She replayed the last message three times, incredulous at the coincidence of her mother mentioning a colleague of Thomas Bennet’s named Collins. “Serendipity strikes again,” she murmured. “Or maybe not serendipity at all. I’m starting to believe there are no coincidences.”
She crossed to Darcy’s desk and picked up a phone with a secured line. She should call her mother—let her know she was all right. She cradled the handset between her shoulder and her ear while she put the answering machine in a drawer.
The line was dead.
“Odd,” she commented, tapping the phone cradle several times. She picked up her .38 Special and put on her ankle holster. It was common to lose phone service and power when there was a storm, but the clouds were still offshore.
“Is there a problem?”
“Hi, Mrs. Reynolds. Did you know the phone lines were down?”
“No. When did that happen?”
“Not sure. I just discovered it when I tried to make a call to the States.”
“Odd. The storm isn’t even here yet.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“I’ll go into town and report the outage. Maybe they can fix ours first before the storm hits.”
“I’ll take a look around here. It might be something simple.”
“Be careful, dear.”
Elizabeth tapped her holster. “Always.”
She wandered around the house but couldn’t find anything that looked like a phone box. The grey storm clouds gathering off shore drew her attention, so she walked down to the water, listening to waves splash against the rocks, the wind whipping her hair back and forth.
“Hello, Ms. Bennet.”
She reached for her revolver, but stopped when she felt the barrel of a gun in her back.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” He reached into her holster, drew out the gun, and slid it up her leg before tossing it away.
“Bill, is that you?”
“Indeed, it is. You can’t hide from me anymore.”
Elizabeth tried to calm her pounding heart and think. “Why don’t we just sit down and talk about this. It doesn’t have to be this way.”
He put his arm around her neck, forcing her to arch against the pistol. “You know, I wish that were true. I really do, but you’ve left me no choice now. If it makes you feel any better, it was never supposed to be you who died. Hell, this whole situation was never supposed to be the death of anybody. I was only supposed to turn Darcy.”
“Darcy?”
“Typical, isn’t it? The KGB tried for him once—no, twice—before, but they were unsuccessful. That second miss was what sealed his fate. He killed my Anneliese.”
“She shot him, Collins.”
“She wasn’t trying to kill him!” Collins’s voice broke with anguish. “She had her orders. If he’d just gone along quietly…”
“Bill.” Elizabeth tried softening her voice. “You must know he couldn’t let that happen.” She tried to face him, but he poked the pistol barrel tighter against her ribs.
“Thing is, really, they didn’t need Darcy. They didn’t. I could have done the job just as well. Here I was, working for them voluntarily, and all my handler could talk about was getting to the elusive London Fog.”
“So the plan was to frame him? Why do that?”
“Oh, we didn’t want enough evidence to fall into CI hands to convict him, just throw enough suspicion to tank his career for a while. He was too rich to be bribed in the traditional ways. The plan was to make him miserable and angry enough to consider turning, then throw Anneliese in his way.”
“But why Darcy?”
“According to my handler, Darcy had enough knowledge, enough access to find most anything the KGB wanted. He knew almost every asset in place in Eastern Europe by the time he went to Prague. That was what they valued.”
“You couldn’t get that for them?”
“Not all the names. Could never get the clearance, no matter how many boots I licked or stellar reports I wrote. Then he killed Anneliese in cold blood.”
“I’m sorry you lost her.”
“No you’re not!”
“I am sorry, Bill. It was a waste, a shame. But you’ve been giving the KGB intel for years, long before Anneliese. Why? What made you turn in the first place?” Elizabeth’s mind was racing like a squirrel on a wheel. Keeping him talking was giving her time. “Don’t you love your country?”
“I do love my country. I just hate the damn CIA—and I wonder why you don’t hate it too.”
“Why would I?”
“We have the same reasons, you and I. We’re two of a kind. Two orphans left swinging in the wind. The CIA took our fathers.”
“My father died in the service of his country.”
“Is that what they told you? Have you even read the reports?”
“I know he died on Playa Giron during the Cuban invasion. Your father was there too, wasn’t he? I just began to suspect that today after a message from my mother.”
“Dad wasn’t there actually. If he had been, he might have died too. Quick and easy. Not the long, drawn-out misery of drinking himself into oblivion every night and day until my mother threw him out. Not the agony of watching his career implode because he was just following orders. Your father had it easy compared to mine.”
He began to move her along the shore toward the dock.
“You won’t get away with this, Bill. Not now. Too many people know.”
“My spying days are over, true enough, but I’ve got cash squirreled away. I can hide out somewhere warm and sunny for a long time.”
“Where would that be?”
“Nuh-uh-uh. Not telling. But nice try. You and Darcy have that in common. You both think you’re so clever. Speaking of Darcy, did you know it was old man Darcy who found out what happened to your father?”
“No.”
“True story. He brought Bennet’s remains home. Charred beyond recognition.”
Elizabeth shuddered. “How did they know who it was then?”
“Dental records, I guess.”
“Does William know this?”
“I have no idea. I doubt it. That whole family is full of secrets. You should read Darcy’s KGB dossier. I doubt the old man ever told him anything. All that secrecy is unhealthy if you ask me. My father told me everything.”
“That must have been difficult. You were just a little boy.”
He pushed the barrel of the gun against her spine, tighter still. “Life is one ‘tough shit’ after another. My father didn’t hide that from me. He wasn’t a secret keeper like Darcy’s old man.”
“No, in the throes of alcoholism, he told a child more than he should have.”
Collins laughed. Elizabeth had never heard him even snicker before; it was an unholy sound, completely devoid of joy.
“I’ve always admired your wit, Ms. Bennet. Always. Now, let’s get in the boat over there. We’re going to take a little ride, and I’m going to feed you to the fish.” He nudged her toward the stairs of the dock. Both of them froze when they heard the feral scream.
Elizabeth went limp and hit the sand as the gun went off. Her arm exploded in pain. She covered her head and turned to prepare herself for the onslaught.
Her breath caught in her throat.
Georgina came flying through the air, leaping onto Collins’s back from the boulders nestled beside the dock stairs.
Elizabeth watched his gun spin and tumble end over end to land on the ground some ten feet away. Georgina reared back, tightening her forearm against his neck, and wild-eyed and crazed, she plunged the knife into his chest. It skittered off a rib and out of her hand. Collins reached back over his shoulders and flipped her over his head. They struggled as she claw
ed at his face and bit like a wild animal. He was no strongman, but Collins had a good fifty pounds on her and managed to pin her down before he threw a punch and rendered her unconscious.
Elizabeth and Collins locked gazes. At the same moment, both lunged for his gun, lying on the sand. They reached it at the same time, knocking it into the surf. Elizabeth pulled up first, but Collins got a hand on her ankle, yanking her face down on the ground. She fought as he pushed her face into the wet, filling her mouth with sand.
“Why couldn’t you mind your own business—you and that bitch from the FBI?”
She howled with indignant fury for herself, Wickham, Charlotte, and every officer and asset Collins had already sent into Death’s arms. She managed to get her torso off the ground, but he flipped her on her back. Straddled her. Put his hands on her throat. And shook her as he began to squeeze life from her.
Her vision darkened, a red miasma descending over the world as she gasped and fought, flailing against the sand. Somewhere in the distance, she heard the roar of a lion. Then, air rushed into her bruised windpipe, burning as it went in and came out, expelled in a violent fit of coughing. She sat up, saw the two figures grappling in the water and the pistol washed up a few yards away. Grabbing the gun and with trembling hands, Elizabeth tried to take aim. Fear consumed her as she recognized Collins’s attacker.
“I can’t get a clear shot! Move, goddamn it, move!”
She heard the roar again, but never saw the knife complete its fatal mission. Darcy held it high, covered in blood. As the ocean water turned red around Collins’s twitching body, Darcy plunged Georgina’s kitchen knife into the ground beside him and slumped over.
She dropped the gun and raced toward him as he crawled away from Collins. They collided, searching each other’s bodies for wounds, then stumbled toward Georgina’s, still lying on the sand by the stairs.
“She’s breathing,” Elizabeth gasped, her throat still on fire.
Darcy sat on the sand. As he watched Elizabeth bring Georgina back to consciousness, the sky opened, and the tears he wept in relief were hidden by the rain.
Chapter 34
Langley, Virginia
The three of them, Darcy, Elizabeth, and Georgina, sat around the director’s mahogany conference table on the seventh floor.
“This is over. Collins is dead,” Elizabeth insisted.
“It’s not over, not by a long shot.”
“You don’t have any leads on who he worked for. There’s no other place for this investigation to go.”
“Ah, but there you’re wrong.” The director handed them a report. “From the FBI’s search of Collins’s apartment, based in part on your colleague Charlotte’s casework. How is she doing by the way?”
Elizabeth smiled in spite of the seriousness of the conversation. “On the mend. Her head injuries, thankfully, won’t have long-term effects. She lost a lot of blood, but they were able to bring her out of the coma after a couple of days.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
Darcy spoke up. “It says here Collins’s pocket litter indicated the KGB handler was his father’s colleague from Cuba. Are we looking for one of the former Cuban rebels?”
“We don’t know yet. But perhaps we can find this man.”
“How?”
“We have received preliminary information from the FBI. They have begun debriefing Ms. Lucas. Details are still forthcoming, but it appears she was attacked while following Collins to his drop location. Now that we know that location, we simply make a drop and see if we get a nibble. It’s a long shot but worth a try.”
“Director…” Darcy locked gazes with Elizabeth for courage. “I think perhaps I should be the person to do that.”
“Why?”
“Collins told Elizabeth his mission was to turn me.” Elizabeth squeezed his hand under the table. “I have a story to tell you.” Darcy took a breath and began his tale. “For a long time I didn’t think it mattered, but these things have a way of bubbling to the surface. I should know that, but if you coexist with secrecy long enough, it can start to seem like a normal way of life. Many times you don’t see the danger of it until it’s almost too late.”
“Okay, you’ve got my attention.”
“I was approached several years ago, indirectly, about providing classified CIA information to the other side. I have reason to suspect that Collins’s handler was the same man who was behind that overture.”
“Sounds like an interesting story.”
“It begins with a discussion I had when I first joined the agency.”
***
Darcy forced himself to remember that long-ago conversation with his father—one that forged an irreparable wedge between father and son and divided them forever.
“I need your help, son. I’ve left something…valuable behind in Czechoslovakia. Something I can’t retrieve without assistance.”
“I’m just starting at the agency. I don’t think I have the connections to help you.”
“Perhaps not on your own, but I know someone…an old colleague, a friend, from the Cuban invasion. He says he knows people who can help me retrieve my…valuables, but he needs information. Information you can provide.”
“Hold it, Dad. Let me see if I’ve got this straight. You have a friend, a colleague—”
“Former colleague.”
“Former colleague, who wants information only I can provide on…”
“Just information. On spies, traitors to their country. Whoever you run across in Britain, France, anyone anywhere that might be helping the US.”
Darcy stared at his father in shock. “You’ve got to be shitting me. What you’re asking…good God, Dad. It’s treason! What could possibly be so important that you’d be tempted to risk everything—your life—hell, my life for it?”
“It’s very valuable. I can’t explain right now. I’m working on legal channels to extract it, but as a backup, if you could just meet with him…talk to him. It might be enough to get what I need out of Prague. And then you’re free and clear. You don’t ever need to talk to him again, if you don’t want.”
“You’re insane. I’m not risking my life for some property you left behind on a business trip. I ought to turn you in right now.”
“For what? I hadn’t seen this man for years until I contacted him a few months ago. I’m not any part of what he’s doing. I’m just telling you the cost of his assistance. So, you should think carefully before you say anything to your agency. That would kill your career before it’s even begun.
“William, it’s not just ‘some property.’ I know what I’m asking. It’s not as if I’m proud of it. You don’t need to tell this man anything substantial right now. Just talk to him. He’ll pay handsomely just for a meeting with you.”
“You think I’d do this—for money? It’s treason, and you can go straight to Hell!”
There was a long silence as the two men stared at each other, one with fury in his eyes, the other with desperation. Finally, George Darcy looked away.
“You’re right. I shouldn’t have asked you. Forget I mentioned it. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
Darcy finished his story, taking in the director’s wide-eyed incredulity. “But I couldn’t really forget, and he knew it. It was the last time we ever spoke.”
“Why is this the first time we’ve heard about this situation, Darcy?”
“I don’t know. Mostly because, within four months of that conversation, the old man was dead of a heart attack, and it no longer seemed to matter. To my knowledge, he never pursued the contact, and I certainly didn’t participate. I was off in Europe on assignment.”
“If it didn’t matter, why not report it?”
“My own pride, I suppose. Embarrassment. Fear. And I didn’t understand his desperation then.
Once I found out what the ‘thing of great value’ was”—Darcy glanced at his sister—“my anger toward the old man softened. I could empathize more with a frantic man who had a child trapped behind an iron curtain.
“However, it was a mistake on my part not to report it. The fact remains that I knew there was a man somewhere who was in a position to recruit a CIA officer. I knew because he tried for me that one time through my father and, according to Collins, one time through Anneliese Vandenburg. Now that we know Collins’s history, I assume this man succeeded in turning him.”
“As far as you knew at the time, that discussion with your father was the end of it?”
“It was. I knew nothing about this recruiter, nothing—no name, no location, nothing, except that he was male and about my father’s age. Look, everyone knows these recruiters are out there, that they exist. And I think we all know that, regardless of my innocence, with my history of being investigated by counterintelligence, this situation is a career-killer for me. If I stay with the agency, I’ll never be free of the stigma.”
“It would be troubling to any department, I have to admit.”
“I want to stress that I’ve done nothing wrong. Except be born to a philandering, mercenary shipping magnate. Sins of the fathers, indeed.” He covered Georgina’s hand with his own. “There was good that came from it—good that’s sitting here with us today. But I think Ina could also say she suffered for our father’s mistakes—much more than I.”
Two weeks later, after cutting his own deal with the CIA brass, Darcy loaded the drop described by Charlotte Lucas.
***
Darcy waited at the Chinese Pavilion inside the National Arboretum, perched on a park bench. Precisely at 3:12 p.m., a man in a tam, checked shirt, and khaki trousers sat beside him and opened a paper. He wore sunglasses and a mustache.
Undeceived Page 27