Last Snow - Eric van Lustbader [166]
Whether or not you choose to believe it, we all run afoul of forces we cannot see, let alone understand. This is not to excuse, or even to mitigate what I did. I don’t seek absolution; I don’t know its meaning and I don’t need to. I neither regret what I did nor feel pride in it. In peace as in war sacrifices must be made, soldiers must fall in order for battles to be won—even, or perhaps especially, those that are waged sub-rosa, in the shadows of a daylight only people like us notice.
Dyadya Gourdjiev and I won our battle over Oriel Batchuk and America got what it wanted from Yukin and the Kremlin. That’s all that matters, because you, me, all the pieces on the chessboard have no meaning without it.
Annika
“Mr. McClure.” Dick Bridges tapped him on the shoulder. “Everyone is waiting. I must ask you to go inside now and take a seat, the captain has received clearance for immediate takeoff.”
Jack took another look at the e-mail, as if on a second reading the words, the meaning would change, as if this time he would not find out how terribly, how deeply, how completely Annika had betrayed him, how she and her grandfather had spun lies and deception in concentric circles, layer upon layer, each one inside another, protecting each other, like Russian nesting dolls.
He gazed out at the last snow of April. Alli had said, “Maybe she’ll come to Washington, maybe you’ll come back here.”
It was possible that one or the other of those futures would come to pass, but today as he ducked back inside the sad, lonely, silent plane, he very much doubted it.
Table of Contents
LAST SNOW
PROLOGUE
PART ONE
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
PART TWO
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
PART THREE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX
TWENTY-SEVEN
TWENTY-EIGHT
TWENTY-NINE
THIRTY