my father. “Is this when you tell me about knowing Aksel’s father?”
“I didn’t know his father.”
“Then why did Aksel ask you about him on the tarmac?”
Remembering when I left Waterford is like being asphyxiated—Aksel’s arm tight on my waist, his lips pushed hard against mine, his words muffled by the engines, No matter what happens … I have loved every minute I’ve spent with you …
“What did he tell you about his parents’ plane crash?” my father asks again, deflecting my question. In the fading daylight crackling through the windows of the speeding train, my father’s face passes between being shadowed and lit.
I take a long sip of San Pellegrino.
“Sophia?” he prods.
“He said their plane was shot down,” I confess. “Which you obviously know.”
The train rocks as we ascend through the mountains. I wait for the movement to stabilize before I spoon some beef bourguignonne onto a piece of baguette.
“Aksel’s father, Dr. Fredricksen, visited Pakistan frequently on humanitarian missions. While there, he was contacted by Intelligence to pass on information he gained while high up in the Hindu Kush. His information led to a raid on a village harboring a terrorist mastermind. Two weeks after that raid, Dr. Fredricksen’s plane was shot down over the Gulf of Oman on its way back to Dubai.”
“How do you know this?” I ask. I see the tension in his face. His new silver beard may disguise his bone structure, his skin tone, his identity, but it doesn’t conceal his emotions. Not to me, at least.
“Because it’s my job to find out everything I can about Aksel. To learn everything about his family, his parents, his past.”
I nearly spill my drink. “Because I was hanging out with him? Because we spent time together?!”
He looks exasperated. His fingers are turning red, gripping his mug. “In Berlin, Aksel was told his parents’ plane hadn’t crashed. He was told the truth—his father had been a hero in the fight against terrorism; Pakistani Intelligence, infiltrated by terrorist sympathizers, shot down his plane in retaliation. After Aksel was told this, someone told him differently, that it wasn’t Pakistani Intelligence who shot down his parents’ plane, but a rogue American Special Operations Unit—”
“It was his grandfather,” I interrupt. “He doesn’t want Aksel to join the military. I think he is worried that Aksel will end up dead like his parents …” I trail off.
“Sophia.” His voice is like a deep bass drum, echoing my beating heart. “Aksel’s grandfather, Senator Martin Kennecott? He told Aksel it was ON-YX. He told Aksel it was me.”
CHAPTER 49
Standing, I knock the bowl of bourguignonne to the carpet. The thick stew seeps beneath my father’s seat.
“It’s not … It’s not true …” Except it could be; if there is one unequivocal fact I know about my father, it is that he is capable of anything.
I am on the verge of exploding—I can’t stand to look at my father one more second.
If Aksel believes Martin, he will never want to see me again.
“Sophia, calm down,” my mother scolds me. “We did not shoot down that plane!”
I glare at her, unwilling to believe anything either of them says.
“We contact dozens of agents like Dr. Fredricksen all over the world to help us gather intelligence,” she says brusquely. “HUMINT—human intelligence—is what we do! We’re not technicians; we deal with on-the-ground intelligence from real people.”
“So, maybe he wasn’t even working with ON-YX. Maybe it was another intelligence arm … CIA … MI6 … FVEY … maybe it was friendly fire …” I am desperate for an alternative explanation.
“Dr. Fredricksen was working for ON-YX, Sophia,” my mother says firmly. She takes her cardigan from the seat and buttons herself into it. “A year before Dr. Fredricksen was killed, an ON-YX operator met him at a café in Lahore and asked him to relay intelligence, told him he would save many lives if he did, and warned him of the risks he was accepting if he agreed.”
“How do you know this?” I whisper.
My mother breathes in deeply. “Because I was that operator.”
I sway. I have to sit. I have to stand. I have to keep moving. My mother keeps talking.
“When Pakistani Intelligence found out we had killed one of their own based on Dr. Fredricksen’s intelligence, they shot down his plane. Retaliation. Revenge. We don’t know. What matters is someone killed my agent,” my mother says fiercely.
Processing this information is like pushing gravel through a sieve. Is this another fabrication to conceal the truth?
Whether they shot down that plane or not,