“Trust me, son. It will be alright.”
“Dad, I didn’t do what they say I did.”
“I know, son.”
A man got out of the rear of the Mercedes. Max knew the face. Where did he know him from? He searched his memory. At last it came to him.
He had met him down at the Farm once. He was a CIA agent — Caleb Wilkes.
Charles drove them back to his home in Ponte Vedra. He had called ahead and asked his staff to leave. They needed privacy for the evening.
Wilkes had assured Max that he would be free to go after their meeting. No one knew that the three of them were speaking. When they sat down at the house, Wilkes set a small device on the center of the table. It looked like an old walkie-talkie.
“What’s that?”
“It’s a device that’ll make it near impossible for someone to listen in on our conversation through one of our phones or some other electronics in the house,” Wilkes said.
“Does it work?”
“Oh, yes.”
Max said, “I assume you’ve told my father a little bit about my work in Europe?”
“I gave him a rundown, yes. But I think you’ll find that you both have a thing or two to learn about each other.”
Max looked at his dad inquisitively. Charles nodded. “It’s time we let you in on some family history.”
Max knew enough to stay quiet.
Charles turned to face him, leaning back in his swivel chair. “In the late 1970s, I met your mother while traveling through the UK. Her father, as you know, was from Poland. Her mother was English.” His father’s face looked strained.
“That’s where you were married,” Max said.
“Correct. We married near Cambridge. It was shortly after our wedding that a man named Hoopengardner approached me in London. Hoopengardner knew that Fend Aerospace was about to get contracts with the US government. Military contracts. This was a few years before you were born. Hoopengardner said it would be in my best interests if we could have a cup of tea. Somewhere secluded, where we could speak about a quiet business proposal.
“As it turned out, Hoopengardner’s business proposal was nothing short of extortion. He was a KGB agent. You know him by a different name — Pavel Morozov. His proposal was for me to provide him with information on the military aircraft we were developing. If I didn’t, he had access to your mother’s family in Poland. By that time, your grandmother had passed away, and your grandfather had moved back to Poland to live.”
Max looked at Wilkes, who stayed quiet. He thought about what type of man Morozov was. He could see where this was going. “What did you do?” Max asked his father.
“I’m a patriot, Max. And I wasn’t about to let some Soviet bastard blackmail me. When we got back to the States, I quietly contacted the FBI. I had thought they might be able to help me get your mother’s family out of Poland. I was naive.”
Now it was Max’s father who looked at Wilkes, anger in his eyes.
Charles said, “The FBI handed me over to the CIA. The CIA did not want me to break off contact with Morozov. To my surprise, they wanted me to give the KGB information on Fend Aerospace’s military contracts. But they wanted to control exactly what information was sent out. They turned me into a double agent.”
Max knew how it went. The counterintelligence types rarely wanted to just solve a problem and make it go away. They wanted to turn agents and provide corrupt data. To manipulate the other side’s network of spies.
“How long did you do it for?”
Now Wilkes spoke up. “Your father worked for us for over ten years, Max.”
Max looked at his father. “Why ten years?”
“Because after ten years of providing secrets to the KGB — secrets that the CIA was providing me — things began to change,” Charles said.
“How so?”
“For one, Morozov got suspicious. It was 1987 when it happened. Reagan was president. The Soviets were getting their asses handed to them by the CIA-armed Mujahedeen in Afghanistan. Morozov was growing desperate. Threatening me more and more every time I saw him.”
“Why?”
“He had other sources in the US who were providing him information that conflicted with mine. But my information had made Morozov a star in the KGB. When his star began to fall, he blamed me.”
“So what happened?”
“He approached your mother.”
Max felt a chill run through his body. His mother had died in a car accident when he was a boy. He had only vague memories of her, along with a few cherished home videos and pictures.
“Your mother came to me one night and said that Morozov had told her everything. That I’d been spying for the Russians. And that he wasn’t happy with the information I was providing. Morozov wanted her to put pressure on me to step up my contributions. Or else.”
“Or else what?”
“He threatened to harm you, Max. You were young — six years old at the time. Your mother became a wreck.”
“I see.” Max shifted his weight, suddenly uncomfortable.
“I went to the CIA. I told them that we needed protection. Your mother was brought in to meet my CIA handlers. She agreed to participate with me in the counterintelligence operation, despite the threat to her family. She said that her father hated the Soviets, and that he would never want to be used as leverage by them. She demanded one thing — protection for you. The CIA agreed and stationed a security detail at our home, around the clock. They were disguised as butlers. But I was to continue to play the game with Morozov for a little longer.”
Max shook his head. “Dad, I had no idea about any of this. What happened?”
“The next time I met with him, Morozov told me he wanted the raw data on the new stealth jets that Fend Aerospace was designing for the Air Force out in Nevada.”
“I didn’t know Fend Aerospace was involved in that type of work back then.”
“They weren’t,” Wilkes said. “It was part of a charade. A disinformation campaign.”
“This was all happening right around the time that Mom got into her car accident.”
His father had a grave look in his eye. “Yes. Exactly that time.”
“Dad…”
His father looked out over the water.
“Did my mother die in a car accident?”
Wilkes said nothing, just watching the exchange between father and son.
His father looked down at the table while he spoke. “No.”
“So then how did she die?”
“Morozov.”
Max clenched his fists. “How?”
His father was having trouble getting the story out. “The Cold War was ending. Everything was coming to a head. Morozov had finally had enough. The information I’d supplied him on the stealth jets was obviously false. He stopped taking my calls. That’s when we got scared. As it turned out, our fears were warranted. Your mother left you with the nanny and one of the security men that day. Then she drove to the store with the other security man to pick up some things. She was found dead in the vehicle. They made it look like the car ran off the road, but I knew the truth.”
“What do you mean?”
“The autopsy showed that your mother had died from the impact of the car driving off the cliff. But the security guard had been shot. That part was never reported to authorities. The CIA took care of that. Morozov contacted me the day of the funeral and asked how she was, delight in his voice.”
Max’s mouth was wide. “Why didn’t you…?”
“What? Seek revenge? He threatened to kill you if we went after him. And during the Cold War, the CIA and KGB would kill each other’s spies all the time. At the end of the Cold War, no one wanted any errant sparks to ignite a fire. Your mother’s death was covered up, just like many others. For the good of the nation, and for your safety.”