Epilogue

Svetlana looked out the window of an Air Canada 767. The passport in her pocket had a different name. She had been so many women these past three years. Most of them she was happy to leave behind. This whole country she was happy to leave behind.

A brief stopover in Toronto, and she'd be in Amsterdam in about fifteen hours. Here in Chicago they would still be sifting through the rubble. Perhaps eventually they would discover the woman's body they found was not her. They had some DNA evidence to compare, if they wanted to. Perhaps they would. By then she would be beyond their finding, and she had doubts as to whether they would contact foreign agencies for help.

Her escape had been narrower than it should have been. One bullet had passed through her arm, and she had pulled another from her leg. That brought the tally of self-removed bullets to an even dozen.

Even with the medications she had stolen, she was still in a fair amount of pain. Even in the first-class airline seat she could not find a way to sit that was not putting weight on the fresh wound in the back of her thigh.

The captain said something, but it was the routine takeoff announcement, so she ignored it. The plane started rolling. The last skeleton in her closet was dead. There was no one still alive that could directly connect her to her older life. After most of a decade, she might just be free. For the first time she could remember, she felt better not carrying a gun.