"I have a friend who's a student assistant in the registrar's office," Holly told Henry. "She was able to get Max Timoshev's class schedule. We'll wait for him after his next class and confront him and find out why he's after us."

"And what will that accomplish?"

Holly grinned and showed him the hidden tape recorder inside her jacket.

"Holly, you're a genius! You should have been the child of spies instead of me."

Several hours later, they stood outside the door of the class room, waiting for the class to be over. They heard the shuffling of feet on the other side of the door, and then it burst open and students began to spill out. Henry caught sight of Max's brown hair and stepped directly into his path.

Max scowled. "Get outta my way, man!"

Not until you answer a few questions," said Henry. Max tried to dart away, but Holly blocked his escape. With a sigh of resignation, he glared at Henry. "All right, whaddaya want?"

"I want to know why you deliberately tried to run us down in the parking lot."

"What? You're crazy! I did no such thing!" Max was practically shouting. "I'm no murderer, Henry Jennings, although I know that's not your real name."

It was Henry's turn to be surprised, although he realized how important it was that his face didn't betray his emotions. So Max had known the truth about him since before he'd found out himself.

"You did, and we have proof of it."

"Ha! You're bluffing, American boy. But I ought to have, after what your folks did to my old man. I was only ten years old when I lost him. I needed him, and they took him away from me." He sounded like a petulant child.

"I was only ten when my Dad died, too." Holly's voice was quiet.

"Really?" Max's sullen expression was replaced with one of curiosity. "How did he die?"

"In an accident."

"Oh, man, that's really tough. I know how you feel. It sucks to lose someone you love."

"Yes, and it doesn't help one little bit to try to kill someone they love in revenge."

"Look, man, I never tried to run anybody down, and that's God's honest truth. I'm sorry if you misinterpreted something I did, but if I promise to never come within fifty yards of either one of you again, will you please just go away and leave me the fuck alone?"

"Of course we will," said Holly. "We just wanted you to know we're onto you."

"You two are crazy," Max mumbled, shuffling away as fast as his feet could carry him.

"So the body count rises to two," Henry remarked when he was gone. "My God, how many people did they kill?"

"I have no idea, but they'd be smart to never return to the United States."

Henry knew that Holly was right, and it occurred to him that if his parents never did return to the United States, the only way he'd ever see them again would be to go to Russia himself. He wanted to feel his father's arms around him more than anything else in the world.

"I think he'll leave us alone from now on," Holly was saying. She frowned. "Are you all right, Henry?"

"Not really."

His wandering eventually led him to the Russian Orthodox church. Somehow, he knew that was where he'd been headed all along. He gazed up at the onion spire, at the white crosses with their double bars, in awe. He'd never been here before.

With only slight hesitation, he pushed the door open and looked around at the pillars, the candle holders, the many icons lining the walls. It all made him feel very small; yet, at the same time, he had the oddest feeling that he was home at last.

"Can I help you, my son?" The priest's voice startled him. Henry saw that he had a long, snow white beard and was dressed in a black cassock with a pewter cross around his neck.

Henry swallowed hard. "Father?"

"Yes, my son."

"I have a question."

The priest nodded in encouragement.

"Is it possible for one person to atone for the sins of another?"

"No, my son. Each must atone for his or her own sins."

Henry looked so distraught that the priest became concerned. "We aren't speaking of sins of a particularly grievous nature, I hope." Considering Henry's age, he imagined exams taken using cheat sheets, allowances squandered, speeding tickets.

"Oh, yes, Father. They're of a very grievous nature."

Unsure of what to say to one who was so young yet so burdened, the elderly priest left Henry alone with his thoughts as his mind went back almost sixty years, to the day a group of Stalinists had burned his first church to the ground. He recalled train load after train load of his former parishioners on their way to their probable deaths in gulags in Siberia for trivial or imagined 'crimes' against the state. He'd said a prayer and crossed himself for every one of them, not caring who saw him.

To the troubled young man who'd just entered his church, the purges would never be anything more than a page in a history book.

Thank God.