Mesmerized

by Gayle Lynds

  Jeff nodded. "In Russia, all hell would've broken loose. Berianov and his allies would've taken over the Kremlin, and the world would've been hurled back into the Cold War. It'd be the old nuclear Balance of Terror all over again."

  Shaken, the four of them stood silently amidst the chattering reporters, the spokespersons, and the last of the departing guests. The world had nearly turned upside down. They looked at one another, realizing what they had almost lost.

  Jeff looked at Beth. He smiled with relief. "Let's get out of here."

  Beth's face brightened. "Now that's an idea." She took his hand, and they left together.

  EPILOGUE

  It was October, six months since the near catastrophe in the Rose Garden, and Beth and Jeff had spent most of the past week at the cottage they had bought together on Chesapeake Bay. Here in the heart of this rich tidal basin it was said no one lived more than a few minutes from a stream. Their board-and-batten cottage rested just above the reeds, where they could dock their new boat at an old wooden pier they had repaired together. From their windows and the deck, they could bask in the million-dollar view of shining waters, great flying herons, and jumping bass. This peacefulness mattered to them.

  For weeks the world's media had covered the assassination attempt on Vladimir Putin that had come so frighteningly close to succeeding. In Russia, the list of HanTech names triggered an investigation across the highest echelons of government to the most decorated of military men. And then there was silence. Inquiries were "continuing." There would be charges "when all evidence was gathered."

  At the same time in Washington, Jeff and Beth spent weeks testifying behind closed doors at joint sessions of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees. Both felt jaded, exhausted, and weary of the fish bowl. They bought the cottage, and, in the nature of things, other crises captured the headlines, and the Rose Garden incident began its inevitable journey toward eclipse from the public's memory.

  A new FBI director was appointed. A woman this time, perhaps on the theory that a woman would not feel she had to be J. Edgar. She offered Jeff his real job back with a pay increase, but Jeff politely said no. He had been right about Berianov, and it had cost him greatly. But he no longer regretted the sacrifices and felt only sorrow for what he had lost in family and friends. At the same time, despite his and Beth's being lauded as heroes, The Washington Post had not wanted him back at all. He understood. The paper had been tricked into serving as Jeff's cover, an unethical position. Time, however, jumped at his availability. After assuring them he was out of the spy business for good, they had given him a weekly column in which he could continue analyzing the explosive changes in Eastern Europe and Russia, but now for a wider audience. Plus, at last he would be able to satisfy an old desire: After the first of the year, he would begin teaching international relations part-time at the Georgetown School of Diplomacy.

  As promised, Beth walked away from Edwards & Bonnett after writing a formal resignation letter that had left Zach Housley apoplectic. Michelle was as good as her word, and Beth set up her own practice with the Philmalee Group as her first client. Soon other clients approached her, and when four senior associates disgusted with Edwards & Bonnett asked to join her, they formed a partnership and rented offices at 601 Thirteenth Street Northwest, the same building as White & Case, an international law firm she admired. She was a partner at last, but her way. At the same time, she wanted to give back to the community, so in the last month she had begun doing weekly pro bono work for refugees and emigrants who could never afford the standard $500 hourly fee of the District's attorneys. Having her self-respect again was priceless.

  At the cottage, twilight spread, and the bay was radiant, almost purple. The crests of waves glistened silver and gold, reflecting the lights from docks, houses, arid passing boats, and the humid air was warm and sweet, a lingering gift of summer. It had been a good day. They had invited over a few friends for grilled crabs and barbequed ribs, and now they stood waving farewell as their guests drove off, returning to busy Washington.

  "Eli looked well," Beth decided. "I had no idea he could be so funny. Millicent must be good for him."

  Jeff nodded. "He'd become such an uptight stick, it's a wonder Taurino was willing to take him on. He got lucky, like me."

  "I'm the lucky one, darling." She kissed his cheek. "Mmm . . . delicious. Just a soupçon of barbecue sauce. Exactly the way I like my men." She brushed his brown hair back from his forehead. She was content for the first time that she could recall.

  He chuckled. "I aim to please. I think Amy had a good time today, don't you?" Amy was his sister. As soon as she had heard the news report about the near assassination, she had left a worried message on his answering machine at home. He returned her call, and in time he apologized for his years of being so difficult. They were friends again, their parents' deaths no longer a wall dividing them. She, her husband, Tony, and their two children had spent the past week vacationing with them here on the bay.

  "Amy had a great time," she assured him. "And so did Tony and the kids."

  "I think we should invite all of them to our wedding. Amy, Tony, the girls, Eli, Millicent, Michelle . . . even Michelle's new boy toy." He paused, watching her. When she said nothing, he continued, "I'm serious, Beth. I want us to get married."

  She turned away, her mouth dry with fear. She moved across the deck and leaned out over the railing, inhaling the fertile scent of the bay's waters. "I can't, Jeff. You know that. Don't ask me to."

  He hesitated, steeling himself. He knew he had to do it. Take the risk. "If you don't, then what's the point? I might as well move out. We're adults, not kids. I don't want a roommate. I'll love you for a long time, but I'll go on alone, if I have to."

  She stiffened. "I love you, Jeff. Really I do. But I've already explained that I can't marry you. I can't marry anyone."

  "What I remember is you also said that risk defines life. Okay, so take the risk that you and I won't have a marriage like your parents. That we'll hang out a lot with our kids. That we won't have drinking problems, and that we'll love each other forever." He paused and said the words that he knew would terrify her. "And that one of us won't die tomorrow, or accidently cause the death of the other."

  Emotion welled up in her chest. "You think I won't marry you because of what happened to my parents."

  "Considering everything else . . . the fact that you ran through as many men as I did women trying to avoid marriage . . . and then that you had the heart attack and actually died . . . it makes sense to me."

  Trembling, she inhaled. "Yes." He was partly right. But she had also learned to face death, lived with it for weeks while she waited for a transplant, and then there were those intense, frightening days when she and Jeff had been on the run, hunted while looking for Berianov. Thinking about it all, marriage began to seem doable. "Will you hold me?"

  They met in the middle of the deck, and he brushed the tears from her eyes and held her tightly. She could feel his heart beating against her, reassuring. Then she listened to her own heart and began to smile because as long as she could hear and feel it, she knew she was breathing, still alive.

  "What are you thinking?" he asked.

  She hesitated. "I guess about life in general. I think we get mesmerized by circumstances, and that's what happened to me. We get trapped in the cracks of life by choices and accidents and things we never could've imagined. Like what happened with my parents' deaths, and my ambition to make partner in the firm, and then even the cellular memory. After a while, we get so caught up in all of it that we're on some kind of automatic pilot, and we can't see or do or even think there's a better way to be."

  "You're right. I'd say that's true of countries as well." He waited as she seemed to burrow into him. He was smiling. "Go on. Say it."

  She squeezed him and gave a little laugh. "I'll marry you, darling. Thank you for waiting."

  An hour or so before dawn, Beth woke up to see Jeff standing by the bed, hold
ing his Beretta. He pressed his fingers to her lips. "Shhh."

  She nodded and got silently to her feet.

  He pulled on his shorts. He was sweating. "Someone's in the living room," he whispered. "There's light under the door."

  She nodded again and threw on a robe. On his signal, she jerked open the door.

  He jumped through with the Beretta up. "Perez!" he exploded.

  The Russian was sitting on the living room sofa, wearing his usual black turtleneck, trousers, and high-tops, but he had pulled off his ski mask. A single table lamp cast a weak circle of light, leaving the rest of the large room in dark shadow.

  "I don't have much time," he said quietly. "I'll be flying out tomorrow, returning home to Moscow."

  Jeff shook his head, disgusted. "Just saying good-bye, are you?"

  But Beth was studying him. "You want to tell us something?"

  Perez nodded. "President Putin's position is weaker. Most of Berianov's coconspirators are in jail, but remember the men behind our ninety-one coup? One fool committed suicide while the rest went to jail for a short time. A very short time. That's all that happened to them."

  "In our country," Beth said, "if an armed group attacked the White House or Congress, you can bet the ones who survived would still be behind bars."

  "Exactly, where criminals—terrorists—belong," Perez agreed. "But these terrorists were politicians, businessmen, and military officials, and after an uproar of a few months, that's what they returned to being, as if nothing had ever happened."

  "You're saying," Jeff said carefully, "Berianov's backers will get no worse."

  "Yes, just a few slaps on the wrist." He shook his head worriedly. "I've been digging, and I've come up with a list of men and a few women I know, or suspect, were players in Alexei Berianov's coup attempt. Many of their names were also on the HanTech list, but not all. I've reported all of this to my superiors, and they tell me they've sent the information upstairs to those in charge of the investigation."

  Beth said, "You don't trust them."

  Jeff added, "You think Berianov's plan is still alive?"

  Perez leaned forward, his face intense. "Someone outside Russia should know."

  "Aren't you concerned about yourself?" Beth asked. "Your survival?"

  Perez gazed out the front windows, east toward the bay. The first pale rays of dawn were rising on the eastern horizon. He stood. "I've got to go. I enjoyed seeing you again." There was a wistful expression on his face, then he shrugged and took a plain white envelope from inside his clothes. "If anything happens to Russia . . . "

  Jeff took the envelope.

  After Perez disappeared, they sat in the cool house and listened to the sounds of morning. At last they stood up to go into the kitchen to make coffee and breakfast. As they passed the dining room table, Beth saw a stack of mail. "Perez must've brought it in. We forgot it yesterday. The party and all."

  Jeff smiled, and then he pulled out a brown padded envelope addressed to Beth. "What's this? It's from Moscow." It had been forwarded from her office.

  She grabbed it and stared at the return address. Right after the Rose Garden episode, she had sent a note to the coordinator at the transplant hospital, asking her to forward a letter to the family of her heart donor. By going through the facility, Beth had not broken the confidentiality agreement she had signed, and she hoped the coordinator would read her letter, find it simply an expression of her gratitude for the family's gift, and feel comfortable mailing it to Mikhail Ogust's widow.

  Jeff squeezed her shoulder. "Come into the kitchen, darling. You can read it there. I'll start the coffee."

  "Good idea." As he turned on the radio, and music filled the room, she sat at the table in the morning sunshine and opened the padded envelope. Inside was a note and a tissue-wrapped parcel. She read the note, translating the Russian aloud:

  Moscow

  Dear Ms. Convey,

  I apologize for not answering your kind letter more quickly, but I've just returned from several months with my children at our dacha in the Crimea. We had a relaxing time. It seemed this year the fruits and vegetables were especially large and fresh. Every night we sat on the porch and drank cold tea and remembered the old days. It was lovely.

  I don't understand about voices from the dead talking to the living, but I must say Mikhail had a strong personality. He believed it was important to care about something, to give oneself over to something bigger—a religion, an idea, a love, or perhaps one's country.

  He used to say he was an atheist, so religion was out, and he had so many ideas that he could never settle on just one. His deep love was for our family, and he always said he loved us enough to want to provide a country in which everyone would be safe to grow and thrive. When we lost the Soviet Union, he . . . all of us . . . lost our way for a while.

  Sometime near the end, he quarreled with Alexei Berianov. Mikhail was furious with him, and he tried to convince him to change his mind about some business they were in together. What more happened between them I never knew.

  I'm still brokenhearted to have lost my Mikhail, and I grieve for him every day. Then came your letter. To think you felt influenced by him, that you wanted to know about him, that you cared about who he was and what he thought touches me deeply. It helps me to go on, knowing that a part of him lives on in you.

  I hope you'll accept the enclosed gift. It's only a small memento from his boyhood, but wherever we lived, he hung it in our bedroom. He said it explained the Russian character perfectly, the dark and the light. I think you'll understand it. I hope you'll enjoy it, too.

  I am most sincerely yours,

  Tatiana Ogust

  Jeff was already unwrapping the tissue from the parcel. Soon a polished wood plaque emerged from the thin paper. He handed it to her, and her fingers trembled as she held it up. On it was a poem, hand-painted in Cyrillic lettering:

  If you love, then love without reason.

  If you threaten, don't threaten in play.

  If you storm, to full fury give way.

  If you punish, let punishment tell.

  If you feast, then be sure you eat well.

  —Tolstoi

  "The answer to where my mystery lines came from." She laughed as they studied the poem together. "It's so very Russian, isn't it? Work hard. Play hard. And make sure you eat well, too."

  "Of course, I don't believe any of it," he dead-panned as he pulled her close. "Cellular memory's a scam. Everything that happened to you was pure coincidence, starting with that impulsive phone call of yours to Meteor Express."

  "Absolutely," she said equally solemnly. Then she grinned, relieved. "I'm so glad to know where those lines were from. So it was Tolstoi. It's as if the poem's the last piece I needed to complete the puzzle."

  "Tell me the truth. Seriously." He paused. "Do you believe it all really happened? That you were getting messages from Ogust?"

  Beth turned in his arms, and he released her. She held up the plaque and read it again, this time in Russian. At last she pressed it to her chest. For a moment it almost seemed as if she could feel the vital beat of a heart. "It's embarrassing to admit. After all, I am still a lawyer. But yes, I believe."

  "Good. Me, too." He smiled.

  February arrived in Washington with a cold, bitter storm that swept the bustling streets of pedestrians and traffic. By Saturday, everyone was relieved to stay home. That afternoon, Beth and Jeff met in their den for coffee. That's when they heard the news on the radio—

  " . . . in Russia. Prime Minister Nechayev's limousine was sideswiped by one of the city's so-called gypsy taxis and plunged off a bridge into the ice-covered Moscow River. By the time the limo was pulled out, all the occupants, including the prime minister, his wife, and three security agents from the MVD, were dead. The accident occurred at night, and no witnesses could be found to conclusively identify the driver or cab that had caused it. President Vladimir Putin moved quickly to replace the popular reform-minded prime minister w
ith Roman Tyrret, a recently elected member of the Duma who is also the number-one TV personality in the nation. Congratulations on the appointment flooded the Kremlin. Leading oligarch Georgi Malko called Tyrret 'my dear old friend' and offered the support of the business community. Renowned general Igor Kripinski issued a press release suggesting that Tyrret would make a fine successor for Putin. . . ."

  Jeff stared at Beth. "Under the Russian constitution, the prime minister assumes the presidency if the president's incapacitated. The prime minister is required to call for an election in three months, but he'd have the advantage of incumbency. If anything were to happen to Vladimir Putin . . ."

  "Yes, Roman Tyrret would take over." She shook her head worriedly. "Both Georgi Malko and General Kripinski were on Perez's list of Berianov's coconspirators. Now they're supporting this fellow Tyrret. The security agents who died?—"

  "Yes. They were MVD, the national Russian police. Perez is MVD." He paused and grimaced. "Perez could be dead."

  A chill wind seemed to cut through the warm, comfortable room. They stared at each other.

  She said what they were both thinking: "It's not over yet."

  AUTHOR'S NOTE

  The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle believed the mind originated in the heart. Just as in today's scientific community, experts more than two thousand years ago had their disagreements. The Greek physician Hippocrates had earlier taken the opposite stand—that the mind was where all thought and emotion began.

  Which fits tidily into two adages: The more things change, the more they remain the same; and controversy stimulates knowledge.

  When I was a little girl growing up in Council Bluffs, Iowa, my mother came in to breakfast one morning, her face ashen. A neighbor had just dropped dead while shoveling snow. We were shaken, since this young family man had given every appearance of being not only healthy but robust. But that sort of event happened in those days. People mysteriously dropped dead of heart attacks. A lot of people.