with your help.”

*   *   *

I almost feel sorry for the Pathway for Peace Soviet delegation when we reach Dupont Circle that afternoon. Or rather, when we park several blocks from Dupont Circle, which is the closest we can get, as the whole neighborhood has turned into one massive, gyrating, chanting sea of color and noise. Some people carry placards—“I TOO HAVE A DREAM,” “I SIT WITH ROSA,” “SAY NO TO WAR,” “HUGS NOT BOMBS.” Others sing back and forth: calls and responses ranging from protests to Motown songs.

Donna and Judd stare as a juggling competition breaks out around us. “What in the…” She squeaks and dodges a beanbag as it swishes straight through her ponytail.

Winnie’s barely able to contain her smile as a man holding an Urban League sandwich board gives her a sly wink. It’s not only Winnie’s League members out in full force, though they launched the event at her urging; they called on their friends, who called on theirs, and a full-blown protest/street festival/rally has broken out, to send a message to the summit and the rest of the world when they catch it on the nightly news. Skinny white girls in flowing dresses weave through the crowd, passing out carnations; everywhere I look, the races and sexes and subcultures and classes have swirled together into a street carnival that celebrates as much as it scolds.

“Is this what you had in mind?” Winnie asks me in Russian, as Cindy’s momentarily distracted by her heel catching in a sidewalk crack.

I smile back at her. “It’s perfect.”

“No,” Winnie says, “not perfect just yet. Let’s catch these assholes first.”

I’ve got eyes on the Soviet delegation. Spotted them getting out of their van, and they are furious
, Marylou announces in our heads, the message tangled up in the agreed-upon musical number that our entire team can hear for this operation—“Moscow Nights.”
Five delegates with three plainclothes guards. Guards are around them in a tight triangle—might be tricky to split one or two of them off.

I’m sure we can manage something
, Papa replies.

Marylou pushes the image of the group toward us.
Head toward P Street. You’ve almost reached them.
I can only make out some of their faces, but none of them look like any of the guards or team members from my days with the KGB. I relax a little at that, glad I won’t have to encounter a familiar face, though I had been hoping against hope that Mama might be among them.

Tony’s identified the first delegation member,
Marylou updates us.
Anatoliy Totchkov. He taught at the Red Army Military Academy before joining a Special Projects research team. An interesting choice for a peace delegation. What do you wanna bet he’s part of the team that designed the serum?

Let’s grab him,
I say. One of Mama’s scientists—he could fix my attempts at curing Valentin in no time.

Patience
, Cindy answers.
We’ll delay whichever members of the delegation we can while putting our people in the least amount of danger.

We prowl the crowd for a few minutes more, shadows on the periphery of the delegates’ path. Finally, an opportunity presents itself: I can almost hear the smile in Marylou’s voice when she shows us a pair of fire-eaters performing close to the delegation.
Judd, want to have some fun?

Papa shoves ahead of us.
Let me get in place and we’ll be ready to go. On your count, Judd …

Three.

Within the hour, we’ll have captured Rostov’s operatives, sent to disrupt the peace talks. I can find out the key to curing Valya. And maybe, just maybe, we can learn the next steps in Mama’s plan.

Two.

I enjoy the joyful chaos all around me, for just this moment. I savor the sun heating my face and the sweat trickling down my back.

… One,
Judd says.

The fire-eater had been in a safe circle with his fellow performers, but he spins wildly and leans toward the delegation members as they pass. His expression is empty as he takes a deep breath and spews a gout of flame right into the group. Someone screams. The air warps around us, a strange mix of extreme heat and a crackle like impending lightning. The crowd shifts, compacting under Papa’s thrall, elbows and eyeballs and someone’s spiky Jackie Kennedy brooch all colliding for a moment—and then the world sets itself right once more.

“Hello, comrades,” I say, sidling up to the two delegates we’ve culled from the herd.

Papa is standing tall over the delegates, his hatless hair gleaming deep chestnut in the sun. “Looking for us, comrades?” he asks, flicking his Zippo open. “Judd. Help me out here, son.”

The tallest man in the delegation—Anatoliy, I’m guessing—tries to juke around Papa, but the air warps again as Papa seizes control of him, and he falls back into line.

“No, you don’t.” Papa puffs his cigarette to life.

“Well, well. If it isn’t a whole family of rats.” That smug, nasal voice chills me straight to my marrow. My heart leaps into my throat. Misha, or Mikhail—one of my fellow teammates back at the KGB—stares at me from where he’s pinned between two of Papa’s pawns. “Well … only half the family, I suppose.” He assesses me with sparkling blue eyes and a smirk twisting his lips. His parents had fought in the Great Patriotic War with Mama and Papa; now he and his twin sister, Masha, aspire to be KGB officers themselves. If he’s been sent on the delegation, then he must be well on his way.

And if he’s here, what if the rest of the team—what if Mama—isn’t too far behind?

I charge toward him, anger powering me like a locomotive. “Where are they?” My hand closes around his throat. “Masha?” I shout, calling for his sister, a remote viewer like Sergei and Marylou. “I know you’re watching. Get a good look at your brother, because he’s about to tell us everything—”

Misha whimpers as rage pours off of my skin, scalding him as surely as a spray of steam. “You stupid brat!” he whines. “You’re too late!”

I squeeze harder. “What are you planning for the Peace Summit?” I can feel the rage pouring off me like lava. Misha’s eyes are wide as he squirms, trying to escape my grip, but he still manages a harsh laugh.

“There’s no use trying to stop us. You might as well spend time with your idiot boyfriend while you still can.” Misha’s blinding smile cuts through his face as he glances skyward. “Masha? If you would, please?”

Metal screeches against metal. The people around us gasp; as Papa’s concentration flickers and his spell over the crowd breaks, they shove and throb with panic. I glance up to find the streetlamp above us teetering precariously, bowing toward me—

Papa snatches me in his arms and tackles me to the ground as the streetlamp crashes down. Glass sprays away from the spot where I’d just stood. Misha grins down at us from the other side of the post’s arm, then vanishes into the sea of gaping tourists.

Their remote viewers can do
that
?
Marylou asks.
Not fair!

I shove against Papa’s arms and slip free of his grasp. “Stop him!” I scream at the chattering onlookers. I stumble over the post, bad ankle twinging, and shove against the thick wall of people, all of them gaping, pointing, questioning, only just now reacting to the strange events unfolding. Papa chases them alongside me, though Misha’s already slipped beyond Papa’s range. Papa shoves people aside in front of our path, and none too gently—rather than a soft mental suggestion that they step this way or that, they go crashing and stumbling, flung forward, arms bent, a violent scattering of birds.

But it isn’t enough. My mind is working in overdrive; the rest of the world feels stuck in slow motion, like a bad fight scene in a Western. There’s too much emotion, noise, panic, thickened by the fog of countless humans, breathing and sweating and shouting and twisting through the streets.

I breathe in.
My mind is mine alone.
I breathe out. I can do this.

I force my way through the crowd, one layer of humanity at a time, swiping my hands against people’s sleeves, snatching up fleeting memories of Misha’s movements to guide my way.

I tried to warn you, Yulia.
Sergei’s voice rings through my head. His sad tone, like he’s a puppy I’ve just kicked, has ossified into something sharp and dangerous.
But as usual, you don’t listen to me.

I jump over a bicycle as it falls—seemingly under its own power, though I know better—into my path.
Where are you, Sergei? Why did they bring Misha to the Pathway for Peace summit? Are the others with him?
I swallow hard.
Is my mother?

Ahead, through the gap between two old ladies’ oversized sun hats, I glimpse Misha’s light brown hair, his pearly white skin untouched by the sweltering spring sun here in the swamplands of the District. I squeeze past the women with a hasty, heavily accented apology, but my bad ankle is already shooting currents of pain up my leg, slowing me down to a crawl. I grip the corner of a building and suck down fresh air. My mind is mine alone. Pain is nothing to me.

But when I round the corner, the alley is empty.

Yulia? Is everything okay?
Marylou asks, like a mosquito buzzing in my ear.

My hand contracts into a fist—a hot white ball of anger. I will release my anger right here. I will not let it control me.

Did you see where they went?
I ask.

Negative. As soon as you rounded the corner, everything went white, like this big flash of light—

Like an atom bomb going off
, I reply.
Like a burst of static tearing through your brain.

She hesitates for a long moment before replying, 
—Yeah, kind of like that.

Scrubbers
, I say. I peer through Marylou’s vision at the rest of our crew; Papa’s shoving his way through the crowd in one direction while the others push onward in another. The delegation seems to have split apart in every which way, and we’re each chasing a different lead.

I slump against the brick wall. I’m fighting hard to shove my despair away from me. It drips from my fingertips like an electrostatic charge. But it keeps building right back up. I’m sorry, Mama. When you told me the story of the firebird, you told me to pay attention. But I must not have paid it closely enough.

I blink, clearing the swelling tears away. Wait. What else did Mama leave for me to remember? What other memories have been surfacing lately, like corpses that won’t stay drowned, just waiting for me to clear the dust away?

And then I see it wavering, ever so gently: the fire escape ladder, pulled down for easy access from the alleyway. My firebird feather. Just waiting for me to notice it.

Because Mama didn’t just tell me to pay attention.

She told me to look up.

CHAPTER 26

AS I CLIMB UP
the fire escape, it’s quickly apparent which window I’m looking for: the one with heavy blackout curtains, still swaying from the last person to crawl through them. I fall into the bland white room, expecting to be overwhelmed with psychic noise, but it’s curiously still; the entire room is the plainest, least memorable office I’ve ever seen. If I didn’t know what I was looking for, I’d think I’d made a mistake.

But despite the lack of psychic residue, I can’t mistake the heavy spin-dial file cabinets or recording equipment tucked demurely under a desk; the ashtray filled with ash from long hours of operators hunched over a table, transcribing conversations they’ve snatched from the airwaves. This may not be a psychic operation, but it’s an operation, nonetheless. A nest of Soviet vipers, coiled up in listening range of countless government buildings.

I twist one finger around the cord of a pair of headphones, connected to a giant reel of magnetic tape. The image of a pucker-faced Soviet woman leaps out at me, scribbling notes in Russian shorthand. She uses no psychic countermeasures; her thoughts are right out in the open for me to read, though she tries to keep them focused on the task at hand. Do these agents have any idea of Rostov’s plans? How complicit are they in his mad desire to seize control?

None of this is helping me find Misha or Sergei or the rest. Misha
had
to have come through here. I trace my fingers on the window frame, the doorknob. Why aren’t I seeing him in the past few minutes’ memories?

Marylou’s voice interrupts my thoughts.
There’s a doorway down the hall that I can’t see past. They might have some sort of psychic countermeasure in place there.

Thanks. I’ll check it out.
I close my eyes and let the room envelop me. There the disruptors are, that dull hum juddering into the gaps between my thoughts.
Any further signs of the delegation?

No, but we’re doing our best. Tony’s pulling records on all the delegation members he laid eyes on, and your pops is chasing down some of the other delegates, though they seem to have melted into the crowd.

Thanks. I’ll let you know if I find anything more.

Be careful,
Marylou says.

I find the hallway she mentioned, musty and water-stained, with a single crackling lightbulb overhead. I rest my hand tentatively on the doorknob. Silence. Cool, empty silence. No past, no future, no nothing. I can barely even hear the current of the suppressing devices.

I open the door with my breath held. But it’s only a staircase, leading deep into darkness.

The staircase switches back and forth as it descends. I climb down three flights, if I were to guess, before it levels out into an underground tunnel. The deeper I sink into the tunnel, the more I feel its subterranean rumble in my bones. I have been this way before. Not here, not these tunnels, but one thousands of miles away, under Moscow. I’d tried to escape our KGB facility once, through the secret Metro tunnels, with only a desperate plan to sustain me. Now I’m not running away from my fate, but toward it, begging it to round the corner with that eager gust of wind that presages an approaching Metro train—