Chapter 5 - The Migration of Shadows
The private runway at Logan Airport was dark, the rain turning into heavy, wet snow that stuck to the wings of the Gulfstream G650 like white fur. The twin engines were already idling, their low, whistling whine vibrating through the tarmac and into the soles of Milo’s shoes as Nikolai led him up the metal airstairs.
Inside, the cabin was a cocoon of white leather, polished sycamore wood, and the warm, sweet scent of fresh coffee and hot milk. It was a space designed for four people to cross the Atlantic without ever acknowledging that the earth below them existed.
Milo sat in the large captain’s chair by the window, his legs sticking straight out over the edge of the leather cushion, his small duffel bag resting on the floor beside him like a guard dog. He had not taken off Nikolai’s overcoat; he sat wrapped in its black wool, his small face peeking out from the massive lapels like a turtle from its shell.
Nikolai sat opposite him, a stack of folders on the table between them. Dr. Borso was in the rear of the cabin, his laptop open, his old fingers tapping furiously against the keys as he monitored the data stream from the lab in Cambridge.
The plane began to move, taxying through the white slush of the runway before the engines roared into life, lifting them into the black, cloud-choked sky above Massachusetts.
Ten minutes into the flight, Borso stood up. He had a single sheet of paper in his hand, his fingers shaking so violently the page made a dry, rustling sound against his sleeve. He walked to Nikolai’s table and set it down over the legal folders.
"The locus values," Borso said, his voice cracking with a high, thin pitch. "Thirteen out of thirteen markers match perfectly, Nikolai. The probability of identity is 99.99998 percent. It is him. It is your son."
Nikolai didn't look at the paper. He didn't need the numbers; he had seen the crescent on the boy’s shoulder, and he had seen the way the child looked at a dead man without blinking. That was a heritage that didn't require a laboratory in Cambridge to verify.
"Where are we going?" Milo asked, his eyes fixed on the black glass of the window, where the lights of the Boston coast were disappearing into a swirl of white cloud.
"To the house in Switzerland," Nikolai said. "Near Zurich. It is a house with a wall around it and four hundred trees that belong to us. There is no snow there yet, but there will be by December."
"Is there a library?"
Nikolai looked at the boy. "There are three thousand books in that house, Alexei. Some of them are four hundred years old. Some of them have pictures of ships that were drawn by men who died before this country was even a name."
Milo’s fingers moved inside the pocket of the overcoat, feeling the sharp corner of Treasure Island where Nikolai had placed it back in his care. "And the red-bearded man won't be there?"
"The red-bearded man is dead," Nikolai said. "And the man who paid him is dead. And by the time this plane lands in Lisbon to refuel, the rest of their people in Boston will have ceased to exist as a legal or physical entity."
He reached across the table, his long fingers closing around the sheet of paper Borso had brought him, and crumpled it into a small, tight ball before dropping it into his silver ash tray. He set his lighter to it, watching the white paper turn brown, then black, then dissolve into a heap of silver dust that the plane’s ventilation system blew away into the dark.
"For four years," Nikolai said, looking at the boy’s green eyes, "I thought I was fighting a war to avenge a death. But I was wrong. I was fighting a war to clear the ground for a return."
He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. "You are seven years old, Alexei. In five years, you will know how to drive a car like this one. In ten years, you will know how to manage the ports in Varna and Rotterdam. And in fifteen years, if I am no longer here, you will wear the ring around your finger and you will ensure that nobody ever looks at a Vulov and thinks they can stay."
Milo looked down at his chest, where the titanium chain was hidden beneath his gray sweater. He reached inside, pulled the gold signet ring out into the light, and looked at the green emeralds clutched in the eagle’s talons.
"The lady at the second house," Milo said, his voice dropping into that quiet, old rhythm, "she had a picture of a king on her wall. She told me kings don't have to ask for permission to stay in their own rooms."
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"No," Nikolai said, his ice-blue eyes softening by a fraction of a degree for the first time since the night on Beacon Hill. "They do not."
He reached across the table and took the boy’s small, cold hand in his own. This time, Milo did not pull away. His small fingers closed around Nikolai’s thumb, his grip surprisingly firm for a child who had spent three years traveling light, his eyes remaining fixed on his father’s face as the plane climbed higher into the clean, silent blackness above the Atlantic storm.
