The men appraised her.

“Follow us,” said the bandanna man.

They went slowly down a street of broken cobblestone, swishing their flashlights back and forth. The buildings on either side were boarded up, or their windows smashed out. The humid cold slipped through her jacket like a knife. She felt a twinge of hate for the country’s weather. This was what the troops had endured for years—what she had endured for years. Suicides on the front were at an all-time high. People came. People died. They were always cold.

She was aware of her limp and tried to hide it by using the ball of her left foot. Her trekking days were over, but she compensated with jujitsu and a deadly striking game. The men did not seem to notice or care about her handicap. Did they even know who she was?

They stopped their urban journey for a rest in the boxed circle of what was once a little park. In the circle was a dried fountain centered with the statuette of a nymph lifting a delicate foot out of the dusty and leaf-scattered pool.

“Sit. Rest,” the bandana man said.

“I’m fine,” she said.

He sighed and sat down.

The bearded man stepped away, lifted his gun, and scanned their perimeter. “Time is short.” He spoke with an American accent.

“Please, Madame President,” said the bandanna man.

They knew.

“We wait here a little.” He shrugged off his backpack and took out a thermos. “Coffee?”

“No, thank you,” she said.

“It not poison. If I want kill you, I just cut throat. Or shoot you in head. But throat more fun.”

“Try,” she said.

“See. Already I like you.” He laughed. “Nobody knows you are here.”

There was noise from the outer shadow. In a blur, he had his pistol in his hand. The bearded man swung around, catching a broken window in his spotlight. A second later, a black cat jumped up to balance on the ledge. It eyed them still as stone, mewed twice, then jumped down and vanished on its prowl.

The bearded man took a deep breath. “Fucking cats.” He let out a dry chuckle.

The bandanna man produced a cloth, which he laid out on the stone, then put down two silver coffee cups. He carefully filled the cups then the lid of the thermos. He spoke something in Georgian. The bearded man took the lid and drank on his watch.

“Please.” He gestured. “The last time president of United States come to front lines, daddy wasn’t glint in Dedushka’s glass eye.” He smiled.

She stared at him, trying to dredge up faces from the hours of intelligence research. “General Orlov is your father?”

“Da, one and only. He send greeting. And good coffee.”

“Which son are you?”

“Alexi.”

“Colonel Alexi Orlov?”

“General now. I get promotion after smart drone put missile into Dima’s camping tent. War crime. Is okay. Maybe drone think fishing pole is gun.”

“General Dima is dead?” Her heart skipped a beat. Next to his father, Vladimir Orlov, Dima Orlov was the single most important leader in the Federation of Eastern European Nations. He had been the mastermind of the Western push after the Battle of Tbilisi and the number one target of the Allies.

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“When did it happen?”

“Summer.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” she said.

“Is okay. Not alone. Lenya and Kiril were with him. Was Lenya’s birthday. Ten years old.”

She sat down. “Christ, I’m sorry.”

He shrugged. “Is war. Dirty business. If we had autonomous drones, maybe we do same.”

She picked up the silver cup, nodded to him, and sipped. Strong, hot, and sweet.

Next, he took from his bag a tin box and opened it. Shining his light inside, she saw little cookies dusted with powdered sugar. He ate one.

The accusation in the air did not need to be said. Used legally, AI drones were a more humane way to wage war. They were accurate and could easily identify a fishing pole from a gun, a fishing trip from a military camp, and children from soldiers. Either Alexi was lying, or there had been a major cover-up.

She ate a cookie. It was good with the coffee.

“You promised your people you end war,” he said.

“End it or win it,” she replied.

“There is no winning. Not for anyone. You know that.”

She did know it. “We can negotiate,” she said.

“Also, no negotiation.”

“Then why? What do you want?”

He held up his hand, displaying their dismal surroundings. “This was cute little park. My mother bring me here when I am child.” He grew quiet, looking at his hands, fingertips powdered in white. “What do you want?” he asked with a war-weary look.

“Me?”

He nodded.

She thought quickly. “A ceasefire. Through the new year.”

He shook his head. “From your Thanksgiving Day to your Christmas Day. One month. Don’t want soldiers get lazy.”

“Okay,” she said. “Deal.”

“And General Orlov wants backchannel.”

“I can’t. The allies would never agree.”

He looked down at the cookies and coffee. “You want to stop war? You must do what is hard.”

She tried to calculate the possible fallout should an unauthorized backchannel ever be discovered. There were too many variables. Too many actors on the stage, and she didn’t have time. “Deal,” she said.

Alexi smiled. Nodded. Drank his coffee.

Hope coursed through her. If this could happen, it would be the longest ceasefire in fifty years. They could give the troops a real Thanksgiving dinner. Rotate some of them home. But more important, it was a foot in the door for negotiations. It set a precedence. She held out her hand. He studied it, then shook it. And he did not let go. He squeezed harder. Brought his face close to hers and said, “Thank you. Do not forget.”

“I will not,” she said.

They finished the coffee and cookies. He packed up, but before he stood, he said, “Off record. Between you and me, can I ask?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Did USA nuke my city?” The tone was a sincere question, and her mind swam at its implications.

“No, we did not,” she said firmly, truthfully.

He nodded and shrugged.

“Alexi,” she said, “the Allies did not drop the bomb that day.”

“We too did not drop bomb. Maybe dark ops, deep states, FEEN, Allies… Who knows? Radiation under bridge, like water. Let’s go. Is time.”

They wove through streets strewn with debris and burned-out cars, down passages, and across courtyards. The fog never lifted.

At a dead end, the man with the beard stopped. He painted his light over something in front of them. At first, she thought it was the side of a building, though its color and texture were out of place with the surrounding brick and cement construction.

“The wall,” whispered Alexi.

They approached cautiously, guns at the ready.

At its base, the street was destroyed, leaving chunks of stone and gravel as if it had come up from beneath like a root. The buildings on either side were likewise torn through. The structure was black and vesicular as lava stone, and at the proper angles, their flashlights brought out a glint of obsidian, a glimmer of dark opalescence.

She looked up to where it continued into the murky night and fog. When she reached out to touch it, Alexi grabbed her wrist and shook his head.

The men let out tells of nervousness in the way they moved, pointing their guns at the shadows.

“This is it,” said the bearded man.

Alexi lifted his gun and turned a complete circle, taking in the area as if he were expecting to be rushed at any moment.

“Don’t forget, Madame President,” he reiterated, resting a strong hand on her shoulder. “Code word: coffee and cookies.”

“I won’t,” she said. “Coffee and cookies.”

“I… I’m sorry about your brother and his children.”

“Let it go,” he said. “The war within a war.”

He handed her his flashlight. “There. Go now.” He pointed at the heavy front of a Stalin Building that had been driven through by the wall, its rusty bricks marred by the wounds of war. The upper balcony had been blasted away, and two lonely pillars that once held the ceiling reached to the sky like empty hands. Had the wall not been there, she thought it would topple over. Debris-littered steps led to a porch and a large wooden door beneath an archway. Alexi gestured again. “Go.”

With the men looking on, she was conscious of her limp as she climbed the steps. At the door, she turned in time to see them vanish into the night, back the way they had come.

She grasped the handle and pulled. It resisted. She pulled harder, and it swung open. The grate of rusty hinges echoed off the buildings.