by Owen Chance
Petrov was suddenly blocked from the communiqué of the embassy’s top-level staff. Someone had built a new firewall, one impenetrable by his spyware. He spent the next three hours trying to get through, launching new viruses into the system and trying every back door he knew of. Finally, he had to admit he was locked out. The firewall was just too strong. And he knew it was put there by Thom.
3.
Anderson and Thom sat across from each other in the ambassador’s grand office on the top floor of the embassy. Pine paneled walls enveloped them, walls made from trees felled in the Alaska territory, a strange land of neon lichens and aurora borealis and deep oil preserves that Russia had sold to the United States on March 30, 1867, giving up its desire to expand Mother Russia’s trade power on the Pacific Coast of North America. A great oil painting of William Seward, the Secretary of State who brokered the purchase of Alaska, hung high on the wall behind Anderson’s chair. Seward looked down on Thom and smiled, so it seemed. Thom wondered how Seward could fathom the mess, both digital and on the ground, these two super powers would make of their once cordial relationship.
The embassy compound was on lock down, but business on the inside hummed as usual. Visa applications were being processed. Agricultural loans were being negotiated. But none of the employees had been at the airport and seen the crash, save for Ambassador Anderson, Thom, and the two security agents who went everywhere with the diplomat, two men currently stationed outside the office doors as Anderson and Thom sipped coffee, but mostly, for the three hours of the lockdown, sat in silence.
“I’m sorry about your friend, Paul.” Thom finally said. Though the ambassador was Thom’s friend, he rarely called the man by his first name, preferring, or professionally requiring, the use of sir or Ambassador. Only in vulnerable moments did Thom use Anderson’s first name, and if watching the murder of one of his close friends on a tarmac mere yards away wasn’t one of these moments, Thom didn’t know what was. “Ambassador Popov was a good man. A patriot, but also a world citizen who wanted to see his country become a leader for peace and for good.”
“I know, I know, he was a good man of integrity and he didn’t deserve…” Just then the speaker on Anderson’s desk lit up and Natalie’s voice rang up, “Sir, I have Mrs. Popov on the phone for you.” Anderson had tried to call the Popovs as soon as they were safe in his office, but he had to leave a message with Mrs. Popov’s assistant. Naturally, she had been busy at the moment. Anderson picked up the phone and even from across the desk, Thom could hear her sobbing.
“Sylvia, Sylvia, I’m so sorry. I had just been with Andrei in Geneva and he was so happy to come home and spend more time with you down at the sea,” the ambassador told his friend’s wife. They spoke for another 15 minutes, though Thom could hear only one side of the conversation.
Thom remembered he had never checked his phone. When the agent handed it to him as they exited the Rover in the underground garage below the embassy, Thom had been so shocked he just stuck the phone in his blazer pocket as they rushed into the building. As the ambassador spoke to Popov’s wife, Thom pulled his iPhone out and saw he had missed nine calls, three from a Texas number — strange, he thought, though probably his dad with a new cell phone he didn’t know how to use, and wouldn’t use to call Thom on purpose anyway — one from Petrov, and five from Jason. This was odder. Jason had finally texted him, which he read as Anderson hung up the phone. Call me as soon as you get this, Thom.
“What’s wrong?” Anderson asked him. Thom looked up, “Probably nothing. Jason just needs to talk to me. Do you mind if I step out?”
“No,” the ambassador said, “Not at all. But I’d like you to go to Andrei’s funeral with me on Wednesday. His wife insisted we both be there when I told her you’d been with me as the plane exploded.”
“Absolutely, sir. I’d be honored,” Thom said, standing, then giving a shy little wave to the ambassador. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.” The ambassador laughed, “Take all the time you need. It’s not liking we’re going golfing today,” sweeping his arms around him to the cage where they now found themselves.
Thom stepped into a small hallway connecting the ambassador’s office to the chamber where his deputies all had offices. The space only contained Natalie’s desk, and she must have stepped away to use the restroom or deliver something to another part of the embassy. He pulled out his phone again and dialed Jason.
“Hi Jason, I’m sorry. It’s been a crazy day and I was at the airport when the Russian ambassador’s plane exploded. But I’m okay. I’m sorry if I worried you,” Thom said.
“Thom, Thomas,” Jason interrupted him, using Thom’s proper name, which he did in a strangely sweet way from time to time. “I need to tell you something, and I’m sorry I’m not there to tell you in person. Your father died this afternoon.”
4.
The last time Thom had seen his father, he’d taken Jason back to Amarillo to meet him right after they’d gotten married. He knew better than to ask the man to let Thom and Jason stay in his house, so Thom had booked a room for a weekend at the Hilton by the airport. “An airport Hilton?” Jason had asked, “Can’t we at least stay at a Sheraton or Intercontinental?” Thom laughed, “Honey, I don’t know what kind of place you think the Texas Panhandle is, but it’s not a place people vacation by choice. It’s either the Hilton or a Motel 6. Take your choice.”
When they arrived in Amarillo, Jason and Thom picked up a rental car, checked in at their hotel, showered, and then Thom showed Jason all his old haunts and the Amarillo sights. This tour took just over 45 minutes. But Thom had made reservations at a new steakhouse in town, one with cloth napkins and a wine list featuring wine from the Texas Hill country near Austin. “Wear a clean shirt,” he’d told his father on the phone last week, and his father had scoffed, “Always trying to make me what I’m not, Tommy.”
The dinner was uneventful. His father might have not liked the fact that Thom was gay, but he was a quiet ranch man of the Texas plains. Live and let live was his attitude, but don’t tell me all about it. Luckily, Jason knew this and asked Thom’s father about the history of the ranch after the server had taken their dinner orders, steaks all around, wine for Thom and Jason, well whiskey on ice for Thom’s father, whiskey, that is, with an orange twist. When asked about the ranch, the man could talk for an hour straight, and that he did. Through salads and steaks, dessert and a second round of drinks, he told the boys everything, from what tribe had originally inhabited the land to the yields of last season’s cotton crop. He kept talking as the server handed the bill to Thom, and to Jason’s credit, he listened intently, kindly even, asking questions when appropriate, even though farm life held not an iota of interest for him.
As they left the restaurant, Jason shook Thom’s father’s hand, “It was a pleasure to meet you, sir. We’d love to have you visit us in D.C. before harvest if you can.”
“Oh,” he answered, “I’m not much on cities. But thank you.” Jason went to the rental as Thom walked his father to his truck.
“Would it kill you to ask Jason a thing about his life? Or me, your son, a thing about mine? How’s work going? How long have you two known each other? How did you meet? Where have you been on vacation? I don’t know, any of the normal things a parent asks their kid? Especially a kid they talk to once, maybe twice a year?”
Thom’s father leaned against his truck, draping his arm over the side of its beat-up bed. “Tommy, I’ve never known how to talk to you. I’m sorry. I just don’t.”
“It wouldn’t hurt you to try,” Thom said, tears welling up in his eyes, “but I guess some shit never changes.” He turned and walked back to the rental car before his father could see him cry, not shaking his hand, not giving him a hug. It was the last thing Thom said to his father.
5.
Thom slipped his phone back into the breast pocket of his blazer. He stood against the wall, but as he stood there, his knees gave out. He slumped to the floor just outside the office o
f the American ambassador to the Russian Federation, and cried like he hadn’t cried in years, since his mom’s funeral when he was just a boy. Just then Natalie came back to see her young friend, and went to get the ambassador. Anderson came out and kneeled down to comfort Thom, who explained what had happened between sobs. A stroke. Then a coma. But he had a D.N.R. order on file, so when he had another stroke, and no next of kin they could get ahold of, Thom’s father had died, alone in a dim I.C.U. back in Amarillo, Texas. “He’d probably been planting cotton all week,” Thom said, sobering up, “It’s that time of year.”
The ambassador walked Thom to his private bathroom, “Take all the time you need. I’ll be waiting here. We can make arrangements to get you home.”
Thom looked at himself in the mirror, all red-faced. He’d acted like a child in front of his boss, an ambassador, no less, an ambassador on the verge of a potential international crisis. He splashed his face with water from the sink, drying it with the plush towel folded neatly on the vanity. There would be no need to rush back to Amarillo. All his father’s family was long-gone. He had few friends, and they could wait for a short graveside memorial at the ranch’s tiny cemetery. Thom would attend two funerals in the coming days, it struck him. A state funeral for an ambassador who had died under the most suspect and mysterious of circumstances. And a short little service for a man who had died on his ranch under the most typical of circumstances, and alone.
He pulled his phone out of his pocket, but he didn’t dial Jason.
“Petrov,” he said, “I’m sorry to bother you at work but…” and he told his new friend about what had happened.
“I’m going with you to Texas,” Petrov said, “and that is that.”
Chapter Seven
1.
The funeral of Andrei Popov was held at the Church of St. John the Warrior, a cathedral commissioned by Peter the Great on the banks of the Moskva River. The nave holds a strange mish-mash of relics and frescos from across the centuries of the Russian Orthodox Church. During the reign of the Soviet Union, when most religious art was stripped from churches across Russia as religion was deemed an anti-state endeavor, Communist leaders garnered an odd affection for the Church of St. John the Warrior, filling it with art pillaged from across the country and the Eastern Bloc. A menacing Christ with a square, abstract head adorned with a golden inlay crown of thorns looked down on Thom where he sat in the third pew.
Next to Thom was Ambassador Anderson and his wife. Andrei Popov had been a very renowned statesman, an anti-Communist held as a political prisoner in the late Soviet years, he had held numerous public positions and traveled the globe as a diplomat since the fall. Evidence of his illustrious career filled the pews. The prime ministers of Britain, Thailand, Israel, Germany, and Brazil. Members of the royal families from the Philippines, Sweden, and Saudi Arabia. The foreign ministers of Jordan, France, Columbia, and Japan. Practically all of the Kremlin. And in the second row, on the end of the pew next to the aisle where altar boys carried ornate sterling censers full of fragrant incense to the front of the church, sat the Vice President of the United States of America, Grant Adams.
Adams was appearing tomorrow at the opening of the new Russian National Children’s Hospital alongside the Russian president. He was at the funeral to represent the United States, Thom knew, but what Thom didn’t know, Adams was also in the second row of the Church of St. John the Warrior to mourn the death of his surprising friend, Andrei Popov. As the priest, dressed in the high tradition of the Orthodox Church, in robes of white and sashes of pure gold spun by hand for thousands of hours, delivered a practiced, steady sermon in a Russian accent Thom found hard to follow, Thom watched the Vice President. In his slim black suit and with his full head of chestnut hair and trim beard, Adams might have well been a basketball coach at some university, or a friendly hometown doctor in his native North Carolina, who frequented the local brewery but kept trim with five mornings a week at crossfit. He was not unattractive, Thom noticed for the first time, but he might be a traitor.
2.
Grant Adams hated funerals, especially ones with all the pomp and circumstance of an official state funeral. Coming back from Afghanistan, he’d served as honor guard at no fewer than seven funerals for buddies from his unit. As a senator, then vice president, he’d attended so many funerals for people he barely knew, if he knew them at all, he’d lost count years ago. But this funeral was different. He knew Andrei Popov, knew the man better than most people suspected. Andrei had been a friend, and when Mrs. Popov entered the church, walking to the front row to sit directly in front of Grant, she turned around and took both his hands into hers before being seated, leaning in to whisper into Grant’s ear, “I need to talk to you before you return to the States.”
Adams nodded, “Yes ma’m.” He couldn’t shake his last dinner with Popov, the week before Popov traveled to Geneva to meet with other G8 ambassadors. “My friend,” Andrei had said to Grant as they clinked heavy leaded glass tumblers of whiskey, “I have to be honest with you. I’m worried for my country, yes, but worried, too, for my life.”
Adams had laughed it off, telling Popov he was being paranoid, the phantom limb of his imprisoned life under the Communists. “We shall see,” Popov had said, “we shall see.
3.
After the funeral, a man — tall and so stereotypical Russian with his blond hair and deep blue green eyes, stoic, though his face betrayed him, as he had been crying — approached Thom and Anderson. Thom recognized the man as Vanya Sutnivik, Popov’s chief of staff for the last decade plus, the man always at his side and most trusted advisor. Sutnivik spoke softly to them, “Good afternoon, gentleman. Ambassador Anderson, Mrs. Popov has requested a private audience with you before the family rides with the body back to the summer home.”
“Of course, of course,” Anderson replied, “Thom, if you’ll wait for me here I’m sure this won’t take long.”
Anderson followed Sutnivik from the foyer back through the church’s vast sanctuary. Bells tolled as dignitaries from all over the world left the cathedral, most of whom would head straight to the executive airport where Popov had been killed a mere five days prior. Sutnivik opened a simple, unmarked door to the left side of the altar, where Mrs. Popov and her assistant waited in a small area used by the priests to dress for services. “Sylvia,” Ambassador Anderson said, walking over to hug his late friend’s wife, “That was such a beautiful service. Your son delivered a eulogy fit for the king Andrei was.”
“Thank you, Paul. And thank you for all the help you’ve been in the last few days. It is such a comfort to me and the children.” She paused, “Vanya, Rebekah, will you give the ambassador and I a few minutes?” The two left the room, leaving Ambassador Anderson and Mrs. Popov alone.
She opened the small black purse hanging from her arm, withdrew something Anderson could not yet see into her hand, and snapped the purse shut. Popov’s widow sighed, wiped a single tear from the corner of her eye, and looked Anderson dead in the eyes. “Paul, you know how much Andrei trusted you, yes?” The ambassador nodded. “Not only as a friend,” she continued, “but as a man committed to good.” She began to choke up upon uttering this statement, which could be just as easily applied to her late husband as to his dear friend Ambassador Paul Anderson. Perhaps more so. Sylvia Popov regained her composure and continued, “We don’t have time to, how do you say, beat around the bush, Paul. Neither of us thinks Andrei died because of whatever terrorist group the Russian government will try to pin his death on.” Again, Anderson nodded.
“Paul, before Andrei left for Geneva, he told me if anything were to happen to him to give you, and only you, this.” She handed Anderson a small, titanium encased flash drive. “Paul, I have no idea what is on this, and I’m not sure I want to know, but Andrei wanted you to have it. I only pray it doesn’t put you in danger.” A quick series of three knocks came from the door Anderson had entered through. “Darling,” Sylvia said, “I’m sorry we don’t have more
time to talk, but I have told you everything I know, which is quite nothing. I must hurry to say thank you to a few more friends before we go back home. I trust you understand?” Through the small receiver in his ear, Petrov heard and recorded their entire conversation back in his unmarked office across town.
“Of course,” Anderson said, opening the door, “And Sylvia, I will keep you posted.”
“Thank you,” Mrs. Popov said, then speaking to the man on the other side of the doorway. “Mr. Vice President, please, come in, friend.”
As Ambassador Anderson left the chamber, he nodded to the vice president, who nodded back. Hell, Anderson thought to himself, that man is no friend at all.
4.
Vice President Adams held the door for Ambassador Anderson, who nodded curtly. The two men had never gotten along. Anderson was a career diplomat, Ivy League educated and blue blooded. Adams was a military man, who got his bachelor’s degree at a state school and then joined the Marines so he could send money back to his single mother in rural North Carolina. Their ideologies, like their lineages, could not have been more opposite, even if they were both members of the democratic party.