My father doesn’t answer. I throw the phone at him. He steals it from the air before it hits him in the face.
CHAPTER 46
While my father leaves to meet Andrews in the souk, my mother reconnoiters the hotel. I’m alone in the room, and the heat is smothering. I step over the ashy photographs and make for the door.
Outside our hotel, the heavy air melts into my skin. I walk west along Avenue Habib Bourguiba, wading through throngs of Tunisians doing their evening shopping and savoring the shade of the street’s lush trees.
Ahead I see it: fuchsia fabric draped elaborately over a breezeway.
Trailing a man carrying a crate of figs on his shoulder, I enter the souk.
I don’t feel lost. The noise, the smells, the congestion of people—despite the apparent chaos, all bazaars have a rhythm, a harmony to the dark intersecting streets and labyrinthine alleyways.
Cloaked by long rows of carpets, I wrap a silk scarf loosely over my light hair.
After several minutes, I spy my father beside an antique stall. I nearly miss him because he is wearing a floral button-up shirt, a straw hat, and a neon fanny pack—quite the British tourist. He speaks to a man I’ve never seen—Andrews.
Andrews is taller than my father, with fair skin and straight black hair parted neatly to the side. Despite the heat, he is wearing a suit and smoking a cigar. Beside Andrews is a prim woman wearing a linen dress and carrying a straw handbag. She looks like she’d rather be anywhere other than a crowded bazaar. A paisley scarf is knotted haphazardly over her gray hair.
As the woman buys a sparkling silver ashtray, my father nods to Andrews and then slips away.
I follow my father through two more congested alleyways before pushing between the crowd to step up alongside him, adjusting to his pace.
His hex sense must alert, because he instantly looks down at me.
Lifting the scarf off my face, I glance up at him.
I can’t help the satisfaction that ripples through me at his look of surprise. He doesn’t break his gait. “Your mother?”
“Running the perimeter. She doesn’t know I left.”
“You’re not a little girl anymore, Sophia.”
“Exactly, so you should tell me what is going on. What did Andrews say? Does he know where Bekami is?”
“Have you eaten?” he asks in Swedish—my favorite language.
“Not recently,” I answer in French, his least favorite. He smiles.
I follow him through a stall, around a corner, and past a charcoal stove with a hot fire raging inside. I am that fire—flaming, bursting, roaring. Trapped.
In an alley, my father discards his floral shirt into a trash bin, his straw hat and pack into another bin. At the next passageway, he unsnaps the hem of his pants from the buttons at his knees. He is left wearing a black T-shirt and slim black cargo pants; he no longer resembles an oblivious tourist.
After a few minutes of silent maneuvering, we reach a hillside restaurant overlooking the medina.
He must be waiting for something, or someone. It’s the only time he stops to eat.
Speaking in Scandinavian-accented Arabic, he says to the waiter, “Bring us whatever your chef is cooking.”
A few minutes later, the amiable waiter brings two yellow bottles of Boga to the table, pops the lids, and returns to the kitchen.
Lowering his voice, my father asks, “What did you tell Aksel about Bekami? About Istanbul?” He speaks in code. Norwegian vowels. Dutch verbs. Swahili descriptions.
I say nothing.
“Sophia, I’m trying to find out why you were interrogated, and I can’t do that if you don’t tell me—”
“Everything,” I interrupt him. “I told Aksel everything, okay? About Bekami and what happened in Istanbul and what I told Bekami when I escaped. How I was stupid enough to let Bekami know I’d overheard everything. But I’m not leaking information.”
My father pushes his lips together a moment, then exhales loudly. “You were brave to defy Bekami, Sophia, It’s my turn to be brave and tell you about St. Petersburg.”
“I don’t care about St. Peters—”
“You will.”
It used to fascinate me when he spoke about his experiences, the enemies he had defeated. However, now that I’ve experienced that life, I never want to hear about any of it again.
“Years ago, ON-YX assigned me to recruit an agent within the Foreign Affairs Directorate of Russia’s espionage arm, SVR.” His eyes look away from mine. “Anton Katranov was a perfect fit.”
I spread my napkin across my lap. My father hasn’t shaved since we