“I know where the assassin is going to be stationed.”
“How can you be sure they told you the truth?”
“They both gave the same location. There’s no way they would have done that if one of them had been lying.”
“Unless they agreed on a story beforehand, in case they were caught.”
Tracie shrugged, conceding the point. “True enough,” she said, “but I don’t think so. Those guys were one hundred percent certain they were going to walk in on us in our sleep, put a bullet in each of our heads, and walk away with the letter. That’s why they were so sloppy. They had no reason to suspect we were on to them, and thus no reason to make up a story. Plus, they wouldn’t have expected us to know about the assassination.” She paused. “I’m confident I got the truth out of them.”
“Okay,” Shane said. “So what’s the plan from here?”
“The plan? I wish I knew.” She sighed heavily. “First stop is New York. We’ll pick up my supplies, then head straight to D.C. I’ll find a safe place to stash you, and then I’ll have to pay a visit to my traitorous boss, Winston Andrews. From there, I stop an assassination. I’m not exactly sure how yet.”
“Stash me? I don’t think so. You said yourself I’m neck deep in…whatever is going on, and I’ve nearly been killed twice now in less than twenty-four hours. I have a stake in this thing, too, Tracie, in case you’ve forgotten. Plus, you can’t do everything yourself. You need help, and I’m going to help you. Period. End of story.”
35
“I don’t understand,” Shane said. They had pulled off the highway at a random exit, bought fresh coffee, and then hit the road again. Steam curled out of the plastic lids, dissipating in the air. “It doesn’t make sense. What possible advantage could there be for the KGB to launch World War Three?”
“It does make sense,” Tracie said. “It actually makes perfect sense if you consider it in context. Think about it. Exercising tyranny is dependent upon maintaining control, but the world is opening up. Citizens who have been under the thumb of the communists for decades are beginning to get a glimpse of the freedoms they have long been denied, and they’re starting to realize those freedoms are within reach. They want them.
“The Soviet Union is crumbling, Shane. I know because I’ve seen the evidence firsthand. They have arguably the finest, most modern military in the world, next to ours, and yet the rest of the Soviet infrastructure is in a shambles, as is their economy. It’s getting harder and harder for the Soviets to keep their satellite countries in line, and more and more expensive to do so at a time when resources are shrinking.
“This makes perfect sense,” she concluded, a reluctant sense of wonder in her voice.
Shane shrugged, frustrated. “I still don’t get it. Okay, Czechoslovakia wants to break away from the Russians. So what? How does that tie in with the KGB assassinating the president of the United States?”
Tracie sat for a moment, thinking. Shane could see her working through it. “Okay,” she said at last. “It’s obvious from this letter,” she tapped the grimy envelope, “that Gorbachev can see the changes coming, and that he knows he is helpless to stop them. He admits that much. Whatever the future holds for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, in ten years’ time it is going to look very different than it does right now.”
“So?” Shane said. “Things change all the time. I still don’t understand why they have to kill Reagan.”
“Because,” Tracie said, rubbing her eyes. She suddenly looked very tired. “The Soviet Union is no different than any other government, at least as far as the inner workings are concerned. Politicians disagree philosophically, squabble, grab power, consolidate that power, whatever. Obviously there’s a faction — in this case, a group of high-ranking KGB officials — who will stop at nothing to prevent the destruction of their power base and their personal empires. This faction wants to start a war, and the bigger, the better. You think Czechoslovakia is still going to want to step out from under their protector’s umbrella once the world’s two great superpowers start lobbing nuclear warheads at each other?”
“But all wars end eventually. What happens then?”
“Whoever is behind this mess doesn’t care what happens then. Assassinating Reagan and starting World War Three will give those people inside the Kremlin plenty of time to consolidate their power and stockpile resources so that no matter who wins — and even if everyone loses, which seems likely—they are provided for. Plus, their precious Soviet empire remains intact that much longer, or at least has not fallen completely apart, which seems to be the most likely outcome the way things are going right now.”
Shane stared out the windshield at the cars on I-95, metal boxes hurrying to unknown destinations. “But if Gorbachev is so opposed to this plan, why not just stop it from inside his government? He’s the man in charge, after all.”
“Gorbachev’s skating on thin ice over there. He has instituted reforms that have outraged the hard-liners in the political structure, people who would like nothing better than to go back to the days of Khrushchev, or even Stalin. Gorbachev recognizes that he doesn’t have the muscle politically to take on these hard-liners directly, so instead he’s going through the back door. He couldn’t trust anyone within his government to deliver his message intact — he certainly couldn’t ask the KGB to do it — so he tried to do it clandestinely.”
“Why not just go public with what he knows? That would stop the whole thing in its tracks.”
“If he tried to do that, he’d be gone by the next day. He would either be arrested or killed. He would likely disappear in the middle of the night and never be heard from again. The Soviet political system is not like ours — there isn’t even the illusion of openness. The truth is considered an asset only when it advances the Communist cause. If Gorbachev went to the press with the details of this plan, even his supporters would consider him a traitor to his country. No,” she said slowly, thinking out loud, “this is really the only way he could have handled it, and he’s taking one hell of a big chance as it is.”
“Okay, that’s it,” Shane said. “We’re hours away from the assassination of the president and the start of a war maybe no one will survive.” He eased down on the accelerator and the car surged forward. “We’ve got to get you to a phone. You have to call your superiors at CIA and tell them about this. Never mind Winston Andrews — call the CIA Director himself, if you have to.”
“I can’t,” Tracie said simply, shaking her head.
Shane pulled his foot off the gas and stared at Tracie in amazement. He ignored the honking of a car behind him. A middle-aged woman flipped him off as she pulled around the Granada, and he barely noticed. “What do you mean, you can’t? You have to!”
“No,” she said. “I can’t. Nothing’s changed, Shane. I don’t know who can be trusted. I trusted Winston Andrews with my life, put it in his hands dozens of times, and it turns out he’s involved with the Soviets, apparently has been for years. I have no way of knowing who else in the power structure is compromised, and that includes Director Stallings. If I alert the wrong people, or even if I alert the right people but the wrong people get wind of it, the letter gets destroyed, you and I get neutralized, and the president of the United States gets assassinated.”
“Everyone can’t be involved.”