to me. He is sixty, and his eyesight remains sharper than mine.
From the direction of the fading light, a clearing emerges, trees pockmarked with bullets; moments later, we reach the old wood cabin on the edge of the meadow.
I stop my father at the door.
“You deceived me,” I say. “The whole time we lived in Waterford, you wanted to lie fallow until you were called back into the field; meanwhile you hoped I’d get over it—”
“That’s not the only reason, Sophia—”
“Well, your plan worked, because I am over it! And now I want to return to Waterford, but I can’t. Because instead of going after Bekami and figuring out who is leaking information, you tricked me. While Bekami hunted you, you told me to go to dances and go skiing with my friends, friends, Dad, actual friends. And do you know what is worse than not experiencing any of that ‘small town American life’ you wanted me to experience? Having it all taken away.”
We stare at each other in heavy silence. No words are strong enough to articulate how angry I am with him.
Eventually, he opens the door. Reluctantly, I follow him inside. My fists grip the sleeves of my parka. My mother has lit a fire in the coal stove. She’s set the table with mismatched blue-and-white dishes and rust-colored Bakelite flatware. Two flames flicker out of carved pewter candlesticks depicting Hungarian folk children.
In front of the stove, my father takes my gun, wipes down the barrel, clips in a fresh mag from his briefcase, and hands it back to me.
“It’s yours,” he says.
Running my finger along the edge of the cold plastic, I set it down beside the Hungarian candlesticks. “Keep it.”
CHAPTER 45
“Onward,” my mother says a few days later as we finish eating palacsintas at the train station in Budapest.
South through the Balkans. East to Lebanon. We travel light. My essentials—a Prada coin purse, a mesh bag of underwear, a toothbrush—barely fill my petite leather duffel.
From Beirut, we fly to Azerbaijan, then Turkmenistan, south to Qatar, and eventually back west to Egypt. We use only cash. Phones, computers, and electronics are turned off and sealed inside a Kevlar container my father keeps in his canvas carryall.
I am lying on a mattress at the Al Shalaam Hotel in Cairo, watching a melodramatic Egyptian soap opera when my father turns off the television. “We need to travel west,” he says carefully.
“Exactly where west?” I prop myself up on one elbow.
My mother tucks her notebook into her Celine handbag and clasps it shut. “Andrews is in Tunis. Our car arrives in ten minutes.”
A breeze sweeps down from the Mediterranean, whistling through the rows of jasmine trees shading Tunis’s broad boulevards. Mint-green Vespas weave into narrow streets concealing quaint boutiques and leafy courtyards. After years of unrest, an undercurrent of optimism flows through the ancient city.
In the medina, we check into Dar Ben-Salah, a former French palace converted into a hotel. Bedroom walls peel paint and the floors are a chipped mosaic tile, but it has access to the main highway and reliable Wi-Fi.
“You’ve been here before?” I ask my father.
“Years ago.” He points outside. “Safest place to stay in Tunis.”
“Clear sight lines and numerous exits,” I remark, scanning the horizon.
“Precisely,” he says in Arabic.
I shut the drapes to block the heat and noise. I sit down on the bed; I don’t want to see the spires of the mosques rising above the foliage, the red-tile roofs of the ancient city, the colorful woven textiles covering the souks.
While my mother runs surveillance, my father places a few photographs in my hand.
With trembling fingers, I flip through the stack: Lycée Français Saint Benoît, the corner two blocks south where the women ambushed me, an iron staircase, turquoise doors, plaster walls, a copper pipe protruding from a hole in the floor …
I snatch a bottle of water from the nightstand and drink so fast it trickles down my chin and soaks my collar.
“I want you to see where this happened, so it doesn’t haunt you any longer.” He points at a photograph; his finger lands on a broken piece of tile. “These walls are made of stone and plaster. They do not control you, Sophia, and he cannot control you. No matter where he is.”
“You promised they would never return.” I swallow. “But they did. He did.”
My father takes a match from the bedside table and strikes it on the iron bedstead.
I watch the photographs wrinkle black and gold around the edges. I