Silent Run

on display. Within seconds she was caught up in a journey through time. She couldn't look away. And she didn't want to look away -- especially when she came to the picture of the little girl.
    Captioned " The Coldest War of All," the black-and-white photograph showed a girl of no more than three or four years old, standing behind the gate of an orphanage in Moscow. The photo had been taken by someone named Charles Manning, the same man who appeared to have taken many of the pictures in the exhibit.
    Julia studied the picture in detail. She wasn't as interested in the Russian scene as she was in the girl. The child wore a heavy dark coat, pale thick stockings, and a black woolen cap over her curly blond hair. The expression in her eyes begged for someone -- whoever was taking the picture, perhaps -- to let her out, to set her free, to help her.
    An uneasy feeling crept down Julia's spine. The girl's features, the oval shape of her face, the tiny freckle at the corner of her eyebrow, the slope of her small, upturned nose, seemed familiar. She noticed how the child's pudgy fingers clung to the bars of the gate. It was odd, but she could almost feel that cold steel beneath her own fingers. Her breath quickened. She'd seen this picture before, but where? A vague memory danced just out of reach.
    Her gaze moved to the silver chain hanging around the girl's neck and the small charm dangling from it. It looked like a swan, a white swan, just like the one her mother had given to her when she was a little girl. Her heart thudded in her chest, and the panicky feeling she'd experienced earlier returned.
    "Julia?"
    She jumped at the sound of Michael's booming voice. She'd forgotten about him.
    "Mrs. Harvey is waiting for us," he said as he crossed the room. "What are you doing in here?"
    "Looking at the photos."
    "We don't have time for that. Come on."
    "Just a second." She pointed at the photograph. "Does this girl seem familiar to you?"
    Michael gave the photo a quick glance. "I don't think so. Why?"
    "I have a necklace just like the one that little girl is wearing," she added. "Isn't that odd?"
    "Why would it be odd? It doesn't look unusual to me.
    Of course it didn't. There were probably a million girls who had that same necklace. "You're right. Let's go." But as she turned to follow Michael out of the room, she couldn't help taking one last look at the picture. The girl's eyes called out to her -- eyes that looked so much like her own. But that little girl in the photograph didn't have anything to do with her -- did she?
    * * *
    "It cost me a fortune to get you out of jail," Joe Carmichael said.
    Alex Manning leaned back in his chair and kicked his booted feet up onto the edge of Joe's desk. Joe, a balding man in his late thirties, was one of his best friends, not to mention the West Coast editor of World News Magazine , a publication that bought eighty percent of Alex's photographs. They'd been working together for over ten years now. Some days Alex couldn't believe it had been more than a decade since he'd begun his work as a photojournalist right after graduating from Northwestern University. Other days -- like today -- it felt more like a hundred years.
    "You told me to get those pictures at any cost, and I did," Alex replied.
    "I didn't tell you to upset the local police while you were doing it. You look like shit, by the way. Who beat you up?"
    "They didn't give me their business cards. And it comes with the territory. You know that."
    "What I know is that the magazine wants me to rein you in."
    "If you don't want my photographs, I'll sell them somewhere else."
    Joe hastily put up his hands. "I didn't say that. But you're taking too many chances, Alex. You're going to end up dead or in some prison I can't get you out of."
    "You worry too much."
    "And you don't worry enough -- which is what makes you good. It also makes you dangerous and expensive. Although I have to admit that this is some of your best work," Joe added somewhat reluctantly as he studied the pile of photographs on his desk.
    "Damn right it is."
    "Then it's a good time for a vacation. Why don't you take a break? You've been on the road the past six months. Slow down."
    Slowing down was not part of Alex's nature. Venturing into unknown territory, taking the photograph no one else could get, that was what he lived for. But Alex had to admit he was bone tired, exhausted from shooting photographs across South America for the past six weeks, and his little