Dust in the Wind.

May of 1992.

Sanok, Poland.

We sat around as night fell. Sam insisted I join them in a game of cards. He said I looked tense and asked again where I had been since we last saw each other – but more seriously this time. It was a drastic change for me, going from hunting someone through the streets to the curious world of diplomatic espionage. I had a hard time transitioning from one environment to the other. I was on edge, waiting for something to happen when the night would probably pass quietly.

I occupied my mind, then, with this third unknown element in the room. Thompson. I knew a good deal about Sam, but his direct supervisor was something of a mystery.

He was in his late thirties, at the most, with dusky skin and dark hair, wrinkles around his blue eyes. It had only been a few months since I last saw him, but the man had aged years. It had to be from losing Newton. I had witnessed grief before, but never so profound, never so close to me. It made me wonder if Sam felt the same pain, only hid it under his carefree mask. If he did, he was a hell of a lot stronger than I gave him credit for. And if what Thompson felt on the inside was any reflection of how he looked on the outside, it was a wonder he was still functional.

I felt compelled to say something.

"Sorry I…" I began, trailing off, wondering what I had wanted to say. Thomson's eyes flickered up to me, then back to his hand. "I wanted to come to the funeral, but they already had orders for me to ship off."

Thompson snorted and took his turn, laying a card down. "You barely knew him."

"But I was there when he died."

"So?"

"So, that means something to me."

"It was snowing, and all the kids were snotty," Sam cut in, taking his turn. "Be thankful you missed it. You know, Newton never believed in funerals, anyway. He said it was like taking your money and just throwing it all in the ground, and for what?"

He was met with silence.

"For a show, is all," Sam finished to himself.

I took my turn, folding the cards nervously in my hands. I was not new to grief, but usually the people I grieved were disconnected from me. I felt for them because it was in my nature, not because I cared for people who cared for them. I could leave their home, their country, and try to forget I knew them – the people of Mshauri, the girl in the yellow dress, the asset in an alleyway in Portugal – but it was different this time. Newton barely spoke a word to me, but I saw his ruined face, saw Sam holding him, watched them drape a jacket over his lifeless body. I had seen the cycle of his life and never completed the cycle of his death.

Those kinds of things were impossible to explain, and probably impossible to understand for normal people. Larry always said that spies saw the world in a unique way, a strange way, that we could not feel the same about loss because we walked in and out of the lives of others. We met so many people, killed so many people, that life lost its meaning.

But I was here with Sam and Thompson again, with Donald downstairs manning the door, with the memory of someone lost. Larry was right. I didn't know the right way to talk about this.

"I met this girl in Boca once," Sam started, when the silence had gone on too long, "Who had hair down to her hips, and even when she was topless, her hair just-"

"Oh, please, not that story again," Thompson said, with a small smile on his lips. It was like Sam had dragged a smile out of a corpse. I had never met someone who could bring such brightness to the lives of others – and I suddenly wondered if I had looked this morose the first time we met.

Sam said, "What? Mike hasn't heard it yet! Mike, let me tell you about this girl. She was-"

A creak behind us brought on silence.

It was not a sinister sound in itself, but a little chill crept down my spine when Sam said, "Hey, sweetie, what is it? What's wrong?"

Sam got up. I turned. Mia was standing there in a nightgown, holding a pillow in her arms, her eyes wide and soft. For a brief, startling moment, I saw my little brother Nate hovering in my doorway, coming to complain that he was cold.

"Mia?" Sam said, when the girl said nothing. He crouched near her, giving her space, but his hand hovered between them, "What is it?"

I checked the room on the left, where the kids slept, and found the first bed jumbled up with a few stuffed animals on the floor. But the second bed was empty, and still made up.

So, it was not so different from Portugal.

I yanked my gun out of my waistband and went to the window, which was open to the elements. It must have been the chill that woke the kid. "Luca?" I said, tugging on a rope tied snugly to the edge of the radiator. It went out the window and halfway down the building, stopping abruptly ten feet above the ground. It was hard to tell in the shadows, but I thought I saw the imprint of a body down below, and footprints running off over the snowy lawn.

"Kid bolted," I announced as I rejoined the others. Harrison Belcher was already up, holding his daughter and looking absolutely bewildered.

"What? What do you mean?"

I glanced at Sam, who was frowning thoughtfully. "I mean Luca climbed out the window."

"We're on the second story!"

"He had a rope. Why would your son-?"

"Someone must have taken him! We have to find him! What are you all doing just staring at me?"

"No one came into this room," I said. "He tied the rope around the radiator and climbed down. I only saw one set of footprints on the ground." He tried to interrupt, but I talked over him, "Have you been here before? Is he familiar with any places in this country? Where would he go?"

"No, no, last time we stayed we were further north. Why would he-?"

Thompson had been on the phone since the moment I said the boy was gone. Sam was equipping his weapons and zipping up his hefty winter coat. "He knows how dangerous it is out there," I said, tucking my gun back in and strapping into a bulletproof vest. "He must know something."

"Or he went for a surprise visit to his mom," Sam offered.

"No sign of him at the hospital, the mother is asleep," Thompson cut in, hanging up the phone. "I'm calling Donald up to sit on these two and doing a sweep of the house. You two track down the boy." He tossed a satellite phone to Sam. "Constant contact. Keep me in the loop."

Only a few minutes had passed since we discovered the boy was gone. Sam and I took the stairs down to the first level and walked the outside of the hotel, to the open window and the dangling rope. It looked like he had misjudged the distance and fallen off of it. A few blood drops were buried under a light topping of snow.

"Is that blood?" Sam crouched beside me, exhaling a big cloud of steam. It was a chilly night, a terrible time to go wandering around outside. It was early May, and probably the last real snowfall of the season – and it picked a hell of a night.

I examined the rope, "He hurt his hands climbing down."

We followed the prints. I jogged on foot and Sam circled the block in his rental, until we met a few blocks over. Luca had switched from yards and roads to a sidewalk. Sam drove slowly and I hung my head out the window, pulling a toboggan tight over my ears and letting my flashlight roll over the prints. I was looking for any other feet, anyone following him, any signs of a struggle.

Luca had walked right out of town, switching to the side of a quiet road. Sam and I said nothing, but each odd turn we made had us meeting eyes, questioning what this kid was doing.

"He left his coat back at the house," Sam commented, several miles out from Sanok. "He hurt his hands on the rope. Probably shivering like crazy."

"Something is motivating him."

"Let me in on your idea, 'cause I know you have one."

"Luca knows something," I repeated.

"But what? I mean, the kid wouldn't want his own mother to get beat up."

"How do you know?"

"I just know." Sam gestured at the side of the road. "And he left an obvious trail. Kid that age knows he leaves footprints in the snow. If he was involved and trying to escape, he would have covered his tracks."

We slipped into silence.

Luca had walked to the next town over, nearly six miles away. His tracks began to meander and double back, but eventually we found him milling around at a small, closed petrol station.

I was out of the car first, crossing the parking lot on a warpath.

Luca saw me and his eyes bulged. He had his hands in his pockets and his face was cherry red from the dry, cold wind. His lips were cracked. "What are you doing? Go away!"

He was throwing up red flags left and right.

"Come on, we're going back to your father," I reached for him, he dodged me.

Sam arrived. "Whoa, whoa. Come on. We can talk about this when we're some place secure. And warm. Warm and secure."

"No. You have to leave!" Luca looked around anxiously, gripping the straps of his backpack. He was a small kid for his age, long blonde hair, blue eyes like his dad. He had pinkish rope burn on the insides of both of his palms, and as his hands closed, he winced.

I put my hands up, afraid the kid was gonna bolt, and I was going to have to chase him through the snow. "Luca, did you have something to do with all of this?"

Luca made a sound like a distressed animal.

"If you're involved, you have to tell me. I can't help you if you don't talk to me." I kept my hands up, and the gesture let me get closer to him. He was trembling from head to toe, wearing a T-shirt from the mild daytime weather. "Did you have something to do with this?"

He looked up and down the road again and said, almost in a whisper, "You have to leave. Please, just go away."

I was starting to respond to his nervousness. He was like a trapped animal, waiting for a predator to come and scoop him up. If he had some kind of plan, if he was meeting someone at this gas station, then the clock was ticking. We were in the path of the predator. We were all in danger.

And I also saw that Sam was right. Luca may have known more than he said, but he was not some criminal mastermind fleeing the scene. He was a terrified kid.

"Do you know why they hurt your mom, Luca?"

"They were coming for me!" Luca cried.

He let out a sob and tried to muffle it in his elbow. Sam blew a puff of steam into the air, looking anxiously up and down the road.

I channeled everything I had into my gentle voice, trying to treat him like a kid and not a criminal. It was hard, again, to switch from who I was in Portugal to who I wanted to be here. I had to think like Sam, to remember that people mattered.

"Luca, listen to me. Listen." I finally got my hands on his shoulders. His skin was frigid. I guided him back to the car and pressed him into the back seat, crouching in front of him. "Luca, I'm here to help you, and to help your family, okay? I only have one job here. Just one job. I know you're scared, I know you're worried about your mom, but you have to trust me. Let me help you."

He wiped his face, sniffling, the warmth of the car bringing some fight back into him. But he averted his eyes, clutching his backpack straps again. A bead of blood ran down his forearm.

"You lied to me when we met," I said. "So, let's start over." I held out my hand. "My name is Michael." I debated, and then added. "I'm a spy."

Sam cleared his throat behind me.

Luca took my hand tentatively, "Like in the movies? Like James Bond?"

"Sort of. I was sent here to help your family. But I need you to help me, first. I need to know what you know."

Finally, he said, "I never wanted this to happen…"

"Start from the beginning."

"Uh, Mike? We're sitting ducks out here," Sam said.

"Hold on. Tell me, Luca. Quickly."

His story was one I had heard before, in different context. He took files from his father's computer and advertised them online, teasing that he could get more for the right price. He found a chatroom with people willing to buy, and they bid on it. He swore he was just going to scam them out of their money – and he did. He scammed them out of ten thousand dollars.

But when he failed to produce the files, he started getting threats and, frightened, shut the whole thing down. He left the money sitting in a bank account, untouched, and told no one.

"What on Earth would possess you to do something so stupid?" Sam roared. "Selling government secrets on the internet! Come on, kid, use your noggin'!"

Luca flinched at his tone, "I was just… I…"

I pinched the bridge of my nose, containing my frustration. "Why did you come out here?"

"It was them, the buyers. I kept getting threats but I just… I never thought they would find us. I sent them a message to come here, to finish it, so they would stay away from my family."

Luca seemed quite brave them. He had a mettle that most kids did not. He met my eyes, even though he sat shivering in the back of a car, at a gas station in the middle of a foreign country.

"Do you know where they were from? Names?"

"No. It was all anonymous."

I took a deep breath, "Sacrificing yourself won't save your family, Luca. It'll just give them a bargaining chip. What they want is the information you promised them."

"I have it." Luca pulled his backpack off and yanked out a clunky computer. It seemed to have its own power source. "My dad bought me this. I saved all the chats here, and… the stuff I took."

Sam looked over my shoulder. "We don't even get those. Do you know how to use that?"

I took the computer. "Sam, get Luca back to the safehouse."

Sam didn't budge, "What're you planning?"

"We might only have one chance to meet with these people." I opened the computer and booted it up, passing it to Luca to type in the password. "Luca, did you respond to any of their threats?"

"No, I tried to ignore them."

"Good. Is there anything else I should know?"

"I just… I'm sorry."

He seemed genuine. I could forget the cold, the stinging in my face, the prospect of facing these buyers on my own, to show some empathy for this kid.

"If you really are sorry, you'll go back to the safehouse with Sam, and you'll stay there. I can only do my job if I know that you and your dad and sister are safe."

Luca nodded.

"I have to stay here," I said to Sam as I closed Luca into the backseat. "Once the kid is safe, come back here, park a quarter mile that way, and come through the forest. You have your rifle, right?"

"Yeah, but I don't want to leave you here alone. We don't know who these guys are."

"Exactly. Both of us might be a threat to them. If I stay, alone, I can talk to them."

"Or get kidnapped or blown to pieces."

"Hazard of the job."

Sam groaned, "What is it with you spooks and trying to get killed?"

"Sam, we don't have time to argue."

He left, and I could feel Luca watching me as the car rolled out of sight. I leaned into the wall, starting to shiver myself, and sifted through the laptop computer. Luca had saved a load of information, dates and times, sometimes names, offers of money and other goods. Most of the official things he had stolen were useless without context. He had chatted with an anonymous buyer, giving them bits and pieces of information and pretending he had more.

Whoever wanted the information thought they were buying it from Belcher himself. It had to be what attracted them to Poland, and what led them to the hotel.

But what could a diplomat know that would be worth all this trouble and violence?