by Steve Berry
Which explained Kelly’s purchase of the six-volt power sources. He knew how it worked. Activate the switch inside the case and the battery sent a charge to the detonator. The one drawback was the low voltage, which took time to build enough heat to activate the trigger, sending the uranium colliding. About fifteen minutes, if he recalled, and he asked Kelly if that was still true.
“More or less, depending on the temperature around the case.”
Which meant the switch had to be flicked no later than 11:45 tomorrow morning.
But first.
“Where is the point of convergence?”
Kelly smiled. “It’s a fascinating story, Aleksandr. Which started long ago, when the White House burned.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
Luke rushed from the closet, telling Begyn to stay inside, but the older man ignored the command and ran with him. More gunfire resonated from beyond the bedroom, in the outer corridor, this time rifle fire. Sue was apparently firing back.
But at whom?
Luke stopped his advance at the double doors, assuming a position to the side of the jamb with Begyn next to him, and called out, “What’s happening?”
“We’ve got company,” Sue yelled. “Two I could see. They’re downstairs but are trying to get up here.”
“Stay here,” he said to Begyn, who also held a revolver.
He fled his position and moved down the corridor, keeping close to the wall. Ahead, beyond where the staircase ended, past the ornate balustrade on the far side he spotted Sue, crouched low, the rifle in her grasp.
Automatic gunfire exploded from below, and the spindles supporting the second-floor railing were obliterated as metal tore through wood. Then two objects flew over the top and clattered to the floor.
He knew that sound.
Grenades.
He dove back and hit the floor, covering his head, hoping Sue had done the same.
Both exploded.
* * *
Malone eased open the barn door, careful that no sound betrayed his presence. He slipped into the still interior, moving lightly, his shin brushing against a wheelbarrow. Something scuttled, which startled him. The air smelled old and used. The only light shone up from a circular hole in the ground amid a long pile of wood.
A hatchway.
Leaking from it was a mumble of voices.
A quick survey of the interior satisfied him he was alone. Apparently, both Kelly and Zorin were belowground.
He crept to the hatch and saw that it was equipped with no hasp or lock, no way to seal it shut. Too bad—that would have been perfect. But that did not mean he couldn’t trap them below. Enough wood piled on top should be sufficient to keep them contained.
But that depended on there being only one way in and out.
An assumption he would have to make.
He also noticed three wires nearby in an excavated box, one set disconnected.
The booby trap.
Now disarmed.
Perfect.
He had them right where he wanted.
* * *
Luke rolled onto his back and stared back at the boiling orange flame and rising cloud of smoke and dust.
“Sue.”
“I’m okay,” she answered.
He glanced back toward the bedroom and spotted Begyn, who was hustling toward him.
“They’re coming up the stairs,” Sue warned.
He sprang to his feet and plunged into the cloud, looking left where he recalled the stairs ended, and saw a black form racing up.
He fired twice, sending the body rolling backward across the risers toward the ground floor.
That was too easy.
Then he saw why.
Flames erupted from an automatic rifle, bullets whining through the air. He dropped back and used the nearby wall for cover, but not before seeing the man he shot rise to his feet and begin his climb again.
Damn Kevlar.
Next time shoot for the head.
Something solid hit the wall ten feet away.
Then another, and another.
He heard the same familiar clatter on the wood floor and leaped for Begyn, taking the man down just as three explosions generated a bright sunshine that lit the darkness. Fire erupted with a fury, the house’s dry brittle wood and plaster quickly succumbing. More smoke poured out and gouts of orange flame reached toward the ceiling.
A black silhouette emerged from the smoke, darkly clad, wearing a protective vest and aiming a rifle straight at him where he lay on the floor. He hoped to God Begyn had enough sense to not be a hero like Peter Hedlund. The man stood over them, gun pointed straight down. In the halo of light he searched the face for nerves, apprehension, or doubt. He saw none, his own gun concealed beneath his partially rolled body.
He decided to feign pain and squirmed.
“Stay still,” the man warned.
His captor leaned forward, shoulders hunched, head tilted, staring down the length of his weapon in an effort at intimidation. Luke rolled a little more, his eyes now facing toward Begyn.
He screwed them up, along with his face, as if in pain.
“I have two of them,” the man called out.
Luke reversed the roll, settling on his spine, the gun now exposed, which he fired into the man’s thigh, dropping him to the floor. He sprang to his feet and grabbed the rifle. A spark of compassion flared, then passed. No time to mess around. He shot the man in the head.
Fire and smoke raged, making their way down the hall toward the master bedroom.
“Sue,” he screamed. “Sue.”
No reply.
Not good.
“Where is she?” Begyn asked.
“She’s a big girl. We have to go.”
They retreated to the bedroom. The window on the far side shattered as something solid passed through. Another window crackled to shards as a second projectile flew inside. He and Begyn dove toward the heavy four-poster bed.
The grenades exploded.
The room’s ceiling began to rain down as a new fire started, engulfing the floor and furnishings, blocking their way to the closet where the Tallmadge journal had been left. That was the least of his worries, though. Smoke and carbon monoxide consumed the air. Both he and Begyn began to cough. He could feel a weakness in his lungs as the oxygen in the room diminished. He pointed toward the broken windows, but grabbed the older man just before he plunged his head out. Instead, he yanked a pillow from the bed and tossed it out the window.
Retorts could be heard outside.
Just as he suspected.
The idea had been to either kill them with the grenades or draw them to the windows for easy pickin’s.
They were quickly running out of options.
* * *
Cassiopeia kept time on how long Cotton had been inside the barn. It was not a large structure so there couldn’t be all that many places to hide. He’d apparently thought it safe enough to enter, which made her wonder just exactly what was happening.
Five minutes had elapsed.
The cold had stiffened and thickened her fingers. She worked out the kinks through her gloves. Her legs likewise had tightened. A noise came from her right. In the darkness she saw snow fluttering down from where the branches of a pine tree had been molested. The rustle of a startled animal? Out in this weather? Hardly. She kept to her hiding place and remained still, her gun ready.
A shadow bobbled into view.
Followed by another.
Both had rifles angled across their chests.
* * *
Luke rushed to the window, but kept to one side, mindful of the snipers below. The doorway from the bedroom to the hall was completely ablaze, the bedroom itself about to be in the same condition. Begyn had assumed a position next to the other broken window, so they both could breathe, at least for the moment.
He stole a glance downward.
Shots rang out.
But not in his direction.
Two, before fire was
returned, then three more.
“Luke.”
His name being called from below as the shots stopped. He glanced down and saw Sue staring upward. Apparently, she’d avoided the fire and made her way out of the house.
“They’re all down. You need to get out of there.”
He stuck his head out the window and assessed the drop. Fifteen or twenty feet. Enough to break a bone or worse. He might make it, but not Begyn. Then he spotted a drainpipe outside another window at the corner of the building. Thick. Copper, most likely. Plenty enough to hold on to.
He dashed to the window and raised it.
“Come here,” he called out to Begyn.
The older man approached, fits of coughing racking his lungs. “Asthma. This is not good for me.”
It wasn’t good for either one of them. “Use the pipe. Grab hold, arch your body out, and ease down using your feet as brakes.”
He pantomimed what he had in mind.
Begyn nodded and did not argue, climbing out and grasping hold of the round pipe. The older man then planted his feet and angled himself outward, easing his grip on the pipe and sliding toward the ground.
Sue waited for him at the bottom.
More coughing stopped the descent.
Begyn seemed to be struggling, breaths coming and going in ragged gasps. Then hacking. A fight for air. He arched his head upward and stared straight at Luke.
“You can do it. Keep going.”
“It’s … my … lungs. I … can’t breathe.”
Begyn seemed to black out and his grip on the pipe released. He dropped deadweight fast, but not before his head clipped both the pipe and the outer wall. Sue tossed the rifle aside and readied herself to catch him, which she tried to do, breaking the fall, but his weight sent them both to the ground.
“You okay?” he called down to her.
He saw her emerge from beneath her father. “I got him, but he’s out cold.”
“Get him to the car.”
He studied the bedroom. He had to retrieve that journal. Flame licked at the wall where the closet opened, everything orange and consumed by fire. He might be able to slip in, grab the thing, and get out. They’d read only a portion of the flagged pages and he had to know what other information lay inside. He surveyed the room but could find nothing to use to make his task easier.
Time to suck it up and do his job.
“Luke,” Sue called out from below. “Let’s go.”
He stuck his head out and hollered, “I said get out of here. Call 911. I’m going for that journal.”
“Let it go,” she screamed.
He waved her on. “There could be more problems out in those woods. Stay sharp and move out, Lieutenant.”
Then he turned his attention to the closet.
It had become difficult to see, his eyes burning from the smoke, flames shimmering through an ever-growing rolling cloud.
Something cracked overhead.
Loud. Disturbing.
He glanced up just as the ceiling began to turn black, consumed from the attic side by flames working their way downward. Heading for that closet suddenly did not seem like a good idea, but a moment of hesitation was just long enough for everything to give way.
Burning wood cascaded, filling the room.
He dove for the bed, which seemed like the only cover.
His chest tightened, heart pounding, and he was suddenly aware that he was choking on smoke. Before the world disappeared, and everything went quiet, his last thought of the intense heat that had engulfed him.
CHAPTER SEVENTY
British troops left the burning Capitol around 10:00 P.M. on the night of August 24, 1814, marching in formation, two abreast, up Pennsylvania Avenue. Only a few timbered houses surrounded the broad street, with the last mile before the White House lined with trees. Near 11:00 P.M. a detachment of 150 crossed the road and approached the White House, which sat dark, deserted, and unprotected. The building stood as the grandest house in the city, designed by George Washington himself. The fourth president of the United States, James Madison, was nowhere to be seen, having fled on horseback hours earlier. The British thought it could be a trap, finding it hard to believe the Americans would simply allow them to advance into their capital at will.
But no resistance came from any quarter.
The British entered the White House unmolested through the front door, exploring the elegant rooms by lantern, their nostrils filled with the odors of food cooking. In the ground-floor state dining room they found a table set for forty with a damask tablecloth, matching napkins, silver, and delicate glasses. Several kinds of wine were cooling in ice on the sideboard. Everything was properly laid out, ready for use. In the kitchen, they saw spits loaded with meat turning before a fire, along with pots of vegetables and sauces. Apparently a dinner prepared for a president, not to be enjoyed. So they sat at the table, drank the wine, and ate the food, repeatedly toasting “Peace with America, war with Madison.”
Afterward, the soldiers helped themselves to mementos and souvenirs, nothing of great value to earn any charges of looting. And there was much there that was valuable. Sofas, writing tables, and cushioned chairs filled the rooms, some collected by Jefferson while in France, others belonging to Washington and John Adams. Most of the Madisons’ personal possessions had also been left behind. A portrait of Dolley Madison was stripped by a soldier from the wall and confiscated for later exhibition in London. The president’s dress sword became the possession of a young Scottish lieutenant. An admiral took an old hat of Madison’s along with a chair cushion, which he proclaimed would help him remember “Mrs. Madison’s seat.”
Once they were done with their feasting, roaming, and pillaging chairs were piled onto tables and the remaining furniture stacked close together. The windows were broken open, the bedding and draperies soaked with lamp oil. Then fifty men assumed positions around the outside carrying a long pole to which was affixed a ball of rags soaked in oil. Each was lit and, on command, the poles were thrust like javelins through the broken windows.
Conflagration was instant.
The whole building burned in unison, consumed by flames and smoke. Only a hard rain, later in the night, extinguished the inferno and saved the outer stone walls from collapse, leaving just a hollow shell.
Zorin knew little about American history, though they’d been required to study aspects of it as young men during their KGB training. He’d never before heard the story of the British burning the White House that Kelly had just recounted.
But he liked it.
“One of the soldiers wrote later that they were artists at the work,” Kelly said. “They were quite proud of what they did. The raid was designed to deliver a message to Madison. It was Madison and his cronies that had wanted war in the first place. At the time Britain was busy with Napoleon and considered a fight with America an unnecessary distraction, one they resented. But there was also an element of payback. Not only for the American Revolution defeat but earlier in the war for when America had invaded Canada and burned Toronto. They returned the favor.”
All of which he liked, too.
“It took two years to rebuild the White House, and a dozen more years after that to finish everything completely. Imagine, Aleksandr, the British totally humiliated them.”
Impressive, but, “What does that have to do with now?”
“Everything, for you see something else came into being at the same time the White House was rebuilt.”
By 1814 the District of Columbia had become the seat of the national government. Though there was an Executive Mansion, a Capitol building, and other government edifices, life within the district came with limits. The nearby towns of Georgetown and Alexandria were far more comfortable. Roads were few and unpaved, dust and mud constant problems, as were the marshes and flooding from the creeks and the Potomac River. Residential neighborhoods slowly developed, though, and houses began to appear. People settled down and lived there. Religious ser
vices were held in the Capitol itself, the Treasury, or one of the other executive branch buildings.
Finally, though, freestanding churches arrived. Two were Episcopal, one near Capitol Hill, the other farther out in Georgetown. After the destruction by the British, a cry arose for a third Episcopal church to be built in the west end. On September 14, 1815, the cornerstone was laid for that church, on Square 200, directly north of the White House.
Its design was simple. A Greek cross on four equal sides, without a tower, porch, or nave. Inside rose a gallery supported by columns. Box pews lined the brick floor. The center was crowned by a dome with a cupola and lantern. Half-moon-shaped windows at the end of the four transepts provided sunlight. The chancel was shallow, bringing the altar close to the congregation.
Consecration of the building came in December 1816.
The church still stands, expanded over time, at 16th and H Streets, on Lafayette Square, just a few hundred feet from the White House.
St. John’s Episcopal.
Its yellow façade, colonnaded portico, and tall steeple have become local landmarks. Every sitting president since James Madison has attended at least one service. Madison established the tradition of a “President’s Pew.” John Tyler paid for its use in perpetuity, and Pew 54 still accommodates the president.
“St. John’s,” Kelly said, “is the key.”
“Is that what you learned from the Tallmadge journal?”
Kelly nodded. “The church offers public tours all the time. I made a point to know its caretaker, and he showed me every nook and cranny. That’s when I verified what Tallmadge had written about in his journal from 200 years ago. The KGB searched all the time for American legends. Then Andropov himself managed to find one from the War of 1812, one that people here have simply forgotten.”
He saw the excitement in Kelly’s face.
“Tell me.”
* * *
Malone had tried to listen to the voices below but had been unable to hear anything. He could not risk climbing down closer so he decided to take command of the situation and slammed the metal lid shut. He then piled cut wood atop, more than enough to make it impossible to shove the hatch upward.