Yet here I was in a Cadillac instead, moving at a crawl through the brightest, busiest city I’d ever seen. The closer we got to Central Park, the deeper the roar of the crowd became all around us. My heart was trying to climb up my throat. I’d thought Washington was overwhelming, but the noise in New York City had me wanting to dive into a foxhole.
And maybe my rising nerves had a little something to do with the third threatening note I’d found . . . this one waiting in my coat pocket as I boarded the train for New York City. Whoever it was had followed me from Washington—had been close enough to touch me—could have sunk a knife between my ribs rather than slipping a note into my pocket that read I’M GOING TO CORE YOUR SKULL WITH YOUR OWN RIFLE BARREL YOU MURDERING RED SLUT.
I didn’t care that the embassy wasn’t worried; that they’d wave it off as another American crackpot. I was being hunted, and I was weaponless on unfamiliar territory, and for a sniper that was terrifying.
And on top of all of that, I had to give a speech in this huge, cacophonous park crammed with people who would probably agree that I was a murdering Red slut.
“Lyonya told me you gave your first speech in Sevastopol.” Kostia looked straight ahead, voice low and calm, but his shoulder was pressed into mine as though we were lying on our elbows in a trench, waiting for our shot. He knew about the threats, but I’d made light of them—I didn’t want him seeing I was afraid. “How did you prepare then?”
“I asked Lyonya—” My voice caught on his name; I swallowed hard. “I asked how someone like me who shoots people from a distance, trying never to be seen, is somehow stuck under bright lights in front of a packed crowd, giving a speech.”
“And he said?”
“ ‘Shut up, Mila, you’ll be brilliant.’ ”
“He was right.” Kostia looked at me squarely. “You’ll always be brilliant.”
“But—”
My partner raised his hand, holding it flat at eye level. I stopped speaking and raised mine. My pulse might be racing, but my hand was granite steady. Threats or no, crowd or no. Kostia smiled. Not with his mouth, but folded into the corners of his eyes, where only I could see it.
I couldn’t resist a smile back, the strange chaos of conflicting emotions warring in my stomach again. Ease and awkwardness, tenderness and confusion, wariness and—
The Cadillac swung through the main entrance of Central Park, and the roar redoubled. Crowds were pressing all around, barely held back by the motorcade. I spared one look at them, then back to Kostia. Breathe in, breathe out. “You’ll have my back?”
“From here to Stalingrad.”
The car halted. “I wish I was armed,” I groaned as the doors opened, and then I swung myself out, hoisting a smile into place. My ears roared at the noise; hands were pulling me forward and men in burly jackets lifted Kostia and me up onto their shoulders. They bore us along through the crowd up to the stage, where the mayor of New York was saying something through a microphone about the gargantuan struggle of the Russian people against the German fascists.
And then it was time for me to speak.
I looked out at a sea of faces, an ocean of cameras. Don’t fail, I thought. Don’t miss.
“Dear friends.” I heard my voice soaring, as though it might carry all the way up to the spires of these vast skyscrapers. Kostia repeated my words into his own microphone, fierce and sonorous. “Hitler is making a desperate attempt to cripple our united nations before we Allies do it to him. It is a matter of life and death for the freedom-loving people of every country to join forces and render assistance to the front. More tanks, more planes, more ordinance.”
I spread my boots, clasped my hands at my back. I found the rage in me that a year at the front hadn’t killed, and let it roar flame-red into my voice. I spoke in Russian, but even if these New Yorkers couldn’t understand my words, they could understand my fire. My anger. My will.