Mom’s attention back on me, she got up and approached me. It was a little awkward, but I knew to stand. She hugged me like she didn’t care if I could feel her, you know, body. She just hugged me tight, whispering “How do you feel?”

 

This time I knew she was talking about killing. “I’m okay, Mom. They had a gun to Dad’s head. I had to.” She let me sit back down on the bed, sitting beside me with her arm around my shoulders. Dad moved the chair, leaning forward with his arms on his knees. I started to tell the story, but Mom had me back up and start over from where she stormed out of the house. I guess I told it well enough that Dad didn’t feel it necessary to correct anything.

 

Satisfied, she looked me in the eyes, turning my head toward hers with both hands. “You’ve lost your childhood.”

 

I started to be a smart aleck. “Not that…” I stopped, my expression saying that I was sorry.

 

“Now, would you please take off that bra?” Mom said with her typical grin like I was pulling one of my old antics. “And…” She held out her hand. I knew it was for the gun. It went into her purse after she checked the chamber to see that it housed a round.

 

While I was changing clothes, Dad was answering Mom’s questions, relating his actions about his assignment.

 

“Pete gave me the drive, said it had the IP addresses and names of owners.”

 

I learned later that what he was talking about were the computers that were used to interfere with U.S. politics and elections. It also had the software of some of the hacks against American businesses. Big stuff.

 

Dad continued, “Pete told me that one of his co-workers, Viktar, had been into his files and most likely knew what he’d done. It was right after Pete and Viktar both got off work. He gave me the drive. I gave him the ten thousand in Euro bundles of cash. He came back out of his pocket with a bundle of his own and told me where Viktar lived. I went straight over there. He was easy to spot. Tall, nearly six-five. Coming out of his building. We went back in. He was probably found the next day.”

 

“He was found that night,” Mom said. “Tom Dortch was supposed to meet him. That’s when you intercepted him. Tom went to his apartment late that night. Got in and found him with his broken neck. He didn’t think that your staging looked very much like an accident, so Tom threw him down the stairs. Tom hid in the basement furnace room all that night, the next day and into the next night before leaving to report."

 

"The Company has a dead informant, at your hand, and a worthless drive. Oh, and Viktar had a thumb drive in his pocket that held some good stuff.”

 

Dad sat mute, his eyebrows furrowed. He was probably wondering which side was sighting in on him. Or whether it was both sides and how he could avoid both. After a couple minutes, “Pete could be afraid that I would be picked up, and that the drive would be pinched. Or whoever I gave it to would be nabbed. He would also know that I would eventually open up the bundle of Euros, fake Euros no doubt, and find a real thumb drive.”

 

Mom gave me a couple shots through the shunt, the tube that they’d implanted into my left arm. She said she would lay off the industrial-strength antibiotics and antiemetics, and just give me the steroids and opioids. “Who cared if I became addicted,” I thought. The antiemetics were for when I got nauseated. We would use them as needed. Mom said that she had enough for a couple weeks.

 

“You put that bundle of cash in one of your bank boxes?” I asked Dad.

 

His eyes lit up. “Berlin. Let’s go.”

 

“They have a philharmonic, too,” I said, knowing it to be a good one. That put Mom on board.

 

Giving Dad a stink eye, Mom told him that he could use some of his stash to buy her appropriate attire.

 

Mom’s phone told her we had a couple hours to wait for a train. She spent the time asking me how I felt.

 

+++

 

The train was uneventful. Awkward, a little, but we didn’t have to kill anybody. The awkward part was that Mom and Dad wanted some alone time, but neither one wanted to leave me alone anywhere. They finally agreed, between themselves, that they would have all three dinners delivered to the single berth unit that Mom reserved, and they would then take their meals over to the double. I would only be alone for twenty or thirty minutes, forty tops. They figured that to be a very unlikely time for assassins, what with all the coming and going for meals.

 

I just wondered if they were going to eat before, or after.

 

I imagine the train experience would be a lot different if you didn’t have to worry about being shot. Oh well, it was through the night, anyway. Too dark to see Europe.

 

Mom and I left first, heading for a sausage breakfast. Dad left from the other end of the train. We wouldn’t meet until after lunch at a particular lady’s wear boutique that Mom knew about. She probably searched online with her phone. I was to stay close, like a bad kid on a tether. While in Berlin, Mom tried on clothes, and she and Dad whispered. I couldn’t hear them very well, but Dad’s initial expression told me that he had something. The drive, no doubt.

 

Dad left to go get the symphony tickets. Mom and I shopped for a suit jacket for me. You should’ve seen Mom’s face when the sales attendant suggested a slightly larger size that I could grow into. I’m not sure if she wanted to cry or kill him, or both, and just not sure about the order.

 

We didn’t meet up with Dad until he came to our hotel late that night. I was beat and on the edge of sleep in my double bed. They could make all the racket they wanted in theirs, but I don’t think they did.

 

The next morning I learned that they would not go to the U. S. Embassy until after the philharmonic. That kind of choked me up. Once they went in, there wouldn’t be any symphony for me. And, I might never see Dad again as long as I lived. We had to stay alive until after the weekend. And Berlin has nearly as many cameras as London or Paris.