“Jesus,” Boxers said. “Now I don’t want to go.”
The speech had its desired effect. Yelena, David, and Becky all looked suddenly a little sheepish.
“I thought you said we’d be in support roles,” Becky said. “Why would we have to do any shooting?”
Jonathan explained. “Carl von Clausewitz said it best two hundred years ago: no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy. We’re developing a plan that should work, and should result in the fewest number of people on either side getting hurt. But for the plan to work, the enemy has to do what we want him to. Enemies don’t like to do what their enemies want them to do. In fact, they’re going to try to get us to do stuff to help them hurt us. It’s as dynamic an environment as you can get.”
Boxers added, “And why it’s so friggin’ unfair when you newsie types try to be lounge chair quarterbacks after the fact and tell the soldiers who were in the shit what they should have done when people were shooting at them.”
“Easy, Big Guy,” Jonathan said. “Same side, remember?” To David and Becky: “You have to excuse him. This is our first time with embeds.”
“Are you crazy?” Carl said. “They’re reporters?”
“We’ve had this discussion, Striker. Among us, I mean. Let it go.” He let silence defuse the moment. “So, now you know the risks even better.”
“You forgot to mention getting arrested by one of two governments — or maybe both — for the whole invasion thing,” Yelena said. “He’s my son. Everything you said is worth it.”
“It’s what they tried to do to me anyway,” David said. “What the hell?”
Becky said nothing for a long moment. Finally, she asked, “Is somebody going to teach me how to work a gun?”
Len Shaw stood at his office window, looking past the front wall of the prison across the water to the western edge of the city’s skyline. This place truly would make an outstanding hotel, he thought. Ottawa was an underappreciated jewel of a city. It had so much to offer both in summer and in winter. Skating on the Rideau Canal alone was reason enough to brave the frigid temperatures.
There was something poetic, he thought, in transforming a prison — a place of such misery — into a property that could bring happiness to so many. Likewise, it was tragic that in the interim it would be headquarters for such violence.
This was it for Len. He’d made that decision following his discussion last night with Dmitri. It took a lot of hatred and anger to drive the kind of zealotry that made the Movement what it was. Intellectually, at an academic level, he understood that if American power were not toppled, then the rest of the world would soon possess no power at all. In the United States, the wealthy became wealthier as the people became willing puppets to go to war to demand the resources of yet more powerless puppet regimes.
Even more than that, Len still mourned the loss of so many colleagues who were either killed or imprisoned when that Poltanov bitch betrayed them all. Should she pay? Yes. Was he ashamed that she’d been able to rise to such elevated levels of power with none of them even noticing for so many years? Yes.
And were it not for Jillian Lang, a zealot of another sort who targeted American secrets as her greatest conquest, they might never have discovered the truth about Anna Darmond. The transformation had really been something. Of course, that was when Jillian sold her secrets one at a time to the highest bidder, before she sensed that the FBI was on her tail and she just dumped them all for the world to read together.
As long as it was important for Washington to keep the First Lady’s secret quiet, her identity was a point of leverage. And leverage gave them resources. The chapel on the north end of the Saint Stephen’s compound was filled nearly to overflowing with weapons thanks to the largesse of the White House. A leaked transport route here, a lock combination there. Most of it procured without firing a shot.
For Len, this had all become a chess game, outwitting the other side to obtain that which they should never have had. But he’d lost the hatred, and with it had disappeared his desire to kill. He was just tired.
But soon it would end.
Blasting the airliner out of the sky at O’Hare last week had merely been a test of the deployability of the Stinger missiles they’d procured. Day after tomorrow, between 8:00 and 11:00 A.M. local time, international flights would be shot down on takeoff in New York, Washington, San Francisco, Denver, Los Angeles, and Phoenix. Daily, for the next week, bombs would detonate in restaurants, office buildings, and shopping malls throughout Middle America, in cities like Fort Worth, Muncie, and Sheboygan — the cities that consider themselves off the radar for terrorist threats.
When America found itself at war on its own land, they would shift their focus away from their wars with other countries. And when they found out who their First Lady really was, and they realized the depth and scope of the lies they’d been told, they would react with anger. Trust in their government would evaporate overnight.
Around the world, leaders of other nations would express their deep concern and condolences even as they privately celebrated the plucking of the great American eagle’s feathers.
Soon after that, the world would realize what a mistake it had been these past decades to ignore Russia as a cunning world power. They would see how the Rodina had been quietly pulling itself together after the glasnost nonsense. Mother Russia will have finally toppled the United States of America.
If, through some miracle, Len was able to survive the next few months, and if his participation was somehow never revealed, he would welcome the opportunity to try his hand at capitalism. He would love to become an innkeeper at this very spot.
It was a goal that seemed very, very far away.
“Are you dreaming in the day, Comrade?”
The voice startled him, but he didn’t turn. “It’s Len, Dmitri. And when did you stop knocking before entering?”
“I’m practicing my stealth.”
Len turned to face the other man, who wore the same suit as yesterday, but with a fresh shirt.
“I see your new houseguests have arrived,” Dmitri said. “It was good of you to give them clothes and blankets.”
“I don’t want them freezing to death,” Len said. He pulled out his chair and sat, pretending to be distracted by the papers on his desk. “When do they leave?”
Dmitri took the wooden guest chair. “I’m not sure that’s important for you to know.” He reached for one of his black cigarettes.
“On the contrary,” Len argued, handing him a lighter. “I need to provide for security. What it is not important for me to know is where you plan to take them next.”
“Even I do not know that. Moscow has not shared their plans with me.”
Len assumed Dmitri was lying because Dmitri didn’t know how to tell the truth. “Then tell me what time the trucks arrive tonight to clear the chapel.”
“After dark, that’s all I know.”
Len sighed. “Dmitri, I am not a spy. We have been colleagues long enough to dislike each other, but that is of no operational relevance. You have already doubled the guard here, and now you’re bringing in even more. All of these people need to be fed. There are logistical concerns.”
Dmitri waited a long time before answering. “They will arrive around midnight.”