Last Snow by Eric Van Lustbader

plan while you and the girl were huddled together in the back. Assuming we’re flying to Kiev . . .”
    “We are.”
    “At least something’s gone right tonight. I know someone there.” She held up her hands, palms outward. “Don’t worry, he’s not an ex-colleague, he’s someone I unearthed on my own, the head of the airport immigration staff, who’s always in need of money to feed his gambling habit. You have money, I take it.”
    “Don’t leave home without it.”
    “Dollars, not, God forbid, rubles, which don’t do anyone any good, not even us Russians?”
    Jack nodded.
    “All right, then.” She pulled out her cell phone. “Let me get to work. Once my greedy friend escorts us past Immigration, there’ssomeone else I know who can forge us documents so we can become your mythical family and move about the city. Names?”
    Jack thought a moment. “Mr. and Mrs. Charles. I’m Nicholas, you’re Nora.”
    “Nora.” Annika wrinkled up her nose. “I don’t think I like this name.”
    “Would you prefer Brandi, or maybe Tiffany?”
    “Nora it is,” Annika said, already dialing. “And the girl?”
    “Emma,” Jack said without thinking, because in this instance thinking would be fatal; thinking would point out all the flaws in this insane plan, just as it would put into glaring headlines the terrible risks he’d chosen to take the moment he’d decided to try and protect Annika from Ivan and Milan.
    They took their seats and strapped in as the Fasten Seatbelt sign came on. Annika was chattering away on her cell, which meant that she had at least been able to contact her immigration official. What if he hadn’t been on duty, or was on vacation—though who in Ukraine took vacations at this time of the year?—or, worst of all, wasn’t answering his phone? But another, more benign outcome seemed to be taking place, so for the moment Jack sat back and tried to look at the situation from all angles, as he worked on thinking his way out of this jam.
    His first option, once they were on the ground, was to call Edward, but he didn’t know whether that was the smartest option or the stupidest. The very last thing he wanted to do was to involve the President of the United States in what could turn out to be a major international incident. Relations with President Yukin were fragile enough as it was. Carson had spent the better part of this past week trying to undo the damage his predecessor had inflicted on U.S.-Russian relations over the past eight years. So in a clearheaded moment Jack decided that the man who could help him the most—themost powerful man in the free world—was also the most vulnerable and, therefore, off-limits to him.
    His next option was to contact Dick Bridges and persuade him to use his clout in the Department of Defense to get him and Alli out of Kiev using a cadre of the clandestine agents from the CIA or the NSA. That plan also had its risks, not the least of which was Carson’s own warning not to let Bridges know what Jack’s mission was. If Bridges was working for Edward’s enemies and Jack told him what was going on, Jack would personally sink Carson’s administration before it even got rolling.
    The third and last option he’d thought of involved calling Chief Rodney Bennett, his old boss at ATF. The problem there was that Bennett ran a regional office. Jack had no idea whether he had the contacts higher up to trust with this highly flammable information.
    Precisely when had this situation become toxic, Jack wondered. When he’d overheard the conversation between Annika and Ivan? When Annika had been accosted by Ivan? When he’d become aware that Ivan and Milan had invaded Annika’s room? Each increment of last night was like a tiny glass tile with its own color, shape, and texture, meaningless on its own, but when pieced together they had led him to this fugitive place, where only the unknown awaited.
    The aircraft kissed the tarmac with only the slightest of bumps.