Chapter Sixteen
Marina walked the Kaliningrad streets alone, snow crunching underfoot. In the distance, smokestacks on the Baltic coast poured white streams across the gray afternoon sky.
She chose an alternative route through a park, rarely taking the same path twice. She circled a toppled basketball ring with a blue-painted backing board, passed barren and dark trees that obscured the old A-frame houses lining the road ahead.
Her parents lived on a quiet, safe street with pavement on one side and grass on the other. The houses here were mostly two-story, old but in good condition, with iron gates out the front, sometimes brick walls. It wasn’t the wealthiest district, but Marina liked it, and her tax-free danger pay helped with the bills. The Directorate was paranoid but generous.
To
