In the last chapter Mom takes out an assassin in my room. Mme Benoir, disguised as Mom fakes out more assassins, covered by Dad, as Mom and I  snuck out through a different exit.

We were back at the chateau, Dad standing guard down the road. Dad noticed that Mme Benoir had removed her car’s plates, leaving them at the chateau. Smart lady. I hugged her tight when we got back. I was feeling better. Mom learned while we were there to double the corticosteroids. Well, the same dosage, but twice as often. We would have to get more pretty soon.

This time our good-byes were for real. We all knew it. “Yes, Mme Benoir, of course I will keep in touch. I will.” I meant it, too. As best I could. For as long as I could.

Mom drove us to a train station in Bern. It was only an hour away. We’d spent the night before boarding a morning train. Dad would meet in Spiez where he would board after guarding Mme Benoir all night. 

I thought it cool, fitting. That three spies would meet up in Spiez, Switzerland. Get it, spies. ’Course that’s not how the Swiss pronounce it.

Dad and I slept the whole way to Rome. I never did get to see that part of the mountains. Mom made reservations for us in a nice villa outside Labaro, the last stop before Rome. We took two cabs to get there. Spy work was expensive. We stayed there two days.

I’m not quite myself those two days, pretty quiet. But I watch, and listen. It was during one of those watching and listening times that Mom opened the subject out of the blue. We’d just finished some kind of tomato-pasta dish. I didn’t eat much.

Mom said they didn’t know. “I came home from work and you were pale, short of breath, feverish. I thought the flu. Covid wasn’t a thing yet. It didn’t sound like the typical symptoms, but who knew? I took you to the doctor’s and then we went back home. The next day I took you to the emergency room. Within thirty seconds the doctor there locked eyes on me like I’d shot you. The emergent blood work proved it: lymphoma, stage four. You’d never once complained of being sick.

“Ohmie, you don’t know how sorry we were. We are. They offered… well you know. But what they didn’t offer us was hope.”

“I know Mom. Dad.” Dad had been as engaged in what Mom was saying as she was. “I felt stuff, tired, but I didn’t know it wasn’t normal. Or a bug, or something. It wasn’t anybody’s fault.”

We all moved into the living room. The picture window looked out at rolling hills of grape vineyards. It was cool, but not cool like the mountains. The TV was on a news channel. It was in Italian, but I understood some of it. Italian’s not that much different from French or Spanish. They were all related. There was a video of a super yacht that had been confiscated from a Russian oligarch, a friend of Putin’s.

Dad grabbed one of his many one-time-use, disposable telephones and called his friend, Dale. He had to leave a message: share my gmen gym kit (6-4--2--7-3-2--6-3--7-1). It was a code used several times before. After Dale added back the ones: 7-5--3--8-4-3--0-7-4--8-2. Call me from a secure phone.

Dad explained it when he saw my confusion. “Sometimes we need the numbers sorted by syllables. Gmen, of course is 7-3-2. Dale adds one and gets 8-4-3. He knows that it’s one word, not for me, two words. Of course, it could be either from, or from. We have to get that part from context. Many sequences are instinctual. 0-7-4 is secure, no matter what else it could be, we see secure. Usually, the spaces aren’t needed, and running letters all together helps confound the bad guys. But in this case, I want rapid response.

Dad let me listen in to his side of the conversation. It was way better than a steroid shot.

The Koroleva Ledi was the name of the yacht, Queen Lady. From Dale to his boss, to his, to his, and to the Secretary of State. From him to the President. The boat was ours. It took all day and all night, but midmorning the next day, it was ours. All Dad had to do was find a captain and crew.

As I read in some novel, somewhere: No hill for a hilly horse. Or for a spy: typical day at the office.

Then, Mom had some work to do. She used another of Dad’s phones to call Paul. Would he use his influence and get Ohmies’ – Tim’s – doctor to send some meds to Ottavia. Mom made reservations at a hotel there and explained that schizophrenia medication would be arriving for them, to please hold it. No hotel would dare lose, or withhold a customer’s schizophrenia meds. And they weren’t worth anything on the black market, anyway. I didn’t have schizophrenia, but the ploy worked.

The boat was in Naples, so that’s where Dad went. Mom and I had to wait for the meds. We didn’t have them sent to Naples, because you just get into the habit of being careful in the spying industry. Mistakes like that can get you killed. Sure, we trusted Paul, but who else might see an address? Or who at Dr. Hamilton’s office, or the pharmacy? Or in the carrier service? No. Too many hands. Mom would call the hotel in a couple days. When the package arrived, she would go in disguise. She would go by taxi as herself, because she didn’t want Paul, or anyone, to know her fake name. After getting the package, she would change her disguise a little, and go out a different door, and walk to a taxi.

I wanted to go with her, but you know how mothers are.