very wrong she was.
To her left, Russian President Aleksandr Kozlovsky buttoned the topmost button of his suit jacket, a fluid and practiced gesture that appeared irrationally casual to Karina, considering what she had just heard uttered only moments prior. At six-foot-three, Kozlovsky towered over the both of them, his thin build and long-limbed gait giving him the appearance of a cellar spider. His features were bland, his face smooth and wrinkle-free, as if it were still a work in progress.
Eighteen months ago, the former Russian president, Dmitri Ivanov, had retired. At least that’s what they were calling it. In the wake of the enormity of the American scandal, it was simultaneously discovered that the Russian government had been colluding, not only lending their support to the US in the Middle East, but biding their time and waiting for the world’s focus to be on the Strait of Hormuz so they could seize Ukrainian oil-producing assets in the Baltic Sea.
No arrests had been made in Russia. No sentence handed down, no prison time served. Under pressure from the UN and the world at large, Ivanov simply resigned from his position and was summarily replaced by Kozlovsky, who Karina knew was far more of an understudy than he was any sort of political rival, as the media made him out to be.
Kozlovsky smiled smugly. “A pleasure, President Harris.” To Pavlo, he simply gave a curt nod before turning sharply and striding out of the room.
Twenty minutes earlier, the Secret Service man had escorted Karina to the smallest of three conference rooms in the White House basement, inside which was a long dark table of some exotic wood, eight leather chairs, a television screen, and nothing else. Not a soul. When Karina had been tasked as interpreter, she had assumed the meeting would involve cameras, news reporters, members of both governments’ cabinets, the press and media.
But it had been only her, and then Kozlovsky, and then Samuel Harris.
President of the United States Samuel Harris, standing to her right, was seventy years old, half bald, his face creased with age and stress and his shoulders perpetually slumped from a back injury he had sustained while serving in Vietnam. Yet he moved with great purpose, and his husky voice was far more commanding than anyone would have assumed he could muster.
Harris had easily defeated the former president, Eli Pierson, in the election the previous November. Despite some sympathy from the public due to the assassination attempt on Pierson’s life eighteen months earlier, as well as the former president’s fairly noble efforts to rebuild his cabinet in the wake of the Iranian scandal that had come to light, America had lost their faith in him.
To Karina, Harris was reminiscent of a vulture, made all the more apt by the way he had swooped in and stolen the votes from Pierson like a carrion bird tearing entrails from the carcass of far too many mistakes and trust in the wrong people. Harris, as the Democratic candidate, had barely had to make any promises other than to unearth and promptly end any further corruption in the White House. But as Karina Pavlo had only just discovered, the further corruption in the White House was entrenched firmly—and perhaps solely—in the office of the presidency.
The visit from Russian President Kozlovsky was well publicized, covered by nearly every media outlet in the US. It was the first time since the deceitful cabal in both governments had been revealed that the two new world leaders had met face to face. There had been press conferences, constant media coverage, meetings with a hundred cameras in the room to discuss how the two nations might move forward from near catastrophe in an amiable and aligned manner.
But Karina now knew it was all a sham. The last several minutes that she had spent with the two world leaders, the spider and the vulture, had proven that. Kozlovsky’s English was rudimentary at best and Harris spoke not a lick of Russian, so her presence had been warranted and their speech became hers.
It had started off innocently enough, pleasantries exchanged, English passing from Harris to her and then from her to Kozlovsky in Russian as if Karina were a translating automaton. The two men held each other’s gaze, not once asking her questions or even acknowledging her presence once the meeting began. She mechanically regurgitated their words like a processor, entering her ears in one language and exiting her throat as another.
It was not until the sinister motivation for the private meeting unveiled itself that Karina realized that this—this handful of minutes in a locked room in the subterranean level of the White House with only the two of them and an interpreter present—was the real reason for the Russian president’s visit to the United States. It was all she could do to translate as dispassionately as possible and desperately hope that her own expression hadn’t betrayed her.
Suddenly Karina Pavlo became quite aware that she was unlikely to leave the White House basement alive.
With Kozlovsky having exited the room, President Harris turned to her, flashing his leering smile as if the conversation she’d been privy to hadn’t just happened, as if this was nothing more than a formality. “Thank you, Ms. Pavlo,” he said paternally. “Your experience and expertise have been appreciated and invaluable.”
Perhaps it was the shock of what she had just learned that prompted her to force a smile of her own. Or perhaps it was the ease with which Harris seemed to summon such a polite demeanor while full well knowing that the interpreter had just heard every single word, and in fact had repeated each and every one of them to the other party. In any case, Karina found her lips curling upward against her will and her voice saying, “Thank you for the opportunity, Mr. President.”
He smiled again. She did not like it, his smile; there was no mirth in it. It was more leering than cheerful. She had seen it a hundred times on television, on his campaign trail, but in person it was even more awkward to witness. It made it seem as if he knew something that she did not—which was certainly true.
An alarm blared in her head. She wondered how far she might get if she shoved him and made a run for it. Not far, she imagined; she had seen at least six Secret Service agents in the corridors of the basement, and she was equally certain that the route she’d taken down there would be guarded.
The president cleared his throat. “You know,” Harris told her, “there was no one else in this room for good reason. As I’m sure you can imagine.” He chuckled slightly, as if the threat to global security of which Karina had just been apprised was a joke. “You are the only one in the entire world that is aware of the content of this conversation. If it were to leak, I would know who leaked it. And things would not go well for that person.”
The smile remained on Harris’s face, but it was in no way reassuring.
She forced her lips to smile graciously. “Of course, sir. Discretion is one of my best qualities.”
He reached over and patted her hand. “I believe you.”
I know too much.
“And I trust you’ll remain silent.”
He’s placating me. There’s no way they’re going to let me live.
“In fact, I’m certain I’ll have a need for your skills again in the near future.”
There was nothing Harris could say to dissuade her instincts. The president could have asked for her hand in marriage right there on the spot and still the prickling sensation at the nape of her neck that told her she was in imminent danger would linger.
Harris stood and buttoned his suit jacket. “Come along. I’ll walk you out.” He led the way out of the room and Karina followed. Her knees felt weak. She was in one of the most secure places on the planet, surrounded by trained agents of the Secret Service. As they reached the corridor she saw
