“Say, about your name,” the marksman exclaimed as if just struck. “It’s the same as the lady sniper’s. What are you, her brother, cousin—”
“Her husband.” The doctor drank his vodka off in a quick motion.
“I thought she was a widow.” Pretending bewilderment.
“It’s complicated.” A conspiratorial smile. “Aren’t all things, with women?”
The marksman buried his own smile in his glass. He heard jealousy in the other man’s voice, envy, spite, longing . . . that confrontation at Boulder Bridge had been a marital quarrel, then. He hadn’t been entirely sure—bumbling around the banks of Rock Creek as a local birdwatcher hadn’t gotten him near enough to eavesdrop, and he hadn’t wanted to get close enough for anyone to see his face under the brim of his baseball cap—but the body language between the girl and the doctor had told its own intriguing story. Their meetup had surprised him. The marksman had been tailing the doctor that afternoon, not the girl—narrowing down his choice for who to approach on the delegation staff, what person could be used to fix the frame around Lyudmila Pavlichenko. And then to discover his top pick was her disgruntled, shunted-aside husband?
Sometimes fate dropped a gift in your lap.
Another round of drinks, and the marksman waited for them to hit before he leaned closer across the bar. “So, this student assembly . . .”
Chapter 26
The headline: THE INTERNATIONAL STUDENT ASSEMBLY OPENED TODAY WITH NEARLY FOUR HUNDRED STUDENTS FROM FIFTY-THREE COUNTRIES. LATIN AMERICANS, AFRICANS, ASIANS, AND EUROPEANS MINGLED IN HARMONY AND ENTHUSIASM.
The truth: The students from Bombay University nearly came to blows with the British Oxford contingent over the so-called Indian Question, and the only reason I didn’t start swinging alongside the young man in the turban shouting, “We’ll win independence eventually, you colonial curs!” was because Krasavchenko threatened to have me exiled to the Arctic Circle.
“MAY I STEAL you away, my dears?”
I blinked up at the First Lady, exchanging glances with Krasavchenko and Pchelintsev. The opening-day reception was far from over; the three of us stood with untouched plates of canapés and glasses of ubiquitous warm white wine like perfumed goat pee, besieged by questions from journalists, honorary guests from U.S. civic organizations, and fellow students. Krasavchenko was boring the ears off a White House aide; Pchelintsev was re-fighting all his Leningrad duels for an American general laden with medals; and I was fending off an avid society columnist who wanted to know what kind of makeup routine I followed at the front. “I bathe in the blood of my enemies,” I wanted to tell her. “It’s simply wonderful for the complexion!” But she would probably think I was being serious, because Americans seemed to assume all Soviets were as humorless as my minder, Yuri.
In other words, all was going much as expected, the first day of the conference. But now the First Lady was drawing the three of us aside. “Supper at the White House,” she made our excuses for us, collecting Kostia along the way. I expected to be ushered into the familiar White House dining room and resolved that this time I wouldn’t gape at the chandeliers and portraits and china—but we were led into a private oval-shaped study instead, and my jaw dropped for an entirely different reason.
In the center of the room, a man sat alone in a wooden chair with a high back, long-fingered hands resting on its wide arms, a tartan rug across his legs. “I’d like you to meet the President,” the First Lady said simply.
I was already standing at attention, bracing without making the decision to do so. So were the others, all of us responding to the authority radiating out of that chair. The President’s keen gaze passed over us as Kostia made introductions, and I knew he’d be able to produce our names and details a decade from now if he were asked. “Krasavchenko, Pchelintsev, Pavlichenko—how wonderful.” He smiled, and I couldn’t help smiling back as I stepped forward in turn to press that long, sinewy palm.