Alex looked around the bar. There was no one anywhere near to overhear them. Two grizzled, potbellied men in T-shirts swore at each other over a game of billiards. A dumpy man was flirting with a homely woman at the bar, both drunk and talking over one another with desperate, inane chatter. The remaining customers were clumped under a baseball game on a dangling TV monitor, shouting at every play.
The Stick slowly raised his eyes to stare at his visitor.
His frown held steady. He expressed a new round of displeasure.
“Take it off. Let me see you.”
Alex wore a gray sweatshirt hood, his face concealed in shadows. He reached up and peeled it back.
He watched The Stick study him. He tried not to stare at The Stick’s prominent scar, embedded in decades of wrinkles, extending from his lower eyelid to his jawline.
“Magnificent,” said The Stick. A smile crossed his lips. Not a warm smile, but a smile nevertheless. “A mirror image. It is truly remarkable.”
“I also have his voice.”
“Yes. It is pitch perfect.” The Stick straightened up, leaned back and said, “From bugs to satellites to hacking to human duplication. It is the evolution of espionage. I have always been at the cutting edge. I am proud of this work. Some may consider it a crime, but I see myself as a hero. I am a liberator. The liberator of information. There are no secrets.”
“No, not anymore. Not anywhere.”
“Tell me, how does it feel to be a machine?”
“It feels good. Very good. Smooth. Strong. Resilient.”
“And you feel no pain?”
“None.”
“Put out your hand.”
Alex offered his hand, palm up.
“Turn it over,” said The Stick. Alex did so.
The Stick reached into his pocket. He took out a lighter and flicked to life a tall flame. He held it under Alex’s hand. He watched the flame flatten against the skin, creating a hot glow.
Alex did not flinch. He felt no pain. The skin remained unmarked.
The Stick smiled. He turned off the lighter. He shoved it back into his pocket and took a long drink from his glass.
“Go ahead and ask,” said The Stick.
“Excuse me?”
“How I got this scar. You’re curious. I see you looking at it. You’re trying not to – which only makes you more obvious.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m used to it. It doesn’t bother me. I’ll tell you.”
“Tell me?”
“How I got this scar. It was many years ago. A Bowie hunting knife with a seven-inch blade.” The Stick reached into his back pocket. He brought out his wallet. He reached inside and slowly pulled out a thin, tattered photograph. He handed it to Alex.
The photograph was very old and faded, a blurry image in black and white. Alex stared hard at it until he could determine the object in the center.
It was a severed head, drained and pale with eyes rolled upward, pupils only partly visible. The hair was matted in blood.
“That is the man who gave me this scar.” The Stick took the photograph back. “I gave him much more trouble than he gave me. As you can see.”
“Yes, you did,” said Alex.
“I always come out on top. That’s why I have been in this business for so long, while others have…retired.”
The Stick inserted the photograph back into his wallet. It was obviously a source of pride and nostalgia, like an old family picture.
“Back then, you would surprise your enemies while they slept and cut them to bleed to death on the bedsheets. Today we have sophisticated poisons and nerve agents. We can orchestrate elaborate accidents or…just make people disappear.” He snapped his fingers in front of Alex’s face, a not-so-subtle reminder to cement his alliance.
“We will accomplish our mission,” The Stick said. “And we’ll be as ruthless as we have to be. You have been debriefed by Yefim and Alina?”
“Yes. They’ve brought me up to date.”
“The four of us, we are a team,” The Stick said. “We stick together like glue.”
“Yes,” said Alex.
“I have been building the plan, and you are at the center. We’re going to meet the president of the United States. To access him, we must get to Simon Giamatti. To get to Giamatti, we must have access to Tom Nolan. To access Tom Nolan, we will use somebody very close to him. You are familiar?”
“Yes,” said Alan.
“This photo is not in my wallet,” The Stick said, pulling out his cell phone. “Times change. Technology changes.” He called up a picture file he was looking for and placed the phone on the table, facing Alex.
Alex stared into a candid, color close-up of Emily Nolan.
“She will help us,” The Stick said. “And I won’t take no for an answer. I never do.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Emily poured milk on Sofi’s cereal and was moments away from calling her into the kitchen for breakfast when a firm knock sounded at the front door. She put down the milk and glanced at the clock above the stove: 7:34. Too early for anything except trouble.
Apprehensive, she walked over to the front door. She peered through the narrow window pane alongside the doorframe. She glimpsed a grinning, handsome blond man in his thirties – her husband.
Or was it?
She did not open the door.
He caught sight of her and declared, “Em, it’s me! I’ve been cleared to come home! I have good news.”
Her hand impulsively reached for the door handle, then stopped.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” said the familiar voice. “I almost forgot: Philip.”
The password!
Overjoyed, Emily pulled open the door. Her husband entered, took her in a gentle embrace and kissed her. She shut her eyes.
All was perfect again in the world…
…until she opened her eyes and saw two more figures enter the house: a tall, thin man with sunken features and slicked-back gray hair, followed by a stocky, hard-faced woman with her hair pulled back in a tight, severe bun.
Then Emily saw the gun held to her head by her husband…who couldn’t possibly be her husband.
She let out a wail of despair. He told her to shut up. She pulled away. Why would Louis Karp return? Who were these people with him?
“Why are you here?” she asked, nearly hysterical. “You’ve already stolen his identity, you took away his cure, what more do you want?”
The fake Tom Nolan simply stated, “It’s complicated.”
The tall, thin man, who looked like a movie vampire, spoke up. “Who else is in the house?”
The gun stayed on her.
“Just my daughter. She’s in her room, playing. I was making her breakfast.”
“The breakfast will wait,” said the thin man. Emily detected some kind of accent he was attempting to conceal.
“We need you to make a phone call,” the fake Tom said.
“To who?” She looked over at the mean-looking woman, who just stared back wordlessly.
“To your husband,” said her husband’s imitator.
“Why? Haven’t you done enough to him? For God’s sake, he’s very sick.”
“We’re not going to hurt him,” the fake Tom said. “We just want to talk with him.”
“You’re going to set up another meeting at the diner,” said the thin man. “We need five minutes with your husband in private. He is under a lot of protection right now. We don’t want any interference. Just a conversation. We require certain information that only he possesses. We’ll give him back.”
The fake Tom Nolan said, “You’ll contact him at the Giamatti mansion. You have the number. You’ll lure him out. You’ll tell him you need to meet him again at the diner. Tell him your daughter was up all night crying because sh
e wants to see her daddy. She’s having bad dreams. You will get him out of that house to meet you later today, same time, same place as your encounter a few days ago.”
“How did you know…” said Emily.
“We know a great deal,” said the thin man. “Now let us share some more knowledge. If you do not cooperate, your daughter will die.”
Emily felt a rush of tears. “Dear God.…”
The fake Tom Nolan smiled sweetly – looking like the real thing – but saturated with evil. “Nobody gets hurt if you just do what we say.”
“I don’t trust you,” Emily said.
Fake Tom lifted the pistol higher as a reminder. “You have no choice.”
“It’s all going to be very simple,” said the thin man. “Just stick to your script.”
“Script?”
“In the diner, you’ll have three important messages to deliver to your husband. They’ll be easy to remember. Are you ready?”
She took a breath and nodded. “Yes.”
The thin man recited her three message points. After the third, Emily was crying.
“Do we have an understanding?” the thin man asked.
She nodded, trying to regain her composure.
“Good. Now gather yourself. We’re going to make a phone call.”
They moved to the kitchen. As Emily dialed Cooper’s number at the mansion, the intruders stood around her in a semicircle. The thin man dug his hand into the cereal box on the counter and ate handfuls of Cheerios, while the barrel-chested woman continued to stare with a cold, empty expression.
Cooper answered on the second ring.
“Cooper, it’s Emily,” she said, trying to control the waver in her voice. “Let me speak with Tom.…”
After the call concluded, she turned to the three intruders and said, “There, I did it. Sofi and I will meet him at ten o’clock. Are you happy?”
“As a matter of fact, yes,” the fake Tom said without smiling.
“I need to feed my daughter.”
“We don’t want the little girl to go hungry,” said the thin man, without a trace of sincerity. He put down the box of cereal. “We’ll get out of the way.” He nodded toward the fake Tom. “You and I will go. There’s no need to alarm young Sofi. Alina will stay and stand watch.”
“Tell Sofi she’s your long-lost aunt paying a visit,” suggested Fake Tom. “Aunt Alice.”
“Yes,” the thin man said. “Just don’t be stupid. She has a gun, and she’s a remarkable marksman.”
“Waukegan is forty minutes from here,” said Fake Tom. “When it’s time to go, we’ll alert you. You will follow us. Stay close. We wouldn’t want you to get lost…or take a detour.”
* * *
In the back of the white van, Yefim activated the surveillance equipment, tapping into the electronic bug Sergei had discreetly placed on the stem of a light fixture in the Nolan family kitchen. Sergei and Alex returned from the house, climbed into the van and sat on either side of him. Together they listened to several minutes of chatter. Sofi was called into the kitchen by her mother. In a shaky voice, Emily introduced Alina as Aunt Alice, visiting from Ohio.
“Hi Auntie Alice,” Sofi said after the introduction.
“Hello child,” said Alina in a forced, barely friendly greeting.
Sergei nodded. The situation inside the house seemed secure.
He addressed his two colleagues. “I want to go through the plan one more time. It must run like clockwork. No room for error.”
Sergei laid out an 11 x 17 diagram depicting the diner’s interior, which he had scouted the day before. The hand-drawn sheet displayed the building’s long, rectangular shape with booths lining the front and one side, exposed by large windows. A service counter with stools wrapped around an open space for the staff, with the kitchen located behind it. One side of the diner had a thin corridor leading to two washrooms, a storage room and a rear exit. ‘Alley’ was written behind the rear exit.
“That watchdog, Cooper, will be with him,” said Sergei. “He will sit, as before, in a booth on the opposite side, reading the paper or playing on his phone. He must not detect a thing. Your transition must be seamless.”
Alex nodded.
“We will arrive early,” Sergei said. “The woman and her daughter will sit in this booth, same location as before. Alex will go to the back of the diner. He will wait inside the men’s lavatory. Yefim, Alina and I will be in the van, positioned so that we can see into the diner without being seen. Cooper and Tom Nolan will arrive at ten a.m. and enter here.”
Sergei tapped a finger against the diner entrance on the diagram. “They will split up. Tom will sit with his wife and child. The booth will be bugged. They will engage in a pleasant conversation. They will order their food. Then the wife will deliver her speech, telling Tom to go to the men’s room for a very important, private conversation. It will be made clear he’s being monitored for cooperation, and if he behaves in any way to draw attention, a sniper will shoot and kill his daughter.”
“If his daughter is in jeopardy, he will do everything he’s told,” Alex said confidently.
“That is what we’re counting on,” said Sergei. “Tom Nolan will report to the lavatory as instructed. He will be unsure who he is meeting. He will discover you, and you will kill him. Promptly.”
“With these hands, it shouldn’t take long,” Alex said, flexing his fingers, thinking back to the dead lawyer at O’Hare Airport.
“After he is killed, you will work with great speed,” said Sergei. “You will stash the body inside a stall. You will dress in his clothing. You will emerge as him. You will return to the booth as Tom Nolan.”
“The switch will be seamless,” Alex vowed. “No one will know – not his family, not Cooper.”
“You will tell Mrs. Nolan about your conversation,” Sergei said. “You will tell her you answered some questions. You will ensure her everything is okay. You will conclude the meal quickly. Politely – but quickly.”
Alex nodded.
Sergei said, “We will take the van into the alley. We will enter through the back of the diner and remove the body. We will place it in the vehicle. Alina will create a diversion at the front of the diner to ensure we’re not interrupted.”
“And I leave with Cooper,” said Alex.
“Yes, you leave with Cooper. The rest of us will leave with the body. We will make sure it disappears for good so there is only one Tom Nolan in existence. The wife and daughter, they will go home without any awareness a switch has been made.”
Alex said, “It’s brilliant.”
“Yes, and it’s only the beginning,” Sergei said. He turned his attention from the diagram and looked at Alex. “You will be Tom Nolan. Your performance must be flawless. You will infiltrate Giamatti’s inner circle. You will get inside that mansion, into the belly of the beast. We will be one step closer to the ultimate prize, the White House. You, Alex Nikolaev, are the key to the kingdom.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Tom arrived at Crossroads Diner with a heavy heart, distraught to hear from Emily that Sofi was crying over his continued absence. His young daughter was an innocent victim in this whole mess, unaware of both his serious health condition and the complicated lunacy that sprung out of a possible cure. Sofi simply needed her father and didn’t understand why he had been kept away from her. Once again, Tom had to fight with Giamatti to leave the mansion.
When Cooper pulled into the sparse gravel lot, Tom nearly climbed out of his seat before Cooper had finished parking the car. “Whoah,” said Cooper. “I need to go in with you.”
The two men entered the diner together. Cooper scouted the scene. In one booth, there was a chubby Hispanic mother with two restless, rotund boys. Not too far away, Emily and Sofi sat in their own booth. Sofi quickly caught sight of her father and waved. A small staf
f stirred slowly behind the service counter. The eatery was otherwise empty. A thin ambience of nineteen-fifties rock played unaggressively from speakers overhead.
“Keep it short,” Cooper reminded him. “Giamatti wants us back by noon.” President Hartel was due to arrive later that day.
Tom nodded. Cooper gestured to a far booth where he would be staying, an armed presence to quickly take charge if anything threatened the tranquility of the scene.
Tom slid into the red vinyl booth next to his daughter, who was coloring a hippo on a paper placemat with a small set of crayons.
“Pink,” said Tom, impressed. “I love it.”
“I’m going to make his ears green,” Sofi said.
“Why not.” Tom gave her a squeeze and she hugged back. “Missed you, pumpkin. But don’t worry. Daddy’s been okay. Just…busy.” He hesitated. ‘Busy’ wasn’t exactly the right word. He had been sitting around in Giamatti’s mansion with nothing to do, waiting for updates on the Russians, hearing very little, growing more frustrated – and weaker – by the day.
He looked at Emily, who remained silent. Something in her eyes and expression did not look right. He sensed fear.
“Is everything okay?” he asked.
Before she could respond, a waitress showed up, an older woman with a frumpy, lethargic demeanor, perhaps as old as the diner itself. She wore glasses that would be considered retro chic on anyone else, but simply looked outdated perched on her own nose. “Would you like to start with something to drink?” she asked.
“French fries!” said Sofi.
“An order of french fries,” Tom said, smiling, and Sofi made a small cheer. “I’ll have a Coke. Honey…?”
“Water,” she said quietly.
The waitress repeated their order back to them, heads nodded, and she departed, retreating behind the counter. In a moment of silence, Tom could hear the Hispanic mother at the nearby booth speaking with annoyance to one of her boys. She exclaimed, “Quit squirming. If you have to go, go!”
Tom directed his attention to Emily. “Emily, what’s wrong?”
She glanced over at Sofi, who was focused on her coloring. She leaned in toward Tom and spoke in a tight, forced monotone.
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