Waking Gods (Themis Files #2)(29)

—And what are you doing in Helsinki?

—I don’t be … believe this. I’m not doing anything in … Helsinki! I have a c … connecting flight. What time is it?

—Almost 19:00.

—Gamoto! I’ve already missed my plane. I’ve been in this room for sss … six hours. Can I go now?

—Soon. You can take the next flight. Where are you flying to?

—There is no next flight. The next one is tomorrow. And you have my ticket in ff … in front of you. I know you’re asking the same questions over and … over again to see if I ch … change my story, but this must be the tenth time you’ve asked, and it’s written down right here: New York City, so is my name. It’s a plane ticket. I can … can’t go anywhere else with it. If you plan on qu … questioning me forever, you should at least find something I could p … poss … ibly get wrong.

—These are just routine questions. Airport security has been increased and your boarding pass was selected at random.

—Why don’t you tell me what’s … really going on? You don’t select people at random to spend a day being inter— —I only have a few more questions … for security reasons.

—No! You don’t. You ran out of que … questions four hours ago. Can I get some coffee?

—Soon.

—You keep looking at your watch. Are you waiting for someone?

—He is waiting for me … He did not offer you anything to drink because you would not be allowed to leave this room and he did not want you to soil yourself.

Thank you, young man. You can leave us. I know I need not remind you that you may not discuss your encounter with this woman with anyone. You can, however, discuss your promotion with your superior when you exit this room.

Alyssa Papantoniou. You do not seem surprised to see me.

—I had a feeling you might be coming.

—New passport? Antoniou. I am impressed.

—They told me to make the lie as cl … as close to the truth as possible.

—Why Marina?

—My … my mother’s name.

—Hard to forget. The Russians taught you well.

—They also told me you’re t … trying to frame me for the Sre … Srebrenica massacre. Don’t you think that’s overreaching?

—Is it?

—You think I would kill people for some … outdated notion of ethnicity?

—To be frank, Ms. Papantoniou, I have absolutely no idea what you believe is worthy of torture or death.

—Torture? I would never purposely inflict p … pain on anyone. You really don’t know me at all.

—I am the first to admit it. I do not. But you had no compulsions about submitting Ms. Resnik to, shall we say, very unpleasant procedures.

—I never wanted her to suffer! I’m not some psychopath who burned ki … kittens as a child. I never took … pleasure in hurting anyone.

—You are telling me you had absolutely no part in the events at Srebrenica?

—How can you … ? Do you know what happened during the Bosnian wars? Or did you just watch the new … newspeople get all the names wrong?

—I have no firsthand knowledge of the Bosnian war. I was present during the Kosovo war.

—So you know the difference between a Serbian and a Serb, a Bosnian and a Bosniak— —Croatians and Croats. I am aware of the difference between nationality and ethnicity. What does this have to do with your involvement in ethnic cleansing?

—My parents, they were s … scholars. They met at a conference. My father came from Orthodox Serbs. My mother was Romanian, Catholic. Somehow, that made her a Cr … Croat in the eyes of everyone in our town, except for the Croats, who called her a Gypsy. My sister had a Mu … Muslim boyfriend. I was an atheist. We were all Bosnians.

—Your point?

—I wouldn’t have known which side I was on.

—You were unemployed for over a year at the time of the massacre, yet your lifestyle never suffered.

—Is that wh … what bothers you? I was supposed to be a geneticist. There was no research anymore. People weren’t getting paid. I was tired of seeing m-m-mutilated people die in front of me, so I quit the hospital. My parents had ju … just died. They left me some money.

—Then I suppose I will have to be content watching you be tried in the United States. It says here you had a layover in New York, on your way to Puerto Rico. Why were you going back there?

—Nothing that concerns you.

—I realize we do not know each other very well, but you must understand that you will eventually tell me all that I want to know. Why not save yourself the added discomfort?

—Now who’s talking about torture? What are you so ang … angry for?

—We both know what you did. If you do not remember, I am certain you will be reminded many times during your trial.

—I only did what needed to be done. Someone had to, even if you didn’t have the sss … stomach for it.

—Removing ova from Ms. Resnik against her will is something that had to be done?

—It would have been better if she had volunteered, but she didn’t.

— …

—Yes … It had to be done!

—It did not have to be done there and then. You could have waited until she volunteered, or until the circumstances called for more extreme measures.