Among the Shrouded (10 page)

With
adrenaline coursing through her veins, she escorted the cursing, bloodied man back onto the street.  She was quite surprised, however, by the scene that greeted her.  Instead of the mayhem she expected, the injured woman was lying calmly on the ground with Thomas and her husband kneeling by her side.  She was shocked to see that Thomas was naked from the waist up and as she drew closer, she realized his shirt was wrapped tightly around the woman’s wound.  She reached for her phone to call for back-up and an ambulance just as two squad cars, lights flashing, pulled up beside her.  Four officers from her station hurried out of the cars to assist her with the arrest.

“The woman on the ground needs an ambulance.  I was just about to call it in,” she told the closest officer.

“Somebody already did.  It should be here in less than two minutes,” he replied.

The mugger
was quickly placed into the back of one of the police cars so he could be taken to the station for booking.  The ambulance arrived with record speed.  After briefly giving her statement to her fellow officers, she made her way over to the woman as she was being loaded onto a stretcher.

“Thank you
, Officer Rosetti,” she said weakly.

“It’s my pleasure
, Ma’am,” she replied.  “What’s your name?”

“My name is Ethel.  Ethel Huggins.  And this here is my husband Ray.”

“Pleased to meet you, Officer,” Ray said, extending his hand which she shook firmly.  “I don’t know how you got to us so quickly, but thank goodness you did, or that man would have gotten away for sure!”

“I’m just glad you’
re going to be okay,” she said patting the woman on the arm and sidestepping the question behind the compliment.

“And if it wasn’t for this kind man here,
” Ethel continued nodding toward Thomas, “the paramedic said I would have lost a significant amount of blood.  It’s just a miracle you both were here for us.”

The paramedic appeared from within the ambulance. 
“Time to get you to the hospital, Mrs. Huggins,” he said.

After
they said their goodbyes to the Huggins, Thomas packed up their lunch while she spoke with the officers remaining at the scene.  They offered to drive her to the station but she opted to walk back with Thomas instead.

As they made their way across the expressway,
she was delighted to find herself alone with him for the first time since their lunch date was so unceremoniously ended.

“You were pretty amazing back there,”
she said, giving him a playful nudge on the arm.

“Me?  You chased down a mugger!”

“Yeah, but it’s my job.  You on the other hand… somehow you knew exactly what to do to help Mrs. Huggins.  You talked her down, stopped the bleeding, and completely defused the entire situation.”

“You learn a lot grow
ing up in places where abuse is a daily event.”

“I guess you do,”
she said.  It unsettled her to think of him in an abusive situation. 

Neither of them
spoke for several minutes as they made their way down the street.  Finally he commented casually, “Well, that was an interesting lunch.”

“Yup.  Second date and I’ve already seen you half naked,”
she quipped.

“Is this our second date already?”
he asked.

“Di
d you pay for lunch yesterday?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, then, it counts as a date.  And if yesterday was our first date, then today was our second date.”

He
paused, stopping to look at her.  “Gonna be hard to top this on a third date.”

“Really hard,” she
agreed.

“Maybe we should just end it here,”
he suggested, smiling.

“Not a c
hance.  I know you’ve got that merlot in the bag, and after today, I could really use a glass.  Let’s do dinner.”

“Dinner?”
he said skeptically.

“Yes.  Dinner.  And since you’re ‘scraping by,’ we’ll have it at my house.”

“Dinner at your house, huh?”

“Dinner at my house.  Take it or leave it.  But you bring the wine.  Shirt and shoes are optional,” she said as they reached the back entrance of the station.

“I’ll take it.  I can’t do tomorrow, but I can do Sunday.”

The anxiety
she had been feeling about her inability to judge his character based on his aura was slowly beginning to fade.  However, the confidence she felt as she took out one of her business cards and quickly added her personal cell number and home address still surprised her.  She handed it to him.

“
Sunday it is then,” she said.  “See you at seven.”

CHAPTER

17

KATE

The morning of her schedul
ed departure to America, Kate had never experienced such little control of her emotions.  She was crying one moment and giddy with wild anticipation the next.  It took her ten minutes to compose herself so she was able to join her family in the kitchen for breakfast without breaking down.

Her mother prepared a special
meal of fish, rye bread and a particularly expensive cheese that was a rare treat for her family.  As she sat silently eating the last of her cheese, she felt the full weight of her family’s expectations resting heavily upon her shoulders.  She knew they were counting on her to earn enough money to finish her schooling and she was also responsible for paving the way for her sisters to do the same.

After breakfast,
she had only a few minutes to complete the last of her preparations.  The zipper on her mother’s secondhand bag refused to give as she attempted to shove one last pair of socks into the side pocket.  Frustrated and close to tears once again, she was dismayed when her father called to her from the kitchen.

“Yes, Papa?” she said as she
dragged her suitcase from the room to set beside the front door.

“Sit down.  I h
ave something for you,” he said.

She
was taken aback by the emotion she heard in his voice.  Her mother and sisters were standing expectantly by the stove behind her father.  She pulled out the wooden kitchen chair and sat beside him.

“Generations ago, when
your great grandmother moved here from Mother Russia, she brought these with her,” he began, handing her a velvet trinket box.  “You are the first of our family since then to leave this country to go to another.  And so today, I,” he paused and turned to look at her mother, “
we
would like you to have them.  To take to America.  For luck.”

She
took the box from her father’s hands and opened the lid carefully.  Inside the box was a pair of ornamental hairpins.  The head of each pin was formed from enamel and painted with a tiny bouquet of flowers.

“Oh
, Papa,” she said, picking them up to touch their delicate beauty.

“Your
grandmother’s mother claimed they were given to her on her sixteenth birthday by a member of the royal family.  I doubt the truthfulness of that origin.  But, nonetheless, they have traveled many miles with the Malinov’s through the years.  And today they will travel many more miles with you, my Yekaterina.”

“Thank yo
u, Papa.  I promise I will keep them safe and bring them home to you,” she said, placing the box in her coat pocket.

“I know you will
.  And now,” he said, checking his wrist watch, “it is time to go.”

It was a rare occurrence for
her entire family to travel anywhere together, so it felt particularly strange as they all piled into the taxi waiting for them outside their building.  At some point, it had been decided they would all make the drive to the airport to see her safely off.  She had tried to convince them she would be fine on her own, but her father had insisted that the whole family should be there to say goodbye. 

She
sat with her parents in the back of the cab, while her sisters sat beside the driver in the front.  The international airport was on the far east side of the city and it took them over half an hour to get there.  It was a quiet trip which made her apprehensive.  She had expected her sisters to be full of excitement and chatter, but they remained stoic in the front seat, gazing silently out the window at the scenery speeding past.

Upon their arrival
at the airport, her father paid the driver and loaded her baggage onto a trolley.  Natalya and Tetyana took her hands and they walked together into the terminal.  Her mother and father followed closely behind, pushing the trolley in front of them.

“Where are you supposed to go?” Natalya asked.

She carefully pulled her paperwork out of the side pocket of her luggage and began rifling through the pages.

“It says I am supposed to take my passport and my
bags to the far end of the terminal by the customs office to obtain my ticket and boarding information.”

“That should be this way then,” said Tetyana, pointing in the direction of the customs sign.

“Are you scared at all?” asked Natalya as they made their way through the throngs of travelers hurrying in every direction.

“A little.  I’m afraid of being without you both.  Afraid of being on my own.  But we have to
remember it’s only for a little while.  Hopefully you will be joining me soon and before we know it, we will all be back home together again.”

“And
then we will never have to worry about how to pay for school.  We will have plenty of money,” Tetyana said.

“All good things have their price.  And all things worth having require sacrifice.  In the end,
I know this will all be worth it.”

“Did they tell you about
your job yet? Natalya asked.

“No.  Nothing yet.  I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.  Whatever they have me doing, I’m sure it will be fine,”
she replied.

They came to a
gate where only travelers were allowed to proceed.  She squeezed both of her sisters’ hands tightly.

“I guess this is it,”
she said.

“I guess so,” said Tetyana.

Behind them, her parents caught up with the trolley of luggage.

“We can’t come any further?” asked her mother.

“No, Mama.  We will have to say goodbye here.”

“But d
o you see anyone you know?” her father asked anxiously.

She
scanned the area for anyone she recognized from the seminar, but there was no one she knew.  Not even Henry or Patrick.

“No.  Not yet. 
But I’m sure they are here somewhere.  I’ll be fine.  Please don’t worry,” she added as she watched the tears building in her mother’s eyes.

In an effort to keep from crying herself,
she gave a quick round of hugs to each of her family members and took the trolley from her father’s hands.

“I will call as soon as I can.  They said it could take a while to get everything established
once we get there, so don’t worry if you don’t hear from me right away.  I will be fine.”

Natalya rushed at
her, nearly knocking her over with the force of her embrace.

“I love you
, Kate,” she said, her voice barely a whisper.

“Love you too
, Nata,” she replied.

After releasing herself from her sister,
she carefully maneuvered the trolley beyond the gate into the customs area.  She turned one final time to wave goodbye to her family and then headed down the corridor in search of the other students.

Around the corner
, some hundred yards beyond the gate, she came across a man holding a sign with her name on it.  She approached him cautiously.

“I’m Yekaterina Malinov,” she told the man, who was tall and l
anky with a wave of greasy black hair on the top of his head.

“Oh
, good,” he replied.  “Henry and Patrick sent me.  I have your paperwork.  Come with me, please.”

“Where are the others?
” she inquired, pushing the trolley wildly as she attempted to keep up with the man.

“They’
re already here, on the plane,” he replied.

She
followed the man for what seemed like miles through countless hallways of the airport terminal.  They finally arrived at an exterior door, which the man opened and encouraged her to go through.

“You can leave your bags here,” the man said.  “I will have someone load them for you.”

She found herself on the tarmac, surrounded by dozens of cargo planes.  The closest one, far smaller in size than the others, was equipped with a mobile staircase which led into the belly of the bird.  The lanky man appeared beside her.

“
Follow me,” he said.

She
followed the man up the staircase, holding carefully to the railing.  The engines of the plane, already running, were terribly loud and she was forced to cover her ears with her hands as she reached the door of the plane.

The ca
rgo bay was filled with crates securely fastened to the sides and to one another with large canvas straps.  To her left, in the direction her guide was heading, were several rows of seats which were bolted to the floor.  Two very frightened looking students from the seminar were already seated together in the seats closest to the door.

“
Sit down with the others.  Be sure to buckle up.  You’ll be taking off shortly,” the man instructed.

“Sir,”
she called as he was turning to leave, “what’s going on?  Why aren’t we on a regular plane?”

“It saves money to fly you to the U
nited States on a cargo plane instead of taking a commercial flight.  This way there is more money for your accommodations once you get there,” he replied.  “Have a good flight.”

The man clo
sed the hatch behind him and she stood dumbfounded in the hull of the cargo plane.  She walked over to her traveling companions and chose the seat beside them.

“You’re
Yekaterina, right?” asked one of the women, an attractive blond.

“Yes,
but please, call me Kate,” she replied.

“It’s good to see you again.  I don’t know if you remember me.  I’m Lera,
” the woman said.  She was petite and had the delicate features of a child.  Her blond hair was bleached, but her roots were barely noticeable.

“And I’m
Anya,” said the woman who was seated on the end.  Anya was the tallest of the three woman and also the sturdiest.  She was thickly built, but was not overweight by any standards.  Kate was struck by her beauty but believed she would have been far more attractive if she would have chosen to wear less makeup.

“It’
s nice to see you both,” she said.

“
So,” Anya continued, “just the three of us were selected?”

“It appears so,” said Lera.  “We really lucked out.”

“We did,” she said, although she was beginning to feel unconvinced.  “Did either of you find out what job you are going to be assigned when we get there?”

“No,” both women said in unison.

“Me neither,” she confirmed.  “How about Patrick or Henry?  Have you spoken to either of them?”

“No,” said Lera.

“I haven’t either,” said Anya.

The engines of the plane, which until that moment
had been running in neutral, sprang to life unexpectedly.  The plane lurched backward, forcing the women forward in their seats.

“
Ugh!” cried Anya over the sudden din of the turbines.

“It sounds like it’s going to be a
noisy ride,” she yelled to the others.

“Have either of you flown before?” Lera asked.

“No,” she said.  “I’ve never been outside of the Ukraine.”

“Me neither,”
Lera said.

“I have,” said Anya.  “When I was a little girl, during the good years, we took a plane to Paris to see the Eiffel Tower.  It was nothing like this,” she said sadly.

“What was it like?” she asked.

“It was quiet.  And warm.  And the seats were comfortable.  We were brought food and drinks by the flight attendants.  My mother let me get a drink with a little umbrella,” Anya
reminisced.

“It sounds lovely,” said Lera.

“Well,” she said, “this is only temporary.  Before we know it, we will be in America and we will be living in our wonderful new apartment.”

“
It’s going to be amazing,” said Anya.

“
Amazing,” she and Lera agreed.