At the Pleasure of the President (The Perfect Gentlemen 5)

Zack took the seat opposite, allowing Freddy to pace, which he seemed compelled to do anyway. Thomas, as always, remained his shadow.

“I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

“I would like the same courtesy, Zachary.” Paul placed his hands on the table and leaned in. One of them was cuffed to the bar that ran along the side of the table. “Kak, po-tvoemy, mozhno izbezhat svoyu sudbu?” His Russian accent sounded as perfect as his bland American one.

How do you think to avoid your fate?

Zack’s stomach knotted. He swallowed down his shock. “You’re not even going to try to deny your guilt?”

“No, because he knows we have him,” Freddy said, sounding far more serious than Zack had ever heard him. The military intelligence officer in him was ingrained deep and had taken over. “It’s actually not surprising. They’re moving the operation to the next level, very likely because of your pipeline announcement the other day. Are you acting as the primary contact between the Russians and the administration now, Mr. Harding?”

“Well, since President Hayes has proven to be uncompromising so far, it’s become necessary to make contact,” he said. “Clearly, I no longer have influence over him in any valuable way, so I’m being put to other uses. However, I will not be your contact in the future. I am merely a messenger.”

God, it was all fucking true. Everything they’d been investigating and suspecting, the people hiding in the shadows, intending to control him or kill him…all of it was true. He’d been surrounded by wolves for years. “So your next move was to have me killed.”

A single shoulder shrugged. “Which has proven ineffective as well. I told them it would be better to poison you and implicate one of your friends. They argued that poisoning is more difficult than a bullet and harder to pin on someone. And unfortunately, I no longer have the kind of close contact with you that allowed me to properly doctor your food.”

The fact that his once kindly father-in-law was calmly discussing how best to kill him struck him squarely in the gut. He’d gone on fishing trips with this man, opened up to him about the fact he and Joy had tried to have children. Never once had he seen even a hint of the predator under Paul’s surface.

“When did SVR recruit you?” Freddy took up the questioning, seeming to understand that Zack needed a moment.

The expression on Paul’s face was like nothing Zack had ever seen. His mask had fallen away, finally revealing the real man. Cruel. Superior. Sure of his place in the world. “Please. They are nothing but a cover for the KGB. Don’t think for a moment they aren’t the same. You can’t change something like the KGB.”

“Your parents were planted by the KGB,” Freddy said. “I’ve been studying you. Your parents immigrated from Canada, but I would bet they were born in the USSR.”

Paul cocked a brow, a silent nod to Freddy’s cleverness. “You are the first to realize this. My parents were smart.”

“Mr. President, have you heard of a program called ‘the illegals’?” Freddy asked.

Paul rolled his eyes. “We had nothing to do with those idiots.”

Zack shook his head and waited for Freddy to clue him in.

“The US Department of Justice started tracking a group of sleeper agents years ago that ended in the arrests of ten operatives, many whom had been living in the US for decades and had children born in the US. Mr. Harding’s group was a precursor to that particular program. His father and mother came to the US under forged Canadian documents. It was simpler to arrange such things in 1957. Paul was fifteen then. His father was a nuclear engineer. His knowledge would have been deemed valuable. It would have been easy for them to get a work visa and a job, especially since he was a family man.”

“I was trained alongside my parents,” Paul explained. “Even at a young age, I knew about the corruption of your system. America is the whining child of the world. We were a small, but well-trained group. We were tasked with building a home and a life in the United States. My father sent information back to Mother Russia about your government programs for years. I did the same in the military. After I graduated at the top of my class in high school, getting admitted into the Naval Academy was simple. Excelling was even easier. After all, I was disciplined. I was working toward something monumental while my pathetic classmates cared only for drinking and making idiots of themselves. I fought in Vietnam, and came back a great American hero.” He sneered. “I was always helping my comrades on the other side, and no one ever suspected.”

Zack’s head reeled. Dear god. How many like Paul were out there? “That’s treason. You deserve everything that’s coming for you. Our past relations won’t save you. I won’t keep quiet, not after you actively aided the enemy in a time of war.”

“I was the enemy, boy. I always have been.”

Clearly, and the implications were staggering.

Freddy simply looked on. “Your parents never went back to Russia. They lived here until they passed.”

“My parents were true patriots. They showed me how to be loyal to my country, my people, no matter where I lived. I didn’t have to be in Russia to love it. That is what none of you understand. When my naval career brought me to loftier heights, we realized that we had an opportunity to use my skills and contacts for a greater purpose than I had previously imagined.”

To elect him to become a puppet for Russia. Zack could hardly fathom it.

“How much of this did Joy know?”

“Most everything.” He smiled, and Zack gaped, feeling sick. “My daughter was a true Russian asset. Her mother and I raised her to always serve the land of her heart,” he said with the aura of a true believer. “She did so admirably because she knew her duty and embraced it.”

“Did she set herself up to die?”

For a tiny instant, Paul looked downcast. “No. When it became clear you would not win the election otherwise, she became my gift to my people, an unfortunate sacrifice I made for Russia’s greater good.” Paul settled back. “After all, one cannot have victory without sacrifice, so I proudly made mine. We all must. It’s what entitled Americans like you don’t understand. You think you can have everything without paying a price. Without getting blood on your hands. But blood reminds us what is at stake.”

Zack sat back, swallowing down rising bile. Shock didn’t begin to cover how he felt.

Had Joy taken instructions from her handlers, thinking she merely had to get through the last days of the campaign before she could be free, never knowing her own parents were helping to sacrifice her for the cause? Had she realized what had happened, the way her mother and father had betrayed her, as the bullet tore through her chest?

“So you weren’t involved directly with the Hayes family in the beginning?” Thank god Freddy was capable of viewing this as an intellectual exercise. “Did you know Zack Hayes’s grandfather was a Russian asset?”

Paul shook his head. “They chose to handle him differently because he was always destined for this cause. I later fell into it.”

Based on what Zack knew, that made sense. “What do you know about Natalia Kuilikov?”

“Bah, she was nothing but a tool, and an ineffective one at that. She was a weak woman who cared too much. They did not break her properly.”

“She cared about me.” Zack remembered how kind Nata had been.

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“The stupid woman was supposed to raise you right, help you understand your loyalties. But she became…difficult. So you were sent away to that boarding school. It was important that your education look thorough and proper, that you made the right connections,” Paul explained.

“So my parents weren’t involved in this giant scheme? They certainly didn’t raise me the way you did Joy.”

For the first time, Paul played coy. “You see, the CIA is quite intelligent. They have ways of finding our connections. So we had to ensure that your father had no idea where his father’s loyalties truly lie. Unfortunately, he proved…unsuitable for our needs.”

So the Russians had sought to compromise his father, help install him as president of the United States, and use him for their own ends. But when he’d been unable to win the primary, they’d shifted to another plan. They’d looked to the future. Zack.

“What you’re saying is that you wanted an asset who could be vetted and would have absolutely no problem passing a lie detector test,” Freddy mused. “Or any test since a good agent can get the truth out in other ways. But you knew that, so you avoided that possibility. After all, an asset can’t fail such an indicator if he doesn’t know he’s an asset until it’s too late.”

“Frank Hayes was weak, and they thought it best that he not know his part of the plot until he could no longer escape,” Paul confirmed. “For the same reasons, we would have preferred Zachary never knew he was being manipulated. If he had been strong enough to win the election on his own, my Joy would have made sure the right people were advising him.”

The right people? Did that include Liz? Maybe…but maybe not. His father had hired her. At Paul’s behest? On the orders of someone higher up in the old KGB structure? Or simply because her predecessor had been ineffectual at getting him positive press and she’d been damn good at her job? He wasn’t sure since Joy had taken the burden of finding the right people for the right job off his shoulders during the campaign.

Of course she had. She’d been instructed to. And it certainly wouldn’t surprise him if some of the people Joy had hired were still in their roles to this day.