Chasing the White Lion, James Hannibal [ebook reader macos .TXT] 📗

the US rowing dialect, it sounded like wane-off. “Roll to the waist.”

The girls rolled the boat from their shoulders to their hips, and Talia winced against the soreness from her Volgograd bruises. A long-sleeve shirt and windbreaker hid the marks. She didn’t need any uncomfortable questions from her sister.

Talia gritted her teeth, trying not to let the pain show. “And . . . down.” They bent at the knees and set the shell in the water.

Without a word, Jenni threaded the first of her two oars through an oarlock. Talia did the same. They had chosen a double for the morning, a two-person sculling shell requiring two oars for each rower. For months, even as the weather grew colder, the sisters had rowed together on Tuesday and Thursday mornings before sunup. To make up for lost time, they also rowed the day after either of them returned from a trip, like that morning—a Friday.

They settled into their rolling seats with their backs to the bow and locked their feet into the shoes fixed to the push-boards, known as stretchers.

Talia laid a hand on the dock’s edge. “Ready?”

“Ready.”

“Push away.”

Jenni had taken the stern seat, leaving the bow seat—and all the steering—to Talia. “How about a balance exercise?”

“I’m game if you are. In three, two, one, go.”

Both girls raised their oars from the water and used their cores to keep the boat upright. No easy task. They held it steady for a few seconds, aided by the river’s momentum, until the shell wobbled and dipped.

“Hold steady,” Talia said.

Jenni let out a laughing yelp. Her left oar slammed into the water.

Talia got a face full of ice-cold Potomac. “Thanks,” she said, sputtering.

“Sorry. But you know you’ll be getting a lot wetter on Sunday. You’re going through with it, aren’t you?”

Talia had made a profession of faith a few weeks after the incident with Ivanov, when Tyler had helped her let go of a lifetime of anger. She was ready to tell the world through baptism, but Jordan’s constant assignments and Tyler’s side jobs had forced her to reschedule on three occasions—a strange conflict between the yearning of her spirit and the world’s practicality. “Nothing will stop me this time. I promise.”

“Good. Let’s get moving upstream.”

Jenni went silent until Talia got the boat turned against the current. A false move would dump them both into the freezing drink. Talia worked the bow straight upriver and made the starting call.

“At the catch.” She compressed her body against her knees, ready for the first drive. “Row!”

Together, Talia and Jenni pushed with their legs, drawing the oar handles back and the paddles forward, willing the shell into motion. “One . . .Two . . . Three . . . Four . . .” Talia set a sharp pace in the hope of keeping Jenni’s lungs well-occupied. But in the quiet of her mind, she was thinking, Here it comes. Silence had never been Jenni’s strong suit.

“So? How was your trip? Did you see anything interesting? Meet anyone new?”

Annnd . . . there it goes.

“Yes . . . I did.” Talia let her answers out with the strained exhalation of each drive. The bruising on her ribs screamed.

“And?”

“Turns out . . . he wasn’t . . . my favorite person.” She never lied to Jenni. Would she offer vague and evasive answers? Yes. Lie? No.

Neither the recovery phase nor the drive phase of each stroke—the breathing in and the breathing out—affected Jenni’s ability to converse. “Sorry to hear it. But, you know, that happens to you a lot.”

“People are people . . . What can you do?”

It had become a common problem following every trip. Jenni’s genuine concern and inquisitiveness made her an asset to the State Department’s public relations branch and a good foster sister. It also made Talia’s life challenging. She tried to get her talking about her own life. “What . . . about you? Anything come up . . . while I was gone?”

“Actually yes, and it’s weighing me down. Can we talk about it?”

“Yes.” Talia tried not to sound too relieved. “Yes we can.”

Jenni let up on the pace, forcing Talia to compensate to keep from rocking the boat. That was new. Jenni rarely slacked off during a workout. “It’s not fair, Talia.”

“What’s not fair?”

“Life. Everything. I mean, I know God has a plan, but . . .” She lifted her oars out of the water and rested them on the surface to hold the balance of the boat.

“But what?”

“It’s the refugee crisis.”

“Oh.” Talia wanted to be sympathetic, but sometimes Jenni needed a push toward reality. There were millions of refugees. Precious few ever made it to the US. Two weeks earlier, Talia had interviewed a married couple arriving from Ukraine, ferreting out intelligence on Russian border incursions. The couple had waited five years for resettlement after separatists drove them from their home. “Jenni, I know it’s sad, but there’s always a refugee crisis.”

“I know. I know. But it’s all over the news right now. Especially Myanmar. Tens of thousands displaced in religious purges. State PR is getting hundreds of calls a day.”

“And you’re fielding a lot of those calls.” Only a year and a half out of college, Jenni was at the bottom of the State Department food chain. That meant answering phones.

“So many. People want us to do something. I have to regurgitate the same old lines. ‘We’re doing all we can. We’re working through the proper channels. It’s a delicate situation.’” She spoke each phrase as if it were poison. “And then there are the children.”

“The children?” Talia’s own strokes stopped. Her oars skimmed the water’s surface. “What children?”

“Children in the camps are going missing. Myanmar won’t acknowledge they were ever born. The host countries, Bangladesh and Thailand, won’t register them. There’s no paper trail.” She glanced back at Talia, wobbling the boat. “How do you find a child that doesn’t officially exist?”

“That must be hard to deal with.”

“Day in and day out, Talia. The calls never stop. Don’t they know I want to fly a jumbo jet over there and grab as many as I can?”

Talia balanced her oars with one hand and