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Kira shook her head. Her research had been painstaking. Impeccable. No way she could have missed this.
“My father didn’t have a brother,” said Kira.
“May 1st, 1955,” said Kamenev.
Kira blinked. She recognized the date.
“Our birthday,” said Kamenev. “Your father’s and mine.”
Kira’s head was spinning.
“Don’t look so shocked,” Kamenev went on. “Twins run in the family. But you know that.”
The last sentence hit Kira like a club. She blinked and rocked back. Her mind flashed to a small room with a tiny crib, in a time before her conscious memory. But there was something she felt clearly, as if it was happening to her right now. It was the sense that she had her arms wrapped around another body, breaths and heartbeats in perfect sync, like two halves of a whole.
Then the other heartbeat stopped.
Kira felt the blood drain from her cheeks. And in that instant, she knew who she had been missing for her whole life. Kamenev could read it on her face.
“You were better off without her,” he said. “Tantum est fortis superesse. Only the strong survive.”
CHAPTER 98
KIRA LUNGED AND grabbed Kamenev’s jacket with both hands. She winced as the pain from her right shoulder shot down her arm. Kamenev twisted away and turned toward the wall. Kira saw his hand go to his chest. The binder fell to the floor. When he turned back, she saw a flash of metal in his hand. Kamenev fired as he turned, without aiming. The blast echoed through the corridor as the bullet struck the stone arch behind Kira’s head. And now, the gun was in her face.
“You froze,” said Kamenev. “That night. You couldn’t do it. That’s what Irina reported. You can imagine how disappointed I was. I thought we’d trained you better than that.”
Kamenev brought his fist down hard on Kira’s right shoulder. She grimaced in agony and fell to her knees.
“I can sense your weak spots, Meed,” said Kamenev. “I have a gift for it.”
Kira felt the cold barrel of the gun pressing through her curls onto the crown of her head. She closed her eyes. Then she drew a deep breath and let it out. She had one more question to ask before she died.
“Tell me,” she said numbly. “Did you kill her? Was it you? Did you kill my sister?”
Kamenev pressed the barrel harder against her skull.
His voice was almost soothing. “Let’s just call it natural selection,” he said.
Kira went blind with rage. She reached into her belt and brought her hand up hard. Kamenev rocked back against the wall and slid to the floor, his eyes glazed and still. Kira’s knife protruded from his chest, between his third and fourth ribs. The gun dropped from his hand.
Kira knelt on the cold stone floor, breathing hard, cradling her aching arm across her torso. She stared at Kamenev’s still body as blood oozed from around the edge of the knife blade. Kira knew it wasn’t just his blood. It wasfamilyblood. The same blood that ran in her. After generations of good and evil, she was now the last of her line.
She had only herself.
Kira rose to her feet, leaned over, and picked up the tattered binder. She tucked it under her right arm. Suddenly, the tunnel was pierced by thin, distant cries. In the eerie echoes created by the tunnels, it sounded like cats howling.
Kira grabbed the pistol and gripped it in her left hand. She walked in the direction of the sound. The corridor curved for about twenty yards until it ended at a stone staircase. The sound was coming from behind a door at the top of the stairs.
Kira raised the pistol. She inched her way up the steps and eyed the door. Above the handle was a clasp sealed with a simple padlock. Kira blasted it apart with one shot. She pressed herself against the frame and pushed the door open. She stepped into the room and swept the pistol from side to side. There were no threats.
The room was huge. Maybe fifty yards long. Both sides were lined with bassinets—filled with crying babies.
CHAPTER 99
THE HEADMASTER’S BODY was lying on a plastic sheet at the edge of the schoolyard. Kira and I watched as a couple of soldiers loaded him into a body bag. She had told me about the fight in the tunnel, but I knew she wasn’t telling me everything. She was quiet and numb, off in her own world.
Another Red Cross helicopter set down in the center of the compound. The first had arrived twenty minutes earlier. Medics and volunteers were already setting up white tents and tables. Nurses in blue scrubs were wheeling bassinets from the underground nursery and carrying wailing infants toward the tents.
