by Steve Berry
“My wife is out for a few hours,” he told them.
“Which will make this easier,” she said. “The fewer people here the better.”
“Is this woman dangerous?”
“Definitely,” she said. “But I don’t think she’s coming here to harm you. She’s after something specific and we need to find out what that is. You don’t happen to know, do you?”
She watched carefully, gauging the man’s consideration of her question. Strobl had offered little to nothing about Hedlund, which could have been evasive or simply meant that he did not know. She was opting for the latter, hoping the answers she sought rested with this man.
“I realize that I also have the ceremonial title Keeper of Secrets,” he said with a smile. “But I assure you, that’s a holdover from a long time ago when there really may have been secrets. Today our society is a philanthropic, social organization that, to my knowledge, is totally transparent.”
Hedlund had already showed them his private library, a separate room devoted to early American history, especially the first fifty years of the republic. He told them that he’d been collecting colonial history books all of his adult life, delighted when he became the society’s historian.
“Did you know Bradley Charon?” she asked.
Hedlund nodded. “Brad and I were close friends. When he died, which was so sudden and unexpected, I was heartbroken. The plane crash came out of nowhere.”
“Did you know he kept a secret library?” Luke asked.
The younger Daniels had stayed uncharacteristically quiet for the past hour or so.
“I only knew of his collection that he kept at the estate, in his study, similar to mine. But all of those books came over to the society at his death. Thankfully, he had the foresight to gift them to us in writing. What with all the probate fighting, we would’ve never seen those volumes again. They’re now all safe, at Anderson House.”
She told him what they’d found at the Virginia estate.
“I would like to see that hidden room,” Hedlund said.
That would have to wait. She checked her watch, wondering what was happening in Russia. She desperately wanted to know. She’d forwarded all calls to the White House so Edwin Davis could handle them while she dealt with matters here. She’d briefly told Edwin about being fired and he sympathized, but she knew there was nothing he could do. She and Edwin decided the best course was simply to plow ahead with what was happening both here and overseas. Something big was up, something the Russians themselves were not sure about, since Osin’s aloofness at the Charon estate had quickly been replaced by active cooperation when it came to Anya Petrova.
The doorbell rang.
She signaled for Luke and Hedlund to flee upstairs. Both men retreated from the study. She stood and smoothed out her blouse and pants, catching her breath, regaining control.
The bell rang again.
She stepped from the study into a marble-floored entrance hall. Two oil paintings of Annapolis dominated the dark-blue walls. At the front door she opened the latch and smiled at the woman who stood out in the cold on the front stoop.
“Are you Mrs. Hedlund?” Anya Petrova asked.
“I am,” Stephanie replied.
* * *
Luke listened to what was happening below, safe inside one of the upstairs bedrooms, whose door opened to a second-floor balcony that overlooked the entrance hall.
At no time had Anya Petrova ever seen Stephanie, or even known that she existed, which was why the ruse would work. It seemed the fastest way to find out what this was all about. True, there was danger, as there was no telling what Petrova might do, but that was why he was here.
To keep an eye on things or, more accurately, an ear.
* * *
Stephanie invited Petrova inside and closed the door to the afternoon chill.
“What happened to you?” she asked her guest, pointing at the bruise on the woman’s face.
“I’m clumsy and fell. It looks worse than feels.”
“Are you Russian? I hear the accent.”
Petrova nodded. “I was born there, but I live here now. Is your husband home?”
She shook her head. “I’m afraid not.”
“When does he return?”
“I have no idea.”
That lie was designed to force Petrova’s hand and not unnecessarily place Peter Hedlund in any jeopardy, though it would have been preferable for him to have handled this conversation.
“I come long way to speak to him. I must ask questions. About Society of Cincinnatis. He is society historian, is he not?”
Stephanie nodded. “For some time now.”
“Does he have library here, in house?”
She pointed down the short hall that led off the entranceway. “A lovely one, with many books.”
“May I see it?”
She hesitated, just enough for Petrova to not get suspicious. “Why do you want to?”
A look of irritation flooded the younger woman’s face. She’d wondered how much patience Petrova planned to show. They’d disarmed her at Anderson House, but there’d been the matter of her car and the fact that she may have also carried a backup weapon.
Petrova reached beneath her jacket and removed a small-caliber revolver. “I want to see books. Now.”
If Luke had not been upstairs, ready to act, she might be concerned. Anya Petrova cast the wary look of someone to be feared. Which made sense, as she was a product of a place where fear had evolved into a marketable commodity. Her words came simple and direct, with not the slightest hint of false bravado. Just matter-of-fact. Their meaning clear.
I. Will. Hurt. You.
“I,” Stephanie started, feigning concern, “have never had a … gun pointed at me before.”
Petrova said nothing.
Which spoke volumes.
Time to concede.
“All right,” Stephanie said. “Follow me … to the library.”
* * *
Luke watched through a cracked-open door as Stephanie and Petrova left the entrance hall. He should head down and find a closer vantage point from which to listen but, before he did, he ought to make a quick check on Hedlund. Their host had fled into another bedroom at the end of the second-floor hall. He crept down a carpet runner toward the half-open door, careful that nothing betrayed his presence.
At the door he stopped.
He heard a voice from the other side.
Low and throaty.
He carefully peered into the bedroom and saw Hedlund sitting in a chair, staring out the window, talking on his mobile phone. Odd, considering what was happening below. Earlier, Hedlund had appeared straight up, genuinely surprised, willing to help.
“It has to be that,” Hedlund said. “We thought all of this was long forgotten, but apparently we were wrong. It’s starting again.”
A few seconds of silence passed as Hedlund listened to what was being said in his ear.
“Nothing here to find. I made sure of that years ago,” Hedlund said.
More silence.
“I’ll keep you posted.”
He heard a beep as the call ended.
“Nothing here to find”?
This just kept getting better and better.
Which meant Stephanie could have a real problem on her hands.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Zorin dozed in and out, restless though the flight across the Atlantic had been smooth. He’d managed a couple of hours of fitful sleep, grateful that the two pilots stayed forward and to themselves. He’d utilized the desktop computer and found an appropriate landing spot, a national park on the north shore that should offer plenty of privacy. Weather would not be a problem. Northern Canada was having a mild winter, little snow had fallen, the skies tonight were moisture-free. The jump would still be tricky, but he could handle it. If all went as planned, he’d be about forty kilometers northwest of Charlottetown, the island’s capital, where the university was located. He’d found
the college’s website and learned that Jamie Kelly still worked there part-time. More checking on the Internet had also yielded a home address.
Fool’s Mate.
He’d been piecing it all together for over ten years, extracting bits and pieces from old records. But his talks with Belchenko had been most productive, even though the archivist had always thought the whole thing nothing more than wishful thinking.
He knew that was not the case.
The tall man who entered the apartment was in his sixties, with thick gray hair brushed straight back from a noticeably ashen face. He wore rimless glasses, the dark eyes intense but also full of weariness. Four aides accompanied him. They quickly searched the other rooms, then retreated outside, the door closing behind them. The apartment was a KGB safe house, kept under constant surveillance. Tonight it played host to Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov.
No introductions occurred. Instead Andropov sat at the head of a wooden table where a cold supper had been laid out, along with glasses filled with vodka. Zorin sat at the table, too, as did three other KGB officers. Two he knew. One was a stranger. He’d never before been this close to Andropov. Like himself, this man came from humble beginnings, the son of a railroad official who worked as a loader, telegraph clerk, and sailor fighting in Finland during the Great Patriotic War. Afterward, he’d begun a steady climb up the party hierarchy, eventually becoming chief of the KGB. Last November, two days after Brezhnev died, Andropov had been chosen the nation’s fourth general secretary since Stalin.
“I plan to do something extraordinary,” Andropov said to them in barely a whisper. “I will say tomorrow that we are stopping all work on space-based missile defense systems.”
Zorin was shocked. Ever since March, when Reagan announced America would develop a strategic defense system, all Soviet research efforts had been redirected. To aid that effort all intelligence operations had likewise been refocused, the idea being to learn everything possible about SDI.
“Mr. Reagan thinks us an evil empire,” Andropov said. “I will show him that is not the case. We will tell the world we are stopping.”
No one said a word.
“I received a letter from a ten-year-old American child,” Andropov said. “She asked me why we want to conquer the world. Why do we want a war? I told her we want neither. I plan to tell that to the world tomorrow. After that is done, I will be entering the hospital.”
Zorin had heard the talk. The general secretary had supposedly suffered total kidney failure, his life now sustained only by dialysis. Characteristically, nothing had been said publicly. For Andropov to mention it himself seemed extraordinary.
“I tell you this for a reason,” Andropov said. “You four have been personally selected by me to carry out a special assignment. I have come here, tonight, to instruct you myself. This is a mission that I personally conceived. Each operation will carry a name. I chose those, too. From chess, a game I love. Do any of you play?”
All of them shook their heads.
Andropov pointed around the table and said to them each, individually, “Absolute Pin. Backward Pawn. Quiet Move. Fool’s Mate.”
That had been August 1983, the first time Zorin had ever heard those words. He’d not known their meaning, but quickly learned.
Absolute Pin. A king cornered so tightly that it cannot legally move, except to be exposed to check.
Backward Pawn. One pawn behind another of the same color that cannot advance without the support of another pawn.
Quiet Move. Something that does not attack or capture an enemy piece.
Fool’s Mate. The shortest possible game. Two moves and over.
“Each of these assignments is vital to the others,” Andropov said. “Once brought together, they will change the world.”
“These are totally independent operations?” one of the other assets asked.
“Precisely. Four separate and distinct efforts, the results of which only I will know. None of you will communicate with the others, unless specifically ordered to do so. Is that clear?”
They all nodded, knowing that Andropov was not to be challenged. Here was the man who convinced Khrushchev to crush the Hungarian rebels. As head of the KGB he’d spread fear and terror, trying hard to restore the party’s lost legitimacy. He was more reminiscent of Stalin than any of the latest so-called reformers. His order of no contact among them was nothing unusual. Zorin knew how weaklings curried favor with their superiors by informing on others. Wives spied on husbands, children on their parents, neighbors on neighbors. Far better to never ask questions and have a poor memory. Every word, every act should be chosen with care. Better yet, as Andropov had just ordered, was to say and do nothing at all.
“Beneath your plate is an envelope,” Andropov said. “The orders inside detail your specific operational mission. The method of reporting your success is also detailed. Do not vary from those orders.”
He’d noticed that there had been no mention of failure. That was not an option.
One of the officers reached for his plate.
Andropov stopped him. “Not yet. Break the seal only after you leave here. That way you have no temptation to discuss this among yourselves.”
Everyone sat still.
Zorin understood a need to establish an aura of self-confidence and did not resent the clear subordination being forced upon him by Andropov. He, too, had a gift for intimidating and had played the same game with those under him many times.
“I want you to know, comrades, that what we are about to accomplish will strike America at its core. They think themselves so right, so perfect. But they have flaws. I’ve discovered two of those, and together, at the right time, we will teach America a lesson.”
He liked the sound of that.
And he liked being a part of it.
“Minimum effort, maximum effect. That’s what we want, and that is precisely what you will deliver. This will be the most important operation we have ever undertaken. So, comrades, we must be ready when the moment comes.”
Andropov motioned to the food.
“Now eat. Enjoy yourselves. Then we will begin our work.”
Slowly, over the past two decades, he’d pieced together each of the other three operations. Record declassification and the simple fact that the Soviet Union was no more had made his task easier. But there’d been precious little to find. His own part, Quiet Move, had involved six years of devotion, starting in 1983 with Andropov’s charge and functionally ending in 1989.
Just after the meeting, Andropov had in fact entered the hospital. The ten-year-old American girl he’d mentioned actually visited the Soviet Union, on Andropov’s personal invitation, providing a perfect propaganda opportunity which the Western media had devoured. Andropov himself had been too ill to greet her. Sadly, a few years later, she died in a plane crash, which had allowed for even more pandering. Andropov himself died six months after the gathering at the safe house, serving only fifteen months as general secretary. He was succeeded by Chernenko, a frail, weak man who lasted only thirteen months. Then Gromyko acted as caretaker until Gorbachev finally rose to power in 1985.
All in all, a turbulent few years by Soviet standards. So much confusion with little direction. Yet the four missions had continued. Never was any order issued stopping them. Riding in the plane, listening to the monotonous drone of the jet engines, absorbed in the eerie stillness and quiet, he now knew what all three of the other men had accomplished.
Andropov had done exactly as he’d said, telling the world that the Soviet Union would cease development of a space-based missile defense system. Which, of course, never happened. Secretly, the research continued with rubles spent by the billions. Zorin, and all other KGB assets, continued to work their sources for every scrap of information they could discover on SDI.
Absolute Pin.
Backward Pawn.
Both operatives completed their assigned tasks.
That he knew for certain.
He prided him
self on not having much of a conscience. No good officer could afford such a liability. But the past twenty-five years had caused him to reassess things.
Was that guilt?
Hard to say.
He thought back to that night in Maryland.
And the last time he’d killed a man.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
MARYLAND
Stephanie maintained the illusion of being Mrs. Peter Hedlund, leading Anya Petrova back to the library.
“What is it you’re looking for?” she asked Petrova, concern in her voice.
“Just do as I ask, then I will be gone.”
They entered the library, afternoon sun pouring past open wooden shutters and through sheers that covered a set of French doors. Books filled walnut shelves that consumed two walls.
Petrova motioned, “Sit over there, where I see you.”
Stephanie retreated to a settee and watched as the shelves were carefully examined, Petrova definitely searching for something in particular.
The perusal did not take long.
“It is not here. I must find book your husband knows of. Old book, from the Cincinnati. He is Keeper of Secrets and I must know one of those.”
Her hope had been that Hedlund himself would not have to be involved. Now that seemed impossible.
Petrova pointed the gun her way. “Where is your husband?”
“He should be home soon.”
* * *
Luke had hustled away from Hedlund’s bedroom door, back to the other room where he’d first been hiding. He waited a few seconds, then crept back down the hall to the master suite, where he edged the door open and motioned for Hedlund. The older man still sat in the chair on the far side by the window, his phone call over.
Hedlund rose and stepped lightly toward him.
“We need to head downstairs,” Luke whispered.
They made their way through the second-floor landing to the top of the stairs. He needed to know who’d been on that call earlier without Hedlund becoming suspicious, so he mouthed, Do you have a cell phone?
