by Steve Berry
“Once Zorin is dead, it will not matter what you know.”
A car engine suddenly roared to life.
The sound originated on the far side of Kelly’s house.
Then a pair of headlights found the street and raced away at a high rate of speed. The shadow with the rifle whirled left and sent a loose spray of bullets in the car’s direction, scattering the fire, hoping surely for some kind of hit.
* * *
Cassiopeia leveled the gun and shot the man shooting at the fleeing car, dropping him to the ground.
The gunfire stopped.
Silence returned.
“I was hoping you were still breathing,” Cotton said.
She lowered her gun. “I thought you were supposed to be watching my backside.”
He started running toward their parked vehicle. “As pleasant a prospect as that may be, we need to go after that car. I assume Zorin and Kelly are inside it.”
And she agreed.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Stephanie sat with Danny Daniels, alone, in the Oval Office. Osin was gone with a pledge that their talk never happened. Edwin Davis had retreated to his office, and Luke had headed to his apartment for some sleep. Midnight had passed, which meant Danny was now in his last full day as president of the United States.
“It’s almost done,” she said to him.
He rocked in his chair, quiet, and uncharacteristically sullen. “I don’t want to go.”
She smiled. “Who does?”
“Lots of folks made it this far and didn’t know what the hell they were doing. So they were eager for it to end. I enjoyed the job.”
“You were a good president. History will be kind.”
And she meant that.
“How does it feel to be unemployed?” he said. “I’ll be joining you real soon.”
“Not the way I envisioned going out.”
“Me either, but you know I couldn’t interfere. Besides, what good would it have done? The Billet is gone. Those fools think they know more than you and me and everyone else. Remember, Fox was a governor.”
She caught the sarcasm. The new president came straight from a governor’s mansion with some administrative experience, but little to no international exposure. He’d campaigned on a platform of semi-isolationism, sensing that the country was tired of policing the world. He’d won by a solid majority in the popular vote and an even wider margin in the electoral college, which had made her wonder if public sentiment was indeed shifting. To think that America could exist independent of what was happening around the globe, no matter how far away or how remote things might appear, bordered on idiocy.
Those days were over.
“You take your eye off anybody for more than a minute,” Danny said to her, “and they’ll stab you in the back. The Middle East, Asia, China, now Russia. They’re all rearin’ up their ugly heads. And our allies? Hell, most times they’re worse than enemies. Give me, take me, buy me, bring me. That’s all they ever want.”
She smiled, recalling the first time she heard him utter that phrase. Years ago, during another battle, one of their first, before they both realized how they felt about each other.
“Where’s Pauline?” she asked.
“Gone. But she’ll be back Monday for the swearing-in on Capitol Hill. Our final public appearance together as man and wife.”
She heard the failure in his voice.
“Everything upstairs has been packed and shipped to Tennessee. Pauline went on a few days ago, supposedly to handle the relocation. She’s anxious to start her new life and, I have to say, I was eager to see her go. It’s time to move on.”
“When will you divorce?”
“In a few months. Once no one gives a rat’s ass about me or her. Nice and quiet. Like how Al Gore did it. Crap happens, and people understand. No one cares about some ex-vice-president or president.”
She understood his remorse. Decades ago her own marriage unraveled to the point that she and Lars lived apart for years. That would have probably still been the case if he hadn’t hanged himself from that bridge in France. Eventually, with Cotton and Cassiopeia’s help, she came to understand why that happened, but its finality still brought a great sadness to her heart.
“Shouldn’t you be asleep?” she said to him.
“I’m a night person. You know that. And I haven’t slept for crap the past month or so. I don’t like where this country is headed. It’s scary. And I wonder if that’s my fault.”
“Because you did a good job protecting everyone?”
“We made it look too easy.”
Which she knew it wasn’t. The new president seemed 180 degrees away from Danny. But that was the thing about American politics. Its pendulum swung with predictable regularity, nothing ever lasting long, as if the country liked to continually try new things, yet complained constantly that everything seemed to stay the same. No way to please the masses and she wondered why anyone would even try. But Danny had not only tried, he’d succeeded.
“You did your job,” she said. “And kept this country safe, without breaching civil rights.”
“We had some challenges, didn’t we?”
She smiled at him. “You do know that you can still be useful. Your life isn’t over.”
He shook his head. “My successor is a rookie.”
“In thirty-six hours he’ll be president of the United States.”
“He’s never dealt with anything like this. And the people he’s hiring are not the sharpest tacks in the box. That scares me, too.”
“It’s not our problem,” she said.
“I hate that this happened to you,” he said. “I never would have involved you if I thought they’d fire you.”
He sounded as though he really meant it.
“You’ve been nothing but straight with me since the first day we met,” she said. “And let’s get one thing clear. I do only what I want to do, and you know that. I chose to make the moves I did, so I pay the price.”
He smiled at her as he kept rocking.
“Is Luke’s Mustang totaled?” he asked.
“Just spare parts now.”
“He loved that car.”
She wondered who he was talking to. He seemed a million miles away. “You’re tired.”
“No, I’m worried. Something’s happenin’ here. I can feel it. And it’s not good. You don’t get an SVR station chief waltzing into the White House and divulging state secrets every day. Five nuclear weapons are hidden around here somewhere.”
“It’s not like in the movies. Those things need care, and it’s been a long time.”
“Yet this Zorin keeps plowin’ ahead. That worries me.”
“The Russians were never known for smarts.”
“But they are one tough competitor.”
She allowed a moment of silence to pass before breaching protocol and asking, “What about us?”
His gaze focused on her. “Is there an us?”
“If you want there to be.”
“I want.”
A few nerves jerked along her forearms. Unusual, to say the least. She was glad to hear the admission, and she hoped the possibilities perked his spirits some over the next day and a half.
“After the swearing-in, I’m headed back to Tennessee,” he said. “My little house in the woods. You’re welcome to join me.”
“How about you get divorced first.”
He chuckled. “I thought you might say that. But you can come for a visit, right?”
“And end up on the front page of some tabloid? No thanks. I’ll wait until you’re a free man.”
“What are you going to do now?”
She hadn’t given it much thought. “I have a pension coming to me, so I think I’ll collect. Then I’ll see who might need the services of an ex-intelligence-officer with experience.”
“I imagine there’ll be many takers on that offer. How about this? Don’t make a decision on what to do until you run it by me first.”
>
She could see that he was up to something. But she would have expected no less. This man was a player. Always had been, always will be.
“I dare not ask, right?”
He grinned like a Cheshire Cat and said, “Dare not. At least for now.”
Then she saw something else in his eyes.
He knew something she didn’t.
Something important.
“What is it?” she asked.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Zorin rode in the passenger seat, Kelly driving a small hatchback coupe. They’d fled the house out a kitchen door and found the car in the garage, managing to speed away without incident. He still was puzzled by the cacophony of gunfire at the house. They’d passed two police cars on the bridge across the river, both heading east as they drove west. But none had come their way as they passed through Charlottetown, then found a main highway.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
“Back to the glavny protivnik.”
The main adversary. America.
“You hid the RA-115s in a safe place?”
“My orders were clear. Find a location where they would be undetected, but remain viable. That was not easy to accomplish. But I did it.”
“What happened to you?” he asked. “After we left Andropov that night?”
“I returned to my life. Unlike you, Aleksandr, I was not born in the motherland. My parents were embedded operatives in the United States. I’m a passport-carrying U.S. citizen. I came to Moscow that night on a tour group. Back in the 1980s, I daresay Russia was not a popular tourist destination, but Americans still went. I was ordered back for a face-to-face, so I booked the tour. That night, I slipped out of the hotel and came to the safe house.”
He knew all about Intourist, owned by the government and once the only travel agency allowed in the Soviet Union. Stalin himself founded it. Staffed always by KGB employees, it once managed all foreign access to the Soviet Union. Officially, he’d worked out of more than one Intourist office. So he could understand how Kelly could have made it to both Moscow and the meeting.
“After that night with Andropov, I rejoined the tour group and came back to Washington. I worked at my job, followed my orders for Fool’s Mate, and did a lot of listening.”
Which had always proved to be the most effective means of gathering intelligence. He’d done his share during several foreign postings, but his specialty was not socializing. He was more an implementer.
“After December 1991 none of it mattered much anymore,” Kelly said. “Everything just ended. I was never contacted again by the KGB or SVR. How about you, Aleksandr, what happened?”
“I tired quickly of the new Russia. Too many mobsters for me. So I moved east to Siberia. My wife and son died, so I lived alone, waiting for the right opportunity.”
They were approaching the Confederation Bridge, stretching thirteen kilometers across the Northumberland Strait that separated Prince Edward Island from mainland Canada. Thirty years ago, for him, the only way across had been by ferry.
Kelly stopped and paid the toll, then sped onto the lit span.
“I, too, wondered if an opportunity would ever come,” Kelly said. “For a long time I thought this all was over. Andropov died in ’84. My orders had to come straight from him. But I was never told to stand down, so I kept doing my job.”
“I did the same.” He stared across the dark at his driver. “We owe it to all of them to finish. We never had a chance to fight the great battle against the main adversary. Instead, that adversary destroyed us.”
“That it did. But we did a lot of damage to ourselves. I’ve spent decades reading about all that happened. So many mistakes. History has taught me many lessons.”
As it had with himself. Most important, there would be no hesitation, no reservations, no mercy. Politics mattered not. Compassion and morality factored in here nowhere. Those concepts had stopped no one from destroying the Soviet Union. So he had to know, “Fool’s Mate involves two moves to checkmate. Andropov himself named your mission. Is that symbolism relevant?”
“Oh, yes. And the success of any Fool’s Mate in chess depends on your opponent playing extraordinarily foolishly. In this case, America has accommodated us.”
“I was Quiet Move,” he said.
Kelly chuckled. “How appropriate. An act that threatens nothing else on the board. Andropov was ironic, if nothing else.”
“You knew about the other two dying?”
They kept cruising across the two-laned bridge, traffic nearly nonexistent in either direction. Nothing strange, considering it was the middle of the night.
“I did learn about their untimely deaths. It wasn’t hard to determine why they occurred. The fewer who knew the better. I assumed the idea was for me to be the last man standing, ready to implement Fool’s Mate on orders. How did you find me?”
“Your name exists in old records. Your location came from someone with access to secret information.”
“You had an archivist’s help?”
He nodded.
“They’re probably the only ones who know where to look,” Kelly said. “Records of my posting had to exist. Archivists have done a lot of damage. I read the Mitrokhin book when it was published back in the 1990s. It was a matter of survival, since I was terrified the traitorous fool had named me in there.”
“Moscow must now be reading the same records my archivist did.”
“I agree. That man in the house had to be SVR.”
He thought the time right to ask, “The first move you made was hiding the weapons. What was the second move to Fool’s Mate? The one that wins.”
“The point of convergence.”
This was what Belchenko had not been able to ascertain, or had been unwilling to share. Andropov had said that night that they would “strike America at its core.” Two flaws had been discovered, and “at the right time, we will teach America a lesson. Minimum effort, maximum effect.”
“I found out about the zero amendment,” Zorin said. “More from those old records and that archivist. So I know the time is now.” He concealed his enthusiasm and summoned a long-taught patience to keep his emotions in check. “But do you know the point of convergence?”
“My mission was to determine it. Do you remember what Andropov said to us.” Kelly held up two fingers. “Two flaws. The envelope under my plate that night described both. The zero amendment is one.”
Which Belchenko had explained to him.
“The second is the actual detonation spot.”
They came to the end of the bridge and drove onto the Canadian mainland.
Kelly said, “I’m the only one who knows that location.”
* * *
Malone drove and Cassiopeia kept watch ahead, her task aided by the night-vision binoculars. They were over a mile behind Zorin, trying to blend in with the few cars out on the highway. So far he did not think they’d been made. How could they have been? They’d fled Kelly’s neighborhood about two minutes behind Zorin, able to catch up when police vehicles sped across the Hillsborough River bridge and Zorin slowed, clearly trying not to draw any attention. They’d kept pace, driving west, then south, crossing what was labeled the Confederation Bridge. Along the way Cassiopeia had told him all that she’d heard at Kelly’s house.
“We’re in New Brunswick,” she said to him.
“Have you been here before?”
She lowered the binoculars. “A few times. Pretty place.”
“Any idea where they’re headed?”
She found her cell phone and worked the screen. “There are airports ahead in Moncton and St. John. Could be there. And there’s a choice in highways coming up. West into New Brunswick or east to Nova Scotia.”
“I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”
“Who do you think those guys were back there at Kelly’s house?” she asked.
“Had to be Russian. Who else?”
“I agree.” She returned the binoculars to her
eyes. “They’re turning west, toward Moncton. My phone says it’s about fifty kilometers.”
He sped ahead, ready to make his own turn.
Two things had to be avoided.
They could not be discovered, and they could not lose that car.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Stephanie stood behind the Resolute desk in the Oval Office, staring down at two folders. One was thick and prominently marked TOP SECRET—FORWARD PASS in red letters. Its edges were worn, the classified stamp dated 1989 and authorized by the White House. Its seal had been broken away, the inside pages disturbed, but she recognized all of the letters, memos, notes, legal opinions, and international communiqués. Many of which she’d written.
“What was Reagan like?” Danny asked.
“Smart, clever, intuitive. He relished how others underestimated him. But he could read people, especially the Soviets. He spent a lot of time thinking about their demise.”
She turned the pages, exposing a digest, the earliest date from February 1982 and her first meeting with Reagan. The last was from November 1989, when she was told that her services were no longer required. Nothing seemed to have happened after her departure. But what would have? The die had been cast long before the first Bush took office. She thought back to the many meetings that had happened here, most late in the night when few were around. She’d even gotten to know Nancy Reagan, whom she found most gracious, sharing totally in her husband’s aspirations. They were indeed a team. She’d envied that relationship, as her own marriage was then disintegrating.
“Reagan had an intuition about the Soviet Union, and was patient,” she said. “He waited for someone like Gorbachev and, when he came along, took full advantage. It might have been the actor in him, judging the right moment to toss out the right line for maximum effect. He never rushed anything. He always told me to get it right, not fast.”
“We’ve always been fortunate to have the right man at the right time. Washington was there in the beginning. Lincoln when the country fell apart. Wilson and Roosevelt as Depression and world wars threatened everything. Then Reagan, with the Cold War. Did it bother him that it all actually ended after his watch, when Bush took over?”