by Shayla Black
Thomas, who had been standing in the corner on his phone, joined the group. “I’ve just received confirmation that the caliber of bullet fragments CSI dug out of the tree is .308. That matches the caliber of the assassin’s weapon.”
“Bingo.” Connor looked happy. “I mean, we’ll have to run ballistics to make sure that bullet came from his weapon, but I like our odds. Plus, the police said they found a backpack and lots of fun sniper toys, so they think he’s been sticking close to the White House for a while.”
Just waiting for someone to call him and tell him to off the president of the United States.
“Likely so.” Thomas said. “It’s amazing that bullet went clean through Mike’s arm without blowing it off.”
Zack listened with half an ear. All this talk of bullets and violence and intent to kill. And god, he couldn’t stop thinking about Elizabeth, about forgiving her. She might have sent an assassin to ensure his death, and he was foolishly thinking about how he could possibly keep her. He was a masochist.
“Did the shooter have a cell phone?” When Connor nodded, Zack continued. “I want to know who he’s been talking to. I want that number.”
“You must know it was a burner phone, and I’m sure we’ll find out the call came from another burner. This guy falling out of the tree was a fluke. The truth is, these guys are never sloppy. But we can figure out roughly where the call originated from. So do I have authority to take over his questioning?” Connor’s whole body was tense as though he was already in work mode.
Zack nodded, almost feeling sorry for the bastard. “Go, and call when you have any information at all. I want to know who tipped him off.”
Connor nodded, clapped him on the shoulder, and left once again to do his country’s dirty work.
“Gus is going to kill me, you know.” Roman looked grim as he stared down at the monitors. “Dax and Gabe are in Elizabeth’s office searching it right now, finding out if she had anything incriminating stored there. They’ll do the same at her apartment when they’re through with her office. Are you going to wait for Connor or start interrogating now?”
“We can’t wait,” Zack said grimly. “Talk to her. Find out if she’s been trying to protect someone, if she was blackmailed into this.” Nothing else made sense. She loved him; Zack believed that. Or he wanted to. Then again, it was possible he’d been colossally fooled before.
Was he making a mistake in second-guessing her loyalty? But how could he not ask critical questions?
Zack hardened his resolve. He had a right to get to the bottom of her actions. Of her likely perfidy. There were simply too many coincidences for her to be anything but guilty.
“I’ll handle Liz,” Roman promised. “Be careful with Paul. We have no idea what he’s capable of.”
Was Roman doing his paranoid thing again or was he right?
“Actually, Freddy and I have some questions for Mr. Harding, too.” Mad stood in the doorway. “That is, if you don’t mind.”
“You’re supposed to be dead,” Roman reminded.
“After what happened today, I’m not going to hide while those bastards are taking shots at my friends.”
Zack shook his head. “We may need the element of surprise later.” And no one knew the case like Freddy. “Send your crazy friend with me.”
Mad shrugged. “If that’s what you want...” Then he glanced down at the monitors and winced when he saw Elizabeth. “Damn it, Zack. Seriously?”
Roman didn’t let him reply. “She was the only one who knew where we planned to jog this morning.”
“Hello, the Secret Service knew,” Mad pointed out. “We’re already aware of at least two agents in the past who were compromised. Who’s to say there aren’t more? Connor and Freddy still haven’t finished vetting everyone.”
“Out of an abundance of caution, we have to look into every possible suspect. There’s no way we can’t ask her.” Roman sighed as if he was not looking forward to this task. “I’m going to grab a stiff cup of coffee and get started. Be careful, Zack.”
Mad shook his head Zack’s way. “If you throw her in jail, there’s no coming back from this.”
“She’s not in jail.” Of course she wouldn’t be allowed to leave either. What would she do the second he unlocked the door? He had to look at all the evidence and make his best judgment call. What if she’d had a good reason for calling an assassin down on his head?
What the hell would constitute a good reason?
Misery swamped him. He wasn’t even angry anymore. In those first few moments when he’d realized she must be guilty, rage had thrummed through his veins. He’d wanted to walk right into her office, confront her…and he wasn’t sure what he would have done to her then.
His first impulse had faded as he’d been bodily hauled to safety, his movements restricted. In those moments, he hadn’t been Zack Hayes, an American citizen born with inalienable rights. He’d been the president, property of the American people. No amount of arguing would change the fact that he had no right to be simply a man in love. He’d wanted to go to her, force her to explain. And he hadn’t been allowed to.
That’s when his rage had morphed into sorrow. She’d just called an assassin to snuff him out, and he was still pathetically in love with her.
“Zack, go in there and talk to her. You could have died, so you totally have a right to your suspicions. But get her side of the story first.” Who would have guessed that Maddox Crawford would play angel to Roman’s obvious devil? That he would be the champion of true love? “Liz will understand. She’s a smart woman who gets the pressure you’ve been under.”
“I have to talk to Paul.” Zack didn’t trust himself to be alone with Elizabeth, even with cameras rolling. As far as he could see that interrogation ended one of two ways: either he hurt her more or fell right back into her trap. He turned to Roman. “Go. Find out why she’s done this.”
“Actually, Zack wants to know if she’s done this,” Mad cautioned. “Treat her like the friend she is. Or better yet, I’ll do it.”
Mad might be onto something. “Go with Roman and figure out what’s going on.”
Hopefully, they would balance one another.
“You got it.” Mad grinned.
Roman just sighed.
“And I’ll take Freddy with me. Do we know where he’s hiding?”
“I’m here,” a disembodied voice from above said.
Suddenly, Zack found himself right back under Thomas, and three Secret Service agents all trained their firearms at the ceiling.
“Don’t shoot him.” The phantom of the White House was at work again, and Zack vowed to add a new line in the budget for completely redoing all the ductwork in the White House to ensure no crazy people could use them to sneak around in the future. “He’s a friendly.”
Thomas let him up, still wearing his usual stoic expression. One of the other agents kept his gun trained as Freddy popped the vent and wiggled out.
“I can give you the name of a guy who will secure the whole system, Mr. President.” Freddy held up his hands to show he wasn’t carrying.
They frisked him anyway.
“Dare I ask why you aren’t in the very nice room I assigned you to?” Roman asked.
Freddy shrugged. “It was a cage, man. Been there, done that. Never again. Besides, the security guard down here watches TV at night and he’s doing a great binge of Star Trek: The Next Generation. I couldn’t miss that. If you could tell him to turn up the volume, though, that would be helpful.”
Zack made a mental note to have someone talk to the guard who apparently didn’t realize he was being spied on. He turned to Freddy. “What do you know about Paul Harding?”
A feral grin lit Freddy’s face. “Enough to suspect he’s been working for the Russians since he was a kid. I’ve really been looking at him the last few days, and I’m almost positive. Do I really get to question a suspect?”
“I’m in charge.” He needed to make that very clear.
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Freddy gave him a jaunty salute. “I’m happy to play the perky sidekick.”
More like the insane sidekick. He turned to Mad and Roman. “Get me answers.”
Then Zack forced himself to turn away and focus on the job at hand. His father-in-law knew something and he was going to find out what.
* * * *
Zack stepped inside the utilitarian room and Paul Harding’s pale eyes shifted toward him. It was the first movement he’d seen from the man in the hour since he’d been brought in.
“Hello, Zachary. Might I ask why I was dragged from my home on such a nice day?” There was no deep indignation in his manner, merely curiosity.
Zack took the seat opposite, allowing Freddy to pace, which he seemed compelled to do anyway. Thomas, as always, remained his shadow.
“I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
“I would like the same courtesy, Zachary.” Paul placed his hands on the table and leaned in. One of them was cuffed to the bar that ran along the side of the table. “Kak, po-tvoemy, mozhno izbezhat svoyu sudbu?” His Russian accent sounded as perfect as his bland American one.
How do you think to avoid your fate?
Zack’s stomach knotted. He swallowed down his shock. “You’re not even going to try to deny your guilt?”
“No, because he knows we have him,” Freddy said, sounding far more serious than Zack had ever heard him. The military intelligence officer in him was ingrained deep and had taken over. “It’s actually not surprising. They’re moving the operation to the next level, very likely because of your pipeline announcement the other day. Are you acting as the primary contact between the Russians and the administration now, Mr. Harding?”
“Well, since President Hayes has proven to be uncompromising so far, it’s become necessary to make contact,” he said. “Clearly, I no longer have influence over him in any valuable way, so I’m being put to other uses. However, I will not be your contact in the future. I am merely a messenger.”
God, it was all fucking true. Everything they’d been investigating and suspecting, the people hiding in the shadows, intending to control him or kill him…all of it was true. He’d been surrounded by wolves for years. “So your next move was to have me killed.”
A single shoulder shrugged. “Which has proven ineffective as well. I told them it would be better to poison you and implicate one of your friends. They argued that poisoning is more difficult than a bullet and harder to pin on someone. And unfortunately, I no longer have the kind of close contact with you that allowed me to properly doctor your food.”
The fact that his once kindly father-in-law was calmly discussing how best to kill him struck him squarely in the gut. He’d gone on fishing trips with this man, opened up to him about the fact he and Joy had tried to have children. Never once had he seen even a hint of the predator under Paul’s surface.
“When did SVR recruit you?” Freddy took up the questioning, seeming to understand that Zack needed a moment.
The expression on Paul’s face was like nothing Zack had ever seen. His mask had fallen away, finally revealing the real man. Cruel. Superior. Sure of his place in the world. “Please. They are nothing but a cover for the KGB. Don’t think for a moment they aren’t the same. You can’t change something like the KGB.”
“Your parents were planted by the KGB,” Freddy said. “I’ve been studying you. Your parents immigrated from Canada, but I would bet they were born in the USSR.”
Paul cocked a brow, a silent nod to Freddy’s cleverness. “You are the first to realize this. My parents were smart.”
“Mr. President, have you heard of a program called ‘the illegals’?” Freddy asked.
Paul rolled his eyes. “We had nothing to do with those idiots.”
Zack shook his head and waited for Freddy to clue him in.
“The US Department of Justice started tracking a group of sleeper agents years ago that ended in the arrests of ten operatives, many whom had been living in the US for decades and had children born in the US. Mr. Harding’s group was a precursor to that particular program. His father and mother came to the US under forged Canadian documents. It was simpler to arrange such things in 1957. Paul was fifteen then. His father was a nuclear engineer. His knowledge would have been deemed valuable. It would have been easy for them to get a work visa and a job, especially since he was a family man.”
“I was trained alongside my parents,” Paul explained. “Even at a young age, I knew about the corruption of your system. America is the whining child of the world. We were a small, but well-trained group. We were tasked with building a home and a life in the United States. My father sent information back to Mother Russia about your government programs for years. I did the same in the military. After I graduated at the top of my class in high school, getting admitted into the Naval Academy was simple. Excelling was even easier. After all, I was disciplined. I was working toward something monumental while my pathetic classmates cared only for drinking and making idiots of themselves. I fought in Vietnam, and came back a great American hero.” He sneered. “I was always helping my comrades on the other side, and no one ever suspected.”
Zack’s head reeled. Dear god. How many like Paul were out there? “That’s treason. You deserve everything that’s coming for you. Our past relations won’t save you. I won’t keep quiet, not after you actively aided the enemy in a time of war.”
“I was the enemy, boy. I always have been.”
Clearly, and the implications were staggering.
Freddy simply looked on. “Your parents never went back to Russia. They lived here until they passed.”
“My parents were true patriots. They showed me how to be loyal to my country, my people, no matter where I lived. I didn’t have to be in Russia to love it. That is what none of you understand. When my naval career brought me to loftier heights, we realized that we had an opportunity to use my skills and contacts for a greater purpose than I had previously imagined.”
To elect him to become a puppet for Russia. Zack could hardly fathom it.
“How much of this did Joy know?”
“Most everything.” He smiled, and Zack gaped, feeling sick. “My daughter was a true Russian asset. Her mother and I raised her to always serve the land of her heart,” he said with the aura of a true believer. “She did so admirably because she knew her duty and embraced it.”
“Did she set herself up to die?”
For a tiny instant, Paul looked downcast. “No. When it became clear you would not win the election otherwise, she became my gift to my people, an unfortunate sacrifice I made for Russia’s greater good.” Paul settled back. “After all, one cannot have victory without sacrifice, so I proudly made mine. We all must. It’s what entitled Americans like you don’t understand. You think you can have everything without paying a price. Without getting blood on your hands. But blood reminds us what is at stake.”
Zack sat back, swallowing down rising bile. Shock didn’t begin to cover how he felt.
Had Joy taken instructions from her handlers, thinking she merely had to get through the last days of the campaign before she could be free, never knowing her own parents were helping to sacrifice her for the cause? Had she realized what had happened, the way her mother and father had betrayed her, as the bullet tore through her chest?
“So you weren’t involved directly with the Hayes family in the beginning?” Thank god Freddy was capable of viewing this as an intellectual exercise. “Did you know Zack Hayes’s grandfather was a Russian asset?”
Paul shook his head. “They chose to handle him differently because he was always destined for this cause. I later fell into it.”
Based on what Zack knew, that made sense. “What do you know about Natalia Kuilikov?”
“Bah, she was nothing but a tool, and an ineffective one at that. She was a weak woman who cared too much. They did not break her properly.”
“She cared about me.” Zack remembered how kind Nata had been.
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“The stupid woman was supposed to raise you right, help you understand your loyalties. But she became…difficult. So you were sent away to that boarding school. It was important that your education look thorough and proper, that you made the right connections,” Paul explained.
“So my parents weren’t involved in this giant scheme? They certainly didn’t raise me the way you did Joy.”
For the first time, Paul played coy. “You see, the CIA is quite intelligent. They have ways of finding our connections. So we had to ensure that your father had no idea where his father’s loyalties truly lie. Unfortunately, he proved…unsuitable for our needs.”
So the Russians had sought to compromise his father, help install him as president of the United States, and use him for their own ends. But when he’d been unable to win the primary, they’d shifted to another plan. They’d looked to the future. Zack.
“What you’re saying is that you wanted an asset who could be vetted and would have absolutely no problem passing a lie detector test,” Freddy mused. “Or any test since a good agent can get the truth out in other ways. But you knew that, so you avoided that possibility. After all, an asset can’t fail such an indicator if he doesn’t know he’s an asset until it’s too late.”
“Frank Hayes was weak, and they thought it best that he not know his part of the plot until he could no longer escape,” Paul confirmed. “For the same reasons, we would have preferred Zachary never knew he was being manipulated. If he had been strong enough to win the election on his own, my Joy would have made sure the right people were advising him.”
The right people? Did that include Liz? Maybe…but maybe not. His father had hired her. At Paul’s behest? On the orders of someone higher up in the old KGB structure? Or simply because her predecessor had been ineffectual at getting him positive press and she’d been damn good at her job? He wasn’t sure since Joy had taken the burden of finding the right people for the right job off his shoulders during the campaign.
Of course she had. She’d been instructed to. And it certainly wouldn’t surprise him if some of the people Joy had hired were still in their roles to this day.