Sekret (26 page)

“Please,” I whisper. “Tell me what you know.”

The car sinks. Moscow swells up to greet us. I slump against the wall as this alien thought buries deeper into my head. The operator tears open the door.

“I will see you in Berlin,” the scrubber says, all brilliance fading from him as he steps out of the car.

*   *   *

Valentin pushes toward me as I stagger off the Ferris wheel platform. The air smells like death and cold; it’s too sharp. Too real. He seizes my arm and all the pain and fear in him rubs off on me. Too much. I shake him away.

“Yul, what happened? Are you okay?” He puts an arm around my waist, but I tug away from him again.

“Please, don’t touch me. My head is…” My head is what? I look across the park, listening to the children scream as they run between the rides and the skating rink. Where have I been? Did I fall asleep on a bench and dream of sailing through the stars?

“You vanished. We were standing by the bench, and then…” He stops and rubs at his eyes. “
Bozhe moi.
Did he come back?” Valya’s voice turns hard. “Did he hurt you?”

“No. He was right there, and I—” I what? I couldn’t see his face. I heard his voice, but the words were like drops of water, and once they’d pooled together, I could never sort one from the other.

“You saw him?” Valentin cups my face in his hands. Even through his gloves, his hands are scorching. “But you’re—all right.” He swallows hard. “Aren’t you?”

The noise in my head turns sharp and acrid. “He could have killed me,” I say, throat clenching up. “But he didn’t. What if he doesn’t want us dead at all?”

“Yulia. You saw what he did to Ivan. To that wildling boy—he had no idea who he was or what he was doing there.”

“This is different,” I insist. “He was trying to tell me something.” The mass in my brain starts to unwrap like a wad of tinfoil, one layer at a time. I stand up a little straighter and sift through the thoughts that flake away with the first layer. “He wants us to go to Berlin.”

Valya and I look at each other. It’s as if we’re hearing the same song—I’ve never heard it, but it is suddenly familiar; I know its contours just before the melody glides along them. I remember flying through the air, a thumb pressing on my forehead. But I don’t remember this song or what it means.

“We can find a way out there,” Valya says, at the same time the exact same words ring in my head. But of course we have to go. Why would we ever consider anything else? I squint against the too-bright snow. Escape; I dream of running free. No guards or scrubbers or spies tethering me.

Suddenly I crave this escape more than anything, more than a hot meal in the coldest depths of starvation, more than the taste of Valentin’s sea-breeze lips. It’s not the frantic escape plan of a caged animal, like when I ran through the Metro tubes. This has weight to it. Crisp edges.

Valya presses his finger to my lips. “Please. Do not say it, do not think it. Whatever you know … we must keep it safe.”

“How?” I ask. “Rostov’s pried thoughts from my head before, even when I tried to suppress them. I don’t know if there’s anywhere safe in my head.”

“You’ll just have to fill it with other things.” He sighs, his breath hanging white between us. “I’m sorry. I wish I had a better suggestion, but anything else I might do could hurt you—”

“Perhaps not everything.” I circle my arms around his waist. I’m hungry for escape. For freedom. For the music that swells between us. “I can think of a few thoughts to fill my head with.”

I kiss him fiercely, my gloved hands gripping clumsily at his sides and his fingertips cradling my jaw. His thumbs trace my cheekbones as his mouth slips open and absorbs mine. We part to gasp for humid breaths that cling to our skin, shielding us from the sapping cold. Our eyes lock for a second before Valentin’s lips inch up my cheek, to my earlobe, kissing it faintly. “Yulia,” he whispers, savoring the vowels. “I’d follow you anywhere.”

Snow crunches behind me. I whirl around, untangling from Valentin’s arms. Major General Rostov staggers down the snowbank, fists plastered to his thighs as he fights for balance. “Children. What are you doing out here? It is not safe.”

“We were looking for…” Valentin looks from me to the bench to Rostov again. “Well, I think we were looking for you. Kruzenko was worried—”

“Nonsense. I’m perfectly all right. Come, quickly, we must report back.” He turns back onto the path toward the van, walking in jerky, pistonlike steps. Valentin and I stroll along behind him. I find myself whistling a strange tune—a silly song, really, meandering around yet repetitive. Perhaps it’s something Zhenya made up a lifetime ago. Or maybe I heard Valya playing it. I smile at him and his blushing face. I have this music in my head and his taste on my lips and I feel grand.

But Valentin hunches his shoulders tight, jamming his fists down in his coat pockets. “What happened to you, Comrade Rostov? You went to find the scrubber, but then you wandered off, and—”

“What? No, of course not. Why would I do such a thing?” He barks a dry laugh. “No, I overheard the conversation perfectly. The vile CIA team means to attend the secret
Veter 1
launch in Berlin next month.” The strange three-note melody swells around us. “I fear they may attempt to sabotage the launch. We must stop them.”

Yes.
Yes
. Yearning grabs hold of my spine and yanks me forward. I want this, too—to go to Berlin, to find the CIA team, to witness the launch. The melody fills every gap in my brain, caulking up the empty, bruised hollows and concealing the faint shape of something I think I’m trying to forget. “You’re absolutely right, Comrade General. We will stop the scrubber in Berlin.”

Rostov’s smile breaks through his face as he looks back over his shoulder. Normally, it might send a shiver through me, but now it matches the phantom melody. “I am so glad you agree.”

CHAPTER 34

SERGEI CLUTCHES THE CARDBOARD TUBE
, brandishing it overhead like a claymore before swinging it down and around. It strikes the plastic chess piece in a direct hit, sending it tumbling end over end until it cracks against the plaster wall and sticks.

“And just like that, I scored on our top goalie!” he roars, throwing down the tube and tossing his hands in the air. “The crowd went wild! Luzhniki Stadium shook to its foundation!”

“I thought you said this was during practice?” Masha asks.

Sergei wiggles the chess piece out of the cracked plaster. “Well, if there
had
been a crowd, it
would
have gone wild.”

“Congratulations,” I tell Sergei. “Now could we have our chess piece back?”

He looks toward Valentin and me, and his grin vanishes. “I didn’t think you liked chess, Yul.”

I scan the chessboard, trying to remember where this bishop piece belonged. “It passes the time.” Killing time. Passing these interminable hours, waiting for a chance to plan with Valentin, steal a moment to speak and kiss and
exist
with him without guards and Kruzenko and our classmates hovering over us …

“Sergei Antonovich!” Kruzenko’s shrill voice splits the air. “What on earth are you doing to our maps?” She rushes into the parlor and snatches the tube out of his hands. “Not studying them for the mission, I can see!”

“We still have time to prepare,” Sergei says.

Kruzenko shakes the maps out of the tube and unfurls them with a crack. “We depart the day after New Year’s. Misha and Masha, have you practiced your drills?”

“Yes,” Misha says, chiming with Masha’s “Of course.”

“Valentin? You have been keeping your mind limber?” Kruzenko tapes the maps over the now-completely crossed-out list of wildlings.

“As much as I can, without hurting anyone.” Valentin’s gaze falls to his hands, tucked into his lap.

Kruzenko smiles. “Good to hear it. Larissa will…” Kruzenko looks around us, tongue clucking, then shrugs. “Well, I’m certain that when she is feeling more like herself again, she will be up to the task. I will see to it. In the meantime, might I have a word with you, Yulia Andreevna?”

I jump up from the table. “Did you approve my request?”

Her back is to me, but her finger beckons me from over her shoulder. “We’ll discuss it in my office, please.”

My pulse thrums as I follow her through the mansion. If Valentin and I succeed in Berlin—
no
, I scold myself,
must bury that away
—then this may be the last time I see Mama and Zhenya for a while. Not forever, though. It can’t be. No matter where we run for help, we have to find a way to rescue them, too, eventually. I just want this last glimpse, this memory that I can tuck in the darkest corners of my mind for safekeeping.

Kruzenko closes the door behind us, keeping even the guards outside. Her face is too flat. Her gypsy music shield races around the room. Is it stronger than usual? I’d never noticed before the subtle shift in her shield when she’s working hard to suppress her thoughts. I dare to hope I’m getting stronger, shrewder in my skills.

“I have tried, Yulia,” she starts.

Everything collapses inside of me. Crumpling up, shriveling.

“I have begged and pleaded, but Comrade Rostov will not allow it. You must understand, your mother is very busy with her research…”

I’m numb, deadened to the rising tide of emotion inside me. “Surely she can take time away. And Zhenya, I know the doctors think he’s doing better, but I don’t want him to—” I strangle back a cry. “—forget me.”

“Perhaps when we return from Berlin, and she completes the next phase of research, then something can be arranged.” Kruzenko laces her fingers together. “I trust that will be sufficient.”

“Of course it’s not sufficient.” Tears burn in the corners of my eyes, ready to blaze a hot trail down my cheeks. I have to see them once more, I have to. I have to know what Mama is afraid of. Why she told me to run. I have to hug my brother one last time and hear him tell me, matter-of-factly, that I have no reason to be upset. “What is so damned important about her research? Why can’t she step away for just a few hours?”

Kruzenko rubs her temples, squishing her skin around like it is dough; she looks so much older now than just a few months ago. “Yulia … There is something I must explain to you about your family.”

A warning shot fires in the back of my mind.
Bang-bang.
There is something that I know, but it lies broken in my mind, flattened under layers and layers of thought. I probe at its edges, like I’m probing an aching tooth with my tongue.

“Rostov does not feel it is necessary for you to know these things in order to do your job, but I do not always agree. Sometimes we need reasons more than mere orders.” She swallows; the whites of her eyes gleam as she leans toward me. “Your parents … You know that your mother is a geneticist and your father was a developmental biologist for the State.”

“They were working with children with genetic disorders,” I say. “Trying to train them to be functional workers.”

“Yes, that came afterward. But before that, they worked on a secret research project for Stalin.” She sucks in a deep breath, hands quavering. “Our program, Yulia. They helped create it.”

I don’t answer. Jet fuel burns through my chest: shock and utter inevitability all at once.

“They isolated the genetic markers that carry enhanced mental powers, yes—at least, a few of them.”

Their old research. The cabbage soup from lunch creeps up my throat. The dream I had, one Valentin stirred up, of my parents arguing about returning to their old research. The room sways beneath me. Did they know I had this ability? They had to have known.

But why keep it from me?

“We founded the program during the Great Patriotic War, when Hitler betrayed our treaty and invaded. Stalin demanded that we never be caught off guard in such a way again. Your parents’ team was already renowned for their work in genetics, studying an unusual mutation that had been found in cross-sections of the Soviet population … including … themselves.”

“You meant that my—my parents were…”

Kruzenko purses her lips. “Your mother knew her gift for what it was—foresight, premonition. A bit like Larissa. But it also gave her painful headaches, and she wanted to isolate the cause. The research had already caught the Red Army’s attention before the war, then when it began, Stalin approached her about military uses for the people with this mutation.”

“But what about my father?” At some point, I sank into a chair; I feel as if I’m sinking still.

“He worked in the biology department, but when your mother collected samples from the other university students, he showed the markers. Turned out he had some latent remote viewing powers. Your mother convinced him to join her team.” She closes her eyes as a quaver works its way into her voice. “When the war started, all able-bodied psychics worked in their own military unit under Rostov and myself. Afterward, we decided to continue the program for espionage purposes, and your parents were to conduct further research, including, ah, how shall I put this?” She smiles with the pained look of someone about to cry. “Including how the ability passed on to subsequent generations.”

A program. A genetic program. We are silver foxes, being stripped of our teeth and claws. “A breeding program, you mean.”

“Not precisely, but yes, it was … encouraged.” She purses her lips. “Misha’s and Masha’s parents met through the program as well, and there have been others—”

“Just tell me.” I’m bloated with all the emotions I want to feel, but I’m afraid of settling into my own skin. Afraid they’ll drown me, swallow me whole. I hover within myself just like I hover over an object whose memories scare me. “My parents were really in love, weren’t they? My birth wasn’t an…” The word lodges in my throat.
Experiment.

Kruzenko smiles for real this time. “Of course they were. If you could have seen them together, during the war…” She sighs. “But they did grow troubled after your brother’s birth. He bore some of the genetic markers, but other mutations that pointed toward a different disorder. There’s no guarantee of psychic ability at birth, you see. One can’t be certain until age nine or so.”