DISCLAIMER: If you recognize people or organizations from the television
series, they belong to Shoot the Moon Productions and Warner Brothers.
I've borrowed them with love and deep appreciation for the many years of
enjoyment I've received from them and am making absolutely no money from
this enterprise. If you recognize them from history, no infringement is
intended on them; they merely serve to provide the story with an authentic
setting. If you don't recognize them from either of those two sources,
they're products of my very odd imagination and I claim full responsibility
for their imaginary actions.
Chapter 5 * Somewhere in the Washington, D.C. Area * 2:15 a.m. EST (GMT-5)
Amanda and Lee took over as lead tail vehicle when the car Scholk was in made another turn several miles from the highway. The plates on the car had traced back to a company that General Reese had recognized from the research he and Amanda had been doing – it was two layers above the company that owned the building Scholk had been seen leaving. Even if Ian's instincts were wrong about Scholk having Sandra, everyone agreed that whatever they discovered tonight would be of great interest to the FBI.
Scholk's car made another turn, this time into what appeared to be a long driveway in a sparsely populated neighborhood. Lee had no choice but to keep going, but Amanda, watching in the rearview mirror as her husband slowly drove by, was able to see that the car came to a stop and then was shut off. "Fifteen Thirty Seven Lebanon Avenue," Amanda said into her transmitter, giving Billy the address so he could relay that to the Agency. He and the general were two miles back; Francine and Ian had taken up the middle position as the three teams leapfrogged.
"Good work. How close can we get and still have a visual?" Billy's voice came over the transmitter, ghost-like in the static of a long-range signal on the hand-held devices.
"I'd say about a quarter of a mile in either direction. There's heavy brush along the road and no evidence of driveways for at least three- quarters of a mile to either side."
"Billy, how about rearward surveillance?" Ian asked.
"Let me check the property out before I say yes to that, Colonel. In the mean time, let's set up as Amanda suggests, two on the way in and Lee, you and Amanda stay beyond the house. It's time to catch a bad guy."
The Chancery, Warsaw, Poland * 8:35 a.m. (GMT+1)
Father Jaruslav Milowanowicz unlocked the door of his tiny flat within the religious complex, smiling to himself at the fact that the flats were really cells. He suspected that his current residence would be traded for a different type of cell soon – if he lived.
Inside, he bolted the door and turned to his cot, bending low to reach the long black box underneath. With an audible squeal, the box opened to reveal his best friend. The rifle, a special custom order from Hoch and Kechler, the German gun manufacturer, gleamed even in the dim light from the single overhead bulb. Jaruslav extracted the rifle from its case, caressing it as he began to oil the black barrel and buff the walnut stock. If he had to die, he would do so with his friend, and perhaps take some of his enemies with him.
Somewhere in the Washington, D.C. Area * 2:55 a.m. EST (GMT-5)
Sandra Reese was mercifully unconscious, although that state of affairs had only just come about. Leon Ivanich Scholk stood several feet away from her limp form, pondering the last words the young woman had uttered. "International Federal Film. Lee Stetson."
Scholk knew of Stetson; the vaunted Scarecrow's dossier had been mandatory reading prior to his assignment to the embassy staff. International Federal Film… that sounded familiar, as though he had just heard it recently. The steady breathing of his captive made it easy for him to lapse into a semi-meditative state, and after a few minutes of free association, the answer came to him.
"The woman with Marlowe," he muttered, bells going off in his head. "Now I have a problem." Calmly, the Soviet agent worked through his options, then decided on a course of action. He stepped out of the small interrogation room and came back a moment later with several yards of rope, a roll of duct tape, and a U.S. Army duffel bag. As thoroughly as he could, he bound Sandra's hands and feet with the rope, then secured the knots – and her mouth – with the adhesive. He propped the unresponsive body up, then dropped the duffel bag over her head, bent her knees to stuff them in at the top.
Without much concern for how, he picked up the bag and carried it to the patio door, careful not to let light show through as he pulled the curtains open and parted the sliding glass doors with one hand. As he had planned, the fenced yard gave him cover from any prying eyes until he could reach the brush a foot or so from the tree line, and he hoped that his movement in the trees – if observed – would look like a large animal rather than a human being. Scholk carried his burden back 100 yards into the woods, where he had prepared a burial place in the hollow of the trunk of a large tree. The body would be hard to spot at casual glance but easy to find during a true search. Then he returned to the house, convinced that no one had seen a thing.
Somewhere in the Washington, D.C. Area * 3:15 a.m. EST (GMT-5)
"Did you see that?" Amanda shook Lee's arm and pointed off toward the back of the house Scholk had driven to.
"What?" He stifled a yawn and followed Amanda's slim finger to the fence line.
Amanda shrugged. "I don't know. It looked like a dark shadow moving against the dark fence – just briefly, and something other than a tree branch."
"How long?"
"Two, maybe three seconds. At first I thought it might be the gate, but I think it was more human shaped."
Lee lifted an eyebrow and picked up the radio. "Anybody see anything?" he asked, keeping his voice much quieter than he really needed to.
"We were just wondering if we did," Francine reported. "Ian thinks he may have seen something in the trees, but it might have been a deer or something."
"Negative here, Scarecrow. We're too far away." Billy sounded disappointed.
Amanda spoke, more loudly so she could be heard from the passenger side. "As soon as it's daylight, sir, I think we ought to search the woods."
"I'll play that hunch, Amanda," she heard Alex Reese say. "But maybe something else will happen."
Ian had a thought. "Billy, if you call in coverage for us to be in place when Scholk leaves, we can tackle the woods that much faster."
Billy laughed. "Lieutenant Colonel, if your name is on the promotion list next Monday, how would you like a job?"
"Doing what, sir?"
"Exactly what you're doing right now – making a really good partner for my best solo agent."
It was Francine's turn to laugh. "And I didn't even have to hand him a package."
KGB Headquarters * Moscow, USSR *11:50 a.m. (GMT+3)
G.A. Tolstoy had been having a wonderful day. His mistress had been extraordinary that morning, the weather was warming up, the daylight lasted for almost 12 hours now, and his supervisor had just told him that he was short-listed for a two year posting in at the Soviet Embassy in London. He bounced into his work area, past his secretary – who, of course, wasn't titled as his secretary because that was a bourgeois title – and never missed a whistled note of the Internationale as he read his messages. When the phone rang, he expected that his day would not be adversely affected.
Then his assistant told him who was on the other end of the connection, and his stomach lurched. "I'll take it in here," he told the woman, closing his office door and making his way to the phone on the desk two steps inside. "Comrade Scholk," he said. "I presume this is good news?"
The crackling line gave the man in America a more ominous tone than usual as he relayed his actions of the past hour. Tolstoy turned progressively grayer as the news came across the Atlantic Ocean. "You are safe, though?"
"For the moment. I saw no evidence that I have been tailed to this location, although I did have my usual nuisance spotters on me this afternoon for a while."
"You must leave America. I need you in Poland, Leon Ivanich, now that you are finished here. Check in with the chief of station when you arrive back at the Embassy. Your orders will be waiting."
"Of course, comrade. And there are no worries. When she is found, she will be found dead of asphyxiation, and there are, I shall say this delicately, signs that she enjoyed her stay her rather too much for her own good."
"Not yours, I hope."
"Oh, no. Pavel Constantinovich was more than happy to oblige once I explained to him all the reasons he didn't want to say 'nyet.'"
Scholk scared him, Tolstoy admitted a moment later as he ended the conversation. The man was just too thorough. It was good to have him on the Soviet side. Were he an American, well…
Somewhere in the Washington, D.C. Area * 4:15 a.m. EST (GMT-5)
Lee and Amanda huddled together in the back seat of the Wagoneer, watching the property where Leon Ivanich Scholk was hiding. Billy had arranged for a search and rescue team to be standing by as soon as Scholk left the house; Lee and Amanda would manage the team while Billy and General Reese in one car and Ian and Francine in the other followed Scholk. Ian had managed to plant a tracking device on the Yugoslavian made vehicle in which Scholk had arrived and the hope was that he would head directly back to the Embassy – there was a warm welcome prepared for him about three blocks from the Soviet compound.
"I wish he'd just hurry up and leave," Amanda groaned as she tried to stretch in the cramped quarters.
"So do I. I have the feeling we saw him a while ago, and I have this gut- gnawing hunch Sandra is in those woods." Lee's quiet tone rumbled through his chest as he shook off sleepiness. "She won't last long if she's hurt at all, even assuming she's alive. It's cold outside."
Amanda squeezed her husband's hands. "I think we'd know from Alex if Sandra were dead. Just like I knew Jamie was alive all that time."
"The magic of parental connection?" Lee smiled.
"Something like that. Maybe someday…"
Lee sat up. "Yes…?"
Amanda's smile lit the dim Jeep. "Maybe someday we'll be able to explain the power of love like that. You know, the kind that keeps us connected."
Lee returned her smile with a little gleam in his eyes. "I thought perhaps you were going to say that I'd understand the power of parental connection someday."
"I'm not ruling it out." Before he could reply, she kissed him soundly. "I'm also not saying yes to anything in this environment. We need to talk about it, though."
"Your mother has been busy," Lee said, chuckling and reveling in the momentary thought of being a parent in the biological sense as well as in the stepfather role. Or, he admitted to himself, even as the adoptive parent of a child in need of a good, loving home.
The radio crackled, interrupting the moment. The agitation in Billy's voice came through in his words: "Scholk is leaving. SAR team move in."
"That's us." The husband and wife said together as they went back to being the top-level agents they were when Scholk's car pulled away from the house.
On the Road Back to Washington * 4:40 a.m. EST (GMT-5)
"I think he knows we're here," Ian grumbled to Francine as the blonde maneuvered their Chevy along the winding back roads of rural Maryland. "Wherever here is."
"We've just crossed back into Maryland. He hasn't gotten five miles away from the border since he left the house. Why do you think he knows we're here?"
Ian shrugged, studying the darkness outside the car as the scenery whipped by. "I don't quite know. Maybe he's just clearing the tail and I'm nervous."
"At least the transmitter is working, so there's no worries about staying in visual contact."
"I'd feel better if we did."
On the Road Back to Washington * 4:42 a.m. EST (GMT-5)
"I'd feel better if we did," General Reese said to Billy as they listened to the squawking of the transmitter over a hand-held receiver.
"I wish we could tail him close up, too," Billy agreed. "Dr. Smyth would have my hide if we get caught violating standing procedures."
"That man scares me."
Grimacing, Billy nodded. "Most of us, too. Except Amanda, I think. You know he's Ian's uncle."
"Oh, yes, I know. More's the pity for Colonel Marlowe, of course. Damn, I wish the bastard would pick a direction and go. I hate the ones who actually follow procedure."
"You have this problem in Berlin?"
The general grunted. "Almost never. That's why we catch them so often." He sat in tense silence for a moment, then keyed the voice transmitter. "Green 1 to Green 3, what's the SAR status?"
A burst of static followed, then Amanda's voice crackled through. "…dogs on a scent now. Hold on…" Reese fidgeted as the silence stretched, then slumped in anguish as the answer came from Amanda. "No, nothing there. It was a depression in the soil."
"Scholk is a dead man."
Billy didn't even bother to answer as the miles fell away under the tires of the cars.
Somewhere in the Washington, D.C. Area * 5:00 a.m. EST (GMT-5)
The search dogs barked raucously as their handlers pulled them away from the tree trunk. "They've got something!" the lead handler shouted to the paramedics and federal agents who were scattered around the wooded area.
Two dozen people came at a run, arriving in various states of breathlessness in the damp cold of the late winter morning. An efficient team from the Civil Air Patrol cleared the brush away from the bottom of the tree and extricated something from the hollow inside.
"It's her – and she's alive!" a paramedic yelled as the medical crew began to evaluate Sandra Reese's condition.
Amanda and Lee exchanged relieved smiles as Amanda pulled out the transmitter to contact the rest of the Agency group. General Reese's exuberant if static-laden Rebel yell could be heard across the forest a moment later.
"Go with her, Amanda. We'll be there as soon as we get Scholk."
"General, um, Alex, don't you want to meet her at the hospital?"
"I want him first. I don't want him to get away. Call the NSA and get a message to my son, Kevin Reese. He'll come."
Amanda looked at Lee after she signed off. "I don't get it," she said as the couple watched the professional rescuers start an IV on Sandra. "If it were Jamie or Philip or you…"
"It's a guy thing, Amanda. We have this natural instinct to go after anything that hurts someone we care about. And given what Ian told us over dinner last night, Scholk has been on the general's list for a long time. First the mistaken assassination what, eleven years ago? Then the Moscow incident you remembered, now this. That's three strikes, and we all know what happens after three strikes."
"You're out," Amanda nodded, enlightened but not necessarily convinced. "Find out which hospital they're taking her to so I can call her brother."
Lee turned to go toward the medics, but turned back with a small smile. "For the record, I'd go to the hospital with you."
Amanda smiled back. "No, you wouldn't. You'd go after the bad guy, just like you did in California and every other time. And I still love you."
Lee just shook his head and resumed his mission.
Near the Soviet Embassy * Washington, D.C. * 5:20 a.m. EST (GMT-5)
Leon Ivanich Scholk spotted the dragnet with just enough time to turn off the main road into an alley between two residential blocks. "Damned Americans," he muttered in English as he shut the car off and scrambled out. "I wonder which idiot they tagged this time?"
With great agility, Scholk leapt two fences and sauntered up the residential street with his briefcase, looking only slightly out of place because of the early hour. In his mind, he reviewed his options for getting back into the Embassy unseen, and came up with a secret entrance to the underground service tunnels that would take only a few minutes on foot from his current location. The Russian continued his early morning stroll, stopping only to buy an early edition of The Washington Post, until he arrived at a 24-hour Laundromat about three blocks from the main entrance of the Soviet compound. He asked for the key to the men's room; once inside, he reversed the key and opened the supply closet, revealing another door inside. Leaving the key on the sink, the man stepped into the supply closet and vanished into the depths of underground Washington.
Near the Soviet Embassy * Washington, D.C. * 5:30 a.m. EST (GMT-5)
"Nothing," Billy said, slamming Scholk's abandoned car with a tightly clenched fist. "Just when we got within the sightline protocols."
"We had him until the other Yugo pulled onto the road," Francine complained. "Driving into the sunrise made it hard to tell after a couple of lane changes which was which."
"I know, Francine. It's not your fault. It's the damned regulations."
Ian stood with the general near the Chevy he and Francine had been driving, staring up the alley. "We'd better alert Dulles. He'll be out of here within the hour if he made it back to the Embassy."
"We won't be able to touch him," General Reese reminded the younger man. "He's got a legitimate diplomatic legend and thus immunity."
"Not if Sandra can identify him." Ian's tone of voice made it seem impossible for that not to be the case.
Billy shook his head. "Even then, it's very hard to get a judge to lift the immunity. And your uncle isn't exactly the biggest fan of canceling diplomatic privileges, anyway. We've saved too many operations thanks to loopholes like that."
"I am not waiting another three years to get this man." Each word escaped Alex's lips with brutal intensity.
Francine went to the general, laid her hand on his sleeve. "Go see Sandra first. We'll go to Dulles and track him."
After a moment, General Reese, hard-bitten Army veteran, looked at the agent with tear-softened eyes. "Thank you," he managed, before the weight of his daughter's rescue hit him and he collapsed beside the Agency sedan in sobs.
The Heliport of Johns Hopkins Trauma Center, Baltimore, Maryland * 6:10 a.m. EST (GMT-5)
Kevin Reese had not known that his sister was in danger, nor had he known that his father was in town. It was not, he reflected as he watched the Angelflight chopper which carried his critically injured sister flare for landing, something that he should not be upset by, but he was oddly calm about being left in the dark. Perhaps it was his job with the NSA that enabled him to see things through a different lens – the larger picture, so to speak. Dad had gotten to him with the news when he could do something productive, rather than sit removed from the action worrying while others worked to find and free Sandra. More accurately, Dad had gotten someone to get to him, but it amounted to the same thing.
Not until the gurney approached within three feet could Kevin see his little sister for the forest of tubes, stabilizing equipment, and blankets which surrounded her. What he saw in her bruised, blank face frightened him – and took him back eleven years, to a beautiful spring day in Rota, Spain, when time shattered for the Reese family. Sandra's face looked just as their mother's had when she lay in the parking lot of the hotel, bleeding out from her mortal wounds as her children screamed for help in every language they knew. "No," Kevin whispered. "Not again."
Security Office, Dulles International Airport * 6:55 a.m. EST (GMT-5)
Francine handed Ian a printout as a second copy spit out from the printer behind her. "This is the list of flights on which the Soviet Embassy has standby seating today."
"Efficient," he growled, looking over the two page list. "There's two dozen flights on here."
"Yes, and with Scholk, we can't even rule any of them out. He could go right back to Moscow, in which case the London, Frankfurt, and Amsterdam flights are the most likely, or he could go underground for a while, which means Buenos Aires, Tokyo, Hong Kong, or Cairo are logical places. Not to mention the 8 other cities."
The two left the office and headed for the ticket counters at the front of the International Departures Terminal. "What about domestic flights?" Ian asked as they wandered the lengthening lines of passengers checking in for their overseas flights.
"Not likely, but we have someone watching the last minute purchase lists of each airline. The problem with that is that once he flies incognito within the United States, he's lost his immunity. Scholk isn't that dumb."
"Good point."
Scholk arrived at the airport within a half hour, but Ian and Francine could only watch helplessly as he boarded the 8:30 British Airways flight to London, escaping justice and available now to work his dastardly magic wherever else the Soviets might need him.
Johns Hopkins University Medical Center, Baltimore, Maryland * 11:45 a.m. EST (GMT-5)
"General Reese, your daughter is an extremely lucky young woman," the trauma surgeon said as he sat down across from the general and his son and began to take his surgical booties off. "She will need some extensive physical therapy once the bones in her legs have healed, but the internal damage was comparatively minor and the burns were well treated after they were administered."
"What about her face?"
"We were able to repair the damage from inside her mouth, so although her jaw is wired shut right now, she'll look more normal in about two weeks. Her hands will also heal after therapy."
Kevin Reese sank back against the cushions, relieved to have the answer to the question he was about to ask. "Will playing piano be part of that therapy?" he asked instead, knowing that his sister would need her music as an emotional outlet.
The surgeon shrugged. "I don't know – the orthopaedists will be able to tell you more about that. Can I ask a question?"
Alex nodded; the trauma specialist pursed his lips and exhaled before he continued. "What happened to her? This is no ordinary rape."
"You're right, it's no ordinary rape. Let's just say that it's a matter of National Security and that my daughter has a penchant for getting mixed up with the wrong people."
"Oh," was all the doctor could say. He looked at the younger man plaintively, hoping for additional information.
The NSA agent smiled with ice in his eyes. "Don't look at me for information. I have a top secret clearance and I don't have 'need to know' on this."
The doctor stood with difficulty. "Okay, well, Sandra will be in recovery for a while longer. Once she's in ICU, you can see her." With that, he stretched out his hand to the general, but before the two men could shake hands, the paging system called for him and he was gone.
Kevin locked eyes with his father. "Are you staying or going back to Berlin?"
"Neither. I'm going after the man who did this." The expression on his face gave everything away.
"Scholk." A statement, not a question.
"You can't go with me."
"You can't stop me."
Lieutenant General Alexander Reese put his arm around his only son, and the two men wept in the antiseptic waiting room of the Trauma Center.
Heathrow Airport, London, England * 5:20 p.m. GMT
Leon Ivanich Scholk waited patiently as his international call was put through to Moscow. Tolstoy had not told him anything beyond his arrival in London, so he needed to talk with his superior before he could take another flight.
Tolstoy's voice on the other end of the line was haggard, but he seemed to be in good spirits. "You got out without further trouble?"
"Barely, but I think it's safe to say that I shouldn't go back to America anytime soon."
A sigh, of relief or frustration, Scholk couldn't tell. "Well, that's fine for the moment. You are booked under your German alias on Austrian Air into Vienna with a connecting flight to Warsaw. You have about 45 minutes before your flight leaves for Vienna."
"Warsaw. You did mention Poland. Who is my contact?"
"You'll be met under your real name. Respond with a greeting about Uncle Vladimir."
"I understand."
"Good. Further orders will await you once you're in place." Tolstoy hung up his phone in Moscow, leaving Scholk holding the receiver in London and wondering just what was happening in Poland that required his special set of skills.
The Agency * 12:35 p.m. EST (GMT-5)
The debriefing after the successful rescue of Sandra Reese had been exhausting and exhaustive. And that was before Dr. Austin Smyth joined the team of inquisitors.
"Well, children," the austere Agency leader said around his omnipresent cigarette holder, "we've let the fox out of the henhouse. Where's the lazy watchdog?"
Lee ground his teeth but didn't say anything as Amanda laid a hand on his arm to still him. Beside them, Ian did the same to Francine.
Billy, having no one in the building to check him, made an acid reply. "In Congress."
Dr. Smyth stopped short, not expecting such a forthright answer. When he spoke again after ten seconds, it was with less venom. "That is, unfortunately, true. So, how do we compensate for the underfunding and lack of staffing?"
Francine wouldn't be restrained this time. "Fire Congress an appropriate their entire budget. We'd be golden for years."
"I like that idea, Desmond, but there is something we've sworn to protect – you know, the Constitution – and unfortunately, Congress is guaranteed the right to exist under that document."
"Yes, sir. But I don't think it says we have to pay them or provide them staff."
Billy cringed, thinking Francine would be in big trouble. But instead, the hard-nosed Agency leader laughed out loud – for a long time. No one else quite knew hw to react, so none of the agents in the room joined him in the raucous chortling. They just smiled back and forth at each other with amusement.
"What's the matter, Melrose?" Smyth asked when he regained his composure, taking out his cigarette holder and waving it in front of Billy's face.
Taking a risk that the doctor's good humor would last, he quipped, "Who are you and what have you done with Dr. Smyth?"
Winking, Dr. Smyth reached out to shake Ian's hand as he replied to the section chief. "Didn't you get the memo, Melrose? It's a kinder, gentler bureaucracy now."
It had to have been the stress of the preceding 48 hours that caused Francine to lose it. She started with a small giggle, but soon the mirth overtook the room as she convulsed into a ball on the floor, leading everyone else to raucous laughter.
Dr. Smyth beamed. "Ian, I must say that whatever you've done with Miss Desmond, I approve."
Ian flashed a grin. "Thanks, Uncle Austin. I think – "
Whatever Ian was about to say got lost when a signals messenger came in at run, shouting for Lee.
Warsaw, Poland * 7:05 p.m. (GMT+1)
Stefan held the ham radio as tenderly as he would a newborn. This precious connection to the free world, only today fixed with what in America would be called Rube Goldberg inventiveness, had to bring help or his country would be subsumed into the Soviet Union in a matter of weeks.
He hoped that someone would answer on the other end. The codes he had were almost 7 years old and hadn't been used in nearly 6. Getting the signal across the Atlantic had taken some doing, and now as he waited for his contact in the American intelligence agency to "come to the phone", he prayed that the signal really had gone west rather than east…
No, he thought after a moment, even the Russians can't redirect radio signals. Intercept, yes, but not redirect, and there was no way that a Russian could have so perfectly mimicked the Cockney accent of one of his receivers.
Another long moment passed before Stefan's radio crackled and a voice emanated from the tiny speakers. "Ponderosa to Wagon Train, come in please, over," the ethereal voice called from America in accented but lucid Polish.
Stefan completed the recognition sequence, then made his request. "I need a resupply of oats and I've got a horse that needs some new shoes, Ponderosa."
The Agency * 1:10 p.m. EST (GMT-5)
"Oats and new shoes?" Billy asked Lee as their interpreter corroborated Lee's initial guess. "What in the world?"
"Wagon Train, please clarify, over." Lee shrugged at Billy as they waited for the man in Poland to restate his needs.
Stefan complied quickly. "A replacement wagon with a good driver would be very helpful, over."
Amanda muttered a soft "Oh, no" as Lee translated, knowing that he really would be going to Poland now.
"Can you tell us more about the supplies you need, or about your situation in general? Over."
"I can confirm my earlier but nothing more. I am in need of a blacksmith for those shoes. Over."
More confused looks passed among the Americans before Lee came up with a plausible explanation. "We can do that for you. Do you need a 38 or a 44 in those shoes? Over."
"It's a big horse. Bring the 44's. He needs shoes on all four legs. Over."
Four guns? Amanda mouthed at Lee and Billy. Why?
"Wagon Train, are you sure about all four legs? Maybe he just needs new nails in two shoes. Over."
"No, Ponderosa, he needs four shoes. I'll take a backup supply, too, in case there's a traveling blacksmith in town later. Over."
"Okay, Watering Hole. We'll see what we can do. You'll meet the stage as arranged? Over."
A brief silence punctuated the room, and the Americans were just beginning to think that they had lost their connection when the Polish voice came back. "At the usual stop, Ponderosa. Check the mail when you get here. Over."
Lee nodded at Billy that he understand, and Billy signed off.
"So," Amanda said to her husband and her section chief, "when do we leave?"
"Not 'we', Amanda. Me." Lee could still be obstinate.
Billy rarely let Lee's protectiveness stand, especially in the year and a half since the Stetsons' marriage had become public knowledge. This time, however, he did, leaving Amanda with nothing to do but follow her husband out the door and home to help him pack for his assignment behind the Iron Curtain.
Johns Hopkins University Medical Center * 4:45 p.m. EST (GMT-5)
Amanda knocked on the ICU waiting room door before she pushed it open to enter. Alex and Kevin Reese sat side by side on the orange plastic couch, to her eyes trying hard to be manly in their worry even though they wanted to embrace. Men, she thought. Why can't they just stop worrying about appearances and show their real feelings?
Alex looked up at the intrusion. "Amanda," he said, "I'm so glad you're here."
"I had to come," she replied honestly. "I hadn't heard anything more…"
Kevin shrugged. "There's not much more to tell. The doctors say she'll be unconscious for at least a full day from the anesthesia and medication alone. Then we'll see. And you are…?"
"Amanda Stetson," his father jumped in, "this is my son Kevin. Kevin, this is Amanda Stetson. She's the one who called you earlier. Amanda and her husband led the team that found your sister."
The younger man stood up, stretching his full 6'3" frame and extending his long arm to grasp Amanda's hand in his. "Thank you, Mrs. Stetson.
"You're welcome."
She sat down beside the general, who clasped her hand and held it as though anchoring himself to reality. The three sat alone in silence for almost an hour before Kevin excused himself.
Amanda was ready. "Alex, I need to go to Poland. Can you help me?"
The lieutenant general looked at the intelligence operative with keen interest. "Why?"
"Because Lee is going."
"But Lee has told you that you can't go, and Billy backed him up." Which is precisely what Alex would have done, too, in the circumstance.
Amanda nodded. "He's my partner, Alex. He's my life."
Alex wasn't Billy in this instance, though. "I'll see what I can do, Amanda."
Castle Square, Warsaw, Poland * March 19, 1989 * 12:05 a.m. (GMT+1)
If he had to be back behind the Iron Curtain, Warsaw was his second choice. So thought Leon Ivanich Scholk as he stood beside the Vistula River waiting for his contact to appear in the midst of the quieting nightlife of Poland's capital city. Prague was his first choice, possibly, he thought mutinously, because it was the least damaged by Communist architecture. Such was the hazard of being a Western specialist in the KGB.
Scholk recognized his contact by the red beret the man wore at an absurdly capitalist angle. They exchanged verification codes before the information extraction specialist got down to business. "You are Gregor Borodin, from the Ministry of Justice?"
"Yes, I am."
"Have you approved the Good Friday mass request from Cardinal Glemp?" Scholk asked, as requested by G.A. Tolstoy from Moscow.
Borodin shook his head. "Not definitively, but we have not said no, either. And it isn't a mass. It's a Service of Tenebrae."
"That's a meaningless detail. Confirm it. Everything is in place?"
"Yes." No emotion showed in Borodin's face.
"Good. I've been sent to make sure that our Judas is truly ready."
"Someone was here to do that earlier. He was suitably impressed."
"I've heard the report. Our superiors want one last check." He didn't say that the superior who wanted the last check was the very man who had been so impressed.
Borodin stood in thought for several moments before he spoke in a hollow voice. "Go to the 11 o'clock mass at the Chancery later this morning. He will be there."
"I'll arrange a demonstration for that afternoon, then."
"A demonstration?" Borodin snorted. "You don't want him to demonstrate at a KGB shooting range, comrade. There isn't one long enough."
Scholk smiled. "As a matter of fact, I was thinking about the Olympic training center. That is, I understand, familiar territory for him."
"As you say."
Scholk watched Borodin walk away a minute later, knowing that the man would soon be a liability. Scholk liked to deal with liabilities. Especially the ones from whom he didn't need to get information before the end.
Maplewood Drive, Arlington, Virginia * March 18, 1989 * 10:20 p.m. EST (GMT- 5)
Philip King was not a happy teenager as he stood radiating anger in the family room of the Stetson-King house. "Why do you have to leave?" he asked his stepfather in a voice that edged close to hysterical.
Lee Stetson sighed and put his hands on his stepson's shoulders. "Philip, I wish I had a different answer than this, but…"
Jamie finished the sentence from the couch beside his mother. "It's vital to national security and you're the best qualified person to do the job." Jamie's serene tone was a surprise to everyone. "Well, you are. You're even better with Mom beside you."
"Shut up, wormbrain."
Lee and Amanda both spoke. "Philip, don't call your brother wormbrain." The duet broke a little of the tension, and Philip relaxed enough to step closer to Lee and put his arm around the man's shoulders.
"I don't know what would be worse," the older teen admitted, "you going by yourself like you are or both you and Mom going."
From the arm of the sofa, Dotty laughed with a tinge of sadness. "What, are you trying to kill me with worry?"
"Grandma," Jamie scolded, reaching out to grasp her hand where it rested on the back of the couch. "We'll all be okay. We have to be for Lee's sake."
"Jamie, that's an amazing attitude," Lee said, genuinely surprised and touched. "When did you figure that out?"
The teen shrugged. "In Lebanon. JoJo needed Marlena and me to be okay so she could focus on keeping us alive."
Philip put his other arm around Lee in a full manly embrace. "I'm sorry," he whispered to his stepfather.
"It's okay, son," Lee replied.
A moment later, the whole family stood together, heedless of the late hour and wanting more time.
Chapter 5 * Somewhere in the Washington, D.C. Area * 2:15 a.m. EST (GMT-5)
Amanda and Lee took over as lead tail vehicle when the car Scholk was in made another turn several miles from the highway. The plates on the car had traced back to a company that General Reese had recognized from the research he and Amanda had been doing – it was two layers above the company that owned the building Scholk had been seen leaving. Even if Ian's instincts were wrong about Scholk having Sandra, everyone agreed that whatever they discovered tonight would be of great interest to the FBI.
Scholk's car made another turn, this time into what appeared to be a long driveway in a sparsely populated neighborhood. Lee had no choice but to keep going, but Amanda, watching in the rearview mirror as her husband slowly drove by, was able to see that the car came to a stop and then was shut off. "Fifteen Thirty Seven Lebanon Avenue," Amanda said into her transmitter, giving Billy the address so he could relay that to the Agency. He and the general were two miles back; Francine and Ian had taken up the middle position as the three teams leapfrogged.
"Good work. How close can we get and still have a visual?" Billy's voice came over the transmitter, ghost-like in the static of a long-range signal on the hand-held devices.
"I'd say about a quarter of a mile in either direction. There's heavy brush along the road and no evidence of driveways for at least three- quarters of a mile to either side."
"Billy, how about rearward surveillance?" Ian asked.
"Let me check the property out before I say yes to that, Colonel. In the mean time, let's set up as Amanda suggests, two on the way in and Lee, you and Amanda stay beyond the house. It's time to catch a bad guy."
The Chancery, Warsaw, Poland * 8:35 a.m. (GMT+1)
Father Jaruslav Milowanowicz unlocked the door of his tiny flat within the religious complex, smiling to himself at the fact that the flats were really cells. He suspected that his current residence would be traded for a different type of cell soon – if he lived.
Inside, he bolted the door and turned to his cot, bending low to reach the long black box underneath. With an audible squeal, the box opened to reveal his best friend. The rifle, a special custom order from Hoch and Kechler, the German gun manufacturer, gleamed even in the dim light from the single overhead bulb. Jaruslav extracted the rifle from its case, caressing it as he began to oil the black barrel and buff the walnut stock. If he had to die, he would do so with his friend, and perhaps take some of his enemies with him.
Somewhere in the Washington, D.C. Area * 2:55 a.m. EST (GMT-5)
Sandra Reese was mercifully unconscious, although that state of affairs had only just come about. Leon Ivanich Scholk stood several feet away from her limp form, pondering the last words the young woman had uttered. "International Federal Film. Lee Stetson."
Scholk knew of Stetson; the vaunted Scarecrow's dossier had been mandatory reading prior to his assignment to the embassy staff. International Federal Film… that sounded familiar, as though he had just heard it recently. The steady breathing of his captive made it easy for him to lapse into a semi-meditative state, and after a few minutes of free association, the answer came to him.
"The woman with Marlowe," he muttered, bells going off in his head. "Now I have a problem." Calmly, the Soviet agent worked through his options, then decided on a course of action. He stepped out of the small interrogation room and came back a moment later with several yards of rope, a roll of duct tape, and a U.S. Army duffel bag. As thoroughly as he could, he bound Sandra's hands and feet with the rope, then secured the knots – and her mouth – with the adhesive. He propped the unresponsive body up, then dropped the duffel bag over her head, bent her knees to stuff them in at the top.
Without much concern for how, he picked up the bag and carried it to the patio door, careful not to let light show through as he pulled the curtains open and parted the sliding glass doors with one hand. As he had planned, the fenced yard gave him cover from any prying eyes until he could reach the brush a foot or so from the tree line, and he hoped that his movement in the trees – if observed – would look like a large animal rather than a human being. Scholk carried his burden back 100 yards into the woods, where he had prepared a burial place in the hollow of the trunk of a large tree. The body would be hard to spot at casual glance but easy to find during a true search. Then he returned to the house, convinced that no one had seen a thing.
Somewhere in the Washington, D.C. Area * 3:15 a.m. EST (GMT-5)
"Did you see that?" Amanda shook Lee's arm and pointed off toward the back of the house Scholk had driven to.
"What?" He stifled a yawn and followed Amanda's slim finger to the fence line.
Amanda shrugged. "I don't know. It looked like a dark shadow moving against the dark fence – just briefly, and something other than a tree branch."
"How long?"
"Two, maybe three seconds. At first I thought it might be the gate, but I think it was more human shaped."
Lee lifted an eyebrow and picked up the radio. "Anybody see anything?" he asked, keeping his voice much quieter than he really needed to.
"We were just wondering if we did," Francine reported. "Ian thinks he may have seen something in the trees, but it might have been a deer or something."
"Negative here, Scarecrow. We're too far away." Billy sounded disappointed.
Amanda spoke, more loudly so she could be heard from the passenger side. "As soon as it's daylight, sir, I think we ought to search the woods."
"I'll play that hunch, Amanda," she heard Alex Reese say. "But maybe something else will happen."
Ian had a thought. "Billy, if you call in coverage for us to be in place when Scholk leaves, we can tackle the woods that much faster."
Billy laughed. "Lieutenant Colonel, if your name is on the promotion list next Monday, how would you like a job?"
"Doing what, sir?"
"Exactly what you're doing right now – making a really good partner for my best solo agent."
It was Francine's turn to laugh. "And I didn't even have to hand him a package."
KGB Headquarters * Moscow, USSR *11:50 a.m. (GMT+3)
G.A. Tolstoy had been having a wonderful day. His mistress had been extraordinary that morning, the weather was warming up, the daylight lasted for almost 12 hours now, and his supervisor had just told him that he was short-listed for a two year posting in at the Soviet Embassy in London. He bounced into his work area, past his secretary – who, of course, wasn't titled as his secretary because that was a bourgeois title – and never missed a whistled note of the Internationale as he read his messages. When the phone rang, he expected that his day would not be adversely affected.
Then his assistant told him who was on the other end of the connection, and his stomach lurched. "I'll take it in here," he told the woman, closing his office door and making his way to the phone on the desk two steps inside. "Comrade Scholk," he said. "I presume this is good news?"
The crackling line gave the man in America a more ominous tone than usual as he relayed his actions of the past hour. Tolstoy turned progressively grayer as the news came across the Atlantic Ocean. "You are safe, though?"
"For the moment. I saw no evidence that I have been tailed to this location, although I did have my usual nuisance spotters on me this afternoon for a while."
"You must leave America. I need you in Poland, Leon Ivanich, now that you are finished here. Check in with the chief of station when you arrive back at the Embassy. Your orders will be waiting."
"Of course, comrade. And there are no worries. When she is found, she will be found dead of asphyxiation, and there are, I shall say this delicately, signs that she enjoyed her stay her rather too much for her own good."
"Not yours, I hope."
"Oh, no. Pavel Constantinovich was more than happy to oblige once I explained to him all the reasons he didn't want to say 'nyet.'"
Scholk scared him, Tolstoy admitted a moment later as he ended the conversation. The man was just too thorough. It was good to have him on the Soviet side. Were he an American, well…
Somewhere in the Washington, D.C. Area * 4:15 a.m. EST (GMT-5)
Lee and Amanda huddled together in the back seat of the Wagoneer, watching the property where Leon Ivanich Scholk was hiding. Billy had arranged for a search and rescue team to be standing by as soon as Scholk left the house; Lee and Amanda would manage the team while Billy and General Reese in one car and Ian and Francine in the other followed Scholk. Ian had managed to plant a tracking device on the Yugoslavian made vehicle in which Scholk had arrived and the hope was that he would head directly back to the Embassy – there was a warm welcome prepared for him about three blocks from the Soviet compound.
"I wish he'd just hurry up and leave," Amanda groaned as she tried to stretch in the cramped quarters.
"So do I. I have the feeling we saw him a while ago, and I have this gut- gnawing hunch Sandra is in those woods." Lee's quiet tone rumbled through his chest as he shook off sleepiness. "She won't last long if she's hurt at all, even assuming she's alive. It's cold outside."
Amanda squeezed her husband's hands. "I think we'd know from Alex if Sandra were dead. Just like I knew Jamie was alive all that time."
"The magic of parental connection?" Lee smiled.
"Something like that. Maybe someday…"
Lee sat up. "Yes…?"
Amanda's smile lit the dim Jeep. "Maybe someday we'll be able to explain the power of love like that. You know, the kind that keeps us connected."
Lee returned her smile with a little gleam in his eyes. "I thought perhaps you were going to say that I'd understand the power of parental connection someday."
"I'm not ruling it out." Before he could reply, she kissed him soundly. "I'm also not saying yes to anything in this environment. We need to talk about it, though."
"Your mother has been busy," Lee said, chuckling and reveling in the momentary thought of being a parent in the biological sense as well as in the stepfather role. Or, he admitted to himself, even as the adoptive parent of a child in need of a good, loving home.
The radio crackled, interrupting the moment. The agitation in Billy's voice came through in his words: "Scholk is leaving. SAR team move in."
"That's us." The husband and wife said together as they went back to being the top-level agents they were when Scholk's car pulled away from the house.
On the Road Back to Washington * 4:40 a.m. EST (GMT-5)
"I think he knows we're here," Ian grumbled to Francine as the blonde maneuvered their Chevy along the winding back roads of rural Maryland. "Wherever here is."
"We've just crossed back into Maryland. He hasn't gotten five miles away from the border since he left the house. Why do you think he knows we're here?"
Ian shrugged, studying the darkness outside the car as the scenery whipped by. "I don't quite know. Maybe he's just clearing the tail and I'm nervous."
"At least the transmitter is working, so there's no worries about staying in visual contact."
"I'd feel better if we did."
On the Road Back to Washington * 4:42 a.m. EST (GMT-5)
"I'd feel better if we did," General Reese said to Billy as they listened to the squawking of the transmitter over a hand-held receiver.
"I wish we could tail him close up, too," Billy agreed. "Dr. Smyth would have my hide if we get caught violating standing procedures."
"That man scares me."
Grimacing, Billy nodded. "Most of us, too. Except Amanda, I think. You know he's Ian's uncle."
"Oh, yes, I know. More's the pity for Colonel Marlowe, of course. Damn, I wish the bastard would pick a direction and go. I hate the ones who actually follow procedure."
"You have this problem in Berlin?"
The general grunted. "Almost never. That's why we catch them so often." He sat in tense silence for a moment, then keyed the voice transmitter. "Green 1 to Green 3, what's the SAR status?"
A burst of static followed, then Amanda's voice crackled through. "…dogs on a scent now. Hold on…" Reese fidgeted as the silence stretched, then slumped in anguish as the answer came from Amanda. "No, nothing there. It was a depression in the soil."
"Scholk is a dead man."
Billy didn't even bother to answer as the miles fell away under the tires of the cars.
Somewhere in the Washington, D.C. Area * 5:00 a.m. EST (GMT-5)
The search dogs barked raucously as their handlers pulled them away from the tree trunk. "They've got something!" the lead handler shouted to the paramedics and federal agents who were scattered around the wooded area.
Two dozen people came at a run, arriving in various states of breathlessness in the damp cold of the late winter morning. An efficient team from the Civil Air Patrol cleared the brush away from the bottom of the tree and extricated something from the hollow inside.
"It's her – and she's alive!" a paramedic yelled as the medical crew began to evaluate Sandra Reese's condition.
Amanda and Lee exchanged relieved smiles as Amanda pulled out the transmitter to contact the rest of the Agency group. General Reese's exuberant if static-laden Rebel yell could be heard across the forest a moment later.
"Go with her, Amanda. We'll be there as soon as we get Scholk."
"General, um, Alex, don't you want to meet her at the hospital?"
"I want him first. I don't want him to get away. Call the NSA and get a message to my son, Kevin Reese. He'll come."
Amanda looked at Lee after she signed off. "I don't get it," she said as the couple watched the professional rescuers start an IV on Sandra. "If it were Jamie or Philip or you…"
"It's a guy thing, Amanda. We have this natural instinct to go after anything that hurts someone we care about. And given what Ian told us over dinner last night, Scholk has been on the general's list for a long time. First the mistaken assassination what, eleven years ago? Then the Moscow incident you remembered, now this. That's three strikes, and we all know what happens after three strikes."
"You're out," Amanda nodded, enlightened but not necessarily convinced. "Find out which hospital they're taking her to so I can call her brother."
Lee turned to go toward the medics, but turned back with a small smile. "For the record, I'd go to the hospital with you."
Amanda smiled back. "No, you wouldn't. You'd go after the bad guy, just like you did in California and every other time. And I still love you."
Lee just shook his head and resumed his mission.
Near the Soviet Embassy * Washington, D.C. * 5:20 a.m. EST (GMT-5)
Leon Ivanich Scholk spotted the dragnet with just enough time to turn off the main road into an alley between two residential blocks. "Damned Americans," he muttered in English as he shut the car off and scrambled out. "I wonder which idiot they tagged this time?"
With great agility, Scholk leapt two fences and sauntered up the residential street with his briefcase, looking only slightly out of place because of the early hour. In his mind, he reviewed his options for getting back into the Embassy unseen, and came up with a secret entrance to the underground service tunnels that would take only a few minutes on foot from his current location. The Russian continued his early morning stroll, stopping only to buy an early edition of The Washington Post, until he arrived at a 24-hour Laundromat about three blocks from the main entrance of the Soviet compound. He asked for the key to the men's room; once inside, he reversed the key and opened the supply closet, revealing another door inside. Leaving the key on the sink, the man stepped into the supply closet and vanished into the depths of underground Washington.
Near the Soviet Embassy * Washington, D.C. * 5:30 a.m. EST (GMT-5)
"Nothing," Billy said, slamming Scholk's abandoned car with a tightly clenched fist. "Just when we got within the sightline protocols."
"We had him until the other Yugo pulled onto the road," Francine complained. "Driving into the sunrise made it hard to tell after a couple of lane changes which was which."
"I know, Francine. It's not your fault. It's the damned regulations."
Ian stood with the general near the Chevy he and Francine had been driving, staring up the alley. "We'd better alert Dulles. He'll be out of here within the hour if he made it back to the Embassy."
"We won't be able to touch him," General Reese reminded the younger man. "He's got a legitimate diplomatic legend and thus immunity."
"Not if Sandra can identify him." Ian's tone of voice made it seem impossible for that not to be the case.
Billy shook his head. "Even then, it's very hard to get a judge to lift the immunity. And your uncle isn't exactly the biggest fan of canceling diplomatic privileges, anyway. We've saved too many operations thanks to loopholes like that."
"I am not waiting another three years to get this man." Each word escaped Alex's lips with brutal intensity.
Francine went to the general, laid her hand on his sleeve. "Go see Sandra first. We'll go to Dulles and track him."
After a moment, General Reese, hard-bitten Army veteran, looked at the agent with tear-softened eyes. "Thank you," he managed, before the weight of his daughter's rescue hit him and he collapsed beside the Agency sedan in sobs.
The Heliport of Johns Hopkins Trauma Center, Baltimore, Maryland * 6:10 a.m. EST (GMT-5)
Kevin Reese had not known that his sister was in danger, nor had he known that his father was in town. It was not, he reflected as he watched the Angelflight chopper which carried his critically injured sister flare for landing, something that he should not be upset by, but he was oddly calm about being left in the dark. Perhaps it was his job with the NSA that enabled him to see things through a different lens – the larger picture, so to speak. Dad had gotten to him with the news when he could do something productive, rather than sit removed from the action worrying while others worked to find and free Sandra. More accurately, Dad had gotten someone to get to him, but it amounted to the same thing.
Not until the gurney approached within three feet could Kevin see his little sister for the forest of tubes, stabilizing equipment, and blankets which surrounded her. What he saw in her bruised, blank face frightened him – and took him back eleven years, to a beautiful spring day in Rota, Spain, when time shattered for the Reese family. Sandra's face looked just as their mother's had when she lay in the parking lot of the hotel, bleeding out from her mortal wounds as her children screamed for help in every language they knew. "No," Kevin whispered. "Not again."
Security Office, Dulles International Airport * 6:55 a.m. EST (GMT-5)
Francine handed Ian a printout as a second copy spit out from the printer behind her. "This is the list of flights on which the Soviet Embassy has standby seating today."
"Efficient," he growled, looking over the two page list. "There's two dozen flights on here."
"Yes, and with Scholk, we can't even rule any of them out. He could go right back to Moscow, in which case the London, Frankfurt, and Amsterdam flights are the most likely, or he could go underground for a while, which means Buenos Aires, Tokyo, Hong Kong, or Cairo are logical places. Not to mention the 8 other cities."
The two left the office and headed for the ticket counters at the front of the International Departures Terminal. "What about domestic flights?" Ian asked as they wandered the lengthening lines of passengers checking in for their overseas flights.
"Not likely, but we have someone watching the last minute purchase lists of each airline. The problem with that is that once he flies incognito within the United States, he's lost his immunity. Scholk isn't that dumb."
"Good point."
Scholk arrived at the airport within a half hour, but Ian and Francine could only watch helplessly as he boarded the 8:30 British Airways flight to London, escaping justice and available now to work his dastardly magic wherever else the Soviets might need him.
Johns Hopkins University Medical Center, Baltimore, Maryland * 11:45 a.m. EST (GMT-5)
"General Reese, your daughter is an extremely lucky young woman," the trauma surgeon said as he sat down across from the general and his son and began to take his surgical booties off. "She will need some extensive physical therapy once the bones in her legs have healed, but the internal damage was comparatively minor and the burns were well treated after they were administered."
"What about her face?"
"We were able to repair the damage from inside her mouth, so although her jaw is wired shut right now, she'll look more normal in about two weeks. Her hands will also heal after therapy."
Kevin Reese sank back against the cushions, relieved to have the answer to the question he was about to ask. "Will playing piano be part of that therapy?" he asked instead, knowing that his sister would need her music as an emotional outlet.
The surgeon shrugged. "I don't know – the orthopaedists will be able to tell you more about that. Can I ask a question?"
Alex nodded; the trauma specialist pursed his lips and exhaled before he continued. "What happened to her? This is no ordinary rape."
"You're right, it's no ordinary rape. Let's just say that it's a matter of National Security and that my daughter has a penchant for getting mixed up with the wrong people."
"Oh," was all the doctor could say. He looked at the younger man plaintively, hoping for additional information.
The NSA agent smiled with ice in his eyes. "Don't look at me for information. I have a top secret clearance and I don't have 'need to know' on this."
The doctor stood with difficulty. "Okay, well, Sandra will be in recovery for a while longer. Once she's in ICU, you can see her." With that, he stretched out his hand to the general, but before the two men could shake hands, the paging system called for him and he was gone.
Kevin locked eyes with his father. "Are you staying or going back to Berlin?"
"Neither. I'm going after the man who did this." The expression on his face gave everything away.
"Scholk." A statement, not a question.
"You can't go with me."
"You can't stop me."
Lieutenant General Alexander Reese put his arm around his only son, and the two men wept in the antiseptic waiting room of the Trauma Center.
Heathrow Airport, London, England * 5:20 p.m. GMT
Leon Ivanich Scholk waited patiently as his international call was put through to Moscow. Tolstoy had not told him anything beyond his arrival in London, so he needed to talk with his superior before he could take another flight.
Tolstoy's voice on the other end of the line was haggard, but he seemed to be in good spirits. "You got out without further trouble?"
"Barely, but I think it's safe to say that I shouldn't go back to America anytime soon."
A sigh, of relief or frustration, Scholk couldn't tell. "Well, that's fine for the moment. You are booked under your German alias on Austrian Air into Vienna with a connecting flight to Warsaw. You have about 45 minutes before your flight leaves for Vienna."
"Warsaw. You did mention Poland. Who is my contact?"
"You'll be met under your real name. Respond with a greeting about Uncle Vladimir."
"I understand."
"Good. Further orders will await you once you're in place." Tolstoy hung up his phone in Moscow, leaving Scholk holding the receiver in London and wondering just what was happening in Poland that required his special set of skills.
The Agency * 12:35 p.m. EST (GMT-5)
The debriefing after the successful rescue of Sandra Reese had been exhausting and exhaustive. And that was before Dr. Austin Smyth joined the team of inquisitors.
"Well, children," the austere Agency leader said around his omnipresent cigarette holder, "we've let the fox out of the henhouse. Where's the lazy watchdog?"
Lee ground his teeth but didn't say anything as Amanda laid a hand on his arm to still him. Beside them, Ian did the same to Francine.
Billy, having no one in the building to check him, made an acid reply. "In Congress."
Dr. Smyth stopped short, not expecting such a forthright answer. When he spoke again after ten seconds, it was with less venom. "That is, unfortunately, true. So, how do we compensate for the underfunding and lack of staffing?"
Francine wouldn't be restrained this time. "Fire Congress an appropriate their entire budget. We'd be golden for years."
"I like that idea, Desmond, but there is something we've sworn to protect – you know, the Constitution – and unfortunately, Congress is guaranteed the right to exist under that document."
"Yes, sir. But I don't think it says we have to pay them or provide them staff."
Billy cringed, thinking Francine would be in big trouble. But instead, the hard-nosed Agency leader laughed out loud – for a long time. No one else quite knew hw to react, so none of the agents in the room joined him in the raucous chortling. They just smiled back and forth at each other with amusement.
"What's the matter, Melrose?" Smyth asked when he regained his composure, taking out his cigarette holder and waving it in front of Billy's face.
Taking a risk that the doctor's good humor would last, he quipped, "Who are you and what have you done with Dr. Smyth?"
Winking, Dr. Smyth reached out to shake Ian's hand as he replied to the section chief. "Didn't you get the memo, Melrose? It's a kinder, gentler bureaucracy now."
It had to have been the stress of the preceding 48 hours that caused Francine to lose it. She started with a small giggle, but soon the mirth overtook the room as she convulsed into a ball on the floor, leading everyone else to raucous laughter.
Dr. Smyth beamed. "Ian, I must say that whatever you've done with Miss Desmond, I approve."
Ian flashed a grin. "Thanks, Uncle Austin. I think – "
Whatever Ian was about to say got lost when a signals messenger came in at run, shouting for Lee.
Warsaw, Poland * 7:05 p.m. (GMT+1)
Stefan held the ham radio as tenderly as he would a newborn. This precious connection to the free world, only today fixed with what in America would be called Rube Goldberg inventiveness, had to bring help or his country would be subsumed into the Soviet Union in a matter of weeks.
He hoped that someone would answer on the other end. The codes he had were almost 7 years old and hadn't been used in nearly 6. Getting the signal across the Atlantic had taken some doing, and now as he waited for his contact in the American intelligence agency to "come to the phone", he prayed that the signal really had gone west rather than east…
No, he thought after a moment, even the Russians can't redirect radio signals. Intercept, yes, but not redirect, and there was no way that a Russian could have so perfectly mimicked the Cockney accent of one of his receivers.
Another long moment passed before Stefan's radio crackled and a voice emanated from the tiny speakers. "Ponderosa to Wagon Train, come in please, over," the ethereal voice called from America in accented but lucid Polish.
Stefan completed the recognition sequence, then made his request. "I need a resupply of oats and I've got a horse that needs some new shoes, Ponderosa."
The Agency * 1:10 p.m. EST (GMT-5)
"Oats and new shoes?" Billy asked Lee as their interpreter corroborated Lee's initial guess. "What in the world?"
"Wagon Train, please clarify, over." Lee shrugged at Billy as they waited for the man in Poland to restate his needs.
Stefan complied quickly. "A replacement wagon with a good driver would be very helpful, over."
Amanda muttered a soft "Oh, no" as Lee translated, knowing that he really would be going to Poland now.
"Can you tell us more about the supplies you need, or about your situation in general? Over."
"I can confirm my earlier but nothing more. I am in need of a blacksmith for those shoes. Over."
More confused looks passed among the Americans before Lee came up with a plausible explanation. "We can do that for you. Do you need a 38 or a 44 in those shoes? Over."
"It's a big horse. Bring the 44's. He needs shoes on all four legs. Over."
Four guns? Amanda mouthed at Lee and Billy. Why?
"Wagon Train, are you sure about all four legs? Maybe he just needs new nails in two shoes. Over."
"No, Ponderosa, he needs four shoes. I'll take a backup supply, too, in case there's a traveling blacksmith in town later. Over."
"Okay, Watering Hole. We'll see what we can do. You'll meet the stage as arranged? Over."
A brief silence punctuated the room, and the Americans were just beginning to think that they had lost their connection when the Polish voice came back. "At the usual stop, Ponderosa. Check the mail when you get here. Over."
Lee nodded at Billy that he understand, and Billy signed off.
"So," Amanda said to her husband and her section chief, "when do we leave?"
"Not 'we', Amanda. Me." Lee could still be obstinate.
Billy rarely let Lee's protectiveness stand, especially in the year and a half since the Stetsons' marriage had become public knowledge. This time, however, he did, leaving Amanda with nothing to do but follow her husband out the door and home to help him pack for his assignment behind the Iron Curtain.
Johns Hopkins University Medical Center * 4:45 p.m. EST (GMT-5)
Amanda knocked on the ICU waiting room door before she pushed it open to enter. Alex and Kevin Reese sat side by side on the orange plastic couch, to her eyes trying hard to be manly in their worry even though they wanted to embrace. Men, she thought. Why can't they just stop worrying about appearances and show their real feelings?
Alex looked up at the intrusion. "Amanda," he said, "I'm so glad you're here."
"I had to come," she replied honestly. "I hadn't heard anything more…"
Kevin shrugged. "There's not much more to tell. The doctors say she'll be unconscious for at least a full day from the anesthesia and medication alone. Then we'll see. And you are…?"
"Amanda Stetson," his father jumped in, "this is my son Kevin. Kevin, this is Amanda Stetson. She's the one who called you earlier. Amanda and her husband led the team that found your sister."
The younger man stood up, stretching his full 6'3" frame and extending his long arm to grasp Amanda's hand in his. "Thank you, Mrs. Stetson.
"You're welcome."
She sat down beside the general, who clasped her hand and held it as though anchoring himself to reality. The three sat alone in silence for almost an hour before Kevin excused himself.
Amanda was ready. "Alex, I need to go to Poland. Can you help me?"
The lieutenant general looked at the intelligence operative with keen interest. "Why?"
"Because Lee is going."
"But Lee has told you that you can't go, and Billy backed him up." Which is precisely what Alex would have done, too, in the circumstance.
Amanda nodded. "He's my partner, Alex. He's my life."
Alex wasn't Billy in this instance, though. "I'll see what I can do, Amanda."
Castle Square, Warsaw, Poland * March 19, 1989 * 12:05 a.m. (GMT+1)
If he had to be back behind the Iron Curtain, Warsaw was his second choice. So thought Leon Ivanich Scholk as he stood beside the Vistula River waiting for his contact to appear in the midst of the quieting nightlife of Poland's capital city. Prague was his first choice, possibly, he thought mutinously, because it was the least damaged by Communist architecture. Such was the hazard of being a Western specialist in the KGB.
Scholk recognized his contact by the red beret the man wore at an absurdly capitalist angle. They exchanged verification codes before the information extraction specialist got down to business. "You are Gregor Borodin, from the Ministry of Justice?"
"Yes, I am."
"Have you approved the Good Friday mass request from Cardinal Glemp?" Scholk asked, as requested by G.A. Tolstoy from Moscow.
Borodin shook his head. "Not definitively, but we have not said no, either. And it isn't a mass. It's a Service of Tenebrae."
"That's a meaningless detail. Confirm it. Everything is in place?"
"Yes." No emotion showed in Borodin's face.
"Good. I've been sent to make sure that our Judas is truly ready."
"Someone was here to do that earlier. He was suitably impressed."
"I've heard the report. Our superiors want one last check." He didn't say that the superior who wanted the last check was the very man who had been so impressed.
Borodin stood in thought for several moments before he spoke in a hollow voice. "Go to the 11 o'clock mass at the Chancery later this morning. He will be there."
"I'll arrange a demonstration for that afternoon, then."
"A demonstration?" Borodin snorted. "You don't want him to demonstrate at a KGB shooting range, comrade. There isn't one long enough."
Scholk smiled. "As a matter of fact, I was thinking about the Olympic training center. That is, I understand, familiar territory for him."
"As you say."
Scholk watched Borodin walk away a minute later, knowing that the man would soon be a liability. Scholk liked to deal with liabilities. Especially the ones from whom he didn't need to get information before the end.
Maplewood Drive, Arlington, Virginia * March 18, 1989 * 10:20 p.m. EST (GMT- 5)
Philip King was not a happy teenager as he stood radiating anger in the family room of the Stetson-King house. "Why do you have to leave?" he asked his stepfather in a voice that edged close to hysterical.
Lee Stetson sighed and put his hands on his stepson's shoulders. "Philip, I wish I had a different answer than this, but…"
Jamie finished the sentence from the couch beside his mother. "It's vital to national security and you're the best qualified person to do the job." Jamie's serene tone was a surprise to everyone. "Well, you are. You're even better with Mom beside you."
"Shut up, wormbrain."
Lee and Amanda both spoke. "Philip, don't call your brother wormbrain." The duet broke a little of the tension, and Philip relaxed enough to step closer to Lee and put his arm around the man's shoulders.
"I don't know what would be worse," the older teen admitted, "you going by yourself like you are or both you and Mom going."
From the arm of the sofa, Dotty laughed with a tinge of sadness. "What, are you trying to kill me with worry?"
"Grandma," Jamie scolded, reaching out to grasp her hand where it rested on the back of the couch. "We'll all be okay. We have to be for Lee's sake."
"Jamie, that's an amazing attitude," Lee said, genuinely surprised and touched. "When did you figure that out?"
The teen shrugged. "In Lebanon. JoJo needed Marlena and me to be okay so she could focus on keeping us alive."
Philip put his other arm around Lee in a full manly embrace. "I'm sorry," he whispered to his stepfather.
"It's okay, son," Lee replied.
A moment later, the whole family stood together, heedless of the late hour and wanting more time.