Chapter 2

Even though I'd seen Agafia Liubov's TED talk about how the deprivations of her youth in Chisnau and the oppression she witnessed inspired her to activism, it was still impressive. It was only slightly distracting that I had to hear it in my brother Ty's voice because he was serving as her interpreter.

If Eli had become the translator instead of Ty, he'd have memorized the whole talk so he could deliver it in English with the exact expression and intonation Liubov used in her native Romanian. Being Ty, though, he was listening and interpreting off-the-cuff. Capturing the moment is how he described it. She was speaking from the heart, after all, not reciting a lesson, so if he'd memorized the TED talk by rote it would lose the spontaneity of her word choice and anecdotes. She'd had an awful childhood, from the sound of it. It made me grateful to be an American and to have grown up with the parents we had, despite the fact they'd died young.

Mom and Dad had moved us around on military bases as kids because of Dad's job. When I was seventeen, he got sick. It wasn't even six months till he was gone. I'd planned on being an Army man like my dad all my life, but the Marines had the best signing bonus, so I wrote my name on the dotted line and deposited ten grand in my mom's checking account. That left her with one less teenage boy to feed, plus I would be able to send money home.

Jake and Eli went into the Navy, but Ty became a Marine like me. Except he wasn't in munitions, he took the foreign language track and worked as an interpreter. Which was how we got here, to the packed ballroom of a fancy hotel in DC where my brothers and I were contracted to provide security for a foreign dignitary. In this case, the award-winning writer and activist who was speaking on stage while my brother repeated her every word, switching it from Romanian to English so quickly it seemed like a magic trick from where I stood.

It was a major draw to visiting VIPs choosing our firm. If they didn't travel with an interpreter, they could use our in-house expert unless they spoke an obscure language. The perk of getting to attend these events while working was nice as well. I stood at the emergency exit, arms crossed, alert to my surroundings. I kept an eye on Liubov onstage and scanned the room, alert. It was second nature by now, and I liked watching over people.

The protestors were thick outside the hotel when we brought her in a staff entrance. Most of them were out front for maximum media exposure, but a handful of clever ones had made their way around back with their signs and ugly shouts. She had written about the privations of her childhood under a vicious dictator. That shouldn't have been controversial, but she'd made some impassioned political statements in an interview which made her a target.

She had spoken out against voter suppression and some of the things she said were clearly not run by a PR person first. I wasn't saying she was wrong, just that she needed some training in how to avoid making inflammatory statements in the media. We kept an eye on her, cleared a path through the crowd and at one point, Jake whispered to her fiercely and gripped her gloved hand to stop her from flipping off the protestors.

He tried to cover it as offering his arm so she didn't slip but he was really just covering her impulsive obscene gesture. You'd think a frail looking seventy-five-year-old foreign national who probably didn't weigh a hundred pounds would be more reserved in a crowd of protestors calling for her death, but apparently being circumspect didn't come with age in this case.

After her speech, she did some QA. I glanced at Ty who gave me a nod. She gave a vehement answer, totally incomprehensible in Romanian but I saw Ty, who always translated so fluidly and quickly that it appeared effortless, appeared to hesitate and think it over. He cleared his throat, "The esteemed writer Ms. Liubov suggests that we in the United States overhaul our election system before we disenfranchise enough of our populous that the ignorant minority seizes control and—" He swallowed and seemed decide, "destroys the moral fiber of the nation."

Liubov shook her head in disappointment at my brother and thanked everyone in broken English before leaving the stage. We clustered around her and I clapped Ty on the back. "You can't water down the message, dude," I said.

"It's not that. I don't want someone trying to stab her on our watch and if she keeps shooting off her mouth about America like that, I'm not optimistic."

"I think you got the point across," I said wryly.

He rolled his eyes. "Let's get her to the hotel as fast as we can."

"My earpiece just said she needs to pee," I said.

"I realize she wants the press, but this stunt is too risky."

"I'm with you. I'd rather the client pee their pants than end up cornered by haters in a ladies' room," I said. "If she insists, get Ballard up here to clear the public toilets and go in with her."

Ty tapped Liubov on the shoulder and spoke briskly. She gave a curt nod and let him brush past her to break path to the vehicle waiting for us. At her hotel, we took her in through the entrance reserved for kitchen staff and up a service elevator. Ballard and Jake checked out her room and gave the all-clear.

On the way back to the office, I removed my tie and rolled my shoulders to loosen the tension.

"I'm ready to be done with this day. I don't have anything else on the calendar app until ten tomorrow. Anybody for a drink or five?" I asked.

"Can't. Jasmine just messaged to see how it went with Liubov," Ty said.

"Did she sense a disturbance when you very obviously paraphrased?" I asked.

"She is a bit of a Jedi," Jake said.

"Well twenty bucks says she's already seen a video of it and that's why she messaged," Ty said.

Jake was driving so I looked up coverage of the event and sure enough, found a TikTok already up featuring a loop of my brother translating as the smug dissident looked on.

"I'm just glad nobody asked her about Ukraine. Have you seen the footage from last month when she was on Graham Norton and stood up and grabbed her crotch and attempted to cuss out the Russian heads of state?" Ty added.

"No. But it sounds memorable. Maybe I'll look it up."

Ty's phone lit up with a Facetime from Jasmine.

"Hey," he said as he answered.

"Hey there. Just calling to let you know you've got another booking for Liubov. Two more events—a brunch at ten and an award ceremony at a global justice charity at the Willard at six. Her manager requested the same interpreter and four guards. I'm moving Keith to cover Jake's eight o'clock downtown at the club opening so I can assign the three of you to Liubov for the entire day. And you can bet her publisher will be billed for nine a.m. to whenever you're done. I want to keep Ballard with you tomorrow because you need a woman on detail for bathroom breaks and such."

"Sounds perfect, thanks," I said.

"I don't know what we ever did without you, Jas, but we must've been lost," Jake said.

"Keep your eyes on the road, big guy," she quipped from Facetime and hung up.

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