Page 34 of Stars

“Kept you up?”

“No, I was online most of the night.”

“Why?” Roxanne shook her head. “Dan, you wouldn’t know how to relax if we locked you in a beach cabana in Tahiti with no internet. This weekend was about fun. What were you doing all night?”

“I’d be able to relax if there wasn’t a Goddamn international incident right under our noses.” He glared at Mark and Roxanne. “Tell me I’m not the only one to see it!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Roxanne said smoothly. A little too smoothly. Mark caught the way her tone went flat and pitched slightly higher, the same way it did when she was managing a crisis in Mission Control. He called it hereverything under controlvoice.

“Mark?” Dan challenged. “You see it. I know you do.”

“And what would you want us to do, if wedidsee this something you think is there?”

Sighing, Dan scrubbed his hands through his hair before throwing them wide. “I don’t know, call DC! Alert someone! Aren’t there protocols for this? Isn’t this some massive breach in security or international relations? Are presidents even allowed to go to other countries without an invitation, or at least a heads-up? Isn’t this, like, an invasion?”

“Okay, that’s a bit much—”

“Are wereallygoing to pretend that isn’t theRussian presidentin your house?”

“Shhh, keep your voice down!” Roxanne shushed Dan, eyes wide like she was scolding a toddler. “There’s no need to wake everyone up so they can hear your little theory. Have you told anyone else?”

Dan shook his head.

Roxanne sighed. “Look, I have spoken to President Puchkov more than a few times working on joining up Roscosmos and NASA. Yes, I think the voice sounds eerily similar, but I’m not going any further than that.”

“I showed you the pictures.” Dan turned to Mark again. “Ishowedyou. Last night.”

“Some of the photos look similar. But not all.”

“Some of them?” Dan snorted.

“I doubt anyone else on the planet has stared at pictures of President Puchkov as much as you have. Especially not in the last twelve hours. You’re going to see him in every Russian you meet now.”

“Sasha has seen him more,” Dan deadpanned. “I guarantee it. And it’s not just the pictures. You know how Sergey was late to the tour on Friday? And Sasha said his flight was delayed? Well, I checked. The commercial flights from Moscow were all on time on Friday. I called a friend at ATC, and he said there was a private jet that landed all secretly at Hobby. Guess where from?Moscow.”

“What does that prove? Maybe Sergey is just some oligarch, some rich Russian bastard who wants to keep him and Sasha under wraps. We don’t know anything about him,” Mark argued.

“Exactly! Don’t you think that’s strange?”

“I think it’s very typical of Sasha. Have you met our Sasha? You do see how forthcoming he is with information about himself, right?”

“Do you know where President Puchkov is this weekend?”

“Why on earth would I know that?”

“He’s taking a weekend off. In private. In seclusion. I found a Kremlin press release and a line in a Moscow newspaper saying he was taking a long weekend to study some kind of domestic trade issue. Which means no one has eyes on him for days. And,” he said, holding up a finger, “if he wanted to sneak away, that’s theperfectcover story.”

Mark sipped his coffee. He and Roxanne shared a long look.

“Say he is who you think he is,” Roxanne said slowly. “Which I’m not at all willing to say. Do you think he’s alone? I can tell you for a fact that Sasha does not have a brother. There is no Mikhail Andreyev in his files.”

“Is this a spy operation—” Dan sputtered.

“Or is Mikhail more of a… bodyguard, perhaps?” Roxanne stared Dan down. “Mikhail has stayed by their sides from the moment Sergey arrived.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, that basically proves it!” Dan hissed.

“What would you have us do? We’renotgoing to call DC. Any relationship between Sasha and his partner is their private, personal life, and NASA has a strict policy of never interfering in the personal lives of our astronauts. Whoever Sasha wants to date, that’s his business. NASA stays out of it.”