and her heart thudded in her chest. Despite the fact that she didn’t like what he was doing, she didn’t want him to be harmed. Since the first day of the invasion—the term she was determined to use, not reunification—she’d been concerned about him. Her father appeared in many public places, becoming very prominent.
All it will take is one determined sniper. Or even a common citizen who can get close enough to him.
She had suffered through several nightmares since that first day and had not enjoyed a good night’s sleep since. Instead, she had subsisted on tea and toast, and she had researched and watched the news, and she had written story after story lambasting President Nevsky.
“Father.”
“Good evening, Anna.” He sounded tired, his voice gravelly the way it sometimes got when he had been too long without sleeping.
“You have not been resting.”
Her father chuckled. “These are not restful times.”
“Much of that seems to be your fault.”
He sighed. “Are we going to have an argument?”
Anna briefly considered that, thinking that an argument might very well be the thing she needed to relax. She had not even realized it was evening. Now, as she looked out her door and saw the dark skies hanging over the city, she realized she had lost all track of time.
“No. I don’t want to argue.”
“Neither do I. These past few days, I have had my fill of it.”
“Do you truly believe in what Nevsky is saying, Father? That this move is merely to reunify Russia and not to force those countries back under Russian control?”
Her father hesitated for a moment. “Am I talking to my daughter, or am I talking to the writer for The Moscow Times?”
“Does it matter?”
“My answer would not be changed, but I do not wish to be quoted in a newspaper. I have had enough of that too. Even as little as I talk, so many reporters willingly take what I say out of context and use it to their own ends.”
“All you talk about is how good the Reunification is.”
He didn’t reply.
“You are talking to me, Father.” Anna sighed. “Not a reporter.”
“Good. I had hoped to talk to my daughter.” He sounded more jubilant, and that made her feel good. “You are still safe?”
“I am. Currently I am stranded in Kabul.”
“The American has gone to Kabul now?”
“No. I have gone to Kabul. I am trying to get home. Flights into and out of Moscow are very limited.”
“Ah.” Her father suddenly sounded relieved. “You have decided not to pursue the American’s story?”
“At the moment, he appears stymied. And Russia is the story now.”
“The things you have been writing about President Nevsky are very harsh.”
“I made an agreement with you. You would not be talking to a reporter. I do not wish to be talking to an editor. Or worse, a censor.”
“I am speaking as your father.”
“Then, speaking as your daughter—and respectfully, at that—I must disagree with your assessment of my view on your president.”
“He is your president too.”
“Not when he does things I disagree with.”
Her father growled, but she ignored him. He took a breath. “Perhaps we should find something else to talk about.”
“Of course.” She adopted a mocking tone of voice. “How was your day?”
Unexpectedly, her father laughed. It was deep and throaty, and it took her back to when she had been a girl and he had come home from the wars to read to her. During those times, her mother had said, her father needed to laugh, and she was the only one who could make that grim soldier step outside of the horrors he had seen to become just a man again.
“I concede the point, Anna. Perhaps, at this time, there is not much I can talk to you about. But I am very glad that you are all right.”
“I worry about you, Father.”
“You need not do that. I am invincible.”
He said that like one of the Russian characters in the Pierce Brosnan James Bond film, Goldeneye.
“I still worry.”
Some of his levity left him. “Have you seen anything more of the man who pursued you?”
“No.”
“That is good. Perhaps it was only your imagination.”
“Or he’s out killing someone else.”
Her father growled again.
“I know you have been busy, but did you have a chance to look for the man whose picture I sent?”
“I did. I did not find him.”
“That is a surprise, because I felt certain he was Russian and military.”
“Can you tell me anything further of your adventures with Professor Lourds? The only things I have seen in The