Page 178 of Lethal Abduction

“Maybe we should start with how Jacob and I met,” he says.

“I guess we could start there,” I say slowly, though that isn’t what I meant.

“It’s connected to Ekaterina.” Leon picks up on my tone. “Jacob—Yakov—was your mother’s brother. By marriage, I mean,” he adds hastily, seeing the look of revulsion on my face. “His parents adopted Ekaterina when she was ten. Her parents had been imprisoned in Russia, for political reasons. It happened a lot back then. This was in the early eighties, you understand, before Gorbachev and the dissolution of the USSR. Russia was still in the stranglehold of the KGB, and your mother’s parents were more outspoken than they should have been. She never saw them again, after they were taken. She was placed with the Chazov’s, a good military family, loyal to the state. Jacob was still Yakov back then.”

I shiver involuntarily at the name.

Leon pulls a leaf from a branch with more force than necessary, tearing it methodically between his fingers as we walk.

“Your mother, Yakov, and I were raised on the same military base, basically next door to one another. We played together as kids, went to the same dances as teenagers.” Hehalf smiles. “Listened to the same bad, smuggled recordings of Western pop music when our parents were out.

“Yakov and I entered the army at the same time. Your mother was still in school when we went away for basic training. Up until then, we’d all been just friends.”

His smile fades, and he takes a deep breath.

“Then Yakov’s parents died in a car crash. It was a terrible tragedy, obviously. And it changed Yakov. Not for the better. He became... possessive of your mother. And increasingly annoyed at my presence, despite the fact that we’d been best friends our entire lives. It wasn’t until your mother was eighteen that she ran to my house in the middle of the night, and I realized why he’d changed so much.”

“God,” I mutter, my stomach churning. “That sick bastard. He was raping her—even then?”

“Not then, no. But he was in love with her.” His face tightens. “Your mother didn’t return his affections, obviously.”

He pulls another leaf from a tree as we pass it. His fingers, I notice, are shaking faintly.

“My parents were opposed to Ekaterina and me marrying. I was too young; my father had a military career planned out for me, one that didn’t include a teenage wedding. We married anyway. My parents threw us out of the house. The only thing my father gave me were two matching peacock wall hangings. They’d been handed down through his family—the only thing left of the peacock egg that family legend said had been gifted to Mariya Stenyavina.” Leon gives a silent huff of laughter. “I’d always loved that story, but my father thought it was hogwash. He was a very practical man, and ruthlessly loyal to the Russian regime. He told me that since I was a romantic fool, I could take the myth with me. He said if I was so intent on chasing fantasies, the hangings and the dream were the only damned inheritance I’d ever see from him.”

He shakes his head. “Shortly after that—and, I suspected atthe time, at my father’s request—I was recruited by the KGB. I didn’t want it. But back then, it wasn’t something you could say no to. And besides, by then you were on the way.” He gives me a brief smile. “I needed to take care of my family. I was posted to Israel, given a cover name. It was only when I got there that I discovered Yakov was part of the team, too. I thought it was a coincidence. It wasn’t, of course. It was Yakov, not my father, who was behind my recruitment and my posting, but I didn’t know that.” His face darkens. “I thought Yakov had come to terms with Ekaterina and me. He was like he used to be, the friend I’d always had. After losing contact with my parents, I was so relieved to have something like family that I never really questioned what had caused him to change.

“We worked together for several years. That was when I met Mak; he was working for the KGB too back then. You and your mother were still in Russia. I’d visit when I could.” He smiles in reminiscence. “I left one of the peacock hangings on her wall, in our home, and kept the other with me, no matter where I was. We used to joke that one day we’d find the fabled egg and run away together, live like kings. It was a dream, our private fantasy. Until that day came, we said, we’d keep the peacocks close, so the egg would always know how to find its way home to us.” He glances at me. “Fanciful. But it was the way we were. We’d jumped off a cliff together, and back then, we were so young and in love that it still felt like anything was possible.”

He gives me a small smile. “It was when you made the comment about that hanging in my house that I had my first suspicion about who you might be. You said you thought they were common enough—they weren’t. Those hangings were hand painted by a Chinese artist and extremely rare.”

“She never lost that hanging.” I look at him. “She carried it everywhere we ever went. It was the only thing we had that meant home to me.”

I take a deep breath, afraid emotion will betray me. “That night on the yacht, I was glad you threw that hanging into the ocean. I think... I know she would have had hers the night she died. I guess that now they’re together again.”

Leon swallows, looking away. “I hoped,” he says roughly, “that maybe she was still alive. That’s why I brought it with me.”

I nod. “I know.”

He doesn’t answer, and I don’t expect him to. We walk in silence for a time.

“The world was changing,” he continues eventually, his voice a little uneven. “The USSR had opened up, and Russia was in chaos. I wanted out, wanted a new life for our family, far away from the corruption that was already taking over. Yakov wanted the same thing, or at least he said he did. We had good contacts in Israel and a lot of opportunities. We planned to defect to Mossad together. I was going to go back and get you and your mother first. I told Yakov that if anything went wrong, if by some chance I was caught, that I wanted him to make sure you and your mother were safe. He swore he would.” He shoots me a grim smile. “The KGB took me the minute I crossed the border into Russia.”

“He betrayed you,” I say slowly.

“Oh, yes. He did more than just that. He’d been lying to the Russians for months, telling them I was a double agent. It was how he bought his own freedom—and how he managed to smuggle you and Ekaterina out of Russia.”

My head swirls, and I feel faintly sick.

Running in the darkness. Room after room, smuggled across country after country.

“He might have got us out,” I say harshly, “but then he locked us up. And he told us you were dead.”

Leon sucks in his breath, his face white. For all I’ve beenavoiding this conversation, I can suddenly understand why he has, too.

“I was in prison.” His voice cracks on the words. “In Siberia. For a decade. It was Mak who eventually got me out, and still another decade before I was able to negotiate my way out of Russia altogether. By the time I started searching for you, the trail had long gone cold.” He pauses. “What happened to you both in the years after Yakov took you out of Russia?”

Part of me doesn’t want to tell him. I know it will only bring pain; even remembering it now hurts me inside.

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