Chapter 13: Show Me

Fifty paces of gravel lay between me and Viktor Draganov.

I walked them in flat shoes with my head down, and halfway across I caught Luka's sleeve again with one shaking hand.

None of the shaking was real. I had practiced it in the car.

"That's far enough, my dear," Viktor said.

We stopped where a rusted spur crossed the yard.

Pavel sat on his camp stool twenty feet beyond, blinking without his glasses.

"I asked for the girl alone," Viktor said. "I will allow the sentiment. The old man walks to you, Luka. The girl walks to me. That is the trade."

"I'm not letting go of her," Luka said.

"Then walk her all the way to me, and put her hand in mine yourself." Viktor tilted his head. "Would you like that better?"

Luka's arm went hard under my fingers.

"Please," I said, in the small voice. "Luka. He looks so tired. Let him go."

Viktor smiled at me.

He lifted two fingers, and the man beside the stool hauled Pavel to his feet.

Pavel came across the gravel on his bad hip with the blanket dragging behind him.

He passed within a foot of me. He did not look up.

"The second set of books isn't in the bag," he whispered. "The dryer on the end, behind the lint panel. Tell the boy."

Then Luka's free hand closed on the old man's shoulder and pulled him in against our side.

Ten men stood behind Viktor, and I watched their hands while I kept smiling.

Nine of them were watching Viktor.

The tenth stood on the catwalk of the signal house with his cheek on the stock of a rifle.

He was not watching Viktor. He was watching Luka.

"Luka," I said.

It was my own voice. It was low and flat and had no sweetness in it at all.

He heard the difference. In twenty months he had never heard me say his name that way.

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