Destiny's Pawn

by D. A. Keeley

  “I think the important lesson we’re all learning here, Dr. Thomas,” Susan Perry said, “is that some of your students need to be educated in regards to what’s going on in the Ukraine. To accuse a Ukrainian of being Russian, given the political climate, may be insulting to some people.”

  Aleksei offered no reaction. He stared straight ahead at Thomas.

  “I don’t think it’s our kids who have the problem,” Thomas said. “Aleksei, I know you punched Scotty. Do you know that I can suspend you?”

  A tiny smile creased Aleksei’s lips.

  “You think that’s funny?”

  Peyton watched the interaction, saw Thomas’s rising fury. Certain attributes and strengths must be earned. Inner fortitude is one of them. And Thomas had yet to earn a substantial level of it. His inability to deal rationally with a thirteen-year-old was sad, and, given what he did for a living, a little scary.

  Aleksei sat perfectly straight in his chair and looked Thomas in the eye and finally spoke. “No, I do not think it funny. My mother say education is gift. I not go to school after the war started. So, no, losing my chance—” He thought, trying to piece the sentence together, couldn’t, and shrugged. “Education is not funny. I think is funny that no one knows how much I value it.”

  Peter Thomas opened his mouth to speak, then closed it as if it took him a few moments to process what the boy had said. And to process the subtle insult. “What happened in the locker room?”

  “He pushed me down.”

  “What did you do?” Thomas asked.

  “I got up. I will always get up.”

  “And then?”

  The metaphor made Peyton smile—he was a kid who surely would get up after being pushed down.

  Aleksei shrugged.

  Thomas shook his head. “Go back to class.”

  Aleksei looked at Peyton. She nodded, and he stood and left.

  When the door closed behind him, Peyton said, “Did you know he’s read Crime and Punishment in Russian?”

  “I haven’t read that book in English,” Thomas said.

  Peyton nodded. “Most adults haven’t, never mind a middle-schooler.”

  “Clearly he’s having adjustment issues, Dr. Thomas,” Susan said. “Can you work with your teachers about stressing empathy?”

  Thomas blew out a long breath. “I can try, but the kid is from a different place. He needs to learn to fit in.”

  “Assimilation isn’t the answer,” Susan said. “Embracing differences is.”

  Peyton stood. “This school should embrace him. He has lots to teach the kids here—not taking their education for granted is the first lesson.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Thomas said, “but we still don’t know what went on in that locker room.”

  “Oh,” Peyton said, “I think we do.”

  8:35 p.m., Razdory, Russia

  Marfa was in the kitchen of her father’s country home, making popcorn for her children, Rodia and Anna, when Nicolay entered.

  “You skate very well,” Nicolay said to Rodia and tousled his hair.

  The mansion might have been built in the 1860s, but the kitchen was a sprawling sequence of stainless steel, granite, and track lighting. On the island dominating the center of the room, Marfa separated the popcorn into two bowls. A laptop lay between the bowls. It was black with a red sticker on the front.

  Nicolay dwarfed nearly everyone he’d ever met. He took a plate of cold cuts and a bottle of beer from the fridge and sat across the kitchen, watching Marfa work at the island. She heard the chair creak under his weight and could feel his eyes on her back as she poured two glasses of juice for the children. She set the juice before the kids and turned to him. “How is Father?”

  “Resting quietly. You upset him.”

  She glanced at the children; they ate and sipped, neither following the conversation over the crunching of their popcorn. She poured a glass of juice for herself and sat across from Nicolay.

  “Why do you say I upset him?”

  He shrugged. “He was tired after you left his room. What did you say to him?”

  “That’s really none of your business.”

  “I helped raise you, Marfa.”

  “My mother raised me,” she said, “and we both know that.”

  “She’s been gone a long time,” he said. “God rest her soul.” They were quiet for a time. Then he asked, “Why do you dislike him so much?” His beard was thick—she couldn’t recall a time when he didn’t have it—and white now.

  “He’s my father. I love him.” She drank some juice.

  Nicolay rolled a slice of ham around a piece of cheese and bit into it. “Odd way of showing it.”

  “Not so,” she said. “Father knows I love him.”

  “You ought to make sure he knows it, given all he’s done for you.”

  “My mother gave me all I have,” she said. “Father doesn’t think I can get out of my own way.”

  “He just worries about you.”

  “No. He worried about Dimitri; he thinks I’m helpless. There’s a difference.”

  Nicolay drank some beer and whispered something under his breath.

  “What did you say?”

  He shook his head.

  “I heard you, Nicolay. I heard what you said.”

  “What I said is true, Marfa. In some ways you are helpless.”

  “And what ways are those?”

  “I don’t want to have this conversation. You know I think of you as the daughter I never had.”

  “He doesn’t think I can handle things when he’s gone.”

  “I’m only sixty. He knows I’ll be here to help you.”

  “I don’t need your help.”

  He stopped chewing. “You did that time in New York City.”

  “I was twenty-three.”

  “That was old enough,” he said. “I was on my own at twenty-three.”

  “You were on Father’s payroll at twenty-three.”

  “I was working for your father.”

  “I’m every bit as independent as you,” she said.

  He smiled sadly.

  “Don’t look at me like that.”

  “I’m confused. I thought you’d want my help when your father passes on.”

  “I don’t want anyone’s help. I will run everything.”

  “Alone? What are you saying, Marfa? I’ve been with your father my entire life. When he’s gone, I’ll work for you. And I’ll help you.”

  She drank her juice and set the glass before her. “What kind of help would that be?”

  “Help running it all,” he said.

  “Is that what you do for my father?”

  “Your father doesn’t need—” He tried to stop before he finished. But it was too late.

  She rose and took her glass to the sink. Then she kissed each child on the head and said, “Uncle Nicolay will clean you up after snack, children.”

  “Marfa, I’m not your nanny.”

  She shot the large older man a look, her eyes never leaving his as she repeated, “Uncle Nicolay will clean you both up. I have important things to discuss with Papi.” Their eyes locked.

  And then she turned and left the room.

  3 p.m., Garrett Station

  “Have you spoken to Aleksei Vann about his father?” Mike Hewitt asked Peyton on Thursday afternoon.

  She was seated at her desk in the bullpen, Hewitt standing behind her. He held a copy of the translated version of the twelve-page letter Dariya Vann had sent his sister, Bohana. She could see Hewitt’s handwriting in the margins of his copy. Jimenez was at the adjoining desk, doing something on his computer.

  “No.” She turned in her chair to face him. “Not since Bill Hillsdale was here. What’s up?”

  Hewitt was look
ing at Jimenez’s computer screen. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Nothing, Mike.” Jimenez clicked out of the screen, and the US Border Patrol website, set as his home screen, appeared.

  “You’re playing fantasy basketball.”

  “Just checking the results, sir. Just taking a thirty-second break.”

  Peyton had watched Hewitt cry in a hospital room when Jimenez had been shot a few years earlier. The former Marine had sat in that hospital like a father waiting for his son to wake up, day and night, for nearly a week. He was still a father figure to Jimenez, and Peyton knew what was coming.

  “Take breaks on your own time, Miguel. If you need to blow off steam, do some sets on the bench press in the back. I’m in no mood to babysit your ass right now. Peyton, come to my office.” He walked away without waiting.

  Peyton stood, gathered her iPad, and glanced at Jimenez.

  “That guy always kicks my ass.”

  “Because he sees potential,” she said and walked to Hewitt’s office.

  “Close the door,” Hewitt said.

  She did, and then sat across from him. He had a stack of printed emails on his desk.

  “You know, if you got an iPad, you wouldn’t need to print everything.”

  He looked at her. For a second, she thought he was going to bite her head off too. Then he broke into a large grin. “You and your daily technology advice.” He reached into his desk drawer and pulled out the latest iPhone.

  “What?! Mike Hewitt has an iPhone?”

  “Keep your voice down,” he said. “This thing is a disappointment. My flip phone worked better.” He took out his reading glasses, pressed them into place with his index finger like a librarian, and said, “How the Christ do I turn it on? I know how to turn it off, but I can never get the thing started again.”

  “It’s not a lawn-mower engine, Mike. You don’t ‘get it started.’ You leave it on. Hold the power button down until it comes on.”

  “Same as to turn it off ?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Who designs these Goddamn things?” he said. “Same exact thing to turn it off and on.” He shook his head. “How the hell was I supposed to figure that out?”

  She watched him turn the phone on. He pressed the button, then stared at the phone as if waiting to see if what Peyton said was correct. The apple appeared in the center of his phone, then the home screen. He shrugged and turned it off again and put it back in the drawer.

  “What are you doing?” she said.

  “No one called. I’m putting it away.”

  She leaned back in her chair, covering her mouth with one hand.

  “What are you laughing at?” he said.

  “May I make a suggestion, Mike?”

  “You never seem to hesitate to do so.”

  “Leave the phone on.”

  “I turn it off when I’m not using it,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “I always closed my flip phone. It’s like hanging it up, right?”

  “Mike, that defeats the purpose.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Look,” she said, then she caught herself, “that’s a longer conversation for another time. What did you want to tell me about Aleksei Vann’s father?”

  “I read the letter you got from Bohana. Nothing very much in it. The boy’s mother sounds as if she’s badly hurt.”

  “Nothing in the letter helps us to know who brought the boy here,” she agreed.

  “Think that’s by design?”

  She shrugged.

  “You get the boy to tell you who brought him yet?”

  “I don’t think Aleksei knows the man,” she said, “and that is definitely by design.”

  “And the kid’s scared to say anything he does know because the guy threatened to kill his father?”

  “Yes. I’m trying to gain his trust.”

  “That might be a slow process. Might be impossible.”

  “He’ll never jeopardize his father’s safety.”

  Hewitt nodded. “His father, given that letter, is about all he has.”

  “Agreed.” She looked at a photo on the wall of Hewitt standing over a slain deer. “Russia’s annexation of Ukraine has left his family in shambles.”

  “Which means Aleksei’s not likely to risk what he has left of it,” Hewitt said. “So where does that leave you?”

  “Bohana knows something, maybe who brought the boy.”

  “And she’s not saying?”

  “Nope. Not yet.”

  “The State Department called this morning. The father, Dariya Vann, wants to visit his son in the US for a week.”

  “Excellent. If he comes here, we can ask him all the questions we want to.”

  “Doubtful. Besides, that’s not exactly how Bill Hillsdale sees it.”

  “He thinks the father will try to stay—immigrate or get here and run? Come on, Mike. The boy’s mother is severely injured. Dariya can’t be away from her for longer than a week.”

  “Or, at least, that’s what Dariya’s saying.”

  “So Bill Hillsdale is nervous?”

  “That’s not the word for it.” Hewitt smiled. “Hillsdale is beside himself.”

  “This isn’t the Texas border. Doesn’t he see that?”

  “Bill is a nice guy,” Hewitt said. “Actually, he’s a funny guy too. But he can’t see the forest for the trees. And, besides, everybody I know in Citizenship and Immigration Services is paranoid right now. But, Christ, this station went through a similar mentality following nine-eleven.”

  She nodded. She knew the reaction of the USCIS was predictable, perhaps even understandable to the members of Garrett Station. September 11, 2001, was a black eye on Garrett Station. Two of the 9/11 terrorists entered the US at this border. And members of this station would never forgive themselves, especially Hewitt, who’d been the Patrol Agent in Charge at the time.

  What had that failure led to? Community members would say it had led to a royal pain in the ass. In the months following 9/11, agents made a habit of “routine” checks, stopping people to search vehicles. The state police liked it because it slowed drug trafficking. But it also led to a lot of community resentment. Peyton knew that was why Houlton Sector Headquarters had offered local media outlets a press release announcing her return. BORSTAR Agent Returns Home had been the headline, embarrassing her but putting a hometown face to the agency that had ramped up efforts by inconveniencing residents.

  “Is Dariya Vann in the US?” she asked.

  “Not yet.”

  “Is there a timeline for his arrival and departure?”

  “I’m waiting for dates.”

  “For what it’s worth, Aleksei told me his father was staying in the Ukraine until Putin had been defeated.”

  “Well, maybe he sees the writing on the wall.”

  “I was going to go to Bohana Donovan’s to check in with Aleksei after school. He got into a fight today.”

  “Really?”

  “Someone teased him.”

  “Given his trip to the US, that’s probably not a good idea. Must be a resourceful kid.”

  She nodded. “I’ll tell you what I learn. Now, let me see your iPhone, Mike. I’ll show you what it can do.”

  He hesitated, then sighed and opened the drawer again.

  3:45 p.m., 31 Monson Road

  Late Thursday afternoon, Michael Donovan pulled off Monson Road to a driveway in front of a small Cape-style home, behind which ran the Aroostook River. He got out of the battered 2005 Ford F-150—which his father called “the parts truck” because the pickup’s primary use was running parts to and from the dealership—and looked around carefully.

  Four months earlier, he’d been granted early acceptance to the University of Maine’s Art History program. Bu
t recently he’d read several articles and blogs indicating that one’s acceptance could be revoked if you were convicted in a criminal proceeding. And since this afternoon the pickup was being used to transport something very different from truck parts, he was leery.

  There were no other vehicles in the driveway, no traffic along Monson Road, so he reached beneath the seat, removed the plastic baggie, and walked to the front door. It opened before he knocked.

  The boy standing before him, his best friend since age five, looked tired and pale, his head shiny under the hall light, his eyes sunken.

  “Howdy, butthead,” Davey Bolstridge said with a smirk.

  Michael said, “How are you feeling today?”

  “I hurt all over, man.”

  “Well, I brought you something for that,” Michael said and closed the door behind him.

  Inside, he followed Davey across the kitchen toward the living room and bath at the far end of the house. But they stopped in the hallway and without speaking descended the stairs to the basement.

  Michael couldn’t help but think about the previous spring when Davey had been Garrett High’s 220-pound clean-up hitter. Michael had rarely played, and the kids on the team gave him a good-natured teasing when he produced a small sketchpad from his bag and sat on the bench, glove beside him, penciling scenes of his teammates in the field diving and running. But Davey was different; baseball was his life, yet now he looked like the team’s scrawny freshman manager.

  Michael thought, too, of what he’d read on the Internet about kidney cancer. About the statistics. About the words fatality rate.

  Davey went to the basement window and reached for it, tried to slide it open. Couldn’t. “The U-Maine coach called the other day,” he said. “He asked how I’m doing. Didn’t tell him I can’t even open a friggin’ window.”

  “You’ll be playing there in the fall,” Michael said, and he pulled the window open. “That’s still the plan.” He held up a fist. “Roommates, right?”

  Davey gave him a fist pump but didn’t make eye contact.

  “You still want to study your art?” Davey said.

  “It’s not mine,” Michael said. “That’s why I love it—it’s created for the benefit of humanity. No one owns it. No one has the right to do so.”

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” Davey said. “When you talk like that I think you’re about fifty years old.”