Jayda Cruz, we did not want you to find out under these circumstances. We wished it to be a happy occasion.
I sighed. “If wishes were horses . . . Circumstances being what they are, what we wish doesn’t much matter now, does it? Why don’t you just tell me. I’d hate to die with secrets between us.”
We would not want that either, Jayda Cruz.
I waited, knowing they would tell me soon.
Whatever it was.
Jayda Cruz, we have made many mistakes in our time with you.
“Water under the bridge, Nano. Forgiven. Forgotten.”
Yes. Nonetheless, we looked for opportunities to restore what our unintended consequences took from you.
“Okaaaay.”
Not okay, Jayda Cruz. We took something precious from you, something that broke your heart—and your grief became ours.
The nanomites lacked the capacity to sigh, but if what I heard (or sensed) at that moment wasn’t a sigh, I don’t know what else it could have been. Well, I also thought they lacked the capacity to empathize—and I was wrong about that, too.
We told you how our joining with your body impacted your endocrine functions, that our merge sped up your metabolism, enabling you to become an optimal fighter.
“Yes, I remember.”
Your accelerated metabolism increased the rate at which your ovaries produced fertile eggs. We told you that your ovaries had depleted your supply of ovum by 91.7 percent.
“I accepted your explanation, Nano, and I forgave you. We don’t need to rehash an old offense, an old mistake. It is over. Forgiven and forgotten. I’m asking you to, please, let it go.”
We cannot let it go, Jayda Cruz, if we have the ability to make amends.
“Amends?”
After we told you that your ovaries were nearly depleted, we searched for and located your last viable eggs. We assigned Omega Tribe to defend and preserve them, to surround them and prevent your endocrine system from expending them. Unfortunately, that clutch of eggs resided in your right ovary.
I was thunderstruck. “What? What are you saying?”
When you were shot, the bullet burst your right ovary, destroying it. However, Omega Tribe was able to save and preserve a single egg. Our conundrum was that your ovary was damaged beyond our ability to repair its functions—and yet we were unwilling to allow your last remaining egg to die. Omega Tribe has, therefore, been acting the role of surrogate ovary, cocooning your egg, keeping it safe and viable until you are ready to use it.
Jayda Cruz, we wished to rejoice with you and Zander on the day when you told us, “Lights out, Nano,” and entered into that sacred time and space shared only between husband and wife. When you and Zander came together to create a new life.
When you and Zander came together to create a new life.
I squeezed my eyes shut and sobbed against the curve of Zander’s back.
I had relinquished the dream of having children! I had surrendered the hope of giving Zander a son or a daughter of his own. I had given it up and made my peace with it.
The possibility of a baby? The joyous wave receded as quickly as it crashed over me.
I shouldn’t have pushed the nanomites into telling me their secret. Why bring it up now when it no longer mattered?
Zander and I wouldn’t live long enough to bring a child into the world.
And, I realized . . . all things considered? I was good with that.
“Nano, thank you for . . . telling me.”
We did not intend to wound you again, Jayda Cruz. That is why we kept this information from you.
“I understand, and I’m sorry I pressed you. Yes, the knowledge hurts, but, on the other hand, I’m grateful that you tried so hard. Thank you. It’s just . . .”
Yes, Jayda Cruz?
“It’s just that, with monsters like her in the world—an unfeeling, uncaring adversary who could snatch a baby from its mother without batting an eye? And with Zander and me being the target of such a monster? Well, I don’t think I’d want to bring a child into such jeopardy. It . . . it wouldn’t be right.”
No. I didn’t want to suffer Macy’s horror and heartbreak.
I cried a little more against Zander’s back. Oh, I wished he were awake! I wanted him to hold me and grieve with me. At the same time, I didn’t want him to hurt like I did. I didn’t want him to mourn our unborn child . . . so I let him slumber on, ignorant of this fresh pain.
As I lay against my husband, I grew weaker. I could feel the drain, pulling on me, wicking away my life.
Chapter 36
“GOOD MORNING. WE HOPE your Saturday is off to a great start. From Camp David for WJLA News, here is Jillian Framer.”
“Good morning, Tom. The President and Vice President are spending the weekend at Camp David in what the President’s Press secretary called ‘a working retreat.’ The retreat is designed to bring Vice President Delancey up to speed.
“They arrived on Marine One late last evening and will return to D.C. Sunday afternoon. Today, the President and his new Vice President will discuss foreign policy, review the President’s economic goals, and receive foreign and domestic intelligence briefings. This is Jillian Framer, WJLA News.”
ROBERT JACKSON AND his Vice President strolled slowly along a paved path through the trees of Camp David—slowly for the sake of the aging VP’s shuffling gait. The two men were engaged in friendly, early morning conversation.
Axel Kennedy followed the pair at a discreet distance. Other agents of the President and Vice President’s Secret Service detail were posted ahead or behind their charges, while a joint U.S. Navy and Marine contingency guarded the fenced perimeter surrounding the two-hundred-acre property.
Kennedy was determined to stick to the President’s side—and keep himself between the President and Agents Callister and Mitchell, who had been assigned to the Vice President’s detail.
Don’t think for a second that I’ll let you get anywhere near the President, Kennedy vowed to himself.
Jackson and Delancey planned to share breakfast together and spend the morning in private conversation, discussing a number of key policy issues. After lunch, they would sit for briefings. At the moment they were enjoying the fresh mountain air and stretching their legs.
“Did you sleep well, Mr. President?”
“Please. When we’re alone, call me Robert?”
“Yes, sir.”
Jackson chuckled. “I understand. Old habits die hard. To your question, though, not really. It may be the change of location or an unfamiliar bed, but I did not sleep easy.”
“Sir?”
“A lot has happened in the past seven or eight months, Simon, things very few people know of. I hope . . . I believe I will be able to share those things with you soon.”
“It would be an honor for you to extend that kind of trust to me, Mr. President—I’m sorry. I mean, Robert.”
Jackson sighed. “And it would be a relief to have another individual bearing the burden of these secrets. I don’t know why, here in one of the most secure places on earth, I’m feeling unsettled. I hope the sensation passes.”
They finished their turn around the grounds and headed back to Aspen Lodge, the President’s “cabin,” actually a four-bedroom, four-bathroom affair.
“I don’t know about you, Simon, but I’m ready for breakfast.”
“As am I, sir.”
Ten minutes later, stewards served breakfast outside on the lodge’s flagstone terrace. Jackson and Delancey sat down to eat and enjoy the view of Maryland’s lush, forested countryside.
“The Navy chefs outdid themselves today,” Delancey said, savoring his second bite of Eggs Benedict.
“They surely did. I understand they make the English muffins from scratch.”
When Jackson and Delancey were replete, they retired to the living room of the lodge for their morning session.
“I confess, Robert, I could use another cup of coffee.”
Jackson reached for
the phone. “I’ll have the steward bring us a fresh pot.”
When the steward had placed the coffee service and two Camp David mugs on the low table between them, Jackson thanked her and added, “We’ll call if we need anything. Otherwise, we’d prefer not to be disturbed until lunch.”
“Aye-aye, Mr. President.”
As Jackson perused a thick folder of papers, Delancey prepared his mug of coffee. He tasted it and smacked his lips.
“Wonderful. A hint of chicory, I believe. May I pour you a cup, Robert?”
“Thank you, Simon. Yes.”
Delancey poured. “Cream, sir?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
As Delancey extended the mug toward him, Jackson blinked slowly and experienced the most profound déjà vu moment of his life. He stared at Delancey’s outstretched hand, the memory so acute that he was unable to extend his hand to take the mug.
“Cream as usual, Bob?”
“Yes, please.”
Jackson shivered and glanced up—into the shrewd and knowing eyes of his Vice President.
Delancey set the mug down, taking care not to spill it.
In a move that startled Jackson, the Vice President grabbed Jackson’s hand and yanked him forward, off balance.
“Hey!”
Delancey’s grip strength surprised the President, too. Jackson struggled to free his hand, but before he could, Delancey had withdrawn an inhaler from his pocket. He shoved it into Jackson’s face and depressed the cartridge twice, dispensing a fine mist.
Jackson wrenched his arm loose and stumbled backward. His legs hit the sofa behind him, and he dropped into the seat. He opened his mouth to shout for help, but Delancey was on him before he could spring up.
The Vice President depressed the inhaler twice more into Jackson’s face, some of the mist going into the President’s gaping mouth. Then Delancey pocketed the inhaler and, in his normal shuffling gait, made his way to his own seat and collapsed in it, breathing hard.
Jackson wiped the filmy liquid from his face with the back of his hand. His tongue and the inside of his mouth felt numb.
“Hel . . .” Jackson’s lips seemed thick. Deadened. He was trying to shout for his detail, but his response was slow . . . sluggish.
“Two parts concentrated lidocaine spray. Fast acting. The other three parts? A concoction considerably more potent.” Delancey swiped at his own perspiring face. “Would have been so much easier on us both if you’d simply drunk the *blank-blank* coffee, Jackson. I am really not up to struggling with a man twenty years my junior.”
“Y-you?” Jackson was only able to, laboriously, form whispers. He could summon nothing louder.
Delancey leaned toward the coffee table. He picked up Jackson’s mug and dumped its contents into a potted plant next to the sofa. Then he drank from his own mug, still perspiring from his exertions.
“You . . . a-a-assassinate me?”
Delancey’s forehead crinkled. “Assassinate you? Merciful heavens, Mr. President. No, indeed.”
In a moment of clarity, Jackson perceived how practiced and perfected was Delancey’s wise, empathetic response.
“W-wha th-th-then?”
Delancey sat back, shook his head, and sighed, every gesture convincing. “I regret to inform you, Mr. President, that you are about to have a stroke.”
Jackson tried to stand, but his feet were glued to the floor. He only succeeded in lurching up halfway. He would have pitched forward onto the coffee table if the Vice President hadn’t reached across the table, caught Jackson’s arm before he collapsed, and pushed him back into his seat.
Delancey sat back and, with his napkin, again wiped his damp, florid face. “My, my. That was a fair piece more exercise than I’ve engaged in for many a year, I can assure you.”
He stared at Jackson. “We chose a biological agent different from what Harmon was to give you last December, Mr. President. This compound, a genetically modified strain of botulinum combined with just a smidge of tetrodotoxin, will soon render you immobile, presenting with symptoms of stroke. I’ll give it time to work before I call for help.
“You do feel it working, don’t you?” Delancey asked, rheumy eyes glistening with mock sympathy.
“B-bu-bu . . . wh wh why . . .”
“But why? Is that what you’re asking? Ah. Yes, I loathe that you might die before understanding. Waiting for the compound to take hold gives me the opportunity to share with you.
“Where to begin? Ah, yes. Everyone believes they know me, don’t they? They all say, ‘Simon Delancey? The man’s a true patriot. He fought for America, survived POW internment with honor, and served America’s citizens for years. He loves this country.’”
Delancey’s lips twisted into a snarl. “Nothing could be farther from the truth I’ve held inside for so long: I despise this nation.”
Jackson moaned in confusion. “Nooo . . .”
“No? We’ve taken great pains to hide my true feelings and my real intentions. For more than forty-five years I’ve played the part assigned to me, and I’ve played it well. I began in local politics and moved up to national ones. I masqueraded as the champion of the American people and the negotiator of wise deals. I parlayed progress through compromise and was dubbed The Great Peacemaker—I believe that’s what they call me in the Senate, hmm?”
He chuckled to himself. “All the while, I was playing both sides against the middle, advocating for more spending to ‘solve’ the nation’s problems in order to move this stinking waste of the earth’s resources closer to the brink of ruin. The United States is so far in debt at this point that nothing can save her—and I hope to be the man who pushes her into the abyss.”
“Youuu . . . Aaaa . . .”
Delancey glanced at Jackson. “You think we won’t get away with it, but we already have, Mr. President. Pham always did say you were a bit slow on the uptake.”
“Phaaa?”
“Pham Quang Bi`nh, my beautiful wife. She hasn’t used her Vietnamese name in decades. You know her as Winnie. Say, I’ll bet you don’t know how I met Winnie, do you?”
Delancey leaned toward the President, itching to tell him. “No one alive knows, other than Winnie, me, and now you. I met her, Mr. President, when I was a POW, shot down over North Vietnam later in the war. Pham was one of my interrogators—the most effective interrogator the Viet Cong had to offer, in fact.
“I was thirty-one. Pham was seventeen—a mere seventeen years old, the tiniest, most fragile thing I’d ever beheld—but already fully committed to the North’s agenda. I tell you, I’d never witnessed such ruthlessness or the exquisite finesse of her mind games.
“She broke me. Took her months, but she broke down my will. I came to see the world as she saw it and, over the next three years until the war ended, I told her everything I knew. Then, surprising us both, we fell in love. When we foresaw that the United States would sue for peace, we made our plans.”
Delancey smiled. “I couldn’t bring her to the U.S. under my sponsorship, of course, because we needed to keep our acquaintance secret. We waited two years before arranging for our public introduction to take place on American soil.
“My beautiful Pham was born of an English father, a government servant assigned to the British Advisory Mission to South Vietnam in 1950. While he was in country, he met and married a Vietnamese woman from a good family. Winnie, derived from her English name, Winifred, was born a year later.
“Here is another of our many well-kept secrets: During the war, while she was still a teen, my Winnie lived as a double agent. She was a British intelligence operative in North Vietnam, but that was a front, guarding her true allegiances. Everything she learned from the British, she passed to her Viet Cong handlers. In return, the Viet Cong provided her with disinformation that she fed to the British, and they passed it to the Americans.”
He glanced at Jackson, pride shining in his eyes. “I tell you, she was superb—and she was never found out. At the end of the war, Winni
e used her father’s British citizenship to migrate to England. Then she used her British passport to visit America and ‘meet’ me.
“By then, I was an up-and-coming politician, well on my way to the national limelight—the quintessential sleeper agent. I introduced Winnie to certain American intelligence officers who, when they checked Winnie’s background with their British counterparts, received nothing but praise for her clandestine work.
“After she and I married, she earned her way into the CIA. She labored two and a half decades for them. Her Vietnamese birth, her British citizenship, and her successful American husband gave her an unusual level of access at home and abroad.”
He laughed. “And after twenty-five years with the CIA, Winnie knew their secrets, too. I should say that Winnie’s greatest obstacle as a covert operative was the color of her eyes, which is quite distinctive—a golden amber. A spy cannot afford such distinctions, you know. One must blend in, become unremarkable and unmemorable. Winnie has worn contact lenses all these years, passing herself off as a brown-eyed Anglo-Asian.”
The President did not stir, but his horrified eyes tracked with Delancey’s admissions.
Delancey chuckled. “Are you as astounded by my revelations as you appear, Robert? I know, I know. It is too much to take in. Lawrence Danforth would attest to what I tell you—if he were still alive. He and Winnie worked together many years in the field, and Danforth was an avid supporter of our plans. A shame Danforth had to die like that but, as he had become ‘a loose end,’ I was happy to second your proposal to shoot down his plane.”
Delancey made a tsking noise. “Speaking of our plans . . . I understand you are acquainted with Mr. and Mrs. Cruz? They were a challenge to Winnie, quite the headache at times. However, she tells me they won’t be a problem going forward. You see, she devised a means of harvesting the nanomites from their dead bodies.”
Jackson’s mouth grimaced in distress.
“Ah, I see I’ve upset you, but I can assure you that, while Jayda and Zander Cruz’s deaths were necessary, they felt no pain. We had to have the nanomites, you see.
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