Belly of the Beast by Blake Crouch, Douglas Walker

I need to see my mother.”
    Yuri lit a cigarette.
    “But there was no man at Hunter Creek,” Niki shouted down the hill.
    Yuri didn’t argue.
    “If I come down, will you take me to her?”
    Yuri drew on his cigarette, then replied, “I cannot make promises.”
    Niki stumbled down the bank. “I don’t care what happens to me. I just need to find my mother.”
    “I’m not going to hurt you.”
    Niki stopped by the edge of the road, dimly lit by Yuri’s car light. “Did you really hear me breathe?”
    Yuri shook his head.
    “Then how did you know I didn’t keep running?”
    “I didn’t, but I wasn’t going to chase you. I had nothing to lose by assuming you hid like a deer.”
    “You scare me.”
    “It’s good to be scared.” Yuri eyed Niki a moment, then took off his coat and extended it to her.
    Niki looked at the mud on her blouse and pants. “I’ll ruin it.”
    “You need it, I don’t.” Yuri handed over his coat and opened the passenger door.
    Niki hesitated. “How can I be sure you and Fedor aren’t tricking me?”
    Yuri left the door open and walked to the driver’s side. “You can’t.”
    “Why would you help me?”
    “I don’t know that I will.” He slipped behind the wheel, started the engine, and talked to Niki through the car. “But peel away the skin and we’re alike, Russians and Americans. When I was a boy, I also rescued a cat from a tree. In the end we all have to live with ourselves.”
    “My cat. How did you—”
    “Your mother told someone, someone told me.”
    “My mother knew I fell and she still didn’t come back?”
    “She knew you went up the tree. Perhaps she felt you would be safer without her. Please,” Yuri gestured toward the seat. “Don’t walk off with my coat. The heater is on. Come out of the cold.”
    Niki forced herself to get inside. The car was warm. She shut the door and darkness returned. Like a bird with a sack pulled over its eyes, Niki relaxed just a bit. It was enough for the latent effects of alcohol, Valium, sleep deprivation, stress, hunger, fear and cold to grab her by the ankles and tackle her hard. Niki’s eyelids drooped, and danger didn’t matter anymore. Yuri could have been driving down the wrong side of the street, he could have pulled a gun, but all Niki cared about at that moment was a moment’s rest. Death itself would have been a welcome relief.
     
    Yuri stopped in front of a small restaurant, a hole in the wall between Alexei’s Deli and the Wong Laundry. He tapped Niki’s shoulder. “Hot borscht will do us both good.”
    Niki woke with a start, took a long moment to realize where she was, then resigned herself to doing whatever Yuri wanted.
     
    Fresh garlic and stale smoke filled the Moskva Café. The walls were barren, save a framed photograph of Vladimir Lenin, a red Soviet flag, and a balalaika, its triangular sound box covered with dust. Yuri and Niki’s footsteps echoed as they passed several tables, but no one looked up. Every face solemn.
    Yuri led Niki to a table at the back by a wall heater. “Ironic,” he said, “the Soviet Union is laid in its coffin the same day Joseph Stalin was born. No one is happy about either event. Borscht is the only constant in our lives.” He nodded at a waiter and held up two fingers.
    Niki sat without taking off Yuri’s coat, wet mud dripping onto her ankles. She was uncomfortable in her wet clothes, uncomfortable in the strange restaurant, and famished, but she waited patiently while Yuri pulled out a cigarette, tapped it on the table, then held it between his thumb and forefinger like the Russian at the bookstore had done. “Smoking will kill you,” she said.
    “Never thought I’d live long enough for a little smoke to affect me. Never thought I’d live long enough to see the Soviet Union dissolve.” Yuri put the unlit cigarette back in his pocket. “There are things beyond understanding.”
    “You don’t have an accent, but you’re obviously Russian,” said