by Steve Berry
“And do I report to you?”
She did not want to start off badly with this man. From everything she’d read and heard he knew how to play the political game. How else could he have served in four cabinet positions?
He shook his head. “Why would I squeeze you into that vise? Do your job and include me when appropriate or required. We both work for the president of the United States. He’s the boss. That’s why I asked you here tonight. I wanted you to hear this from me, personally.” He leaned in close and whispered, “And I thought it best that we not be seen at the State Department talking together.”
She grinned at both his smile and conspiratorial tone.
“I daresay,” he noted, “the next few years certainly should be interesting.”
And they were.
The pope and the president didn’t meet face-to-face again until 1984. During that time she became the primary conduit of information between Washington and Rome. She traveled the world, logging tens of thousands of miles. She came and went from the Vatican and the White House with ease, all the while helping to coordinate the destruction of the Soviet Union.
Now here she was back at Anderson House for the first time since that summer evening in 1982.
After she talked with Shultz he’d led her back inside where the tables, heavy with flowers, awaited diners. They’d all enjoyed a lovely dinner, the ballroom noisy with music, chatter, and the clink of fine china. Amusing anecdotes had fluttered back and forth. Everything about that night had seemed reassuring—its harmonic sounds tucked safely away in her memory. Somewhere she still had the gold-edged menu card signed by Shultz, a keepsake from a time when she’d been personally recruited by the president of the United States, and the secretary of state had been her confidential ally.
So unlike now—where she’d been deemed no longer necessary.
She led Luke toward the house through an arched portal, its open iron gate providing access to a recessed carriage court, shaded from the morning sun by a columned portico. A pair of two-bay multistory wings flanked on either side. Nearly thirty-five years had passed since that evening here. George Shultz was gone. Reagan and John Paul both dead. She alone remained, matured into a world-class intelligence officer, regarded by some as one of the best in the business. Unfortunately, none of that mattered to the new president or the next attorney general. Shortly, she’d be unemployed. But something had been nagging at her ever since the car ride into Virginia, while she listened to Nikolai Osin tell her about missing nukes and more on a communist fanatic named Zorin.
He wants revenge.
She could feel it.
A certainty.
Born from experience.
Then and now were connected.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
LAKE BAIKAL
Malone heard what Belchenko had said and realized that the old man was deadly serious. He hadn’t been prepared for such a revelation, so he stared in astonishment. “What nuclear weapons nobody knows exist?”
“We were taught from birth that America was our enemy. That everything about America ran contrary to our way of life. Our duty was to be prepared to battle that main adversary. It was our whole life.”
“We were taught the same about you.”
“And we wonder why we distrusted each other? Why we couldn’t live together as friends? There was no chance of that happening. In the bath I told you that all stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end. The communist story started in 1918 with the Bolshevik Revolution. The middle lasted from then until now. Along the way, we’ve seen Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Gorbachev, Yeltsin, and Putin. The current government is no better. One disaster after another. Men like Zorin have not forgotten what they were taught. To him America remains the main adversary. Only now, the motivations are more personal. For him, the end of the story was not then. It is now.”
“He told me he headed a spetsnaz unit.”
Belchenko nodded. “He has skills, ones that are twenty-plus years in hibernation, but ones that are never forgotten. He will be a tough opponent.”
He knew that Soviet special forces were once some of the best in the world. They’d fought hard in the Afghan war back in the 1980s. So he asked, “Was he in Afghanistan?”
“Nearly five years. He thought our withdrawal a betrayal of all who died. On that I disagree. That war had to end. But when the Soviet Union fell, we both saw what betrayal truly meant. The spetsnaz suffered from the same corruption, low morale, and lack of money that everyone else experienced. Many of those operatives went to work for the mobsters, who paid high for their services.”
“But not Zorin.”
“Not back then, but he did eventually work for them some. Everyone had to at some point. They had all the money. But generally, Zorin served his country, not the ruble. When there was no more country, he simply disappeared.”
And avoided, Malone realized, the disasters that came after 1991. During the Chechen War the spetsnaz finally lost its fierce reputation, with major defeats happening to guerrilla fighters. He recalled reading about an entire unit being massacred. Then came the 2002 Moscow theater and 2004 Beslan school siege. In one spetsnaz troops bungled the rescue, costing hundreds their lives, and in the other they used rockets and tanks to blast their way in causing more casualties. No finesse. No skill. Only a callous disregard for life, particularly that of their fellow citizens.
“Aleksandr is a man driven by purpose,” Belchenko said. “He’s lived here, in this house, a long time. His bitterness has aged and matured. And like the commandos of his time, he still possesses great initiative and an ability to think for himself.”
He had to know more about those nuclear weapons, so he forced his thinking process back to their basics. “You have to tell me what’s happening here?”
Belchenko leaned himself against one of the iron pillars supporting the house above. “I do not know all of the details. I know you might find that odd, considering my former career. But the spetsnaz had access to small, portable nuclear devices. We called them RA-115s. They were hidden inside remote arms caches.”
The caches he knew about, scattered across Western and Central Europe, Israel, Turkey, Japan, and even North America. Stores of arms and radio equipment, intended for use by forward-deployed units.
“I remember one in Switzerland,” he said. “When it was found, they fired a water cannon and it exploded. Booby-trapped.”
“Mitrokhin’s revelations led them to that depository and others. You do know that I consider that man a traitor. He had no right to reveal all that he did. Our job was to keep those secrets.”
“What did it matter?”
“It mattered a great deal. To me. To men like Zorin. We believed in what we were doing. And even when our country ended, our task did not. It was our duty to keep those secrets.”
“Then why are you talking to me? Why’d you just kill two men? What’s changed?”
“Zorin has lost sight of what we stood for. He has lowered himself to the level of those who ultimately caused our downfall. Men like Stalin, Beria, Brezhnev, Andropov, and all of the other so-called party leaders. They were opportunists who believed only in themselves. Zorin has become like them, though I doubt he even realizes.”
“And you’re telling me that one of those hidden weapons caches contains nuclear weapons?”
“I’m telling you that many contained nuclear weapons. But you only have to concern yourself with one of those caches. The rest are harmless.”
“Tell me what I need to know.”
“Zorin is headed for Canada.”
New information. Finally.
“He’s after a man named Jamie Kelly. An American, who once worked for the KGB. When the end came in 1991 Kelly faded away, like so many other officers around the globe. But he knows the location of one cache that may hold five RA-115s, which could still be operational.”
How was that possible? “Don’t those things need constant power to stay alive?”
“They do. But if that power has been constant, nothing can prevent the weapon from working. Our engineers designed them to last a long time—hidden away.”
Malone was instantly suspicious, and rightly so. This man had spent a lifetime deceiving, so why would now be any different? “What is Zorin going to do with this weapon?”
“Unfortunately, he did not share that with me, which is understandable. He just assured me that the debt owed to America would be paid.”
“So what did he want with you?”
“He needed Kelly’s name and location. You see, after the Soviet Union ended the decision was made not to reveal anything about those weapons caches. We decided to allow them to remain hidden. If one was found, the booby traps would protect its secrets. Traitors like Mitrokhin ruined that strategy. What only a few knew, though—and this did not include Mitrokhin—was that some of those caches harbored a nuclear capability.”
“And you don’t know where this one cache is located?”
“I never learned that information. But Jamie Kelly knows. I’m told that he is still alive.”
A noise from above disturbed the silence.
“Sounds like a vehicle,” Malone said, heading for the stairs, gun in hand.
Belchenko followed, but not before retrieving one of the dead men’s rifles.
“You going to need that?” Malone asked.
“It’s entirely possible.”
He grabbed his coat, donning it as they climbed the risers, which led to a kitchen equipped with an iron stove and fireplace. A cupboard filled one wall, china cups hanging from hooks. The air hung fetid with the smell of unclean floors and sour dishwater. Lights illuminated the outside. Past one of the outer windows he saw three men wearing woolen balaclavas emerge from an off-road vehicle, similar to a Jeep Wrangler.
They advanced through the glow of the lights.
He heard the familiar, hurried clicks of assault weapons.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Stephanie led Luke into Anderson House. The Society of Cincinnati had been headquartered here since the 1930s, though its physical presence was anything but clear. The house itself served as a period museum for the Anderson family’s private collection of art and statuary—a remnant of the Gilded Age that could be enjoyed free of charge—and the society’s offices were confined to the basement, all of which she knew from long ago and the time of her husband. As she’d told Luke, this was the oldest private patriotic group in the country, the nation’s first hereditary organization, assuming the task of preserving the memory of the War of Independence.
And she knew its members took that task seriously.
Downstairs held one of the finest assortment of books and manuscripts from that era. Both the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 had always fascinated her, and she’d learned years ago about the society’s extensive collection of primary and secondary sources. The cache in Virginia seemed particularly precious and she still wondered if anyone here was aware of its existence. There seemed only one way to find out, so she flashed her Magellan Billet badge to an attendant inside and was directed to the basement offices.
On the walk to the stairs leading down she noticed that not much had changed. The entrance hall flowed into a long anteroom and an elegant stairway up, the ballroom and library just ahead. The same dazzling array of art, furnishings, marble, and murals dominated. Even the same waft of a musty smell from a time long past remained.
Though the society today was simply another nonprofit entity, its beginnings were anything but benign. In the 1780s many regarded a fraternal military order as a threat. No good could come from men of war banding together. An understandable fear given the brash arrogance of the British military, which till then was all the colonists knew. Then there was the hereditary aspect of membership, which smacked of nobility. Peerage was a concept the new nation considered grossly obscene. The Constitution itself forbade the granting of nobility. Several states, and even Congress, thought of banning the society. Only the presence of George Washington himself calmed fears.
She recalled how her late husband had loved attending the annual gatherings held in the ballroom. He’d been a student of history, his own colonial library impressive. She still owned the books, displayed on shelves in her house back in Georgia. She should be there now deciding on what to do with the rest of her life. Instead, she was here, violating a direct order from her immediate superior, plunging deeper by the minute into an ever-widening hole.
“This place is friggin’ amazing,” Luke muttered. “You seem to know your way around.”
She smiled at his attempt to pry information. “Comes from being around a long time.”
“Okay, I get the message. You’ll talk when you’re ready.”
Downstairs they found the library, a more utilitarian space constructed for practicality with padded carpet, acoustical ceiling, and sturdy metal shelving that supported hundreds of books and manuscripts. Three thick wooden tables stood in its center, the air full of the sweet smell of old paper and book bindings. Shadowless fluorescent lighting emitted a faintly bluish glow. Waiting for them was a short, thin man in his late forties, the face creased with lines of good humor, who introduced himself as Fritz Strobl, the society’s curator. A set of eyeglasses hung from his neck by a chain. She explained what they’d stumbled onto in Virginia.
“The owner of that house, Brad Charon,” Strobl said, “was a member of the society all his adult life. It doesn’t surprise me that he amassed such a collection.”
“And hid it away,” Luke noted.
Strobl smiled. “Mr. Charon was a tad eccentric. But he loved America and this society.”
“He died suddenly?” she asked, already knowing the answer, but probing a bit.
“A plane crash. I attended his funeral. It was such a sad time. I read afterward about a probate fight between his heirs, but that was quite some time ago.”
Twenty-plus years in the intelligence business had taught her many things. Among them were hardball politics, covert diplomacy, complicity, and, when necessary, duplicity. She’d dealt with an endless variety of people across the globe, good and bad, and had made too many life-and-death decisions to count. Along the way she’d developed skills, one of which was to pay attention. It amazed her how little people noticed other people. Generally, it wasn’t ego or narcissism that explained the inability. Indifference seemed the most common explanation, but she’d trained herself to notice everything.
Like the slight tremble in Strobl’s hands. Not just the left or the right, which might signal a physical problem. Both of his shook. And there was the tiny line of sweat at the top of his brow that gleamed in the overhead lights. The room temperature was quite comfortable, cool enough in fact that neither she nor Luke had shed their coats. The kicker, though, was the bite of the lip—which, by her count, Strobl had done four times, perhaps to quell their noticeable quiver.
“What agency did you say you were with?” Strobl asked her.
“The Justice Department.”
“And why exactly are you here?”
She decided to dodge that one. “To report the archive we found. There’s a rare book there, displayed under glass, that details the society’s founding. It’s what led us here.”
She showed him a photo taken with her phone just before they left Virginia.
“That’s an original edition of our founding journal,” Strobl said. “Only a few members own one. I didn’t know Mr. Charon possessed this one.”
“It can be yours now,” Luke asked.
Strobl threw them both an odd look, one that said he did not agree. “I appreciate the information you’ve provided. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work that requires my attention. We’re hosting an inaugural reception Monday evening and our ballroom is being prepared.”
“Big affair?” she asked.
“It won’t include the president, but we’re told the vice president and several of the new cabinet will be attending.”
; She concealed her disgust and decided not to let this man off that easy. Luke had retreated to the far side of the room, behind Strobl, ostensibly examining the books. But he tossed her a knowing glance that confirmed her own suspicions.
Strobl was lying.
She scanned the room and noticed a small dark globe attached to the ceiling tiles in one corner. A security camera. No surprise. She assumed the entire villa was wired for pictures considering the value of the art and antiques scattered across the upper floors.
“My late husband, Lars Nelle, was a society member.”
She was hoping that tidbit might loosen Strobl some, but it seemed to have no effect.
“He was active in the Maryland branch,” she said. “He and I visited here, Anderson House, several times.”
Still, nothing.
But Luke caught the information.
“You may want to go and retrieve those books at Charon’s house,” she said to Strobl.
“How is that possible? As you say, it’s located inside the estate. That would be stealing.”
“Only if you get caught,” Luke said. “But I don’t think anyone is going to mind. It’s been sitting there a long time. It can be our little secret.”
“I’m afraid that’s not how we operate here. Not at all.”
The obvious strain in Strobl’s voice might be explained by the fact that someone from the Justice Department had appeared on a Friday morning unannounced, flashing a badge and asking questions.
Then again, maybe not.
“On second thought,” Strobl suddenly said. “Perhaps you have a point. That library could be important. Mr. Charon financed the acquisition of many of the books and papers you see here around you. He was himself an avid collector. He would want us to have whatever he may have amassed.”
Interesting, the change in tone.
More confident. Less anxious. Even suggestive.
Strobl reached for a pad and pen lying atop one of the tables. “Tell me the location again.”