by Steve Berry
“Close the door,” Danny said to Luke.
She noticed how the office had changed, the walls bare in places, the array of photographs and memorabilia that Danny liked to scatter everywhere all gone. Thirty-seven hours from now his time behind the Resolute desk would end and a new president would assume power, a man who would decorate the Oval Office to suit his own taste.
“Kind of depressing, isn’t it?” Danny said, noticing her scan of the room.
“It’s what makes this country great,” she said.
Where other nations struggled with transitions of power, here it happened seamlessly. The Constitution originally provided that a president would be elected in November and assume office the following March 4. Eventually, those ensuing four months proved a problem. Seven states seceded during the time between Buchanan’s exit and Lincoln’s arrival. The Great Depression deepened waiting for Roosevelt to take control from Hoover. A lame-duck president, right or wrong, came to be perceived as no more than a default leader, his opinion irrelevant—while the incoming president suffered from not yet being legally empowered to do anything.
The 20th Amendment changed all that, ending a president’s term precisely at noon on January 20. Acts of Congress followed that required the incoming president be provided a full transition team, access to all government services, training for new personnel, and funding to handle any and all costs. She knew what would happen at 12:01 P.M. Sunday, just after President Warner Scott Fox took the oath. Files and records that had not already been removed would immediately be purged. Access codes and passwords would change. New faces would flood into the White House and immediately assume their duties. Even the archives of speeches, press briefings, announcements, and videos concerning the past eight years of the Daniels administration would vanish from the White House’s official website. By 12:05 the transition would be complete, without government ever losing a beat.
“That’s the thing about us,” Danny said. “So civilized. But it’s still damn depressing. And I told my people, no pranks.”
It had become commonplace for the old to leave a few surprises for the new. The most famous was when the Clinton people removed W’s from keyboards before the younger George Bush took the oath.
She sat on a settee with Luke, facing Osin and Edwin Davis. Danny filled a high-backed Tennessee rocker. How many times had she been here? Too many to count. How many crises? More than her share.
And this could be her last.
“You do realize that I no longer carry a security clearance,” she said. “I’m officially a civilian.”
“And Edwin’s looking for a job, Osin may get killed, Luke there, on Monday, has to go to work for somebody else, and I’m a lame duck. We all got our problems.”
She caught his meaning and said, “What’s going on, Nikolai?”
“There’s a division within my government. It’s been there for some time, but what’s happening at the moment seems to have provided some acceleration.”
She listened as he told her how he’d been initially instructed to involve the United States in looking for the archivist Vadim Belchenko. The order had come straight from the Kremlin.
“It was thought that, by involving you, it would be clear that we have no part in what Zorin might be doing. The people who issued that order wanted America to know this had nothing to do with Russia. Most likely, whatever Zorin is after doesn’t even exist any longer, so there was deemed no harm in bringing you into the process. You would find Belchenko, stop Zorin, and all at our request.”
“A way to show us you’re to be trusted?” Luke asked.
Osin nodded. “Precisely. But there is another faction inside the Kremlin who did not agree with this course.”
“The problem is,” Danny said, “that what Zorin is after could damn well still be out there.”
“And that other faction,” Osin said, “wants what may be out there for themselves.”
Earlier in the day, in the car, Osin had told her some of this. And Edwin had been coy the two times they’d talked on the phone since. That she could understand, not wanting to broadcast anything over an open cell line. But here, in one of the safest places on earth, she had to know. So she looked Osin’s way and asked, “Tell me exactly what it is that’s still out there.”
“Five portable nuclear devices, planted by the KGB in the 1980s. The final part of an operation called Fool’s Mate. These could still be operational.”
Nothing about that sounded good.
“That division within my government,” Osin said. “The main faction controls much of the SVR and the high military command. They are not progressives, or communists, but something worse. They have little allegiance to anything except what furthers their own personal goals. They live well within the new Russia. Once they learned of Fool’s Mate and that it may still be active, they ordered your two agents gone. Then they ordered Zorin’s plane be shot down. But your Mr. Malone interfered with that when he allowed Zorin to escape.”
“Cotton and Cassiopeia are now on Prince Edward Island,” Danny said. “Dealing with Zorin. I told them to bird-dog him. Give him space, but see where he’s headed. We checked, the old KGB contact Zorin is looking for lives there. A damn sleeper spy who worked right here in this town for years, undetected.”
“The problem now,” Osin said, “is that my side of this internal struggle no longer controls things. The others have it, and there is no predicting what they might do. They see what Zorin is doing as advantageous to them, in some perverse way.”
“What exactly is Fool’s Mate?” she asked.
“I truly don’t know. But whatever it entails, it’s enough to attract an immense amount of attention.”
“The bad thing,” Danny said, “is they don’t seem to need Zorin anymore, as evidenced by the kill order. That means they think they know enough. But we need him.”
“It could be,” Osin said, “that this man Kelly is the key. He alone might know the bombs’ location. So far, I have no indication that anyone in Moscow has that information.”
“How bad is this government division?” she asked.
“Significant enough that I am disobeying a direct order and telling you everything. This is compete and total madness. What they think can be accomplished by keeping all of this secret, I have no idea.”
“Zorin apparently does,” Luke said. “He’s zeroed in on this for a reason. That man has a plan. He sent Petrova here for a specific purpose. Zorin knows far more than they think he does.”
Osin seemed to agree. “It was unfortunate Petrova was killed. Do you have an alternative plan to discover what it is she was after?”
Though this man seemed forthcoming and truthful, thirty years in the intelligence business had taught her to keep things close. Trust, but verify. That was Reagan’s motto and she did not disagree. And she’d noticed that no one else had mentioned the Tallmadge journal.
“Before you arrived,” Edwin said, “Mr. Osin informed us that SVR assets here and in Canada have been placed on full alert.”
“They intend to stop Zorin,” Osin said. “Then, my guess is they will secure Kelly and whatever there is to find to themselves. That means everyone is at risk.”
Her mind snapped to Canada. “Has Cotton been told?”
“I tried,” Edwin said. “But I got only voice mail on his phone.”
One thought shot through her brain.
Was that good or bad?
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Malone assessed the situation and determined that immediate action was necessary. No delay. No caution. Just do something.
Now.
He found his gun, aimed at the window that Cassiopeia was standing below in the bushes, and fired one shot, making sure his bullet had an upward trajectory so that, once inside the house, it would find the ceiling.
* * *
Zorin reacted to the crackle of glass shattering, dropping from his chair and instinctively covering his head. He saw that Kelly had done
the same, both men clearly surprised. He’d been lured to sleep by the calm and quiet. After all, on his approach to the house he’d seen or sensed nothing out of the ordinary.
Yet they were under attack.
* * *
Cassiopeia pocketed the microphone and receiver and found her gun. The shot, then the window breaking had caught her off guard. She flattened onto the ground and stared out through the bushes, seeing Cotton pressed against a thick oak tree and four shadows approaching the house, then scattering in several directions, each carrying a weapon. She surmised that the first shot had to have been Cotton’s way of alerting both her and Zorin.
But who were the new players?
No time at the moment to find out.
Cotton not calling out to her meant that he wanted her presence a secret, since his shot had definitely alerted the attackers that something was in their way.
Automatic weapons fire ripped through the night.
Rounds thudded into the tree where Cotton stood. Thankfully the thick trunk seemed as tough as Kevlar. But she wasn’t going to lie around and let him take all the fire. Her keen eyes studied the four shadows, shifting thirty meters away.
Bare branches overhead stirred in the wind.
Two shadows moved into the open, making for other trees to use as cover.
Time to enter this fight.
* * *
Malone hoped his bullet into the house had worked. At least Zorin and Kelly were now aware that something was happening outside, something that definitely involved them. The enemy of his enemy was a friend. Or at least he hoped that was the case. Regardless, they weren’t sitting ducks any longer. He was taking fire from a shooter to his left, surely designed to keep him pinned while one or more of the others worked around behind him. Unfortunately, he had no way to sneak a look and see what was happening.
But his destruction of the window had also alerted Cassiopeia.
Who now started shooting from the bushes.
* * *
Zorin motioned that he and Kelly should flee the parlor across the floor.
Stay low, he mouthed.
They belly-crawled toward an open archway that led back to the entrance foyer. More shots rang out from outside, but none of the rounds had found its way inside. He heard both automatic fire and single rounds.
Two different shooters?
Going at each other?
* * *
Malone saw one of the shadows lurch backward, then drop to the ground as if his joints had dissolved.
Score one for Cassiopeia.
She always could see great in the dark. The opportunity she’d provided allowed him to determine that two of the gunmen had flanked right, while the remaining one trotted left, toward Kelly’s front door.
He opted for the two on his right.
Then the shadow to his left sprayed a scythe of rounds into the bushes where Cassiopeia lay hidden.
* * *
Zorin rolled into the entrance foyer just as bullets smacked into the exterior wall. The clapboard offered little resistance to the high-powered rounds and many whined their way inside, breaking more glass, ripping fabric, thudding into Sheetrock.
One of the lamps exploded in a shower of sparks.
He covered his head again.
Kelly lay to his left, behind a wall that supported a rounded arch overhead. Though the situation was dangerous, Zorin was back in his element, acutely aware of every sound and movement. His mind clicked off options as his hand crept into the knapsack and withdrew his weapon.
“I still have mine,” Kelly said to him.
Someone kicked at the front door.
He looked up in alarm, then sprang to his feet and assumed a position adjacent to the jamb. The door burst open with a crash of splintering wood, its lock wrenched from the casing. A man, dressed in a black jumpsuit, rushed inside the partially lit entrance, both hands tight on the grip of an automatic rifle. Zorin flexed his shoulders and twisted at the waist, ramming his palm forward with a straight arm, catching the man square in the face. Breath exploded outward and the intruder slumped forward, the hands clinging to the gun but the arms clawing for balance. A knee to the jaw sent the man into a wall, where the body slid along in a marionette’s dance before collapsing to the hardwood floor. Adrenaline flooded through Zorin and knotted his stomach. He’d not done that in a long time. The intruder’s head hung immobile, mouth agape, air being drawn in with short, rapid gasps. He had to know who these men were. He crouched low and dragged his prey away from the open front door, his gun jammed into the man’s neck.
“Who sent you?” he asked.
No fear filled the man’s eyes, but the face contorted in a helpless rage.
Kelly had assumed a position at the door, gun ready, as their training had taught. Good to see that time had not dulled any instincts.
“Who?” he demanded again, yanking the man upright.
“Screw yourself, traitor.”
Anger rushed through him.
Traitor?
Him?
Never.
He pulled the trigger and blew a bullet up through the man’s jaw, the top of the skull exploding out in a vermillion spray.
He’d received his answer.
These men were official.
Probably SVR.
But who was shooting back at them?
* * *
Cassiopeia had anticipated what might happen once her presence became known and had fled her position in the bushes, just after taking down one of the shooters. Good thing. A barrage erupted from another of the shadows, all the rounds directed at her former location. She was now at the rear of the house, crouched, waiting for an opportunity to help Cotton, who remained open and vulnerable. The shooting in her direction had stopped and she caught a glimpse of a shadow disappearing toward the front door.
That would be Zorin’s problem.
Hers was to deal with the two who had turned their attention to Cotton.
* * *
Malone darted left and decided to do some flanking of his own. Darkness was both an enemy and an ally, but his opponents carried weapons that spit out rounds by the hundreds. He had a Beretta with a full magazine, but unless he used his head it was no match for their firepower.
He hid behind a spindly fir, ears straining to catch sound, eyes searching for movement, anything that might betray their position. He kept his sights on the men and his ears on the bushes from which Cassiopeia should emerge. He hoped she’d had the foresight to get the hell out of there. She was smart and capable and never would she make that kind of rookie mistake. So he had to assume she was somewhere at the rear of the house. One of the shadows had hustled toward the front door and he’d heard wood being forced open, then a single round from inside, which might mean that Zorin or Kelly had scored a kill.
He rounded the tree, keeping the trunk between himself and where he thought danger may lurk. Everything had gone dead-quiet, which was not necessarily a good thing. A few lights had appeared in windows of the other houses on the street and he wondered if the police had been called.
One of the shadows revealed himself.
Thirty feet away.
Behind another tree.
A bright spittle of flame emitted as rounds zipped his way.
He pressed his body close to the thick trunk, counted to three, then swung around and fired twice, taking the shooter down.
“Drop the gun,” a male voice said from behind.
He stood still.
“I will not say again. Drop the gun.”
He had no choice, so he released his grip and allowed the weapon to fall into the grass. He turned around to see the fourth shooter, his rifle leveled and aimed.
* * *
Zorin heard more shots from outside, the same sequence of rapid fire, then single rounds.
“We must leave,” he said to Kelly.
“I need to go upstairs for a moment. There are things we’ll need.”
He nodded and Kel
ly rushed off.
For the first time in a long while he was confused. No one should know that he was here. Only Belchenko could have betrayed him, and he doubted that was the case. And to whom? Belchenko hated the new Russia as much as he did, and there’d been no indication that Moscow was even aware of what he was doing. Only the American Malone had been a problem—which had raised red flags—but he was certainly long dead.
So who was outside?
He kept a close watch on the open front door, ready to shoot anything that moved. Kelly reappeared on the stairs and hustled down, holding a small travel bag. Like any good asset, he’d prepared for an emergency. Just like himself with his own knapsack.
“Money, passport, spare magazines,” Kelly whispered. “Some other things we’re going to need, too.”
“Where are we going?”
“To finish Fool’s Mate.”
* * *
Cassiopeia realized that Cotton remained vulnerable. She’d heard more shooting, especially the two single rounds. Then she heard a voice that was not Cotton’s ordering for a gun to drop. She used that moment to swing back around the house and follow the hedge line toward where two shadows stood, one facing her way, the other with his back in her direction. She stayed low and led with her weapon, keeping her steps light. A freshened breeze, which helped mask her approach, caused limbs overhead to shake in protest.
“Who do you work for?” the voice said.
“I could ask you the same thing.”
Cotton answering.
The tone louder, meaning he was the one facing her.
“You do realize,” Cotton said, “that you’re probably all alone here.”
“As are you.”
“Then let’s figure out why we’re both here. We might each learn something.”
Cotton could surely see her, so he was stalling. Good. Keep it up. Just a few more meters.
“Zorin is in that house,” Cotton said.
“He will not go far.”
* * *
Malone could see Cassiopeia as she inched closer to the man who stood ten feet away. He was trying hard to buy her time.
“I know why you folks are after Zorin,” he said. “And if I know, guess who else knows? The people in Washington are all over this.”
