She had wanted to give something back, and fighting in the most significant philosophical conflict of the twentieth century — Democracy versus Communism, freedom versus repression — had seemed the best way to do that. She thought of herself as an “All-American girl” in the truest sense of the word.
She had been a fool, she now realized.
She had looked up to Winston Andrews as a mentor and a friend, had considered him a fighter for the cause of freedom, just as she was. And all the time she was traipsing around the world, crawling through mud puddles, freezing her toes and fingers inside substandard equipment, getting shot at and knifed, coaxing information out of unwilling subjects, taking lives, working nonstop with never a moment to enjoy life like a normal twenty-seven-year-old single woman, in all that time, Winston Andrews had been sitting here in Washington, playing both sides against the middle, sipping cognac and committing treason, making deals with Communists and traitors.
And laughing at her.
That was the worst part. He had to have been laughing his wrinkled old ass off at her. Little Miss Idealist, taking orders without question, doing as she was told, all in the cause of freedom and the advancement of American ideals. What a joke. He had played her for a fool and she had followed along blindly. Willingly.
Tracie felt her eyes filling with tears and blinked them back. There was nothing she could do about her monumental stupidity now, and this wasn’t the time to worry about it, anyway. Winston Andrews had made a fool of her, but that had been his choice, not hers. She still believed in her country even if he didn’t, and the clock was still ticking down to the assassination of President Reagan, and it had fallen to her to stop it, not out of choice but necessity.
How many others were involved? That was the question. If Winston Andrews had been co-opted, anyone could be. It was time to find out what Andrews knew, and Tracie had been watching the neighborhood long enough. Activity was minimal. No one had come or gone at Andrews’ townhouse, so he must have been working from home today, something he often did, and was probably alone.
Tracie felt certain he wouldn’t have gone to Langley with Gorbachev’s letter out there unaccounted for.
It was time to move.
She turned to Shane in the passenger seat and saw him watching her closely. “Are you all right?” he asked, his voice gentle.
She thought about it for a moment before answering, and then said, “Yes, I am.” And she discovered she meant it. She took a moment to tell him how she intended to gain access to Andrews’ house and what she needed from him. Then she opened the door of the Granada and stepped into the muggy late-spring air.
38
Shane walked up the front steps and pushed the buzzer. Whatever Winston Andrews’ faults, and it seemed there were plenty, being a lazy homeowner was not one of them. The grass around the flagstone walkway had been trimmed with military precision, and the home’s wooden shutters appeared freshly painted, the purity of their near-blinding whiteness providing a stark contrast to the tired-looking weathered grey of the shutters on the surrounding homes.
Shane rang the bell and listened closely. Nothing. He waited maybe thirty seconds and pressed the buzzer again, worried that Andrews might not even be home. Tracie had been certain he would be. “He won’t go anywhere until he gets his hands on the letter he thinks is coming,” she had said, but Shane wasn’t so sure. Maybe he had found out somehow that the Russians had been taken down, or maybe he simply got cold feet and left town.
He lifted his hand to buzz the house a third time when through the closed door came a muffled, “Yes? What is it?” Tracie had said he wouldn’t open the door, not even a crack, and she had been right. There was a peephole in the middle of the heavy oak door, eye height, and Shane pictured a suspicious old man peering through it, sizing him up.
“Thank God you’re home,” Shane said, following Tracie’s instructions. “I wonder if I could use your phone. I’ve been bitten by a dog and I need medical attention.”
“Bitten? Where? I don’t see any blood.”
“It’s on my lower leg. See?” Shane turned around and pointed toward the porch floor. Tracie had said the fisheye lens in the door’s peephole would likely not show the floor clearly enough for Andrews to be sure whether Shane was really injured or not, and in any event, the point was not to convince him, but rather to keep him occupied long enough for her to do what she needed to do.
“Please,” Shane said. “I feel queasy, like I’m gonna be sick. If you won’t let me in, could you please at least call an ambulance for me? The blood, it’s soaking into my shoe…” He sank to one knee and put his head down, like an athlete offering up a quick prayer before a game.
There was a short pause, then the disembodied voice said, “All right. Stay where you are, I’ll be—”
A second later the door swung open and Shane rose to his feet. A tall, deeply tanned white-haired man, trim but not skinny, faced him with a mixture of annoyance and resignation on his lined face. Tracie stood behind Andrews, backpack slung over one shoulder, barrel of her gun placed against the side of his skull.
“You appear to have made a remarkable recovery,” the man said drily. “Please, why don’t you come in?”
“Yeah. It’s a miracle,” Shane answered grimly, brushing past the older man and into the house. He turned and closed the front door, suddenly gripped by a fast-building anger. This was the man who had wanted Tracie and him dead; this was the man who had betrayed his country. This was the man responsible for the deep despair in Tracie’s soul.
The anger came out of nowhere, rising in him like a physical thing and making him want to strike out.
“Easy,” Tracie muttered, and Shane realized he had wrapped both hands tightly into fists, holding them rigidly at his side.
He blew out a breath forcefully. “Sorry about that. I don’t know where that came from,” he said, releasing his hands and shaking the tension out of them.
“I do,” Tracie answered. “I feel the same way, believe me.”
Shane smiled weakly and said, “Didn’t take you long to get in here.”
“I told you it wouldn’t. All I needed was a minute or two’s worth of diversion to pick the lock on the back door. Nice job with that.”
Andrews had been watching the exchange, an unreadable look on his face. “I’m unarmed,” he said, ignoring Shane and speaking to Tracie. “Any chance you can take that cannon out of my ear?”
She lowered the gun to his ribs and then held it there with her right hand while patting Andrews down with her left. “One wrong move,” she said, “and I’ll blow your ass into next week. All I need is an excuse.”
“Understood,” Andrews said. He seemed mostly unaffected by the threat. Shane thought the entire bizarre scene might be the strangest thing he had ever seen, and that was saying something, given the events of the last couple of days.
“Where to?” Andrews asked.
“Your office,” Tracie said, and the older man turned and walked through a luxuriously appointed dining room — Oriental rug covering gleaming hardwood floors, crystal chandelier hanging over a massive maple dining table, fieldstone fireplace in one corner, fully stocked bar in the other — and began climbing a set of stairs.
Tracie followed, gun still in her hand but now pointed at the floor, and Shane brought up the rear. He could feel sensation of pressure building at the base of his skull and thought, not now, dammit, not now.
About a third of the way up the stairs, Tracie said, “You don’t seem all that surprised to see us still breathing.”