The 14th Colony (Cotton Malone 11)

“Until Hedlund called.”

“That’s right. He told me about the Russian woman who’d come to his house and the gunfight.”

“We thought all of this long forgotten, but apparently we were wrong.”

“Is the president-general who fired Charon still around?”

Begyn shook his head. “He died years ago.”

“Hedlund says you know it all. But it sounds like you’re missing a lot of pieces to this puzzle.”

“Our society is a closed one. We keep to ourselves and don’t bother anyone. Today we are philanthropic. It’s important for us to stay above politics. We breached that mandate in 1812. But that was not the only time. We’ve helped out presidents and the military on several occasions after that. Which means we’ve violated the mandate that George Washington and the society founders laid down. And, as I said earlier, that may not mean much to you, but it does to us. Brad compounded things by allowing outsiders, foreigners, to learn about that.”

Luke was puzzled. “Yet nothing ever came of it.”

“Not a word, until yesterday.”

“It’s starting again,” as Hedlund had said on the phone.

Sue had sat silent, sipping her tea, listening. Daddy probably did not discuss these things with his daughter. Most of this was crap. But part of it still had to be important since Anya Petrova had come all the way from Siberia to deal with it.

Begyn shuffled through what lay on the table, then offered him one of the sealed packets. “We also did something else. More recent.”

He accepted the bundle.

“You’re holding an operational plan for the United States to invade Canada,” Begyn said. “Dated 1903.”

CHAPTER SIXTY

Zorin saw the road sign that indicated they were leaving the state of Pennsylvania and entering Maryland. He’d not shaved or showered in over a day, and his mouth tasted awful. Sleep had come in spurts but, strangely, he was not tired. Instead a tangible feeling of success swirled in his stomach, his body charged with a sense of achievement at possibly his last chance at redemption.

He thought again of Anya, wondering what she was doing. He’d switched on the cell phone hours ago, hoping she might call. He’d decided not to call until after he learned what Kelly had accomplished.

Both his wife and Anya had brought him joy, each in her own way. He’d been lucky to find them, especially Anya, who was far more adventurous than his wife had ever been.

His wife, though, had been a wonderful woman.

They met when he was still in training and married in secret, her family not approving of her choice in a husband. But his being KGB quelled any objections they might have made. They’d lived together nearly thirty years before ovarian cancer claimed her. Sadly, she lived long enough to be there when their son died, and the sadness from that tragedy never left either of them. His wife understood him, accepted him for who he was, living most of their married life alone as he moved from station to station. For their entire marriage she’d handled everything until she became too sick.

But even then, she remained in charge.

“You must listen to me,” she said, lying in the narrow hospital bed.

On her back, arms at her side, toes pointing upward, she formed a small mound beneath the sheets. Most of the time she’d stayed sedated, but there were moments, like now, when consciousness overtook the drugs and she was lucid. The clinic, on the outskirts of Irkutsk, treated only the party elite and their families. The room was large, with a high ceiling but a gloomy feel. He’d managed to have her admitted, and though they’d never spoken of the fact, where she lay, this part of the building, housed only terminal patients.

He wiped away a thin film of sweat from her gray, pallid forehead. Her hair was dank with oil. She wasn’t dirty, the nurses bathed her daily, but the odor of death she exuded seemed unmistakable. The doctors had already told him she was beyond their aid. All they could do was ease the pain and make sure he had no complaints. Though no longer of the KGB—both it and his job ended years before—his reputation had preceded him.

“I want you to do what it is you’ve been wanting,” she said to him.

His face mirrored her pain, but he was still surprised by the comment. “What do you think that is?”

“Do not treat me like a fool. I know that I’m dying, though you can’t bring yourself to tell me. Neither can the doctors. I also know that you’re troubled by so much. I’ve watched you these past years. There’s a sadness inside you, Aleksandr. It was there before our precious son died, and it remains.”

Pain began to reassert itself and she no longer lay neatly in the bed, tossing from side to side, plucking at the sheet that covered her. Soon they would come with another injection and out she would go for another few hours. He’d already been told that eventually she would not reawaken.

He took her hand in his.

It felt like a small bird, delicate and frail.

“Whatever it is that consumes you,” she said. “Do it. Resolve your anger. And that’s what you have been, Aleksandr. Angry. More so than ever before in your life. Something is unfinished.”

He sat beside her and allowed their life together to wander through his mind. She was a plain woman who had always spoken of him with respect. So many other wives he knew wore away at their husbands, some even made cuckolds—creating jealous, suspicious, agonized fools whose work suffered and reputations declined. That had not happened to him. Never had she asked for much, nor expected more than he could provide. Marrying her was the smartest move of his life.

She grew more restless and cried out. The duty nurse appeared but he waved her away. He wanted to be alone with her for just a few moments more.

Her eyes opened and she stared straight into him.

“Do not … waste … your life,” she said.

He recalled how her eyes stayed open, lips curled in a half smile, the grip from her fingers vanishing. He’d seen death enough to know its look, but he sat there for a few more minutes hoping he was wrong. Finally, he kissed her cold brow before slipping the sheet up over her head. For so many years she’d been drawn into his dilemma, one blind step after another, trapped just like him. She knew his anger and wanted it gone.

As did he.

He recalled how grief had risen hot in his throat and threatened to strangle him. His mind had numbed with a sudden sense of loneliness. No longer could he think either of or about her. She and his son were both gone. His parents dead. His brothers lived far away and rarely communicated. He was essentially alone, with a long, empty, purposeless life ahead of him. His physical health remained, but his mental stability hung in doubt.

“Do not waste your life.”

And that was when the thought first came back to him.

Fool’s Mate.

“It’s time for us to be honest with each other,” Kelly said.

He glanced across the darkened interior of the car and brought his mind back to the present. Outside, snow was falling, not heavy or accumulating, but definitely in the air.

“The envelope I was given that night by Andropov,” Kelly said. “I was told that in the late 1970s the KGB learned some vital information from the Soviet embassy in DC. It seems one of the staffers there made friends with a man who knew some unusual things.”

All Soviet foreign diplomats and KGB officers had been taught how to elicit information without the source ever knowing of their interest. In fact, the vast majority of intelligence originated from just such innocent exchanges. They came with a low risk of exposure as no one ever suspected a thing. Just simple conversation among friends and acquaintances. What was the American and British saying from the Great Patriotic War? He’d been taught it at trade school. Loose lips sink ships.

“This unusual information dealt with Canada,” Kelly said.

He listened as Kelly told him about the Society of Cincinnati and how it designed invasion plans for America’s northern neighbor.