left Waterford. He has an ever-thickening mass of silver-blond stubble across the bottom of his face. I stare at this while he speaks.
“The head of the Foreign Affairs Directorate, Sergei Abramovich, was one of the most feared men in Russia. Anton Katranov was Abramovich’s second in command, and Abramovich trusted Katranov completely. They had a special bond.
“Once recruited, Katranov became our highest-ranking asset in Russia. His intelligence was invaluable: missile capabilities, submarine routes, terrorist leads in the Caucasus …”
My father speaks slowly, choosing his words carefully. Whether this means he is lying or telling the truth, I have no idea. The waiter delivers a plate of merguez—a spicy mutton-based sausage—and my father slices off a chunk.
“But most importantly, Abramovich had orchestrated Russia’s most secret tactical nuclear operation since the Cold War.”
“Micro-nukes,” I intercede, remembering what he told me in Waterford.
“Kosheleks,” he says in Russian. “That’s what Abramovich called them, Kosheleks.”
“Purses?” I translate. “They were that small?”
“Like cans of whipped cream,” he says dryly.
“Katranov told you about those weapons?”
“He agreed to pass us intelligence about them and anything else Abramovich directed. So yes, Katranov told us all about Abramovich’s top-secret program to develop micro-nuclear weapons.”
He takes a sip of Boga and bares his teeth. “I love this stuff.”
I take a sip of the flat soda. “Me too.”
Smiling, he continues, “But Abramovich was also an arms dealer. He allied with terrorist states for profit. Because of men like him, terrorists don’t need science, or infrastructure, or materials to create weapons. They only need enough money, or leverage, to buy from the right dealer. You see why weapons like those—easy to move, nearly impossible to trace—should never exist? Not on our side and certainly not in the hands of someone like Abramovich.”
I nod. “So what happened to—”
My father silences me with a twitch of his nose. From behind me I can hear footsteps. Then the waiter leans over my shoulder and delivers a plate of fresh figs and dates.
Once he’s left, my father stabs a fig with his fork. “SVR knew someone inside its Foreign Affairs Directorate had turned. We suspected they were close to identifying Katranov. So, to protect himself, and simultaneously take down Abramovich, Katranov framed Abramovich.”
“You mean betrayed?”
My father grimaces. “Abramovich was a tyrant, a ruthless, Machiavellian oligarch. Our only way to get close to him was to turn one of his own. Katranov did the right—”
“If Katranov was a traitor, how could you trust him?”
“At some point operators have to make a call. Can we trust an asset or can we not? On Katranov, I was right. I arrived in St. Petersburg to exfiltrate Katranov the same night SVR raided the Foreign Affairs Directorate—and Abramovich’s office as well as his home.”
Sensing his hesitation, I prod him along. “And then?”
He sighs. “We got Katranov and his family out of St. Petersburg. SVR located the documents. Abramovich was captured, convicted of treason, and taken to prison at Lefortovo in Moscow. A few years later, Abramovich died ‘of heart failure.’ ”
“And you found the weapons?”
“We destroyed the Kosheleks that had thus far been developed and dismantled the program.”
I swirl a date through the fennel yogurt, wondering what St. Petersburg has to do with Bekami. “So, if you exfiltrated Katranov, where is he now?”
My father glances at his watch, scoops the last of the merguez into his mouth, puts ten euros on the table, and stands. “Time to go,” he says. He lifts his bottle of Boga and drains the last of the soda in one gulp. “We have a rendezvous.”
Ten minutes later, my mother meets us beneath the arch in the Ville de Nouvelle. She has our duffels. Earlier the square was crowded with men sipping mint tea. Now, it is deserted.
We walk four hundred meters through the tangled, tree-lined streets until we reach the south edge of the medina. My mother hails a rickety cab. She speaks in rapid Arabic to the driver.
“Aren’t we supposed to be off the grid?” I ask in Finnish—the most obscure language to come to mind.
“Not anymore,” she answers. “Andrews ordered us back on.”
We pull into the Tunis Airport.
I turn to my father. “Where are we going? What’s happened?”
Before the taxi comes to a complete stop, my father opens the door and we glide onto the pavement. He doesn’t answer me.
He is occupied with his phone. I look over his arm. Having downloaded the SUISSEAIR app, he purchases three airline tickets for Flight 2334.