Brink of War

9

Vladimir was right on time. I'd already dressed and stretched out, and was ready to go.

"It is very important to keep moving," Vladimir said, running in place just outside the front door. "Even if you slow to walk, you will stiffen up too fast. Run ― we will not go far, just three miles perhaps. This will be acceptable?"

"Three miles is fine." I could feel the cold seeping in through the long underwear and head covering. "I'll keep up."

At first, it was excruciating. The cold bled up through the soles of my running shoes, through two pairs of socks, and I lost feeling in my feet. Vladimir appeared unaffected, so I pressed on, struggling to extract oxygen from air so frigid it felt sterile.

Fifteen minutes into the run, I started warming up. A sense of well-being and euphoria flooded me, all the more startling for the circumstances. Vladimir set a brisk pace, but not a difficult one.

Eight-minute miles, I figured. But from what I could tell, he'd made one small mistake in his English. This was not three miles total, it was three miles out and three miles back.

No matter. By now I could feel my muscles sliding easily over me, and I'd learned the trick of taking shallower breaths as my body settled into the rhythm of the run.

One of those ungainly Russian transports followed us but stayed well back. The noise of its engine was annoying in the cold, silent, dark morning, but it gradually faded to background as Vladimir cut off the road and led the way into the woods down a path too narrow for the transport to follow. When I could barely hear the Russian truck, Vladimir slowed to a walk.

"We have not much time," he said, his voice slightly ragged from the run. "Your father ― there are circles within circles here in Russia, Admiral. Too many sides are trying to play this card with you."

"And you?"

He gave a short laugh. "You can trust me ― I sent the photo." I'd not mentioned it to anyone other than my mother and my uncle, and I felt relatively sure they'd kept it quiet. "But you have no way of knowing that, do you?" he continued. "No reason to believe me. Still, later today someone will try to convince you that you are meeting your father. Please, test the man they present to you. Convince yourself ― do not let them convince you with their statements alone."

"Where is he, then? And why will they try to deceive me?" I asked.

The anger that was always below the surface surged back. I wanted to smash his face into the cold ground, feel his neck crushed between my hands.

Vladimir shook his head, and picked up the pace again. "It will take some time to arrange it. But first, you must let them make their play for your belief. Otherwise, you will not understand when I show you."

I reached out and grabbed him by the arm, spinning him around. "Who's working with you? Anna? Brent? Ilanovich?"

Vladimir pulled away easily, and I was aware of the immense power in his sculpted muscles. "All of them ― but sometimes not with their knowledge. They think they do one thing, for one reason, but it has… repercussion." He paused, as though uncertain of the word. "Ripples."

"Who will try to trick me, then? Can you at least tell me that?"

Vladimir shook his head. "When you see the truth, you will know it.

You are closer to it than you know. I have shown many families what has happened, and they all know. You will, too. Now, let us finish this run before we both turn to cement in the woods."

We reemerged from the woods onto the road and turned to head back to the quarters. I tried to regain the easy sense of timelessness I'd had on the first leg of the course, but the questions Vladimir had raised in my mind would not be silenced. When we finally reached the barracks, I was more troubled than when I'd left. Vladimir refused to answer any questions, thanked me for accompanying him, and let my security detachment take charge and hustle me back inside.

I showered and breakfasted lightly on the fresh pastries and fruit that had been delivered at my request. By now, I should have been accustomed to the intricacies of dealing with Russians, but if anything I was even more frustrated. Why would my search for my father raise so much interest ― and for evidently different reasons ― in various factions in Russia today? I could understand wanting to keep it a secret, to hide the fact that they'd done what they'd denied to the world. But if what Vladimir said was true, then more than one group wanted to be the ones who fessed up and tried to repair the damage. Some sort of maneuver by someone to demonstrate that they were the new Russian leadership determined to atone for past sins, I finally decided. My own personal agony was merely a pawn in some deeper game.

Was it even possible that my father was still alive? It had seemed so eighteen months ago when I'd first met the Ukrainian officer. In a way, I had believed it more readily then than now.

Perhaps it was something like the way an aviator never really believes he's going to die in his aircraft. Sure, it happens to others, pilots who aren't as careful. Or as good. Or as touched by the gods, as most pilots seemed to feel. Under the same circumstances, you're certain you would have been smarter, faster, tougher ― seen the problem earlier, done the right thing the first time, or, barring all that, you would have been smart enough to punch out before it was too late. Sometimes, that attitude bleeds over into the rest of your life.

But no matter how good I was, this was all out of my control. It was like sitting in the backseat if you didn't have an ejection handle ― which, thank God, a Tomcat RIO does, a little fact that has saved my ass more than once ― with a pilot who's dead. You always need a way out. In fact, that's a major teaching point in most training syllabi. Always think one step ahead, plan what you're going to do if things go to shit.

Maybe that's what was bothering me. That there was no way out at this point, at least not one I could live with. The Russians claimed my father was alive and that they would take me to him. I had to either go see or live with that for the rest of my life.

A knock on the door, then Ilanovich's distinct voice. "Tombstone, my friend. I have news." I opened the door and invited him in, already suspecting what he would have to say.

It had been, according to Ilanovich, a matter of personal honor to him as a Russian and as a senior naval officer. He'd heard, of course, about my quest for my father. That much he admitted readily, lending a semblance of sincerity to the rest of his story. How could he, as my counterpart and a man who respected me deeply, not only professionally but on a personal level, allow this question to go unanswered?

I waited, holding down the anger and trying to appear patient and interested through a thirty-minute narrative of the difficulties of tracing down post-Cold War witnesses, of penetrating the shrouded secrecy that cloaked even the most innocent records in Russia, of calling in favors owed to him dating back from his earliest days in the military. Finally, Ilanovich concluded, he'd learned the truth. The horrifying, glorious, shameful truth. My revulsion reached a new level at his next statement.

"Your father still lives, my friend," he said, his voice choked with emotion. "I cannot even begin to apologize ― the things that happened, you understand, this is not the conduct of professional military men everywhere. The politicians, the GRU ― you have my profoundest sympathies, and I will do everything in my power to correct this heinous act." "Where is he?" I asked.

"Here ― in Kursk, in a hospital. We can see him this afternoon. You… you will want to go, yes?"

"Of course I will." I started to try to add some words of thanks, but a profound confusion was setting in. Was Vladimir right? Was Ilanovich lying to me, trying to manipulate me for some purpose? How could I tell which one was telling me the truth?

Ilanovich evidently took my silence for profound emotions. He reached out, covered one of my hands with his own. "We will go then, at two o'clock. I will come for you." He started to say more, but something in my face stopped him. He stood, clapped one hand down hard on my shoulder, and squeezed. "I am honored to be able to do this thing, to set this right." He left me sitting there staring out at the early morning light.

It was still two hours before we were due to leave, but I was already dressed, waiting impatiently, just like a kid on his first day of school.

Finally, when pacing the room was starting to get on even my own nerves, I forced myself to sit down in a comfortable chair located at one end of the room and consider my options.

First, I could simply not go. God knows there were plenty of reasons that I could come up with for that one. The Navy was not going to be any too happy about my traipsing around the Russian countryside unescorted.

Any admiral in the Navy has enough classified material floating around inside his head to set back national security about fifteen years. Me more than most, given the amount of time that I'd spent on the front combat lines. If I wanted an excuse, I had a built-in one.

Then there was the small question of the rest of my detachment.

Theoretically, we were in the middle of a goodwill airmanship contest. If I left, that would leave Gator Cummings in charge as the senior officer in the detachment.

Gator was a good man, no doubt about that. Smart, canny in a way that his hotheaded pilots Bird Dog and Skeeter would probably never recognize.

But even though he could handle Bird Dog's ego in the cockpit, dealing with Russians and diplomatic relationships on the ground required different skills, ones I wasn't sure he was senior enough to have mastered yet.

Could he handle the Russians? Under normal circumstances, yes.

But these weren't normal circumstances. Lab Rat's daily wrap-up message had mentioned increasing tensions in the water to the north of us, and I was feeling increasingly uneasy about even being on the ground in Russia. If things fell apart, it would be a hell of a lot more awkward for the Russians to make an American admiral disappear than some more junior officers. Not to mention the two Tomcats we brought with us.

No doubt about it, there were plenty of reasons for me not to go. Any one of them would have been sufficient.

The only hard point was that I could see no way that I would be able to live with myself afterward. My uncle understood that, and it had been the only reason that he had authorized this mission at all. Uncle Thomas was made of stronger stuff than his nephew ― I knew in that moment that he could have lived with the knowledge that his brother was still alive.

I couldn't. Whether it was because I was his son, or that I had some weakness Uncle Thomas did not, I could not say. Nevertheless, there was simply no way I could not go.

But that didn't mean I couldn't have a contingency plan. The resources available to me in this country were scant, to be sure. But I had a couple of tricks up my sleeve that I was relatively sure the Russians didn't know about.

I pulled my black leather briefcase up onto my lap, and paused a moment before opening it. If there was video camera surveillance in this room, then I was well and truly screwed.

I picked up my briefcase and walked over to the bed. It was still rumpled and unmade since I had not left the room long enough for the maids to take care of it. I lifted up the heavy comforter that was the top layer and pulled it over my head while still sitting on the edge of the bed.

I slid the briefcase on the bed and under the cover. If the Russians were watching, they would undoubtedly be suspicious.

Suspicious ― and ignorant. They might think I was carrying classified material, drugs, or almost anything else. They might even suspect the truth.

I unlatched the briefcase and pulled out the pistol. Still under the covers, I tucked the pistol into the special pocket concealed just under my armpit. I had spent hours at the tailor making sure it would fit without showing. It would not survive even the most routine pat down, and certainly not a metal detector, but at least it wouldn't advertise its existence to a casual observer.

It might not do me any good but I felt better having it on me. And with any luck, I wouldn't need it. After all, luck had gotten me this far.

If I hadn't been onboard USS Jefferson when Yuri had been there, I never would've heard about my father in the first place.

I paused for a moment and considered that proposition. Had it been luck and nothing more? The same capricious factor that had put my father over the bridge just as anti-air search radar came on? The same thing that had kept him alive through the ejection and perhaps the countless years in Russian custody? That luck?

Or had it been something more sinister? Could the Russians ― and the Ukraine for that matter ― have known I was going onboard Jefferson that very day? At that time, I had no longer been in command of either the ship or the battle group. Predicting my presence onboard Jefferson would have required an intelligence gathering capability far greater than I wanted to believe they had.

But it was hard to go wrong overestimating the capabilities of your opponent. At best, it would keep you prepared for disasters that others had failed to anticipate. At worst, you simply had an additional edge on them.

Did it always come back to this, then? Thinking and rethinking, anticipating and planning, almost to the point of outguessing yourself?

I patted down the gun again, finding a way out of the circular reasoning by feeling its hard outline under my fingers.

My escort arrived precisely on time. I opened the door, expecting to see the military police, the translator assigned as my aide, and a few other pilot fish with them for good measure. Who I didn't expect to see was my counterpart Admiral Ilanovich.

"It would be my honor to accompany you," the admiral began. "And perhaps to expedite this trip should unexpected difficulties arise." He stepped across the threshold, held up his hand in American fashion, then apparently changed his mind and gave me a quick, hard Russian hug.

I started to endure the unwanted familiarity with diplomatic grace.

Then I remembered the gun. I drew back sharply, the classic American startled by customs that were not his. I feigned a look of discomfort, followed by an apology of a smile. With any luck, they would buy it.

The admiral looked slightly offended for a moment, then his face moved over into a diplomatic mask similar to my own. "I forget," he said. "Our customs, they are so different. And we Russians are an emotional race.

That you'll see your father today, after so many years ― please, forgive my intrusion." He touched one finger to the corner of his eye, a move that I found over-the-top. From this man, this admiral, I did not buy an excess of emotion that drove him to tears. And I was slightly insulted that he thought it would work.

We left the visiting officers quarters in one of those ubiquitous black Zil limousines that are the hallmark of power and prestige in this part of Russia. I heard that Mercedes-Benz were replacing them in Moscow and other large cities, but that innovation had not made it this far north yet. Besides, there were no doubt more Zil automotive technicians than Mercedes this far north. There was something about the native Russian construction of the engine and the suspension that was peculiarly more adapted to this harsh northern climate.

Traffic was light, as it always is in most Russian cities. The average Russian citizen does not own a car, uses public transportation, and traffic jams are one of the innovations of the late twentieth century that had not yet come to Russian cities. Not that the roads would have supported them. Except for main thoroughfares, the roads were generally in bad repair, potholed and tortured by the brutal winter climate.

The buildings on either side, apart from the military installations, had a dirty, neglected look to them. Row after row of featureless cinder-block apartments, some looking half-occupied. There were few signs of human habitation ― no plants in the windows, no decorative curtains, nothing to indicate who actually lived there. Combined with a lack of traffic on the roads, it gave the entire area a deserted, forlorn look.

And why should the average citizen do anything to personalize his or her living quarters? After all, they didn't own them ― didn't even pay any rent, at least not in most areas. The facilities were owned by the state, provided to the citizen along with food ― scarce and in poor quality ― and utilities ― intermittent at best and sometimes consisting only of dirty-burning coal ― as a benefit of Russian citizenship. As much as anything, that is the difference between a communist economy and our own system of free enterprise. In America, you decide who you want to be and then work to earn it. In Russia, the state decided.

Finally, we pulled to a stop in front of a building only slightly less derelict than the others. It was constructed of a lighter shade of concrete, with the same small windows and forbidding construction as the apartment buildings. A Russian bus was parked in front, rust streaking the sides and with two windows missing. It pulled away belching dark smoke, the jerky motion indicating that the transmission was barely operating.

The admiral pointed at it and said, "What you call mass transit. Very highly developed here in Russia. You notice how clean the air is? We do not have your reliance on Middle East oil for private automobiles."

"And your domestic resources are sufficient for all of your heating and industrial purposes, I take it?" I asked. Bragging. The Russian economy was in an abysmal state. The oil producing fields around the Black Sea hardly made Russia self-sustaining. Indeed, if anything, their reliance on foreign oil was even stronger than our own. And with the recent construction of a pipeline between a few independent former Soviet Union states and Turkey, with Turkey undertaking refining of the crude, Russia was surely to be hit worse than before. Only several years ago, utilities to most major naval installations had been terminated in Ukraine when Russia failed to pay for heating oil. Critical in the south ― deadly here in the north.

"Our distribution system is most efficient," the admiral replied, and left it at that.

The car pulled to a stop directly opposite the entrance, taking the place of the bus I'd seen pull away. A man darted out and opened the back door for us to disembark.

The wind was muted here, undoubtedly blocked by the massive rows of buildings. The cold still bit immediately, and I could feel it etching lines in my face.

It was but a few short steps into the building. I passed through a double layer of doors intended to retain as much of the building heat as possible against the icy climate, and was immediately uncomfortably warm in a long winter coat. I shucked it off and was then conscious of the thickness under my arm and the pistol snuggled there. Was it noticeable?

I slid my hands over my body, as though checking for wrinkles in my jacket.

Yes, I could feel it ― it would be immediately discernible to anyone who wanted to pat me down, but the odds of that happening in a Russian hospital were not high. Or so I hoped.

We were met by a Russian civil servant, one of the institutions that Russia shares with us. In some strange way, he resembled his building ― an institutionalized look, closed off and inaccessible. There was no telling how long he had held the position. Russian civil servants earn their positions by party membership and political patronage and, once in place, tend to be as long-lived as their American counterparts. Even in the post-Soviet Union era, party membership still counted for something.

Introductions were exchanged, the translator moving quickly to my side. I murmured something polite about the facilities. It was as though I could feel my father's presence radiating down from the floors above, calling to me, insisting that I see him. I glanced up involuntarily, almost expected to see the summons flooding in the air.

After I refused the traditional offer of tea and refreshments, the hospital administrator nodded understandingly. He said something quietly to the admiral, which my translator did not repeat. I turned to him. "I'd like to see my father now." I did not have to force the note of real longing in my voice ― not for the man they were going to try to pass off as my father, but for the man I'd barely known as a child.

One elevator out of four worked. I boarded it with some trepidation, noting that most of the staff opted for the stairs. The hospital administrator punched a button, and, after a moment of indecision, the doors slid shut. With a shudder and mechanical groan, the elevator jerked upward.

Two minutes, much longer than the trip would have taken at an American hospital. Finally, the doors slid back, to reveal that the elevator was almost even with the floor. I stepped out hastily amid nightmares of the elevator cable breaking and plummeting to my death in that dingy hospital.

The hospital administrator said something that could only be "This way," and then led us down the passageway to a nursing station, notably cheerful and efficient-looking in the midst of so much disrepair. Both male and female nurses were standing there, evidently staged in position by an advance party. They wore stark black name tags on their shirts, quasi-military white jumpsuits. A professional-looking organization. I noted a bouquet cut out of construction paper pasted on one wall, the sole evidence of an attempt to make their surroundings look more human and less institutional.

It smelled clean and like a hospital, and the medical equipment I saw all seemed to be in good repair. There were rooms lining the corridor, not the large, open ward I expected. Perhaps just for my sake?

The hospital administrator rapped out a question to the admiral, who shook his head in reply. The administrator turned his eyes to me, his look warm and oddly full of compassion. He spoke a few sentences in a gentle voice, and waited for the translator.

"Your father is not well, sir," the translator said, speaking softly.

"He suffers from dementia, the type associated with advanced age. The years have not been gentle to him." The translator paused, waiting for more. Another burst of quiet words, and a guilty, half-apologetic look from the administrator. "His injuries when he arrived in our care so long ago, they were considerable," the translator continued. "You must understand, there are some things that are very difficult to recover from.

Mentally, he is often confused."

The anger again, harder and demanding now. No matter that it might not be my father, the idea that they'd expect me to understand, perhaps even forgive, the unspeakable acts they'd committed.

It took all my self-control to keep my face neutral and composed. I took a deep breath, and said, "Tell him I understand. And I am most grateful that he has warned me, and he has given my father excellent care here. There are some things even the finest medical science cannot cure, I know." Like the sickness in your soul that could allow them to break bones, listen to the screams, and then pretend that it was simply a normal Part of warfare. Nothing personal, you understand.

They were wrong. This was very personal.

The hospital administrator nodded, a ghost of relief crossing his face, so I must have succeeded in keeping my thoughts from my expression.

Ilanovich scowled, but made no comment.

Without further remarks, the administrator pushed open the door. He called out a soft greeting in Russian, then stepped aside, holding the door open with his body to allow us to precede him into the room. Ilanovich motioned me forward.

I stepped into the room.

It was warmer air, distinctly warmer than the hallway outside. I spotted a small space heater in the corner. The walls were blank, clean and pristine. The hospital bed itself looked new, the metal shiny and unmarked. The room smelled of starch and disinfectant. The sheets on the bed were gleaming white, partially covered by a light blue blanket.

The details of the room itself distracted me from focusing on the figure in the bed. Or maybe I was avoiding it. After all these years, the thought of seeing the father I thought long dead was simply too much. I was surprised to find I still harbored a lingering hope that it could be him.

I took another two steps into the room, then moved swiftly to the side of the bed as though jet-propelled. I stood there, looking down at the man, my vision now clouded with unchecked tears.

The face was Caucasian, with pale, thin skin drawn tightly over prominent bones. His eyes were shut. Ragged curls of dark brown and gray were clipped close. The ears stuck out from his head at slightly different angles from each other. The lips were dark and wrinkled, slightly closed over strong, yellow teeth. He was clothed in serviceable yet unremarkable long johns, not a hospital gown.

He was sleeping ― or unconscious. Whichever it was, his breath came in long, shallow gasps. There was no trace of rapid eye movement, nor any other indication that he was dreaming. Only the slight pink flush tinting his cheeks and the regular rise and fall of his chest assured me that he was not dead.

The hospital administrator had entered the room behind my entourage, and now crossed the room to stand on the other side of the bed from me.

Light streamed in from the window, back-lighting him and casting a long shaft of pale yellow on the figure in the bed. The hospital administrator's face was composed, but I could hear the soothing tones in his voice as he touched the man in the bed on the shoulder. A few words ― the equivalent, I assumed, of

"Wake up. You have visitors."

The man came awake instantly. His breathing pattern changed, a sudden, sharp intake of air, followed by a quicker pattern of respiration.

Yet his eyes remained closed, although the muscles in his face tensed slightly.

"Voy cyn." Your son, if my elementary Russian vocabulary served.

Then his eyes snapped open. They were alert with hard, cold intelligence lurking behind them. Dark brown, extra white at the edges of the iris now, almost the same color as my own. He must have seen something in my face, the recognition or confusion, because the expression quickly changed to one far less alert.

I stared at him, trying to see the man I knew only from photographs, inside the weathered husk.

The eyes, those were certainly right. How many times had I heard that my father's eyes were exactly like mine? The build looked right, too.

According to everything Mother had said, my father and I were roughly the same size. We had the same coloring, the same long bones and lanky bodies.

But in him, the dark shock of hair that was the Magruder family trademark had been wavy, flattened out only by a short military haircut and diligent application of greasy hair cream. My mother had laughed at that, at my father's eternal battle with his curls.

There were other differences as well, more in emotional and mental makeup than in physical appearance. According to my mother, my father was far moodier, given to those dark, impenetrable moods that I knew in myself, but also capable of wild, childlike enthusiasm. He had had a certain insouciance and an outgoing, cheerful side to his character that seemed to have passed me over. My uncle, although he had poo-poo'd my mother's description, had finally admitted that there was something to it. My father had, after all, been his younger brother.

How much of the difference had been due to the fact that I had grown up without him? I would never know, and in truth, I might simply have inherited my uncle's temperament rather than my father's.

The silence stretched out, although not comfortably. I had a sense of being observed closely, of being watched and assessed by the man in the bed. For my part, too, I was looking him over, whether trying to convince myself that this was him or trying to allow myself to believe that it could be, I wasn't certain.

Finally, he spoke. "Are you really Matthew?" The voice had a distinct Russian accent, but underneath that, underlying the fluent English words, were traces of United States. It was the voice you would expect of someone who had spent the last forty years in Russia.

I nodded. "Is it really you?" It sounded stupid the moment I said it, but what do you say to a ghost? An imposter ghost, perhaps, but even so my performance had to be believable.

He nodded. "It's been a long time. Pull up a chair, why don't you?"

The farce seemed impossibly mundane. All these years ― pull up a chair? I reeled, trying to maintain my equanimity.

There was a small scuffling in the room, and a chair was produced. I reached out, touched the weathered old hand, felt the loose skin under my fingertips. The skin was warm, almost feverish. I held his hand as I sat down.

The admiral and his two guards moved closer to the bed, as though some unseen barrier had been breached. I glanced away from my father's face and looked at the admiral. "I think we would like some time alone, if that could be arranged." And a smaller audience."

A flash of annoyance across his face, then he nodded. "Of course ― but your father is not as strong as he seems." He glanced across the room at the hospital administrator for confirmation, who supplied it quickly. "I understand sometimes he becomes… confused." He made a small motion to the rest of the crowd, and they followed him out of the room.

Finally, we were alone. I took a deep, shuddering breath, suddenly at a loss for words. What do you say to a man you believe has been dead for over forty years?

"It is hard for me to believe it is you," he said. "As difficult for you as it is for me, I suppose." He took the breath, and tears shone in his eyes. "You don't know how many times I thought about you ― wondered what you would be like when you grew up. When they told me two weeks ago that I would see you, it- You understand, I thought I would die here without ever knowing you or seeing your mother again. I had to believe that, had to come to terms with that, in order to survive. It wasn't that I didn't love you both, more than you'll ever know. But as long as they knew that, they had power over me." He shuddered, evidently disturbed by the memories. "And now… your mother? Did she remarry?"

"No. And I don't think she's ever given up hoping, either. She knew I was coming, and she sends her love."

He nodded. "Somehow, I believe that. Not many women would have waited that long. Talk to me, Matt. My brother ― how is he? And my parents ― they must be dead by now." Despite his words, I could hear the hope in his voice.

"Grandfather, yes. But your mother is still alive, and going strong.

It was… it was difficult for her, as it was for all of us."

He was staring through me now, seeing memories I would never share.

"Tell me more."

He was begging now, or at least as close as he would ever come to it.

I heard the naked need in his voice, saw the tears well up again. "It's been so long, and sometimes I can't tell what I remember and what I just wish was true. Talk to me, son."

Alarms went off in my head. I wanted so much to believe, to have this be the truth. Yet I had spent over half my life in the United States Navy.

At least three times a year, and more often when in sensitive security positions, caution had been hammered into me about counterintelligence specialists.

In the last few days, the Russians had already demonstrated that they knew far more than I'd thought about me personally. My family, my call sign, all the details that must be in their files.

Enough to coach an imposter?

"Tell me what you remember," I said.

Nothing changed in his face, yet it seemed to me that the tired, aging eyes were slightly more alert. Revulsion flooded me ― and at that moment I knew the truth.

But perhaps this wariness could be the result of living in Russia for forty years? As first a prisoner of war, then later a political prisoner inside this monolithic, secretive state, he would have more experience with lies, deceit, and treachery then I had ever encountered. He knew that this was no simple question from a son to a long lost father. No, it was something entirely different, something that almost broke my heart. It was a test.

"Tell me how you met Mother." It was a story I had heard many times, and one that certainly wouldn't fade easily from his memory. If he was who he claimed to be, he would have replayed that scene millions of times in the last decades. "Tell me the story." He smiled slightly and seemed to relax. "She was a friend of Sam's sister. She told you about Sam?"

I nodded. Sam had been his roommate at the Naval Academy, later a fellow aviator. Sam was shot down two years after my father, but there was no need to tell him that now.

"It was the Senior Ball. I didn't have a date ― Sam said I was too ugly to get one on my own, so he fixed me up with a family friend." He shook his head, a bemused expression on his face. "Sam really screwed that one up. His date stood him up, so he ended up taking his own sister. And I met the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen in my life. Not that we saw many in those days, you understand. The Academy was ― well, it was the next thing to a monastery most of the time. Except for the town girls who wanted to marry a naval officer."

"The Senior Ball ― yes, Mother told me about it several times." More than several, as a matter of fact. It was a standard family childhood joke, one that we told everyone. It was something you would have known from any sort of investigation into my family, since the incident had been widely reported after you were shot down. For days, the papers were filled with human interest stories about you two, your brother, me.

The only problem with the entire tale was that it wasn't true.

My father had indeed been a senior at the Naval Academy when he met my mother. But the Senior Ball wasn't the first time, not at all.

In his day, liberty was much more restrictive for midshipmen at the Academy. During their senior year, they were free on weekends, if they did not have duty or were not restricted for a number of other reasons. My father probably had less liberty than most did. According to my uncle and my mom, he was something of a hell-raiser. He spent a fair amount of time confined to Naval Academy grounds for one infraction or another.

The weekend he met my mother, my father was supposedly restricted to his room. A Volkswagen bug had miraculously disappeared from the faculty parking lot and been reassembled in a professor's office. After a thorough investigation, my father was implicated. And restricted to base with no liberty.

Mother said he sneaked out somehow. I guess he never gave her all the details, but after my own time at Annapolis, I finally figured it out myself. Ingenious ― and a technique I don't want to pass on to future generations.

At any rate, my father was an unauthorized absentee. Over the fence, the wall, whatever you want to call it, he headed into Annapolis for a night on the town. After all, as a senior he was fast running out of chances to break Naval Academy rules.