Chapter 12

CHAPTER 12 The echo of the door slam faded. Irina stared at the phone. She would have to call the Fixer. He could be out of the country on a job, but that would be too much to hope for. There was one in every city, she supposed, a person who could get anything you needed. Passports, cars, explosives, poisons. The Lucians found such contacts valuable. The Fixer was one of the best. He did not balk at anything, he could get anything, and he asked no questions. She had used him herself. What would Isabel need from him this time? What was she planning? Restlessly, Irina paced the room. She had lost Isabel's confidence. She no longer knew the plan, only parts of it. She ran her fingers over the cool green stones of the necklace. Isabel's insults had washed over her

like water. They hadn't stung. She slid the necklace into the pocket of her black jacket and zipped the pocket shut. She never felt sentimental. Ever. Yet she understood sentiment. Having something a loved one had touched. Keeping it near. When she had finally made herself clean out Nikolai's room all those years ago, she had folded his favorite pair of pants and found something in the pocket. Her own school medal for First Place Vaulting Championship. The metal was tarnished, the ribbon tattered and faded. But Nikolai had carried it with him. He had touched it every day. A reminder of his mother. She was away so much. He needed something real to keep her with him. She hadn't known. She hadn't known. That had been the moment she had broken. She had held the pants against herself and sobbed. She had screamed out her agony. She had put herself back together slowly, but she was never the same. She was still broken. She had lost her son. She slid her hand into her other pocket and

touched the medal. Now it was her turn to keep something close as a reminder. To touch something he had touched. Irina, the problem in Helsinki needs your attention. My son is sick. It's not a good time. She still remembered Isabel's brittle laugh. Children are sick all the time. No, it is more than that. The doctor said… Don't bore me with details. Do your job. The tickets are waiting for you at the airport. So she had kissed him, kissed his golden curls. She had whispered that she would be gone for only two days. Anna, her neighbor who watched him, whom he adored, Anna would be by his side. Irina would bring him back anything he wanted. A monkey, he said, and she had laughed. She had to go undercover. No communication, no phones, nothing. So she did not collect Anna's increasingly frantic messages. She did not get the doctor's call. She touched down in Moscow two days later and discovered that her nine-year-old

son was dead. She was holding the stuffed monkey, an expectant smile on her face, when a weeping Anna told her the news. Now Irina rose. Once Isabel had forced her to do something that she regretted with every waking breath. It would not happen again.