The Talbot Odyssey

56

Claudia Lepescu moved quickly down the narrow path that cut diagonally across the face of the cliff. Above, on Van Dorn’s wide lawn, she heard a man shout to her in a British accent. One of Marc Pembroke’s men.

She kicked off her high-heeled shoes and continued down the dark path, faster now, yet fearful she would fall off the ledge. Behind her, she heard two sets of footsteps enter the path.

Claudia reached the bottom of the incline and ran down the laurel-covered slope, picking up speed until she stumbled and fell. The pursuing men heard her cry out and headed toward her. She sprang to her feet and continued until she came to the stockade fence.

Claudia put her palms against the fence and breathed deeply as she stared up at the jagged points of the pickets, silhouetted against the sky like dragon’s teeth. She turned and rested her back against the fence.

The gusting north wind rustled the branches around her, and dark feathery clouds raced across the white face of the moon. To the northeast a bolt of lightning lit up the sky and she saw the shapes of the two men standing motionless in the distance. One of them called out, “Claudia! We won’t hurt you! Claudia—” A roll of thunder shook the ground beneath her feet and drowned out his words.

She turned and moved unsteadily along the wooden wall, but there seemed to be no way through it. She had been told she could climb the fence from this side because of the horizontal braces nailed to the upright pickets, but the fence was nearly twice as tall as she, and it didn’t seem possible. Behind her, she heard footsteps in the loose gravelly soil.

Claudia ran on another fifty yards and stopped to catch her breath. Her feet were cut and she could feel blood oozing into her panty hose. Her black knit dress was snagged in several places, and her face and arms were scratched and bruised. She felt rivulets of warm perspiration running down her body.

Suddenly two flashlight beams sliced through the dark air.

Claudia lowered herself quickly into a crouch behind a small bush. The light beams were searching systematically over the length of the fence and through the laurel behind her. She waited until they passed by, then stood, stepped back for a running start, and ran at the fence. Her feet and hands scrambled and searched for a hold, but the first horizontal brace was too high, and she slipped down, cedar splinters sliding into her skin.

“There you are.” The footsteps approached.

Claudia felt tears forming in her eyes and salty sweat burning her lips. She called out, “I’ve got a gun.”

The footsteps slowed and the lights went out. One of the men said to the other, “Easy now. Circle around.”

Claudia stared up at the fence again. It looked like one of those stockade walls in the cowboy movies. This brought to mind a lasso… She quickly slipped off her panty hose and groped along the ground until she found a good-sized stone. She dropped the stone into the toe of one of the legs, knotted it so it wouldn’t slip out, and clenched the other foot of the hose. She stood, twirled the panty hose above her head, then cast it up at the fence. On the second attempt the stone-weighted toe fell between two pickets and she pulled on it to wedge it tighter, then began her ascent, hand over hand up the nylon rope, her bare feet planted on the fence. The nylon stretched tauter until there was no more slack in it and she feared it would snap.

Her feet found the first cross-brace; she rested a moment, then continued and reached the second brace.

The flashlights went on again; a beam found her and rested on her face. A man shouted, “Stop, or we’ll shoot.” She heard that awful metallic noise of a gun cocking in the night air.

With a last burst of energy, born of fear, she hoisted herself up to the pickets, feeling them dig into her chest and abdomen.

From two different directions she heard the wheezy coughs of silenced guns, followed by the sounds of bullets smacking and splintering the wood below her. The whole fence swayed from the impact. She let out a terrified cry, then closed her eyes and rolled gently over the pickets. Before she was even aware of a sense of falling, she felt the abrupt shock of the earth slapping against her face and chest, knocking the wind from her.

She lay still for some seconds, then sucked the air back into her lungs. She heard noises on the fence and realized she hadn’t pulled the panty hose over with her, and they were using it.

She jumped to her feet and began running. Across the strip of partly cleared right-of-way, a patch of moonlight illuminated the dark low outline of the stone wall that bordered the Russian property. She heard the two men behind her and tried to run faster, heedless of the pain in her feet or the aches in her legs. Her clinging knit dress constricted the movement of her legs and she slowed long enough to pull the dress up and tuck the hem in her belt, then put on a burst of speed.

Pembroke’s two men were gaining, but they were not shooting, calling, or using their flashlights; nor would they, she knew, this close to the Russian property. The stone wall lay twenty feet ahead, then ten, then it was on her suddenly. She thrust her hands out to meet its capstone and vaulted over, hardly breaking stride.

Claudia plunged headlong into the bush beyond the wall. The pace of running footsteps behind her slowed, then halted at the wall. She slowed her own pace and began picking her way more carefully through the rising terrain.

Suddenly, lights blazed on all sides of her and she heard a voice bark in harshly accented English, “Stop! Stop, we shoot!”

She froze.

“Hands on head!”

She did as she was told.

“Kneel!”

She knelt, feeling her bare knees settle on the damp, rotting vegetation. The lights hurt her eyes and she shut them, thinking to herself that perhaps they had orders to shoot her on the spot.

An unnaturally long time passed, then Claudia heard the sound of a revolver cocking.

Pembroke’s two men, Cameron and Davis, stood quietly at the low stone wall. Davis raised a twenty-power Starlight scope and scanned the wooden terrain to his front. The thin light of the cloud-obscured moon and stars was electronically amplified to give a green-tinted picture. Davis adjusted the resolution and focus knobs. “There. They’ve intercepted her… but I can’t make out what’s happening.”

Cameron said, “Let’s go back.” They turned from the stone wall and made their way through the no-man’s-land toward the stockade fence. About five yards from the fence, they circled around a thick stand of boxwood and knelt.

Tony Abrams, also kneeling on one knee, regarded them in the dim light. Unlike conventional soldiers, he thought, whose uniforms and equipment had to serve in many terrains and circumstances, these men were very specifically outfitted for one thing: a short, quick night raid. Their clothing and equipment were patchworked shades of black and gray, their faces dark and inscrutable.

Cameron turned toward Abrams, “Bugs?”

Abrams glanced at the microphone detector on the ground. “No indication.”

Cameron nodded.

Katherine, crouched beside Abrams, whispered to Cameron, “What happened?”

Cameron shrugged. “They grabbed her.”

Davis added, “I couldn’t tell how she was received.”

Abrams said, “I hope they don’t guess we’ve used the chase as a cover to get into position.”

Katherine asked, “When do we cross over?”

Cameron glanced at his watch. “Very soon.”

Davis spoke. “I saw at least five of them. If two escort her back to the house, then we’ve improved our odds a bit.”

Abrams thought that three Russians were three Russians more than he’d care to meet tonight. He regarded Cameron and Davis. Even this close they were nearly invisible, but they exuded menace into the night. Professionally, their equipment impressed him: black hoods and bulletproof vests, first-rate and lightweight survival gear, and everything silenced and blackened.

Abrams glanced at Katherine beside him, similarly clad and equipped, her long blond hair tucked under the raised, hooded mask. She leaned over and whispered in his ear, “I feel confident. These are good men. We’ll be fine.”

Abrams smiled. “I’m sure we will be.”

She kissed him on the cheek.

Cameron pulled a Very flare pistol from his belt and fired into the air. The flare exploded at a hundred feet into an incandescent burst of blue-white. Cameron said to Abrams and Katherine, “That’s the signal that Claudia has crossed over. Van Dorn’s pyro people should acknowledge and cover that flare with more of the same.” As he spoke, a salvo of Very flares burst above them.

Davis said, “Fireworks are a good cover for signal flares. The noise gives us a bit of cover as well.”

Cameron added, “Communication, command, and control are a bit dicey without wireless, but Ivan has got some damned good monitoring equipment and we don’t want to get his guard up.”

Abrams nodded, and thought, If you think we’ve got a communications problem, wait until all the radios in North America go out.

Abrams looked at Cameron and Davis in the dying glow of the flares. When he’d met them in the locker room in Van Dorn’s basement, he’d recognized them from the encounter in the cemetery. He’d been told by Pembroke that they were both former Royal Commandos, both veterans of the Falklands war, recruited by Pembroke when their enlistments ran out. Cameron was a Scotsman, Davis an Englishman. Pembroke, according to Van Dorn, hired only former British soldiers: English, Scottish, Irish, and Welshmen.

Abrams looked up at the sky. The wind was blowing steadier now; a front was passing through. The gray wispy clouds scudded at high speed across the sky, moving north to south. The air was cooling and had the smell of rain. Toward the far northeast, across the Long Island Sound, toward Connecticut, the thunder rolled, and the lightning flashed at widely spaced intervals. He remembered what Van Dorn said at the final pep talk: “If the entire sky lights up in the West, you’ll know it’s happened. Your mission will no longer be a preventive strike but an avenging strike. Press on. Take as many with you as you can. There’s no longer any reason to come home.”

It was difficult for Abrams to reconcile the genteel public image of O’Brien, Van Dorn, and their friends with their propensity to engage in political murder and commando raids.

Katherine broke into his thoughts. “Tony, look.”

Abrams followed her gaze upward. A huge rocket rose slowly into the air, its fiery plume oscillating as the wind caught it. Suddenly the entire rocket erupted into a huge fireball, unlike any display rocket Abrams had ever seen. The night air was shattered with the explosion, and Abrams even felt the shock waves and saw the trees shake. Seconds later, smaller rockets began bursting with loud reverberating explosions. Van Dorn’s pole-mounted loudspeakers, about two hundred yards back, crackled, then Abrams heard the opening notes of “My Country ’tis of Thee,” or, as his companions would call it, “God Save the Queen.” Abrams thought, Nice touch, George.

Cameron and Davis stood, followed by Abrams and Katherine. Cameron spoke above the noise. “Single file. Ten-foot intervals. Look sharp, now. We’re crossing over.”

Abrams had never heard anyone actually say that except in British war movies. He glanced at Katherine. She winked and gave him a thumbs-up, then pulled her hood over her face.

The file moved out. Objective: the communications room in the attic of the Russian mansion. The distance was about half a mile, but Abrams thought the last few yards or so up the attic stairs — if they got that far — would be, as Cameron would say, a bit dicey.

He wondered if he’d meet Androv again. He wouldn’t mind meeting Alexei Kalin. Or Peter Thorpe, for that matter. He wondered how Katherine felt about the possibility of coming face-to-face with her father.

The Fates and Furies are loose tonight, he thought, borne along on the winds of the gathering storm. And all the currents of time and history are converging on that hilltop house beyond the next tree line.

As for himself, he remembered that the Fates led the willing and dragged the unwilling.

57

Karl Roth drove southbound on Dosoris Lane for a quarter of a mile, then signaled to pull into the driveway of the Russian estate.

The traffic patrolman recognized Roth and his catering van and waved him in. Roth turned right and bumped across the sidewalk between rows of police barriers toward the guardhouse, which was about thirty feet up the drive. He approached the small lighted house, bringing the van to a halt abreast of the front door. His hands and legs were shaking badly.

Two Russian guards, wearing sidearms, appeared farther up the drive and stood in a blocking position. Roth shut off his headlights and rolled down his window. From the guardhouse door emerged a man in civilian clothes. The man stood on the stoop a few feet from the van. Roth cleared his throat and greeted the man in English. “How are you, Bunin?”

Bunin replied, also in English, “What are you doing here, Roth? They said later.”

Roth stuck his head out the window. “I had to come now.”

Bunin leaned forward and rested his hands on the window frame. He peered into the cab. “Where is your wife? They said she would be with you.”

“She’s still at Van Dorn’s.”

The Russian stared at Roth. “You stink of whisky, and you look terrible.”

Roth didn’t reply.

Bunin said in a whisper, “They have us on full alert. Do you know anything?”

Roth shrugged. “You think they tell me anything, Bunin?”

Bunin made a contemptuous sound, then said, “What do you have for us?”

Roth licked his lips and looked toward the guardhouse. Through the window was a young man in uniform sitting at the desk, writing. The two guards on the drive were a few feet from the van. He glanced in his sideview mirror and noticed that the gates and road weren’t visible from this angle in the drive.

“Roth!”

Karl Roth flinched. “Yes… yes, I have blinis, caviar, and sour cream. The rear doors.”

Bunin signaled the two guards and they moved quickly to the rear of the van.

Marc Pembroke crouched to the side of the left-hand door, which was locked. He held a pistol pointed at the back of Roth’s head. A canvas tarp in the center of the floor covered a stack of boxes, and between the boxes lay two of Pembroke’s men, Sutter and Llewelyn. In a large built-in side chest lay Ann Kimberly.

The unlocked right-hand door opened, and the two guards seized the thermal containers of food.

Pembroke glanced quickly to his right. One man’s arm was less than three feet from his foot. Pembroke looked at Roth and saw he was observing the Russian guards and Pembroke through his rearview mirror. If Roth was going to betray them, it would be now. But Roth seemed paralyzed with terror.

The rear door slammed shut, and Pembroke heard the guards’ footsteps retreating toward the guardhouse.

Bunin said to Roth, “Wait here. I must call the house and see if they want you so early.”

Roth didn’t reply.

Pembroke whispered, “Now.”

Llewelyn and Sutter threw the tarp off as Ann Kimberly emerged from the chest. Pembroke threw open both rear doors and the four black-clad people jumped to the drive, tore around the side of the van, and burst into the small front room of the guardhouse.

The two Russian guards still carrying the thermal containers glanced back over their shoulders, their mouths and eyes wide open. The young uniformed man behind the desk stood and stared. Bunin, his left hand on the wall telephone, stood beside the desk. Ann shouted in Russian, “Don’t move!”

Bunin’s right hand shot inside his jacket.

Pembroke fired a short burst from his silenced M-16. The bullets slammed into Bunin, throwing him back against the wall. He stood for a split second, took a step forward and toppled, falling against the legs of the young man who had his hands in the air. The two guards had dropped the thermal containers and they’d burst open, scattering blinis, sour cream, and caviar over the wooden planking. Bunin seemed to be staring at the mess, watching the crimson tide of his blood creeping toward the food.

Ann gave a series of sharp orders. Within minutes the three surviving Russians were lying in a rear room, bound and gagged. Sutter stood beside the van and kept an eye on Roth and the driveway. Llewelyn checked Bunin’s pulse, found there was none, and sat Bunin up behind the desk so that any official car driving by would see someone in the window.

Pembroke found the logbook in a desk drawer and took it. The four people moved quickly back to the van. Pembroke said to Roth, “That was a fine performance, Karl. I suppose the schnapps helped a bit. Headlights on. Move!”

Roth’s shaking hands turned on the headlights and put the van in gear.

Ann knelt beside Pembroke and scanned the logbook with a penlight. “There’s a commo check and sit rep every thirty or forty minutes. Bunin entered the last one ten minutes ago, so they may not be missed for a while.”

Pembroke nodded.

No one spoke as the van moved slowly up the S-curved gravel drive. Sutter watched out the rear-door windows. Llewelyn peered over the seat and watched out the windshield. Ann flipped a few pages of the log and said, “Peter Thorpe was logged in about two hours ago. Still in there.”

Pembroke nodded again.

Ann glanced at Pembroke, then said, “Orders from Androv to arrest Karl and Maggie Roth when they arrive.” She winked at Pembroke and he smiled, then turned to Roth. “Did you hear that?”

Roth nodded but said nothing.

Ann turned a page. “Oh… here’s something… the officer of the guard comes around at random intervals and signs the log. Last time he was at the gate was… almost an hour ago. He may come by at any—”

Roth made a sound and everyone turned. Through the windshield they saw a single headlight shining on the trees around the bend. Pembroke barked at Roth, “Keep moving until you get within ten feet, then stop.” Pembroke and the other three got down behind the front seats. The interior of the van was illuminated by the oncoming headlight.

Pembroke put his pistol to the back of Roth’s neck. “What is it?”

Roth’s voice was quavering. “It’s the guard officer. He rides in an open Lambretta… with a driver—”

Pembroke said, “Don’t give him room to pass.”

Roth nodded and felt the silencer rub the nape of his neck. He centered the vehicle on the narrow drive and came to a stop. The Lambretta also stopped. The driver called out in Russian.

Ann whispered to Pembroke, “He wants to know what the hell Roth thinks he’s doing.”

Pembroke said to Roth, “All right, back up slowly and let him pass on the right side.”

Roth put the van in reverse and began edging back. The Russian driver gunned the small three-wheeled vehicle and headed toward the space on the right between the van and the stone-bordered drive.

Pembroke opened the sliding door on the right of the van as the small vehicle with the surrey top came into view. The driver sat in the single front seat holding the handlebars, the guard officer sat in the back double seat. Both men heard and saw the door slide open and turned. As the Lambretta drew abreast of the open door, the two Russians stared up into the muzzles of two automatic rifles, not three feet away. The driver let out a startled cry. Both auto matic rifles spit fire and coughed. The driver was thrown out of the open vehicle, still grabbing the handlebars and taking the unbalanced Lambretta over with him. The guard officer scrambled from under the Lambretta and stood, clutching his chest. He stumbled toward the trees, staggered, and fell.

Pembroke and Llewelyn jumped down from the van, administered the coup de grace to the Russians with a single shot to their heads, then dragged them into the trees. Sutter helped them right the Lambretta and roll it through the tree line. The three men jumped back in the van. “Move out.”

Roth put the van in gear and the wheels crunched slowly through the gravel.

Ann broke the silence. “I suppose we couldn’t have let them go past.”

Pembroke regarded her for a moment. “No, they were going right for the guardhouse.”

She said, “We could have captured them.”

Pembroke replied curtly, “We’re running a bit late.”

Llewelyn added, “That was a break to run into them. There’ll be other guard posts put out of business tonight and we don’t want a mobile officer of the guard running about checking his posts.”

Ann didn’t reply.

Pembroke said to her, “This is new to you, I know. Later, if things don’t work out for us, you’ll wish we’d taken a few more with us. This is a bloody awful business. But it is a business.”

The van completed the final turn in the rising S-curved drive and the Russian mansion came into view, silhouetted against the turbulent sky. A few windows were lit on the first and second floors, and all the attic gables were lit. Pembroke remarked, “Ivan is working late tonight.”

Sutter turned from the rear-door windows and said, “We’ll put their lights out and lay them down to sleep.”

Pembroke nodded, then said, “How are you holding up, Karl?”

Roth drew a deep breath and nodded, but said nothing. He glanced at his dashboard clock and wondered when they would begin dying of the poison. He hoped it was soon.

The van entered the long forecourt and turned toward the house.

Pembroke said, “Ladies and gentlemen, before you is Killenworth. We’ll stop here awhile and stretch our legs. Don’t forget to take your rifles with you.”

Roth shook his head. Madness.

58

Tom Grenville considered himself a good company man, and he understood that in the oblique style of corporate communication, suggestions from superiors were in fact orders, much like when he was a lieutenant JG in the Navy. The captain’s wish is your command.

So when George Van Dorn had commented that golf was not a sport he approved of, Tom Grenville had given it up, though he loved golf.

But George was not really an unfair or arbitrary person. He had a constructive alternative: Guns, not golf clubs, he declared, belonged in the hands of a man. Consequently, Grenville had taken up skeet shooting, hunting, and competition target shooting.

Then, one day at lunch about a year ago, Grenville recalled, O’Brien and Van Dorn had asked him if he had ever considered parachuting. Grenville had no more considered parachuting than he’d considered shooting Niagara Falls in a barrel, but he’d answered enthusiastically in the affirmative.

When the moment of truth had come, Grenville had some understandable reservations about his first jump. He realized, however, that almost all the old OSS crew were former paratroopers, and many, like O’Brien, still jumped. Formerly closed doors would be open to a young man who could share a jump with Patrick O’Brien and his friends.

Van Dorn had seemed pleased, and so had O’Brien and the other senior partners in the firm. Grenville now knew why.

He looked around the dimly lit cabin of the big Sikorsky amphibious rescue helicopter. The jumpmaster, Barney Farber, was an old friend of O’Brien’s and Van Dorn’s, and Farber’s company, one of the Long Island defense-related electronics firms, actually owned the former Navy Sikorsky.

Two more old boys sat on the bench opposite him: Edgar Johnson, a recently retired paratroop general, and Roy Hallis, a semiretired CIA agent.

This entire operation, Grenville understood, had been planned and was being controlled by the old boys. And it would not be complete without a few of them along for the actual flight. Grenville glanced at Johnson and Hallis in the weak light. They were both World War II vets, but they didn’t look much past sixty. This was their last mission, their last jump, he thought. Perhaps it was the last time the OSS alumni would directly participate in an operation. Even they got too old to make combat jumps. Grenville found himself staring at them. They looked psychologically prepared for a firefight, which was more than Grenville could say for himself.

In fact, he felt queasy. The Sikorsky, sitting on its pontoons in the middle of Long Island Sound, was rocking badly. The wind had picked up and waves slapped against the hull. Grenville had never been seasick on a parachute jump before.

Next to Grenville sat two of Pembroke’s people: Collins and Stewart. They looked particularly gruesome in black, he thought.

Stewart, sitting next to him, said, “Have you ever done a night jump, lad?”

Grenville had done one at O’Brien’s suggestion. He answered, “A few.”

Stewart said, “It’s easier from a stationary helicopter.”

“Yes—”

“Except in weather like this. A fixed-wing aircraft will hold fairly steady. A chopper can roll and yaw.”

Grenville nodded unhappily.

Stewart went on, “It’s like trying to jump off a pitching boat. Be careful you don’t collide with the pontoon. Saw that happen to a lad once in the South Atlantic.”

Grenville nodded again. The South Atlantic, he’d learned, meant the Falklands. Stewart seemed intimately knowledgeable about every mishap and calamity that could befall a human being.

Stewart added, “Broke his neck.”

Grenville felt his stomach heave, but took comfort in the fact that the greasepaint hid the true color his face had probably turned.

Collins lit a cigar and the smoke filled the cabin. He spoke in a strong Irish brogue. “This wind’ll blow yer arse all over the feckin’ terrain if ye pop yer chute too soon, lad.”

Grenville nodded miserably.

Collins advised, “Wait till the last second, then give it another few seconds to be sure, then say a quick Hail Mary and pull yer cord.” He laughed.

The jumpmaster put his hands over his headphones, listened, then spoke into his mouthpiece. “Roger.” He stood and said, “The word is go.” He ducked into the cockpit, tapped the pilot, and gave a thumbs-up. The Sikorsky’s idling engine revved with a deafening roar.

Grenville felt the big bird straining to break water, then the rocking stopped as the hull and pontoons cleared the turbulent sea. The rocking was replaced by a swaying motion as the Sikorsky ascended into the wind. Grenville turned his head and peered through the large square window behind him. They were already at a hundred-feet altitude, but his stomach was still at sea level.

Stewart spoke over the roar of the engine. “Damned moon’s three-quarter full and the clouds are too thin to mask it. They’ll spot us for sure, Tom.”

Grenville pressed his fingers against his eyes.

Stewart added ominously, “I could do without the damned lightning, too. Ever seen a chutist hit by lightning, Tom?”

“Not recently.”

“What’s that, lad? Can’t hear you!”

Grenville stared at him for a few seconds, then shouted, “I said I love to jump at night in a fucking storm! I love it!”

Collins roared with delight, “Oh, Tom, me boy, we’ll make a commando of you before the night’s out.”

Grenville stood and moved to the door. He held on to the airframe and stared out into the night as the helicopter rose higher through the turbulence. He didn’t want to be a commando. He wanted to be a senior partner in the firm, and he was willing to work hard to achieve his goal. But sometimes Van Dorn and O’Brien asked too much. A night jump into an armed enemy position was really too much.

59

Joan Grenville paced around the small cellar room, lit brightly with rows of fluorescent tubes. Above was an enclosed tennis court that had once been part of Killenworth but now belonged to the local YMCA. A high chain link fence, topped with barbed wire, separated the Christians from the atheists.

Joan remembered that Tom had mentioned that the FBI supposedly headquartered themselves in the Y’s main building, but she’d seen no sign of anyone but the OSS.

Stanley Kuchik, sprawled on a large crate, watched her pacing. “You scared, Mrs. Grenville?”

She shot a glance at him. “For the tenth fucking time, call me Joan, and for the fifth fucking time, yes, I’m scared.”

Stanley had never heard an older woman swear like this one did. In fact, there was a lot about Joan Grenville that interested him. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye. The black body-suit fitted like skin. He said, “Hey, you can stay here if you want. I can handle this.”

Joan gritted her teeth. “Stanley… stop treating me like… an adolescent. I am a grown woman. I can do anything you can do, and better.”

“Sure, Mrs. — okay, Joan.” Stanley smiled at her. “I guess this is a two-man job.”

Joan pressed her fingertips to her temples. “I’m getting a headache.”

Stanley asked, “Are you one of Van Dorn’s secret agents?”

She lowered herself onto a bench. “I guess I am now.” She put her head in her hands, remembering Van Dorn’s blackmail threats. And Tom, the jerk, had just sat there.

But then Van Dorn had come up to her and put his hands on her shoulders, and said, “Joan, we both know you wouldn’t do what I’m asking because of threats. But your country is in danger. You’re needed.” He explained briefly, then asked, “Will you help your country?”

Stanley broke into her thoughts. “How did you get hooked up with this crazy bunch?”

She looked at him. “My country needs me.”

Stanley hesitated, then said, “I do it for kicks. This is my tenth mission.”

Joan looked at him dubiously, and the word bullshit was on her lips, but then it struck her that her life might well depend on this horny adolescent. She gave him a look that conveyed wonder and awe. “That’s incredible.”

Stanley flushed. “Stick close to me and I’ll get you back okay.”

You damned well better. She gave him a wide smile. “Okay.” Joan reflected on what Van Dorn had told her, and it sounded very scary. She did not want the party to end. She was not committed to much in life, but she was deeply committed to fighting for the continuation of the party. Patriotism, she reasoned, came in many forms.

Stanley glanced at the military watch they’d given him, then tugged at the black body-suit. It was some kind of stretch material, and it looked like something a ballet dancer would wear, but the guy who outfitted him said it was a cat-burglar outfit, so maybe it was okay. Stanley felt the pistol tucked into the elastic pouch on his abdomen. He said, “Have you ever shot anyone?”

Joan came out of her thoughts. “What…? No, certainly not.” She added, “But I’m capable of it.” She thought she’d like to shoot Tom, George, and Marc, not necessarily in that order.

The door at the top of the stairs opened and two sets of footsteps echoed on the concrete stairs. Stanley drew his pistol. Joan snapped, “Put that away.”

A man and a woman appeared, both well advanced in years, but with quick movements and alert expressions. They wore expensive warm-up suits, but Joan knew they weren’t looking for tennis partners. The woman, Claire Goodwin, advanced on Joan and extended her hand. “How are you, Joan?”

Joan stood and took the older woman’s hand. “Just fine, Claire.”

Claire said, “I didn’t see much of you at George’s.”

“I was lying down upstairs.”

“Poor dear. Do you know Gus Bergen?”

Joan took the man’s hand. “Yes, we’ve met.” Bergen, she recalled, had been on the ill-fated Hanoi mission with Tom’s father during the war.

Bergen said, “What’s Tom up to these days?”

“He’s taken up parachuting.”

Bergen smiled and turned to Stanley, who was standing. “Hello, young man.”

Stanley shook hands with Bergen and Claire. Claire said, “I’ve heard some good things about you.”

Stanley mumbled something and glanced at Joan.

Joan had heard some good things about Claire, too, like the fact that Claire had slept with half the German diplomatic corps in Switzerland during the war. For God and country, of course. Joan thought she should have been given an assignment like that instead of this. She felt ill-used.

The four people spoke for a few minutes, then Bergen looked at his watch. He said, “Well, it’s time to get moving.”

The small room fell silent.

Bergen continued, “You’ve both been briefed on what to do inside there. Now I’m going to show you how to get inside.”

Bergen moved to the far wall and pointed to a round hole near the top of the concrete foundation. “That’s an old service conduit that runs from here to the main house. It once contained the pipe from the mansion’s steam plant, water pipes, wiring, and such. Since the partition of the estate, the YMCA provides the utilities for this tennis building, of course.”

Stanley stared up at the opening, which he hadn’t noticed before. It looked no bigger than a pizza, large size.

Claire said, “It’s free of pipes now. Gus had to use midgets to do the work.” She added, “Gus is a member of the local Y board.”

Stanley nodded appreciatively.

Joan thought, Member of the YMCA. Midgets. Conduit to the Russian house. Typically bizarre. She stared up at the opening and said, “There are still wires coming out of there.”

Bergen replied, “Cables, actually. You see, it’s several hundred yards to the basement of the main house, all upgrade. Nearly an impossible crawl. So I’ve installed an electric pulley.”

Stanley smiled. These old dudes had it together.

Bergen and Claire Goodwin briefed them for a few minutes, then Bergen said, “Any questions?”

Stanley shook his head.

Joan asked, “How are you so sure it opens into an unused room?”

Bergen looked at Stanley. “You were in the boiler room once, weren’t you, son?”

Stanley nodded. “Nobody there then.”

Joan shrugged sulkily.

Bergen looked at her. “You don’t have to go, of course.”

Joan Grenville glanced at Stanley. He was frightened too, but his budding male ego would propel him into that black hole, with or without her, as surely as if he’d been forced into it at gunpoint. She said, “I do have to go, of course. So let’s go.”

Bergen wheeled a painter’s scaffold to the foundation. “Stanley.”

Stanley Kuchik pulled his black hood over his head. Bergen said, “Good luck.” Stanley climbed to the top of the scaffold, where he saw two small flexible trolleys. He peered into the black, endless tube for some seconds, then lay on his back and positioned the trolley beneath his buttocks. He reached up and held the pulley cable with his gloved hands. “Okay.”

He heard the motor hum and the cable began traveling, pulling him with the trolley beneath him toward the round opening. Like a torpedo, he thought, being rolled into its firing tube.

Joan Grenville said to Bergen quietly, “You must be awfully desperate or insensitive to send that kid on a mission like this.”

Bergen replied coolly, “He’s seventeen. I know men who saw combat at seventeen.”

Joan shrugged. “Well, women and children first.” She climbed up the scaffold and peered inside the small conduit opening. She called in, “Do you have room for one more?”

“Sure,” Stanley’s voice echoed.

Joan looked down at Claire Goodwin and Gus Bergen. She hesitated, then said, “Look, I know this is important. If anything happens to us, remember, we volunteered. So don’t feel bad.”

Claire replied, “We would feel bad if something happened, though not guilty. Good luck.”

Joan looked at them. Tough old birds. Old OSS. They were all screwy. She took a deep breath and lay down on the trolley, then reached up and grabbed the cable with her gloved hands. “Ready.”

The electric motor hummed again and the cable dragged her into the dark tube. She listened to the sounds of the rubber trolley wheels on the clay pipe, the distant hum of the motor, the creaking of the pulleys, and the rubbing of her shoulders against the sides of the pipe. She cleared her throat and called out softly, “Stanley?”

“Yeah.”

“How are you doing?”

“Okay.”

Joan observed, “This sucks.”

Stanley laughed weakly. “Beats crawling.”

Neither spoke again. The light from the opening faded and the sound of the electric motor grew fainter.

Joan knew she could let go of the cable anytime and the trolley would roll her back to the basement of the tennis building. But she knew she wouldn’t.

Another few minutes, she thought, then we’ll be there. She’d always been curious about that house anyway.

60

George Van Dorn stood at the bay window and watched the skyrockets rise from his empty swimming pool in the distance. He picked up one of three newly installed army field phones on the wide bay sill and cranked it.

Don LaRosa, the senior pyrotechnician, answered.

Van Dorn said, “How are we fixed for rockets, Mr. LaRosa?”

“About three hundred left, Mr. Van Dorn.”

“All right, I want airbursts low over the target. I don’t want the terrain lit too much, but I want noise cover.”

“Okay. Hey, did you hear the motherfucker rocket blow?”

“I believe so.”

“Scared the shit out of your wife’s cat, Mr. Van Dorn.”

Van Dorn glanced at Kitty standing across the room. “I’m happy to hear that, Don. Listen, is the tube ready?”

“Ready any time you are.”

“Plan for midnight. I want a sixty-to-eighty-second time on target — no fewer than twenty rounds of high explosive. Then, when you’ve made kindling wood out of the target, I want about five rounds of Willy Peter to finish off whatever’s left.”

Don LaRosa repeated the fire mission.

Van Dorn added, “I have an amphibious chopper on station to lift your people and your tube out of here immediately. You’ll land at the Atlantic City pier. All arrangements made.”

“Sounds super.”

“Speak to you later.”

Van Dorn hung up. It would be super, he thought, if Mr. LaRosa and his friends could spend the night gambling and whoring until dawn. He wouldn’t half mind joining them.

Kitty said, “What is Willy Peter, George?”

“Just a military expression, dear.” He added, “Actually, it’s white phosphorus. It burns.”

“Oh. That’s awful. Such a beautiful house.”

“War is hell, Kitty.”

“It’s so destructive.”

“Yes, that too.” He walked to a stereo stack unit and turned up the volume. He listened to the sprightly notes of George M. Cohan’s “I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy,” which was being blared out from his loudspeakers on the polo field. Van Dorn hummed along as he bobbed his head to the music.

Kitty said, “George, are you really going to blow up those awful people next door?”

Van Dorn turned off the sound. “What? Oh, only if my ground attack fails. Have you arranged things with Dr. Frank and Dr. Poulos?”

“Yes, they’re in the basement aid station, setting up. Oh, Jane Atkins and Mildred Fletcher are assisting. They’re so thrilled to be able to lend a hand. They were both WAC nurses.”

“Well, I’ll try not to disappoint them, Kitty. If there are no casualties, I’ll shoot myself in the foot.”

“Belle La Ponte is a psychiatrist. Should I get her?”

“Why not? We’re all crazy.”

“I mean, she’s an MD—”

“Fine, Kitty. Are the medical supplies satisfactory?”

“I believe so. Dr. Frank seemed very impressed.”

Van Dorn nodded distractedly. He tried to think of what else ought to be done. He turned to one of the other two men in his study, Colonel William Osterman, a man who had been a young lieutenant in OSS’s London headquarters staff. Van Dorn said, “Phase one ought to be completed by now.”

Osterman looked up from the architectural plans and aerial photos of the Russian estate spread out on Van Dorn’s desk. Osterman said, “I would think so. The problem with this plan, George, is that it relies on near perfect timing without radio contact. If one group gets into a mess, the other three groups will get into a mess.”

Van Dorn replied, “Pembroke and his people are very good, Bill. They’re used to this sort of hit-and-run without communications. Sometimes I think they’ve developed telepathy.”

Wallis Baker, a senior partner in the firm, appeared from behind the screened telex alcove carrying a message. “This is a rather long communication from the Joint Chiefs, George.”

Van Dorn motioned him to the desk. “Get it deciphered immediately.”

Baker was already behind the desk with the code book.

The telephone rang and Van Dorn saw it was his published number. He ignored it, but no one else in the house seemed to be picking it up either. Then he realized who it might be and answered it. “Van Dorn residence.”

“Oh,” said the voice, “Mr. Van Dorn.”

Van Dorn looked at the other two men, then at Kitty, then said into the telephone, “Mr. Androv.”

“Yes. I am flattered that you recognized my voice.”

“I don’t know many people with Russian accents. Why are you calling me at this hour, Androv? It’s not polite to call people this late.”

Androv said a bit sharply, “As a man trying to get some sleep, I don’t care for your music or your fireworks. Do you know your rockets are exploding dangerously close to our house?”

“How close is that?”

Androv put on an aggrieved tone. “Mr. Van Dorn, as Community Relations Officer, I have attempted to maintain good relations with my neighbors—”

“No, you haven’t, Androv. I have it on good authority that your people never throw the tennis balls back.”

Androv made a sound of exasperation. “Oh, what does that matter now?”

Van Dorn smiled. He was mildly amused by Androv’s de rigueur phone call. More importantly, the call most probably meant that neither Pembroke’s team nor the team with Katherine and Abrams had been discovered. For his part, Androv had discovered that Van Dorn was definitely at home. There was intelligence to be gathered even from a banal phone conversation. Van Dorn said, “This is our holiday, Mr. Androv. Certainly the protocols of diplomacy demand some respect for the traditions of the host country, sir.”

“Yes, yes. But that music — I must respectfully request of you—”

“I’m not taking requests tonight. You get what’s on the tape. I am not a disc jockey, Mr. Androv.”

“No, no. I mean I must request that you cease that loud music, or I must call the police.”

“I think you’re being unreasonable.”

“I am not. My small staff here is very upset, and my dogs are extremely nervous and high-strung—”

“Then buy well-adjusted dogs, Viktor. Or get them to a shrink.”

Androv ignored this and said, “At what hour may I expect the music and fireworks to cease?”

“At midnight. I promise you, you will not be bothered after midnight.”

“Thank you, Mr. Van Dorn. Have a pleasant evening.”

“And you, Mr. Androv.” Van Dorn hung up and looked at the people in the room. “The nerve of that man calling to complain about my party when he has to stay up anyway to wait for a nuclear detonation.”

Osterman and Baker smiled.

Kitty said, “You were rude to him again, George.”

Van Dorn looked at his wife. “Your standards of etiquette are extravagant, Kitty.” He added, “You’d have required black tie and ushers at the Crucifixion.”

“Still, I think, as Mr. Churchill did, that if you’re going to shoot a man, it costs nothing to be polite.”

Van Dorn smiled at his wife. “You’re quite right.”

She announced, “I must go, but before I do, I want to tell you, George, that I absolutely will not have your Mr. Pembroke or Joan Grenville in this house again.” She paused, then added, “If they are wounded, I will make an exception. Good evening, George. Gentlemen.” She turned and left.

There was a silence in the room, then Colonel Osterman looked at his watch. “This is damned frustrating without radio contact.”

Baker added, “They could all be dead or captured, and we wouldn’t know.”

Van Dorn replied, “Which is the reason for the mortar. The next call I get from Androv’s telephone ought to be from one of our people. If I don’t hear by midnight, then my automatic launch response goes into effect. Then, as I said, Viktor Androv will be bothered by me no more.”

61

Viktor Androv sat at the desk in his office. The former chapel was dark, lit only by a shaded lamp whose light fell on a nearby stained-glass window.

Androv stared at the religious depiction: the inhabitants of Sodom forcing their way into Lot’s house in an attempt to abduct the two beautiful angels, then the angels sending out a blinding flash of celestial light and the Sodomites turning away. He remarked, “Some say the angels were extraterrestrials, and they destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah with a nuclear device.”

Henry Kimberly sat back in the green leather chair. “Four thousand years from now, who knows how tonight will be interpreted.”

Androv leaned across his desk. “Tonight will be interpreted the way the party wishes it to be interpreted. Just as the events of the Bible were interpreted as the priests and rabbis wished them to be interpreted.”

Kimberly said, “There will be no party four thousand years from now, Viktor, and you know that. Neither will there be priests or rabbis.” Kimberly lit a cigarette. “However, as you suggest, the party will write world history for at least the next thousand years.”

Androv shrugged. He stood and went to the side window and threw it open. The north wind entered the chapel and ruffled the papers on his desk. Van Dorn’s loudspeakers could be heard in the distance, and Androv raised his voice as he spoke. “I have given the order that anyone who opens a window or door after eleven thirty will pay with his life.” He fell silent a moment, then said, “It’s a strange phenomenon, this EMP. Like a supernatural miasma, it can enter through keyholes and cracks, through spaces around the doors and windows. A little of it can do a great deal of damage.” He added in a confident voice, “But this house has been inspected a hundred times. It’s as tight as a submarine. It could float.” He laughed.

Kimberly didn’t reply.

Androv looked up into the northern sky. “Molniya is hurtling toward us from the dark reaches of space.”

“Molniya?”

“The satellite that will deliver the nuclear blast. The courier told me. Very ingenious.”

Kimberly nodded appreciatively, then said, “What time?”

Androv continued staring out the window as he replied, “It will reach its low point somewhere over Nebraska a few minutes after midnight.”

Kimberly watched the smoke rise from his cigarette, then said, “What else did the courier tell you?”

Androv replied, “The Premier sends his good wishes to us and to you particularly.” He added, “The Premier also informs us that news of the Stroke is being disseminated now among key people in Moscow.” Androv nodded to himself and said, “Unlike the preparation for a nuclear war, this was so simple that only a few people had to be told. And only a few people had to act. Only one person has to push a nuclear detonator button, and that will be the Premier himself.”

Kimberly stood and walked to Androv. He looked through the window out over the distant tree line. A faint aura of light from Van Dorn’s house outlined the rolling treetops against the blackening sky. Kimberly said, “You know, Viktor, George Van Dorn and I went to the same army schools. The philosophy of the American army is aggressive, not defensive. They are great believers in the spoiling raid, the preemptive attack, the commando strike — like the British.” He gave Androv a sidelong glance. “You ought to deal with Van Dorn before he deals with you.”

Androv pulled the windows shut and walked to his desk. He pushed a button on a console and George Van Dorn’s voice came out of the speaker.

Kimberly listened silently.

Androv said, “That is a recording of George Van Dorn calling the Pentagon. Since he has warned them of our plans, and believes the situation is under control, he is unlikely to try anything against us on his own.”

Androv pushed another button and a woman’s voice came on. Androv said, “That is your daughter, Ann.”

Kimberly said nothing.

Androv continued, “She’s speaking to the National Security Agency. About Molniya.”

Kimberly listened to Ann’s voice for a few seconds, then walked to the desk and pushed the stop button. He turned to Androv. “How did they find out?”

Androv shrugged. “I assume they started with the premise that we wish to destroy them and worked backward. How many solutions are there to a problem? They asked themselves, ‘How would I destroy America with little or no damage to myself?’ They arrived at the answer we arrived at.”

Kimberly nodded slowly.

Androv continued, “So you see, Henry, I haven’t underestimated Van Dorn or his organization. We know they long ago put away the dagger and use only the cloak now. Van Dorn learned something and he called his friends in the military to deal with it. He will not come here with guns blazing.”

Kimberly did not reply for some time, then said, “But he has warned them, Androv. The Americans have an automatic launch response under certain—”

Androv held up his hand. “I know. But let me continue, please. You see, in this country almost every long-distance telephone call is relayed by microwave stations. This is very convenient for us because this house sits in the middle of what is known as ‘Microwave Alley.’ We intercept these microwave calls and listen to the diplomats in New York, as well as the Long Island and Connecticut defense contractors. Every call made to a government agency in Washington is monitored here. Van Dorn, of course, took precautions against this. He installed a fiber optic telephone line that runs into the main AT&T underground cables. His phone, he believes, is virtually untappable, which is why he speaks so freely over it.”

Androv looked at Kimberly. “However, because these secure lines are so few, the telephone exchange has the ability to switch a call to the microwave station. Therefore, if one were to pass a sum of money to a technician at the main telephone exchange, it would be possible to have Mr. Van Dorn’s calls rerouted as microwave calls without his being informed that the call was not secure. That’s how we were able to listen—”

Kimberly interjected, “That won’t do you much good now. The Pentagon is alerted.”

Androv smiled. “It would also be possible to reroute these calls to a place other than the Pentagon, Henry. To have them rerouted here, for instance. In fact, your friend has not been speaking to the Pentagon at all, but to Nikhita Tulov in the attic, who has spent a good number of years of his young life learning how to think and talk like a Pentagon staff officer.”

Kimberly’s face broke into a smile in return. “Touché, Viktor.”

Androv bowed his head in acknowledgment. “We had to let your daughter’s call through because we weren’t prepared to imitate anyone at the NSA. But we were able at least to listen.” He added, “We’ve also managed to intercept Van Dorn’s bothersome telex.”

Androv stared down at his desk and said, “Your daughter is also quite bothersome.” He glanced at Kimberly. “I don’t mean to belabor this issue, but now that she is here in America, I must ask you…”

Kimberly waved his hand in a gesture of annoyance. “Oh, do what you want, Viktor. Stop bothering me with these things. If you have a personal grudge against her, act accordingly. If you don’t, then let the state apparatus deal with her as if she were any one of the ten million people on the list of enemies.” Kimberly walked to the door. “I’ll see you upstairs later.” He opened the door of the chapel.

Androv called out, “One more thing, Henry.”

Kimberly turned. “Yes?”

“The courier. He said something which may interest you.” Androv walked toward the door and stood close to Kimberly. He stared at him for a few seconds, then said, “Tonight… Talbot Three will be here tonight.”

Kimberly nodded. “I suspected that if Talbot Three was alive and in this country, then he — or she — would be seeking sanctuary from the Stroke. I thought we might meet tonight.”

Androv looked at Kimberly. “Do you have any idea who it could be?”

Kimberly shook his head, then said, “Whoever it is, it will be someone I knew then.”

“Yes, I’m sure of that. One of your blue-blooded Ivy League friends. We will have a reunion in the White House. President Kimberly, Secretary of State Allerton, and Chief of American State Security — who?”

Kimberly’s expression remained impassive. He said, “There’s no use speculating. We’ll see who shows up.”

Androv nodded slowly. “Yes. And we don’t even know how he, or she, will come — by land, sea, or air. But it will be interesting to see who arrives at our doorstep tonight.”

“Most interesting.” Kimberly turned and left.

Claudia Lepescu felt the pistol caressing the nape of her neck as she knelt in the damp earth, her head bowed. A guard pulled back on the leash of a German shepherd that was growling ominously. Another man held a radio and was making a report. The officer in charge, standing in front of her, spoke loudly in English and it startled her. “Who are you?”

She drew a short breath. “Claudia Lepescu. I work for Alexei Kalin.”

The Russian officer moved his flashlight over her body, then shined it full on her face. “You are not American?”

“I am Rumanian.”

“What do you want here?”

“Asylum. Sanctuary.”

“Why?”

“They are after me—”

“Who is after you?”

Claudia said sharply in Russian, “You have all the information you need. Take me to Kalin at once, or it will go badly for you.” As soon as the words were out, she realized she shouldn’t have abused him in Russian so his men could understand. She waited.

The Russian did nothing for some time, then his hand flew out and struck her across the face.

Claudia cried out and put her hand to her cheek.

The Russian barked, “Stand.”

She stood and the shepherd lunged at her, but was pulled up short by its handler.

Another man approached with a flashlight and searched her, passing his hands roughly over her body. She said, “Please, I must see Kalin. I have urgent information.”

The first Russian said, “If it is urgent, you can run.” He snapped an order and two of the uniformed guards fell in on either side of her, their Kalishnikov rifles held across their chests. “Quick, march! Move!”

Claudia, flanked by the two men, began moving at a near run through the trees. She stumbled once and one of the men pulled her to her feet. Stones and twigs dug into her bare feet, and branches whipped across her perspiring body. Occasionally one of the men prodded her along with a rifle jab to her buttocks.

After what seemed an interminable time, they broke out onto the floodlit north lawn, and she saw the huge stone mansion sitting majestically on the hilltop.

They made her run more quickly across the lawn to the rear of the house, then swung around on the terrace until they came to the walled service court.

The Russians slowed to a march and Claudia gasped for breath. She was nearly numb with fatigue and barely aware of being marched through the walled court filled with parked vehicles. They passed through a set of double doors, down a half flight of steps, and walked down a long, dimly lit corridor off which were small doors evenly spaced. Servants’ quarters, she thought vaguely, but the narrow corridor and the small closed doors brought back memories of another place: The jackbooted Russians with their rifles, she dragged between them; two years of her life she wanted badly to forget. It struck her suddenly that this was what the world was coming to: dark, lonely corridors, armed guards, the sound of boots and bare feet on cold floors, and a journey to an unknown place.

The guards stopped, opened a door, and pushed her inside. She saw by the corridor’s light a small unlit room, furnished with a cot and a waste bucket and nothing else. The door slammed behind her and she heard the lock turn.

She stood motionless and listened to her hard breathing, then slowly wiped her cold, clammy body with the edge of her dress. She walked carefully to the far side of the room. There was a high window and she pulled the cot to it and stood on it. The window opened onto the dimly lit service court and a weak light filtered through the dirty panes. The window was barred on the outside and she couldn’t open the outward-swinging casements. The room was oppressively warm and stagnant. She stepped down from the cot and walked back to the door and felt for a light switch, but there wasn’t any. It would be on the outside, she knew. This was a cell, and after two years in cells, one knew something of them.

Claudia slumped down on the cot. It was the waiting and the uncertainty that eventually destroyed the mind and the will. The interrogations and abuse were almost welcome relief — if they didn’t go too far in inflicting pain. At least during the sessions you knew where you stood. Questions were asked, answers were given. Accusations were made, denials and apologies were offered. Eventually you were either freed, sentenced to a term, or shot. Sometimes, however, they did the other thing. They offered you a job. In her case they had offered her the job of impersonating Countess Claudia Lepescu, who had been arrested at the same time she had. She had accepted the job and spent a year in the same cell with the former countess, until the KGB was satisfied that Magda Creanga, which was her real name, was in every way, except by birth, Countess Lepescu. The countess had been taken away, presumably shot to protect the secret.

Eventually the new Claudia Lepescu was allowed to emigrate to America under the sponsorship of Patrick O’Brien and his friends, who had been pressing for her visa to leave Rumania.

And she had done her duty to her Russian masters, ingratiating herself into the circles of O’Brien and his friends. She had even tempted poor Tony Abrams onto the roof. They said he was to be kidnapped, but she had known otherwise. The Russians were treacherous. And now her usefulness as a spy was over.

There was, however, a glimmer of hope. In addition to her training as an impersonator and a spy, she had received extensive training in another area: She was an accomplished and very talented seductress, a very fine harlot. Perhaps, she thought, for that reason alone, Kalin or Androv, both of whom had taken her to bed, would show mercy.

She knelt beside the cot and found the waste bucket. The water was clear and she washed herself as best she could, then finger-combed her hair and hand-brushed her dress. Russian men, she reflected, were the easiest of sexual conquests. They knew less about advanced sexual technique than a fifteen-year-old American boy. Their women knew less than that.

Claudia heard footsteps in the hall. They stopped. A key turned in the lock. The door opened, revealing the dark outline of a man. She could tell he was not uniformed, but wearing civilian clothes. The man reached out and snapped on the light switch outside her door.

“Alexei!” She came toward him.

Kalin put his hand out and pushed her away as he pulled the door closed behind him. “Why did you come here that way? They expected you at the gate.”

She thought, I came that way because Van Dorn told me to: to give his men time to get in position. She said, “They were after me. They found out somehow—”

“The poison?”

She nodded quickly. “Yes. That’s all right. Roth did as he was told. I did as I was told.” She came to him again, and this time he let her put her arms around him. She said, “What is to become of me, Alexei?”

He replied coolly, “You can handle a rifle. Perhaps we will need you later.”

He did not, she noted, make any long-range promises. She saw his face in the dim overhead light. “What happened to you?”

“Your friend Abrams and I had an encounter. Where is the bastard now?”

She shrugged. “I didn’t see him at Van Dorn’s.” She buried her head in his chest and her fingers worked their way under his jacket and began pulling his shirt out of his pants.

He broke her grip and looked at his watch. “All right, but time is short.”

She undressed quickly and stood in the middle of the floor, naked, her clothes piled at her feet. She smiled. “I want you, Alexei.”

Kalin undressed, laying his clothes on the floor. He hung his shoulder holster on the doorknob. He said, “We don’t have time for your full repertoire. Please proceed to the finale.”

She crossed the small room and knelt in front of him, massaging his calves and thighs.

Kalin leaned back against the door. He said softly, “A woman like you will come in handy during a long siege… and I don’t think Androv will make you carry a rifle. No, you have other talents… ” He closed his eyes and let his head roll back against the door.

Claudia’s hands cupped his buttocks. She felt the smooth leather of his holster brushing against her forearm.

62

Davis was on the point, Cameron had established a fifteen-foot interval, and Abrams followed. Abrams glanced over his shoulder at Katherine, who was close behind him. They nodded to each other encouragingly.

They approached the stone wall and Davis hopped it without hesitation, as though it were not an international barrier but just another stone sheep wall in the Falklands. Cameron followed, then Abrams, then Katherine. The patrol moved quickly into the trees of the Russian property.

Abrams held his rifle by its pistol grip, the sling across his chest, as he had been taught at the Police Academy. He knew the M-16 rifle well enough but had not fired one in some years. He kept his muzzle pointed to the left, cueing off Cameron, whose rifle pointed to the right. Davis held his M-16 under his arm pointing straight ahead. Abrams glanced back at Katherine. She had turned and was walking backward for a few steps as she’d been told, then she swung back around and scanned to her flanks.

Abrams listened to the music behind them, carried through the trees by the north wind. To the front, skyrockets traveled in a low-angle trajectory, bursting close to the horizon. Their brief glow outlined the towering tree line ahead, and in one shower of golden sparks Abrams caught a quick glimpse of the Russian mansion. They altered course slightly and moved toward the bursting rockets.

Abrams looked to the front of the file. Davis was almost no longer visible. The night without light was disorienting, alien to civilized man, Abrams reflected, a terror from sundown to sunrise, a nightmare among nightmares. He could not conceive of a darkened continent.

Abrams heard a sound and looked up quickly. Cameron held his hand high and was clicking a tin cricket. Abrams stopped and knelt on one knee facing left. Katherine crouched and faced to the rear. Cameron and Davis walked toward each other, conferred for a moment, then Cameron came back and knelt beside Abrams. He whispered in Abrams’ ear, “Davis says he sees footprints and disturbed ground. Probably the spot where they intercepted Claudia.” He added, “I’d like to put away that patrol before we get much deeper.”

Abrams nodded. He never ceased to marvel at the euphemisms for death and murder.

Cameron said, “We’ll lure them here.” He gave Abrams some brief instructions.

Abrams motioned to Katherine. She came up and knelt beside him and he put his lips to her ear, repeating the message, then added, “You look good in basic black.”

Davis had climbed a huge maple tree and was scanning the terrain with his nightscope. Cameron, who had taken Claudia’s panty hose with him, was dragging it along the narrow overgrown game trail that the Russians had used.

Abrams reached into his field bag and drew out a small electronic ultrasound device. He turned it on to emit a series of short sounds, inaudible to human ears. Almost immediately he heard a dog bark nearby.

Cameron doubled back along the trail until he reached a small patch of moss-covered clearing. He took the panty hose and draped it over the branch of a cedar tree.

Davis clicked his tin cricket — two short, three long, four short — enemy in sight, three spotted, forty yards’ distance.

Abrams and Katherine drew closer together and knelt, positioning themselves toward the killing zone beneath the cedar less than twenty feet away. Davis climbed down to a lower branch of the maple almost directly above the small mossy clearing; he lay flat on a large forked limb. The ambush was set.

Abrams heard the sound of men moving up the narrow game trail. He heard the crackle of a radio, muted voices, and the continuous barking of a dog. He found himself holding his breath.

Suddenly the leashed dog, a big German shepherd, burst out of the trail into the clearing, pulling a uniformed man who was shouldering a rifle. Abrams quickly shut off the ultrasound device, and the dog quieted, then began to whimper and sniff the ground. The dog came to a halt beneath the cedar.

A second Russian appeared, speaking into a hand-held radio, his rifle tucked under his arm. The third Russian walked slowly into the clearing. He didn’t have a rifle, but Abrams could make out a pistol in his hand and he guessed he was the boss.

The shepherd was up on his hind legs now, growling and leaping. The handler pulled him back, and the Russian in charge approached, spotted the panty hose, and pulled them out of the cedar tree. The dog handler lifted the panty hose to his nose and made an obscene joke. All three Russians laughed.

The handler knelt and let the dog sniff the hose; then, still laughing, he tied the nylon around the radio operator’s neck. The shepherd seemed to be the only one still concerned; he was whining and sniffing the ground, pulling at his leash.

The radio operator spoke into his walkie-talkie. Abrams listened closely, then turned to Cameron, who was watching him. Abrams nodded, indicating what Cameron had already deduced: The radio operator had reported a false alarm. Cameron gave a hand signal to Abrams and Katherine, then rose out of the clump of bushes, put his silenced M-16 to his shoulder, and aimed.

Abrams stood also, and was vaguely aware of Katherine a few feet away standing with her rifle raised. The seconds seemed to tick by very slowly.

The three Russians turned toward the trail. The dog barked again and pulled his handler around. The handler looked up and squinted into the darkness at Cameron not twenty feet away. He let out a startled sound.

The muzzle of Cameron’s rifle glowed red, and the metallic operating mechanism could be heard above the sounds of the partially silenced fire. The handler seemed to jump backward, high into the air, then fell to the ground, dragging the shepherd with him. The radio operator stood frozen, not comprehending what had happened for a split second, then dropped his walkie-talkie and raised his rifle. A burst of silenced fire from Davis ripped through the overhead branches and drove the Russian into the ground. The Russian in charge had thrown himself on the ground after the two initial bursts, and was scrambling on all fours down the trail. Katherine and Abrams fired simultaneously, their bullets a deadly hailstorm of steel. The Russian crawled a few more feet, then collapsed on his face.

No one moved for some seconds. The forest was quiet. Then the dog began to howl, accompanied by the moaning of one of the Russians. Cameron quickly stepped forward into the blood-splattered killing zone and looked down at the first two Russians. They were riddled with bullets and appeared to be dead, but Cameron shot them both in the head, then approached the wounded dog. Abrams and Katherine came quickly into the clearing and Katherine stopped short, then turned away. Cameron whispered to her, “Go thirty yards or so down the trail and keep an eye out.”

Katherine stepped around the bodies without looking down, entered the trail, and stepped quickly over the Russian she had shot. Abrams saw that the shepherd had taken a bullet through its haunches and was dragging itself along the ground toward its handler. Cameron put the muzzle of his rifle to the dog’s head and fired a single shot.

Davis remained in the tree, scanning the surrounding area. He signaled with his tin cricket — no enemy in sight. Abrams approached the third Russian on the trail and knelt beside him. The man had taken at least half a dozen rounds in the legs and buttocks, but was still alive. Abrams turned him over and saw that the Russian’s legs were nearly severed near the hips and seemed held to his body by strips of muscle and sinew. White bone-shards and marrow covered his uniform. The man, an officer, Abrams guessed by the uniform, spoke in Russian in a pain-filled voice, “Help me, please.” He repeated in English, “Please help me.”

Abrams answered in Russian, “We’ll send someone for you as soon as possible.”

The Russian stared up into Abrams’ eyes, then nodded.

Abrams leaned closer over the Russian and spoke. “What became of the woman? Claudia.”

The Russian hesitated, then replied, “She’s at the house.”

Abrams asked, “How many other patrols are there in this area?”

The Russian seemed to be considering his answer.

Abrams prompted, “Tell me the truth and we’ll send medical help.”

The Russian replied, “Two other patrols… back along the wall… ”

Cameron walked up to Abrams. Abrams repeated the conversation, then said, “Is there anything else?”

Cameron shrugged. “This bastard’s not going to tell you the truth anyway.” Cameron leaned over and shot the Russian through the forehead.

Abrams was startled, but not surprised. One never knew if a coup de grace was meant to be merciful or malicious, and he suspected that Cameron didn’t know and didn’t care.

Cameron took the Russians’ rifles and pistols and threw them far into the bush.

Davis swung down from the maple and landed in the clearing. He looked at the three dead Russians. He said to Cameron, “Do you see the green piping on their uniforms? These chaps are from the Chief Border Guards Directorate.”

Cameron nodded and explained to Abrams, “An elite KGB outfit. A bit like the Marines. Not just flunky embassy guards.”

Abrams didn’t know if that was supposed to make them all feel better or worse.

Cameron said, “Well, I wouldn’t be keen on taking on any more of them. Let’s move out, then.”

Abrams got Katherine, and the patrol reformed, moving toward the exploding skyrockets. They avoided the trails and paths but made good time through the thinning woods. They reached the end of the woods and crouched near the edge of the north lawn.

Abrams looked out across the wide grassy expanse rising upward toward the great house about a hundred yards away on the crest of the hill. He stared at the fortress-like structure, black and squat against the sky, its ill-omened gables rising above its brooding windows.

Floodlights illuminated every square inch of the short grass, and spotlights shot powerful beams out into the surrounding woods. One beam fell to their right, and the blinding ray suddenly moved toward them and rested a few feet away. Cameron said, “Steady now. The lights are automatic, not manned. They’ll shift at random intervals and random directions.” As he spoke, the spotlight swung ten yards farther right, then shifted abruptly to the left and swept over them briefly before stopping some yards away.

Davis said, “I’m sure the bloody listening devices have us by now.”

Cameron nodded and said, “Ivan does not like trespassers.”

Davis retorted, “We won’t be trespassers for long. We’ll be in residence.”

Abrams could make out three people on the raised terrace: guards with rifles walking an assigned post.

Katherine looked at her watch. “We’re a few minutes late.”

Cameron nodded. “It won’t matter, if the others haven’t achieved their objectives. We’re not getting across that lawn without help.”

Davis raised his binoculars and looked toward the house. “I see the walls and plantings of the forecourt… I can see the Japanese lanterns of the drive as well as where it enters the court… ” His voice rose, “There’s the van! Pembroke’s made it past the guardhouse. The van’s heading for the front door.” He put down his binoculars and looked at the other three. “Damned good show.”

Cameron nodded. “They’ve got a way to go yet. So do we.” He stayed silent a moment, then said, “It’s a fifteen-second run across that lawn… ” He looked at Abrams and Katherine. “What you do is pick a prayer or a poem that takes fifteen seconds to recite to yourself. I’ve picked the ‘Our Father.’ When I get to ‘Amen,’ I expect to be on that terrace. It works every time.”

Abrams thought it must have worked every time or Cameron wouldn’t be here.

“All right,” said Cameron, “fix bayonets.”

63

Roth’s catering van rolled slowly through the landscaped forecourt, lit bright as day with banks of floodlights. Pembroke peered cautiously over the seat. There were guards armed with automatic rifles every ten yards or so. He turned to Ann. “This doesn’t look encouraging.”

Roth babbled as he drove, his voice cracking with panic. “Everyone will die… The Russians will win… They will kill me… Oh, my God, Pembroke… I didn’t want to work for them… they blackmailed me… I was afraid… I don’t believe anymore—”

“Shut up, Roth.”

The van swung left and drew abreast of the front door, and Roth applied the brakes. Pembroke and Ann moved to the rear of the van with Llewelyn and Sutter, who had their hands on the rear-door latches, ready to jump out and make a fight of it if necessary. All four wore black camouflage hoods.

A Russian guard approached Roth’s window and spoke in English. “What are you doing here, Roth? I received no message from the gate.”

Roth’s mouth opened, but no words came out.

The guard snapped, “You stink of whisky. Stay here.” He disappeared from the window.

Pembroke pulled back the operating rod of his M-16 and let it spring forward with a loud metallic ring. Ann and the two men did the same; each time, Roth flinched in his seat. Pembroke rose slowly and looked out the front windshield. He could see the heads of four uniformed men passing by.

The first guard returned. “Their telephone isn’t working. What is your business here?”

Roth drew a deep breath. “More food. For Androv.”

The guard said nothing.

Roth found his voice again. “I have something for you.” He turned and fumbled with a shopping bag on the seat beside him. “Vodka and Scotch. Six bottles.” He raised the bag to the window.

The guard looked around, then snatched the bag through the opening. “Get moving, Roth.”

Roth nodded quickly and threw the van into gear. His foot trembled so badly on the accelerator that the van moved in short lurches. He turned left again along the south edge of the forecourt, then right into a small drive that bent around to the south side of the mansion.

Pembroke came up behind Roth. “All right, one more checkpoint. Get us through there and you’ve bought yourself a pardon. Easy now. You’re doing just fine.”

The van pulled up to the iron gates of the walled service court, and a guard shielded his eyes against the glare of the headlights. He nodded in recognition, then unlatched the gates and swung one open. Roth pulled halfway through and stopped. Pembroke sank down behind the driver’s seat. The guard put his hands on the window frame. “Do you have anything extra, Roth?”

Roth nodded and took a small bag from the floor on the passenger side, and handed it to the man. The Russian peered inside the bag. “What is this shit?”

“Cordials. Sweet. For the ladies. Very expensive.”

The guard snorted.

Roth said, “I’ll be some time unloading and setting up a buffet. An hour.”

The guard looked at him, then said, “Back up to the service doors. Don’t block anyone.”

Roth nodded and pulled through the gate.

Pembroke whispered to the other three, “Half the bloody Russkies must be eating and drinking on poor George.”

Sutter said, “But there’s no such thing as a free lunch, is there? Tonight we collect for Mr. Van Dorn.”

Ann glanced at the three men. She had never seen such coolness and optimism in the face of such overwhelming odds. She supposed their past successes engendered a sense of omnipotence. They simply couldn’t imagine losing.

Roth maneuvered the van through the crowded parking yard, then put it in reverse and edged it back to the service doors. He shut off the engine and headlights, then stood unsteadily and moved to the back of the van. He pushed open the van doors.

Pembroke said, “Open the service doors. Quickly.”

Roth jumped down from the van and opened the large double doors, swinging them out to meet the van doors, creating a shielded passage from the van to the house.

Pembroke stared through the open doors into a large storage room. At the far end was a single closed door. No one was visible.

Pembroke jumped out of the van and prodded Roth through the doors into the storage room. Sutter, Ann, and Llewelyn grabbed a few boxes of food and carried them into the room, stacking them along the wall. Sutter went back and closed the van doors, then began pulling the service doors closed.

“Stop!” Footsteps approached.

Pembroke shoved Roth forward toward the doors. The others braced themselves along the wall near the double doors.

The guard stepped up to the doors. “Roth, I forgot to tell you. Don’t leave these doors open. If they’re open after eleven thirty, Androv will have you shot.”

Roth nodded quickly. “I’m closing them now.”

“Don’t open them again.”

“No, no.”

The guard looked at him. “What’s wrong with you, Roth?”

“I had too much to drink.”

The guard stared at him, then said, “Why are you shaking? Roth? What—”

Pembroke stepped away from the wall, pushed Roth aside, and faced the Russian. The man blinked at the black-hooded apparition and his mouth dropped open. Pembroke seized the leather crossstrap of the man’s gun belt and with a powerful movement pulled him in through the doors, spun him around, and sent him slamming into the wall. Sutter hit the Russian in the groin and as he doubled over, Llewelyn delivered a savage karate chop to the base of his neck. The Russian fell forward and lay motionless. Sutter rolled him over and knelt beside him, checking for vital signs. “Still alive, Lew. You’re getting old.”

Pembroke said, “Take him along, then.”

Sutter and Llewelyn grabbed an arm each and dragged the unconscious man through the storage room, preceded by Pembroke and Roth. Ann shut and locked the double doors, then followed quickly. Pembroke slowly opened the large single door at the far end of the room and peered into an area filled with pipes and ducts. The freight elevator stood to his left. Below, he knew, was the boiler room. He passed through the cluttered area and exited through another door into a long corridor, the others behind him. He turned and moved along the narrow corridor off which were the doors to the former servants’ quarters. Pembroke listened at the first door he came to, then turned the old latch handle. The door opened and he stepped inside the dark room. He motioned to the others and they followed quickly, dragging the Russian with them. Ann closed the door and knelt at the keyhole as Pembroke turned on a lamp.

The room was furnished with a single bed, a dresser, and a few chairs and a vanity. A woman’s room. Pembroke opened a closet door and saw a few dresses, skirts, and tops hanging. He turned to Roth and whispered, “Get in there.”

Roth moved quickly into the small closet and stood hunched between the clothes.

Pembroke said, “You’ve been a traitor for over forty years, Roth, but you’ve redeemed yourself by this single act. So you may live. Turn around.”

Roth turned and faced the wall. Llewelyn bound his hands with flex cable and began to place a tape gag over his mouth.

Pembroke said, “Wait. Roth, is there anything else you wish to tell us? Anything we should know that will assist us in completing this mission? Think carefully.”

Roth stayed silent for some time, then said, “No… no, nothing.”

Pembroke nodded to Llewelyn, who stuck the tape over Roth’s mouth.

Sutter stepped forward quickly, looped a piece of piano wire around Roth’s neck, and twisted it with a gloved hand. Roth gave a convulsive jerk, then slumped to the floor.

Ann stared, wide-eyed, but said nothing as she knelt by the keyhole.

Pembroke said to Ann, “The punishment for treason in my country is death by hanging. That’s the best we could do under the circumstances.” He looked down at the Russian on the floor. “Take his uniform and put him to sleep.”

Sutter and Llewelyn stripped the uniform, boots, and pistol belt off the Russian. Sutter produced a small Syrette and pushed it into the Russian’s arm, then he and Sutter stuffed the man into the closet atop Roth’s body and shut the door.

Pembroke said, “Llewelyn, you look more the chap’s size. And you have sinister Slavic features.” He smiled.

Llewelyn took off his gear, black camouflage fatigues and shoes, and dressed in the Russian’s uniform, throwing his own clothes and equipment under the bed. He glanced in the vanity mirror as he adjusted the peaked cap on his head.

Sutter commented, “You look like a bloody concierge.”

Llewelyn replied, “Fuck off.” He strapped on the Russian’s gun belt and holster.

Pembroke looked at his watch and said softly, “Well, people, we’re in.”

Sutter, too, checked his watch. “On time, more or less.”

Ann snapped her fingers and everyone turned toward her. She peered out the keyhole. The sound of footsteps echoed in the hallway. Ann held up three fingers, then pantomimed a pistol with her other hand: three armed guards. The footsteps halted and a man spoke in Russian. Another man replied, then there was laughter. The footsteps retreated down the hallway.

Ann turned and whispered, “Something to do with the Rumanian girl — Claudia. And a man named Kalin. They’re in one of these rooms. The detention room. Can we help her?”

Pembroke replied, “No, she’s on her own.” He added, “She volunteered to do a turn for us, and she’s more useful in that capacity.” He thought a moment, then concluded, “Also, I don’t completely trust her.”

Pembroke went to the door and opened it slowly when he was certain the Russians were gone. He motioned to Llewelyn, who walked out first. Llewelyn looked up and down the hall, then turned back to Pembroke and nodded. Ann and Sutter went out next, followed by Pembroke, who closed the door behind them. They made their way quickly back to the freight elevator and entered the large wooden car. Sutter closed the doors manually, and Llewelyn pulled the lever, sending the car creaking slowly upward. Pembroke said, “Next stop, second floor, from whence we will take a flight of stairs to the attic. ‘Nearer my God to Thee.’”

The elevator stopped. Sutter listened at the door. Pembroke and Ann leveled their automatic rifles. Llewelyn grabbed the door handle and slid the door back, exposing a small foyer.

The four people waited a full minute, then quickly exited into the foyer. Llewelyn stepped out into a long hallway stretching about a hundred feet along the north-south axis of the house. Oak doors stood at irregular intervals on both sides of the hallway. Llewelyn walked quickly to the third door on the right. He put his back to the door and assumed a parade-rest position. He listened, watched, and waited; then, still standing with his back to the door, he turned the knob. Locked. He took a spring pick out of his pocket, picked the old mortise lock, and opened the door. Pembroke, Ann, and Sutter rushed past him and slipped into the small foyer at the foot of the attic stairs.

Llewelyn began to follow, then froze. Two Russians in civilian clothing came out of a doorway across the hall.

Llewelyn closed the door and stood again in a rigid parade-rest position in front of it. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the two men approach. One was a thin, bald-headed man, the other a powerful-looking man in his twenties.

Pembroke, Ann, and Sutter waited behind the door, listening.

The older man spoke.

Llewelyn knew two words of Russian, da and nyet. Keeping his head and eyes straight ahead, he replied, “Da!”

The Russians looked at each other quizzically.

Ann whispered to Pembroke and Sutter, “The Russian’s asking who posted him at the attic door and why. I’m afraid the answer isn’t satisfactory.”

Pembroke nodded and whispered, “Llewelyn’s Russian is rather limited.”

The two Russians stopped a few feet from Llewelyn and again the bald-headed man spoke insistently.

Llewelyn replied irritably, “Oh, bloody da, nyet, and bugger off!” He swung his big fist full in the man’s face, lifting him back off his feet and sending him sprawling across the hall. The young Russian, who had not said a word so far, made an exclamation and stared at the crumpled body, then turned back to Llewelyn and found himself looking into a revolver.

The door behind Llewelyn opened and Ann stepped out. She said in Russian, “Hello, Nikolai Vasilevich.” She pulled off her hood and shook her hair out. “Come in, please. I’d like a word with you.”

The young man’s mouth dropped open. Llewelyn gave him a shove and sent him through the attic doorway. Llewelyn carried the unconscious man in and threw him on the floor, faceup. Sutter closed and bolted the door.

Pembroke stared down at the man, his face barely recognizable with his nose broken and his jaw dislocated. Pembroke said, “I think this is Karpenko, the chief KGB communications officer here.” He looked at the young Russian and said, “Karpenko?”

The man nodded hesitantly and his eyes darted to Ann.

Ann said to him, “Don’t be frightened. We won’t harm you.” She glanced at Pembroke, then back at the young man. She said, “You will repeat, word for word, the message you delivered to Viktor Androv from Moscow.”

Nikolai Vasilevich drew himself up straight and shook his head firmly. “I will not. You may as well shoot me.”

Ann translated the remark.

Pembroke drew his silenced automatic pistol, cocked it, and aimed it at Karpenko’s face. He said, in passable Russian, “Smert Komitet Gossudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti—Death to the KGB,” then fired three bullets into the unconscious man’s face, turning his features into an unrecognizable mass of gore.

Nikolai Vasilevich stared down at the splattered face and skull and went pale, his legs beginning to tremble.

Pembroke turned the gun on the young man and said in English, “Death to all KGB swine.”

Nikolai Vasilevich shook his head quickly and spoke in English. “No. No. I am not KGB. I am a soldier. GRU — military intelligence.”

Ann put her hand on his shoulder and said in Russian, “You’re too young to die, Nikolai. I swear to you, you will not be harmed if you cooperate.” She stared into his hazel eyes and he stared back, then nodded.

Ann said, “Word for word. I can tell when you’re reciting your message and when you’re deviating. Speak.”

Nikolai Vasilevich stood, head and eyes fixed straight ahead, and recited in a monotone, as he’d done for Viktor Androv. When he finished, Ann summarized in English, then said to Pembroke, “So it is Molniya, and it is tonight. But we knew that. What we didn’t know is that Talbot Three will be here — or is already here.”

Pembroke nodded thoughtfully, then stared at the Russian, who was sweating now. He said, “It’s no longer customary to kill the bearer of bad news, but—”

Ann put her hand on his rising pistol. “No, Marc.”

He looked at her sharply.

“I promised.” She added, “Besides, he’s sexy.”

Pembroke smiled slowly, then said to Sutter, “Stow him under this staircase.”

Sutter produced a Syrette and approached the Russian. The man took a step back. Sutter said, “Sleepy time, Ivan. Let’s see some skin.”

Ann spoke to him soothingly in Russian and the man hesitated, then held out his arm.

Sutter rammed the Syrette in with more force than necessary, then led the Russian to the small closet beneath the staircase and stuffed him inside as he began to pass into unconsciousness.

Pembroke looked up the narrow, dimly lit staircase, which ended at a top landing. Beyond the landing was a steel door that he knew led to the south end of the main attic. There were three other attic staircases, all ending in steel doors that were cross-barred on the other side. He said softly to Ann, “The Holy Grail is beyond that door.”

She smiled at him. “Keep it. I’m interested in the radios. I must speak to Washington and Moscow sometime before midnight.”

Pembroke looked at his watch and replied, “We shall do our best.”

Llewelyn was at the top of the stairs, fixing charges of plastic explosives around the steel casement frame.

Ann said, “You must keep the shooting to a minimum up there. Those electronics are crucial.”

“I understand.”

She looked at him closely. “If we succeed here, I don’t want a massacre, Marc. I just want to get out.”

“And if we don’t succeed?”

She stared into his eyes as she spoke. “Then, as George said, we’ll take as many with us as we can. There will be no reason to leave here.”

Pembroke nodded. “How do you want your father? Dead or alive?”

She spoke without hesitation. “I want him put back in his grave where he belongs.”

“Thorpe?”

“Alive. I want him alive.”

“Any other instructions?”

“Yes. If Talbot Three is actually here, find him.”

Pembroke nodded, then said, “Before I’m through here, this house will give up all its secrets.”

64

The big Sikorsky helicopter headed south toward the coastline of Long Island. The jumpmaster, Farber, called out, “Target, three miles due south!” He added, “Winds gusting from the north to nine miles an hour at sea level. Ten to fifteen miles up here. Partial cloud cover, obscuring a three-quarter moon. Rain clouds tracking this way. Target is well lit and easily identifiable. Don’t land on George’s property by mistake or he’ll shoot you.” Farber laughed, then called out, “Line up!”

Grenville stood and approached the sliding door. Behind him were Pembroke’s men, Stewart and Collins. Behind them the old boys, Johnson and Hallis. Grenville knew enough about tactical parachute jumps to know that the buddy system was very important. Stewart and Collins were buddies. He guessed that Johnson and Hallis were buddies too. Only Tom Grenville seemed to be missing a buddy.

The cabin lights suddenly went out and the lights from the cockpit dimmed to near darkness. The pilots drew blackout shades around their side windows and shut off the outside navigation lights, a move that Grenville thought was highly dangerous. Farber seemed to read his thoughts and said, “Don’t worry, boys, no one else is crazy enough to be flying at this altitude tonight.”

The blackened helicopter stopped its forward motion and hovered nose up into the wind. The buffeting became worse and the cabin pitched steeply to port and starboard. The men held on to overhead straps. Farber called out, “Target one mile, due south.”

Grenville checked his equipment and adjusted the sling of his M-16. He peered out the door window. The sky was still flashing jagged lightning, and dark clouds passed by the windows.

Farber shouted, “Altitude five thousand, five hundred feet. Target one hundred feet above sea level, give or take a chimney or two.”

Grenville decided he did not like Farber’s humor. He also decided in a clear flash of reason that he wasn’t going to jump. He turned and found himself staring into Stewart’s black eyes, which reflected the thin moonlight coming through the window.

Suddenly, Farber rolled the sliding door open and a blast of frigid air flew into the darkened cabin. The noise of the rotor blades was deafening, and Grenville couldn’t hear himself speaking to Stewart, telling him to get the hell out of his way.

Stewart smiled at him. Farber gave a thumbs-up and flashed a green penlight. Stewart reached out and pushed Grenville through the open door.

Tom Grenville felt that there was no longer any floor beneath his feet, a feeling that always made him unhappy. He felt himself tumble head over heels, then righted himself and spread his arms like a bird, experiencing the exhilaration of free fall. He soared above the moonglow on the Long Island Sound, the wind carrying him toward the coastline a mile below and a mile forward. He thought, I didn’t collide with the fucking pontoon, Stewart.

He looked back and saw that Stewart and Collins were soaring above him. Then Johnson dived out of the cabin, followed by Hallis.

In the dark cabin, Farber watched Hallis clear the helicopter, then grabbed the handle of the rolling door.

A hatch on the bulkhead of the aft stowage compartment dropped open and a man emerged. Farber sensed the movement and looked up as the shadow approached. The black-clad man in a parachute harness stood in front of Farber, who was holding the door half-open. The man said, “Hello, Barney.”

Farber’s eyes widened in surprise as the man reached out and seized Farber, who had no parachute, and pushed him out the open door. The man dived after him.

Tom Grenville looked down at the approaching coastline. He hoped they would spot the Russian house, though he wasn’t certain he himself was going to aim for it. Like other combat parachutists who had come to their senses on the way down, he could miss his target and explain that he mistook the lights of the country club for the Russian mansion.

The air warmed as he descended, and the wind slackened. To his front he saw the village of Glen Cove and the strands of crisscrossing roads that surrounded it like a net of white blinking Christmas lights. Beyond the village were suburban housing tracts, and here and there the large houses of country estates surrounded by dark blotches of woodland and fields. Grenville spotted the Russian estate and saw that there was no mistaking anything else for it. Scratch that idea, he thought.

Grenville looked down. The ground was coming up fast now, as it always did at the end. He realized he could pop his chute at this moment and guide himself to a safe landing outside the enclosed thirty-seven acres of the Russian estate. A few more seconds and he wouldn’t be able to move laterally far enough to do that. He put his hand on his rip cord.

But something Van Dorn had said made him hesitate. Beyond all the patriotic hoopla, and the assurances of a favorable promotion review, Van Dorn had said, “If you and Joan make it back, everything will be all right between you two for a long time to come.”

Grenville knew instinctively that was true. He really did love her. They’d just gone off the track. They had to share something special to put the spark back in their relationship. Like a commando raid.

Grenville heard himself saying, “I can’t let her go in there alone. I have to go too.”

He looked down at the big floodlighted area around the house. It was very close now, and it was too late to avoid his rendezvous with it, his rendezvous with death or with life. “Oh, shit… ”

He looked at the quickly changing red LED numbers on his altimeter: one thousand feet above sea level, nine hundred, eight hundred. He pulled his rip cord and felt the deceleration as the skydiver chute filled with air. He looked up at his chute, spread like black bat wings above his head. He felt himself drifting slowly, updrafts keeping the altimeter at five hundred feet. “Shit!” He didn’t like the idea of hanging above the target. Even though the skyrockets had stopped on schedule, and he supposed no one below was looking up anymore, he felt very exposed. The altimeter read four hundred and fifty feet. Much too slow a descent. He began to guide his chute toward the house.

Grenville looked back over his shoulder. The Sikorsky wasn’t visible any longer. Grenville suspected it was still there, monitoring their fall, but its gray camouflage paint and its darkened lights made it impossible to see.

The four other chutes were close behind him. They were maneuvering also, closing in on the house. Grenville turned back to his front, then his head swung around quickly. He counted: One, two, three, four… five! That wasn’t right. He counted again and again and came up with five. “What the hell…?” He thought, Farber? But Farber hadn’t been wearing a chute and couldn’t have gotten into one quickly enough to be that close. Who the hell was that? Maybe they had a buddy for him. But Grenville could see that the other men had swiveled around also and were watching the unknown chutist above and behind them. Instinctively he knew that the sixth man was not one of them. He was no buddy.

65

Stanley Kuchik held the cable tighter as the grade became steeper. He thought he should be nearing the end of the conduit by now. He called out softly to Joan, “You still there?”

“In body only. I projected my spirit to the Côte d’Azur.”

“Oh…” Stanley said, “don’t let go. If you do let go, tell me first. I’ll let go too.”

Joan thought the boy seemed frightened. She said, “You’ll be the first to know.”

Stanley was silent as the cable carried him through the conduit. He felt something brush over his helmet and face and heard the tinkling of metal chimes — the signal marker that meant he had ten seconds before his fingers reached the return pulley. He quickly released one hand from the cable and felt around the top of the conduit, finding the first of the handgrips embedded in the pipe. He released the moving cable with his other hand and reached back for the next grip, pulling himself, hand over hand, through the conduit, the trolley still beneath him.

He heard the chimes again and heard Joan feeling for the first overhead grip. Stanley said, “I’m pulling myself through.”

“Me too.”

Stanley felt her head come into contact with his feet. He said, “Hold it there.”

Stanley heard the return pulley spinning above his face. “Christ, talk about tight… .” He found the next handgrip and pulled himself another foot along, feeling his helmet come into contact with the concrete plug that the Russians had poured into the conduit. He drew a deep breath. The air was foul and he felt dizzy. He whispered, “I hit the wall.”

“Well, ram through it.”

“Okay… ” Bergen had explained that his men — the midgets — had used muriatic acid to eat away most of the concrete plug, leaving just a two-inch shell. Stanley gave a mental shrug. Nuts.

He began a difficult turning motion, thrusting his body around until he lay facedown on the trolley. He found a recessed handgrip in front of him, buried his gloved fingers in it, and pulled. He and the trolley traveled forward, sending his helmet into the concrete wall. The brittle acid-eaten concrete shattered immediately and fell noisily to the floor of the boiler room.

Light flooded into the conduit and Stanley was almost blinded by the sudden glare. Cool air bathed his sweaty face as he squinted into the lights. He drew his pistol and aimed it to his front.

If anyone was in the boiler room, or came in to investigate the noise, he was to call out “Red!” and they’d both push off, sending the trolleys rolling back to the basement of the tennis court.

Stanley stared at the closed door of the boiler room twenty feet away. He realized that he was the only one who would ever know whether or not that door opened. He kept staring at it, praying, but not knowing if he was praying for it to open or stay closed.

Joan whispered urgently, “Green or red?”

Stanley replied, “Yellow.” He waited for some time, his eyes adjusting to the light as he stared at the door, considering his options, then suddenly blurted, “Green! Green!”

Joan replied, somewhat unhappily, he thought, “Understand. Green.”

Stanley stuck his pistol into his chest pouch, then pulled the small trolley from under his body and dangled it over the edge of the conduit. He let it fall and heard a soft thud as the rubber trolley hit the floor.

Stanley knocked off a few clinging fragments of concrete, then pulled his head and torso out of the conduit. He glanced around the big boiler room, lit with naked incandescent light bulbs. He looked down. Bergen had said it would be a three- or four-foot drop, but it was at least five feet. Shit.

He worked his body out farther and bent at the waist, pushing his palms against the wall until his weight and gravity took over and he felt himself sliding down, face first, to the floor. He hit with his hands and somersaulted away from the wall, ending up on his feet. He drew his pistol quickly and backed up to the wall again. He called softly up to the conduit. “Okay. I’m in. Hold on a minute.” He went to the boiler room door and listened. There were sounds in the distance, but he couldn’t make them out. Stanley turned from the door and made his way silently around the large concrete room. He found a handmade wooden bench and carried it to the wall. He stepped up on it and peered into the conduit. He saw Joan’s head and shoulders a few feet away. She was still lying on her back, the trolley beneath her. Looking at her stuffed in there, he didn’t see how either of them had got through. No way, he thought, would the Russians expect this. He called out, “Okay, I’m here—”

“Get me the hell out of here. I can’t hold on much longer.”

“Okay… ” Stanley reached in and worked his hands into the compressed space between her forearms and breasts.

“Watch it, Stanley.”

He stammered. “This is the way Bergen—”

“Just pull.”

His fingers hooked around her pectoral muscles and he pulled back. The trolley under her rolled toward him. After a good deal of twisting and pulling, she came free and dropped into his cradled arms. They stared at each other, wide-eyed, as they listened to the trolley rolling back down the conduit. Joan said, “Oh, Christ… ”

Stanley looked at her. “You were supposed to secure it with a cord… ”

Joan snapped, “I forgot. Put me down.”

Stanley lowered her and she stood quickly, then hopped up to the bench and stared into the black conduit. “Well, the trolley left without me, Stan.”

Stanley was shaking his head. “I should have reminded you.”

She jumped down to the floor. “Hey, I forgot, not you. Don’t pull your adolescent macho shit on me.”

He stared at her, slightly bewildered. “Sorry… ”

She drew a short breath. “Well, let’s get this dog-and-pony show on the road.”

He nodded, but didn’t move. “How are you going to get back?”

“Limo. First class.” She looked around. “All right, next we cover our arrival. Correct?”

Joan and Stanley quickly gathered up the thin slabs of broken concrete from the floor below and put them behind a boiler. Joan moved Stanley’s trolley there as well. Stanley reached into his pouch and retrieved a round section of cloth with adhesive backing. He stood on the bench, unfolded the cloth, and stuck it over the conduit opening.

Joan looked at it from across the room. It was colored and textured like concrete and she supposed it would pass a cursory inspection of the room. “Looks terrific. We’ll donate it to the Guggenheim.”

Stanley hopped down from the bench and carried it back to where he had found it. Joan reached up with her gloved hand and partially unscrewed two of the four overhead light bulbs, throwing the back of the room where the conduit was into near darkness. “Much nicer. All right, let’s go.”

Stanley hesitated, then went toward the door. He drew his pistol again and glanced back at Joan. He saw that she had done the same. He grasped the door handle and pushed outward, peering through the crack into the large storage room that he remembered from his last visit. He motioned to Joan and they both slipped through the door.

Stanley led the way through the stacked boxes of canned food. He knew the way up to a point, but he took out a small rough diagram and stared at it. This section of the basement was a maze of wooden partitions. There were doors everywhere, some marked in Russian and a few still marked in English. He found the one he was looking for, marked in the same Russian letters as those on his diagram. He opened it slowly and began heading along a dark narrow passage, Joan behind him. They were traveling toward the west end of the house.

The passage ended and they stepped into an open area. Ten feet to his front was a wall of fairly new concrete, about fifty feet long. He approached a single massive door sheathed with lead, and he knew this was the bomb shelter.

Inside the bomb shelter, he had been told, were over a hundred Russians: men, women, and children. He and Joan had to keep them in there.

Joan came up beside him and nodded. They both pulled tubes of epoxy weld from their black stretch suits and began running a bead of the fast-drying weld around the edge of the door where it met the steel casement jamb. The Russians inside would not be able to pull it open.

Stanley looked at his diagram again. He had been told that there was a staircase that ran up to the first floor and into a hallway that lay between the living room and trophy room. He had been briefed about the little girl who had come up the staircase. Van Dorn seemed to know a lot about this place, from defectors and spies, but he didn’t know if the staircase lay inside the bomb shelter or outside.

Joan was searching the dimly lit area in front of the shelter wall. She tried a few doors, but none of them led to a staircase. She whispered, “The stairs must be inside the shelter.”

Stanley nodded.

Joan said, “We have to do the other thing. It’s over here.” She led Stanley to the south foundation wall. Standing against the wall were three steel boxes about the size and shape of large freezers. In fact, each unit was an air conditioner and air purifier for the bomb shelter. Ducts led out of the top of each unit through the wall and surfaced somewhere out in the plantings around the south terrace. Ducts also ran from each unit along the ceiling and penetrated the concrete wall of the bomb shelter.

None of the three units was running at the moment, and Stanley felt each one until he found the one that was warm with electrical heat. “This one.”

He examined the steel sides. They were completely sealed, but there was a hinged access panel on the side. He turned a latch and the panel swung open. Stanley peered inside and saw the charcoal and fiber-glass filters. He pulled one out and dropped it behind the unit. Joan handed him a vacuum-sealed plastic bag and he tore it open, quickly dumping the clear crystals through the intake where the filter had been. He drew away immediately, knowing that the crystals were vaporizing into an invisible and odorless gas. He shut the access panel and stepped away from the unit.

Joan whispered, “Let’s get out of here.”

“I have to be sure this unit kicks on. Orders.”

“I’ll kick you in the ass, Stanley. Don’t push our luck.”

Stanley remained motionless, staring at the big gray steel box. After what seemed a very long time, but was less than a minute, he heard an electrical relay click and the unit vibrated, emitting a noise like a refrigerator. Stanley nodded with satisfaction. “They’ll be sleeping soon. Let’s—” He turned and saw that Joan was already heading back along the passage. He followed quickly.

They turned right, back toward the boiler room, but didn’t enter it, continuing instead to the door of the utility room.

Stanley opened the door and stepped into the long, narrow room. He found himself standing ten feet away from a man in overalls holding a clipboard in one hand and a pencil in the other.

Joan let out a scream. The man did the same. Stanley raised his pistol instinctively and fired three times, the silencer making a noise like air rushing out of the neck of a toy balloon. Phfft! Phftt! Phftt!

Stanley watched the man stagger aimlessly, a surprised look on his face, his hands covering his groin and chest as though he’d been caught naked.

Stanley didn’t know what to do. People were supposed to fall down dead when you shot them. He tried to fire again, but his hand was shaking so badly he couldn’t have hit the wall.

Joan closed her eyes.

Finally the man fell to the floor. Stanley approached hesitantly. Blood flowed from the man’s shoulder and groin, spreading over his khaki overalls and puddling on the gray floor. The man’s chest heaved rapidly and his eyes stared up at Stanley.

Stanley turned away. He felt his stomach heave. Without further warning he vomited up bile, acid, and a chocolate candy bar.

Joan came up behind him and put her hand on his shoulder. “Oh… oh, my God… Stanley…”

Stanley took several deep breaths and with some effort got control of himself. “We have to… to finish him… ”

Joan didn’t reply.

Stanley turned and looked down at the man, hoping he was dead, but he was not. Stanley wanted the man to live, but he had his orders: no witnesses. He aimed at the man’s head, closed his eyes, and fired, hearing the bullet thud against the skull and crack into the concrete floor.

Joan and Stanley stood quietly for a few seconds, then Joan said with forced calmness, “Help me hide him.” They dragged the man into a corner where wooden skids were stacked and lowered a skid over his body. Joan found a rag mop and Stanley located an overhead water valve. They cleaned up the blood and hid the mop under the big electrical generator.

Joan and Stanley stared at each other for a brief second, their expressions revealing the fact that they had been intimate accomplices in something that neither of them would ever forget. Joan broke eye contact and looked quickly at her watch. “Oh, God, we’re nearly four minutes late.”

Stanley quickly drew a photograph from his chest pouch and compared it to the large electrical panel. The photograph was a blown-up reproduction of the shot he had taken a month before. There were grease-pencil marks next to the circuit breakers in question. One was to be shut, the other, the only circuit breaker that was in the off position, was to be turned on.

Van Dorn had explained that he wasn’t to touch anything else, that it must appear that the one circuit breaker tripped off by itself because of an overload. The one to be turned on wouldn’t be noticed immediately. Stanley held the photograph up to the circuit breakers, reached out, and switched the two that were marked in the picture.

Van Dorn’s last instructions had been to get out fast, because there would be people racing down to the utility room. Stanley turned to Joan. “Let’s go!” He dashed through the open door, Joan close behind. As they headed toward the boiler room, Stanley heard the sound of hurrying footsteps on a nearby staircase. “Oh, shit!” He picked up his pace, but he was in the area of the small compartmentalized rooms and doors and he became disoriented.

Joan said breathlessly behind him, “I think we passed it.”

Suddenly a door to their right burst open and Stanley instinctively dropped into a crouch and remained frozen. Joan did the same.

Four men, two armed guards and two men in overalls, came quickly through the door, just fifteen feet away. They pivoted left on the run and ran through the passage from which Stanley and Joan had just come.

Stanley remained in his crouch, his entire body shaking and a cold sweat forming on his face. Joan rose shakily and pulled Stanley to his feet. She whispered, “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

They moved cautiously now, finally finding the food-storage area outside the boiler room. Joan stayed in the shadow of a pile of boxes. “Go on. I’ll cover.”

Stanley dashed across the open space and swung the door out, slipping halfway inside. He scanned the boiler room quickly, and it appeared the same as they’d left it. He motioned to Joan and she dashed across the open area, slipping inside the boiler room behind Stanley.

Stanley wasted no time. He grabbed the bench and placed it below the conduit, then went behind the boiler and retrieved his rubber trolley. He jumped on the bench and ripped the cloth cover from the hole, raised the trolley, then stopped. His trolley was supposed to be kept from rolling down the sloped conduit by her secured trolley. But hers was gone, of course.

Stanley wondered for a second what Bergen and Claire had made of the returned empty trolley. He wondered also why they hadn’t sent it back on the cable, attached by a cord or wire. Stanley took out his flashlight and shone it into the conduit. “Christ…” About two hundred feet down the conduit his beam picked out the silhouette of the trolley. It had become stuck, probably on a small ridge where the clay conduit pipes joined. “Oh… shit!”

Joan said, “What is it? Why aren’t you going?”

He turned to her. “Your trolley’s stuck in there. They don’t know you lost it.”

She nodded as she began to appreciate the situation. “I really fucked up. Well, go on Stanley. Here, I’ll help you in.” She stepped up on the bench.

“No. No, you go. I’ll wait here. You tell them what happened and they’ll send a trolley back. I’ll be okay while—”

Joan slapped him hard across the face. “Get in that fucking hole or I’ll beat the shit out of you.”

He put his hand to his face as he stared at her.

She pulled the trolley out of his hand, then pushed it back to his chest, curved side toward him and the wheels facing out. “Hold that.” She took a length of nylon cord from around her waist — the cord she was supposed to have used to secure her trolley to the handgrips. She passed the cord under Stanley’s arms and tied the trolley to his chest. “All right, kid, you’re set.” She looked at him a moment, then leaned over and planted a kiss on his lips.

Stanley flushed and his eyes widened.

Joan knelt on one knee, then made a stirrup with her hands. “Come on. Move it.”

Stanley stuck his foot into her hands and found himself lifted up and into the conduit opening. He felt a slap on his buttocks, and he wiggled farther in, holding his arms out to the front. He felt Joan push on the soles of his shoes and he began rolling forward, gathering momentum as the trolley began its long journey home.

His outstretched hands hit Joan’s stuck trolley and set it rolling free ahead of him. Stanley closed his eyes for what seemed a long time, then opened them again and saw the light at the end of the long dark tunnel. Then the light became blurry as tears formed in his eyes.

Joan Grenville drew her pistol and walked slowly to the door of the boiler room. She knew that the shit was going to hit the fan very soon and she didn’t know if the boiler room was the place to be when it hit.

Tom was out there somewhere, and so were the others. She’d just completed a very difficult task, and she was in a position to get out. The others weren’t. But as Van Dorn said, no place was safe anymore. Perhaps, she thought, they could use another gun upstairs. She opened the boiler room door without fully realizing what she was doing.

She found herself wandering through the dimly lit passages of the basement, looking for a staircase that would lead upstairs. She thought that, after all, she should be with Tom.

66

Claudia Lepescu worked the small-caliber automatic out of Alexei Kalin’s holster hanging on the doorknob. Kalin, lost in his sexual reverie, noticed nothing. She brought the pistol out, flipped off the safety, and thrust the cold steel deep between his legs to muffle the sound. She fired.

Kalin’s feet left the floor from the impact and he fell back against the door, uttering only a short groan. Claudia rocked back on her haunches and stared up at him. He seemed unhurt, still standing, a puzzled expression on his face. Then she saw the blood pouring out between his spread legs like an open faucet. Kalin felt it too, and his hands shot down to the wound, the blood collecting in his cupped hands and running between his fingers.

Claudia stood and took a step back, keeping the gun trained on him, waiting for some sign that he was mortally wounded. Then she saw the color drain from his face and watched incredulously as the whiteness moved downward, like a wave of waxy death, the florid chest becoming milky, then the abdomen and pelvis, the redness pouring onto the floor, leaving his body through the hole behind his scrotum.

Kalin took a mincing step toward her and opened his mouth. “Claudia…”

She spit on the floor and wiped her mouth.

Kalin tried another step, but his knees buckled and he fell forward, his hands still on his groin and his face thudding against the floorboards.

Claudia retrieved her clothes and dressed quickly. She stepped out into the hallway and began walking, Kalin’s small automatic held tightly to her side. She had never been in this house before, but she had seen the floor plans in Van Dorn’s study and she thought she could locate Androv’s office. She had scores to settle, indignities to be redressed. She was a proud woman, and they had not broken her nor turned her into a docile, craven whore, as they’d thought. From the moment she landed in the United States, she had begun to play a cautious double game.

She passed through a door, climbed a half flight of stairs, and entered the main wing of the house. Claudia believed in preternatural evil and she possessed the superstitious tendencies of her people. She could sense Androv’s evil close by and walked toward it.

Abrams, Katherine, Davis, and Cameron pulled their long black bayonets from their scabbards and snapped them onto the lugs below the silencer and flash suppressors. Abrams thought they were quite lethal-looking. He had never personally participated in a bayonet charge, but what had seemed unthinkable not so long ago seemed perfectly reasonable tonight.

Katherine looked at her watch. “What’s taking them so long—”

Suddenly all the floodlights and spotlights on the north end of the house went from glaring white to dying red, then black, leaving a swatch of darkness lying over the north lawn.

Cameron stood and said simply, “Charge!”

The four people burst out of the tree line and began tearing across the hundred yards of lawn. They were all good runners and the distance closed fast. Abrams didn’t think Cameron had finished his “Our Father” before they found themselves on the tiled steps leading up to the terrace.

Abrams was vaguely aware of passing over the swastika in the center of the terrace as the gray stone wall of the house loomed up, punctuated by the windows and French doors that glowed weakly from some distant interior house light. Abrams spotted a guard in the corner, silhouetted against a large window where the two wings came together. He turned and charged.

The guard heard the running footsteps and squinted into the darkness, then raised his rifle tentatively. In a split second Abrams knew he wouldn’t reach him with the bayonet. Abrams fired a single shot and the man doubled over and crumpled to the terrace.

Cameron charged into two Russians who were standing together and talking excitedly. They turned toward Cameron at the last moment and Cameron buried his long bayonet into the groin of the closest one, then cut upward and opened the man’s abdomen up to his breastbone. Cameron raised his leg and pushed the skewered man off his bayonet.

Simultaneously, Davis plunged his bayonet in an overhand harpooning motion through the heart of the second Russian. They both wiped their blades on their victims’ uniforms.

Katherine had stopped on the steps as instructed and was scanning the windows and glass doors, rifle raised to fire, but no one seemed alerted by the sounds.

The three men quickly joined her. She said, “Let’s get off this terrace before the lights come on.”

They ran along the terrace, heading west to the rear of the house, and came upon a huge screened porch attached to the back of the house. Davis crashed through the screen door, followed by Cameron, Katherine, and Abrams.

They pivoted to the left and Davis ran up to a single door and pushed it open. They rushed through the doorway, into the living room, and spread out behind pieces of massive furniture.

Abrams half expected to see Henry Kimberly sitting in the chair beside the green-shaded lamp where he had last left him, but the chair was empty. The lamp was still lit, casting a small circle of light around the chair in the otherwise darkened room. Abrams noticed there were still cigarette stubs in the ashtray.

Cameron rose and looked around. He whispered, “Clear. Let’s go.”

They made their way across the wide room, rifles at their hips.

Cameron and Davis went to the left toward the door that led to the gallery. Abrams and Katherine went to the door from which Abrams had spoken to Henry Kimberly. They were to make a sweep of the ground floor, from the west end of the house to the east, room by room: a search-and-destroy operation.

They were searching, Abrams thought, for Viktor Androv and his KGB pals, for Peter Thorpe, and for Henry Kimberly. They were searching in a physical way, as well as in a metaphysical sense, for the switch that would shut down the ticking clock.

Tom Grenville looked straight down. Van Dorn’s house was directly below, framed nicely between his feet. He wondered how he’d gotten from there to here and if he’d ever get back there again.

He looked around and saw that the rest of his team were grouping in close around him. They had chosen the roof of the Russian mansion as their landing site, depending, as Van Dorn had said, on what was known in the military as the “pathfinder team.” The pathfinder team’s job was to light or mark difficult zones, and although the roof of the house covered nearly half an acre, Van Dorn had pointed out in the aerial photographs that most of the dark roof was pitched and covered with slippery slate, and where it was flat it was bristling with antennas, a satellite dish, and a microwave dish. Van Dorn had likened these to the wartime anti-parachutist protuberances that were meant to kill and maim. Grenville felt his stomach go sour again.

But the landing was possible, if the pathfinder team could get the work lights on the roof turned on. However, the pathfinder team, as Grenville knew, consisted of Joan and an acne-faced adolescent. Grenville didn’t hold out much hope for those lights going on, and this brought him some modicum of comfort.

They were sailing right at the house now, the descent slow from the updrafts, but the forward movement fast because of the tail wind. Grenville knew that within the next few seconds, Stewart would have to decide if they were to land.

He looked to his left at Stewart, who was about to flash a light signal: a blinking light meant the roof, a steady light meant glide over the house and make for a clearing in the woods. As Grenville watched, Stewart’s light went on, then began to blink. Grenville stared at it in amazement, then looked below.

The lights on the north lawn had gone black and the rooftop work lights glowed white. “Oh, shit. Joan… what are you doing to me?” But inexplicably a sense of pride swelled within Grenville, and he was relieved to discover that she was, at least at that moment, still alive.

The brightly lit roof was about two hundred feet ahead and a hundred feet below, and their angle of glide might or might not intercept it. Grenville glanced quickly back at the mysterious sixth man, who was now guiding his chute toward the illuminated forecourt that covered nearly an acre of flat grass and gravel.

Collins also watched the sixth man float farther away. Collins didn’t know who the man was, only that he didn’t belong there. Collins raised his rifle, put it on full automatic, and fired across the fifty yards that separated them.

The distance to the target was not far, but the relative positions of the moving chutists made it difficult to establish a point of reference.

The sixth man saw the muzzle flash and fired back. The man had the advantage of red tracer rounds, and he was able to adjust the fiery red streaks until he found his target.

Collins lurched in his harness, then dropped his rifle and hung motionless. His unguided chute floated southward with the wind toward the distant tree line.

Tom Grenville watched the exchange with a sense of incredulity. This silent death above the earth could not be happening. He caught a glimpse of the sixth chutist as he disappeared below the higher roofline to the left and dropped toward the forecourt. Grenville could see Russian guards converging toward the man.

Grenville looked down and saw the flat gray roof less than thirty feet below. He snapped out of his shock and gave a final tug on his risers to try to slow the chute from its southward drift. Stewart, Johnson, and Hallis were so close their chutes were touching his, all four of them now trying to pick out a patch of clear space amid the antennas, dishes, and guy wires below.

At ten feet it was obvious they might overshoot the house and land on the brightly lit south terrace, where the Russians below, who were in a state of alert now, could massacre them.

Grenville closed his eyes and waited.

Joan Grenville wandered around the dark basement, pistol in one hand, a diagram of the basement in the other. She had come to her senses and decided to go back to the boiler room where she belonged. Unfortunately, she was lost. She was in a section that had apparently not been seen by a defector or spy, because it was marked on her diagram Unknown. KGB personnel only. That sounded spooky.

She checked her compass and turned down a narrow passage until she came to an unmarked door that was painted red, the only red door she had seen so far. She passed it, hesitated, then turned and listened at the door, but heard nothing. Slowly, she twisted the white porcelain knob and pushed in on the door.

There was a black void before her as she passed through the door and stood silently in the dark. She was aware of a rank odor.

Joan pulled a small red-filtered flashlight from the elastic pouch on her stomach and switched it on. She swung the beam around the walls. Just an empty room. She took a step and found herself falling forward. She put out her hands to break her fall and was surprised to find herself lying in sand. “What the hell…?”

Joan got up on one knee and took the filter off the light. She played the beam around and saw that the entire floor of the small room was of white sand, newly raked. She couldn’t imagine what it was for. A child’s sandbox? No, absurd.

She rose to her feet and her beam caught something on the far wall. She moved toward it. It was the base of a fireplace chimney, set in the concrete foundation. There was a partly opened ash door at chest height. At least now she had a landmark. She consulted her diagram and noted the location of the fireplace chimneys. She glanced back toward the iron ash door and saw now that it was much larger than an ash door ought to be. It was also fairly new, embedded in fresh mortar around the older brick. It looked, she thought, more like an oven or kiln than an ash trap.

Joan directed the light inside the black open space and saw a charred skull, the black hollow eye sockets staring back at her. She screamed, dropped the flashlight, and stumbled backward, falling into the loose sand. “Oh… oh, my God!”

She realized, in a flash of intuition, coupled with something she had once overheard, that she was lying in the sand of an execution pit. She jumped to her feet, her hands flailing at the sand clinging to her body-suit as she made her way through the shallow pit and found the door. She ran out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

Joan leaned back against the wall and caught her breath. She had lost the flashlight, but at least the pistol was still in her shaking hand.

She began walking again, willing herself to calm down. “All right, Joan… it’s all right.” But the image of the skull stayed with her, and she could actually picture herself kneeling in the damp pit, a cold pistol to her neck, the cremation furnace glowing red across the white, raked sand. “Oh, dear God… what sort of people are these…?” Then, suddenly, all the cloak-and-dagger idiocy made sense in a way that Tom could never explain. Nothing she had read or heard about the KGB or the Soviets had made the slightest impression on her. But that room had burned itself into her psyche and she knew it would be part of her forever.

She walked until she realized she had come around in a circle. “Oh, shit.” She glanced at the diagram under the glow of a dim light bulb, then moved to a door she hadn’t noticed before. The door was solid-looking oak, set in a concrete wall, unlike the doors of thin boards that cut through the wooden partitions. This might lead to the wing of the basement from which she’d strayed.

She put her ear to the door, but heard nothing. The door was bolted on her side and she slid the iron bolt back and pushed in. The door felt as if it was on spring hinges, and she pushed harder, swinging it inward a few feet.

A blinding light hit her and she drew back, ready to run, but there were no threatening sounds. She squinted in the light that came from bright overhead fluorescent tubes and saw a room, about twenty feet square, the walls and floor entirely covered with white ceramic tile. Like a giant bathroom. In fact, she noticed, there was a shower head in the far wall, and close by were a white porcelain toilet and washbasin. There was a hospital gurney in the corner and leather straps hung on the right-hand wall. She thought, A hospital operating room. But she knew it wasn’t. It was the straps, or perhaps the red stain on the floor around the shower drain, so stark against the white tile, that drew her to the obvious conclusion that she was looking at a modern torture chamber.

“Hello, Joan.”

She felt her mouth go dry and almost lost control of her bladder. She swung her head to the right and stared into the corner. Her eyes widened.

“Thank God it’s you,” said Peter Thorpe.

She tried to speak, but couldn’t. Her eyes focused on him, sitting naked with his arms wrapped around his bent knees. His face, she saw, was bruised and one eye was swollen shut. Joan felt her hand tighten around her pistol.

Thorpe stood slowly, revealing his full nakedness, and she saw his body had taken some punishment as well.

Thorpe said, “Nice outfit, Joan. Does you justice. They’ve attacked, haven’t they? I knew they would.”

Joan nodded. Nothing surprised her anymore, and she found her voice. “How did you get here?”

Thorpe ignored the question and asked, “Who’s winning the war upstairs?”

Joan was wary. She answered, “We are.”

Thorpe looked at her closely, then said, “Are the others close by?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Well, let’s go.” He came closer.

“Stop there.” She raised her pistol and remained standing in the open door.

Thorpe stopped, then said sharply, “Come in here and close the door before someone comes by.” He added, “We’ll talk.”

Joan hesitated, then stepped fully into the room, and the door swung closed on its spring.

Thorpe said, “Tell me why you’re pointing that at me. Certainly naked men don’t make you nervous.”

Joan snapped, “You’re a Russian agent. That’s what they told me when I was briefed.”

Thorpe smiled and shook his head. “Would I be here in this room if I was working for them?”

She didn’t reply.

“Van Dorn and his clowns think they have all the answers, but those harebrained amateurs don’t know anything. I’m a triple agent, a loyal CIA operative.”

Joan winced at the string of intelligence terms. “Oh, fuck this double, triple shit, Peter. You all give me a headache. They told me if I ran into you, to shoot you on the spot, and I just might do that.”

Thorpe laughed, then said pleasantly, “Joan… I haven’t forgotten that time we went out on my boat—”

“Go to hell.”

Thorpe looked downcast. He said, “What are you going to do to me? I’d rather you shot me than leave me here to be tortured by the Russians again.”

She looked at his body. They had not hurt him too badly, from what she could see. She tried to draw some conclusions. Either he was working for the CIA, or he was working for the Russians. Van Dorn could be wrong. After all, if he was working for the Russians, why did they beat him? And if he was a CIA agent, she couldn’t leave him here… She thought a moment, then said, “Look, Peter, I’m a little new at this, but I think even an old pro wouldn’t know what the fuck to make of you.”

Thorpe let out a long breath, then said, “Okay, but you can’t in good conscience leave me here to be killed by them.”

She didn’t reply.

He went on imploringly, “Just let me out of here. You have the gun. I’m naked and defenseless. For God’s sake, Joan, just leave the door unbolted for me.” He hung his head and added, “I wouldn’t be in this room unless I was their enemy.”

Joan made a decision. She said, “I’m leaving, Peter, and I’m locking the door. But I’ll be right back with a few of Pembroke’s men.”

She watched him carefully and thought she detected a glimmer of fear in his eyes.

He said, “They’ll kill me.”

“Why?”

“They don’t know I’m a CIA triple.”

“Tell them.”

“They won’t believe me.”

“They won’t kill you either. They’ll check with your superiors in the CIA.”

“No… don’t call them. Just leave.”

Joan backed toward the door, her pistol aimed at Thorpe about ten feet away. “Good-bye, Peter. I’ll be back shortly.” She reached behind with her free hand and grabbed the door handle, pulling it inward against its springs and working herself into the opening. She glanced quickly over her shoulder into the darkness outside — as Thorpe knew she would.

Thorpe sprang forward. Joan’s reflexes were good, but playing tennis and shooting a charging man were quite different, and she froze for a fraction of a second. Thorpe’s hands lunged out, one hand going for the pistol, the other for her throat. Joan fired and the bullet smashed into a far wall. The gun was suddenly on the floor, and she saw in a split second that the bullet had passed through Thorpe’s palm. She felt his other hand closing around her throat, then he yanked her into the room by her neck, as though she were no heavier than a child, and threw her across the floor.

Thorpe took two long steps toward her and delivered a kick, heel first, to her groin. Joan cried out and brought her knees to her chest. Thorpe turned and bent over to retrieve the pistol.

Joan stood immediately, thinking vaguely that Thorpe had made two mistakes: kicking her in the groin as though she were a man, and turning his back on her because she was a woman. She drew her long, thin knife from an elastic pouch on her thigh and plunged it deep into Thorpe’s back as he straightened up.

Thorpe took two quick steps forward, the knife still in his back, and swung around, the pistol held in his hand, pointing at her.

Joan screamed, turned, and ran to the far corner, diving behind the gurney as a bullet cracked into the tile above her head.

Thorpe stepped toward her. His punctured lung was filling with blood, and white frothy specks formed on his lips with every labored breath. He stopped, then turned in a zombielike movement and walked toward the door.

Joan watched him, and the only thing her panic-stricken mind could think of was that the black knife handle sticking out of his back looked like a movie prop.

Thorpe pulled open the door and slid through it into the corridor. The door snapped shut behind him and Joan heard him fumbling with the bolt. She got to her feet and ran to the door.

67

Tom Grenville felt the high antenna brush his foot as he drifted over the roof.

Stewart shouted, “Release!” and pulled his quick-release hook, freeing himself from the chute. He dropped straight down, nearly twenty feet, and crashed to the roof. Johnson and Hallis quickly did the same and the three chutes blew away in the wind.

Grenville hesitated a fraction of a second, then decided he’d rather break his neck on the roof than be shot on the ground. He pulled his release hook and found himself falling, feet first, onto the flat roof. He hit hard, bent his knees, and shoulder-rolled, nearly toppling off the edge of the roof where it sloped down to the south terrace below. He carefully edged back and stood unsteadily. He looked around and spotted Stewart lying near a satellite dish, and moved stiffly toward him.

Stewart sat up and glanced at Grenville. “Broke my fucking leg.”

“Well, that’s a hazard of jumping on a cluttered roof at night,” Grenville observed.

Stewart stared at him.

Grenville added, “I’m fine.”

“Fuck off, Tom.” Stewart saw Johnson approaching quickly.

Johnson knelt beside him and said, “Hallis went off the south edge onto the terrace. I think he’s dead.”

Stewart gritted his teeth. “Shit.” He looked at the old general and said, “Well, whoever that other bastard was, he’s blowing the whistle on us. May as well carry on, though.” As he spoke, the roof lights went off and the floodlights on the north lawn lit up again.

Grenville and Johnson carried Stewart to the north edge of the roof, then took their positions.

Grenville knelt at the low coping stone of the south edge, staring down at the terrace, pool, and teahouse below. Hallis’ body was sprawled on the flagstones and Grenville could see he was dead. He could also see four Russian guards running across the lawn toward the terrace. He glanced back at Johnson, who knelt at the west end of the roof overlooking the porch. Then he looked back at Stewart covering the north. He thought, A cripple, a seventy-year-old man, and a lame-brained attorney. An estimated twenty armed guards around the estate, an unknown number of armed civilians, plus a KGB contingent of unknown strength. And nobody but him thought this was crazy. Ergo, he was crazy.

Grenville looked back at the four Russians, who were on the path beside the pool now. He moved the selector switch on his M-16 to full automatic and waited until the guards converged on Hallis’ body. Two of the guards looked up and pointed their rifles at the roof.

Grenville fired a full magazine of twenty rounds, the M-16 jerking silently in his hands. He reloaded quickly, but saw there was no reason to fire again. He had killed all four men. He waited for the shock to hit him, but he felt nothing.

Stewart called to him softly, “What the hell is going on there, Grenville?”

Grenville looked over his shoulder, “I just nailed four.”

“Who authorized you to fire, man? Well, never mind.”

Well, fuck you. Grenville thought suddenly of Joan and looked toward the YMCA tennis building. He saw that it was partly lit. She should be back there by now, he thought. He turned and looked to the north and saw Van Dorn’s house brightly lit in the far distance. The pyrotechnicians had resumed but were firing aerial torpedos now, and loud-bursting explosions rocked the night air. Grenville knew that whatever sounds of mayhem and murder emanated from these lonely acres, no one in the village or on Dosoris Lane would think anything of it. Just crazy George giving it to the Russkies again.

Claudia Lepescu opened the door of Viktor Androv’s study and stepped inside, closing the door behind her. She held the pistol behind her back.

Androv looked up from the telephone, his face white in the glare of the lamp. He said into the phone, “I’ll call you back.” He hung up and looked at her. “Well, what an unexpected surprise. Is Kalin through with you?”

She said nothing. The room was dark except for the area around his desk, but the stained-glass window behind him glowed from the lights outside.

Androv said, “I have no time for you now.”

She replied in Russian, “This won’t take long.”

He pursed his lips, then said, “Did you give Roth the poison?”

“No, I gave him vegetable oil.”

He stared at her, then nodded. “I see.”

She said, “Do you think I’m a mass murderer like you and your filthy Nazis?”

Androv said, “You’re overwrought. Did Kalin abuse you?”

“Kalin is dead.”

Again, Androv nodded as if to say, “I understand, I’ve always understood about you.” He said aloud, “What’s that behind your back. A pistol?”

She brought the pistol up and pointed it at him. “Stand up.”

Androv stood slowly.

“I wish I had time to humiliate you the way you’ve humiliated me. I wish I had a whip, I wish I could have you in a torture cell—”

“Claudia.”

She froze. The voice came from the dark corner of the room to her left. The voice said in English, “Claudia, put down the gun.”

She kept the gun pointed at Androv, but her hands were shaking. No, she thought, it can’t be him. It can’t be—

She saw a flash of light out of the corner of her left eye and felt a searing pain in her side, then another. Then she felt nothing.

The man in the corner remained in the darkness.

Androv looked toward him, then said, “I certainly never thought I’d be rescued by an OSS paratrooper.” He chuckled, then added, “What a game we play.”

Joan Grenville rushed for the door of the torture chamber, reaching for the handle. She did not want to be locked in this room, but neither did she want to face Thorpe. She heard him fumbling with the bolt and yanked back on the handle. The door opened a few inches and she slammed it again, then repeated the motion until Thorpe understood that he was not going to be able to throw the bolt. Thorpe pushed in on the door, but she pushed it back, marveling at how much difference a pint or so of blood made even in a man that powerful. She heard the silencer wheeze and saw the door splinter, but the round, a .25-caliber, did not penetrate the oak. She kept shaking the door as she yelled, “Get out! Go!”

She heard him cough, a liquid sort of sound, then heard the sound of his bare feet slapping on the floor.

Joan waited a full minute, then peeked out the crack around the jamb. There was a trail of blood on the concrete floor of the passage leading away from the door. She was tempted to follow the trail in the hope that she could retrieve her pistol if he collapsed, but she decided she had displayed enough stupidity for one night. She slipped through the door and headed down a narrow passage that ran off to the right of the torture chamber. She intended to get out of this madhouse, fast.

The passage proved a bad choice. It ended at a door, and she had by now resolved not to open another door in this basement. She turned and began heading back, then someone spoke in a language that wasn’t English. Fuck.

She turned and quietly went back to the door. She took a deep breath, opened the door, and slid through, standing with her back against it in total darkness, listening. Nothing. Her hands searched the wall to her right and she located an old push button — type electrical switch. She pressed it and the light went on.

Joan Grenville stared into the huge room, only slowly realizing that she was in a kitchen. But it was an incredibly ancient kitchen, the original downstairs kitchen, she realized. There were exposed pipes and antique stoves, and the walls were gray plaster. There was nothing in there that postdated the 1940s, and by the looks of the dust and cobwebs, it hadn’t been cleaned since then. The kitchen that time forgot. She almost laughed.

Joan knew the basic attack plan well enough, and she knew that if everything had gone right, then Abrams, Katherine, and two of Marc Pembroke’s people were in the house. Marc himself might be up there; yet she heard nothing above to indicate a battle. She decided to wait it out in this time capsule.

Joan looked around at the slate-topped counters, the tub sinks, the wooden cupboards. She looked for something to sit on, then noticed a dumbwaiter in the wall. She approached it curiously and saw that the cage was still there and that the cables were steel, not rope. She walked back to the light switch, shut it, then found her way in the dark to the dumbwaiter. She hesitated, then squeezed herself into the dusty dumbwaiter. “Last place they’d look.” She pulled tentatively on the cable and the cage rose a few inches.

She began pulling hard and the dumbwaiter rose farther. This reminded her unhappily of the damned trolley cable. She continued her ascent. There may be someone up there who can help me, she thought. Certainly her luck couldn’t get any worse. She felt sorry for herself but took comfort in the fact that she was alive, and would stay that way as long as she stayed in the dumbwaiter.

The cage moved surprisingly fast, with little creaking, and she saw a crack of light, then the full outline of the dumbwaiter door on the first floor. She stopped pulling, listened, but heard nothing.

Joan settled back and made herself as comfortable as possible. She closed her eyes and yawned, feeling relatively secure for the first time in hours.

She drifted off for a few moments and was awakened by a light glaring into her eyes. She turned her head and bumped her nose on the muzzle of a rifle. “Oh!” She reached for the cable but a hand grabbed her wrist. A voice said, “You snore.”

She looked up into the blackened face of a very good-looking man. “I know. Everyone tells me that. You’re Davis, aren’t you?”

“At your service. Is the boy all right?”

“Yes, he’s gone back.”

Davis said, “Did you complete the other parts of your mission?”

“Yes. Sleeping gas in the bomb shelter, roof lights on—”

Cameron came running over. He glanced at Joan in the dumbwaiter but showed no particular curiosity. He said to Davis, “Paraztrooper landed out there. They marched him in through the front doors.”

Joan blurted, “Was it Tom? My husband?”

Cameron looked at her. “No… an older man.” He shifted his attention to Davis. “I don’t think it was Johnson or Hallis, either… however, the face looked familiar.”

Joan said, “Listen, can I get out of here? I’m a civilian.”

Davis smiled. “Not yet. You’ll be safest here for a while. We’ll come for you later.”

Joan nodded. As Davis and Cameron started down the hallway, she called to them, “Peter… Peter Thorpe. Is he good or bad?”

“Bad,” said both men simultaneously.

“Good,” she replied. “Because I think I killed him.”

Katherine and Abrams entered the hallway. To the right were the French doors from which Abrams had taken the metal scrapings. Across the hall were the doors to the music room, and to the left were the bathroom and the cellar stairs. Katherine dropped to one knee and scanned the doorways as Abrams moved quickly to the French doors. He peered through the panes and saw something on the north terrace that he hadn’t seen on his earlier visit: four Russian guards, speaking animatedly, standing around the body of a man dressed in black. “Damn it.” As he watched, two of the Russians raised their rifles. Then all four keeled over as the deadly fire from the roof cut them down.

At least some of the paratroopers had made it to the roof, Abrams thought. He hurried back into the hallway, going directly to Katherine at the cellar stairs. The door was ajar and he swung it fully open with the barrel of his rifle.

Katherine suppressed a gasp. The stairs and landing were littered with men, women, and children, sprawled over one another. Some of the men held pistols in their hands. Abrams said, “That’s the bomb shelter down there.”

Katherine nodded.

Abrams looked for the little girl with the doll but didn’t see her. He pulled Katherine away from the door and closed it. “Still some gas… ”

She nodded again and realized she was dizzy. “Let’s get moving.”

They approached the glass-paneled doors that led to the music room and Abrams peered through the curtains. The room was dark except for the glow of the Russian television set. The screen showed a fuzzy picture of a newscaster. Abrams opened the door slowly and they entered. Abrams walked across the frayed rug and Katherine raised her rifle.

The oak flooring creaked. A head appeared over the back of the couch. A female voice said in Russian, “Who is there?”

Abrams replied in Russian, “Me.” He leaned over the couch and leveled his rifle. It was, as he suspected, the woman who had done the security check. She stared at him in the glow of the video tube. She seemed, he thought, neither surprised nor frightened. She said, “What do you want?”

“You watch too much television.”

She smiled. “That’s my job tonight. To watch the news. Your Russian is bad.”

“You’re drunk. What’s your name?”

“Lara.” She looked at his camouflage gear and focused on his rifle, then said in perfect English, “Are you going to kill me?”

Abrams replied in English, “Quite possibly. That’s my job tonight.”

She shrugged and reached for her drink on the end table. “We’re all going to die anyway. Those asses are starting a nuclear war.” She took a long drink and added, “Everyone is in the bomb shelter.”

Abrams remembered the sad expression on her face when he had seen her in this room earlier. He saw the same expression now. He said, “Get up.”

She stood up unsteadily.

Katherine approached and Abrams said, “This is Lara. She’s a recent defector.”

The woman looked at Katherine without curiosity and shrugged again.

Abrams led the two women out into the hallway where the metal detector stood. Across the hall were two impressive oak doors: one led to the security office; the other was the door to Androv’s office. Abrams whispered to Lara, “Is anyone in those rooms?”

She nodded toward the security office. “At least two men at all times.” She looked at the other door. “That’s Androv’s office. He was in a few minutes ago. He has a prisoner. An American paratrooper.”

Abrams looked at the Russian woman. “Knock on the door.”

Lara hesitated, then walked to Androv’s door and knocked. There was no response. She knocked again. “Viktor, may I have a word with you?”

Abrams motioned with the muzzle of his rifle and Lara opened the door. She screamed.

Abrams and Katherine rushed in. The office was empty, but a cigarette still burned in the ashtray. On the floor was Claudia Lepescu. Abrams closed the door. They stared at the body a moment, but no one spoke.

Abrams looked around the office. So, he thought, this is the inner sanctum of the chief KGB resident in New York, the second highest-ranking KGB man in America. A former chapel in the former home of one of America’s leading families. A preview of things to come, perhaps.

Katherine was kneeling beside Claudia’s body. She saw the pistol still clutched in her hand. “Look.”

Abrams knelt beside her and said, “Russian make…” He saw where she had been shot — twice in the side — and his gaze went to the wingback chair in the corner.

Katherine stood and moved to the chair. She picked up the ashtray on the end table. “American cigarettes. Camels.” She saw a bottle of Scotch beside a glass. “Dewar’s.”

Abrams said, “By the looks of it, this American paratrooper was not a prisoner but a confederate.”

A loud alarm bell suddenly began ringing somewhere in the house. Katherine, Abrams, and Lara rushed into the hall. Alarm bells were ringing everywhere now and the house was filled with the staccato noise.

The security office door burst open and a uniformed officer holding a pistol came through. Abrams’ M-16 blazed and the man was thrown back into the office.

Katherine threw a concussion grenade into the office and pulled the door closed to maximize the shock waves. The grenade blew and the door fell off its hinges, followed by a billow of plaster dust.

Cameron and Davis came quickly down the hallway. They ran into the security office and began spraying the room with automatic fire. All the lights were blown out, but the windows were clear of glass and the lights from the forecourt revealed two dead men, one at the switchboard and one behind a desk. A third man was stumbling toward a small door concealed in the oak paneling. He slipped through the door and it snapped shut.

Abrams, Katherine, and Lara came into the room. Abrams and Davis ran to the door and fired through it, then pulled the splintered oak panel open. Davis burst in and a shot rang out, sending him falling back into the office, a bullet hole in the center of his forehead. Abrams dropped into a crouch and fired into the darkness. He heard a man scream, then heard retreating footsteps.

Cameron joined him and they moved cautiously through the panel door into a small, windowless room lit by a wall sconce. To the immediate left was a narrow set of service stairs, and crawling up the stairs was a man in a suit. Blood trailed from his legs onto the wooden steps. Cameron bounded up the steps as the man turned. Cameron kicked the gun out of his hand and stared down at him. The man was bleeding from the mouth and nose, a result of the concussion grenade, and his features were twisted with pain, but Cameron recognized him. “Valentin Metkov, top pig in charge of murder. Who says there’s no justice in the world?”

Metkov stared at Cameron with clouded eyes. “Please… I can help you… please don’t—”

“Where’s Androv?”

Metkov blurted, “Upstairs. In the attic.”

Cameron fired a single shot and Metkov collapsed.

The alarm bells were sounding cautiously, and the house had come alive as though awakened from an unnatural sleep. Running footsteps could be heard overhead and throughout the surrounding rooms and hallways.

Abrams heard gunfire in the security office. He rushed to the concealed doorway. Katherine was firing at the open hallway door, backing toward him as bullets ripped through the paneled walls. Abrams fired at the open door. “Quickly! Run!”

Katherine made it into the small room while Abrams looked for Lara in the dark, dust-filled room. He saw her bullet-ridden body slumped near the door. He knelt down beside Davis and felt for a heartbeat, but there was none.

Cameron shouted, “Let’s go!”

Abrams took the hand grenade from Davis’ belt, pulled the pin, and flung it toward the hallway door. He dived back into the small, windowless room as the grenade exploded.

Cameron and Katherine were on the first landing of the narrow service stairs and Abrams scrambled up to join them. They continued quickly up the winding staircase toward the attic.

68

Marc Pembroke heard the shooting below. In the hallway outside the attic stairs foyer, alarm bells rang and people ran. He said, “The whole bloody house is up and about. Well, another explosion won’t make a difference.” He nodded to Sutter.

Sutter struck a match and touched it to six twisted strands of detonator cord running up the staircase. The cords flashed and the flame ran along the staircase, split into six directions, and blew the plastic charges on the steel door.

The house shook and plaster fell from the ceiling and walls of the stairwell. Pembroke charged up the narrow stairs and dove into the room, rolling across the floor, followed by Llewelyn, Ann, and Sutter. They all began firing automatic bursts into the dimly lit attic room. Pembroke yelled, “Hold fire!”

Sutter and Ann took cover behind a wall of metal file cabinets facing toward the south end of the attic; Pembroke and Llewelyn, in an alcove formed by a gable. Pembroke peered around the corner of the alcove. “Big room. Takes up half this wing. Empty. Brick partition at the end. The communications room will be on the other side of it.” He glanced back at Ann and Sutter. “Well, let’s push on.”

They all stood. Suddenly there was a sound on the stairs and Pembroke turned. A shot rang out and Pembroke staggered back and fell.

Llewelyn turned in time to see the head and shoulders of a uniformed Russian coming up the stairs, rifle raised. Llewelyn fired a short burst, sending the man reeling back down the stairs. He ripped a fragmentation grenade from his belt, pulled the pin, and lobbed it into the stairwell, then hit the floor.

There was a deafening explosion, followed by the sound of the old staircase collapsing.

Llewelyn slid across the floor and peered over the edge of the open stairwell. A cloud of smoke and dust filled the dark space and he could see small fires crackling below. He thought, That protects our rear. That also cuts off our line of withdrawal. He pivoted on the floor and crawled back to Pembroke, who was sitting up in the alcove, Sutter and Ann beside him.

Pembroke ran his hand under his bulletproof vest. “Cracked a rib.”

“Don’t move.” Llewelyn stared at him and saw a trickle of blood running from the corner of his pale mouth. “The lung is punctured, you know.”

“Yes, it’s my lung and my rib, so I knew it immediately. Get moving.”

“Yes. See you later.” Ann and Sutter followed Llewelyn cautiously toward the partition that separated the wings. Ann noticed several canvas bags and wooden crates marked in English and French DIPLOMATIC — RUSSIAN MISSION TO THE UNITED NATIONS — NOT SUBJECT TO U.S. CUSTOMS INSPECTION.

Sutter had taken the lead, and he approached the brick wall that rose through the floorboards and ended at the sloping ceiling. A brick chimney formed part of the wall, and a sliding steel door lay to the left of the chimney.

Sutter said softly, “This is more than we expected.”

Llewelyn nodded. “Nice old house. Built them like fortresses, they did. Russkies added the steel door, I should think. Well, we’ve a bit of plastic left.”

Sutter looked at the door. The rollers were on the far side and it was probably barred with steel. “Possibly there’s more door than plastic.”

Ann stepped forward and the two men watched wide-eyed as she banged the butt of her rifle against the steel door. She shouted in Russian, “Androv! I want to speak to Androv.”

Sutter and Llewelyn said nothing.

Ann banged again. After a full minute, a voice called back through the door in English. “Who are you?”

She replied, “I am Ann Kimberly, daughter of Henry Kimberly. Are you Androv?”

“Yes.”

“Listen carefully. I know my father’s in here somewhere. I know about Molniya and so does my government. They are prepared to launch a nuclear strike against your country. Van Dorn has mortars aimed at you. Do you understand?”

Androv replied, “What do you want?”

“I want you to call it off.” She looked at her watch. “You have eighteen minutes before Molniya explodes. I want you to open this door and let me broadcast a message over your radio.”

Androv replied, “I’ll call Moscow. I’ll be back to you in a few minutes.”

Ann screamed, “You’re lying! You’re not allowed to mention this over the air. Don’t bullshit me! Open this door. Now!”

Androv did not reply.

Ann shouted, “Your situation is hopeless, you fool!”

There was no reply.

Sutter said, “You can’t reason with them, miss. They’ve gotten used to getting their own way.”

Llewelyn had wedged the last of the plastic explosive in the corner where the brick wall met the chimney. He said to Sutter, “The wall is stress-bearing.” He nodded up at the rafters. “If we rock it a bit, it might collapse from the weight of the roof.” He looked at Ann. “But it’s your show now.”

Ann looked again at her watch, then said, “May as well. There’s nothing left to lose.”

Abrams, Katherine, and Cameron reached the top of the tightly winding staircase and stopped in a small windowless interior room about the size of a large closet. A sloping ladder with steps led to a hatch in the ceiling.

Cameron turned his attention to the overhead hatch. “Stand back.” He had unslung a small cardboard tube from his back, about the size of a roll of wrapping paper. He extended the periscoping tube, which held a sixty-millimeter rocket, and placed it on his shoulder in a firing position. Cameron knelt, “Hold your ears and open your month.” He squeezed the electric detonating button and a flame roared out of the rear of the tube, charring the floor as the rocket streaked up to the ceiling. The rocket hit the wooden hatch but didn’t detonate against the thin wood, passing through it and streaking up to the slate-covered roof boards. The rocket exploded inside the attic, sending shrapnel spreading out across a bursting radius of fifty feet.

Abrams was already on the ladder. He pushed up on the hinged hatch, lobbed a concussion grenade through the aperture, then dropped the hatch as the grenade detonated. Sheets of plaster fell from the ceiling above them, covering them with white powder. Abrams sprang upward and knocked open the hatch, scrambling up to the attic floor and rolling away. Cameron and Katherine followed. They all lay motionless on the floor, weapons pointed outward to form a small defensive perimeter.

The pressure of the concussion grenade had blown out every light, and Abrams could see a small piece of the night sky through the hole in the roof. The floorboards were covered with hot shrapnel from the rocket. As the ringing of the explosion faded from his ears, Abrams heard the sound of dull moaning.

Cameron rose to one knee, turned on his flashlight, and rolled it across the floor. It didn’t draw fire and they all stood.

They searched the large attic room and found three men and two women, all in shock from the concussion grenade and suffering from shrapnel wounds.

Cameron shot each one with his silenced pistol, not asking Abrams or Katherine to give him a hand, or commenting on the business in any way.

Katherine called out quietly, “Look at this.”

Abrams and Cameron came up beside her.

She said, “It’s a television studio.”

Abrams stepped onto the raised set and shone his light over the desk, the fireplace, the American flag. Katherine stooped down and picked up some papers that had been blown around the set, and read the typed script. She looked at Abrams. “This is my father’s speech to the American people… He was to be the next President.”

Abrams glanced at one of the sheets. “I didn’t even know he was running.”

Cameron directed his beam across the room and played it over a brick wall, chimney, and steel door. “If Pembroke is on the other side,” he said, “then we’ve taken both arms of the T. The main stem is still in their hands, but Stewart ought to be on the flat roof above it. We’ve got them boxed in.”

Katherine replied, “But we are boxed out.” She looked at her watch. “We’ve got about sixteen minutes until the EMP detonation and less time than that before George’s mortar rounds begin crashing through this roof. We’ve got to get in there and take control of the radios.”

Cameron nodded toward the steel door. “We can blow that door.”

Abrams heard sounds below. “They’re coming up the stairs.” He took the last hand grenade from Cameron, went to the hatch door, opened it, and threw the grenade down, then moved back. The fragmented grenade exploded, throwing the hatch door into the air and ripping apart the ladder below. Cameron pressed a kilo of the claylike plastic around the doorframe, embedded the detonators, and ran the detonation fuse fifty feet back from the door.

Cameron looked at his watch. “Damned little time left.” He looked at Katherine and Abrams. “Well, let’s assume everyone is in place.”

Abrams replied, “If they’re not, they’re dead.”

Katherine nodded agreement. “We can’t turn back. Go ahead and blow the door. We have people to see in there.”

Abrams struck a match.

69

George Van Dorn looked at the partly decoded telex message on his desk, then looked at the two men standing in the room, Colonel William Osterman and Wallis Baker. He said, “Someone must have hit the wrong code key. This is completely garbled.”

Baker replied, “I’ve sent a request for a repeat, but nothing’s come through yet.”

Van Dorn glanced at the mantel clock. Less than sixteen minutes remaining.

He suddenly grabbed the telephone and called the Pentagon, going through the identifying procedure, then he said, “Is Colonel Levin still on leave? I want to speak to him.”

The voice answered, “He’s still on leave, sir.”

“Why can’t I seem to be able to speak to anyone but you?”

“Because I’m the duty officer.”

“Put your sergeant on.”

“He’s not available.”

“Put anyone on. Anyone but you.”

There was a pause, then the voice said, “Is there a problem, sir?”

Yes, thought Van Dorn, there is a serious problem. A cold chill ran down his spine. He said, “You may be dead in the next few minutes.”

“Sir?”

“Tell Androv I’m going to fire the last of my fireworks. Twenty high-explosive mortar rounds. Through his fucking roof. Hold your ears.”

“I’m not following you.”

Van Dorn hung up the phone and looked at Osterman and Baker. “Well, I guess I’ve been warning the Russians that the Russians are coming.”

No one spoke. Then Van Dorn said, “My fault. I never underestimate the enemy, but I sometimes overestimate our technology and the loyalty of the people who tend to it.”

Osterman smiled grimly. “There’s always that mortar, George. That won’t let us down.”

Van Dorn nodded and walked to his field phone on the sill of the bay window. He turned the crank. “Mr. LaRosa, I’m afraid we may have to proceed with the fire mission. Yes, within the next few minutes. Stand by, please. And please accept my compliments on a fine display. Everyone enjoyed it.” He hung up and looked back at the two men. “No one likes to call fire in on their own people, but they understood that when they left here.”

Baker said, “Give it a few more minutes, George. They may be close.”

Van Dorn seemed lost in thought a moment, then looked at the clock again. “Molniya may be closer.” He added, “All we know of our operation for certain is that the Kuchik kid got back and reported mission complete. We confirmed from my spotter on the pole that the lights went on and off as they were supposed to. He also tells us that the parachute drop looked bad from where he was standing. Kuchik swears he and Joan gassed the bomb shelter, but for all I know he dropped the fucking crystals in a laundry chute by mistake. Joan is missing. Also, the directional microphones are picking up what sounds like shooting above the noise of the aerial torpedos. And we also know our people haven’t reached the communications room or I wouldn’t be talking to that imposter.” He paused a moment, then concluded, “It smells to me like a defeat.” He looked at the two men.

Osterman said, “But Androv knows the jig is up for him, even if we haven’t reached the Pentagon. He must also know the personal danger he and his people are in. Perhaps they’ll call Moscow and abort this operation.”

Van Dorn shook his head. “The Russians move like Volga barges. Slow, steady, and relentless. They can’t change course so easily.”

Osterman said, “Well, we’ve played all our cards and they’ve played theirs.”

Van Dorn stared through the bay window at the people in his yard. He was certain that the Russians would show no mercy to him or his guests after what Pembroke’s strike force had done to them. He could conceive of the Russian survivors coming to his house and slaughtering everyone, regardless of what happened in the larger sense. He turned and walked back to his desk, took a key ring out of a drawer, and handed it to Osterman. “These are for my arms room. I’d like you both to go outside, get the weak, infirm, drunk, and cowardly into the basement, and have everyone else arm themselves.” He added, “Let Kitty help you. She’ll be good at making sure everyone has the right gun.”

The two men nodded grimly and walked to the door.

Van Dorn called after them, “If anyone feels like praying, encourage them, but don’t tell them what they’re praying for. Only God knows. To everyone else it’s classified information.”

Van Dorn walked to the coffee table and picked an hors d’oeuvre from the tray. “Tried to poison my canapés, did you, Viktor? You turkey.” He popped the pâté in his mouth.

Van Dorn walked to his memento wall and stared at a picture of himself, O’Brien, Allerton, and Kimberly taken in London just a few weeks before the war ended. The last time the four musketeers were all together. My God, he thought, how little we know of men’s hearts and souls.

70

Abrams lit the fuse and it flashed in the dark attic room. The plastic exploded and the heavy steel door leaped off its locks and hinges, crashing to the floor.

The attic wing that held the communications area was three or four steps down, and Abrams had a clear view of a large open space, about half the size of a football field, he thought, separated into work areas by half-wall partitions. The room seemed to be lit mostly by the lighting on its electronic consoles. A number of men and women dressed in brown overalls could be seen running away from the explosion.

Abrams, Katherine, and Cameron began firing from a kneeling position, single well-aimed shots, as they tried to avoid hitting the electronic units.

Llewelyn, Sutter, and Ann heard and felt the explosion at the opposite end of the attic. Sutter said, “Well, they’ve made it. All right, our turn.” He lit the fuse on the charge and they dived for the floor behind a row of file cabinets.

The plastic exploded and the brick wall and chimney seemed to leap a few inches, lifting the roof beams. The beams resettled and the brick and mortar cracked, then bulged and crumbled, creating a large V-shaped opening in the wall.

Ann stared up through the cement dust and saw the great electronics room framed in the wide V. Even a cursory look revealed to her trained eye a very advanced multicapability array of technology.

Sutter and Llewelyn were standing behind the file cabinet, firing unsilenced single shots over the heads of the Russians, keeping them pinned down. There was little return fire from these technicians, Ann noticed. We’ve cracked through the hard shell of the KGB and we are about to enter the soft nerve tissue. She called out, “Go easy on the equipment.”

Llewelyn called back, “They know we’re after the bloody radios, and unless we keep them busy, the KGB chaps in there will destroy what you’re trying to get your hands on.” He fired three quick shots at a man who was swinging a metal bar at what looked to Ann like an encrypting machine. The man fell over, but the machine was hit and sparked. Llewelyn said, “Sorry. It’s a trade-off.”

She looked at her watch. Nearly midnight. The very witching time of night when churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out contagion to this world.

Molniya was dropping rapidly toward its low orbit point, where it would consume itself in a nuclear fireball. For that half second it would light up the continent and set the world on a new and terrible course. Where the light is the brightest, she thought, the shadows are the deepest.

Tom Grenville stood at the large roof hatch, Johnson beside him. Stewart was propped up on his elbow close by. A misty wind blew across the rooftop, and Grenville could see that the threatened storm was blowing out to sea. In the far northeast, stars appeared on the horizon and Grenville looked at them as though for the last time.

Along the edge of the roof hatch sat twelve CS gas canisters in a neat row. They heard and felt the two explosions below and Grenville was startled out of his stargazing. He said, “It sounds like the time has come to chuck these canisters down there.”

“Correct,” said Stewart, “and you’ll follow the canisters.” He nodded toward two nylon rappelling lines tied to the bases of two antennas. “Ready?”

Grenville didn’t think he was. He glanced at his watch. “Isn’t this supposed to end soon?”

“Ready! Open it!”

Grenville opened the heavy, hinged roof hatch and heard more clearly the sound of gunfire and pandemonium below.

Johnson and Stewart began pulling the pins on the canisters and throwing them down at various angles. The CS canisters popped and disgorged billows of white nausea and tear-producing gas. Grenville threw the last two canisters down, then slammed the hatch cover closed. “We’ll give that five minutes to work.”

Stewart glared at him. “We’ll give it sixty seconds.” Stewart looked at his digital watch, then commented, “You’ll be down there in less than five seconds if you do it properly, Tom. Don’t panic and hang on the rope or you’ll be a sitting duck. And don’t let go, for God’s sake, or you’ll break every bone in your body. Saw that happen once.”

“In the Falklands?” suggested Grenville.

“No, lad, in Glasgow. Fellow trying to get out the window of a lady’s bedroom as the husband returned home.” He laughed, then reached out and patted Grenville’s shoulder. “You’re a good lad. Steady now.” He looked at Johnson. “Keep an eye on the boy, General. I’ll cover as best I can up here.” Stewart glanced at his watch. “Ready.”

“How long were you in the Falklands?” asked Grenville.

“Ready! Gas masks.”

Johnson and Grenville pulled their masks over their faces and adjusted the fit, then put on climbing gloves.

“Open it.”

They pulled the hatch open. The nausea gas hung below, as it was made to do, a thick white blanket lying over the area like a snowdrift.

Grenville and Johnson threw their rappelling lines into the opening.

“Go!”

They each went over the edge of the square hatch, rifles nestled in their arms, and began the two-story slide to the floor of the communications room.

Abrams and Cameron slid on their gas masks and moved quickly but cautiously toward the gas-filled doorway.

Katherine stayed behind in the television studio to cover the open hatchway.

Abrams and Cameron could hear the sounds of retching and coughing coming from the room. Abrams entered first, followed by Cameron. They moved as quickly as possible through the blinding smoke. Abrams thought Cameron seemed to be passing by the incapacitated men and women very reluctantly, like an alcoholic passing a bottle. But they had matters more pressing than adding more notches to Cameron’s rifle. They were looking for the main radio transmitter, and for Androv, and for Henry Kimberly — and for the third man, whoever he was.

Sutter watched as a figure appeared through the heavy-hanging gas, climbed through the break in the wall, and collapsed. He dragged the body away from the edge of the spreading gas. It was a young girl in brown overalls. Her face was blotchy and flecked with vomit.

Ann knelt beside her and slapped her. She said in Russian, “Breathe. Breathe.”

The girl took a deep breath.

Ann said, “Where’s the radio you use to transmit voice messages to Moscow?”

The girl squinted up at Ann through running eyes.

Ann repeated the question, adding, “You have five seconds to tell me or we’ll kill you.”

The girl drew another breath and said, “The radio… against the north wall…”

Ann asked her a few brief technical questions regarding frequencies, voice scramblers, and power setting, then slid on her mask and rushed toward the opening in the wall. Llewelyn and Sutter followed.

They moved quickly through the room toward the long right wall.

Many of the Russians had climbed atop the consoles to try to escape the low-clinging gas. One of them, Vasili Churnik, a survivor of the railroad tunnel incident, stood atop a computer and watched the two men and the woman walk in.

Tom Grenville’s gloved hands squeaked down the rope. He felt his feet hit the floor, bent his knees, and rolled off into a kneeling position, his rifle raised to his shoulder. He peered into the dense gas, but his visibility was less than five feet. The lights on the electronic consoles glowed eerily through the opaque fog.

Johnson was back to back with him now, forming a pitiful defensive perimeter of two. Johnson’s muffled voice came through the mask. “You see, Grenville, if they’d been prepared with proper chemical protective devices, we’d have been massacred. In war,” said the general, quoting an old army axiom, “as in life, lack of prior planning produces a piss-poor performance.”

Grenville turned his head back to Johnson. “General.”

“Yes, son.”

“Shut the fuck up. And don’t say another word unless it has something to do with saving my life. Got it?”

Johnson replied, “All right… if that’s the way—”

“Move out. You go your way, I’ll go mine. See you later.” Grenville made out three black-clad figures through the rolling gas, two men and a woman. He was disoriented and didn’t know if that was part of Pembroke’s team, including Ann, coming from the north, or Cameron’s team, including Katherine, from the south. But they weren’t Russians and he moved toward them.

Vasili Churnik watched as the three Americans passed by. The other Russians in the room, mostly technical people, had accepted the fact that they had been overrun by what must be a large number of commandos, and they were concerned only with gasping for air. But Churnik, by training and temperament, like Cameron, had difficulty letting a target pass. Especially after his humiliation earlier in the evening. He drew his pistol, a .38 revolver, and fired all six rounds into the backs of the three.

Grenville, who was very close, heard, then saw, the man fire from the top of the gray console. He fired a single shot and the Russian toppled over.

There was screaming in the room now and Abrams shouted, “Down! Down!” He unscrewed his silencer and fired into the walls to underscore his meaning. Men and women began diving to the floor.

Cameron rushed over to the three fallen people. Llewelyn was dead, shot in the back of the head. Sutter was stunned, but his bulletproof vest had stopped the two rounds that hit him. Ann was bleeding from the neck.

Cameron examined Ann’s wound, a crease along the left side of the neck. “Well, it’s not so bad as it looks, lass. Just bloody. Let’s stand up, then. We ought to find that radio.”

Ann stood unsteadily.

The Russian technicians were edging toward the two exits, into the short arms of the T. When they realized no one was stopping them, they stampeded out of the room.

Katherine sat on the desk in the television studio and watched silently as half a dozen people ran by her in the darkness and headed for the open trapdoor. Discovering that the ladder was gone, they stopped. Below, men shouted up at them. Guards, Katherine thought.

The Russians began jumping through the open attic hatch to the floor below. One of them, Katherine saw with horror, had separated from the rest and was heading toward her. She held her pistol tight and slipped under the desk.

The man, tall, well dressed, and distinguished-looking, came right up to the desk. The lighting was so poor, she was sure he couldn’t see her crouched under it.

He opened the top drawer and she saw him remove a few items, one of them a pistol. He turned and started walking away.

Katherine rose from beneath the desk.

The man heard the noise and spun around.

Katherine said, “Hello.”

The sky had cleared and the moon shone blue through the gabled window next to the fireplace. Dust motes danced in the pale moonbeams, giving them both a spectral appearance, as though they had met in a dream. A slow smile passed over Henry Kimberly’s face. “That must be Kate.”

“It is.”

He nodded.

“Drop yours,” she said.

He held one hand in his right pocket. “I don’t think I will.”

“Then I may shoot you if you move.”

“I’ll try to be still.”

Katherine looked at her father in the pale light, then said, “Somehow I never accepted your death. That must be a normal reaction. When Carbury came into my office, I had the irrational thought he’d come to tell me you were waiting in the lobby.”

Kimberly didn’t reply.

She continued, “I always fantasized about how I might meet you, but I never thought it would be at the point of a gun.”

He forced a smile. “I should think not.” He stared at her and said, “Well, Kate, I thought about how we’d meet also. But that wasn’t a fantasy. I knew I’d be back some day.”

She glanced at the desk. “Yes, you were going to be President.”

He nodded and said softly, “I was going to use the remaining years I have to try to get to know you and Ann.”

“Were you? What makes you think Ann or I would want to know a traitor?”

“That’s a subjective term. I acted out of conscience. I abandoned my friends, my family, and my fortune to work for something I believed in. So did a good number of men and women in those days.”

She laughed derisively, “And you’re going to tell me that you don’t believe any longer? That you want to make amends to your family and your country?”

He shrugged. “I’d be lying if I said that. I cannot make amends and I do not intend to.” His voice became distant, as though he were in another room. “You have to understand that when a person invests so much in something, it’s difficult to admit even to oneself — that you may have been wrong. And once you go to Moscow, it’s not easy to come home again. You deal with the devil because he has the short-cut approach to power. And when you live in Moscow, you begin to appreciate power and all that goes with it.” He let out a breath and looked at her. “I don’t expect you to understand. Someone of my own age who lived through those times would be more sympathetic.”

“I know a lot of men from those times. They are not sympathetic.” She let the silence drag out, then said, “Some men commit themselves to a cause and announce their intentions. If you were just a turncoat or defector, I could understand that. But you have lied and cheated, you betrayed everyone who put their faith and confidence in you. You’ve caused the deaths of friends, and you’ve let your children grow up without a father. You must be a very cold and heartless man, Henry Kimberly. You have no soul and no conscience. And now you tell me you were just a victim of circumstances.” She paused, then said sharply, “I think all you’re committed to is the act of betrayal. I think…” Tears ran down her face and her voice became husky. “I think… Why? Why in the name of God did you do that to… to me?”

Henry Kimberly hung his head thoughtfully, then his eyes met hers. He said in a voice barely above a whisper, “Sometimes I think the last time I felt any honest joy in my heart was a day on my last leave. I took you and Ann to Central Park… I carried you in my arms and Ann put her little hand in mine, and we laughed at the monkeys in the zoo—”

“Shut up! Shut up!”

Neither spoke for some time, then Kimberly said, “May I go now?”

She wiped her eyes. “Go… go where?”

“What does it matter? Not back to Moscow, I assure you. I just want to go… to walk in the village… see my country… find some peace… I’m not important any longer. No one wants me, either as a hero, or as a villain. I am not a threat… I am an old man.”

Katherine cleared her throat, then said coolly, “Who is Talbot Three?”

Henry Kimberly’s eyebrows arched, then he replied, “There is no Talbot Three… Well, there was, but he died many years ago.”

She looked at him closely, then said, “You’re lying.”

He shrugged, then said softly, “May I go? Please.”

“No.”

He didn’t reply immediately, then spoke. “I’m afraid I must leave, Kate. And you won’t shoot me, any more than I’d shoot you.” He added in a tone that suggested the subject was closed, “I’m glad we met. We may meet again.” He began to turn.

Katherine shouted, “No! No, you will not leave.” She cocked the big Browning automatic.

Henry Kimberly looked back over his shoulder. He smiled, then winked at her. “Au revoir, little Kate.” He walked into the darkness of the attic and headed toward the open hatchway.

Katherine watched him, the muzzle of the pistol following his back. Her hands shook and her eyes clouded. A stream of confused thoughts ran through her mind, then suddenly focused on Patrick O’Brien. He had been her real father for all these years, and Henry Kimberly, a man unknown to her, and his friends had murdered him. And O’Brien would not let Henry Kimberly walk away, and would not approve if she did. Henry Kimberly had to pay. She said, or thought she said, “Stop,” but wasn’t sure if she had actually spoken. He kept walking. She fired.

The roar of the .45-caliber silver bullet shattered the silence, then echoed off in distant places. The sound died away, though the ringing remained in her ears and the smell of burnt cordite hung in her nostrils.

She looked across the twenty feet of open space that separated them. Henry Kimberly had turned at the open hatch and stared back. He looked neither surprised that she’d fired at him, nor surprised that she’d missed. They both understood that the act was a catharsis, a symbolic gesture. Kimberly lowered himself into the open hatchway and disappeared.

Katherine found that her legs had become weak, and she sat back in the chair behind the desk; his chair — his desk. His script lay scattered before her.

Katherine put her head down on the desk and wept.

Marc Pembroke sat in the dark alcove of the gable. He heard running footsteps coming toward him and watched in the half-light as about a dozen men and women, faces pale and eyes watering, filed past, heading for the staircase opposite him. He kept his rifle in the ready position and watched. His breathing had become difficult and he knew he was drowning in his own blood, yet his mind was still clear.

The Russians were not ten feet from him and he saw that some of them carried weapons. The first to arrive were staring down at the collapsed staircase. Below, on the landing, guards shouted up at them.

Pembroke saw the top rails of a ladder rising over the edge of the stairwell. There was some heated discussion over who was going to use it first — the guards who wanted to come up, or the technicians who wanted to get down.

A man in a suit stepped forward and settled the disagreement. Looking pale and shaky, but still arrogant, Viktor Androv pushed aside the crowd and began lowering his corpulent body onto the ladder.

Pembroke unscrewed the silencer from his rifle, then shouted, “Androv! Freeze!” He fired at the ceiling and the crowd hit the floor. He and Androv stared at each other over the clear space, Androv’s head and shoulders visible as he stood on the ladder, Pembroke sitting with his back to the wall in the alcove.

Pembroke said, “Did you know that Arnold Brin was my father?”

Androv’s mouth opened, but before he could say anything, Pembroke fired. The rounds ripped into Androv’s head and neck, and Pembroke saw the little rosettes of crimson blooming on Androv’s white pudgy face like a sudden outbreak of acne. Androv waved his arms in circles, then fell and crashed to the landing below.

Pembroke thought he would rather have killed Androv in a more interesting way. But he was content that amid all this mayhem, fate had put Viktor Androv in his gunsights.

Pembroke coughed and a sharp pain racked his chest. He focused on the people at the stairwell door. They were beginning to scramble down the ladder, but he had no interest in them, nor they in him.

Face after face turned to him, then disappeared below the floor line. The already dark room seemed to be growing darker, and Pembroke’s eyes were becoming unfocused. But one of the faces that sank below his line of vision was clear, and it was the face of someone who could not be there. Pembroke thought he was beginning to hallucinate.

71

Ann Kimberly pressed the gauze pad on her neck as she looked over the rows of electronic consoles, noting radios of every sort and purpose, encrypting and decrypting devices, computers, microwave and satellite transmitters and receivers, as well as monitoring and jamming devices. “Diplomatic mission, my ass. Those bastards.”

She sat before the big SM-35 radio and her eyes ran over the instruments. The radio didn’t seem to be damaged and the power was on. A computer tape transmitted continuous encoded messages to Moscow, mostly random words to cover the real messages and to give the National Security Agency a headache. She found the tape switch and shut it off. This she knew would immediately alert the NSA.

Ann scanned a procedure booklet, written in Russian, on the console. “Damn language is difficult enough to understand when it’s spoken, but these letters… What’s this word, Abrams?”

“Confuser.”

“They mean scrambler.” She turned off the voice scrambler so that anyone tuned to the frequency could hear a voice broadcast en clair. She flipped through the booklet.

Sutter had found the switches to the big attic exhaust fans and the air was clearer now, allowing them to remove their gas masks, though everyone’s eyes teared and their skin still burned from the clinging gas.

Cameron was on the telephone talking to George Van Dorn. “Yes, it’s Cameron, Mr. Van Dorn. Hold up on those mortars, if you will. We’ve got things pretty well in hand here. Ann Kimberly is about to begin broadcasting. Yes, sir. No, I’m not under duress. Ivan is under duress. I’m just fine. Yes, I’ll stay with you and give you a running report.”

Abrams looked around the huge room. Never, he realized, did he think all of this was up here, and never did he think he’d live long enough to see it. He looked at the open roof hatch and the broken gable windows, remembering the damage downstairs as well. He said to Ann, “This place doesn’t look very EMP-proof to me.”

She smiled as she turned a knob. “Not anymore.” She leaned forward. “There, I think I’ve got it.” She adjusted the microphone on its flexible boom, then glanced at the digital clocks on the radio. Ten minutes to midnight here and ten minutes to 8:00 A.M. in Moscow. She said to Abrams, “You stay here and help me with my Russian.”

Abrams nodded. He looked out over the room. Sutter was perched on the top of the tallest console, where he had a commanding view of the entire room. Grenville and Johnson were searching the nooks and crannies and breaking all the gable windows to ventilate the gas further.

Ann began to speak in Russian. “To all stations that are listening, this is Ann Kimberly, an American citizen, speaking from the Russian Mission to the United Nations, in Glen Cove, New York. Please acknowledge, Moscow.”

She turned to Abrams. “They’re not going to acknowledge shit, and they know exactly where this broadcast is coming from.” She added, “But now everyone who normally monitors this radio is alerted — the National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the CIA. The White House, Pentagon, and Camp David will be instantly tied in. I’ll wait a moment before I broadcast anything momentous.” She asked, “How was my Russian?”

“Not bad… but the pronunciation is a little off.”

“In other words, it stinks.” She shrugged. “I listen to a lot of it, but hardly ever have an occasion to speak it.” She hesitated a moment, then said, “Here, take the mike. You were supposed to fill in for me if I got killed anyway.”

Abrams, too, hesitated, then adjusted the microphone to where he was standing.

Ann said, “Okay, this may be the most important radio message ever broadcast in the history of mankind. But don’t be nervous. I’ll coach you. You’re on. Identify yourself.” Ann pushed the transmit button.

Abrams spoke into the microphone. “This is Tony Abrams, an American citizen.” He repeated Ann’s salutation, then took a deep breath and began. “This is a direct message to the leaders in the Kremlin, the White House, the Pentagon, and everyone who is in a position to launch a nuclear weapon.” As Abrams continued speaking, his eyes went to the digital clock several times, then to the adjoining electrical display panel, where he saw three steady green lights glaring in a row.

Abrams continued transmitting. “If the nuclear device aboard the Molniya satellite explodes, the United States will have no recourse but to retaliate with nuclear weapons.” He didn’t know if he was making up defense policy, putting the idea into the heads of the people in Washington, or trying to bluff Moscow into thinking he was speaking for the government. He broadcast for another full minute, then hit the microphone switch and said to Ann, “That’s all I’m going to say.”

Ann looked at him, then nodded. “I’ll speak in English for a while. There are people who understand English around the radio in Moscow by now. Also, I want to address myself to Washington and the NSA at Fort Meade.”

Abrams wiped a line of sweat from his forehead. “I’m going to take a walk. Good luck.” He left.

Ann spoke into the microphone. “This is Ann Kimberly again, and I’m addressing my associates at the National Security Agency. Please acknowledge.”

There was a long silence and Ann repeated the transmission, then a male voice came out of the speaker. “This is Chet Forbes, Ann, at Fort Meade. I read you.”

“I read you, Chet. Give me a status report.”

The voice still sounded hesitant, if not incredulous, but Forbes’ equipment did not lie; he knew he was talking to Glen Cove, and he knew from her voiceprint that he was speaking to Ann Kimberly, an NSA employee. He said, “NORAD is on an alert status of DEFCON 5, prelaunch condition. The Polaris fleet, SAC, and the European nukes have been flashed Red Alerts. The President is at Camp David, and he is in communication with all nuclear commanders.”

Ann spoke in Russian, “Moscow, did you read Fort Meade?”

Moscow did not answer.

Ann took a long breath and lit a cigarette, then said, “Chet, can you get the President to speak to those jokers directly?”

Forbes replied, “The President is attempting to contact the Premier in Moscow.”

Ann said, “Tell Camp David that Presidential Assistant James Allerton is a Soviet agent.”

Forbes stayed silent for a moment, then came back on the speaker. “Understand. Will do.” He paused, then said, “We don’t know how the hell you wound up in Green Acres,” he said, using the NSA code word for the Russian station in Glen Cove, “but from what we’ve been hearing you broadcast to Moscow, we’re glad you’re there.”

“I only hope they’re listening. In the meantime tell every NATO ally and every Warsaw Pact country that if World War Three begins, it began in Moscow.” She paused, then said in Russian, “Are you listening, Mr. Premier?”

But Moscow was still silent.

Tony Abrams walked quickly into the north wing of the attic and knelt beside Marc Pembroke in the alcove. “Pembroke?”

He opened his eyes slowly. Abrams thought he looked very pale. Abrams said, “How are you doing?”

“Relative to what?”

Abrams smiled. “Listen, Van Dorn’s sending that Sikorsky helicopter to get us all out of here. You’ll be in a hospital soon.”

“Good. That’s where I belong. How is the mission progressing?”

“We’ve won the battle, but the war is still touch-and-go. Ann is broadcasting. It’s up to the Russians now.”

“Too bad. They’re an unpredictable lot of beggers. What time is it?”

“Approaching midnight. At least we won’t have long to wait.”

“No… and we’ve accomplished our mission, haven’t we?”

“Yes.”

“I lost some good people… Don’t tell me who, I’ll discover that soon enough. Listen Abrams… my job offer still stands. You’re very good.”

“Thanks, but I’m committed.”

“To what? To whom…?”

“The Red Devils.”

Pembroke looked at him. “Never heard of them.”

“Very secret. Okay, I just came by to check your temperature. Will you be all right alone for a while?”

“I’m always alone and I’m always all right. But thanks for dropping in.”

Abrams stood.

Pembroke looked at the open stairwell door. He said, “A few Russkies beat it that way. Only technicians. I let them go—”

“Of course. Just take it easy—”

“Listen, Abrams… Androv was with them—” Pembroke coughed, and a clot of blood passed through his lips.

Abrams knelt beside him again.

Pembroke seemed to be trying to remember something, then said, “I shot the bastard. Be a good chap and go see if he’s dead. Be careful, old man… guards down there… ”

Abrams moved cautiously to the stairwell and peered down. An open hallway door cast a shaft of light into the small foyer below and revealed a collapsed staircase covered with rubble. A ladder extended from the floor up to the attic. There was no sign of life, or of death. Abrams said, “The guards have decamped and taken any bodies with them.”

Pembroke nodded. “They’ve had enough of us. Wonder where they went…?” He thought a moment, then said, “I’m certain I hit the bastard in the head… ”

“I’m sure you did.”

Pembroke said, “Joan… Joan Grenville is down there… in the dumbwaiter… Take a few of my people…”

“Yes, she’ll be fine.” He didn’t want to tell Pembroke that there were few people left. He’d go get her. “Stop worrying about these things. We’re not helpless without you.” Abrams looked at his watch. “I have to go.”

“Wait… wait… Listen, I saw… I saw…”

“Yes?”

“I… I thought I was hallucinating… but I wasn’t… My mind is clear… ”

“Who did you see?”

“I saw Patrick O’Brien.”

Abrams stood motionless, then stared at Pembroke and Pembroke stared back. Abrams said, “Where did you see him?”

Pembroke motioned with his head. “There.”

Abrams shook his head. “No.”

“Yes. He was dressed in black… ”

Abrams stayed silent, then nodded. “Yes, you did.”

“Don’t humor me.”

“No, I believe you.”

Neither man spoke for some time, then Pembroke said, “What are you going to do about it?”

“What would you do about it? The mission is over. You earned your pay. Would you put in overtime and hope to get paid for it?”

Pembroke nodded. “Yes. If I could, I would.”

Abrams drew a deep breath, glanced back at the stairwell, then checked his watch. “Down there, you say?”

“Down there. Look in Androv’s office. That will be where any evidence will be, and he’d want to destroy that before he, too, begins his Odyssey to the nether regions.”

Abrams walked toward the stairwell.

72

Henry Kimberly walked quickly down the long, deserted first-floor corridor. The smell of burnt cordite hung in the smoke-laden air. Kimberly stopped at the bullet-marked door of Androv’s office. He thought Androv might be here to recover or destroy sensitive files.

Kimberly pushed the door open and entered the dimly lit office. He heard the cocking sound of a pistol near his ear. He stood motionless.

A voice close to his ear said in English, “Henry Kimberly, I presume.”

Kimberly nodded slightly. He turned his head and saw a man in a black jump suit. The two men faced each other and stared. Kimberly’s voice was barely audible as he said, “Patrick…”

O’Brien nodded.

Kimberly said, “You’re supposed to be dead.”

O’Brien smiled. “So are you.”

Kimberly’s eyes went to the gun. “If you’re going to kill me, do it and spare me another mawkish reunion.”

O’Brien lowered the pistol and said, “I caught a glimpse of you in the attic. Androv apparently was too preoccupied with dodging bullets to tell you.”

“Tell me what?”

O’Brien replied, “I’m one of you.”

Kimberly stared at him, then said softly, “My God… No… you can’t be…”

“Why not? I was under suspicion during the war, and for good reason. You, however, never were the subject of the great werewolf hunt.” O’Brien thought a moment, then added, “It should have been I who disappeared and went to Moscow, Henry. And you should have come home and run the firm. You had family, and you had more prestige and better contacts here… but the people in Moscow work in strange ways, don’t they?”

“Yes.”

“And we never question orders, do we?”

“No, we don’t.” Kimberly glanced around the office and his eyes fell on the body of Claudia Lepescu, then returned to O’Brien. Kimberly said, “Where’s Androv?”

O’Brien shrugged. “I was waiting for him. Have you seen him?”

Kimberly replied, “He may be in the basement with the others. Let’s go.” He moved toward the door.

O’Brien made no move to follow. He said, “We’ll wait for him here.”

“Why?”

“Because, with the exception of you two, no one in America knows I’m alive, or who I really am.” O’Brien paused, then said, “I think we’ve lost this round, and I don’t want Androv to fall into the hands of our former compatriots.”

Kimberly looked at him, then nodded slowly. “Yes… I see… I think Moscow would approve.”

“I’m certain they would.” O’Brien smiled and said, “So, you were to be the next President.”

Kimberly nodded. “I may still be.” He glanced out the broken stained-glass windows. “We may yet see that flash of light.”

“We may. Only Moscow knows what Moscow will do.” O’Brien motioned to Kimberly. “Let’s wait for Androv here.” He walked to the window and sat on the sill. Kimberly drew closer and remained standing. O’Brien spoke softly, “You see, Henry, while life may have been hard for you in Moscow, at least you weren’t living the daily nightmare of a double agent. I’ve played the most dangerous and difficult game a man can play. I headed an intelligence network of extremely clever people — our old people — while at the same time I served the interests of our friends in Moscow.”

Kimberly asked, “How did you do it?”

O’Brien smiled. “With mirrors. I’m a magician, an illusionist, also an acrobat, and a juggler.” O’Brien continued, “It’s a tough act, my friend. In the past year, for instance, I had to satisfy the OSS that I was working on what they knew to be an extremely important matter, while at the same time I had to protect Moscow’s Operation Stroke, about which I knew little.”

Kimberly nodded appreciatively.

O’Brien went on. “To make matters worse, Van Dorn, Arnold Brin, and a few others had zeroed in on some aspects of the Stroke, and were pushing me hard to find out more. I dragged some red herrings across their path — a nuclear explosion on Wall Street and a plot to access and erase all American computers — but it kept coming back to EMP. The old boys are good, Henry.”

“Yes, they are. And the diary?”

O’Brien smiled wide. “That was both a stroke of genius and an act of lunacy. I was desperate by that time. I dropped that diary on them in the hope that the old search for Talbot would consume their energies and obsess their psyches as it did four decades ago. I knew who Talbot was. It was I. I didn’t know it was you, too.”

Kimberly smiled slightly. “You set off a chain reaction with that, didn’t you, Patrick?”

O’Brien smiled in return.

“Yes. First that idiot Thorpe nearly killed me. Then Tony Abrams, who was pushed on me by your daughter, turned out to be cleverer than I thought. I decided to have Abrams killed rather than let him nose around. I used Claudia”—he nodded toward the body—“to set Abrams up. She thought she was working for Moscow. Abrams assumed it was Thorpe who tried to have him killed. Things are not as they appear in this wilderness of mirrors. I kept telling everyone that, and they all kept nodding, but no one seemed to understand that I was talking about myself.” He laughed.

Kimberly stared at O’Brien for a moment, then spoke. “How did you get here?”

O’Brien smiled. “I jumped in from a Sikorsky helicopter.”

“You are courageous, Patrick. But you always were.”

“Yes, it’s how I stayed alive when others died. I’m also ruthless.” He looked at Kimberly. “And unashamedly power-hungry. I want to be king.”

Kimberly stared back at him. “I am the heir apparent.”

“So Androv tells me now.” O’Brien shrugged, then glanced out the window. He said, “You know, Henry, if Operation Stroke succeeds, if Molniya explodes and spreads a wave of electromagnetic destruction across this continent, then, notwithstanding what’s happened in this house tonight, you and I will be the most powerful men in America.”

Kimberly said, “We have another compatriot who is to be rewarded with power. James Allerton. Did Androv tell you?”

O’Brien made a sound of contempt. “Androv did, but I knew long before that. Allerton is weak. Nearly senile. If it weren’t for his national reputation, Moscow would have discarded him years ago.”

“But they haven’t. And he is to form part of our troika.”

O’Brien’s eyes narrowed and he shook his head. “There’s a Secret Service man at Camp David whom I’ve spring-loaded to see that no matter what happens tonight, James Allerton will not leave there alive.”

Kimberly glanced at the pistol in O’Brien’s hand. He said evenly, “That leaves only you and me, and that’s one too many, isn’t it?”

O’Brien nodded absently, as though he’d missed the implication. He said, “You see, Henry, if the Americans win this round, then I can resurface as a hero who narrowly escaped death. But I can’t do that if you or Androv fall into their hands.”

“It was my misfortune to open this door.”

“Fortune has little to do with it. I always suspected the existence of the third man, and I’d planned to eliminate him at the first opportunity. The fact that it’s you, my old friend, makes it more difficult for me, but nonetheless, necessary.”

Kimberly said, “In other words, if Moscow wins tonight, you want to be President. If Moscow loses, you want to be head of the old boys again, until such time as Moscow does succeed.”

“Correct. And you, Henry, are an obstacle in either case.”

Kimberly said, “We can escape together. Go to Moscow.”

“I don’t want to go to Moscow. Tomorrow I want either to be in my old office at O’Brien, Kimberly and Rose, or in the Oval Office.” He looked closely at Kimberly. “No senior intelligence chief worthy of the name should ever have to be a fugitive. There should always be another office from which he can practice his trade. That’s the reward for living as we must.”

Kimberly said, “Moscow will not reward you. They’ll find out you killed me… and Androv.”

O’Brien motioned toward Claudia’s body. “Battle deaths cover murder well. You remember.”

Kimberly’s eyes fixed on the gun again. “Patrick… This is not… This is disloyal… They want me alive… Moscow wants—”

“What do I care what Moscow wants? They create traitors and they expect loyalty from us. Moscow is only a means to an end for me. The fastest, indeed the only, way to Washington for me, as for you, was via Moscow. Just as the last Roman emperors were made and unmade by the barbarians, so will the barbarians in Moscow crown me Emperor of America.”

Kimberly’s voice was sharp. “And depose you at their pleasure. You might be more secure if we shared power.”

“Perhaps — if there were power to share. But that may not be. I may be back in Rockefeller Center tomorrow to the amazement and relief of my staff. I have to plan for all contingencies, Henry. No hard feelings, old soldier.”

“No—” Kimberly reached for the pistol in his jacket. O’Brien fired his silenced automatic into Henry Kimberly’s heart, and Kimberly toppled backward like a felled tree, crashing to the floor.

O’Brien looked down at his former law partner and comrade-in-arms. “And then there was one.”

73

Tony Abrams moved down the first-floor staircase and saw that the body of Valentin Metkov had been removed. Abrams passed cautiously through the splintered panel door into the ruined security office. Davis’ body lay among the rubble, but the guards had removed Lara’s body.

Abrams felt he was following the trail of death and it was leading him back to where he had begun, in Patrick O’Brien’s office long ago. He could not fathom O’Brien’s motives for recruiting him then, and they were even less clear now.

Abrams looked into the hallway. No one was visible, but he heard voices in the distance. He slipped into the hall, moved quickly to Androv’s door, and saw that the lock was shot away. He held his rifle up and hit the door with his shoulder.

Patrick O’Brien was on his knees, rummaging through Androv’s desk. He looked up quickly, then reached for the pistol on the desk top.

Abrams leveled his rifle, and O’Brien slid his hand back. O’Brien said, “I didn’t think any of you would come down here again.”

Abrams said nothing but just stared at the man.

O’Brien stood slowly. “Who gave me away?”

“I figured it out.”

O’Brien smiled, an almost pleasant smile. “No, you didn’t, Tony. At least give me the satisfaction of thinking I was the most clever double agent this country has ever seen.”

Abrams nodded. “You were. Now you’re not.”

O’Brien nodded. “How do you feel? Angry? Betrayed? Foolish?”

“Yes. You’re very convincing.”

“It’s a matter of believing in what you’re doing and saying while you’re doing and saying it. When I worked for the old boys, I did my best. When I worked for the Russians, I did my best. Don’t feel too badly. I hoodwinked nearly every one of the so-called intelligence greats in this country and Britain for nearly forty years.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “At first it was young idealism. Then I wanted out, but they tried to kill me. Shot me on a hunting trip in Utah. I survived, obviously, but while I lay there in the hospital, I realized that they were ruthless, and that while we were once ruthless against the Nazis, we had gone very soft. That was the expression they used in those days. Remember that? America has gone soft. And it was true. The Russians — the Communists — were getting their way all over the world then. By 1948 it seemed just a matter of time before they took over. I joined the ruthless side.” He smiled. “The tide turned the other way, but I was happy by then, or at least at peace with my double life. I have no wife or children and I devoted myself to the game. Having been the victim of an assassination attempt, I was never again under suspicion the way I’d been during the war.”

Abrams glanced down at the body of Claudia, then he saw the sprawled body of Henry Kimberly partially hidden behind the desk. “Is that your work?”

“Yes.”

Abrams stared at O’Brien. He said, “Killing doesn’t seem to disturb you.”

“All the killings in the cloak-and-dagger world since the last war don’t equal the deaths in one small battle. If nations confined themselves to letting spies kill one another, we’d all be better off. This is the sacrifice we make on the altar of the god of war to keep him from killing more of us. If we’d won tonight, there would never again be the chance of war on this earth. But now, thanks to you, Van Dorn, and your friends, we’re back to the nuclear brink.”

“I think I’d rather live on the brink than in the hole.”

“Easy to say now. Tell me that five years from now when there’s another crisis.”

“You won’t be around five minutes from now.”

O’Brien looked at him intently. “Are you going to kill me?”

“Why not?”

“Because the American intelligence establishment wants me. Every spy sings when he’s in a cage. I could sing for ten years and not repeat a song.”

Abrams nodded. He knew this was true. The more highly placed the criminal or the traitor, the more likely it was they’d make a deal with him.

O’Brien seemed to relax, and dropped into a conversational tone. “My one real mistake in recent years was not killing Van Dorn. But I thought he’d drink himself to death.” He laughed.

“He may. But it won’t do you any good.”

“No.” O’Brien turned and looked out the window, then said to Abrams, “We may still see that flash in the sky.”

“We may. Tell me, why did you think it was necessary to fake your death? You would have been more useful to them on the scene.”

O’Brien laughed. “I didn’t intend to fake my death. That idiot, Thorpe, nearly killed me. What I faked was a heart attack before I opened my chute. Most parachutists whose chutes don’t open suffer heart failure before they hit the ground.”

“What do you plan to come up with this time?”

“Nothing… I’m ready to go with you. The CIA will make you a god, Tony. You’ll never want for anything as long as you live.” O’Brien stepped from behind the desk. “Here — there’s a passage in this paneled wall that leads to the security office, so we don’t have to go out into the hall again.”

Abrams motioned with his rifle and O’Brien went to the paneled wall to the right of the fireplace. He pulled on a wall sconce and a hidden door swung open. He turned to Abrams. “You know, I often tried to imagine how it would end. But I never imagined this.” He thought a moment, then said, “Do you know what I feel? I feel embarrassed. I’m not looking forward to facing Kate or Van Dorn or the others.”

Abrams came closer to O’Brien. “Move.”

O’Brien went through the concealed door first, followed by Abrams. They walked through the security office, passed the body of Davis, and went on through the second concealed door, stopping at the base of the stairs. O’Brien said, “If it makes any difference to you, I actually was fond of you.”

Abrams thought, That was the one thing I didn’t want to hear. He looked around the small foyer and listened. It was quiet. He said, “I’ve decided to save you the embarrassment; I won’t drag it out and make you suffer, though you deserve to suffer.”

O’Brien opened his mouth to speak.

Abrams lifted his rifle and fired. Patrick O’Brien fell back on the staircase, a surprised look on his face.

Abrams stared at him a long time, then went to find Joan Grenville, thinking, I knew. I knew all along it was him. We all knew, but none of us can bring ourselves to believe that Daddy is a liar, or that God is a fake, or that the minister is an atheist. That was his strength. He did not have to deceive us, we deceived ourselves.

74

Cameron and Sutter had found two bottles of vodka, and Tom Grenville had found a mobile hydraulic hoist that was used to lift repair personnel to the flat roof. They sat now on the roof, with Stewart and General Johnson, passing the bottles around, looking into the clear night sky, waiting. Pembroke was still below because they did not want to move him, and Ann was still on the radio, with Abrams assisting her. Katherine was also below tending to Pembroke.

There was a sound from the hydraulic hoist and Joan Grenville rose from the hatch like an apparition in a Greek play. She stepped off the lift’s platform. “Hello, Tom.”

He looked up from the bottle. “Hello, Joan.” He took another swig, then said, “What are you doing here?”

“I slipped my trolley. May I have that?”

He passed her the bottle and she took a long drink and passed it back. She said, “That’s awful stuff.”

“Real Russian vodka. Spoils of war.”

“You’re drunk.”

“You’re beautiful,” said Stewart. “I’m drunk.”

Joan glanced at him appraisingly, then turned to Tom. “I told you we should have stayed home tonight.”

He said, “Business is business. How many times do I have to explain to you where the money comes from?”

She sat down on the roof. “What are we waiting for?”

Sutter answered, “For the helicopter extraction. Also, we’re waiting for the world to end. Look west, young lady.”

Joan said, “Which way is west?”

“There,” said Sutter, and pointed.

Joan looked toward the western horizon. “I can see Manhattan from here.” She looked at Stewart. “May I have another?”

He replied, “Is your leg broken? Mine is. It was very painful until a little while ago.” He passed her the bottle grudgingly.

Grenville said, “I lost my watch. Does anyone have the time?”

Johnson answered, “It is zero, zero, zero, five hours.”

Grenville looked annoyed. “What time is that in real time?”

Sutter lay back on the roof. “Five after twelve, Tom.”

“Well, why didn’t he say so?”

“What time is the world going to end?” asked Joan.

Stewart replied, “In one minute, give or take an infinity.”

Joan Grenville looked at her husband. “I love you.”

Grenville blushed. “Please.”

They passed the bottle around and waited.

Ann pushed the microphone away and shut off the transmit switch. She said, “That’s all I can do. It’s in the laps of the gods now.”

Tony Abrams went to a gable window and stared through the broken panes, “You did a good job. If I were the Russian Premier, I’d call it off.”

She looked at him. “Would you? I mean, you know them, don’t you? I only know their voices and their coded messages. I’ve never really met one of them until tonight. I know what they say, but not how they think. I don’t know their souls.”

“No one does. Least of all them.” He turned from the window. “They wouldn’t even answer us.”

She shook her head. “No… they wouldn’t do that. They would be admitting to something, and they admit to nothing.”

“What time is on that digital clock?”

She looked at the clock. “Twelve-zero-five, and twenty seconds. Molniya is close to its low point.”

Katherine walked quickly into the room and approached them. Her face was ashen, and Ann looked at her with concern.

Abrams said, “Pembroke?”

She shook her head. “Dead.”

He nodded. He knew it wasn’t the time to tell them about O’Brien.

Katherine said, “Well?”

Ann motioned toward the clock. It read 12:06. Ann said, “Look,” and pointed.

Abrams and Katherine looked at the three green lights on the electronic display. One by one they all went out.

The digital clock read 12:07, then 12:08. Ann said, “That’s it. Molniya is streaking off into space.”

Katherine went quickly to the window and stood beside Abrams. “It’s a beautiful night after all.”

“Yes.”

Abrams said to Katherine, “Would you consider breakfast at my place instead?”

“Yes, I’d consider that.”

Abrams looked out the window to the north. A golden burst of skyrockets rose over Van Dorn’s property, and in the distance the green and red navigation lights of a helicopter approached. Abrams said, “Well, I feel good.”

Ann replied, “It’s good to be alive, isn’t it?” She rubbed her forehead. “But we’ve lost some good friends tonight. Nick included, I’m afraid.” She looked at Katherine and Abrams. “You’d make good partners. Are you joining the firm, Tony?”

He hesitated, then said, “Yes… yes, I will join the firm. There’s still a lot to be done.”

Abrams took Katherine’s hand and looked out the window again. “The storm has passed.”

Katherine said, “Yes. And we’ve weathered it. But this is just a reprieve. Let’s use the time we’ve won more wisely.”