Was this it? Was he dying and calling on his mother? Then Franny took a wild guess and said, “Mariamna? She’s fine. Safe. I got her to the States.”

A clawlike hand gripped Franny’s forearm. Tolenka’s eyes shifted colors and for an instant they seemed the eyes of a man and not windows into darkness. Franny kept talking, hoping to keep whatever remained of the man present.

“She told me about you. Dancing at embassy balls, and … and missions together. She still wears your medal.” The slack lips moved—a smile or a grimace? “She told me you were brave. I heard your voice on those tapes. You got the warning to us. We listened. We’re going to make it right.”

An exhalation of breath that might have been a sigh, though Franny feared it represented the final breaths of a dying man. He gripped the Russian tighter and whispered, “Hang on, sir. Just a little longer.”

The old engine on the truck groaned, the wheels vibrated as their speed increased. Frank held Tolenka tightly to try to ease the jouncing. The view outside was uncanny but were they still in Talas or in that other place?

“Bruckner, you gotta tell me once we’re … there.”

“Gonna be a bit hard to tell, mate, since there now seems to be here.”

“We’ve got to be sure.”

“I know!”

They drove on. Tolenka writhed in Franny’s arms, but the movements didn’t seem directed at the cop. He fought some other battle. A sibilant whisper wove through the truck. Words on the edge of understanding. It raised the hairs on the back of Franny’s neck.

A thread of violence began to weave and dance through his thoughts. He looked down at the misshapen horror he held in his arms. Such perversion shouldn’t be allowed to live. A new majesty was waiting to be born. Only this abomination held it back.

Franny watched with bemused interest as his hand crept toward the ropy, wattled neck. The truck veered and he had to grab for purchase and it broke the spell. He noticed their surroundings. They were driving through a deep valley washed by a poisonous greenish-yellow light. The source of the light was a massive bloated moon that filled the sky and kissed the horizon. All around were colossal mountains whose unnaturally sharp peaks were like jagged teeth rending at the sky, trying to devour the moon.

Franny didn’t need Bruckner to tell him that it was time. Cradling the old man in his arms Franny crawled on his knees to the drop gate of the truck.

“It’s now or never, mate!” Bruckner shouted.

Franny looked down into the ravaged face and tried to see the vestige of the handsome man from the picture. “You did it. You can rest now.”