AllFreeNovel
Share Us
A cell phone rang from the front seat. The trooper not driving answered it and handed the phone back over the seat.
“It’s for you.”
He accepted the unit.
“Cotton, it’s Danny Daniels.”
* * *
Cassiopeia waited at Bangor International Airport, where she’d been directed to go by Edwin Davis, once the Maine police signaled they were on Zorin’s trail. She had to admit, she loved being back on the chase. It was almost as if she’d been born for this. Over the past month she’d tried to convince herself that she was something else. But the shoot-out in Canada had recharged her nerves, and the fact that she’d been there for Cotton had been important for them both. Other men she’d known would not have liked the fact that she’d saved them, but Cotton carried no prejudices. Everybody needed help from time to time. That had been what he was doing in Utah. Trying to help her. But she’d resisted. He was like a missing part of herself, and only when they were together did she truly feel complete. If the past month had taught her nothing else, it had made that point crystal clear.
She was parked outside a single-story terminal away from the airport’s main congestion, where private jets and other aircraft sat. Ten minutes ago a small twin-engine jet with U.S. government markings had taxied and stopped, the pilots deplaning and entering the terminal.
Their ride, she assumed.
She thought about Stephanie Nelle and knew she had to make peace there, too. But that shouldn’t be too hard. Stephanie was not one to hold a grudge, especially where she bore at least some responsibility for the mess in the first place. But she would offer no reminders.
No need.
Everyone knew where everyone else stood.
* * *
Malone listened to the president of the United States, who sounded more anxious than normal.
“I think Zorin intends to make a play during the inauguration,” Daniels said through the phone.
He did not disagree, but had to point out, “That would be next to impossible. No one could get anywhere close enough to do the kind of damage he’d need to inflict.”
Earlier, back in Eastport on the phone, Edwin Davis had told him about the 20th Amendment and the flaws both it and the 1947 Presidential Succession Act contained.
“Experts tell me that one of those things, if it exists, would be around six kilotons,” Daniels said. “To do maximum damage it needs to be deployed from up high so the overpressure would be strongest. The wind blast would level everything within a mile. And you’re looking at a fireball a thousand yards wide. Of course, if it’s sitting a few hundred feet from the swearing-in, that will have about the same effect. But I agree with you, there’s no way to get that close.”
“How high does it have to be to do its worst?”
“A few hundred feet. That could mean a plane, chopper, or drone.”
“These guys wouldn’t have access to drones.”
“But the Russians do.”
“You don’t seriously think Moscow wants to start a war.”
“I’m not sure Moscow has anything to do with this. I want you and Cassiopeia back here fast. It’s time we have a chat with the incoming administration and I’d like you two present.”
“For what?”
“They’re not going to believe anything I have to say.”
He was not accustomed to defeatism in this president.
“I now know what it means to be a lame duck,” Daniels said. “I can do some, but not near what I once could. People know my time is over.”
“What is it you want to do?”
“We have to change the swearing-in. It’s the only way.”
* * *
Stephanie reentered the Mandarin Oriental. Normally she would work out of the Justice Department when in DC, but in her current state of “between employers” the hotel seemed her only choice. The trip to Kris Cox’s house had proved enlightening, and she needed time to digest all that she’d been told.
She entered the lobby, but before turning for the elevators she spotted Nikolai Osin, standing off to the side, still draped in a sharp, black wool overcoat.
He said nothing as she approached.
“What brings you here?” she asked.
His face remained stoic, the features as frigid as the air outside.
“Some people, who would like to speak with you. Privately. Not from the government. They are … entrepreneurs.”
She knew what that sugarcoating meant.
Mobsters.
“They are here, though, on behalf of some within the government,” he said. “A few of those people we discussed earlier. Which, more than anything else, explains my presence here.”
She got it. No choice. “Okay.”
“A car is just outside, rear door open, waiting for you.”
“Are you coming?”
He shook his head.
“This talk is only for you.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
Zorin sat in the front seat as Kelly drove. They’d decided to split the duty between them, each resting a few hours. The route was simple, Kelly had said. Straight south on the same highway until they came to Virginia, then they’d head west, into the rural countryside about eighty kilometers west of Washington, DC.
He thought back to his time with the KGB. Canada had long been intended as a forward base for Soviet military operations. He’d personally reconnoitered several crossing points into Minnesota and North Dakota. The Flathead dam in Montana would have been one of their first targets for destruction, all part of a coordinated infrastructure attack designed to internally weaken the United States. But Canada itself had formed an important target. He’d spent two years gathering intelligence on its oil refineries and gas pipelines, determining the best way to sabotage them, all of which had been carefully detailed in reports back to Moscow.
Nearly every Canadian province and all of the American states had been partitioned into “zones of operation.” Each came with a central base in a rural location equipped with a parachute landing site, clear of buildings for two kilometers, and adjacent safe houses for refuge. They’d named the landing sites dorozhka, runways, and the houses uley, beehives. KGB guidelines required that the land for both should belong to someone trusted, the uley stocked with a radio, money, food, and water. There should also be police, military, railway, and forestry worker uniforms, along with local clothing. Encrypted files on site laid out the targeted power-transmission lines, oil and gas pipelines, bridges, tunnels, and military installations within 120 kilometers.
Then there were weapons.
Caches of firearms and explosives, either smuggled in or more likely bought locally inside the country. That had been particularly true in the United States, where firepower could be easily purchased.
“Did you personally prepare the uley for Fool’s Mate?” he asked Kelly.
“I thought you were asleep.”
“I was.”
“Yes, Aleksandr, I own it.”
“Risky, was it not?”
“Those were Andropov’s orders. I was to involve no one else. He wanted me to have total control.”
“It’s been such a long time. How could any of that still exist?”
“That was part of my orders. It had to last. No exact date for action was ever noted. I assumed it would be sooner rather than later, but with the peculiar weapons involved special arrangements had to be made.”
He knew what that meant. “A constant power source.”
“Exactly. And I will say that proved a challenge.”
“Is it booby-trapped?”
Kelly nodded. “One of the devices is designed to explode if the cache is breached. That was also part of my orders. No detection or anything left to find.”
And the risk taken there had been enormous. What if there’d been a breach, whether intentional or accidental, and a six-kiloton nuclear explosion happened? That would be hard to explain.
“When did you learn what Andro
pov had in mind?” Kelly asked.
“Parts came from the other two officers. Then I searched the old records and gathered more. But that archivist knew things, too.”
