In the last chapter Ohmie turns serious spy in Minsk.

I called Mme Benoir before getting on the plane. All cool. No word from Mom or Dad. I finally got smart, wishing I’d thought it through before being so liberal with Dad’s cash. I saved enough money on my return trip by changing planes in Warsaw to buy a second-hand laptop computer. It had no frills, but all I needed was a USB port for the jump drive. Whatever programs were on it would be fine. I hoped Mme Benoir had some soup left, because after putting money aside for the bus and cab fare, I wouldn’t be eating anything all day. I made sure to ask the flight attendant for extra peanuts. I must have looked pretty bad because she gave me a pocket full. Yay bang!

I plugged the computer in to make sure it was charged, but didn’t even have the strength to shower. I just crashed. I woke to Mme Benoir tending to me with a wet face cloth, but couldn’t even speak to her before zoning out again. The adrenaline I’d been running on was gone. I was worse than exhausted and sort of gasping for breath. I must have scared Mme Benoir half to death, making her want to scream for Mom from the rooftop. The last I remembered before seeing Mom come out of the bathroom in her underclothes was the aroma from Mme Benoir’s soup. I shut my eyes and stirred a little bit to give Mom a chance to dress.

She helped me to the shower and kept me from falling down. I didn’t care. I was a mess from all the sweating. And I was dying. I took a little soup that Mom must’ve gone to get while I took a half an hour to get my skivvies on, insisting that I was okay. I saw that she had the computer booted up when she sat me in a chair so she could change the sheets before putting me back to bed. I was too beat to look at what she’d opened. I was out before she had me tucked in.

“Well?” I asked Mom. I don’t know how long I’d been awake. She’d been dozing in a chair, an opened book laid down on her chest as she slouched, her feet up on my bed. I just came to, realizing that I’d been watching her. I don’t know how I could have not noticed my entire life how pretty she was. She was always just Mom.

“Well?” I asked again, seeing her eyelids flutter the same as when I asked the first time. It wasn’t dream eye movement, more like beginning to awaken movement.

“Hmmm. Hello, honey. You hungry? You need to go to the bathroom?”

“Uh. Mom. I’m not a baby. In fact, I’m as old as I’m going to get.” I don’t know why I was so rude. I didn’t know that I was until Mom turned aside and blinked back a flood of tears that she finally had to wipe away.

“I’m sorry, Mom. You don’t deserve that.”

She didn’t bother wiping her eyes as she crouched down to put her head by mine and hug me.

“Well,” she answered. "I have an idea where your dad is, but not for sure. I’ve talked to Paul, and things are okay for the time being, although he really wants us to come back, or at least tell him where we are. I think he understands, though. It’s just that he has supervisors, too. And Mme Benoir was absolutely beside herself.” With a wink, Mom asked how I enjoyed my dalliance on the Top of Europe.

I laughed, but wished I hadn’t because I really did have to use the bathroom like Mom thought. And now we would have to change the sheets and take another shower.

“What about the jump drive?” I asked as we began to take care of business.

“So, my little spy. You have been busy. I suppose you think this will earn you a Boy Scout merit badge in spying? Or an official decoder ring?” Mom was laughing her butt off inside. I knew her well enough to recognize her tease.

I grinned at her. Which was the particular grin I used that always made her laugh out loud. It was like a trigger reflex. She couldn’t control herself. She probably used a lot of memory license to give herself the mental image of what the grin used to look like before I lost nearly half my body weight: a dip of my head, a half-mouth devious getting-away-with-something, peeking through my eyebrow grin. I saw a picture of it once. She took it on her phone and made a photograph of it. She took it to her office, so I only saw it that once. It was a cross between a Shirley Temple what-a-cute-puppy smile and that Home Alone kid’s smirk. At least that’s how Dad described it one time. All I knew was that it worked on Mom nearly every time. I wish I’d used it that morning when she lit out and Dad had to take me to London. I wish a lot of things about those days before this all started.

“We took the train to Berlin. I got the new passport… My name is still Mom, by the way.” She chuckled to herself, smiling with her whole face. “I flew to Amsterdam to call Paul, then back here. Amsterdam fit the pretext of touring Europe with you.”

She didn’t need to add that part. It was easy enough to figure out.

“Now, I want every detail, all you did, how you did it, and what you saw. I need to know because there might be significance to something, some detail that could bite us.”

I told her everything. My timeline was screwy because I kept having to go back and fill in things that I’d left out, or didn’t even realize that I’d seen at the time. She nodded a lot, hardly asking any follow-up, or for more detail. It took nearly all day what with meals and little rests. When I was finally done, she asked several questions all having to do with whether or not I was followed anywhere. I guess not, since nobody had busted in to shoot us, or kidnap us.

“I didn’t have to kill anybody!” I half exclaimed.

She smiled, then a sadness came over her whole body, starting with her eyes.

Mom’s turn. She was sure that it was meddling with U. S. politics on the thumb drive. And spyware and ransomware programs, just like I thought. She was proud of me, really proud. I could tell because she didn’t gush about it like I’d come home with a smiley face on my homework back when I was four. But being in Russian, or whatever, it would have to go to the experts back at Langley. She would get it to them when, and if, we could travel again.

Her mouth didn’t say if, but her eyes did.