“That’s because I’m not particularly surprised,” Andrews said. “I helped train you, remember? I was never convinced the Russians would be able to take you out of the picture, and even when their team checked in and reported that they had completed the mission, I didn’t completely buy it.”
Tracie stopped dead on the stairs, Shane bumping into her from behind. Andrews seemed to feel the movement stop behind him and then he stopped, too. In a puzzled voice, Tracie asked, “If you suspected I might have gotten the jump on the Russians, why was it so easy to get in here? Why weren’t you better prepared? You had to know if I survived the ambush in New Haven, I would come straight to you — nobody else knew we were there.”
Andrews glanced at Tracie with a paternal half-smile that Shane instantly wanted to knock off his face. “Because it doesn’t matter anymore,” he said. “Things have progressed to the point now that they cannot be stopped. The slaughter by the KGB of law enforcement and military personnel in Maine will prompt an investigation so thorough I could never survive it. My cover will be blown and I’ll end up in prison, if not in front of a firing squad. This is the end for me, my dear, one way or the other.”
Andrews continued trudging up the stairs and Tracie followed. At the top of the stairs a short hallway led to a bedroom which had been converted into a home office. In one corner stood an antique redwood desk, roughly the size of a small aircraft landing strip. The top was bare, and in the center stood an empty glass, two ice cubes melting inside. A ring of condensation had formed around the base. A bank of telephones covered a rack next to the desk, and alongside that, against one wall, was an array of electronic equipment, none of which looked familiar to Shane.
There was no sign of any work in progress in the room; no correspondence on the desk, no paperwork anywhere. The office felt antiseptic, tidied-up. The low hum of cooling fans, presumably protecting the electronic equipment, was barely perceptible in the background.
Andrews stood in the doorway, bushy white eyebrows raised, hands in his pockets, awaiting instructions, and Tracie asked Shane to pull Andrews’ chair out from behind his desk and drag it to the center of the room. When he had done so, she bent down, ran her hand quickly along the underside of the seat, and, satisfied there was no weapon hidden there, told her mentor to take a seat.
“For what it’s worth, which is clearly not much,” Andrews said, settling into the chair and folding his hands in his lap, “I have no idea specifically what information is contained in that letter. When you were dispatched to East Germany to act as courier for an emergency communique from Mikhail Gorbachev, I was as much in the dark about its contents as you were. As anyone was.”
“Bullshit,” Tracie said simply. “This is the biggest operation the KGB has ever attempted. You’ve been working with them for years, therefore you knew about it. It’s that simple.”
“You give me far too much credit,” Andrews said. “I’ve been aware the assassination of a high-ranking American is in the works — that much is true. But I’ve not been privy to the specifics of the operation.” He gazed at Tracie appraisingly. “But you have, haven’t you? The fact that we’re even having this conversation means you’ve opened the letter. What does it say? My KGB contacts have their suspicions, but no one seems to know for sure.”
“What it says,” Tracie began, her voice cold and her face hard, “is none of your business. You’re a traitor and an embarrassment to the agency. An embarrassment to your country. You’re still alive for one reason and one reason only — I need to find out how deep inside the government this conspiracy reaches.”
“The letter is a warning to President Reagan, isn’t it? Gorbachev wants to stop the assassination attempt,” Andrews continued, ignoring Tracie’s statement.
Her face boiled red, and Shane could see how close she was to losing control. “How can you sit there, calmly discussing a presidential assassination?” she asked. “An event which, if successful, will in all probability launch World War Three? How?”
“So the president is the target,” Andrews answered, still seemingly unruffled, a note of wonder in his voice.
“I understand you view me as a traitor to my country,” he continued, “but what you don’t realize is that my work as a buffer has saved tens of thousands of lives, hundreds of thousands probably, and prevented outright war between the United States and the USSR many times. My role has been to prevent the destruction of the country I have spent my life serving, and to my way of thinking, I’ve done exactly that.”
“Your work as a buffer?” Tracie asked, nonplussed. “You mean your unsanctioned, illegal, treasonous work? Is that the work you’re referring to?”
Andrews shrugged. “Most of the work you do is unsanctioned and technically illegal, too.”
“There’s no comparison. I’m serving my country. I’m certainly no traitor.”
Andrews said nothing and she continued. “You claim to have prevented war between the two countries, but you’re assuming the people in the highest positions of responsibility would have responded to situations in a certain way had you not acted, when you have no justification for those assumptions. And if you’ve contributed to the beginning of a Third World War now, what the hell has been the point?”
Andrews started to answer and Tracie held up a hand. “This is not a debate,” she said. “You don’t get equal time. This discussion is over. I told you once, you’re still breathing only because I need information. And you’re going to give me that information. Right now.”
Andrews smiled sadly and said nothing.
Tracie shrugged her backpack off her shoulder and it dropped heavily to the floor. She knelt and unzipped it, all the while holding her weapon on Andrews, who sat quietly, making no move to interfere.
Shane ran a hand over his face and sighed shakily. The pressure at the base of his skull had increased steadily until it was now a dull throb, radiating waves of pain outward into his neck and shoulders as well as through his head. He had been here before. The pain would get much worse before it got better. He cursed the timing, wished he had the pain medication back home in his medicine cabinet.
Tracie paused, gun hand leveled against Andrews, her other hand buried in the backpack. She could sense that Shane was in pain and watched him closely, her eyes flicking back and forth between Andrews and Shane. “Are you all right?” she finally ventured.
Shane nodded, closing his eyes against the discomfort. “More or less. I could use a glass of water, though.”
“You look like you need to lie down. You’re white as a ghost.”
“I’ll be okay.” He wondered if his words sounded as unconvincing to Tracie as they did to him. Judging by the look on her face, they probably did.
“Go get yourself some water,” she said quietly. “I can handle this from here.”
“No.” Shane shook his head. It felt like someone had let loose a baseball inside his skull. Soon it would feel like a bowling ball. “I’m okay. I’ll stay.”
She returned reluctantly to the search of her backpack, her hand emerging a few seconds later with a red-handled pair of pliers and a set of handcuffs, both of which she tossed onto Andrews’ desk. They landed with a clunk on the polished surface and spun to a stop. “Careful with the desk,” Andrews said mildly. “It’s an antique.”
She smiled at him acidly. “So are you, and wait ’til you see what I’m going to do to you.”
Andrews grimaced, looking at the pliers. “A bit barbaric, wouldn’t you say?”
“You didn’t leave me a lot of time to prepare for this. I’ve been too busy trying to stay alive. Besides,” she said, making a show of looking at her watch, “the hours are slipping away. The time for subtlety is long past, not that I particularly care what happens to you, anyway.” Her lie was blatantly obvious to Shane, he could see through it even with the black waves pounding through his head. It had to have been even clearer to Andrews after more than half a decade spent working with Tracie.