And that's another goal from Jennings! The U.S. leads the Unified Team 4-3. Bob have you ever seen a single player dominate a game like this?

I haven't Ted. You know, Jennings does not have the typical build of a hockey player, but the conventional wisdom in NCAA hockey is that he plays with a chip on his shoulder because of his parents being Russian spies, and that chip has never been more evident than in this case against what was until a couple of months ago the Soviet national team.

Bob, I think a lot of NHL coaches would love to get a chip like that for their squads' shoulders.

Well, Ted, we'll just have to see if Jennings decides to go into the draft this summer or finish his eligibility at Harvard, but if he does decide to go pro, he's certainly improved his position in the draft through this tournament. And if anyone still had questions about his loyalty, I think those questions have been answered tonight.

I turned away from the TV, which was replaying the semifinal, in the bar of Stan's hotel to find him in the lobby.

"So, how's it feel to be a gold medalist?"

"Feels pretty good."

"You thought any more about going into the draft?"

"I don't want to make a decision until I've had time to think it over without all the hoopla crowding my head."

"Well, far be it from me to discourage a young man from staying in school, but you're going to need to come up with some way to make money, because you owe me five dollars."

"Crap. He's behind me, isn't he."

"On the bench under that pillar."

I looked behind me to see my father, who I hadn't seen in five years. He hadn't bothered with a disguise, probably thinking that if anyone wanted to arrest him they could just do it when he met me.

"You gonna go over?" Stan asked. We'd discussed this several times before I left Boston and I'd taken a fair amount of convincing to agree to do it.

"Yeah, but I'm doing this for you, not him."

I walked over to the bench where my father was sitting and extended my hand for him to shake.

"Hi."

"It's good to see you, Henry."

"We were just going to get lunch, you want to come with?"

We went to a crepes place in town that Stan had discovered and he ordered wine to get us started.

"So," I asked, "to what do I owe the pleasure?"

"We get the BBC Russian service now. They ran a story on you. It was the first thing we'd heard about you since we left, and I figured this was my best chance at ever seeing you again."

"Moscow didn't keep you updated?" Stan asked.

"No. They wanted us to 'move on.' Told us it would be best if we forgot everything. We saw the stories about Directorate S in the papers, but they never mentioned you or Paige. We were afraid they'd put you in prison."

"They dropped the charges against Paige when she agreed to cooperate with the investigation. The FBI finagled things so I could get a scholarship to stay at St. Edwards."

"So you stayed in school?"

"I got into Harvard, I'm a math major."

"How do you pay for that?"

"Charles Francis Adams, Jr. endowed a scholarship for orphans in the 19thcentury, and the Board of Overseers decided that I qualified. It probably helped that I was a hockey recruit."

"So they know about us?"

"Every time we play a road game against Cornell and I get on the ice they play the Soviet national anthem on the PA system. They made up lyrics about me and everything."

"It sounds like you're doing well, though."

"All things considered. Did Mom come?"

"She's had a hard time adjusting to everything that's happened over the past few months."

"Yeah, you two sure know how to pick a winner."

Stan interjected before the conversation got any more heated. "What have you been doing these past few years."

"We were doing cultural training for Directorate S, trying to give the trainees an understanding of what life in the West is really like before they experienced it first hand. Right now we're sort of…between jobs. What about you?"

"I teach criminology at George Mason. It sounds like we were in the same business for a while there."

"Are they overawed by you?"

"Yes. I try to explain to them that it's not nearly as glamorous as it sounds, but…"

"They never listen, do they?"

"No, they never do."

"Have either of you heard from Paige?"

"We all celebrate the holidays together."

"What's she up to?"

"Handcuffing herself to various buildings, mostly." I answered. "Last time it was the School of the Americas, and before that it was the gates at Norfolk Navy Base during the Gulf War, and some lab where they test poison gas on bunny rabbits or something. She pied Jesse Helms in the face once, which I'll admit was kind of deserved."

Dad sighed heavily, possibly the most honest expression of emotion I'd ever seen from him.

"I think she feels guilty about leaving you two."

"Next time you see her, tell her we understand." I was pretty sure he was fishing for me to tell himIunderstood, but I didn't. Well, I understood intellectually, but that didn't mean I was in the mood for forgiveness.

The waitress came over with our crepes, and we distracted ourselves with them until we'd cleaned our plates. Of course, she took her sweet time coming around with the check, and the silence finally grew awkward enough that I forced myself to break it.

"So, any more secrets you want to drop on me while you're here?"

"You have a nephew."

"Wait a second, I think you're skipping a couple of secrets."

"I had a son before I left Russia, Mischa. He served in Afghanistan and got a job at a power plant."

"Please tell me it wasn't Chernobyl."

"It's near Moscow. He lived with my brother for a time."

"You have a brother?"

"Yes."

"How many relatives are there?"

"On my side, just Pyotr, Tamara, their son Andrei, and Mischa, his wife Olga, and Ivan."

"How old is Ivan?"

"One. He's named after you."

"He is?"

"Your mother and I had you baptized so that you'd have a Russian identity. Your name is Ivan Mikhailovich Petrov."

"I'll stick with Henry, thanks. But, uh, do you have any pictures of this kid?"

"Yes, I brought an album." He pulled out a notebook stuffed with papers and photographs. "It has some pictures of your grandparents, too, and our addresses."

I looked through the folder on the flight home. Dad had written names in English on the backs of all the photographs, and addresses and phone numbers for him and mom (separate addresses, which he hadn't mentioned anything about back in the café). I didn't really care about the faded black-and-white portraits of deceased relatives. They looked pretty much like I'd expected my ancestors would look ever since I found out about Mom and Dad – miserable Russian peasants.

The baby was a different story. In the snapshot Dad had provided me, he grinned at the camera through chubby little cheeks, unaware of the misery that lay in store for him as a child of whatever was going to come after the Soviet Union. I didn't feel bad for any of the hardships my parents might be facing. They had had innumerable chances to take a deal and stay in Falls Church and they'd thrown them all away. But little Ivan had done nothing to deserve this. And sure, there were plenty of babies in Russia who didn't deserve being Russian, and there was no logical reason for me to worry about this one more than any of the others, but maybe there was something to this whole family business, because for the next several weeks I couldn't get that picture out of my head.