by Steve Berry
Whether trouble awaited him he did not know.
But he was ready.
* * *
Malone absorbed every detail of the pickup truck stopping in front of Jamie Kelly’s residence. Cassiopeia sat beside him in the car that had been waiting for them at the local airport when their two French fighter jets landed. Edwin Davis, true to his word, had taken care of all ground preparations. They’d been delayed a little in flight by some weather over Greenland, but had still arrived a solid half hour before Zorin’s plane passed over the island.
Canadian air traffic controllers, working with the Royal Mounted Police, had watched the jet carefully, noting a deviation in its flight path that avoided Nova Scotia and found Prince Edward Island’s north coast. Whether Zorin jumped was impossible to say, but Malone had assumed all along that would be his path. Less chance of discovery that way, even though a night leap from a fast-moving aircraft would take every skill of a spetsnaz-trained warrior, plus a little luck. If the jump somehow killed Zorin, then this was all over. If not, the ex-KGB operative would come straight here.
And that’s exactly what had happened.
“It’s him,” he said to Cassiopeia, studying Zorin through night-vision binoculars that had been waiting in the car, along with two Berettas and spare magazines.
They’d parked in one of the driveways lining the long street, hoping the occupants of the dark house were not home. That way they were just another unnoticed car, one of several in other driveways, nothing to arouse Zorin’s suspicions. A small slit from an open window leaked in cold air and kept the windows from fogging.
“What now?” she asked.
He slid down in the seat, leaning his head against the door frame.
“We wait.”
* * *
Zorin approached the front door, bright on both sides from curtained sidelights. The porch was columned and covered by an extension that jutted from the second story, the eight windows on three sides above glowing a burnt amber from inside lights. What sounded like opera played beyond the door.
He knocked loud enough to be heard.
The music dimmed.
He heard the scrape of soles on a hard floor and the sound of a bolt being withdrawn. The man who peered out through the rectangular strip of light between the door and the jamb was mid-sixties, a short gray beard adorning his chin. The last time he’d seen the face, in the safe house with Andropov, the hair had been black. Now it was thin, gray, and receding. The jowls bore a solid two-day stubble, the teeth still showing a tiny gap between the front two, just as he remembered.
“Hello, comrade,” he said.
The Russian who’d assumed the Western alias of Jamie Kelly appraised him with a studied glare.
Then a chilling smile came to Kelly’s thin lips.
One that signaled recognition.
“Aleksandr Zorin. I’ve been waiting a long time for you to come.”
* * *
Cassiopeia watched as Zorin entered the house and the door closed to the night. She was glad to be back with Cotton. This was where she belonged. They’d yet to have an opportunity to fully talk, only the short exchange back in France. Everything was happening so fast, and they’d not been alone, except for the past half hour here in the car. So she’d offered him no excuses, made no appeals for sympathy or forbearance, just acknowledged again that she’d been wrong, opening herself to a rebuff that he could have easily delivered.
But he hadn’t.
Instead, he’d accepted her admissions with grace and acknowledged mistakes of his own.
“Looks like the gang’s all here,” Cotton said.
She knew exactly what they were facing, thanks to Cotton’s call to the White House. Like a hunt, she’d thought. The kind her father once enjoyed. Several times he’d taken her with him to watch as he gave the deer a wide berth, following, but not too close, just enough to know exactly what the animal might do, waiting for the right moment to take a shot. And though hunting game was not her thing, she’d loved the time with her father. She and Cotton had followed this deer all the way from Siberia, even stopping another hunter from killing him.
“I’m assuming,” she said, “that we’re not just going to sit here.”
He smiled at her. “As impatient as ever.”
“We could make out?”
“Now, that’s a thought. And as tempting as the prospect is, we have a job to do.” He reached to the backseat and grabbed a duffel bag that had been there when they first climbed into the car.
“I wasn’t sure what would happen, but I decided to be prepared.”
He unzipped the top and rummaged through, removing a small electronic unit along with a cord. “We’ll need to attach this microphone to one of the windows. Then we can listen in. Not exactly state-of-the-art, but it should get the job done.”
“I assume one of us will be doing the attaching?”
“Seems like the perfect job for you.”
“And you?”
“I’ll be watching your backside.”
She tossed him a mischievous smile of her own.
“I bet you will.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Luke drove the Escape as he and Stephanie left Annapolis. Peter Hedlund would remain in the hospital for a couple more days.
“I made sure that Petrova’s death would remain a secret,” he told her. “The Maryland State Police agreed to cooperate, after the Secret Service intervened and slapped national security all over it.”
He liked having the White House as an ally.
“They’ll be saying publicly only that the victim is unidentified.”
He could see that his former boss was tired, and could sympathize. It was approaching midnight and they’d had a long day.
“I promised Fritz Strobl I’d return his car in one piece,” she said. “I appreciate your not wrecking it.”
“I assume we’re going to see Larry Begyn?” he asked.
“First thing tomorrow. I think we both need some sleep. Cotton has Zorin under control, and things here are at an impasse. I called Edwin and told him that some rest seems in order.”
On that he could not argue.
Her cell phone vibrated.
She checked the display and he heard her say, “This is not going to be good.”
She answered the call.
“You’re ignoring me,” Danny Daniels said through the speaker.
“Your chief of staff knows it all.”
“I want to hear it from you. Directly.”
“You’re not going to like it.”
“You have no idea how much I do not like at the moment.”
Luke listened as she recounted the events of the past few hours, ending with Petrova’s death and Hedlund’s revelations. His uncle then told them the details about Cotton being in Canada with Zorin. For Luke, any man who could make a night jump into unknown territory from a high-speed jet commanded a high measure of respect. He’d done it twice while a Ranger, both harrowing experiences.
“But we’ve got a new problem,” the president said.
He didn’t like the solemn tone.
“Moscow has gone nuts.”
* * *
Malone led the way as he and Cassiopeia crossed the dark street toward Jamie Kelly’s house. Edwin Davis had located the address and provided some sketchy background info.
Kelly was sixty-four years old and once worked at Georgetown University as an assistant dean of students, serving the university with distinction from 1993 to 2005. He then moved to Canada, settling on Prince Edward Island, finding part-time work at the local university. No criminal record. His credit history was exemplary, and he’d never appeared on any watch list or radar screen. If Kelly had indeed been a Soviet mole, he’d apparently been damn good at what he did since not even a hint of suspicion had ever been directed his way. Once the Cold War was long gone, historians had learned that the KGB infiltrated nearly every society around the world. The United States ranked as
their top priority, so there was little doubt officers were there. Occasionally, a name would pop up, an identity revealed, but by and large those assets had come and gone undetected. Little of that mattered anymore since, in theory, Russia and the United States were no longer enemies. Sometimes, though, that amicability could be difficult to see since old habits tended to die hard.
The crisp night air chilled his nostrils and parched his throat. Both he and Cassiopeia wore clothing loaded with Gore-Tex the French had provided. Darkness offered excellent cover, the quiet rural neighborhood bedded down for the night.
They found the end of a thick hedge that bordered the house and carefully made their way down a narrow alley between bushes and wall to the light from a ground-floor window. A murmur of voices could be heard inside. He risked a quick peek and saw Zorin and another man, with a goatee, sitting in a parlor. He nodded and watched as Cassiopeia found the listening device and carefully pressed its suction cup to the window’s lower-left corner. Its cord was already plugged into the receiver.
She inserted an earpiece and signaled that all was good.
He retreated.
But kept alert for any trouble.
* * *
Zorin admired Kelly’s home, which was like a double house with rooms laid out symmetrically on either side of a central hall. Wooden details such as ceiling rosettes, cornices, fluted molding, and arches all seemed crafted with skill and precision. The décor was likewise impressive, with lots of art on the walls and sculptures on the tables. The room where they sat in overstuffed chairs had a bay window that faced the front of the house and one on the side. His knapsack rested on the floor near his feet. Radiators and a raging fire inside a period hearth provided welcomed heat, and he caught a faint scent of eucalyptus in the warm air.
“It’s been a long time,” Kelly said in perfect English.
Small talk did not interest him. “Why have you been waiting for me?”
“I miss the old days. Do you miss them?”
He told himself that this man was no amateur. Instead, he’d been successfully embedded deep within Western society, which required a measure of patience and skill. Of the three, he’d always known this one would be the greatest challenge. “The old days are why I am here.”
“I thought you were dead,” Kelly said. “Nearly everyone else is gone. It saddens me to think about them. We did some great things, Aleksandr.”
“Do you live here alone?”
Kelly nodded. “It is my one regret. I never married. Too risky. There were lots of girls, most not smart or pretty, but willing. Momentary diversions. But I’m a bit old for that now. How about you? Did you find someone?”
“My wife died,” he said, keeping Anya to himself.
“It’s not good, for either of us, to have no one. I spend most of my time reading.”
“Why do you live in Canada?”
“I visited here once many years ago and decided that if I survived and wasn’t shot or jailed, that this would be where I would retire. You understand what I’m saying, don’t you? No way to know when or if they’ll come for you. No way to know who compromised or gave you up. They just appear, with guns and badges, and then you disappear. Amazingly, that hasn’t happened to me. But I have to say, to hear your knock a few minutes ago sent a chill through me. It’s a bit late for visitors.”
“You live well,” he said, motioning to the air of affluence the room projected.
And what he’d not said hung in the air.
Like a capitalist.
“When the Soviet Union disappeared, I thought it time for me to blend totally into the West.”
“You could have come back home.”
“To what? Nothing I knew existed anymore.”
On that they agreed. “So you became the enemy?”
Kelly smiled. “I wish it were that simple, Aleksandr. To everyone around me I was an American, so I simply kept playing the part.”
“You were sent to spy.”
Kelly shrugged. “That was my original mission, and the position at the university in DC gave me access to a lot of people. I knew an assistant to the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, another at the Rand Corporation, a friend worked at the Brookings Institute, and I had many colleagues in the State Department. I was the perfect mole, the last person you’d ever suspect as a spy. I did my job, until my job mattered no longer.”
Time to get to the point. “Fool’s Mate. Did you complete it?”
“And if I did, are you here to kill me, too?” Kelly’s right hand slipped behind his back, beneath an untucked shirt, then reappeared holding a revolver. “You don’t think I would answer the door this late at night and not be armed. I assure you, comrade, I will not be as easy as the other two.”
Zorin sat still and tried to arrange his impressions into some sort of judgment. This had to go right. “How did you know?”
“Because I’m a trained officer of the KGB, just like you,” Kelly said in Russian. “I pay attention.”
Only here, within the confines of this home, shrouded in the lateness of the hour and a cold darkness outside, would either of them speak in their native tongue. But it seemed fitting, so he kept to it and declared, “I’m not here to kill you.”
“Then what?”
“I want to complete what Andropov intended. That plan has remained dormant far too long.”
“My orders were explicit. I was not to report anything, except to Andropov himself.”
“My orders indicated that you were to report to me.”
Kelly chuckled. “I would assume that was for your detriment.”
Then he realized. Once he’d reported the success of Absolute Pin and Backward Pawn, he would have been eliminated.
Leaving only Kelly and Andropov.
With the bombs.
“I reported the second kill,” he said. “But no one by then knew what I was talking about.”
“Because Andropov was gone, and it didn’t matter to anyone else. Surely, comrade, you can see that all of that is long past.” Kelly’s voice drifted off, as though weary of jousting at lost theories and forgotten ideals. “Nothing you and I ever knew still exists. In fact, all that may be left is you and I. We are probably the only people left on this planet who even know what Fool’s Mate entails.”
“I’ve waited a long time to pay the West back,” he said. “They destroyed us, and I’ve searched hard for a way to extract some measure of retribution. Until yesterday, I did not know if you were still alive. So I have come a long way to enlist your help. You have the method and I can provide the means. Together, we can implement Fool’s Mate.”
Kelly was listening, that much was clear.
So he asked, “Do you remember what Andropov said that night, at the end, in the safe house?”
Kelly nodded. “Every word.”
So did he.
“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. 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.”
“That moment has come,” he said. “I don’t know it all, but I know enough.”
Kelly stayed silent, but lowered the gun.
A gesture of trust?
“You realize that it may no longer be possible,” Kelly said.
He kept his optimism in check, but made clear, “It’s a chance I’m willing to take. Are you?”
* * *
Cassiopeia had listened carefully, noticing the shift from English to Russian. The tone of the two men changed also, from cautious to conspiratorial. She’d also risked a look and saw as Kelly lowered a gun he’d been aiming at Zorin. She now realized that Cotton had assigned her the listening dutie
s on the off chance that these two would revert to Russian.
Always thinking.
That was another thing she loved about him.
“I’ve been ready for more than twenty years,” Kelly said. “I’ve done my duty.”
“Then, comrade, tell me what I need to know.”
* * *
Malone kept one eye on Cassiopeia in the bushes near the house and the other on the street. He stood in the front lawn. His exhales hung before him in the cold air. Zorin certainly would not expect that he was being watched, and definitely not by the same American agent he’d last seen cuffed to an iron pipe in his basement. Their paths to this Canadian house had taken two totally different courses. Five suitcase-sized nuclear devices secreted away somewhere on American soil? He couldn’t imagine how such a thing could have escaped detection but, unfortunately, border security in the 1980s and 1990s was nothing like today. Governments were not watching with the same intensity that the war of terrorism had taught was necessary. He’d reported all that he knew to the White House, so he assumed things were happening on Stephanie’s end. But the quickest route to those hidden nukes seemed to be inside Jamie Kelly’s house.
He checked his watch.
Friday had come and gone.
It was now early Saturday morning, Canadian time.
He heard a noise and turned to see a car creeping down the dark street. No headlights cut a swath of light. That was never a good thing. He was hidden behind the trunk of a sturdy oak, its width and girth signaling age. The ground just behind him sloped gently away from the house, toward the river, with more trees between here and there.
The car eased to a stop just short of Kelly’s driveway, right behind Zorin’s truck.
Four dark silhouettes emerged.
Each carried a short-barreled, automatic rifle.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
WASHINGTON, DC
Stephanie led the way into the Oval Office, Luke close on her heels. Danny had told them to come straight here from Annapolis, sleep would have to wait. Inside she spotted the president and his chief of staff, along with one other visitor.
Nikolai Osin.
