The 14th Colony (Cotton Malone 11)

Fool’s Mate.

He’d been piecing it all together for over ten years, extracting bits and pieces from old records. But his talks with Belchenko had been most productive, even though the archivist had always thought the whole thing nothing more than wishful thinking.

He knew that was not the case.

The tall man who entered the apartment was in his sixties, with thick gray hair brushed straight back from a noticeably ashen face. He wore rimless glasses, the dark eyes intense but also full of weariness. Four aides accompanied him. They quickly searched the other rooms, then retreated outside, the door closing behind them. The apartment was a KGB safe house, kept under constant surveillance. Tonight it played host to Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov.

No introductions occurred. Instead Andropov sat at the head of a wooden table where a cold supper had been laid out, along with glasses filled with vodka. Zorin sat at the table, too, as did three other KGB officers. Two he knew. One was a stranger. He’d never before been this close to Andropov. Like himself, this man came from humble beginnings, the son of a railroad official who worked as a loader, telegraph clerk, and sailor fighting in Finland during the Great Patriotic War. Afterward, he’d begun a steady climb up the party hierarchy, eventually becoming chief of the KGB. Last November, two days after Brezhnev died, Andropov had been chosen the nation’s fourth general secretary since Stalin.

“I plan to do something extraordinary,” Andropov said to them in barely a whisper. “I will say tomorrow that we are stopping all work on space-based missile defense systems.”

Zorin was shocked. Ever since March, when Reagan announced America would develop a strategic defense system, all Soviet research efforts had been redirected. To aid that effort all intelligence operations had likewise been refocused, the idea being to learn everything possible about SDI.

“Mr. Reagan thinks us an evil empire,” Andropov said. “I will show him that is not the case. We will tell the world we are stopping.”

No one said a word.

“I received a letter from a ten-year-old American child,” Andropov said. “She asked me why we want to conquer the world. Why do we want a war? I told her we want neither. I plan to tell that to the world tomorrow. After that is done, I will be entering the hospital.”

Zorin had heard the talk. The general secretary had supposedly suffered total kidney failure, his life now sustained only by dialysis. Characteristically, nothing had been said publicly. For Andropov to mention it himself seemed extraordinary.

“I tell you this for a reason,” Andropov said. “You four have been personally selected by me to carry out a special assignment. I have come here, tonight, to instruct you myself. This is a mission that I personally conceived. Each operation will carry a name. I chose those, too. From chess, a game I love. Do any of you play?”

All of them shook their heads.

Andropov pointed around the table and said to them each, individually, “Absolute Pin. Backward Pawn. Quiet Move. Fool’s Mate.”

That had been August 1983, the first time Zorin had ever heard those words. He’d not known their meaning, but quickly learned.

Absolute Pin. A king cornered so tightly that it cannot legally move, except to be exposed to check.

Backward Pawn. One pawn behind another of the same color that cannot advance without the support of another pawn.

Quiet Move. Something that does not attack or capture an enemy piece.

Fool’s Mate. The shortest possible game. Two moves and over.

“Each of these assignments is vital to the others,” Andropov said. “Once brought together, they will change the world.”

“These are totally independent operations?” one of the other assets asked.

“Precisely. Four separate and distinct efforts, the results of which only I will know. None of you will communicate with the others, unless specifically ordered to do so. Is that clear?”

They all nodded, knowing that Andropov was not to be challenged. Here was the man who convinced Khrushchev to crush the Hungarian rebels. As head of the KGB he’d spread fear and terror, trying hard to restore the party’s lost legitimacy. He was more reminiscent of Stalin than any of the latest so-called reformers. His order of no contact among them was nothing unusual. Zorin knew how weaklings curried favor with their superiors by informing on others. Wives spied on husbands, children on their parents, neighbors on neighbors. Far better to never ask questions and have a poor memory. Every word, every act should be chosen with care. Better yet, as Andropov had just ordered, was to say and do nothing at all.

“Beneath your plate is an envelope,” Andropov said. “The orders inside detail your specific operational mission. The method of reporting your success is also detailed. Do not vary from those orders.”

He’d noticed that there had been no mention of failure. That was not an option.

One of the officers reached for his plate.

Andropov stopped him. “Not yet. Break the seal only after you leave here. That way you have no temptation to discuss this among yourselves.”

Everyone sat still.

Zorin understood a need to establish an aura of self-confidence and did not resent the clear subordination being forced upon him by Andropov. He, too, had a gift for intimidating and had played the same game with those under him many times.

“I want you to know, comrades, that what we are about to accomplish will strike America at its core. They think themselves so right, so perfect. But they have flaws. I’ve discovered two of those, and together, at the right time, we will teach America a lesson.”

He liked the sound of that.

And he liked being a part of it.

“Minimum effort, maximum effect. That’s what we want, and that is precisely what you will deliver. This will be the most important operation we have ever undertaken. So, comrades, we must be ready when the moment comes.”

Andropov motioned to the food.

“Now eat. Enjoy yourselves. Then we will begin our work.”

Slowly, over the past two decades, he’d pieced together each of the other three operations. Record declassification and the simple fact that the Soviet Union was no more had made his task easier. But there’d been precious little to find. His own part, Quiet Move, had involved six years of devotion, starting in 1983 with Andropov’s charge and functionally ending in 1989.

Just after the meeting, Andropov had in fact entered the hospital. The ten-year-old American girl he’d mentioned actually visited the Soviet Union, on Andropov’s personal invitation, providing a perfect propaganda opportunity which the Western media had devoured. Andropov himself had been too ill to greet her. Sadly, a few years later, she died in a plane crash, which had allowed for even more pandering. Andropov himself died six months after the gathering at the safe house, serving only fifteen months as general secretary. He was succeeded by Chernenko, a frail, weak man who lasted only thirteen months. Then Gromyko acted as caretaker until Gorbachev finally rose to power in 1985.

All in all, a turbulent few years by Soviet standards. So much confusion with little direction. Yet the four missions had continued. Never was any order issued stopping them. Riding in the plane, listening to the monotonous drone of the jet engines, absorbed in the eerie stillness and quiet, he now knew what all three of the other men had accomplished.

Andropov had done exactly as he’d said, telling the world that the Soviet Union would cease development of a space-based missile defense system. Which, of course, never happened. Secretly, the research continued with rubles spent by the billions. Zorin, and all other KGB assets, continued to work their sources for every scrap of information they could discover on SDI.

Absolute Pin.

Backward Pawn.

Both operatives completed their assigned tasks.

That he knew for certain.

He prided him

self on not having much of a conscience. No good officer could afford such a liability. But the past twenty-five years had caused him to reassess things.

Was that guilt?

Hard to say.

He thought back to that night in Maryland.

And the last time he’d killed a man.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

MARYLAND

Stephanie maintained the illusion of being Mrs. Peter Hedlund, leading Anya Petrova back to the library.

“What is it you’re looking for?” she asked Petrova, concern in her voice.

“Just do as I ask, then I will be gone.”

They entered the library, afternoon sun pouring past open wooden shutters and through sheers that covered a set of French doors. Books filled walnut shelves that consumed two walls.

Petrova motioned, “Sit over there, where I see you.”

Stephanie retreated to a settee and watched as the shelves were carefully examined, Petrova definitely searching for something in particular.

The perusal did not take long.

“It is not here. I must find book your husband knows of. Old book, from the Cincinnati. He is Keeper of Secrets and I must know one of those.”

Her hope had been that Hedlund himself would not have to be involved. Now that seemed impossible.

Petrova pointed the gun her way. “Where is your husband?”

“He should be home soon.”

* * *

Luke had hustled away from Hedlund’s bedroom door, back to the other room where he’d first been hiding. He waited a few seconds, then crept back down the hall to the master suite, where he edged the door open and motioned for Hedlund. The older man still sat in the chair on the far side by the window, his phone call over.

Hedlund rose and stepped lightly toward him.

“We need to head downstairs,” Luke whispered.

They made their way through the second-floor landing to the top of the stairs. He needed to know who’d been on that call earlier without Hedlund becoming suspicious, so he mouthed, Do you have a cell phone?