James Frey - The Moscow Meeting

Suddenly I want more than anything to be with her again. She and Cassandra are probably on their way out of the museum already. I don’t know where they’re going, or how I’ll find them. I only know that I have to try.

At the other end of the room is the elevator and the shaft leading up to an office. But I don’t think I can climb back up the elevator cable again. In the room above me are my clothes, and getting back into them is my best chance of surviving. If I can get back up the air shaft.

First I have to find the opening. I swim up until my outstretched hand touches the ceiling tile. Fortunately, I haven’t moved too far away from where I entered the room, and a few moments later I find the edge of the shaft opening. I swim into it and kick as hard as I can, which isn’t very hard at all. Still, I move up, and every inch brings me closer to air. I keep Ariadne’s face in my mind and keep going.

When my head breaks the surface of the water, I gasp in air. My burning lungs expand, and the pounding in my head and chest calms. But I’m not safe yet. Far from it. I still have to get up the rest of the shaft and into the cellar. The longer I stay in the water, the harder it will be, so although it seems impossible, I set my back against the cold metal wall of the shaft, force my knees up until my feet are pressed against the other side, and slide upward one agonizing inch at a time.

The entire time I’m working my way up the shaft, Ariadne is there in my head, urging me on. I never take my eyes from hers, and this is the only thing that keeps me going. Even then, there are a couple of times when I don’t think I can go any farther. That’s when her voice fills my head, telling me not to give up. For her, I don’t. For her, I keep going even though I can no longer feel anything in my fingers or toes.

Then I’m at the end. It takes everything I have left to reach up and pull myself over the edge of the shaft and onto the floor. I crawl to the pile of my clothes and pull them on with fingers I can see now are torn and bloody from clawing at the walls of the air shaft. When I manage to get my coat on, I start to feel just the tiniest bit more alive. I have on clothes. I’ve survived. And I have a purpose.

I stagger up the steps and through the halls of the museum. Outside, dawn is still some time away, and the world is gray and still. I find my way back to the car and try not to think about my brother’s body in the trunk as I get in and start the engine. I turn the heater up as high as it will go and wait for the air to warm up. When my hands are working well enough to operate the shifter, I put the car in gear and drive back to the apartment we’ve borrowed from Lottie’s acquaintance Anaïs—where, I hope, Lottie is still waiting.

She is. When I come in, stumbling, she runs over and helps me into the bathroom.

She starts the water flowing into the bathtub, then helps me take off my clothes, as my fingers still aren’t working quite right. When I’m down to just my boxer shorts, she helps me into the tub. I sink down until only my head is above the water, letting my frozen body thaw. Lottie perches on the toilet, watching me.

“I’m not going to drown,” I promise her, trying to lighten the mood.

“What happened?” she asks. “Where’s the girl?”

“We found the weapon,” I say. “Well, parts of it. And some plans.”

Her face brightens for a moment, and she opens her mouth to speak.

“But there were complications. One complication, anyway. A big one.”

I tell her everything: about Cassandra, and about my trip back down the air shaft into the flooded chamber. Her eyes widen with each new detail. When I’m done, she says, “So the weapon is lost. The Minoans have it.”

“For now,” I say.

“You’re going to go after them?”

I nod. “That’s my plan.”

“How will you even find them?” she asks. “And if you do, how will you get the weapon back? Once they have it, surely they’ll keep it protected.”

“Of course they will,” I say. “As for finding them, I have some ideas.”

Lottie shakes her head. “I hope you have a secret weapon.”

I picture Ariadne. “I think I might,” I say.

She sighs. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Never better.”

She stands up. “I’ll go make something to eat, then.”

She leaves, and I close my eyes. The truth is, I’m still cold. I feel like I’ll never truly be warm again. But I’m alive. The water feels great, but I know I can’t stay here long. There is a lot to be done, and with every second that passes, Ariadne and Cassandra are getting farther and farther away. I need to go after them, and soon.

There’s a knock on the door. Lottie opens it and steps inside. She’s holding a small stack of folded clothes, which she sets on a chair. “Apparently, Anaïs has a gentleman friend,” she says. “I found these in one of the dressers.” She bends to retrieve my pile of wet things. “I’ll hang these up to dry.”

I stay in the bathtub until the water begins to cool, then get out and dry myself with one of the towels. I dress in the clothes Lottie has found. They’re a little big for me, but they’re warm. When I’m dressed, I go out into the other room. Lottie is in the kitchen, stirring something in a pan on the stove.

“There were tins of soup in the cupboard,” she says as she dips a spoon into the pot.

“I’m starting to feel like Goldilocks,” I say as I take a seat at the table. “I wonder what Anaïs will think when she comes home and finds people have been sleeping in her bed, wearing the clothes in her dresser, and eating her food.”

I take a bite of the soup. It’s made with beef, hearty and thick, and I eat half the bowl before I say another word. Lottie sits down across from me and waits. I can tell she’s anxious to hear why I’ve returned alone, but she doesn’t rush me. When I’m done, I push the bowl away. “We need to talk about what happens next,” I say. “Do you and Bernard have somewhere safe to go?”

“Safe?” Lottie says. “Safe from whom?”

“Too many people know about the weapon,” I remind her. I think about Jackson’s body lying in the trunk of the car. She can’t have forgotten what happened. “If someone thinks you know anything about where it is, they might try to harm you.”

Lottie’s face hardens, and I know she’s now thinking about Jackson as well. “There are places where we will be safe,” she says stonily. “And where we can bury Jackson.”

“Where?”

She looks like she doesn’t want to tell me. “In France,” she says.

“I’ll need to know where you are,” I say. “In case I need your help.”

“What can I do?”

“I don’t know, exactly,” I admit. “Maybe nothing. But when this is over, I know my family would like to meet you and Bernard.”

Lottie shakes her head. “I don’t think they would like that at all,” she says. “They will blame me.”

I can’t tell if she really believes this or if she’s the one who doesn’t want anything to do with us. I don’t argue with her. There will be time for that later. Right now, we both need to get going. There’s one more thing I need to discuss with her first.

“What can you tell me about Karl Ott?” I ask her.

Lottie shrugs. “I’ve known him since we were children. Our fathers worked together.”

I sense that this is something else she’s reluctant to talk about. But I need information, and so I press on. “What’s his real name?”

She hesitates a moment before saying, “Tobias Falkenrath.”

“Jackson said his father was imprisoned by the Allies.”

“Yes,” Lottie says. “The Soviets.”

“Could Ott be working with someone?”