Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 138217 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138217 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
“It feels too . . . nice?” Theo’s voice lilted up at the end, as if she was searching for the right term to describe the place.
“Too homey,” Yakov said. “No sense of the clinical.”
“Exactly. Look there.”
Following her pointed finger, he spotted the balcony that held the bright colors of a child’s plas toys. “Families live here.” He frowned. “No way this is a covert research facility—not unless the patient has been kept locked inside their room the entire time.”
“It says a lot about my grandfather and the people he trusted that I can see that as a viable possibility.” Theo’s tone was taut, her eyes locked on the building.
But when he would’ve taken her hand, she wrenched it away.
“Theo.” He knew this was about the previous night, about the rage that had screamed out of her in a wave of violence.
Swallowing hard, she wrapped her arms around herself. “Did your brother uncover anything about our target residents?”
Yakov was more patient than many a bear, but he was no panda. Except that today, he had to be; this was no place to have the conversation he and Theo needed to have. “Their trail in Moscow—in Russia overall—only begins almost exactly three years ago.”
“Not long after my grandfather died.” The same grating flatness to her tone.
“And,” he added, “while one has more of a personal history in Italy, another in New Zealand, both those histories—and attendant records—come to an abrupt halt twenty-eight years ago.” He showed her the latest ID photos of their two targets. “It’s as if they vanished for a chunk of time, only to reappear in Russia.”
Theo stared straight ahead now, and he wondered what she was seeing, because it surely wasn’t this regular suburban street lined with trees, a passel of kids laughing in the playground only three lots down. “So,” she said, her voice yet distant, “they could very well have been at the facility.”
She opened the car door without waiting for him to reply, and he followed suit. When they met on the sidewalk, she said, “How should we approach this? There’s no chance they’ll recognize me as a Marshall, of that I’m certain. Almost no one in the world knows who I am.”
“Their loss,” Yakov muttered, wishing he could rip her fucking grandfather limb from limb. “I say we play it by ear.” He crossed the street with Theo by his side, and it took all his years of training to keep from hauling her over and cuddling her until she melted. “Keep it friendly, see what we pick up. Most Moscow residents are happy to chat with bears, so we can use that.”
The front door to the building opened right then, and a man who was maybe in his sixties shuffled out. And though he was barely middle-aged by 2083 standards, his back was slightly bowed, his brown hair thick with strands of gray.
Lines marked the tanned hue of his face, and his facial skin was lax.
He wore tough brown corduroy pants, along with a dark blue pullover that he’d zipped up to the neck. His hands were clad in gardening gloves, and he carried a pair of clippers in his right one.
“We found the gardener,” Yakov murmured, something about the man’s scent nagging at him. “And our first target.”
Chapter 49
I know you’re sitting in the lounge downstairs, D, watching the results newscast with everyone, but I need to put my thoughts down on paper. And of course it must be in a letter to you. I’ll finish it tonight and post it to you later, have it show up as a surprise.
After all this time, I can’t believe it’s happened. The referendum passed with a massive majority. We are to be Silent in every emotion, not only rage. The great irony of it is that on this momentous day, I sit here swamped in emotions: shock, fear, worry—but chief among them is hope.
For a better future for my baby girl. Neiza will grow up without fearing for her sanity, this I believe with every ounce of my soul.
—Letter from Hien Nguyen to Déwei Nguyen (21 August 1979)
THE GARDENER—WHOSE name was Santo Lombardi—looked up right then . . . and he had the loveliest eyes of soft green.
Eyes as guileless as a deer’s.
They crinkled at the corners and it seemed as if he was about to smile. Then he flinched and took a couple of steps back. “I don’t know you,” he said, and turned to look over his shoulder in the direction of the door.
When no one exited, he turned back toward them. “I don’t know you.”
Fear pumped off him, reminding Yakov of a cub that had been startled. So he went with instinct and treated Santo Lombardi with the same gentleness he would said cub. “I’m Yakov,” he said. “A bear.” He deliberately didn’t introduce Theo, because he had the feeling this man would respond much better if he thought them both bears. “You’ve probably seen my clanmates around the city.”