“Have you been home to Russia since coming to America?” the Estonian woman asked after they’d ridden for several blocks in silence.

“Not yet,” Yuri said. He perked up at the thought of his imminent return. In fact he already had an open ticket to Moscow via Frankfurt and departing from Newark Airport. He’d chosen Newark since it was located to the west and south of Manhattan. He was planning on leaving the moment he finished the laydown of the bioweapon in Central Park, and he didn’t want to risk going east to JFK Airport. The wind invariably blew west to east. The last thing he wanted was to be victimized by his own terrorism.

Obtaining the airline ticket had not been without difficulty. Yuri had never been able to obtain a Russian international passport, and although he had an American green card from the Immigration and Naturalization Service, he still didn’t have an American passport. At least not an authentic one. Yuri had had to pay to have a fake passport made. But it didn’t have to be a particularly good one, since all he intended to use it for was to buy the airline ticket. As a patriot, he was confident he’d have no trouble getting into Russia without proper documents, and he certainly didn’t intend to return to the United States.

“My husband and I went back to Estonia last year,” the woman said. “It was wonderful. Good things are happening in the Baltics. We might even eventually return to live in our hometown.”

“America is not the heaven it wants the world to believe it is,” Yuri said.

“People must work very hard here,” the woman concurred. “And you must be careful. There are many thieves who want to take your money, like investment people and people wanting to sell you swampland in Florida.”

Yuri nodded in agreement, although to him the real thief was what Curt Rogers called the Zionist Occupied Government. It wasn’t only in a metaphorical sense relating to the American Dream hoax; it was also quite literal. Government agents always had their hands out to steal most of every dollar Yuri made. If it wasn’t the criminals in Washington, it was the thieves in the state government in Albany or the bandits in the city government in Manhattan. According to Curt all this taxation was unconstitutional and therefore blatantly illegal.

“I hope you send some money home to your family,” the woman continued, unaware of the effect her conversation was having on her driver. “My husband and I do as often as we can.”

“I don’t have any family in the old country,” Yuri said, a bit too quickly. “I’m very much alone.” He knew he wasn’t being entirely honest. He had a maternal grandmother, a few aunts and uncles, and a collection of cousins in Ekaterinburg, as Sverdlovsk was now called. He also had an overweight wife in Brighton Beach.

“I’m sorry,” the woman said. Her face clouded in sympathy. “I cannot imagine having no family. Perhaps over the holidays you’d like to come to us.”