All Fall Down

My grandfather and my captor speak to each other in rapid Korean. No one offers to translate for me, but even though I don’t know the words, I know exactly what they’re saying. When my grandfather lowers his voice and speaks softly, the man lets go of my arm and looks at me. The truth about what my grandfather just told him is written all over his face. I call this particular look the Dead Mom Smile. He’s giving it to me now. The tilt of the head. The slightly upturned lips. Oh, poor thing, he’s thinking. When he speaks again, I know that’s what he’ll say.

  It’s a free pass and my grandfather knows it. How am I supposed to know that it’s rude to show up unannounced in the basements of foreign governments? I no longer have a mom to tell me not to.

  “Gracie.” Grandpa’s voice pulls me back. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

  It might be a trick question, so I take a moment before deciding to speak. Carefully, I look from Grandpa to the man from South Korea to Ms. Chancellor, who gives a little nod to go ahead.

  “Well, I was out walking, and then it started to rain,” I say slowly. “And then I got lost. I didn’t know where I was. The sidewalk was slick and I fell through some kind of hole and ended up in this tunnel. I couldn’t get back up. So I started walking. But it was so dark down there. And I was wet and cold and afraid.” I look at our visitor. “I was so afraid,” I tell him. My voice breaks.

  “And then I saw a ladder and a sort of trapdoor, so I started to climb and … the next thing I knew, I was in your embassy. But I didn’t know it was your embassy!” I hurry to add. I’m almost shaking as I drop my gaze to the ground. “I was just trying to find a way out.”

  I wish I was exaggerating, but the terror I felt is still too fresh, and there is so much truth in my lie that it is maybe the most honest thing that I have ever said. But they don’t know that. They just look at me for a long time. It’s Ms. Chancellor who finally breaks the silence.

  “Mr. Kim, I assure you, no one regrets this terrible accident more than Grace. I’m sure she is sincerely sorry for any shock or concern she might have caused you or your staff. Aren’t you, Grace?”

  “I am. I really am,” I say.

  Then the man turns to my grandfather and says something else I do not understand.

  Grandpa laughs, pats him on the back, and shakes his hand.

  “It’s a deal,” Grandpa says. Then he turns to me. “Gracie, what do you say to Mr. Kim?”

  I give a low bow and use my most reverent tone as I tell him, “Juay song hamnida.”

  This, at last, makes the man smile. He bows back, then shakes my grandfather’s hand one final time and leaves.

  “That was very impressive, Grace,” Ms. Chancellor says before Grandpa can speak.

  I shrug. “I can apologize in seven different languages. It’s just something you pick up when you’re me.”

  But Grandpa isn’t pleased. “Gracie, I do not know why you were there —”

  “I told you why I was there!”

  “— but you cannot go sneaking into places where you don’t belong!”

  “I didn’t sneak in! I was lost! I was scared! I was …” I trail off as soon as I remember I’m not lying.

  I would give anything to be lying.

  “Did that boy make you do this?”

  “That — Wait. What boy?”

  “The Russian,” Grandpa snaps, and I want to laugh, the thought of it is so absurd. That Alexei could be a bad influence on me …

  “Well, did he?” Grandpa persists.

  “I haven’t talked to Alexei since …” I don’t want to say that night or since my attack. I don’t want to re-live it in any possible way. So I simply shake my head. “I don’t talk to Alexei.”

  “Good. The Cold War, Gracie — it was easy compared to this.”

  This what? I want to know but do not ask. Instead, I hang my head and nod ever so slightly.

  “I was so scared.”

  Maybe it’s the softness of my voice, the gentle quiver in the words. Maybe I look like my mother. Whatever the reason, neither my grandfather nor Ms. Chancellor scold me anymore.

  “I guess that does it, then,” he says.

  “Yes. For tonight,” Ms. Chancellor tells him. “We should touch base with them in a week or so. Perhaps the Korean ambassador will —”

  “He’s going to kill again,” I say, but the words are barely more than a whisper.

  “What’s that?” Grandpa says. I can’t tell if he didn’t hear me or he’s pretending he didn’t, then I decide it doesn’t matter.

  “Never mind.” I shrug and shake my head. “You never have before.”

  I want to storm off, make a statement with a slamming door. But as soon as I reach the hallway I can see I’m not alone.

  “Grace, are you okay?” Megan asks, tilting her head.

  I don’t need Megan’s worry.

  I do not want her pity.

  I only have so much “care” inside of me and right now I can’t waste an ounce of it on her.

  “I hope you liked the show,” I say, then storm off before she can say another word.

  If the South Koreans are concerned the next morning, they don’t show it. There are no extra guards. No new cameras. Probably the trapdoor in the basement will be firmly sealed after my visit, but that doesn’t impact me at all. Not anymore. What I need isn’t inside their embassy. It’s around it. Somewhere.

  I don’t know where I was.

  For at least an hour, I stand across the street, staring at the South Korean embassy. No one stares back, though, I’m happy to see. The guards don’t even glance in my direction. I am young, small. Inconsequential. The people who do happen to notice me see someone who isn’t a threat.

  I don’t know where I was.

  The Scarred Man was meeting someone, but I don’t know who. I don’t know where. If I had just one piece of the puzzle then I might be able to figure out the rest. And then … what? Stop an assassination by an international hit man? Throw my body between the Scarred Man and another victim?

  Keep it from happening again.

  Yes. That is what I’m going to do. But I don’t stop to worry about how. How is tomorrow’s problem. Today my mission is simple.

  I don’t know where I was.

  Today I have to fix that.

  I push off the wall of the Egyptian embassy and start down the street that winds and climbs to the city center, all the time keeping my eyes glued to the stones beneath my feet, searching for any irregularities in the pattern, for the symbol that marked the entrance that I found last night.

  Four hours later, I’ve seen three tunnel entrances, and I highly suspect I know about one more. The city is no doubt lousy with them, and they could lead anywhere. But I don’t care how many there are. I only know that if I can find enough of them then maybe I can figure out where else the passageway that opened into South Korea might go.

  I don’t know where I was.

  In the bright daylight, I’m not afraid. Not anymore. I have a purpose, a cause. A mission.

  A shadow.

  “What do you want, Alexei?” I ask, spinning on the sidewalk.

  The sun is high and Alexei squints against the glare, staring up at me. The sidewalks are steep here, climbing toward the palace, and I’m glad for it. I like being taller than him even if it is just temporary. An illusion.

  He doesn’t even say hello.

  “Are you okay?” he asks instead.

  “I was fine until about thirty seconds ago,” I tell him.

  “I heard about …” he starts, then trails off, probably because I’m so fragile. He thinks I don’t want to be reminded about what happened the night before. What I really want to do is push him down the hill. “Are you okay, Grace?”

  “Yes! I’m fine. Do you hear me? I’m okay. Perfectly normal. Absolutely average. How do you say hunky-dory in Russian?”

  “This isn’t a joke.”

  I step closer, and now I can feel his chest against mine. I’m staring right into his
eyes. “Do I look like I’m laughing?”

  “You break into one embassy, and then you show up in the basement of another? If you’re trying to start a war, you’re doing a good job.”

  “I got lost, Alexei. I was out in the rain and I fell into one of the tunnels. It was an accident.”

  As soon as I say the word, I want to gag on it. I’ve heard it too frequently and for far too long. I don’t want to say it now. Or ever. But I have to. So I say it again.

  “It was an accident, Alexei. I’m fine.”

  “Are you? Are you really?” The way Alexei is looking at me makes me want to run — not to my mother’s room or my grandfather’s embassy. Not to any place that anyone would ever think to look. I want to disappear and never, ever come back.

  Alexei inches even closer. When he inhales, his chest brushes against mine. He stares at me with eyes that are bluer than the sea and reaches for my hand. “If you need me —”

  “I don’t.”

  “But if you do —”

  “I don’t need you, Alexei. Okay?” I can’t take being so close to him. He has always been golden. Like the sun. His touch burns, so I jerk my hand away and retreat to higher ground. “Now you can go call Jamie and tell him that I’m fine. That you have done your duty and you can be released from your obligation or whatever blood oath the two of you have sworn. I’m fine. Do you hear me?”

  I expect him to lash back. Or, worse, to laugh.

  But he just shakes his head. “You think I care because you’re Jamie’s sister? Maybe I care about you, Gracie. Maybe I’m worried about you.”

  It’s the worst possible thing he could tell me. Because now I have to lose what little respect I had for him. He really should know better.

  I force out a laugh. “If I wanted to start a war, we’d be in one by now.”

  This, at last, makes him smile. “That’s true.”

  “I’m okay.”

  “You’re not okay, Grace. But I want you to be.”

  When Alexei turns and goes back the way he came, I watch him walk away. I don’t let myself think about how easily the Scarred Man could have caught me last night, how no one would have found me — maybe ever. Rosie once said that the tunnels are full of skeletons, but I don’t let myself think about how easily I could have become one of them.

  I woke up this morning intending to scour the streets around Embassy Row, the shops and alleys. I woke up intending to look for tunnel entrances and maybe use them to make a map and try to figure out where I’d been. To be smart. To be safe.

  But Alexei has changed all that.

  Smart and safe are the furthest things from my mind, and now there’s only one thing left to do. There’s only one place left to go.

  And that place, I know, is down.

  The tunnel looks different through the beam of a military-grade flashlight. I know I should be in a hurry, but I have to marvel at the walls, the ancient torches that are lined up by the entrance. This time I can shine a light up onto the clockwork gears and wheels that open and close the door that covers the shaft. It’s genius, really. Hundreds of years old and still working.

  It’s enough to almost make me lose track of what century I’m in, so it takes a moment for me to remember to pull out the compass I’ve been carrying around all day. I turn the way the Scarred Man ran the night before. South, southwest. And then I start to follow.

  At first it’s easy — the tunnels either don’t branch or else dusty cobwebs or ancient debris block the way, and there is no doubt whether or not I went that way the night before.

  I go south, southwest for twenty minutes. Due east for another ten. But when the tunnel dead-ends at a pile of old, dusty wooden crates, I start to worry. I know I’ve made a wrong turn somewhere along the way.

  Backtracking, I pay careful attention. The floor slopes and rises. At one point I realize the tunnels don’t just go left and right. They also go up and down. I may be right beneath the streets, or I could be a hundred feet deeper beneath the city — I have been walking for so long that it’s impossible to know.

  I’m just about to give up when I hear the drip, drip, drip of water falling into a larger pool. Suddenly, the tunnel is warmer. I pull off my favorite cardigan. Even in a T-shirt and shorts I’m starting to sweat.

  And then the strangest thing happens: The tunnel ends.

  Instead of an entrance in the ceiling, I reach a door and stop. The sound of the dripping water is clearer now. I’m even hotter.

  According to my compass I’m pretty sure I’m on the far-north end of Embassy Row.

  Gently, I push. But before the door even opens, I know exactly where I am.

  “Iran.”

  The word is a whisper I barely dare to say aloud. But there’s no one around to hear me, and I make myself step slowly, cautiously inside.

  The tile around the ornate swimming pool is slick with a dampness that seems to have taken up permanent residence in the embassy’s basement. My hair clings to the back of my neck as I walk toward the ornate pool and think about the story that my grandfather told me — about the hot springs that run underneath the palace and throughout the rest of the city. When I see steam rising from the water, I realize that the Iranians must have had their very own. Hot springs and beach access? No telling what Noah might say to the Israeli ambassador to try to convince him to arrange some kind of real estate swap now.

  But Noah will never know — can never know — where I am. And why. It’s a mission for which I don’t even really trust myself.

  Condensation gathers on the tile ceiling and then drops into the pool below in a steady, even beat. It’s almost soothing. If the chaise lounges around the pool weren’t covered with mildew, I might lie down and take a nap.

  But then I hear a noise. The door starts to move. And I know that, once again, I am in the Iranian embassy.

  And I am not alone.

  Maybe the Scarred Man is coming. Or maybe it’s the man he’s been meeting. Somehow, neither option frightens me. I feel like maybe my life has been leading to this for years, and I’m grateful I no longer have to wait. To worry. To wonder. I’m ready to have it over.

  The door is heavy and the hinges are rusty from the humidity and years of little use.

  It catches. Stalls. And I know I should use the time to run upstairs and out through the loose piece of fence on the beach. Maybe I should hide somewhere inside the sprawling fortress.

  In other words, I should save myself. It’s the smart thing to do. But the downside of spending most of your life having people tell you you’re acting stupid means that, eventually, you stop trying to do what is smart.

  I inch toward the door.

  I grab the arm that is reaching toward me.

  I pull, daring whoever is on the other side to try to hurt me first.

  The word that comes is loud and fast and (I’m pretty sure) dirty. It’s also in Portuguese.

  Noah throws his hand to his chest then doubles over, breathing hard. “You scared me!”

  “I scared you?” I say, slapping at his arm. “What are you doing down here?”

  “Following you,” Rosie adds from behind him, entirely too cheerful. “Wow, I’ve never been down this way before.” She pushes Noah through the doorway, then steps into the basement herself. Her eyes go up to the ornate ceiling before turning to the lavish pool.

  “Cool,” she says.

  “Yeah. But why are you …” I trail off as my gaze settles onto Megan, who stands just on the other side of the door. Of course she’s here. I’m starting to learn that Megan is always around to see too much, hear too much. Know too much. And that makes something inside of me snap.

  “Go!” I shout, pointing back to the tunnels. “Rosie, Noah, go home. Now. You, too, Megan.”

  “We don’t even know where we are,” Noah says.

  “No.” I shake my head. “I know where we are. And you need to go.”

  “How do you know?” Megan asks.

  “Because I’ve be
en here before.”

  “You’ve been here before?” Noah asks. “So that means …” He looks like he’s doing math in his head. “That means this is —”

  “Iran,” I say.

  “Iran!” Noah finishes at the same time. He turns and reaches for Rosie’s hand. “Come on. We’ve got to get out of here.”

  But Rosie pulls away. “Cool,” she says again, walking toward the water that is part pool, part hot springs.

  Amazingly, Megan doesn’t run away either. Instead, she leans down and runs her hand through the water that is surprisingly clear. “Awesome.”

  “Awesome? Are you three trying to kill me?” Noah shouts.

  “Ooh, we should get in,” Megan says. “Next time I’ll bring my bikini.”

  Noah stumbles back like he’s been shot. “You are trying to kill me.”

  “Noah’s right,” I say. “The three of you should go. Get out of here before you —”

  “Before we what?” Noah says. “What’s going to happen to the three of us that won’t happen to you?”

  “This isn’t your fight, Noah,” I snap.

  “Yeah, well, it became my fight the moment I …” He trails off and, suddenly, I’d give anything to know what he was going to say.

  “The moment you what?”

  “I …”

  “The moment you met me?” I guess. “The moment you heard about the man with the scar?” That still isn’t it — I can tell. So I go back further. “Or was it the moment Ms. Chancellor asked you to keep me out of trouble? She didn’t just ask you to show me around, did she?”

  Bingo.

  Noah is busted, and he’s actually stumbling backward, trying to find a way out of the proverbial corner.

  “Great. My brother got Alexei to spy on me. Grandpa and Ms. Chancellor have you. I am covered!”

  “Grace, don’t —” Noah reaches for my arm, but I push him away.

  “How did you find me?” I ask.

  “We followed you,” Rosie says, matter-of-fact.

  “No.” I shake my head. “Not good enough. I’ve been wandering these tunnels for hours. I wasn’t even sure where I was, so how did you find me?”

  I look from Noah to Rosie and then, finally, I let my gaze settle on Megan.