In the last chapter Ohmie's father leaves for Minsk. Ohmie and his mother get a visit from the Company.

Dad couldn't rent a car in Lithuania to drive all the way to Minsk. They wouldn't allow rented cars across the border into Belarus. He wouldn't fly, of course, for pretty much the same reasons he didn't fly from Berlin. Mostly, though, his disguise wouldn't stand much scrutiny, especially of intense inspection. They might even have his fingerprints or DNA on file. Who knows.

It's only two-and-a-half hours by car. I'm sure Dad could sneak his way over the border. He could steal a car, convince someone to take him, or stowaway, somehow.

Mom didn't tell me this. And I didn't read it in a book. Well, maybe novels influenced me a little. Mostly it's plain common sense, the way I would get across. Leave a rented car where I could get back to it. Hop the fence after dark. "Help, help, please. My wife was in an accident and I have to get to her. She was in our car. I've been getting rides. Please help." Or, "Get out of your car or I will shoot you." Tie him to a tree. Before he is found, you are in Minsk. Then steal a different car to drive back after dealing with Pete.

Here's the story Dad told us when we reconnected at the chateau south of Lucerne.

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More or less the way I supposed, Dad drove east from Vilnius toward the Kamienny Loh border crossing. South to Dainava was a wooded area where the border ran consistent with a small creek. Not Dainava the big city, but Dainava the little village near the Belarus border.  After parking in the woods, he could hike in tree cover to the creek where he crossed easily. Once he made it to Ashmyany, he was in his element.

His last trip to Minsk was not hardly as strenuous, traveling under the cover of the Agency as a businessman. This time, he was not only on his own, but the Belarus government might have been tipped to his possible presence. Though that was unlikely, he could not discount anything Dortch might have done. If Dortch had turned political, his allegiance to the Company and the Constitution might be in doubt, riding in the backseat, so to speak. Dad kept watch on Deus Comtec from an hour before Pete was supposed to start work until an hour after he left. Dad either sat where he could observe without being too noticeable, or passed by, both walking and in a car. He used a few different disguises, different coat, hat, scarf, glasses, things like that. But he knew his trade and was never approached.

Pete came and went as if nothing had happened, completely normal. No one seemed to pay him any attention. No-one came in or out of the building that didn't appear to belong. Everyone was under thirty years old and nerdy-looking. No-one looked particularly athletic, business-like, too handsome, or too beautiful. And no-one was over dressed, or flamboyantly put together. And Dad was ultra careful. Not über, that stupid fad is over. Anyway, Dad was careful to see whether he was followed each time he left the area. He wasn't. But he was only one man. And a single person can't see everything.

All things considered, Dad figured that one: the Russians, the SVR, or Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, which was the modern version of the Soviet KGB, were either not involved with the operation, or had already dismissed Deus as irrelevant. Or two: Dortch was on his own. The Company would have told Dad if anyone else was involved with Deus before he'd ever connected with Pete. And Dortch would not have been surveilling Deutsche bank by himself had the Company been involved. And Virginia would have been followed. And he would not still be a free man. The Company knew all about the clandestine Dainava border point. It was safe to confront Pete. No-one would be staked out in his apartment. No-one but himself.

The next day Dad stole his way into Pete's apartment. He waited until he figured everyone who worked was out of the building. For such an old building, he was surprised at how quiet the stairs were, Pete being on the second floor. Even taking the stairs in a normal manner, as if he owned the place and belonged there, it was quiet. Someone opened a door down the hallway, quickly closing it when they discovered Dad's presence. It was just as he was about to pick the lock. Dad, instead quickly turned to return to the stairway where he walked up a flight to wait for whoever it was to leave. They never did.

He went on up to the top floor. Deciding to kill some time, he thought he might as well check out emergency exit routes. There was no roof access, and no fire escapes from either end of the hall. Returning to Pete's apartment, he was inside within thirty seconds of starting on the lock. After closing the door behind himself, he thought he'd heard the sound of another door closing. The sound came from the same direction as the previously opening and closing door. He listened hard but couldn't hear any footsteps. Now he cursed the quiet stairs.

A methodical search turned up nothing remarkable. Pete's morning appeared normal. He left at the appropriate time and had taken the time to eat a breakfast of bread, that he'd fried in a skillet, with peanut butter. The pan and knife were all that was unwashed. Pete was a night shower person, his washcloth damp, but not wet and the shower unused that morning. The bed in the one-bedroom unit was made, of a sort, the sheet and blanket had been thrown back up in place, but would not be considered made. His toothbrush had been used. Pete's morning was routine with no evidence of stressful behavior. There were no work papers, or writing materials, or anything that might resemble work in the open. The novel on the end table beside the small couch had no papers or notes in it. Dad found nothing out of the ordinary, not even in the drawers of the small, student desk. Pete had no computer. He thought that odd, but then thought that maybe he just couldn't afford one or couldn't get an Internet hookup.

He waited until after the lunch hour to fix himself the same meal Pete had for breakfast. The wait was in case Pete came home for lunch, something Dad had never known Pete to do.

An hour after Pete should have been home, he still hadn't shown. Did he have a code, a signal that Dad missed that told him someone was inside his room? Had the neighbor seen him, seen the door close behind him and called Pete? Or was it a shopping day? That was unlikely since Pete's container of milk was about half full. Perhaps it was Dad's bad luck that it was Pete's day to visit his mother. Maybe Pete had had an accident and was in the hospital, Or in hospital, as the Brits and English speaking Europeans were wont to say, dropping the article. But I guessed that we did the same thing for jail - he's in jail, he's going to jail. I hopped off my bunny trail and got my mind back on track with Dad's story. Dad continued to sit quietly, waiting for Pete to return. At five o'clock the next morning, exhausted from staying awake all night, Dad ambled his way to the Deus Comtec building. No Pete. Dad kicked himself for not following him, confronting him, the previous day. Sometimes extra caution was not your friend.

Dad returned to Pete's for some sleep, this time using a spare key that he'd found in the apartment. Moving the room's only sitting chair to the area behind the entry door, Dad napped in it sitting up, satisfied the door's opening would awaken him. The door never opened. Dad waited until five the following morning to make his way back to Deus, this time not necessarily looking for Pete, but hoping to find someone who worked with Pete, preferably a female. He was hoping he would recognize someone that registered on his memory as someone he might have seen Pete speak to, or at least nod good morning or good-bye to.

That afternoon Dad picked a likely target, someone not married, at least not wearing a ring, though she could be living with someone. She was about the same age as Pete and Viktar, but then, they all were in Deus. And someone with a nerdy look, but then again ...

The young woman drove an older car, one that had a fob entry, but used a key to start and run. Dad saw her extract it from her purse as she walked to the parking lot, a small fifteen or twenty car lot beside the building. She waved at a co-worker who drove by and quickened her pace when, during her turn, she saw Dad behind her.

As she reached the driver's door handle with her left hand, Dad grabbed her right, wrenching into it like a vise. She winced in pain. "Open all the doors," he commanded. She did. Dad deftly hooked his fingers into her shirt collar from the back door behind the driver's seat as she got in. "I'm not going to hurt you. Start the car and drive out of the lot. We're going toward your home but pull over a block down the street. We will talk, and I will leave you alone forever. Do you understand?"

Dad spoke in Russian, hoping that she could speak it. Most Belarus learned Russian in school. Some learned English, but only a small percentage.

"I speak English better tan Russian," she replied, guessing that he was not Russian. When Dad didn't respond immediately, she continued. "A Russian would come in building like tank. Take want dey want. Interrogate."

Dad released his grip as she followed his instruction, driving without drawing attention.

"Viktar," Dad said.

"He is dead."

"Who killed him? Why?" Dad hoped not to be the one mentioning Pete.

"I dón know. Someting. Of computer hacks. He tought he to be my boyfriend. I already have boyfriend. He knew dat. Not interested in two boyfriends."

"Who is your other boyfriend?" It dawned on Dad that maybe Pete was not worried about discovery after all, merely jealous, or used Dad to get rid of competition. Maybe married Pete could afford to eat more than peanut butter.

"My name is Lizavieta. You call me Bett. You come up, if you do."

Elizabeth. Dad knew that she meant up to the front seat. He doubted that she would pull a sneaky and drive away while he was out of the vehicle but opted to stay put. "What happened to Viktar?"

"As I say, dead."

"But how?" Dad asked. "Accident? He get mugged, uh, robbed and murdered?"

"I tink murder. Broken neck, fallink down steps. Russia tink murder. I think murder."

"Why?"

Bett shrugged her shoulders.

"Any others killed?" Dad was fishing.

Bett didn't answer.

"Anyone else missing? You know, not show up for work?"

"Piotr," she replied. Dad waited for more. She didn't bite.

"Has Piotr been sick? Is he in trouble?"

Bett tried to turn and look at Dad as if he was asking stupid questions. "Piotr tinks he in luf wit me. Want to move in wit me."

"Is that where he is? Now?"

Bett laughed, "No, I dón tink so. My boyfriend. He dón to like dat." She laughed again. "But Piotr dón know of Val. Maybe he went over at my house and Val kill him." Bett laughed again. "No. Last week. After Viktar was killed. Supervisor looked in all computers. Even mine. I dón know Viktar, but Piotr say he back up too much. Wrong day. Maybe in trouble for dat, I dón know."

Satisfied he'd learned all he could from Bett, Dad got out of the car without saying anything more. He returned in the direction they'd come, taking the first side street before sprinting away, taking as many turns as there were.

Mind you now, this was as close as I could come to remembering how Dad told it, me laying there in my sick bed, asking him to fill me in on the case. (I might have filled in a few voids on my own, but it coulda all been exactly like this.)

They were on to both Piotr and Viktar. Probably found Piotr's and Viktar's money. Might have learned both men had been behaving strangely recently. Someone might have even seen himself, or Dortch. They might be sweating Piotr that very moment. He'd learned nothing that he couldn't have guessed from Berlin, but he had to try to see Piotr. Now Dad was certain that he was either dead, or in custody, wishing that he was ... dead.

Poitr could probably convince his interrogators that he had nothing to do with Viktar's death, even though he'd hired Dad to do it. And he might be able to prove that Viktar had been into his computer. Viktar could be established as a leak.

Dad shuddered to think that the SVR could have been searching Poitr's apartment while he had it staked out. It would be suicidal to wait and watch for Poitr.