by C. G. Cooper
“I did.”
“And what do you think?”
“I think you should talk to him.”
“He’s gonna be pissed.”
“That’s Cal.”
Zimmer dreaded the reunion, but it had to happen.
“And what about Dunn?” he said.
“He’s not happy. He wants to talk to you.”
“Did you explain why it had to be done?”
“I did. He still wants to talk to you.”
“Fine. Can I at least go to the bathroom first?”
Marge looked down at their itinerary. “I think we can make that happen.”
Zimmer groaned. “God, I could use a vacation.”
“Most presidents just settle for aging prematurely.”
“Is that more levity?”
“Maybe.”
Zimmer shook his head. “It’s not working, Marge. Try something else.”
“You can’t run from life, Mr. President.”
“Really? Gee, and here I thought…”
“You know what I mean.” Her voice was stiff and cold.
Zimmer turned and stared out the tinted window. “You’re saying I ought to buck up and take it on the chin, right?”
“Not bad advice for anyone.”
“Any other locker room pep talk platitudes?”
She put a hand on his arm. “Hey.”
He turned back to her.
“Let’s take things as they come, okay?”
“Fine,” he said. “We’ll try it your way.”
“Great. And you feel better after you eats your spinach.”
Zimmer laughed aloud at this, thereby reminding himself first and foremost why he opted to keep Marjorie Haines close to his side.
Chapter Forty-Five
STOKES — CAMP DAVID, FREDERICK COUNTY, MARYLAND — PRESENT DAY
The hood had come off somewhere over West Virginia. Not that Cal knew that. In fact, other than the cup of coffee and two-day-old pastry the crew chief of the C-130 had given him, he wasn’t aware of much.
But he knew Camp David. He’d never been an official visitor, of course, but through the years he’d had ample time to get to know the place. Under different circumstances, he would’ve relished coming to it. What with its green tree runs, Marine guards, and distance from D.C., Cal much preferred the favorite hangout of men like Eisenhower, Nixon, and Reagan. Those men were all dead now, their legacies living on in varying degrees of love and hate.
But it wasn’t old presidents that had Cal’s mind now. Rather it was the sitting president, his friend. At least that’s what he’d thought. What he wouldn’t give to talk to Briggs. The sniper had a way of putting things in perspective that made Cal feel completely inadequate in the art of Zen.
What would Daniel do? He needed a T-shirt or a tattoo with that saying.
“Please watch your step, sir,” said a kid who looked like he’d just left the high school drama department and caught up on his side gig as an Air Force crew chief.
“Thanks for the coffee,” Cal said, taking in the scene, namely the five-man escort team waiting at the end of the ramp.
The crew chief gave him a knowing look. “Good luck.”
Cal walked down the ramp and met the stern-faced men in black.
“Mr. Stokes?”
“That’s me.”
He fully expected the hood and cuffs to come back. Instead, the small troop turned on its heels, expecting Cal to follow.
They led him to a room that looked like a waiting room or a golf locker room. Nothing on the walls. No chairs. No windows.
But there were vents and lights and all sorts of nooks and crannies where pinhole cameras and microphones could hide.
The entourage came first. Two stern, Texas-bred-looking Secret Service agents who gave him the up and down first, did a thorough search of the empty room, and then converged on him.
“Hands please,” the larger one said.
Cal held out his hands, which were inspected with an intensity that would’ve impressed whoever this guy’s trainer had been.
“Hands on your head.”
Cal laced his hands and placed them on top of his head. What followed was one of the more thorough friskings he’d ever had.
“Let me know if you find Jimmy Hoffa in there,” he said.
“Good to go,” Cal’s new buddy said, snapping off the rubber glove.
But that didn’t stop agent number two from giving another frisk down. Redundancy was the name of the game here.
“Okay. Bring him in.”
Cal couldn’t help but think that this was a lot to go through to see his friend. Maybe things really had changed. Maybe they were enemies now. Who knew? His interrogator’s question came to mind: How would he know?
But the man who walked into the room was not the president. In fact, he was no friend at all, at least not to Cal or anyone he knew.
Chapter Forty-Six
STOKES — CAMP DAVID, FREDERICK COUNTY, MARYLAND — PRESENT DAY
Konstantin Yegorovich walked across the room like a man who knew he could walk through any wall he chose. The Russian president stuck out his hand like it was a spear.
“This is the famous Mr. Stokes I’ve heard so much about,” he said. “Tell me, Mr. Stokes, have you had a pleasant journey?”
It took a lot for Cal to be surprised, but much to his disliking, he was fresh out of lively quips or even a straight answer.
“You thought you were here to see someone else?” There was a twinkle in the Russian’s eye that reminded Cal of the sheen cast off an iceberg.
“I apologize, Mr. President. But yes, I was expecting to see someone else.”
The Russian nodded, seemingly amused. “These are strange times, Mr. Stokes. Americans and Russians working together. Not exactly what you might see on tonight’s newscast, eh?”
“No, Mr. President.”
Cal couldn’t help but marvel at the man. Former spy who’d worked his way up to the head of what could be called one of the most corrupt governments in the world. What the hell was he doing in Camp David?
“Come. My time is short and you have a long flight ahead of you. Why don’t we cut to the chase, as you Americans say.” He sounded very much like an American. It made Cal wonder how many times the then-spy had worked on American soil. But it was the next line that hammer struck Cal for the second time that day.
“Oh, and if I may be so bold, you remind me so very much of your father.”
Chapter Forty-Seven
STOKES — CAMP DAVID, FREDERICK COUNTY, MARYLAND — PRESENT DAY
“You look surprised,” Yegorovich said with a knowing grin.
“You could say that,” said Cal.
“I met your father in Berlin. He’d gained a taste of notoriety with my comrades by then. And as a newly minted purveyor of espionage, I was more than eager to lay eyes on this man who’d so entranced my countrymen. Tell me, how much did he tell you about his time with the CIA?”
Cal knew his father had spent some side time with the CIA, but he hadn’t known anything about Berlin or espionage before leaving the Marine Corps and founding SSI. But he didn’t have to let the Russian know that.
Go with the half-truth.
“A bit. I was young at the time.”
Yegorovich, a stocky man with thin lips and lizard-like eyes, folded his arms across his expansive chest. “So, he didn’t tell you anything, really. Why does that not surprise me? Do all Stokes men hide their ribbons in the basement?”
“We’re Marines, Mr. President. We don’t think medals make the man.”
“Ah yes. You Marines and your code of—what is the word? Honor?” He chuckled like it was a pun. “I suspect you’d never wear your medals unless they made you.”
“You wouldn’t be wrong.”
The Russian thought on that a moment. “I should have known that the son would be much like his father. But that is not why I’m here. I hope you pardon the distraction. I have long won
dered what happened to your father. I was sorry to hear that he died at the hands of those Middle Eastern fools. They will be the death of us if we let them.”
“On that we can agree, Mr. President.”
Yegorovich patted Cal on the arm like they could indeed be friends. Not in this lifetime or the next, Cal thought.
“You know, your father was a great man. They tell me that you were not long in his shadow. So, let me tell you the story.”
Cal looked quizzically at the man. “The story?”
The Russian grinned. “Yes, Cal. About how your father saved my life.”
Chapter Forty-Eight
EAST BERLIN — 1986
The night trembled with cold, but the Russian spy did not feel an ounce of it. His body was hardened, acclimated as it was to the deepest reaches of the Soviet Motherland. During his training he’d slept in the wilds of Siberia, in snow caves carved by hand. He’d broken bread with nomads who bore a closer resemblance to man’s earliest ancestors than they did their masters in Moscow—with their fur-lined heads and their recessed eyes and their wind-scraped cheeks like worn edges of flint. He had known true cold and suffering, but his was only temporary. It was one of his first instructors who’d told him that death was the only state devoid of pain. The Russian did not doubt it, but that didn’t mean he had any desire to test the theory.
His shoes clopped on pocked streets, careful to avoid the many cracks left untended. There was no reason to fear. This was his side, the side of his people. He was safe, secure, and brimming with power.
But he was not ignorant to the ways of the world. He checked, double-checked, and triple-checked his trail. Five times he doubled back, around, and through alternate paths. This wasn’t his first mission, but it was the most important so far.
He arrived at the designated checkpoint. No package. Onto the next.
Three more drop sites later, he had his prize. His contact was careful and that was good. You never knew when the Americans or British would pop out of a hole. At least that was what his instructors had said. He’d been taught that his enemy—American or otherwise—was a drooling savage driven crazy by his own need for supremacy. The American enemy was nothing more than a backward bogeyman, an actor who got all the good roles despite having no talent.
Young Yegorovich saw through the charade. He knew the lies by now. It was impossible to impress on a spy in training that the enemy might have skills to match his own. That was blasphemy! So, they told half-truths. If the trainee was smart, he got it fast. It was as if the instructors were coaxing the men to see through their very own lies, many of which had been drilled into their heads since birth like nursery rhymes. That was the Soviet way, after all.
With his prize in his pocket, he meandered through the nearly deserted section of the city with ease. He tried to calm his nerves, but the information on the microfiche in his pocket was too much. The identities of three, possibly four moles inside the KGB operation in Berlin. He would make his name this night. He was sure of it.
He rounded a corner and almost ran headlong into a trio of East Germans. The nauseating smell of cheap alcohol on their collective breath came in a wave. He deftly stepped to the side, narrowly missing a staggering form, and was already on his way when one of the men spoke in a hard slur.
“Hey you!”
Keep walking, he told himself. The men were drunk and it made them stupid. No need to tangle with stupid.
“I said, Hey you!”
Someone grabbed the tail of his coat and yanked him back a step. He swirled around, coat wrested from the hand, and he locked eyes with each of the bloodshot fools in turn.
“What are you doing around here?” said the leader, a leather-faced youth with a square jaw and nothing behind the eyes.
“He looks Russian,” said the twitchy friend to his side.
The leader looked at his friend, then back. The smile on his face became a predatory leer. “Is that it? Are you Russian?”
“He smells like a Russian.”
The leader closed his eyes and sniffed cartoonishly. “God, yes. Those nasty Russian cigarettes. They roll them with horsehair.”
“You’re drunk. Go home,” said Yegorovich, adding an authoritarian lilt to the words that he hoped these good Germans would recognize. He’d even let the butt of his pistol show from underneath his coat in case they needed more convincing. One man noticed and pointed it out to his companion.
“I don’t give a shit what baby shooter he has on him,” the companion replied, his German as rocky as a landslide. “How about I teach you what we do with fucking Russians, eh? Beet eater.”
Yegorovich pulled the pistol from his waist and centered it on the lead aggressor’s barrel chest.
The German squealed out a laugh. “Go ahead and shoot, you Russian pig. Your mother is the filthiest—”
He put two shots right into the man’s chest. He’d find a way to explain this later. No one would kick up much of a fuss over a dead German—or two. Or three. And at any rate, there was a file in his pocket.
The two companions rushed the shooter. The gun given to him by his cousin, a war hero now dead, went skittering away into the darkness. He tried to defend himself, but the two men pressed hard, punching and clawing for a grasp anywhere on his body. One managed to grab a fistful of fat from the small of his back and wrenched as if trying to tear it from him. He yowled from the pain.
And then the unthinkable happened. The man he’d shot barreled into his belly headfirst, taking him to the ground. What followed was a good, old-fashioned, methodical ass-kicking.
In time, he would only remember the blur of fists and the sick sound of his own head hitting the pavement time after time. Too many times.
It was just another night in the trenches for Major Calvin Stokes. Though he wasn’t in uniform—just a mussed pair of slacks, a sweater that was a size too big, and a coat—he liked to think he was once again on the front lines. The Cold War would end in the coming years. There were whisperings of its suffocating death in higher places, but no one had told that to the spies on the ground. The spy game was still at its unreliable best. Tales and counter-tales. Lies heaped on top of lies. It was the way espionage had been run for centuries, and the way it would hammer on for centuries to come.
Stokes pulled the wool cap lower over his ears as he trudged along the banks of the river Spree. Being tasked to the CIA wasn’t his idea. No, someone on high had thought sending the Marine to help the spooks was a good idea. Stokes had been more than skeptical. In fact, he’d taken his case to his superiors, whom he believed would have the sense to send him to the operations section of the 8th Marines. He’d even take a desk job if that’s what it took.
His superior, a full Colonel whom Stokes much respected, told him in no uncertain terms that if it was the Marine Corps’ wish for Major Calvin Stokes to go to Langley and lend a helping hand to the spooks, then who was Major Calvin Stokes to say no to such an important assignment?
Stokes even remembered the Colonel’s last words:
“It’s not for you to choose, Major. It’s for you to do.”
And so, he’d gone to Langley expecting the worst. What he had found was a challenge that very much suited his talents. Sure, there was enough bureaucratic hogwash to fill a thousand grain silos, but how was the Corps any different? Once he resigned himself to his liaison role, he took to learning the CIA’s mission in earnest. And what a learning it was. At the time, he had no idea what this posting would mean for himself, the Corps, or his budding family—currently his wife and young son Cal.
And now, here he was in East Berlin, feeling as far from CIA headquarters as he might’ve felt in Mongolia. The dreariness of the place and the downcast populace served as a stark reminder of why he fought for his country. Some agents he met thought it was a game. Major Stokes was one of the few who saw it for what it was: a test, both for himself and for his country. If America could stand and hold against the Soviets, he believed the USSR would
one day crumble.
His meet-up having been a bust, he decided to take a stroll. The Spree was a thoughtful river with a languid rhythm—good for brooding. But commotion broke the spell, and from up ahead came a clatter of feet on the bank. He had time before he was due to call home, so he let his curiosity take him toward the racket. Probably some young hooligans out for a bender. He’d had a run-in with a pair of them his first night out. He’d gotten away clean only because he outpaced the winded runners.
Stokes’s German was fair. Conversational, but far from native. He caught a few curse words on the air and figured his first impression was right. Best to stay away from them. Take the long way home.
He was close enough to see them now. Three men carrying something. A mattress? No, too small. Maybe some garbage. There was certainly plenty of that to go around.
But then he saw it, the flash of pale skin in the night, and a head lolling to one side as the three men hefted the body up off the ground.
“Hurry up,” one of them said, spitting a wad of phlegm to his left. They hadn’t seen him yet.
Stokes gripped the pistol in his coat pocket and walked as quietly as he could.
“My hands are slipping,” another one said as they hoisted the body up onto a concrete barricade.
He had to do something. The Marine—the American—in him couldn’t stand by and let them do this, could he?
“Hands off the body,” he said, in what he thought was his best, passable German.
Three faces turned his way.
“Who the hell are you?”
It was obvious by the way it was asked that his accent had come through as clear as a crystal bell.
“Police,” Stokes lied.
“You’re no police,” the largest one said, stepping away from his friends.
In for a penny, Stokes thought. He pulled out his gun as he heard one of them say, “Not again.”
Before he could say another word, the two in the back grabbed their leader and dragged him away, cursing and spitting with every quick stride in the opposite direction.