Desmond nodded. Seeing her, and hearing her words, brought back a flurry of memories. He could vividly remember lying in that elementary school, in the makeshift cubicle, her reading to him by lantern light. She had been a lighthouse in the darkness. He wondered what she was now, how she was involved.

“Did you get my letters?” she asked.

He raised his eyebrows.

A remorseful smile crossed Charlotte’s face, one that said a fear she had long held had just been confirmed. “After you left, I sent them every week. For maybe a year. Less frequently after that. Every month.”

Desmond imagined Orville staggering out to the mailbox, half-drunk, tossing them in the trash and telling the mailman not to deliver anything with Desmond’s name on it. “Boy don’t need no bleeding-heart woman making him any softer than he already is,” he would have said.

To Charlotte, Desmond replied, “My uncle was a complicated man. He wasn’t much for keeping in touch with folks. Or allowing me to.”

“I suspected you never got them. I thought about you a lot after you left, wondered how things turned out. Even thought about coming to America to visit.”

“I wish you had.”

“Was it terrible?”

“No. Not at all,” Desmond lied.

Charlotte seemed to see through it. She grew quiet, stared down at her desk.

“What about you?” he asked.

“Not much to tell.”

“I doubt that.”

She shook her head. “The alliance is my life. This work. These people.”

“You’re good at it. You changed my life.”

That made her smile.

“Did you ever get married?”

“No,” she said quietly. “I came close once.”

“That guy who was at the school?”

Charlotte thought a moment. “Oh. Him. No. That was not a close call.”

Avery was getting impatient. “I think we should talk about the reason we’re here.”

Desmond exhaled. “Right. Charlotte, we found this place because of supplies shipped here. We want to ask you about that. But first, I think I should give you some background.”

Peyton studied the X-ray of her father’s ankle, which showed no fractures.

“It’s just a sprain,” she said to him.

“I’m telling you, I’m perfectly fine.”

“Just try to stay off of it and it’ll heal up in a few weeks.”

“The world doesn’t have a few weeks.” He made to stand up, but she blocked his path and put her hands on her hips. He exhaled and sank back down.

Despite his continued protests, she used some of the supplies in the medical closet to make a proper splint.

When she was done, they walked down the corridor toward Charlotte’s office. Desmond’s voice drifted out into the hall. He was describing what they’d found in Kazakhstan at Aralsk-7.

Peyton pushed the door open.

The woman sitting behind the desk looked to be in her early fifties, with a slightly lined face and trim physique.