Under a cold gunmetal sky, looking like a dull mirror, windswept and desolate, a small house and barn stood out against the flat white landscape. A single child’s swing shivered in the frosty breeze. Wispy smoke swirling up from the chimney was the only sign of life until the clanking sound of metal on metal and a man’s angry voice, “Fucking thing!” drew attention to a tractor and backhoe. Unlike the tractor, Neil Kyd had no trouble admitting he was past his prime. He could hear himself sigh each time he sat down. Beard-stubbled, in a tattered army coat, gloves and stocking cap, ragged vapor chugged from his mouth. He’d had no intention of being stuck in Kansas, in winter, working on an unfixable tractor, but accepted this was where he needed to be. Two years earlier his eleven-year-old daughter was diagnosed with Batten disease. It was a progressive and fatal nervous system disorder. Girls developed the symptoms later than boys but died sooner. As the disease slowly murdered Molly’s body, her vision faded, her muscles cramped, and her breathing labored. There was nothing more he or the doctors could do. At best, she might struggle through another ten years of life. Kyd left his job at the CIA in Langley, Virginia, and set up with Molly on his mother’s farm. Kyd wasn’t a farmer, that much he had no trouble proving. Patty, his wife, had died of breast cancer when Molly was six, so she never had the heartache of seeing her daughter suffer.
Kyd’s goal had been to finish excavation for a new septic tank, a task he had promised to complete during the summer when the ground was softer. But he found prioritizing the repairs around his mother’s property had put him behind schedule, and of course, the tractor was uncooperative. The hole was almost three yards deep and five feet wide with a large, galvanized water tank above. Coming to the conclusion that banging on the tractor’s motor wasn’t helping, Kyd put down his wrench, unscrewed the thermos sitting on the rusted front fender, and poured hot coffee into the plastic lid-cup. He could hardly feel the warmth through his gloves.
Above the rim of his cup, in the distance, he saw a black sedan approaching. There wasn’t much doubt it was government issue, Kyd had used enough of them himself, nor did he suspect it had taken a wrong turn. He blew on his coffee and had time for a couple more sips before the car pulled up in front of the house.
The car’s occupants had a brief discussion before Paul Wexler climbed out of the back seat. He was greying at the temples and there was luggage under the eyes. The driver stayed inside with the engine running. Hair freshly cut, Wexler was elegantly attired, wearing a black cashmere overcoat. Even though he’d worked at the Agency for thirty years, he was still eager to impress. Wexler surveyed the desolate white landscape above the roof of his car, even though he’d just spent the last hour driving through it. He put his collar up against the frigid breeze then looked toward Kyd and approached, quizzical smile on his face, icy snow crunching beneath his shiny black loafers. Where had he thought he was coming?
Wexler spoke Russian. “Kind of lonely out here, isn’t it?” his breath coming out in little clouds.
As far as Kyd could remember, these were the first words they’d exchanged in any language for over two years. Kyd replied in Russian. “You should see it off-season,” his sense of humor, as his life, had become ironic.
Wexler stopped on the other side of the tractor, far enough away to avoid getting dirty and switched to English. “Good to see you, Kyd.” Only Kyd’s mother used his first name.
“Even as Head of Russia your accent sucks,” Kyd said. His smile faded quickly, the rest of his face refusing to go along.
“You’ve kept track.” It was hard to tell if Wexler was proud or defensive.
Kyd threw out what was left of his coffee and moved around the tractor to greet his guest. “Congratulations, Paul.” The men shook gloved hands. It wasn’t so much that Kyd disliked Wexler, ‘liking’ had nothing to do with it. It was more that he never trusted him. This wasn’t at all uncommon in a business where people were paid to keep secrets. Kyd had worked with him a few times, and there had been some friction, control issues, but the outcome was good and the Agency was pleased.
Wexler stomped his feet and blew into his cupped hands, even though he was wearing gloves. His ears had turned scarlet. “Can we go inside before I freeze my ass off?”
Kyd gained some sadistic pleasure out of taking his time. As they passed Wexler’s car, Kyd bent down to look through the window and saw a woman, a young redhead behind the wheel. “She okay in there?”
“That’s Agent Barnes, she’s got the heater full-blast,” Wexler answered.
Agent Barnes gave Kyd a ‘thumbs up’ and Wexler followed Kyd to the house’s front door, once more looking out at the desolate landscape. “What do you grow out here?”
“This is Kansas, they grow wheat.” Kyd was careful not to say, “we”.
Everything inside the living room was old, except for Molly, covered in a blanket, sitting in the corner of a threadbare couch. Her curious, bright blue eyes were magnified behind thick glass lenses, made even brighter against a ghostly complexion. There was an oxygen tank beside her, and an open schoolbook on her lap. The TV was playing a teen soap, brats confessing infatuations and betrayals behind hallway locker doors. Kyd took off his hat and coat hanging them on a peg at the entrance, leaving his boots underneath.
Wexler approached the couch. “You must be Molly. We met once when you were little.”
Molly’s speech was slurred, and Kyd needed to interpret what she was trying hard to say. “She wants to know if you knew her mother.”
“Sure, I did. You look just like her.” This pleased Molly. Patty had worked at the Agency briefly, where Kyd met her. Wexler asked her out once, but she was already dating Kyd. Patty later told him she thought Wexler was “sad”. She was a kind person.
Margaret Kyd, rosy cheeks, thin as a broomstick, having detected an alien voice, rushed into the room from the kitchen as if she were late to her own party. Her baggy wool sweater, decorated with penguins, covered the top half of her apron. “Now, who’s this handsome fellow?” Margaret demanded.
“This is Paul Wexler, a guy I used to work with.” Kyd introduced him without enthusiasm.
“Neil, why don’t you take Mr Wexler’s lovely coat?” She concentrated on Wexler while he removed his overcoat. “We promise to give it back,” Margaret added. Beneath the coat was a tailored suit and tie. “Oh my, look at you.” It was as if she’d discovered a unicorn in her closet.
“This is my mother, Margaret,” Kyd explained.
“It’s a pleasure.” Wexler took a strategic step back, wary the old lady might lunge.
Kyd hung Wexler’s coat, while Margaret, not taking the hint, invaded their guest’s space. “May I offer you a cup of coffee, get you something to eat? I believe we still have some shortbread if Neil hasn’t eaten it all.”
Wexler took another step back. “No thank you, Margaret. Unfortunately, this has to be a quick visit,” Wexler told her.
“I wouldn’t mind a sandwich, if it’s not too much trouble,” Kyd ventured, but he couldn’t be sure Margaret even heard, she was still admiring their guest. Kyd turned to Wexler and pointed down the hallway. “We can go down here.” It went without saying that whatever it was that brought Wexler to the ‘boondocks’ would need to be private. Kyd then turned to Molly, who had been watching the conversation as if she had a front row seat at the circus. “You finish your homework?”
Molly gathered herself to speak. “Almost.”
“We’ll drop it off after the hospital, okay?”
Molly nodded agreement, and Kyd led Wexler down the hall.
The office was small and square, with a window looking out onto Wexler’s car, the exhaust blossoming. Kyd arranged himself in a battered, red vinyl armchair, grey duct tape mended the tears. He stretched out his legs, soaking up the warmth from a little electric heater glowing near his stockinged feet. With the door closed the room was almost comfortable. Wexler was looking around the office. There was plenty to inspect – dusty old ledgers in a corner, some parts to equipment long since extinct, and shelves of books from a past life.
‘You inherited this place from your father?” Wexler asked.
“It’s Margaret’s,” Kyd corrected. His father was far too practical to have ever entrusted Kyd with the farm, but as it turned out, he died before he could sell it. There was a picture on the wall of Kyd with Patty just out of the hospital, holding baby Molly. It hadn’t been an easy birth, but Patty’s smile broke through her exhaustion. She loved being a mother. Beside it was a photo of Kyd, fifteen, with his dad, square jawed, crewcut, holding rifles, standing in front of an elk strapped to the hood of the car. His dad didn’t mind showing off. It was the only time Kyd could remember when his father was less than disappointed in him. It was worth a photo. Kyd’s rifle was mounted above the photo, gathering dust.
“Molly does look like Patty,” Wexler said. He turned his attention to the collection of Russian literature squeezed onto shelves, running a finger across spines of books in Arabic, German and Spanish. Kyd believed if you wanted to understand a culture, language was the key, and he had an ear for it. Language got him out of Kansas. In an earlier life, before abusing tractors, he’d earned a PhD, teaching linguistics at Columbia University.
Wexler wasn’t much interested in anything he looked at, he was working himself up to something. Kyd had to wait, remembering what it was like working with ‘Wexler-types’. They all felt undervalued, and habitually tried to leverage situations to their advantage. Manipulation was their occupation, a type of revenge. Kyd wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of asking why he’d come, of showing interest. He’d have to tell Kyd without encouragement.
“Nicoli Petrov wants to be Russia’s next President.” Wexler glanced in Kyd’s direction.
“Is that so?” Kyd knew this, anyone interested in Russia knew this, but maybe Wexler doubted Kansas had internet.
Wexler went on, “He’s a human rights advocate and popular. It could be good for us.” He pulled a copy of the Qur’an from Kyd’s shelf and flipped through it as if he’d found an in-flight magazine.
“Because we’re champions for human rights,” his sarcasm not lost on Wexler.
“Nicoli would also be more open-minded about our goals in the Middle East.”
“If he got elected,” Kyd pointed out.
“Garin likes being President.” Garin had been Russia’s President for seventeen years.
“I’ve heard that.” Kyd’s feet were getting hot, and he pulled them in.
Wexler put the Qur’an flat on the shelf, not where he’d found it. “But our Nicoli has an ace up his sleeve. He says he has graphic evidence the current President was complicit in attacking Syria with chemical weapons, probably sarin or a hyped-up derivative – men, women, children. Horrendous stuff.” Wexler didn’t seem horrified, it came across as if he were working out his tax return. “Even though the majority of Russians have no interest in Syria or Muslims, seeing children convulsing and haemorrhaging would get their sympathy. Nicoli believes, once seen, this would put him over the top.” With his accounting over, he looked to Kyd for a reaction.
Kyd understood Petrov would never be allowed to screen anything anti-governmental in Russia. He’d end up in a Siberian work camp or be served a uranium cocktail. Kyd guessed the strategy was to broadcast ‘the evidence’ in the West, knowing it would filter back. “Which brings you to Kansas,” Kyd summed up, getting a hint for why Wexler had come.
“Nicoli has a camcorder memory card, a video disk, and wants to give it to you personally.
“Camcorder? I thought those were extinct.”
“He’s convinced you’re the only one he can trust.” Wexler sat on a straight-backed chair facing Kyd, the creases in his trousers still sharp. “It may have something to do with his sister. You were close friends, correct?” There was the trace of a smirk.
So, there it was, typical, a wild-assed scheme that took him forty minutes to unveil. Three years before he met Patty, Kyd was invited to Russia by an ex-student, Irina Petrov, Nicoli’s younger sister. Nicoli had not yet appeared on the political radar and Kyd never met him. Kyd hadn’t met much of anyone. There were many days and nights in Irina’s small apartment when they never left her bedroom. Kyd knew Irina had fallen in love with him, she told him so, but after a year in Moscow, he couldn’t imagine a future there or with Irina. It didn’t feel ‘right’. He could see the writing on the wall. She was too young, and outside the bedroom, not that agreeable. Her naïve monopoly on The Truth lost its charm. It was a painful breakup Kyd wished he’d handled better. Irina refused to stay in contact. Kyd wasn’t surprised that Wexler had this information, or that he’d try to use it, but he was surprised Irina had recommended him.
“Why can’t they send it digitally, isn’t that how things get done these days, encrypted and all that?”
“The original would need to be verified and he’s worried about security. A couple of our couriers had problems even delivering Irina’s message.” ‘Problems’ came across as insufficient postage.
“Are you asking me to go get it, Paul?” Kyd felt sure once it was said out loud, Wexler would see how ridiculous his request was. Perhaps he’d been asked to give it ‘the good ole college try’, knowing if Kyd refused, they’d shift to a ‘plan B’.
But no, Wexler was unstoppable. “It’s all set up. You’d have our full support. Once you bring it back, we’ll examine it, and if it’s the real deal, make it public and see what happens. The election’s getting close, everything needs to move quickly.”
Kyd listened with a reluctant appreciation for Wexler’s salesmanship. He was smart not to bring patriotism into it, they’d both been in government too long for that. “Can’t. Won’t. First, you don’t know for sure what’s on the ‘memory card’. It could be something a desperate politician cooked up. It’s happened before. Second, will it change the election results? No one knows. It’s a ‘hail Mary’ at best. But above everything else, I won’t leave Molly.”
“Petrov is adamant it has to be you,” Wexler restated.
Kyd stood up, signalling the end of the conversation. “Not going to happen, Paul. Sorry you wasted your trip.”
Wexler stayed seated. “What if we were to offer you a quid pro quo? You do this for us, and we can do something for you.”
Kyd didn’t need a refresher course in Latin. “What, will the Agency fix our tractor?” He could see the prehistoric machine through the window, still grumpy.
“If that’s what it takes.”
“We’re done, Paul.”
Wexler wasn’t moving. He took in a lung full of air, sighing deeply. “You must have noticed Molly’s disease is progressing more aggressively than predicted, or anyone had hoped,” he said, shaking his head with concern. “She’s in pretty bad shape.”
Since when had he become so concerned about his daughter’s health? Kyd stared at Wexler and didn’t see sympathy, only calculation. “You just walked in. What are you talking about?” Kyd tried to keep the anger out of his voice.
It was as if Wexler were delivering a eulogy. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think your doctors are being completely honest, or maybe they’re just overly optimistic. Molly’s recent test results show early onset dementia, and her lung capacity has quickly deteriorated from 32 to 27 percent. If not already, she’ll be experiencing violent and uncontrollable seizures.” Wexler hesitated and waited to catch Kyd’s eyes. “At her current rate of decline she might not last the year.”
Kyd’s fists were clinched, it was as if Wexler was spying through a keyhole. “You’ve been in her medical records?”
“You could ask to see the file yourself, it’s all there.” Wexler intertwined his fingers, resting them on his crossed legs, the sad uncle.
Was it true? Kyd hadn’t noticed any major decline. Some days weren’t as good as others, but he hadn’t seen her records, he’d trusted the doctors.
Wexler then said what he was prepared to say all along. “There are trials being conducted on Batten using embryonic stem cell therapy. Cutting edge stuff. The results are very positive. The trials are strictly limited, long waiting list and very expensive.” He aimed to use Molly as a political pawn. Kyd was close enough that Wexler had to look up at him. Kyd needed to keep his hands in his pockets. If Wexler was aware of the danger, he didn’t show it. “What if we see to it Molly is accepted into the program and the costs are covered?”
Kyd knew about the therapy and had applied, but with the waiting list, Molly would be well beyond help before she received treatment, even if he could afford it.
“It would be a win-win,” Wexler assured Kyd.
Kyd knew whatever they proposed would have sharp edges, but he was teased by hope. He turned to the window, Agent Barnes’ hazy silhouette was just visible inside the car. He couldn’t imagine what she would be doing in there, listening to music? What kind? “This is something you would guarantee, regardless of the outcome?” Kyd’s words bounced back at him, off the fogged glass.
“As long as you make a genuine effort,” Wexler talked to Kyd’s back. “In and out, a couple of days, tops.” There was a long pause, and Wexler felt Kyd needed to be nudged. “They’ll only give it to you.”
Kyd heard the legs of Wexler’s chair scrape the floor. “I’ve been out of the game a long time,” Kyd reminded him.
“Like riding a bike.” Wexler opened the door to leave. “Don’t take too long to decide. I need your answer by tomorrow.”
Kyd didn’t turn around, didn’t shake hands. He heard muffled goodbyes and watched through the window as Wexler climbed into his car. “Win-win”, that’s what he said.
“He dresses nicely.” Margaret had come in, holding out a plate with a sandwich.
“Yes, he does.”
In the pick-up, Molly sat squeezed between Margaret and Kyd, Kyd driving. He’d shaved and was wearing fresh clothes. It had begun to snow again, and Wexler’s tire tracks had almost disappeared. Molly was breathing heavily, leaning on her grandmother’s shoulder.
“You okay, Sweetie?” Margaret asked and Molly nodded.
Kyd couldn’t imagine how Molly saw the state of her condition, or if she could even remember when she was well. They hadn’t told her too much about her fate because knowing wouldn’t do her any good. Her disloyal body would let her know. Kyd cleared his throat before beginning. “If I needed to go away for a few days, any chance you girls could manage on your own?”
Margaret looked over at him, surprised. “Where’re you going?”
“I’ll be back in a week.” His eyes were focused on the road ahead, not wanting to see his mother’s reaction.
Margaret accepted he wasn’t going to answer her question. “I guess we could manage, couldn’t we Mol?” She caressed Molly’s head. “He can’t even fix our tractor.”
Sitting up, Molly swallowed a breath. “Because of Mr. Wexler?”
Kyd turned to her. “He thinks he can help us.”
Molly focused her bright eyes on her father. “You have to do something first...”
He was reminded of how good she was at connecting dots. This short phrase exhausted her lungs and she gasped for air.
Margaret held the oxygen mask over her face. “Put your head back. Try to relax.” Margaret looked at Kyd. “Maybe you should drive faster.”
Kyd accelerated.
Kyd parked outside the emergency entrance, carrying Molly into the hospital – she was a feather. Margaret had called ahead, and the doctors were waiting. As they put Molly onto a gurney, the muscles in her back tightened like an archer’s bow, making her an unwilling contortionist. Her body went into violent spasms.
Outside the emergency room, Kyd could see his daughter’s eyes roll back and her teeth clench. Margaret held Molly’s hand, as nurses in green scrubs circled her bed like bees around a hive.
Kyd used his cell phone to tell Wexler what he wanted to hear.
